Cache
Cache | |
---|---|
Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Treasure |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Hinterlands |
Illustrator(s) | RC Torres |
Card text | |
When you gain this, gain two Coppers. |
Cache is a Treasure card from Hinterlands. It is worth , like Gold, but comes with the (typically) drawback of gaining two Coppers. It is most useful when you either don't mind the additional Copper, such as with Duke or Gardens, or you can deal with the Copper, such as with Trader, Spice Merchant, or Watchtower.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- This is a treasure with , like Gold. When you gain it, you also gain two Coppers from the Supply.
- If there are not two Coppers left, just gain as many as you can.
- You gain only Coppers when you gain Cache, not when you play it.
- You gain Coppers whether you gained Cache due to buying it, or gained it some other way.
Other Rules clarifications
Strategy Article
Originally posted by Insomniac on the forum
Cache is a card that is often overlooked because of the Copper it comes with but when is Cache good? There are some obvious good uses like Gardens but there are other times too.
Implications in Big Money
In Big Money you want 1.6 / Card on average in a province game and 2.2 / Card in a Colony game. Cache gives 1.6667 / Card this makes it acceptable in Province games but rather poor in a Colony game. However, even in a Province game your still going to want Gold to counteract those green cards you buy.
Implications in an Engine
In an engine Cache is usually terrible it adds 3 cards to your deck and only one of them is ever useful, (Copper is normally terrible). Their are exceptions but these are usually things like Counting House which are cards that conflict in cost with Cache and are generally sub par.
Attacks
- Cursers: In a game with cursers cache will really shine. In a game with cursers it is often extremely hard to reach 6 and you might have to gear up for a Duchy buyout. In these games Cache will add value to your deck and possibly allow for a Province buy or two as well as some Gold potential. These are the games when the Copper actually helps as well since for a Duchy you only need an average of 1 / Card to buy a Duchy. And the 3 cards is going to dilute how often you see the Curses.
- Discarders: In games where you're discarding cards its going to depend on the frequency of those discard attacks whether or not cache is useful. If they are common then Cache is going to add some value to your hands while providing fodder to hands to discard. In these games you might want a few Caches but depending on the length of the game you probably don't want more than 2. In games where you aren't discarding all the time you want to ignore Cache and just go for Gold.
The Elusive 5 Costs
In games where there is a conflicting card that you want is where there is going to be a bit more of a decision regarding cache.
- Duke: In Duke games you want a money value of /card. When you have you have 2 targets already Duchy and Duke so when do you have time to buy Cache? If the board has extra buys Cache is more ignorable as your extra buys can nab Copper into your deck. The times you're going to want Cache in Duke games are when you don't have extra buys. In games where you don't have extra buys you can green out your deck more and then buy a Cache. In order to do this you're going to need to have one of two things happen though, either your opponent needs to be on a Province strategy so that you have more time to buy Duchies and Dukes, or when you are expliciltly ahead on Duchies/Dukes. You want to be in a position where if they buy a Duchy/Duke next turn your STILL ahead, in other words you have at least 2 more of whichever part of the game its in. A final note, if you probably won't reshuffle before the game ends you still want the best green card you can buy here.
- Counting House: Counting House returns all coppers to your hand and Cache adds coppers to your deck so this is actually a good thing right? In truth it depends Counting house collides with cache as a 5 cost so thats a bad thing but normally you don't want too many counting houses so cache isn't actually replacing your counting house buy. The other scenario you want cache is when you can gain a cache during your action phase and play a counting house after (adding 2 to your hand value) The scenarios where this can happen are fairly rare as your going to need a gainer, possibly a cost reducer and some card draw so its probably to complicated to go after in most games. when you could just gain the copper instead.
- Hunting Party: Hunting Party stacks in Colony games have Platinum/Gold/Silver/Copper which gets you to 11 and a Colony. In Province games you need either a 2 cost terminal or an additional money card. In the presence of Cache, Hunting Party can skip either the Gold and green earlier or the terminal silver (as you'll have 9). Since Hunting Party ignored duplicates the other Coppers don't hurt as much as other decks, but you probably only want 1 Cache here, and you probably want it after you've purchased a Hunting Party or two.
Other scenarios
The other times Cache is good is when you want a large deck or you have a 5 buy are ahead in green and your decks average card value is getting low. This is normally in the alternate vp strategies, Silk Roads/Gardens come to mind.
- Apothecary: Apothecary goes really well with Cache because Apothecary loves Copper. The downside here is that a [[Potion 99 is needed but in some scenarios you might want that potion anyways (Familiar) and Apothecary is actually good enough to warrant the Potion in this case anyways. Even without additional buys you're grabbing a Gold and 2 Coppers which further enable your Apothecary's grab all Potions and Coppers ability.
- Trader: In games with Trader when you buy a Cache you can turn the Copper into Silver (Assuming a hand with and Trader). This brings the average card value up from 1.6667 to a whopping 2.3333 . This makes Cache playable in Colony games and a power house in Province games.
- Sifters (Warehouse/Cellar/etc.): In games where you have sifters like Warehouse/Cellar Cache's downside is mitigated by the fact that you can sift your Coppers into higher value money cards like the Cache's and Golds in your deck. It is important to remember that sifters do cost a card here though so you want to buy Golds and probably a few Silvers still.
- Watchtower: Watchtower has a benefit similar to Trader. If you buy Cache with a Watchtower in hand you can trash those Coppers making the Cache a Gold at the pricepoint. On top of that the Watchtower can topdeck the Cache, increasing the benefit of your next turn, allowing for buying more Caches or an early acceleration into Province buying.
- Noble Brigand: Unlike Thief, Noble Brigand only hits specific types of money and Cache and Copper aren't one of them. The added Copper makes your deck more resiliant to the "gain a Copper" portion of Noble Brigand and Cache can't be stolen by Noble Brigand like Silver and Gold.
- Spice Merchant: Spice Merchant is a Lab or Silver with a buy. The catch is you have to trash a treasure from your hand, with Cache on board this is a good thing because you can trash the Coppers that Cache gives you. This keeps Spice Merchant active even longer into the game then normal where normally one is adequate.
Synergies/Combos
- Duke
- Big Money Province Games
- Gardens (And other times you want a large deck) (Philosopher's Stone)
- Other Alternate VP Strategies (Green a little harder then get your money back up)
- Certain Counting House Boards
- Attacks - Dependant better in curse slogs
- Apothecary
- Coppersmith
- Trader
Antisynergies
- Engine boards/decks
- Colony Games
Trivia
Secret History