Band of Misfits
Band of Misfits | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Dark Ages |
Illustrator(s) | RC Torres |
Card text | |
Play this as if it were an Action card in the Supply costing less than it that you choose. This is that card until it leaves play. |
Band of Misfits is an Action card from Dark Ages. It has no effect of its own; rather, its effect is to imitate the abilities of any cheaper Action card in the Supply. Band of Misfits' versatility is very useful in engine decks where you need to line up certain cards with each other; Band of Misfits can therefore have whichever effects you need it to have in the hand it appears in. However, Band of Misfits can only imitate relatively cheap cards; buying it means potentially missing out on a powerful Action, whose effects Band of Misfits cannot simulate.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When you play this, you pick an Action card from the Supply that costs less than it, and treat this card as if it were the card you chose.
- Normally this will just mean that you follow the instructions on the card you picked. So, if you play Band of Misfits and Fortress is in the Supply, you could pick that and then you would draw a card and get +2 Actions, since that is what Fortress does when you play it.
- Band of Misfits also gets the chosen card's cost, name, and types.
- If you use Band of Misfits as a card that trashes itself, such as Death Cart, you will trash the Band of Misfits (at which point it will just be a Band of Misfits card in the trash).
- If you use Band of Misfits as a duration card (from Seaside), Band of Misfits will stay in play until next turn, just like the duration card would.
- If you use Band of Misfits as a Throne Room (from Dominion), King's Court (from Prosperity), or Procession, and use that effect to play a duration card, Band of Misfits will similarly stay in play.
- If you use Throne Room, King's Court, or Procession to play a Band of Misfits card multiple times, you only pick what to play it as the first time; the other times it is still copying the same card. For example, if you use Procession to play Band of Misfits twice and choose Fortress the first time, you will automatically replay it as Fortress, then trash the Band of Misfits, return it to your hand (it is a Fortress when it's trashed, and Fortress has a when-trashed ability that returns it to your hand), and gain an Action card costing exactly ( more than Band of Misfits, which has left play and so is no longer copying Fortress).
- If you use Band of Misfits as a card that does something during Clean-up, such as Hermit, it will do that thing during Clean-up.
- When you play Horn of Plenty (from Cornucopia), it counts Band of Misfits as whatever Band of Misfits was played as; for example if you play a Band of Misfits as a Fortress, and then play another Band of Misfits as a Scavenger, and then play Horn of Plenty, you will gain a card costing up to .
- Band of Misfits can only be played as a card that is visible in the Supply; it cannot be played as a card after its pile runs out, and cannot be played as a non-Supply card like Mercenary; it can be played as the top card of the Ruins pile, but no other Ruins, and can only be played as Sir Martin when that is the top card of the Knights pile.
Other Rules clarifications
- You first play Band of Misfits, then you play the card you chose to emulate. In this sense, Band of Misfits plays like a Throne Room variant, and one play of Band of Misfits with a successful emulation counts as two Actions played; this matters for Conspirator. As such, vanilla bonus tokens on Band of Misfits do give their effect when Band of Misfits is played, since token effects happen before anything else a card does. If there are any vanilla bonus tokens on the card Band of Misfits is emulating, those effects occur as well, after the effects from tokens on Band of Misfits.
- If Band of Misfits is multiplied when tokens are on its pile (and there's a card for it to emulate), the token effect on Band of Misfits happens only once, since Band of Misfits is only being played once; once it has been played, it is a different card. However, tokens on a card Band of Misfits is emulating do have their effects multiplied. For example, if the +1 Card token is on Band of Misfits and the + token is on Chapel, and you Throne Room a Band of Misfits, emulating Chapel, you would first get +1 Card, then +.
- If you use Throne Room on Band of Misfits, choosing to play Band of Misfits as a self-trashing card (for example, Feast), the Band of Misfits will be in the trash after the first play as Feast, meaning it has left play. Throne Room then plays Band of Misfits again (getting token effects again, if there are any), allowing you to make a new choice as to what Band of Misfits should emulate. However, since Band of Misfits is in the trash, you will only get the on-play effects of the emulated card. Similar logic applies to one-shots that do not trash themselves, but still leave play, such as Island, as well as the case where there are no non-empty Action supply piles cheap enough for Band of Misfits to copy.
- Under this ruling, it is possible for a multiplied Band of Misfits to trash itself (emulating any trashing one-shot), then gain itself back out of the trash (emulating Graverobber or Rogue, its cost reduced by Ferry).
- Note that when Band of Misfits is discarded or trashed from play, doing so activates the when-discarded or when-trashed abilities of the card it was imitating, even though once you discard or trash it the card is back to being a Band of Misfits again. It is the act of "trashing a Fortress" or "discarding a Hermit from play" that triggers those abilities, even if the card that actually gets discarded or trashed is no longer a Hermit or Fortress after the act of trashing or discarding is completed.
- Band of Misfits does not play well with Reserve cards. If you play Band of Misfits as a Reserve card it goes to your Tavern mat and stays there; you can't call it or otherwise recover it because it is now out of your play area and no longer has the abilities of the card it was imitating.
Strategy Article
Original article on the forum by DG.
Depending upon how you look at it, this is either a very simple or a very complex card. At its simplest it can be a very straightforward card to buy and play. At its most complicated it can provide many options for card play and deck construction.
I think the place to start looking at Band of Misfits is at the card play, which is an unusual place to start. You have the choice to play the Band of Misfits as any cheap card in the supply. This means that when you have two terminal actions in hand with a cheap Village in the supply you can play the Band of Misfits as a Village for the extra actions. When you have no terminal cards in your hand you can use the Band of Misfits as a cheap terminal in the supply, and so on. This flexibility can make deck building quite simple since you can add Band of Misfits to a balanced deck and it will most likely remain a balanced deck, if not better. This is only true however if there is a good selection of cheap Actions cards in the Kingdom: something with +, something with +Actions, maybe something with +Cards or +Buy, etc. Flexibility in providing or using actions is possibly the best feature of the Band of Misfits.
What you gain in flexibility however you could lose in power. Being able to play a Mountebank is generally better than being able to play a Band of Misfits as either a Sea Hag or Nomad Camp. cost cards are usually very strong and the decision to buy them ahead of a Band of Misfits can be simple. If there are no strong cost cards in the Kingdom then the Band of Misfits might again be a simple purchase since you might otherwise have bought one of the cheaper cards instead. In the middle, though, there will be a small number of fiendish purchasing decisions where you are effectively weighing up a strong single card against variations from a choice of weaker cards.
The Band of Misfits doesn't need any specific kingdom cards to work and will behave differently in different kingdoms. The better the variety of cheap cards in the supply however the more chance the Band of Misfits has to provide value. You might draw a hand that could use a Chancellor, or a Bureaucrat, or a Thief, or a Shanty Town, or a Remodel, or a Cellar, so never rule any card out even if you wouldn't purchase it for that particular deck. Even a Feast could even let you gain a Duchy on the last turn. Taking that concept further, the more dependent a card is upon the draw the more benefit you can gain from having Band of Misfits in your deck instead of the card itself. Specific examples might be cards such as Procession, Develop, Treasure Map, or Coppersmith.
I will however single out two Kingdom cards. The option to play the Band of Misfits as a Death Cart will be strong, especially when you don't want to add two Ruins to your deck by gaining a Death Cart. The Band of Misfits will suit Conspirator decks since it can either start or continue the Conspirator chains, reducing the risks of bad draws, and you could well be willing to pay 5 or 6 coins for these engine components anyway. The Conspirator deck does highlight one risk though. Once a card's supply pile is empty the Band of Misfits cannot act as that card. It is also worth remembering that the Band of Misfits cannot act as Silver. Sometimes a simple Silver will be better in hand than a versatile action card, especially if you find yourself repeatedly playing your Band of Misfits as a low reward +action card.
If we return however to the card play we can see where the final complications come from. Band of Misfits increases the potential card plays from a hand, since you not only have to sequence your actions but now also choose what the actions are. Whilst this may perplex artificial intelligence I suspect that human intelligence will enjoy the challenge.
Synergies/Combos
- A variety of cards costing -
- Cards whose value are very dependent on what's in your hand (Throne Room) or in play (Conspirator) at the time.
- Cards which will make themselves obsolete over time, such as Moneylender, Sea Hag, and Chapel.
- Cards in the supply granting +Buy or +Actions allow Band of Misfits to function as engine grease when needed.
- Playing it as Death Cart to bypass the on-gain penalty.
- Ferry allows Band of Misfits to emulate a card that normally costs or .
Antisynergies
- Powerful cards costing and few cards costing less
- Piles that are likely to run out like Hamlet.
Alternate versions
Digital version for Dominion Online
Trivia
In other languages
- Dutch: Groep Mislukkelingen
- Finnish: Hurja joukko (lit. wild band)
- French: Malfaiteurs (lit. criminals)
- German: Vogelfreie (lit. outlaws)
- Japanese: はみだし者 (pron. hamidashi-sha, lit. odd man out)
- Note: Japanese does not formally distinguish between singular and plural.
- Korean: 부적응자 (pron. bujeog-eungja, lit. misfits)
- Spanish: Banda de Rufianes (lit. band of thugs)
Secret History