Peddler

Peddler
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Prosperity
Illustrator(s)	Joshua Stewart
Card text
+1 Card +1 Action + During a player's Buy phase, this costs less per Action card they have in play.

Peddler is a cantrip from Prosperity costing that gets cheaper to buy per Action card in play. During the Action phase of a turn, Peddler's cost is always , which allows trash-for-benefit cards to get more value out of it than you may have spent buying it.

Other cantrips that provide + are often referred to as Peddler variants.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• Most of the time, this costs .
• During a player's Buy phase, this costs less per Action card that player has in play.
• This applies to all Peddler cards, including ones in hands and decks.
• It never costs less than .
• If you play King's Court on Worker's Village, for example, that's just two Action cards you have in play, even though you played the Worker's Village three times.
• Buying cards using the promotional card Black Market is something that does not happen during a Buy phase, so Peddler still costs then.

Other Rules clarifications

• During your Buy phase, if you get more Action cards into your play area (with e.g. Toil), Peddler's cost will be further reduced. And if any Action cards leave your play area (e.g. you Scepter a card and play it as Way of the Butterfly), Peddler's cost will increase.
  • Crown is an Action card, even if you play it as a Treasure in the Buy phase, and so playing it in the Buy phase affects Peddler's cost.
  • When an Action is played during the Buy phase, Peddler's cost changes as soon as the new card enters your play area. So if you have 1 Action in play and then play a Workshop (with e.g. Toil), Peddler now costs , and can be gained by Workshop's effect.
• Unlike Destrier, this changes cost only during your Buy phase. So if you return to your Action phase (with e.g. Villa or Cavalry), or enter your Night and/or Clean-up phase, Peddler will return to its normal cost of .

Strategy

Peddler is a cantrip that provides a small amount of payload and thus readily integrates into almost any deck, as unlike most other payload options it generates without adding a stop card. Its cost-changing mechanic makes it easy to acquire in bulk if you can consistently play multiple Action cards and have plenty of +Buy, and when it can be bought cheaply, it’s among the strongest of the Peddler variants. For both these reasons, it is most impactful when you have full deck control and can play every card in your deck, usually with an engine. Additionally, because its cost is fixed at during the Action phase, Peddler is a prime target for certain -dependent trash for benefit effects (such as Remodel, Salvager, and Bishop).

While Peddler is a useful card, it is virtually never worth buying at the full price of . You can often hold out until it costs , although it is also good value at and may sometimes be worth buying at , especially your first Peddler, as this can help lower the cost of future Peddler purchases. Ideally, however, you can reduce its price by playing other Action cards that you needed to acquire anyway. Duration cards (such as Wharf) are good for this purpose because they work on two consecutive turns. Action-based sources of +Buy that you can play in bulk because they are non-terminal or cantrips (such as Market Square) make it particularly easy to gain many cheap Peddlers, since they provide both the cost reduction and the extra Buys, the latter usually being the limiting factor.

As it is easy and useful to buy Peddlers in bulk in most cases, the pile may empty very quickly in some games, making it important to monitor for possible pileout opportunities. As a strong and potentially cheap cantrip that also provides Action-based payload, Peddler also works particularly well with strategies and effects that rely on having many Action cards, e.g. in a deck that uses Scrying Pool for draw.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.

• rrenaud's 2010 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Notes	Release	Date
		+1 Card +1 Action + During your Buy phase, this costs less per Action card you have in play, but not less than .		Prosperity	October 2010
		+1 Card +1 Action + During your Buy phase, this costs less per Action card you have in play, but not less than .	Digital version has a cost of rather than .	Prosperity (2016 printing)	February 2017
		+1 Card +1 Action + During a player's Buy phase, this costs less per Action card they have in play.	Digital version may have a cost of rather than .	Prosperity (2020 printing) Prosperity (Second Edition)	October 2020

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	小販			+1 卡片 +1 行動 + 在你的購買階段時，你出牌區裡每有一張行動卡會讓此卡價值減少，但不會低於
Czech	Podomní obchodník
Dutch	Venter
Finnish	Kulkukauppias
French	Colporteur
German	Hausiererin / Hausierer			+1 Karte +1 Aktion + Diese Karte kostet in der Kaufphase weniger für jede Aktionskarte, die du im Spiel hast, niemals jedoch weniger als .	(2010) one or more other versions listed here
	Hausiererin / Hausierer			+1 Karte +1 Aktion + Während der Kaufphase eines Spielers kostet diese Karte weniger pro Aktionskarte, die er im Spiel hat.	(Nachdruck 2021) 2. Edition (2022)
Italian	Ambulante (lit. wanderer, a term used to describe street vendors)
Japanese	行商人 (pron. gyōshōnin)			+1 カードを引く +1 アクション + 購入フェイズ中、このカードのコストはターンプレイヤーの場のアクションカード1枚につき下がる(未満にはならない)。
Polish	Domokrążca			+1 karta +1 akcja + W fazie zakupu ta karta kosztuje o mniej za każdą kartę Akcji, jaką masz w grze (ale nie mniej niż ).	(2016)
	Domokrążca			+1 karta +1 akcja + W fazie zakupu dowolnego gracza ta karta kosztuje o mniej za każdą kartę Akcji, którą ma on w grze.	II Edycja (2022)
Russian	Коробейник (pron. korobyeynik)
Spanish	Buhonero

Trivia

Official card art.

The original card print's credits contained an error, mistakenly crediting Joshua Balvin as the artist.

Preview

The ideal price for Peddler is . You just need to play four chaining actions and you're there. You will probably have some money though - maybe you can even buy a better card. What you want is +buys, since every +buy is another free Peddler. Worker's Village is perfect for this, being a chaining action that gives you a +buy. Grand Market is not shabby either. Once you have a mound of Peddlers, besides just playing them over and over, you can Remodel or Upgrade or Expand or Bishop or Apprentice or what have you them and get Provinces and Platinums and Colonies and   tokens and cards and what have you.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion: Prosperity Review

Secret History

The first version was "This costs less per Action played this turn." It came from the ruins of an expansion that only ever existed in 16-card form. That expansion had two themes, one of which was "weird stuff with costs." That was not a good theme. I mean some of the cards were cool but you don't want a bunch of that in one place. Peddler and the Grand Market penalty made it into Prosperity. Late in development I changed Peddler to only change cost during buy phases. This meant now you could Remodel it into Platinum and so forth. The change was for two reasons. First, the Remodel combos are fun and well why not try them out. Second, it made it less confusing. People were always trying to Remodel it and then having to be reminded that no, you played two Peddlers and a Remodel, now it only costs . And then, close to the end, I tweaked it to count action cards in play, rather than actions played this turn, so there was nothing to remember.

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