Vassal

Vassal
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Base
Illustrator(s)	Julien Delval
Card text
+ Discard the top card of your deck. If it is an Action card, you may play it.

Vassal is an Action card from the second edition of the base set. If the top card of your deck is an Action, Vassal can play it; otherwise, the top card is discarded. Either way, it gives +, making it sometimes a terminal silver, and sometimes a sort of Peddler variant.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If the card is an Action card, you can play it, but do not have to.
• If you do play it, you move it into your play area and follow its instructions; this does not use up one of your Action plays for the turn.

Other rules clarifications

• Previously, if you discarded an Action that moves itself when it is discarded, such as Faithful Hound or Village Green, you could still opt to play the Action card but wouldn't be able to move it into play. However, playing the Action is no longer possible under a new rule for playing cards.

Strategy

There are two cases where Vassal is a useful card. The first is when trashing is very strong so you can play an engine that is entirely or almost entirely composed of Action cards. The second is when you intend to get several cards that manipulate or inspect the top card of the deck, such as Sentry, so that you may be able to set up an Action card for Vassal to hit. In either of these cases, it is common to avoid purchasing Silver and instead purchase a Vassal or two at the start of the game to increase the output of your deck. Early in the game, these Vassals will inevitably fail to find Action cards but will help to cycle past low-value cards like Copper and Estate. Later, they can often hit cantrips, providing the benefit of Silver without being a stop card. This only works if you play your Vassals early enough in your turn, before drawing your deck. If villages are difficult to obtain, you should be careful not to gain too many Vassals, as playing them will risk ending your turn prematurely when they hit non-Action cards or terminal Actions. However, in a very thin deck, Vassals playing Vassals can be an effective way to generate . At the end of the game, it often becomes difficult to make Vassals hit Action cards because your deck fills up with Victory cards, so Vassal rewards greening over a small number of turns.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+ Discard the top card of your deck. If it is an Action card, you may play it.	Dominion (Second Edition)	October 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	家臣 (pron. jiāchén, lit. counselor)
Dutch	Vazal			+ Leg de bovenste kaart van je trekstapel af. Is het een actiekaart, dan mag je deze spelen.	Tweede editie (herdruk 2019/2020)
French	Vassal			+ Défaussez la carte du haut de votre pioche. Si c'est une carte Action, vous pouvez la jouer.
German	Vasall			+ Lege die oberste Karte deines Nachzieh­stapels ab. Ist es eine Aktionskarte, darfst du sie ausspielen.	2. Edition (2019)
	Vasall			+ Lege die oberste Karte deines Nachzieh­stapels ab. Ist es eine Aktionskarte, darfst du sie spielen.	2. Edition (Nachdruck 2022)
Japanese	家臣 (pron. kashin)			+ 山札の一番上のカードを拾て札にする。 それがアクションカードの場合、 場に出して使用してもよい。
Polish	Wasal
Russian	Подданный (pron. poddanny, lit. subject)			+ Сбросьте верхнюю карту вашей колоды. Если это карта Действия, то можете сыграть её.
Spanish	Vasallo			+ Descarta la carta superior de tu mazo. Si es una carta de Acción, puedes jugarla.	Segunda Edición (2016, 2021)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

This is the new Herald. Herald is +1 Card +1 Action, so Vassal is +; a mirror image of what I did for Harbinger. Originally it left the card on top, but discarding it is usually better and made the text simpler.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Dominion 2nd Editions

Why is playing a card optional?

There's no story; I put you-may on Vassal, and there it is. I looked for discussion of that and didn't find any. I guess I was in a generous mood that day. It was always you-may, but the first version left the card on top; a main reason to change that was, if you play Vassal and it misses, it's a bummer that the next one is locked into missing too. And if it's not an action, often you'd like to discard the card anyway. So, it discards it. I did not anticipate Faithful Hound, which is confusing there. Obv. it could have only discarded unplayed cards, to clear that up.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Donald X.'s opinion

The Vassal deck is good times. The tricky part is that just any   at all and it crumbles. You want to be aiming to just have that one big turn. And then you know, it's a super-cheap Grand Market without the +Buy and with less control and that a Contraband on Grand Market doesn't stop you from getting and I could go on.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, $3 Cost Card Rankings Bottom Half

Errata

Vassal has weird interactions with Faithful Hound and Village Green, and it was asked if it would get errata to work more like Gamble.

Uh maybe. But, separate from that, my plan is to change the rules so that you can't play a card if you can't put it into play, except for replaying cards (since otherwise players would hate me for killing Throne / Horse etc.).

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Eventually, said rules change came about.

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