Ill-Gotten Gains
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!Russian | !Russian | ||
− | | Проклятое | + | | Проклятое Сокровище (pron. ''proklyatoye sokrovishshye'', lit. ''cursed treasure'') || || || || |
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!Spanish | !Spanish |
Revision as of 09:57, 28 October 2017
Ill-Gotten Gains | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Treasure |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Hinterlands |
Illustrator(s) | Jason Slavin |
Card text | |
When you play this, you may gain a Copper to your hand. When you gain this, each other player gains a Curse. |
Ill-Gotten Gains (abbreviated IGG) is a Treasure card from Hinterlands. Its primary function is as a curser, but unlike other cursers it distributes Curses when it is gained, not when it is played. For this reason, it is the only curser that is not an Attack card. Ill-Gotten Gains lends itself to rush strategies, since ordinarily depleting the Ill-Gotten Gains supply pile will also deplete the Curse pile at the same time, leaving a quick route to a three-pile ending by emptying Duchies or a similar alt-VP card. Its function as a Treasure that gains Copper when played makes it well-suited for buying mid-cost Victory cards.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When you play this, you may gain a Copper.
- The Copper comes from the Supply and is put into your hand; you can immediately play it.
- When you gain Ill-Gotten Gains, each other player gains a Curse.
- The Curses come from the Supply and go into the players’ discard piles.
- If there are not enough Curses left to go around, deal them out in turn order, starting with the player to the left of the player who gained Ill-Gotten Gains.
- Ill-Gotten Gains is not an Attack, and gaining it is not playing an Attack; cards like Moat do not work against it.
Other Rules clarifications
Strategy Article
Original article by Thisisnotasmile, edited by Theory, originally posted on the forum
Ill-Gotten Gains is a good illustration of how bad a card has to be in order to be an on-gain Curser. for a Silver-equivalent that gains you a Copper is an absolutely miserable deal, and yet the Curse-on-gain is so powerful that IGG is still one of the strongest cards in the game. It is the first (and currently only) card which can put a Curse into your opponent’s deck before their first reshuffle. The longer the Curse is in a deck, the more disruption it will cause, and the more damage it will do.
Similarly, the curse is “unblockable” by conventional means. Everybody knows that cursing is the strongest type of attack in Dominion, but IGG is not an Attack card and the distribution of Curses is not triggered by playing the card. Because of this, Moat and Lighthouse can do nothing to block the Curse, and you can’t even reveal a Horse Traders or Secret Chamber to “make up” a little bit for taking a Curse. Trader and Watchtower, however, can still be used to mitigate the effects of the IGG as they react to (would) gaining the Curse, rather than an Attack being played.
The real reason IGG is such a power card, however, is what happens after the IGGs are gone: now there are not one but TWO empty piles: IGGs and Curses. The game will now end not when Provinces are depleted, but when ANY single pile is depleted.
At this point, your deck is ideally full of Coppers and IGGs. Your opponent's deck is stacked full of Curses. And as we know, in a Duchy rush, Coppers are important. What better card for a Duchy rush than a card that simultaneously lets you end the game after exhausting Duchies while fueling your deck with the treasures it needs to buy the Duchies? Of course, if you draw Copper/Copper/IGG/IGG/IGG, especially in a mirror, go ahead and grab the Province. But if you’re ahead after the IGG race, you can usually end it pretty easily just by buying Duchies and gaining Copper when you need it to buy an IGG or Duchy that turn.
If you like to do something ‘fun’ and not-necessarily optimal every now and then, there are a LOT of interesting things you can do with IGG other than rushing three piles with Duchy. Just check out the Game Reports subforum on the [forums.dominionstrategy.com Dominion Strategy forums] and you will see examples of people using trash-for-benefit with IGG (who cares about losing a sub-Silver when you get worth of benefit for it!), or even using IGG to facilitate a Coppersmith and/or Counting House strategy which are usually too weak to play at a competitive level.
IGG isn’t always the dominant strategy though. There are cards which can cause enough disruption to the IGG Duchy rush that make it a losing proposition. Essentially, any card which can cause the IGG and Curse piles to deplete at different rates will upset the rush. If the Curses run out first, you’ve got to spend turns buying cards worth less than Silver and not even hurting your opponent in the process before you can start on the Duchies. If the IGGs run out first, well, you’re in trouble.
Other strong cursers are the first of these cards that come to mind (they empty Curses quicker than IGGs). So when Witch and Mountebank are out, you should invest in them first before switching over to IGG, and don't necessarily expect to Duchy-rush afterwards when the Curses are gone. Less common, but equally impactful on IGG are cards that affect the Curse/IGG balance: Ambassador, Watchtower, Trader, Embargo. And as always, Masquerade and Jack of all Trades throw a wrench into any cursing strategy. Jack in particular refocuses the IGG game onto Provinces rather than a Duchy rush.
But IGG can also provide an unexpectedly good defense in addition to its super offense. Indeed, against trashers such as the Knights, clogging your deck full of Coppers that aren't trashed and of IGG that you don't care about anymore while sending your opponent Curses to slow his barrage of Attacks might protect you better than a Trader (which is slow even if it produces lots of Silvers to be trashed).
Synergies/Combos
- Duchy
- Gardens, in which case you want to always gain Copper to bloat your deck
- Trash-for-benefit.
- / opening split to give your opponent a Curse before they shuffle the first time.
- Coppersmith/Counting House and other Copper-based strategies.
- Can provide support for other Cursers.
Antisynergies
- Other fast cursers conflict with an IGG/Duchy rush.
- Ambassador/Trader will cause the IGG pile to run out before the curse pile.
- Opponent’s heavy trashing can overcome an IGG rush if there is a sufficiently strong engine to be built. Then you should trash away your Copper too and carry on as if the IGG rush didn’t happen.
- An Embargo on the IGGs will stop the rush.
- City. They’ll be powered up for both players, but if you’re focusing your buys on IGG your opponent will have more Cities.
- Masquerade/Jack of all Trades
Versions
English versions
Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
---|---|---|---|---|
. When you play this, you may gain a Copper, putting it into your hand. When you gain this, each other player gains a Curse. |
Hinterlands 1st Edition | October 2011 | ||
. When you play this, you may gain a Copper to your hand. When you gain this, each other player gains a Curse. |
Hinterlands 2nd Edition | December 2016 |
Other language versions
Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Czech | Nečestné zisky (lit. dishonest profits) | ||||
Dutch | Gestolen goed (lit. stolen goods) | ||||
Finnish | Epäonnen saalis (lit. bad luck loot) | ||||
French | Argent noir (lit. black money) | ||||
German | Blutzoll (lit. blood tax) | ||||
Italian | Infame Profitto (lit. infamous profit) | ||||
Japanese | 不正利得 (pron. fusei ritoku, lit. dishonest profit) | 。 銅貨1枚を手札に獲得してもよい。これを獲得するとき、他のプレイヤーは全員、呪い1枚を獲得する。 | |||
Polish | Brudny zysk (note: as referred to in Polish Empires rulebook) | ||||
Russian | Проклятое Сокровище (pron. proklyatoye sokrovishshye, lit. cursed treasure) | ||||
Spanish | Dinero Sucio (lit. dirty money) |
Trivia
Preview
Secret History
Art