Candlestick Maker

Candlestick Maker
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Guilds
Illustrator(s)	Kelli Stakenas
Card text
+1 Action +1 Buy +1 Coffers

Candlestick Maker is an Action card from Guilds. It provides Coffers and non-terminal +buy.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You get +1 Action and +1 Buy, and add a token to your Coffers mat.

Strategy

Candlestick Maker is a weak non-terminal source of Coffers and +Buy. As a stop card that provides only a small amount of payload, roughly equivalent to a Copper, its ability to provide +Buy is usually its most important feature. Although +Buy is an important addition to most engines, many other sources of it are overall stronger cards, often because they also provide draw (e.g. Barge) or offer other benefits that provide more value per stop card (e.g. Merchant Guild). Candlestick Maker’s main advantages are that it is cheap and non-terminal, and therefore relatively easy to add to your deck in the midgame. Gaining one the shuffle before you expect to generate enough to effectively use the +Buy is usually best.

As a source of payload, Candlestick Maker is marginally better than Copper. Its Coffers do provide a useful increase in flexibility: even in small quantities, these can have a significant effect on your ability to hit price points, for example by potentially letting you spike a large amount of . However, because both Coffers and additional Buys have diminishing returns, you usually won’t want more than one or two copies. Candlestick Maker does offer synergies that Copper doesn’t, most often when you specifically need Action-based payload. Some examples include decks using draw-to-X effects or Scrying Pool for which Candlestick Maker becomes somewhat more appealing.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Action +1 Buy Take a Coin token.	Guilds	June 2013
		+1 Action +1 Buy +1 Coffers	Guilds & Cornucopia (2017 printing)	March 2018
		+1 Action +1 Buy +1 Coffers	Cornucopia & Guilds (Second Edition)	March 2024

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Kandelaarmaker
Finnish	Kynttilänvalaja (lit. candlemaker)
French	Cirier (lit. candlemaker)
German	Leuchtenmacher			+1 Aktion +1 Kauf Nimm eine Münze.	(2013)
German	Leuchtenmacher			+1 Aktion +1 Kauf +1 Taler	(2019)
Japanese	蝋燭職人 (pron. rōsoku shokunin, lit. candlemaker)			+1 アクション +1 購入 コイントークン1枚を得る。
Korean	촛대제작자 (pron. chosdaejejagja)
Polish	Wytwórca świec				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Свечной Мастер (pron. cvyechnoy mastyer, lit. candle master)

Trivia

Official card art.

If you look closely at the art, you'll notice the man depicted is making the candelabra featured on Masterpiece. The cards' art share the same artist.

Secret History

For Alchemy I wanted a single , with a +Buy, and tried "+1 Action +1 Buy +." Some people preferred this to Herbalist, but some people felt like, hey what does this have to do with Potions. And I could make that card later. So I put Herbalist in Alchemy. I next tried the card out in Hinterlands, with "when you gain this, +1 Buy." As recounted in that secret history, some people thought it was hilarious that two Highways let you just buy out the pile, but some people abhorred it. I couldn't tell you why, I thought it was hilarious. But the card was just not sufficiently hilarious to live with the hate. I bumped the card out again. Then it seemed like a great fit for Guilds, where the + could become a more exciting "take a Coin token." And here it is.

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