Baron

Baron
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Intrigue
Illustrator(s)	Ryan Laukat
Card text
+1 Buy You may discard an Estate card. If you do, +. Otherwise, gain an Estate card.

Baron is an Action card from Intrigue. Keeping with the "Victory cards" theme in Intrigue, Baron adds a way to get use out of Estates. It is a good opening for getting an early or even , and can be a good source of when you build an engine that draws your whole deck including your starting estates.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You are never obligated to discard an Estate, even if you have one in your hand.
• However, if you do not discard an Estate, you must gain an Estate (if there are any left); you cannot choose to just get +1 Buy from this card.

Strategy Article

Original article by theory

Baron is one of those cards whose benefit is immediately apparent to beginners, but also includes some more subtle rewards for more advanced players.

The early game benefit is pretty apparent: it’s a huge amount of buying power this early in the game, and can even lead to a Turn 3 / Turn 4 double Gold buy. The drawback is just as apparent: if you miss the Estate, you’re pretty much DOA, since you have one gimped hand with a dead Baron, and another gimped hand full of Estates. And like Moneylender, this will happen more and more as the game goes on, since you’re less and less likely to draw the Baron with the Estate.

The question is, then, when is the Baron risk worth it? Compared to, say, Horse Traders, Baron more reliably gets to , but less reliably hits on Turns 3 and 4. So in games with critical ′s (e.g., Witch), I would take something like Horse Traders or Silver instead, sacrificing the chance for more guaranteed ′s by the first reshuffle. (Especially since Baron, like all combo cards, is much worse with Cursers out.) But without good ′s, you’re better off shooting for an early Gold, especially if there are worthwhile ′s (like Caravan). Good cheap cards in general will soften the blow of missing your Baron.

Baron somewhat conflicts with trashers (if you’re trashing your Estates with Remake, you won’t have any for your Baron), but even then can sometimes be worth it. Baron/Chapel, for instance, gives you a pretty strong chance at a Gold/trash 4 cards scenario; if there are no good cards, drawing them together doesn’t actually hurt, since it wouldn’t have done anything even if it was a Silver. With trashing, Baron is more likely to connect with the Estates. And like most other opening cards, Baron meshes nicely with trash-for-benefit like Salvager or Apprentice, since you can get rid of it after your Baron odds drop too low.

At a more advanced level, Baron retains some of his power past the opening. Unlike Moneylender, you can incorporate Baron as a cash generator in total draw decks. The fact that he discards rather than trashes Estates becomes an advantage, since you can keep triggering Barons with the same Estate for a ridiculous amount of per Action. He’s very helpful in a double-Tactician deck with +Actions, since it’s hard to do better than + per Action. And the +Buy is quite convenient, especially if you’re playing multiple Barons per turn.

Hunting Party is, as always, a good alternative to a total draw deck, and works quite well with Baron since you only need 1 copy of the Estate and the Baron. It has the advantage of starting with 3 copies of its combo card, and Baron and Hunting Party can start reliably churning +. Add in a Gold, and with a few Hunting Parties you can consistently generate each turn (with each hand ideally being Copper, Gold, Estate, Baron — you can even swap the Gold out for Silver if you think you can draw an extra Copper each time). Like most combo cards, Baron responds well to most hand-discard attacks but not to cursing attacks.

You should almost never take the Estate with the Baron. It’s a useful consolation prize in the extreme late game, and makes Baron slightly less awful then, but gaining additional Estates with the Baron early on will slow you down too much. Though of course, in Silk Road or Gardens games, his Estate gain is quite powerful and further boosts his own power somewhat.

Baron gets severely hampered when Shelters replace starting Estates.

Synergies/Combos

• Hunting Party
• Total deck draw
• Tactician
• Caravan and Haven, as compensation if you miss your Baron, and as helpers to trigger Barons
• Warehouse and other sifters
• Crossroads
• Strong and but no good ′s
• Gardens and Silk Road

Antisynergies

• Strong opening ′s
• Opponents’ cursers
• Early trashing
• Shelters

The Throne Room Variations

Baron: With two Estates in hand, that's right there. Baron can offer you the chance to buy Provinces at earlier points in the game than you're used to - as soon as turn three, off of a Baron / Silver start. Do you actually want a turn three Province? Well, sometimes...

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion: Intrigue Preview

Alternate versions

• 
  Digital version for Dominion Online

Trivia

Official card art.

In other languages

• Chinese: 男爵 (pron. nánjué)
• Czech: Baron
• Dutch: Baron
• Finnish: Paroni
• French: Baron
• German: Baron
• Hungarian: Báró
• Italian: Barone
• Japanese: 男爵 (pron. danshaku)
• Korean: 남작 (pron. namjag)
• Norwegian: Baron
• Polish: Baron
• Russian: Барон (pron. baron)
• Spanish: Barón

Secret History

Going into development, the set had 20 kingdom cards. One day Jay said it would be better for him if it had 25. You know, stuff is cheaper at larger volumes. Having 25 kingdom cards was fine by me, so 25 it was. So I had to add five cards. This is one of them! I looked through the ideas file for stuff that fit the themes, and picked this as a supplement to the victory-cards-that-do-something-else theme.

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