Non-terminal draw
Cards that can increase your handsize without depleting your number of available Actions are referred to as non-terminal draw cards. They make a welcome addition to almost any engine strategy, in which large handsizes allow you to find and line up your key engine components. Many of them are helpful in Big Money strategies as well, but to a lesser degree: the +Action is less important in a Treasure-heavy Big Money deck, and they typically provide smaller handsizes than terminal draw cards.
The simplest vanilla non-terminal draw card is Laboratory; cards that have similar effects are therefore sometimes referred to as Lab variants.
Non-terminal draw is closely related to duration draw: playing a duration-draw card on one turn provides an effect similar to playing a non-terminal draw card on your next turn.
Lab variants
These usually draw a specified number of cards—typically a total of +2 Cards, occasionally more—and can draw any card. Some are restricted by only being able to increase handsize in certain circumstances—e.g., in the case of Wishing Well, if you correctly guess what card is on top of your deck—and if the condition is not met they will be simple cantrips. Cards in italics have been removed.
- Dominion: Laboratory
- Intrigue: Wishing Well
- Alchemy: Alchemist
- Cornucopia: Menagerie
- Hinterlands: Stables
- Dark Ages: Madman
- Guilds: Advisor
- Adventures: Lost City, Storyteller
- Empires: Encampment
- Renaissance: Experiment
- Menagerie: Destrier, Horse, Way of the Horse
- Allies: Distant Shore, Sibyl
- Promos: Governor
City Quarter (from Empires) and Cursed Village (from Nocturne) draw different numbers of cards depending on what's in your hand, and can often non-terminally increase your handsize.
Caravan (from Seaside), Archive (from Empires), and Den of Sin (from Nocturne) are Duration draw cards that are non-terminal when played and provide a net of 2 or more cards over two or more turns.
Fringe examples
These cards are not usually considered Lab variants, but can play that role in some decks:
- Tribute and Ironmonger can act as Lab variants depending on what card is on top of your opponent's deck or your deck.
- Shanty Town acts as a Lab variant if you have no Action cards in hand, but otherwise decreases handsize.
- Diplomat acts as a Lab variant if your handsize is small, but otherwise is terminal.
- Secret Passage is a non-terminal source of +2 Cards, but then you return a card to your deck, so it maintains handsize rather than increasing it.
- Native Village and Crypt both hide away cards, rather than drawing them, but can non-terminally add them to your hand.
- Apprentice provides non-terminal draw if you trash a card costing
or more. - City provides non-terminal draw if one or more supply piles are empty.
- Crossroads provides non-terminal draw the first time you play it on a turn, if there are multiple Victory cards in your hand.
- Cultist is technically terminal, but will allow you to play additional Cultists after it.
- Fugitive is a non-terminal source of +2 Cards, but its required discard means it maintains handsize, rather than increasing it.
- Lost Arts, when used on a terminal draw pile, turns that card into non-terminal draw.
- Pathfinding, when used on a cantrip pile, turns that card into non-terminal draw.
- Settlers and Bustling Village provide non-terminal draw if the right cards are in your discard pile.
- Forum is a non-terminal source of +3 Cards, but its required discard means it maintains handsize, rather than increasing it.
- Imp allows you to play an Action that you don't yet have a copy of in play, which can make it non-terminal if the other Action you play also is.
- Avanto allows you to play a cantrip Sauna if you have one in your hand after drawing, giving you back the Action you used to play Avanto.
- Recruiter gives you Villagers if you trash a card with a non-zero coin cost, allowing you to recover the Action you used to play it if you want to. However, since trashing is mandatory, this doesn't actually increase handsize.
- Sheepdog can provide draw without using up an Action if you gain a card while you have it in hand.
- Goatherd provides non-terminal draw if your opponent trashed multiple cards on their last turn.
Specific-card drawers
These non-terminal cards only draw cards of a specific type or other category, and increase handsize if they find such cards.
- Scout draws Victory cards.
- Apothecary draws Coppers and Potions.
- Scrying Pool draws Actions.
- Hunting Party digs for a card not already in your hand.
- Vagrant draws more or less dead cards.
- Magpie draws Treasures.
- Settlers draws Coppers from your discard pile.
- Bustling Village draws Settlers from your discard pile.
- Patrician draws cards costing
or more. - Will-o'-Wisp draws cards costing
or less. - Seer draws cards costing from to
. - Hunter draws cards of different types.
