Raider

Raider
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Night - Duration - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Nocturne
Illustrator(s)	Mark Poole
Card text
Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a copy of a card you have in play (or reveals they can't). At the start of your next turn, +.

Raider is a Night-Duration-Attack card from Nocturne. It is a handsize attack that forces other players to discard a card that you have in play.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• For example if your cards in play are 3 Coppers, a Silver, and a Raider, then each other player with at least 5 cards in hand has to discard a Copper, Silver, or Raider, or reveal their hand to show that they did not have any of those cards.

Strategy

Raider is usually weak. The card mostly works like a Gold that provides the economy on the next turn, and suffers from similar problems to Gold. Specifically, both cards are expensive, inefficient stop cards, making them a liability to an engine’s reliability while also presenting a hefty opportunity cost. Additionally, Raider’s main advantage over Gold—a discard attack—is fairly unlikely to affect your opponent significantly, as they may have the option to discard a weak card such as Copper if you have one in play, while strong engines can often overcome the effect of having to discard one good card.

Raider may be useful in very weak Kingdoms that do not offer the ability to get deck control or set up a reliable engine and lack good payload options. In other words, Raider can be a good addition to decks that would otherwise use Golds, since both cards have similar properties: Other than being stop cards, both Raider and Gold cost , generate without using up terminal space, and can be Remodeled into a Province later. As an example, in money strategies that use terminal draw, Raider may be useful as it is a Night card that cannot be drawn dead and does not compete for terminal space. It also offers a few minor synergies that Gold does not, such as having three card types for Courtier and generating at the beginning of your turn for added reliability when drawing with Storyteller.

Buying a Raider in scenarios where you would otherwise consider a Gold can be worthwhile, though there are some differences to consider. Compared to Gold, Raider’s main disadvantage is providing more slowly. First, since the card is a Duration it can at most be played once every two turns. Second, the generated is delayed to the turn after you play Raider, meaning Raider is slow to improve your deck when you first add it, and is problematic at the end of the game when you do not have a next turn. Additionally, the delayed makes you more likely to overshoot than you would be using a Gold. In some Kingdoms Raider may be actively worse than Gold due to interactions with certain Kingdom cards: for instance, as a Night card, it gets disabled by Haunted Woods and it can’t be drawn with Hunter or cloned with Mint in the same way as Gold. On the other hand, it fares better against effects such as Bandit and Bandit Fort. Additionally, in contrast to Gold, it has an Attack which might ruin an opponent’s hand sometimes.

Raider’s Attack is usually unreliable. It can be more impactful against money strategies because having to discard a Treasure card can make the opponent miss a key pricepoint, while a reliable engine can often withstand the impact of having to discard a card.The main problem, however, is that your opponent can simply opt to discard a copy of the weakest card you have in play, which in many cases will be a Copper. In order to force them to discard something better, you’d either have to opt not to play those Coppers (possibly hurting your own economy) or have thinned them earlier (in which case, the availability of this option makes it significantly more likely the Kingdom offers deck control sufficient to build an engine which is itself unlikely to use Raider). On top of all this, you need to collide Raider with the card you’re attempting to make your opponent discard. The attack’s unreliability is further compounded if you and your opponent are pursuing different cards for your strategies. Occasionally, Raider’s attack can completely wreck your opponent’s turn if they cannot discard an excess Copper or other card they don’t need and must instead discard a good card. One possible example is against a Shepherd-based deck, which is likely to have a hand of a single Shepherd and multiple Victory cards; discarding that Shepherd will cause your opponent to dud.

Raider can also work situationally with gain-and-play. For example, with Wishes from Magic Lamp if you don’t need another card (such as a Gold) to reach for a Province, you can gain-and-play the Raider to slow your opponent down. Alternatively, if you are behind and need your opponent to dud in order to win, it may be worth it to gain-and-play a Raider.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a copy of a card you have in play (or reveals they can't). At the start of your next turn, +.	Nocturne	November 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Plunderaar
French	Razzia (lit. raid)			Tous vos adversaires ayant au moins 5 cartes en main défaussent un exemplaire d'une carte que vous avez en jeu (ou montrent qu'ils ne peuvent pas). Au début de votre prochain tour, +.
German	Plünderer			Jeder Mitspieler mit 5 oder mehr Handkarten legt eine Karte ab, von der du bereits eine gleiche im Spiel hast (oder zeigt vor, dass er das nicht kann). Zu Beginn deines nächsten Zuges: +.	(2017)
Japanese	夜襲 (pron. yashū, lit. night raid)			手札が5枚以上の他のプレイヤーは全員、あなたの場にあるカードと同じカード1枚を捨て札にする(ない場合、手札を公開する)。 あなたの次のターンの開始時に、+。
Polish	Najeźdźca			Każdy z pozostałych graczy z co najmniej 5 kartami na ręce, odrzuca kopię jednej z kart, które masz w grze (lub odkrywa rękę, by udowodnić, że nie może tego zrobić). Na początku twojej następnej tury: +.	(2022)
Russian	Налетчик (pron. nalyotchik')

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Raider also cares about your turn. Anything you have in play becomes fair game for your opponents to discard. Early on you just want to make sure you hit something; later you may try to make Raider hit harder by say not playing that Copper you drew. Raider is a Duration card and well that is a thing about Night cards; some of the game's resources only make sense during the day part of the turn, and Duration lets Night cards provide those resources. Nocturne didn't start out planning to have a Duration card theme but there are several of them.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Nocturne Previews #1: Devil's Workshop, Raider, Ghost Town

Secret History

One of the early cards that led the charge of "look what a Night card can do." For maybe a day it hit players with 4 or more cards in hand; then it stayed unchanged until very late, when it went from to .

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Nocturne

Why does it cost 6?

It was until late in the going. We had some bad recommended set games where someone got it on a /, and then we played some more games that intentionally had a / Raider, and then I upped it to . When you get it turn one, the Cutpurse effect - all it does for you then - keeps other players from . And they can't buy the Cutpurse to do that right back to you - the Cutpurse costs . It stood out as a thing that made players have no fun. I could have tried to make a weaker cheaper version, so we could all buy it, or just up it to , and well time was short and seemed fine.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.