Vagrant

Vagrant
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Joshua Stewart
Card text
+1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Curse, Ruins, Shelter, or Victory card, put it into your hand.

Vagrant is an Action from Dark Ages. It's a cantrip (i.e., it gives +1 Card and +1 Action), and it lets you look at the top card of your deck and draws it if it's one of several types of usually junk cards.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You draw a card before revealing your top card.
• If the top card of your deck is a Curse, Ruins, Shelter, or Victory card, it goes into your hand; otherwise it goes back on top.

Strategy

Vagrant is a weak cantrip that can act as non-terminal draw, but only for cards that are typically not very useful to draw, i.e. Victory cards and most kinds of junk. Therefore, in a well-thinned deck, it's most likely to provide no benefit beyond revealing the next card in your deck; and even when it does draw a card, that card is unlikely to help you advance your turn. For these reasons, Vagrant is most impactful in Kingdoms that make cheap cantrips attractive (e.g. to access a Way such as Way of the Owl, as a target for vanilla bonus tokens, or for scoring with an effect such as Vineyard), although the fact that it generally won't hurt your deck can make it worth picking up a copy or two when the opportunity cost is low, even in the absence of such effects.

If your deck contains cards that Vagrant can draw, it can provide some value in helping you cycle through those more quickly, although because this is unreliable, thinning, sifting, or stronger sources of draw are far better ways to obtain full deck control. It's most likely to be worth getting Vagrant for this purpose in Kingdoms with very weak thinning (or Copper thinning only) or strong junking attacks such as Witch or Cultist. Less commonly, it may be useful if support effects such as Secret Passage can allow you to draw with it reliably. Vagrant can also sometimes help you work towards deck control in the early game before you’ve thinned your junk, or maintain deck control during heavy greening in the endgame. In all of these scenarios, Vagrant can provide significantly more benefit if you can make good use of the cards it can draw. This is sometimes possible with sifting effects that can convert the hand size increase into higher quality cards (e.g. Warehouse) or payload (e.g. Storeroom), but it also applies in cases where drawing Victory cards is desirable, such as with multi-type cards like Nobles, or when you're drawing with Shepherd.

While Vagrant is far less useful when it reveals a card it cannot draw, this information can inform your deck tracking, or help you make use of effects that care about the top card of your deck, such as Chariot Race.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Curse, Ruins, Shelter, or Victory card, put it into your hand.	Dark Ages	August 2012
		+1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Curse, Ruins, Shelter, or Victory card, put it into your hand.	Dark Ages (2017 printing)	September 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Tulák			+1 karta +1 akce Ukáž vrchní kartu svého dobíracího balíčku. Pokud je to Kletba, ruina, útočiště nebo karta vítězných bodů, vezmi si ji do ruky.
Dutch	Landloper (lit. tramp)			+1 Kaart +1 Actie Toon de bovenste kaart van je trekstapel. Is het een vloek-, ruïne-, onderdak-, of overwinnings- kaart, neem de kaart dan in je hand.	(2012)
Finnish	Kulkuri
French	Vagabond
German	Landstreicher			+1 Karte +1 Aktion Decke die oberste Karte deines Nachziehstapels auf. Ist es ein Fluch, eine Ruine, ein Unterschlupf oder eine Punktekarte, nimm sie auf deine Hand.	(2019)
Japanese	浮浪者 (pron. furō-sha)			+1 カードを引く +1 アクション 山札の一番上のカードを公開する。それが呪い、廃墟、避難所、勝利点カードの場合、手札に加える。
Korean	부랑자 (pron. bulangja, lit. bum)
Russian	Бродяга (pron. brodyaga)
Spanish	Vagabundo			+1 Carta +1 Acción Revela la carta superior de tu mazo. Si es una carta de Maldición, Ruinas, Cobijo o Victoria, ponla en tu mano.

Trivia

Official card art.

Vagrant is the only card to mention Shelters in its text, and the only non-Looter to mention Ruins. It is the only card in Dark Ages to mention Curses.

Secret History

It's a Lab where the extra card is always bad. Actually that would be more powerful but slower; it doesn't guarantee you a bad card, it just can't do better. Sometimes you're happy with blank cards to discard to something, and when you aren't, at least it can clear a bad card out of the way of your next draw. It's not going to be a star, but some cards that cost have to really look like they're just a .

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Dark Ages Cards