Noble Brigand
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* German: Edler Räuber | * German: Edler Räuber | ||
* Italian: Ladro Gentiluomo (lit. ''gentleman thief'') | * Italian: Ladro Gentiluomo (lit. ''gentleman thief'') | ||
+ | * Japanese: 義賊 (pron. ''gizoku'', lit. ''gentleman thief'') | ||
* Spanish: Bandido Honrado | * Spanish: Bandido Honrado | ||
Revision as of 17:21, 23 January 2015
Noble Brigand | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action - Attack |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Hinterlands |
Illustrator(s) | Joshua Stewart |
Card text | |
+ When you buy this or play it, each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes a revealed Silver or Gold you choose, and discards the rest. If he didn't reveal a Treasure, he gains a copper. You gain the trashed cards. |
Noble Brigand is an Action–Attack card from Hinterlands. It is both a Treasure trashing attack like Thief, allowing you to steal your opponents' Silver and Gold, and a junking attack, distributing Copper to opponents with Treasure-light decks. It is widely regarded by fans as an "improved" version of Thief—whereas Thief is regarded as weak because it can trash opponents' Copper (benefitting them, not the player who played Thief), and provides no immediate bonus for the turn on which it is played, Noble Brigand lacks both those weaknesses.
Noble Brigand is also the only Attack card that affects opponents immediately when it is bought.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When you play this, you get +.
- When you play this and also when you buy it, each other player reveals the top two cards of his deck, trashes a Silver or Gold he revealed that you choose, and discards the rest.
- Each of these players that did not reveal a Treasure at all gains a Copper from the Supply, putting it into his discard pile.
- Finally, you gain all of the Silvers and Golds trashed this way. This cannot trash any Treasures except Silver or Gold.
- Gaining a Noble Brigand without buying it does not cause this ability to happen.
- Noble Brigand is an Attack card, and when you play it, players can use cards like Moat from Dominion or Secret Chamber from Intrigue in response. However, buying a Noble Brigand is not "playing an Attack card," and so cards like Moat cannot respond to that.
Other Rules clarifications
Strategy Article
Originally based on the article by timchen on the forum
The initial buzz of the card is basically "Wow! Thief is officially admitted as an under-powered card!" This is quite a sound statement, as Noble Brigand is pretty much better in every way except one:
Thief trashes Copper and helps your opponent. Noble Brigand does not; it even stuffs Coppers to your opponent. Thief offers no immediate benefit to yourself; there is + from the Noble Brigand. Thief only works when you reshuffle and draw it, but Noble Brigand acts a full reshuffle earlier, right at when you buy it. The only potential downfall is that he cannot steal Kingdom Treasures and Platinum.
With so many reinforcements, however, the Noble Brigand still has significant drawbacks. It is still a terminal action that does not draw any card. It provides less virtual money than Militia, and does not attack as reliably either. An early Noble Brigand may flip the opponent's coppers and may prove to slow yourself down from that Gold or card a bit too much and accelerate your opponent at the same time. Therefore, it is not a card you will always consider to buy.
The case where Noble Brigand shines is against a standard Big Money-like Province deck - a deck whose income mostly comes from large numbers of Silvers and Golds. In this case, every successful Noble Brigand hit sets your opponent back by nearly a full turn, and there is a high chance of a successful hit since most things your opponent buys are valid Brigand targets. According to the simulators, Noble Brigand is actually a very good Big Money enabler when bought in bulk - consistent Noble Brigand plays will rob the opponent of the Golds and Silvers which are the lifeblood of a Big Money deck. Simulators will significantly overrate this card, since the further your opponent gets from a formulaic "Silver->Gold->Province" the worse the Brigand will be. Nevertheless, whenever you see your opponent spending most of their buys on Silver/Gold, you should consider Noble Brigand, and if you spend most of your buys on Silver/Gold you should expect that well-timed Noble Brigand buys by your opponent will rob you of quite a bit of that cash.
There is a niche use of the card as a opener. When you are second player with in hand in your first turn and when the first player has bought a silver, you will have 2/6 chance of getting that Silver and trigger a reshuffle with the initial crappy cards at the same time. It is fun to use and see it work, but when it doesn't, you are facing quite an uphill battle. The situation improves significantly with more players though, and it helps negate the disadvantage of the third or the fourth player quite a bit. They still have to have in their first hand though.
Similar to Thief, the Noble Brigand can be quite important in a Chapel game with no virtual money. But it proves to be a lot more dangerous in this case. To an unsuspecting opponent, getting one of his critical Silvers or Golds can be fatal. And you don't need to buy it and use it, so he has no alert prior to the attack. Also the on-buy attack cannot be stopped. In addition, one can allow to buy multiple Noble Brigands to keep the pressure in such game, as extras can be Chapeled away.
That's probably it. There is no magic to make the card suddenly powerful. I like what Donald said about the card though: it is designed to be fun. It is indeed fun to attack when you are buying a card, especially when it does not force a degenerate game like Ill-Gotten Gains does. For myself, better yet, it is just powerful enough to try to win using it, and still underpowered enough that when I lose with it I won't be mad about my own luck.
Synergies/Combos
Antisynergies
- Powerful terminals
- Non Silver or Gold treasures
- Cards that offer virtual coins
Trivia
In other languages
- Czech: Zbojník (lit. bandit)
- Dutch: Nobele bandiet
- French: Noble brigand
- German: Edler Räuber
- Italian: Ladro Gentiluomo (lit. gentleman thief)
- Japanese: 義賊 (pron. gizoku, lit. gentleman thief)
- Spanish: Bandido Honrado
Secret History
I replaced it with a card I stole from a later set. "A later set." There are only two sets after this one, and one of them is a latecomer with its own special thing going on. When I say "a later set," I mean the 8th set, which was originally the 4th set, back before I showed Dominion to RGG, when there were only five expansions (then Hinterland and Seaside were split up, and Alchemy and Cornucopia were split up, and that accounts for seven). You might think, with all the cards I stole from "a later set," that it would be hurting for cards, but man, it is not. Anyway. I stole this from "a later set."
The premise is of course Robin Hood. Steals from the rich (those with Silver and Gold), gives to the poor (those with no Treasures at all). Ignores the middle-class (those showing Copper or special Treasures) (yes the middle class includes those with Platinum, Robin Hood does not realize how valuable Platinum is okay, he lives in a forest, they don't even have Platinum there). By not trashing Coppers, it avoids being horrible, and it can even give out Coppers, although don't expect that to be too common except you know against decks that trash their Coppers.
Noble Brigand comes right out of the gates attacking. This was a fun thing that I wanted on more attacks but it only survived here and on Ill-Gotten Gains (technically not an attack, but we all know a Witch when we see one). Maybe it's for the best that you'll never experience the joy of a when-gain discard-based attack just sitting there, promising that any hand you draw might be taken away, even if no-one has even bought the card yet.
Noble Brigand triggers on buying, not gaining. This was because you could get situations that forced you to play all further attacks in slow-mo. Jester is a good example. I play Jester, I hit your Noble Brigand, oh I want one of those. Only, everyone else has already revealed their card for Jester, no-one is wasting time. I know some of the cards Brigand will hit. Maybe normally I wouldn't take Brigand, I'd make you take another one, only, there's a Gold showing over there. Okay we have to play Jester in slow-mo this game to get rid of this situation. And well that's no fun. So, it triggers on buying.