Seaway

Seaway
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Julien Delval
Event text
Gain an Action card costing up to . Move your +1 Buy token to its pile. (When you play a card from that pile, you first get +1 Buy.)

Seaway is an Event from Adventures. It places the buyer's +1 Buy token and gains the player a copy of the chosen card. Unlike the other vanilla bonus token Events, it has a cost restriction on the card pile that the token can be moved to.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you buy this, first you gain an Action card costing up to . The Action card comes from the Supply and is put into your discard pile.
• Then move your +1 Buy token to the pile the Action card came from.
• The token gives you +1 Buy when playing a card from that pile; see the Tokens section.
• It only matters how much the card costs that you gain; the cost is not checked later. For example you can play Bridge Troll, then use Seaway to gain a Bridge Troll (currently costing due to its own effect), and the token will stay there even when Bridge Troll costs later.
• You can use Seaway to gain Sir Martin (from Dark Ages) when he's on top of the Knights pile; then your +1 Buy token will be on the Knights pile, even though any remaining Knights will cost .
• You cannot use Seaway on an empty pile just to move the +1 Buy token; you have to pick a card you can gain.

Other rules clarifications

• Unlike Pathfinding, Lost Arts, Training, and Teacher, Seaway doesn't require the pile to be an Action pile—just a pile you can gain an Action card from. This means (with cost-reduction), you can put the +1 Buy token on Castles. And with Inheritance, you can put the +1 Buy token on Estates.
• The +1 Buy token is placed on the pile after the card has been gained and after any on-gain effects are resolved. This means if you gain a card with Seaway and then immediately play it with Innovation, the token isn't on the pile yet, so you won't get +1 Buy.

Strategy

Seaway is a moderately strong Event whose value is mainly dependent on the alternatives for extra gains and on the suitability of the Action piles eligible for placement of the +Buy token.

If other sources of +Buy are absent or weak (e.g. Trade Route), or do not provide net gains (e.g. Forager), Seaway can be very important, and in this scenario it's very likely to be worth buying even if the available targets are suboptimal (e.g. because they are terminal). Even outside this situation, if there are useful Action cards costing or less that you want multiple copies of anyway (such as Menagerie), targeting that pile with Seaway is often preferable to relying exclusively on other sources of +Buy that are less convenient (e.g. because they are terminal, stop cards, or simply more expensive). Adding +Buy in this way to an otherwise useful card may have the additional advantage of freeing up some of your gains that you would otherwise have needed to use on a dedicated source of +Buy. If there is such a convenient target, Seaway often has a low opportunity cost, because you gain a copy of that card when buying it, while just paying a slight premium to add the +Buy effect to all your copies. Seaway may be skippable if there is a good alternative for +Buy that you're happy to gain in bulk (e.g. Market Square or Worker's Village).

The best targets for Seaway are often cantrips or villages, as you're likely to want multiple copies of these and they don't impede your deck control. A useful aspect of the village case is that both extra terminal space and extra Buys often start to become relevant around the same time, as you begin to achieve some deck control and can play more of your payload, which will often be terminal. Beyond this consideration, Seaway has a particularly strong synergy with Highway: although it costs , playing a single Highway provides enough cost reduction to put it in the price range for Seaway, and adding +Buy to a cost-reducing cantrip is a very powerful effect that will often enable a megaturn.

Infrequently, Seaway can be a useful way to gain a card without buying it. This may allow you to avoid the penalties of Mission or Swamp Hag, or activate Exploration.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Gain an Action card costing up to . Move your +1 Buy token to its pile (when you play a card from that pile, you first get +1 Buy).	Adventures 1st Edition	April 2015
		Gain an Action card costing up to . Move your +1 Buy token to its pile. (When you play a card from that pile, you first get +1 Buy.)	Adventures 2nd Edition	August 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Zeeroute
Finnish	Merireitti
French	Route Maritime
German	Seeweg			Nimm dir eine Aktionskarte, die bis zu kostet. Lege deinen +1 Kauf-Marker auf diesen Vorratsstapel. (Wenn du eine Karte von diesem Stapel ausspielst, erhältst du zuerst +1 Kauf.)
Japanese	海路 (pron. kairo)			コスト以下のアクションカード1枚を獲得する。それが由来するサプライの山にあなたの+1 購入トークンを移動する (あなたがその山に由来するカードを使用するとき、+1 購入を得る)。
Russian	Фарватер (pron. farvatyer)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

I had a version that worked on any pile but only gave you a card if it was cheap enough. It was just simpler to tie the token to the gaining. So, you can't put +1 Buy on expensive cards, except of course all the ways that you can, this is Dominion.

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

Why does Seaway gain a card?

You tend to want as much +Actions//Cards as you can get, but are less likely to want tons of +Buy. So Seaway competes with +Buy cards and so to avoid shutting them out it wanted to cost . That meant it had to do something extra, and what it does is get you a copy of the card. It went back and forth on whether or not it could put the token on a card it couldn't gain. I liked being able to put the token on more expensive cards but it wasn't worth making Seaway more complex.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Seaway

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