Artificer
Artificer | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Adventures |
Illustrator(s) | Lynell Ingram |
Card text | |
+1 Action +1 Card + Discard any number of cards. You may gain a card costing exactly per card discarded, putting it on top of your deck. |
Artificer is an Action card from Adventures. It is both a Peddler variant and a discard for benefit gainer.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- First you get +1 Card, +1 Action, and +.
- Then you discard any number of cards. You may choose not to discard any cards.
- Then you may gain a card costing exactly per card discarded. For example if you discarded two cards; you may gain a card costing ; if you discard no cards, you may gain a card costing .
- The gained card comes from the Supply and is put on top of your deck.
- You may choose not to gain a card, even if you discard cards.
Strategy
There is no strategy article for Artificer, but the card has been discussed on the forum.
Artificer is a Peddler variant. Since Peddler's on-play effect is generally considered balanced at , you will usually want to ensure that you can make good use of the Artificer's gaining ability before you pick it up. While discarding two Victory cards and a Copper in order to topdeck a Silver or something nice like a Fishing Village can sometimes be a good move, this card truly shines when you can reliably draw large hands. In the worst case, you will play your Artificer and get stuck with a small hand of mostly Silvers, in which case this card really is just Peddler (unless there's a good finesse play involving multiple cards). While you can play this card against junkers, cheaper cards like Hermit do as well or better.
Of course, Artificer suddenly becomes a lot better with cost-reducers in play, especially Highway. After playing a couple of Highways, you only need to discard one or two cards in order to gain a power card right to the top of your deck. With multiple Artificers, you can do this more and more often as you use them to gain more Highways. It makes sense: Highway synergizes extremely well with Market, and Artificer is kind of like a Market, except you gain one of the cards mid-turn and your Victory and Treasure cards are all Copper.
Like with Vault and, to a lesser extent, Secret Chamber, Artificer can be awesome if you wanted to discard cards anyway. Maybe you're running a draw-to-X engine, with Library or Watchtower or maybe Minion as the draw. Maybe you want to make sure your Shanty Towns or Menageries activate. Maybe you just want to activate a lot of Tunnels. In all of these cases, Artificer is your discarding knight in shining armor.
An interesting synergy card from Adventures itself is Storyteller. Storyteller turns money into draw, and Artificer brings the resource conversion full circle from cards back to coin value. The combination behaves like a perfect mix of Market, Warehouse, Oasis, and Watchtower with a Laboratory or three thrown in for good measure. A deck consisting only of Treasures, Storytellers, and one (or maybe two) Artificers is already a self-sustaining engine capable of earning two or more Provinces in a single turn. This combination can be supported by cards like Gear or Dungeon - as long as you can put Storyteller into a high-treasure hand, you stand a great chance of drawing your Artificer for a big payoff.
Synergies
- Draw-to-X: Library, Watchtower, Minion, to a lesser extent Jack of All Trades
- Big draw in general, as Artificer rewards overdraw
- Highway and Artificer is similar to Combo: Highway and Market
- Tactician and Artificer is similar to Tactician and Vault
- Storyteller
- Tunnel
- Scrying Pool: Draw deck, discard all actions with Artificer, redraw deck
- Opponents' on-buy penalties: Swamp Hag, Haunted Woods, Embargo
Antisynergies
- Alt-VP cards you don't want to topdeck
- Sifters like Cellar that decrease your handsize
- Opponents' handsize attacks
- More reliable sources of +Buy/gainers
Alternate versions
Digital version for Dominion Online
Trivia
In other languages
- Dutch: Kanonnengieter (lit. cannon smelter)
- French: Maître-artisan (lit. master craftsman)
- German: Kunsthandwerker (lit. artisan)
- Japanese: 工匠 (pron. kōshō, lit. artisan)
Secret History