Graverobber

Graverobber
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Julien Delval
Card text
Choose one: Gain a card from the trash costing from to , onto your deck; or trash an Action card from your hand and gain a card costing up to more than it.

Graverobber is an Action card from Dark Ages. It is a card built around gaining cards from the trash, and it has a function as a remodeler in order to ensure that the trash will often have good enough things in it worth gaining. In practice, Graverobber's remodeling function is more often useful than gain from the trash

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You choose either option, then do as much of it as you can; you can choose an option even if you will not be able to do it.
• You can look through the trash at any time.
• If you choose to gain a card from the trash, the other players get to see what it is, and it goes on top of your deck.
• If there is no card in the trash costing from to , you will fail to gain one.
• Cards with $P (from Alchemy) or (from Empires) in the cost do not cost from to .
• If you choose instead to trash an Action card from your hand, the card you gain is put into your discard pile.

Other rules clarifications

• Even if the card gained from the trash is one that would ordinarily be gained into your hand, such as Ghost Town, Night Watchman, or Den of Sin, it is gained onto your deck instead.
  • This does not apply to Villa, which moves itself into your hand after it is gained.
• If you play this with Elder and choose both options, you have to do them in order. So you can't trash an Action card and immediately regain it.

Strategy

Graverobber is a weak Remodel variant primarily used as payload in an engine to gain Provinces and regain the cards it trashes; more rarely, it can function as an expensive terminal gainer which you can use in a similar way to Lurker to recover cards from the trash. Graverobber generally functions best with good deck control (particularly draw), a large amount of terminal space, suitable Action fodder, and multiple copies, since its value relies on collision with suitable targets and you will often want to regain the cards you trashed. Graverobber is therefore most likely to be usable in Kingdoms where these supporting effects are available but other payload options to make full use of them (such as +Buy to buy multiple Provinces) are lacking. As payload that is fairly demanding in terms of support, you’ll usually want to add Graverobber to your deck in the late mid-game (if at all), once you have established deck control.

There are a few significant differences between Graverobber in its use as a Remodel variant and other such variants, such as Remodel itself:

1. Graverobber’s utility depends heavily on your ability to provide fodder. While Remodel can use Gold gainers to sustainably gain Provinces, Graverobber instead must be fed other potentially useful Actions, and gainers of such cards are less common than Gold gainers. While Graverobber can provide its own fodder by regaining what’s been trashed, it’s more effective when you can prioritize spending your Graverobber plays on gaining cards from the Supply. Cards able to gain Actions costing such as Altar or University are the most common enablers of this Province-gaining pattern, while Horse gainers can also provide useful fodder to gain better cards.
2. It is important to keep an eye on what you put in the trash, since your opponents will be able to gain cards from there using their own Graverobber, potentially providing them with easy access to fodder. With sufficient deck control, however, you can play two copies of Graverobber, trashing a card with the first and regaining it with the second. In the endgame, especially on the last turn, this may be less of a concern, as your opponent may not have time to benefit from this, and it may be a good idea to use Graverobber to trash some of your engine pieces to get more Victory cards.

Like other Remodel variants, Graverobber works well with Actions that are typically good targets for trash-for-benefit effects, for example Peddler (which has a high but is easy to acquire) or Lich (which has a beneficial on-trash effect). Additionally, because Graverobber can continually trash and regain particular cards, those with strong on-gain or on-trash effects such as Border Village or Silk Merchant can also be very effective fodder.

Using Graverobber primarily as a gainer of trashed cards rather than a Remodel variant is rarer, but can be useful in a few different situations.

• Trashing attacks such as Knights can place important cards in the trash. If you are able to both attack successfully and play a Graverobber, you can effectively steal your opponents’ cards.
• One-shots such as Tragic Hero and Acting Troupe can put strong cards in the trash that you may want to gain, allowing indefinite access to effects that would otherwise be limited.

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.

• werothegreat's 2013 article
• markusin's 2014 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Choose one: Gain a card from the trash costing from to , putting it on top of your deck; or trash an Action card from your hand and gain a card costing up to more than it.	Dark Ages 1st Edition	August 2012
		Choose one: Gain a card from the trash costing from to , onto your deck; or trash an Action card from your hand and gain a card costing up to more than it.	Dark Ages 2nd Edition	September 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Vykradač hrobů			Vyber si jeden pokyn: vezmi si ze smetiště kartu v ceně až a polož ji na svůj dobírací balíček; zahoď na smetiště kartu akce z ruky a vezmi si kartu která je až o dražší než zahozená karta.
Dutch	Grafrover
Finnish	Haudanryöstäjä
French	Pilleur de tombes
German	Grabräuber			Wähle eins: Nimm eine Karte vom Müll, die bis kostet, und lege sie auf deinen Nachziehstapel oder entsorge eine Aktionskarte aus deiner Hand und nimm eine Karte, die bis zu mehr als sie kostet.	(2019)
Japanese	墓暴き (pron. haka abaki)			次のうち1つ選ぶ:「廃棄置き場に あるコストからのカード1枚を山札の上に獲得する」: 「手札のアクションカード1枚を廃棄し、それよりコストが最大高いカード1枚を獲得する」。
Korean	도굴꾼 (pron. dogulkkun)
Russian	Расхититель Могил (pron. raskhitityel' mogil)
Spanish	Ladrón de Tumbas

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Graverobber is the way to get things from the trash that you always knew I’d make eventually. What you didn’t know is that it would look like that. If you’re gonna take things from the trash, you have to make sure there are good things to get. Graverobber does this by rewarding you for trashing expensive actions – just the kind of thing you’ll want back later. And when you do take a card from the trash, it puts it on your deck, so you’ll draw it before the game is over. Of course if someone else has Graverobbers, maybe they’ll get that card first. It’s a competitive business in these troubled times.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dark Ages Preview #1: Graverobber, Poor House, Sage

Secret History

It's obvious that you could make a card that gets cards from the trash. What's not obvious is that it will end up looking like this. There was just a straight line that led from the idea to the final card though. It had to provide a way to get good cards into the trash, so that it wouldn't just stare at an empty trash, or a trash full of Coppers and Estates. So, it's a Remodel. Furthermore it's a Remodel that likes to trash actions that cost , which is just the kind of thing you're happy getting from the trash. In games where Provinces end up trashed, such as via other Remodels, it's way too good to be able to gain them with Graverobbers, so you can't. It also can't get cheap cards, which was to stop you from getting Madman (a combo we first suffered through for a while). I later changed Madman to not go to the trash, but kept Graverobber at to , because that makes things a little easier - you keep one pile of real trash and one pile of good trash - and it meant I could safely do other non-supply cards in the future without worrying about Graverobber, if somehow that comes up.

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