Tracker

Tracker
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Fate
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Nocturne
Illustrator(s)	Martin Hoffmann
Card text
+ This turn, when you gain a card, you may put it onto your deck. Receive a Boon. Heirloom: Pouch

Tracker is an Action-Fate card from Nocturne. It's a terminal copper that also gives you a Boon, and allows you to topdeck cards you gain. Games using Tracker include the Heirloom Pouch.

FAQ

Other rules clarifications

Deprecated official FAQ (2021)

If you gain multiple cards with this in play, this applies to each of them - you could put any or all of them on top of your deck. This applies both to cards gained due to being bought, and to cards gained other ways with Tracker in play. Tracker is in play when you resolve its Boon, so if the Boon causes you to gain a card, for example a Silver from The Mountain's Gift, you can put that card onto your deck. In games using Tracker, replace one of your starting Coppers with a Pouch.

Strategy

Tracker is a cheap terminal copper which also offers two bonus effects: topdecking gained cards and a random Boon. None of its effects is usually very powerful individually, but the combination of small benefits makes Tracker passably useful, provided that you can spare the terminal space. Tracker comes with the Heirloom Pouch, which means that you always have at least one extra Buy available; in addition to slightly encouraging engine-building, a side-effect of this is that the opportunity cost of buying an early Tracker can be particularly low, since you may be able to afford another cheap card on the same turn. Although Tracker is cheap to buy, its main cost is that it is a terminal stop card. You typically do not want many copies of Tracker for this reason, and may opt to skip it entirely if your deck cannot easily handle it, e.g. because the draw or village support is weak, or if it is in competition with very strong cheap cards such as Lackeys.

Tracker’s is poor value for a stop card; its other effects are the main reason you might want a copy. The ability to topdeck any card that you gain is useful in several scenarios. Early in the game (and sometimes in a sloggy endgame), the impact of playing an important card (e.g. Sentry or an Attack like Witch) next turn rather than waiting until your next shuffle can be very high. Later in the game, topdecking a draw card or village can also be useful for reliability and setting up your next turn. More importantly, if you have enough terminal space, Tracker can also facilitate gain-and-play even when you don’t have overdraw, or when you want to play the gained card earlier in the turn.

As with other Fate cards, the Boons received with Tracker are random and can vary greatly in utility, but many of them can be helpful in the early stages of the game, e.g. trashing with The Flame's Gift or cycling through your shuffle with The Sun's Gift. Because Tracker is terminal, you will typically want to play it using your final Action of the turn, but it's worth considering the chance of this causing a detrimental effect, for example if you draw an Action card dead with The Sea's Gift or have to discard cards for The Wind's Gift. If you have the village support to allow it, playing Tracker earlier in the turn may enable you to make better use of certain Boons, as well as providing the option of topdecking any cards you gain later in your Action phase.

Since it begins in your deck, the extra gain that Pouch offers early in the game is especially helpful if you want to amass many copies of cheap cards such as Fool's Gold. After this stage, its value is heavily dependent on the strength of other sources of +Buy offered by the Kingdom. Pouch can occasionally be trashed eventually If there are better options available, e.g. Market Square, as it provides no more value than a Copper if you can’t make use of the extra Buy. However, if +Buy is otherwise unavailable or very weak, Pouch can continue to be a critical card in your deck, allowing you to build towards buying two Provinces per turn where this might have been otherwise impossible to do consistently. Finally, Pouch is an extra unique card in your deck, which can be beneficial in some cases, such as for Keep.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.

• zededarian's 2018 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+ Receive a Boon. While this is in play, when you gain a card, you may put that card onto your deck.   Heirloom: Pouch	Nocturne	November 2017
		+ Receive a Boon. While you have this in play, when you gain a card, you may put that card onto your deck.   Heirloom: Pouch	Nocturne (2021 printing)
		+ This turn, when you gain a card, you may put it onto your deck. Receive a Boon.   Heirloom: Pouch

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Spoorzoeker
French	Traqueur			+ Appliquez une Aubaine. Tant que cette carte est en jeu, quand vous recevez une carte, vous pouvez la placer sur votre pioche.   Patrimoine : Pochette
German	Fährtensucher			+ Empfange eine Gabe. Wenn diese Karte im Spiel ist und du eine Karte nimmst, darfst du die genommene Karte auf deinen Nachziehstapel legen.   Erbstück: Beutel	(2017)
	Fährtensucher			+ Wenn du in diesem Zug eine Karte nimmst, darfst du sie auf deinen Nachziehstapel legen. Empfange eine Gabe.   Erbstück: Beutel
Japanese	追跡者 (pron. tsuisekisha)			+ 祝福を1つ受ける。 これが場にある間、カード1枚を獲得するとき、それを山札の上に置いてもよい。   (家宝: 革袋)
Russian	Лямочник (pron. lyamochnik)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

One day I had the idea of having Fate cards that were combos with Boons. Looking through the Boons at the time, there were three areas the Fate card could potentially interact with: gaining cards, discarding cards, and the top of your deck. I tried gaining cards first, and we liked it so I tried the other two too; the discarding cards one survives as Faithful Hound, while the top of your deck one died. The gaining cards combo was Royal Seal's ability to put gained cards on your deck; you get The Swamp's Gift for example, and can put the Wisp on your deck. Briefly it tried being a twist on Royal Seal, where you also got a copy of the card from your discard pile onto your deck, but that didn't come up enough to be worth the text. And I tried letting you put the card anywhere in your deck; that didn't come up often enough either.

Tracker started out giving +2 Cards +1 Buy and a Boon on top, for . We had many long games with it. Eventually I came to my senses; it was simply not reasonable to put card-drawing on Fate cards. I tried out not always giving you the Boon, then dropped it down to + for . Then I tried some variations that twisted the Royal Seal part again, to set aside cards for next turn instead of putting them on your deck, but in the end it was back to Royal Seal and + for .

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

Relevant outtakes

One of the combo cards for Boons was +1 Card +1 Action, receive a Boon, name a type, reveal the top card of your deck, get it if it matches. It's poor to put the naming after the Boon; you forget about it, the Boon is too exciting. What killed it though was just being a cantrip that gave out Boons; even at , it slowed down games too much. I switched the type-naming to just hitting Treasure and Night cards, no choice, but that wasn't enough.

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