Rebuild

Rebuild
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Kurt Miller
Card text
+1 Action Name a card. Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card you did not name. Discard the rest, trash the Victory card, and gain a Victory card costing up to more than it.

Rebuild is an Action card from Dark Ages. It is a unique remodeler which trashes only Victory cards and gains you only Victory cards: it can turn Estates into Duchies, Duchies into Provinces, and Provinces into Colonies.

FAQ

Official FAQ (2020)

• You can name any card, whether or not it is being used this game or is a Victory card.
• Then reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card that is not what you named.
• If you run out of cards, shuffle your discard pile and continue, without shuffling in the revealed cards.
• If you run out of cards with no cards left in your discard pile, stop there, discard everything, and nothing more happens.
• If you did find a Victory card that was not what you named, you discard the other revealed cards, trash the Victory card, and gain a Victory card costing up to more than the trashed card.

Strategy

Rebuild is a Remodel variant that can only trash and gain Victory cards, and as such is mostly used in a fairly specific type of deck. Because Rebuild cannot gain useful engine components or payload, does not effectively remove starting junk (Estates) from your deck, is ineffective if you draw your deck, and is itself a stop card, Rebuild should be viewed as a payload card that benefits from the support of a deck specifically built around it, as Rebuild often does not contribute much to more general engines with more standard payload.

Many Rebuild-based decks have a simple goal: convert the 3 starting Estates into Provinces, then mill the rest of the Province pile, ending the game before your opponents’ engines start functioning and scoring sufficiently. In some senses, this is similar to a rush, except instead of your win condition centering on a fast pileout, it centers on quickly emptying the Province pile and reducing the amount of   available in the Supply for your opponent when they’re ready to green. Rebuild is often much slower in Kingdoms with Shelters, as you only start with one Victory card in Overgrown Estate.

A simple approach to Rebuild is to simply buy it as soon as possible, then play it whenever you draw it, ignoring all other Kingdom cards and aiming to play Rebuild 6 times to upcycle your Estates into Provinces for a total of 18  , and then another 5 times to end the game by milling the remainder of the Provinces. There are two main concerns with this approach:

1. This approach is heavily dependent on shuffle luck: a Rebuild drawn at the top of a shuffle might give you some lucky cycling past your Coppers as it digs for your Victory cards, or it might make all of your other Rebuilds miss the shuffle. Or you might draw all your Victory cards in your starting hand with your Rebuild, and thus be unable to Rebuild any of them. The simple approach is therefore better when you can:
   • Simply have a lot of Rebuilds in your deck. E.g., with Ferry, Rebuilds are very cheap and can be gained in bulk very easily and quickly.
   • Have some deck control to better control your shuffles. Sifters such as Dungeon are often good for this, as they allow you to both find your Rebuilds and discard Victory cards.
2. This approach isn’t usually that fast. Playing Rebuild 11 times is a lot, and is unrealistic with many Kingdoms offering moderately fast engines that set the time limit for a Rebuild-playing deck to be successful. This might be less of a concern if any of the following are true:
   • The engine or money alternative is slow or not potent. In the case of money, this usually means a lack of fast enablers such as Spices. In the case of the engine, this usually means there’s no good trashing available, and the engine is thus slow to get started. Kingdoms without alt-VP or Colonies are also good for Rebuild, as engines do not have an alternative to Provinces.
   • There is support in the Kingdom for playing Rebuilds consistently and quickly. This may mean either of the solutions suggested previously (many copies of Rebuild, or deck control), or specific effects such as March.
   • You have a method of affording Provinces, thus reducing the number of Rebuild plays required and increasing the amount of   your opponent needs to outscore you. Patron is a notable synergy for generating the economy necessary for this, as it can gain Coffers when revealed and discarded by Rebuild.

If Rebuild is a strategy worth going for, it is often worth getting it as soon as possible, and buying several of them. This can often mean opening Silver/Silver.

There are a few tactical considerations when playing with Rebuild. First, naming a specific Victory card to not trash allows you to control your shuffles if you are deck tracking and aware of where particular Victory cards are and which ones you currently have. Second, it’s usually wise to Rebuild your Victory cards equally, avoiding situations where, for example, you have 1 Province, 1 Duchy, and 1 Estate. This makes it easier to control which card gets trashed, and makes it less likely your opponent can “cut off” your Estates by taking all the Duchies in the late game. Third, if you can afford a Duchy in the late midgame or later, this improves your final   amount to 24   without increasing the number of Rebuild plays required to end the game, as you can Rebuild the Duchy instead of milling one of your Provinces. Buying an Estate is not usually worth considering for similar reasons, because doing so will increase the number of Rebuild plays needed to win.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.

• werothegreat's 2013 article
• ragingduckd's 2013 article on Rebuild mirror matches

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Action Name a card. Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal a Victory card that is not the named card. Discard the other cards. Trash the Victory card and gain a Victory card costing up to more than it.	Dark Ages	August 2012
		+1 Action Name a card. Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card you did not name. Discard the rest, trash the Victory card, and gain a Victory card costing up to more than it.	Dark Ages (2017 printing)	September 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Obnova			+1 akce Řekni název karty. Ukazuj karty z vršku svého dobíracího balíčku, dokud neukážeš kartu vítězných bodů, která není jmenovanou kartou. Ostatní ukázané karty odlož. Tuto kartu vítězných bodů zahoď na smetiště a vezmi si kartu vítězných bodů, která je až dražší.
Dutch	Wederopbouw			+1 Actie Noem de titel van een kaart. Toon kaarten van je trekstapel totdat je een overwinnings- kaart toont die niet de genoemde kaart is. Leg de andere getoonde kaarten af. Vernietig de betreffende overwinnigskaart en pak een overwinningskaart die ten hoogste meer kost dan de vernietigde kaart.	(2012)
Finnish	Kunnostus
French	Reconstruction
German	Neubau			+1 Aktion Benenne eine Karte. Decke so lange Karten von deinem Nachzieh­stapel auf, bis eine Punkte­karte, die nicht die benannte Karte ist, offen liegt. Entsorge diese Punkte­karte und nimm dir eine Punkte­karte, die bis zu mehr kostet. Lege die übrigen aufgedeckten Karten ab.	translation error - false timing of discard instruction (2012)
	Neubau			+1 Aktion Nenne eine Karte. Decke so lange Karten von deinem Nachzieh­stapel auf, bis du eine nicht von dir genannte Punkte­karte aufgedeckt hast. Lege den Rest ab, entsorge jene Punkte­karte und nimm eine Punkte­karte, die bis zu mehr als jene Karte kostet.	(2019)
Japanese	建て直し (pron. tatenaoshi)			+1 アクション カード1枚を指定する。指定しなかった勝利点カード1枚が公開されるまで、山札を上から公開する。他のカードを捨て札にし、その勝利点カードを廃棄し、それよりコストが最大高い勝利点カード1枚を獲得する。
Korean	재건축 (pron. jaegeonchug)
Russian	Перестройка (pron. pyeryestroyka)
Spanish	Reconstruir Remake is Reconstrucción (noun), and Rebuild is Reconstruir (verb)			+1 Acción Nombra una carta. Revela las cartas superiores de tu mazo hasta revelar una carta de Victoria que no sea la carta que nombraste. Descarta el resto de cartas. Elimina la carta de Victoria y gana una carta de Victoria con un coste máximo de más que la carta eliminada.

Trivia

Official card art.

Donald X. has stated he does not play with Rebuild.

Rebuild is one of the available backgrounds in Dominion Online.

Rebuild's Power

Donald X has since acknowledged how powerful a card Rebuild is:

Rebuild was the last card I added to Dark Ages, and Dark Ages was finished after Guilds. So it was the last card. The playtesting group was drifting off, and for sure it got less playtesting than anything else.

Initially, it didn't give +1 Action. No-one won a game with it, despite the playtesting practice of some players having to commit to buying it. Obv. you don't learn anything if no-one buys the card (other than, this doesn't make a good first impression).

I added the +1 Action and some people actually won games with it. It seemed okay and there it is.

In retrospect the card is clearly too powerful for how interesting it is. Which is to say, the most powerful cards should make for lots of interesting gameplay and different situations; Chapel for example may be strong, but the games play out differently depending on the rest of the cards. With Rebuild the rest of the cards are too unlikely to get involved in your Rebuild deck.

For casual players it probably isn't a problem, unless one of them reads online about how to use Rebuild. For serious players you will probably have more fun just not playing with Rebuild after you've had the experience. I would rather that not be the case, but well at least there are 34 other kingdom cards in Dark Ages.

...

Evaulating / testing alternate versions of Rebuild is beyond the scope for me. As always feel free to play whatever variants you want. You may find people willing to simulate different Rebuild variants at dominionstrategy.com.

I guess I can tell you that, if at the last minute I had thought oops Rebuild is too strong, I probably would have put in a different card that had gone by the name Rebuild - cost , Remodel one of the top three cards of your deck (discard the other two), putting the gained card on top of your deck. That card got a lot of testing and was fine, there was just a point when it seemed like people didn't like it enough and probably I could do better.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Is Rebuild Too Powerful?

Secret History

A late addition. I had an empty slot, and noticed that all of the large expansions gave you answers to the question, how do I deal with these dead victory cards? Intrigue has victory cards that aren't dead; Seaside lets you set them aside with Island, and, if you're crafty, Native Village; Prosperity has   tokens; Hinterlands pushes card filtering. So I tried this out. Originally it didn't give +1 Action, but that version could not compete.

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

Relevant outtakes

There was a Remodel that put the card into your hand. Originally it didn't give +1 Action; then it did and was crazy.

There was a Remodel for that Remodel'd one of the top 3 cards of your deck, putting the new card on top. I thought it was a keeper, but in one set of surveys it became clear that it was a dud for several playtesters.

Another Remodel turned one card into two different cards that each cost exactly more. I did Develop instead.

Another late card was a treasure-victory card, worth plus per nontreasure in your hand, and worth 1   per 10 cards in the trash. The   part was crazy, and I replaced this with a treasure worth per different card type in your hand. It was cute in all-Dark Ages games and not so great otherwise. It flirted with staying in the set, then I replaced it with Rebuild.

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