Delay

Delay
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Menagerie
Illustrator(s)	Jessi J
Event text
You may set aside an Action card from your hand. At the start of your next turn, play it.

Delay is an Event from Menagerie. It sets aside an Action to be played automatically at the start of your next turn.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• Once you set aside the Action card, you have to play it at the start of your next turn.
• If you do multiple things at the start of your turn, you can order them.
• Playing the Action card at the start of your next turn does not use up an Action.

Strategy

Delay converts current Buys into Action card plays for next turn, which can be a crucial source of +Actions in Kingdoms with plentiful +Buy. Extra Buys can also be useful for more niche uses of Delay, such as mitigating terminal collision, spiking generation, lining up two Action cards together, and shuffle management. However, without extra Buys, the opportunity cost of buying Delay is very high.

Delay together with a non-terminal source of +Buy (e.g. Market) acts as a village, which can make it a crucial engine enabler, particularly when there isn't a traditional village in the Kingdom. This is because playing the Delayed card won't cost you an Action on your next turn. However, this won’t work consistently if the sources of +Buy are terminal (e.g. Bridge or Farmers' Market), as each purchase of Delay effectively costs you an Action, so it can’t be used to play multiple other terminals. With no villages and only terminal +Buy, a simpler money-based strategy may be optimal. Whilst using Delay as a village can be difficult, given the right conditions it can be stronger than stronger than certain village cards (e.g. Squire).

Even when the Kingdom offers better villages, Delay still has several niche applications. Its presence makes it less disastrous when your terminals collide, as you can Delay one of them. This makes early villages less essential, allowing you to gain powerful terminal Actions more liberally. Even if you don’t have a spare Buy, it may sometimes be worth forgoing buying a card in order to Delay a powerful Action so that you can play it as soon as possible in the early-game (this use of Delay is most likely to arise with junkers and trashers). In addition, the same option is available for cards drawn dead (e.g. with Smithy), demonstrating again how Delay eases constraints on your terminal space.

Another early-game consideration is that you may want to hit a certain threshold as soon as possible; Delaying a payload card (such as Bounty Hunter) when there’s a high probability that your next hand will produce more will help with this goal. This can apply to other stages of the game as well; in the greening phase, you may wish to Delay a payload card if you can’t afford a Province this turn and you believe your next hand is more favourable. In both of these scenarios, keeping track of what’s left in your drawpile is vital.

More general applications of Delay include improving the odds of colliding Actions and maintaining good shuffle management. Firstly, if deck control is difficult to attain (and so, for example, it's more difficult to line up Throne Rooms or Princes with powerful Actions), Delay gives you another chance to collide it with your preferred target next turn. Secondly, there could be situations where playing an Action card would trigger an undesirable shuffle; Delaying it instead allows you to still benefit from having drawn that card by playing it at the start of your next turn.

A notable Project that can be enhanced through judicious use of Delay is Citadel. This is because a Delayed card will be the first one played next turn, meaning that you can double-play powerful terminal actions (such as a Wharf or a midgame Torturer) without ending your Action phase prematurely.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		You may set aside an Action card from your hand. At the start of your next turn, play it.	Menagerie	March 2020

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Vertraging			Je mag een actiekaart uit je hand opzij leggen. Speel deze aan het begin van je volgende beurt.	(2020)
German	Verzögerung			Du darfst eine Aktionskarte aus deiner Hand zur Seite legen. Zu Beginn deines nächsten Zuges: Spiele sie.
Japanese	遅延 (pron. chien)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Didn't change. There was some talk of dropping it due to also having Way of the Turtle, but I liked the effect enough to want to do two of them, and man they're different.

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