Catacombs

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Catacombs
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Marcel-André Casasola Merkle
Card text
Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Choose one: Put them into your hand; or discard them and +3 Cards. When you trash this, gain a cheaper card.

Catacombs is an Action card from Dark Ages. It gives +3 Cards, with the choice of either taking the top 3 or the next 3; it is a reasonable terminal draw card for both Big Money and engines.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you play this, you look at the top three cards of your deck, and either put all three into your hand, or discard all three and draw the next three cards.
• If you discard them and have to shuffle to draw three cards, you will shuffle in the cards you discarded and may end up drawing some of them.
• When you trash Catacombs, you gain a card costing less than it.
• This happens whether Catacombs is trashed on your turn or someone else's, and no matter who has the card that trashed it.

Other Rules clarifications

• The first option has no interaction with your -1 Card token or Way of the Chameleon, but the second one will interact with those effects.
• When you trash this with e.g. Remodel, you gain the card from Catacombs before you gain the card with Remodel. This may matter if you plan on using Innovation.

Strategy Article

There is no strategy article for Catacombs. Feel free to add your thoughts!

It's a +3 cards terminal draw, similar to Smithy. It does not have an attack like some of the other Smithies (e.g. Rabble, Torturer, Margrave) but instead it offers extra filtering, letting you pick whether to keep the three cards on the top of the deck or draw the next three. This offers amazing cycling, more than even Envoy or Embassy. It is a solid choice for a Big Money strategy and works as card draw for engines, although not the best possible choice (see Wharf).

In Dark Ages games, the prevalence of Ruins and other game-slowing cards can be substantially increased - the filtering of Catacombs can provide a viable way to push through such detriments.

The when-trashed ability is a reasonable defense against some trashing attacks but is unlikely to get much use in most games.

Synergies/Combos

• Villages
• Big Money boards

Antisynergies

• Better terminal card draw
• Powerful terminal attacks, in the absence of villages

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Choose one: Put them into your hand; or discard them and +3 Cards. When you trash this, gain a cheaper card.	Dark Ages 1st Edition	August 2012
		Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Choose one: Put them into your hand; or discard them and +3 Cards. When you trash this, gain a cheaper card.	Dark Ages 2nd Edition	September 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Katakomby
Dutch	Gewelven (lit. vaults)			Bekijk de bovenste 3 kaarten van je trekstapel. Kies één van de twee volgende: neem de kaarten in je hand; of leg de kaarten af en +3 kaarten. Als je deze kaart vernietigt, pak dan een kaart met een waarde die lager is dan die van deze kaart.
Finnish	Katakombit
French	Catacombes
German	Katakomben			Sieh die obersten 3 Karten deines Nachziehstapels an. Wähle eins: Nimm sie auf die Hand oder lege sie ab und +3 Karten. Wenn du diese Karte entsorgst: Nimm eine billigere Karte.	(2019)
Japanese	地下墓所 (pron. chika bosho, lit. underground tomb)			山札の上から3枚を見る。次のうち1つを選ぶ:「見た3枚を手札に加える」:「それらを捨て札にし、+3 カードを引く」。これを廃棄するとき、これより安いカード1枚を獲得する。
Korean	납골당 (pron. nabgoldang, lit. ossuary)
Polish	Katakumby				Although Polish version is not released, this card is referred to in the Polish version of Empires rulebook
Russian	Катакомбы (pron. katakomby)
Spanish	Catacumbas

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

This started out in Hinterlands. Hinterlands had plenty of card-drawing though, so I moved it here. It seemed like an okay candidate for a when-trashed ability, so I gave it one. It mirrors Border Village.

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

Further thoughts by Donald X.

A lesson of playtesting with Dark Ages is, make sure not to put out Wandering Minstrel with Catacombs. It is just a much slower Village/Smithy that will automatically happen and bog down your game.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2019