Fool

Fool
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Fate
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Nocturne
Illustrator(s)	Claus Stephan
Card text
If you aren't the player with Lost in the Woods: take it, take 3 Boons, and receive the Boons in any order. Heirloom: Lucky Coin

Fool is an Action-Fate card from Nocturne. Playing it causes you to take the state Lost in the Woods (if you don't already have it), and receive three Boons in any order. It has an Heirloom, Lucky Coin.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If you have Lost in the Woods, playing Fool does nothing.
• If you do not have Lost in the Woods, you take it - even from another player, if another player has it - and also take 3 Boons and receive them in the order you choose (discarding them when receiving them, or in Clean-up as appropriate).
• You do not need to pick the full order in advance - pick one to resolve, then after resolving it pick another to resolve.
• The player with Lost in the Woods (if any) can optionally discard a card to receive a Boon, at the start of each of their turns.
• In games using Fool, replace one of your starting Coppers with a Lucky Coin.

Strategy

To better understand the Kingdoms in which Fool appears, it may be useful to refer to the Lucky Coin strategy section.

Fool is a weak terminal Fate card that offers two different ways to receive Boons. In addition to its on-play effect, it provides exclusive but often temporary access to a discard-for-benefit effect in the form of Lost in the Woods; both of these effects can be fairly impactful, but this is dependent, as with other Fate cards, on the random nature of the Boon pile, and Fool carries a heavy downside in that it is a terminal stop card that generally provides no benefit at all during turns when you already have Lost in the Woods. Fool also comes with the Heirloom Lucky Coin, whose role as a mandatory Silver gainer can greatly impact your overall strategy under some circumstances.

Boons vary widely in utility, but the fact that Fool causes you to take three at the same time increases the chance that at least one of them will do something materially useful for you in comparison to most Fate cards. For this reason, Fool can be a reasonable purchase in the early game, including sometimes in the opening, since some of the Boons (e.g. The Swamp's Gift) can help you greatly during your first couple of shuffles. Once you have played Fool for the first time, its ongoing value is largely dependent on your opponent's behavior. Since it has no effect if you already have Lost in the Woods, you may consider trashing Fool if your opponent doesn't gain one. Fool's status as a junk card when you have Lost in the Woods can be greatly ameliorated by the availability of a useful or neutral Way such as Way of the Pig. Alternatively, you can avoid putting Fool into your deck at all if a Command card is available, as you can situationally use this to play Fool whenever you want to take Lost in the Woods. If your opponent is using Fool and you don't have one yet, the desire to take Lost in the Woods away from them is generally not reason enough to gain one yourself, since this will also give them the opportunity to play Fool for three Boons again, which might be stronger than keeping Lost in the Woods; rather, your decision should depend primarily on the utility you could get out of your own copy of Fool. This analysis can sometimes be informed by the particular Boons your opponent has already received and discarded. If those include some of the more desirable ones, you cannot receive them until the Boons pile is shuffled, potentially reducing the appeal of a Fool play in the near future. Conversely, you may be able to deduce that there are mainly useful Boons left in the shuffle, making Fool potentially more attractive.

Since you receive multiple Boons when you play Fool and there can be some interaction between their effects, there may be some tactics to consider when choosing the order in which you receive them. For example, you may receive Boons that cause you to gain a card (e.g. The Swamp's Gift) before The Moon's Gift if you want to topdeck the gained card. Similarly, receiving The Moon's Gift or The Sun's Gift before The Sea's Gift may allow you to optimize which card you draw with the latter. Several Boons, such as The Wind's Gift and The Flame's Gift, are often most beneficial if you receive them with as many cards as possible in hand so that you can choose the best targets, so receiving The Sea's Gift before these is often useful.

When you have Lost in the Woods, you should consider the potential costs and benefits before discarding a card at the beginning of your turn to receive a Boon. Duration draw, such as Barge, gives you a larger set of cards to choose from, which can reduce the cost; more generally, the cost may be negligible if you have a junk card in hand, such as Estate, although it's worth considering whether The Flame's Gift is available, as it might be better to keep your preferred target for this in hand if so. In contrast, if your hand consists entirely of cards that you want to play, discarding one of these for a Boon might not be worth it, particularly if you lack overdraw. Fool itself often makes a good target for discarding, since it's of no use when you already have Lost in the Woods; similarly, Lucky Coin can be a good choice if you would prefer not to gain a Silver this turn. Other useful options include cards that give a bonus when discarded (e.g. Tunnel, Faithful Hound, or Village Green); another consideration is that discarding a card at the start of your turn may be much more attractive if you have cards that work well with and/or counteract a small hand size, such as Menagerie or a draw-to-X card like Cursed Village. An additional factor that will sometimes be relevant is the probability of receiving a particular Boon and how helpful the available ones would be at this point. Some Boons are rather less useful at the beginning of your turn (particularly when you already have a reduced hand size due to discarding a card), such as The Sky's Gift, while others may be especially useful at that time, such as The Field's Gift if you have a terminal draw card and no village in hand.

Lucky Coin's Silver gaining can be somewhat influential on the overall direction of the game, and therefore your evaluation of Fool. Generally, it provides a useful source of early payload and is therefore typically worth playing at least on your first couple of shuffles; subsequently, its value and impact often become more dependent on the type of deck you're aiming to construct. In cases where an engine is best and strong Action-based payload is available, gaining too many Silvers (especially early in the game) is likely to be undesirable, as they will impede your efforts to achieve deck control without providing sufficient payoff. You may therefore consider not playing Lucky Coin on some turns, particularly if you can generate the amount of you need in any case. If you will never want extra Silvers, e.g. because the draw is weak and alternative forms of payload are very strong, you may consider trashing Lucky Coin, especially if a good trash-for-benefit effect is available. However, the ability to ramp up payload easily or gain extra fodder for effects like Recruiter can be very useful once you have added some draw, and there are other scenarios in which the best course of action is to flood your deck with Silver by playing Lucky Coin as often as possible. Most frequently, this is simply because you are adopting a money strategy: because it provides immediate access to a way to increase your money density rapidly, Lucky Coin is a strong enabler of such strategies (for which Fool itself can also provide helpful support) and can push you in that direction in Kingdoms where this would otherwise be a marginal decision. More specifically, Lucky Coin is particularly notable in money strategies where the Silvers are also relevant in scoring  , e.g. with Feodum.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		If you aren't the player with Lost in the Woods, take it, take 3 Boons, and receive the Boons in any order.   Heirloom: Lucky Coin	Nocturne	November 2017
		If you aren't the player with Lost in the Woods: take it, take 3 Boons, and receive the Boons in any order.   Heirloom: Lucky Coin	Nocturne (2021 printing)

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Dwaas
French	Benêt			Si vous n'avez pas Perdu dans les bois, prenez-le, prenez 3 Aubaines et appliquez-les dans l'ordre de votre choix.   Patrimoine : Porte-bonheur
German	Narr			Wenn du nicht Im Wald verirrt hast, erhalte es, erhalte 3 Gaben und empfange sie in beliebiger Reihenfolge.   Erbstück: Glückstaler	(2017)
	Narr			Wenn du nicht Im Wald verirrt hast: Erhalte es, erhalte 3 Gaben und empfange sie in beliebiger Reihenfolge.   Erbstück: Glückstaler
Japanese	愚者 (pron. gusha)			森の迷子でない場合、森の迷子と3つの祝福を得て、好きな順番で祝福を受ける。   (家宝: 幸運の銅貨)
Polish	Głupiec			Jeśli nie posiadasz Stanu Zagubiony w lesie: weź go, weź także 3 Łaski i otrzymaj je w dowolnej kolejności.   Pamiątka: Szczęśliwa moneta	(2022)
Russian	Глупец (pron. glupyets)

Trivia

Official card art.

Theme

The name is referring to the classic fairy tale character, the youngest son who sets out to seek his fortune and things work out for him without him doing anything clever.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Fool is a pity

The Fool gets Lost in the Woods and gets helped out by Pixies. The Pixie is also on Lucky Coin and Goat.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Previews #5: Exorcist, Pixie, Vampire

Preview

Who’s that schlemiel that’s always getting lost in the woods? It’s today’s bonus preview, Fool.

That’s where Fool comes in. If you already have Lost in the Woods, Fool does nothing. He’s lost in the woods, don’t you know! Maybe you can at least discard him for a Boon. Anyway. If you don’t have Lost in the Woods, then Fool goes on a little adventure. He bumbles around, getting three random Boons that you can receive in any order. For instance, if you drew the Boons that Donald X. previewed today (The Sea's Gift, The Sun's Gift, and The Swamp's Gift), you might choose to first gain a Will-o’-Wisp, then look at the top 4 cards of your deck and discard/reorder them, then draw whichever one you put back on top! Not bad for a card. Then you take Lost in the Woods, and your Fools are useless until somebody else plays one. At least you get that bonus every turn.

—LastFootnote, Nocturne Bonus Preview #3: Fool

Secret History

For strumphf's 2022 advent calendar, Donald X. went in-depth on the development of Fool.

One of the first cards in the set, just after starting work on it as its own set. At first it gave you the next three Boons in any order. Then when it was a choice of three, it gave you all three. Then it was back to three random ones. But this basic functionality, get three Boons, was there for a while and did not really change much.

But wait. One game I was in was so very slow, because it was all casual players who bought up Fools, and we had a Throne and they Throned it and turns took forever. And I vowed that day to stop Fool from being Throned. I tried various things, including bonuses if you Throned it but which weren't getting Boons. In the end though I decided maybe I could pair it with Lucky Coin and the Silvers you gained would slow down how often you played Fool enough to avoid problems.

But wait. While testing recommended sets, Matt had a game that was awful, that had Fool and Golem. And I remembered, man, didn't I vow something here? I sprang into action trying a pile of different versions of Fool, various ways to stop it from being Throned. One version had a card the Fools went on, and Lucky Coin brought them back. This was a funny thing because anyone told how this worked would immediately say "oh that doesn't work, you'll lose track of which Fools are yours." It always worked perfectly; you just have yours face you. Everyone has their own chair you see. Anyway that was one of the versions. And Dave Goldthorpe suggested, instead there could be one card that moved around, he called it Foolish, and that card stopped you from playing Fools. And Destry Miller said, what if that card gave you a benefit while you had it? And I made it Lost in the Woods, with a discard clause so that you could discard a dead Fool to it, and a Boon because that's what you came here for right, you bought Fool to get Boons. And they all lived happily ever after.

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

Why is Fool slow?

The problem is that for casual players, those people the set was supposed to be for, it grinds the game to a halt. Three boons is fun and too much. We had bad games with e.g. Throne / Fool and the card was just too precious to certain playtesters, so I kept trying to fix it so I could tolerate it. If I had to work on it more it would be a one-shot, which was unacceptable but man would be much better. But, I didn't need "Get 3 boons." [Lost in the Woods and Lucky Coin] are both trying to reduce the problem of how slow "3 boons" is, and they just don't go far enough.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2020

Retrospective

If there were plenty of time I might keep messing with it, because some people really enjoyed getting 3 boons, and with plenty of time I'd get to see if the good version was still too slow. Probably I would try one-shots more. That's totally "playtesters who love Fool will hate this" but seems the most promising direction for actually doing a "get 3 boons" card that I personally could live with. I certainly wouldn't do Lost in the Woods. And if I got to redo Nocturne, I wouldn't do States either - they're a complication on top of a complication. Though we did enjoy them when playtesting.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Renaissance rulebook is up

I'm sad about Fool too (it's way too much to ask of casual players), but Lucky Coin is why I ban it; I don't want to play those games vs. the money-heavy bot.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

There was an important lesson to learn, about how you have to be willing to be the bad guy. Sometimes a card has 20 versions and then the final one is great; the advent calendar will have those stories too. So it's not so bad that so much time went into Fool; not quite enough time did as it turns out.

Lucky Coin, these days I am more down on that kind of card. It's the bots really. You find out that you just have less time to do fun things in those games, and well man, I would like more time, so I can do more fun things.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2022