Tactician
Tactician | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action - Duration |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Seaside |
Illustrator(s) | Martin Hoffmann |
Card text | |
If you have at least one card in hand, discard your hand, and at the start of your next turn, +5 Cards, +1 Action, and +1 Buy. |
Tactician is an Action and Duration card from Seaside. Tactician allows you to discard your hand this turn in order to essentially double your next turn: you get five extra cards in addition to one extra buy and one extra action.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- If you have no cards in hand, then Tactician does nothing more and is discarded in the same turn's Clean-up.
- If you do have at least one card, you discard your hand, Tactician stays in play, and at the start of your next turn you get +5 Cards, +1 Buy, and +1 Action (and Tactician is discarded that turn).
- If you use Throne Room on Tactician, you will discard your hand on the first play and will have no cards in hand for the second play (and so will not get the bonuses from it).
Other Rules clarifications
- You can Throne Room a Tactician, but (without a +1 Card token) you do not get any extra cards (as described above). Still the Throne Room (or its variants) stays in play.
- Like all Duration cards, Tactician only stays in play during your Clean-up phase if it will do something in a future turn. So, if you play Tactician but do not discard any cards, it will have no effect on your next turn and should be discarded during the same turn's Clean-up phase.
- When the +1 Card token is on Tactician, using a Throne Room variant on it becomes meaningful as it provides you a card to discard each time Tactician is played again.
Strategy
Tactician is generally used in one of two ways: Either you play Tactician at most every other turn, sacrificing your ability to use Treasures to buy cards on some turns in order to have other turns in which you can accomplish more with your deck; or you try to play one every turn, relying entirely on Action-based payload. These strategies are colloquially called Single Tactician and Double Tactician, respectively. Despite being the less obvious strategy, it is Double Tactician which reveals the real strength of the card: in Kingdoms with Tactician, you should think carefully at the start of the game about whether a Double Tactician strategy is viable.
Because playing Tactician is costly, you need a reason to build a Double Tactician deck. If draw is plentiful and reliable, and +Buy is easy to come by, skipping Tactician is likely to be the right choice. But if Tactician is the only source of +Buy or draw is unreliable, a Double Tactician deck is likely to be a strong option—if one can be built. A Double Tactician deck also typically needs Action-based sources of (maybe Conspirator) and a way to thin or sift through enough of your starting cards to allow you to reliably draw your Action payload and another Tactician. Note that Tactician is not generally a village in Double Tactician decks: you start each turn with two Actions, but you need to use one of those to play Tactician, so without another source of +Actions you can still only play one other terminal card.
Tactician synergizes with a number of cards which reduce the downside of having to discard your hand. The strongest synergies are with cards that let you play Tactician after you play your Treasures, such as in the combo with Black Market. Toil functions similarly. Tactician also synergizes with Vault and Storeroom, which turn your excess hand size into . Especially when using these cards, it is important to remember that Tactician needs to discard at least one card to activate its effect, so you should make sure to keep a card in hand for this purpose.
Single Tactician tends to be viable in an entirely different type of Kingdom. The main use case is in a slog, where it is hard to do much on a typical turn because your deck is filled with junk. Here, Tactician can help you to gain the occasional Province so that you can score more than your opponent. Tactician can also help you to line up cards that work together, such as Tournament and Province.
Tactician can also be purchased for a specific short-term purpose: You might buy one early to spike and purchase Inheritance or to trigger Magic Lamp, or you might purchase one later on with Innovation to set up your next turn. Although it’s rarely viable, players can sometimes aim to play more than one Tactician per turn: For example, if you Throne Room a Tactician in a hand with Village Green, you can play the discarded Village Green to draw another card, allowing your second Tactician play to take effect.
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.
Versions
English versions
Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
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Discard your hand. If you discarded any cards this way, then at the start of your next turn, +5 Cards, +1 Buy, and +1 Action. | Seaside 1st Edition | October 2009 | ||
If you have at least one card in hand, discard your hand, and at the start of your next turn, +5 Cards, +1 Action, and +1 Buy. | Seaside 2nd Edition | July 2017 |
Other language versions
Trivia
Though the play of a Tactician requires you to discard your hand, it is technically possible to play multiple Tacticians in one turn by other means than +1 Card token with a Throne Room variant. This can be done through the play of a Golem by drawing Tactician plus a non-terminal card such as Menagerie or Laboratory, or by using a Throne Room variant on a Herald or Vassal and revealing a Tactician followed by a drawing card (or, in the case of Herald, a second Tactician). Players, discovering this trick for the first time, generated many discussions on the forums (1,2,3,4,5,6).
Secret History