Trusty Steed

Trusty Steed
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Prize
Kingdom card?	No
Set	Cornucopia
Illustrator(s)	Mark Poole
Card text
Choose two: +2 Cards; +2 Actions; +; gain 4 Silvers and put your deck into your discard pile. The choices must be different. (This is not in the Supply.)

Trusty Steed is an Action-Prize card from Cornucopia. It provides a choice between several different powerful combinations of effects, allowing it to be used as a source of terminal or non-terminal draw or virtual coin, as a village, and/or as a Silver gainer and deck discarder. It is not in the Supply, and can only be gained by playing a Tournament.

In the second edition of Cornucopia & Guilds, Trusty Steed was replaced with the nearly-identical Courser as part of the replacement of Tournament and Prizes with Joust and Rewards.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• First choose any two of the four options; then do those options in the order listed. So if you choose both +2 Cards and the last option, you will draw cards before you gain the Silvers and put your deck into your discard pile.
• The last option both gains you Silvers and puts your deck into your discard pile. If you choose that option and there are fewer than four Silvers left, just gain as many as you can.
• You do not get to look through your deck as you put it into your discard pile.

Other rules clarifications

• This doesn't count as discarding, so it will not activate Tunnel, Faithful Hound, or Village Green.

Strategy

For discussion of Trusty Steed's interaction with Tournament, refer to the Tournament strategy section.

Trusty Steed can be a very good Prize, most frequently because it can be played like a Lost City, providing both a village effect and draw; this can give you a decisive advantage if those effects are otherwise hard to come by. Due to these effects, Trusty Steed is also good at maintaining deck control, so it can be important to help you get another Prize quickly. Indeed, taking it first may sometimes enable you to get a second Prize on the same turn if you have a second Tournament in hand and playing Trusty Steed will allow you to redraw the Province. Aside from its Lost City mode, Trusty Steed offers useful flexibility: if you already have one of these effects in abundance, it can be used to generate or as a Silver gainer instead.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Notes	Release	Date
		Choose two: +2 Cards; +2 Actions; +; gain 4 Silvers and put your deck into your discard pile. (The choices must be different.) (This is not in the Supply.)		Cornucopia	June 2011
		Choose two: +2 Cards; +2 Actions; +; gain 4 Silvers and put your deck into your discard pile. The choices must be different. (This is not in the Supply.)	Digital version may show a cost of rather than .	Guilds & Cornucopia (2017 printing)	March 2018

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Věrný oř
Dutch	Trouwe ros
Finnish	Uskollinen Ratsu
French	Fidèle destrier			Choisissez deux : +2 Cartes; +2 Actions; +; recevez 4 Argents et mettez votre pioche dans votre défausse. Les choix doivent être différents. (Ne fait pas pas partie de la réserve.)
German	Streitross			Wähle zwei verschiedene: +2 Karten +2 Aktionen + Nimm 4 Silber und lege sofort deinen Nachziehstapel ab. (Diese Karte gehört nicht zum Vorrat.)	wording error: "...discard your deck..." (2011; 2014) formatting error: fourth option separated (2011; 2014)
German	Streitross			Wähle zwei verschiedene: +2 Karten oder +2 Aktionen oder + oder nimm 4 Silber und lege deinen Nachziehstapel auf deinen Ablagestapel. (Diese Karte gehört nicht zum Vorrat.)	(2019)
Italian	Destriero Fedele
Japanese	名馬 (pron. meiba, lit. famous horse)			次のうち2つを選ぶ (異なるものを選ぶ):「+2 カードを引く」:「+2 アクション」:「+」:「銀貨4枚を獲得し、山札を捨て札置き場に置く」 (このカードはサプライに置かない。)
Polish	Wierny Rumak			Wybierz dwie różne opcje: +2 karty; +2 akcje; +; dodaj 4 Srebrniki i umieść swoją talię na stosie odrzuconych kart. (wybrane opcje muszą się różnić) (Ta karta nie należy do zapasów)
Russian	Верный Конь (pron. vyerny kon')
Spanish	Corcel Fiel

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

The first set of Prizes was less exciting, and people complained and I excitified them. Trusty Steed gave you +2 Cards and +, no choice. At one point Trusty Steed also gave you +2 Buys when you picked +2 Actions...

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

Silver option

I wanted four options, and they needed to all be different. +2 Buys was paired with +2 Actions at one point but I only wanted one prize to give +buy. Anyway it wasn't cutting it as a separate option, even though there's a certain something to just mirroring Pawn. So, a 4th option, and well gaining cards is a go-to thing there, as a very basic thing you can do that's worth doing, and gaining Silvers is a simpler version of it. It was four Silvers to be enough to feel it and you flip your deck so that you get to them and your Steed faster. You don't get a Trusty Steed turn one, you often don't see it many times, which is why Tournament puts Prizes on your deck. I am happy with the Silvers option, I pick it sometimes. If I were making the Prizes today I might put +3 Actions on Bag of Gold and then replace the +2 Actions option on Trusty Steed, I don't know what with.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.