Fool's Gold
| Fool's Gold | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
 |
| Type(s) | Treasure - Reaction |
| Kingdom card? | Yes |
| Set |
Hinterlands |
| Illustrator(s) | Ryan Laukat |
| Card text | |
If this is the first time you played a Fool's Gold this turn, + , otherwise + .When another player gains a Province, you may trash this from your hand, to gain a Gold onto your deck. | |
Fool's Gold is a Treasure-Reaction from Hinterlands, and it is the only Treasure-Reaction card in the game. While costing only , Fool's Gold gets progressively more powerful the more of them are played together.
FAQ
Official FAQ
- The first Fool's Gold you play in a turn is worth , and all further copies are worth .
- So if you play three of them, you get + + , or
total. - Fool's Gold is also a Reaction.
Other rules clarifications
- If you play the same Fool's Gold twice in the same turn (with Crown or Counterfeit), the second play will produce +.
- If another player gains a Province during your turn (e.g. you play a Governor and they trash a King's Court into Province), you can react with your Fool's Gold.
- Even if your 1st Fool's Gold gets blocked by Highwayman, your other Fool's Golds will still give +.
Strategy
Fool’s Gold is a cheap, dense payload card that is entirely reliant on colliding with copies of itself. As such, Fool’s Gold is most usable in Kingdoms with thinners, which can remove your starting cards and increase your odds of such collisions. Fool’s Gold is also good with sources of +Buy, both to get multiple copies of Fool’s Gold at once and to effectively utilize the potentially large amount of 
generated. Draw also works well with Fool’s Gold, as every additional stop card supported can be another generated. Fool's Gold is less likely to be impactful in Kingdoms lacking one or more of these effects.
Cards that provide multiple of the effects above synergize well with Fool’s Gold. Forager, Counterfeit, and Sanctuary all provide early thinning and +Buy so that you can start buying and colliding Fool’s Golds. On an early 
, a Mint (trashing 5 Coppers) can similarly be useful to both encourage collisions and quickly add more Fool’s Golds. Terminal draw cards with +Buy, such as Barge, also work nicely with Fool’s Gold, but will often appreciate other sources of thinning.
In Kingdoms with the right support, Fool’s Gold can be a very effective source of payload. Because of its cheap cost, with each additional copy generating but only costing , it’s easy to add to your deck and an effective way to rapidly increase your economic output. Additionally, with sufficient copies, it generates more per stop card than does Gold; three copies of Fool’s Gold generates the same amount of as three Golds or 
per card, four copies of Fool’s Gold generates 3.25 per card, and so on. Fool’s Gold is best added to your deck after you’ve begun working on your deck control, as if you can’t reliably line them up adding a Fool’s Gold is similar to buying a Copper.
Even in Kingdoms with the right support, Fool’s Gold still has some of the typical problems of Treasure-based payload. Most importantly, it’s a stop card that can cause even a strong engine to dud with unlucky shuffles. Second, because its use is restricted to the Buy phase, you cannot set up gain and play situations as you can with other strong payload cards such as Altar, and it anti-synergizes with Throne Room variants and draw to X.
Fool’s Gold’s Reaction is rarely worth using, as doing so likely reduces your generation for your coming turn, and trashing a Fool’s Gold reduces your odds of colliding them in future turns. As an example, if you have two Fool’s Golds in hand, Reacting and trashing one reduces your coming turn’s economy by in exchange for the turn after. In most cases, Reacting for a Gold is likely going to cause you to generate less than if you just keep the Fool’s Gold. Also, adding a stop card to the top of your deck is likely to cause an engine to dud.
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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
If this is the first time you played a Fool's Gold this turn, this is worth , otherwise it's worth . When another player gains a Province, you may trash this from your hand. If you do, gain a Gold, putting it on your deck. |
Hinterlands | October 2011 |
 |
 |
Worth if it's the first time you played a Fool's Gold this turn, otherwise worth . When another player gains a Province, you may trash this from your hand, to gain a Gold onto your deck. |
Hinterlands (2016 printing) | December 2016 |
|
 |
If this is the first time you played a Fool's Gold this turn, +, otherwise +. When another player gains a Province, you may trash this from your hand, to gain a Gold onto your deck. |
Hinterlands (2020 printing) Hinterlands (Second Edition) |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Czech | Kočičí zlato | ||||
| Dutch | Klatergoud (lit. shining gold) | ||||
| Finnish | Katinkulta | ||||
| French | Or des fous | ||||
| German | Katzengold |  |
Wenn du Katzengold zum ersten Mal in diesem Zug ausspielst, ist es wert, ansonsten ist es wert. Wenn ein Mitspieler eine Provinz nimmt, darfst du diese Karte aus deiner Hand entsorgen. Wenn du das machst: Nimm dir ein Gold und lege es auf deinen Nachziehstapel. |
(2011) "… | |
| German | Katzengold |  |
Wert , wenn dies das erste Mal in diesem Zug ist, dass du ein Katzengold ausgespielt hast, ansonsten Wert . Nimmt ein Mitspieler eine Provinz, darfst du diese Karte aus deiner Hand entsorgen, um ein Gold auf deinen Nachziehstapel zu nehmen. |
(2019) | |
| German | Katzengold |  |
Wenn dies das erste Mal in diesem Zug ist, dass du ein Katzengold gespielt hast: +, ansonsten +. Nimmt ein Mitspieler eine Provinz, darfst du diese Karte aus deiner Hand entsorgen, um ein Gold auf deinen Nachziehstapel zu nehmen. |
2. Edition (2022) | |
| Italian | Oro dello Stolto | ||||
| Japanese | 愚者の黄金 (pron. gusha no ōgon) | これがこのターンに使用した最初の愚者の黄金の場合、。それ以外の場合、。 他のプレイヤーが属州1枚を獲得するとき、手札からこれを廃棄してもよい。廃棄した場合、金貨1枚を山札の上に獲得する。 |
|||
| Polish | Złoto głupców | Jeśli po raz pierwszy zagrywasz w tej turze Złoto głupców +; w przeciwnym razie . Kiedy inny gracz dodaje Prowincję, możesz wyrzucić na Śmietnisko tę kartę z ręki, aby dodać Złoto na wierzch swojej talii. |
(2024) | ||
| Russian | Золото Дураков (pron. zoloto durakov) | ||||
| Spanish | Oro Falso (lit. fake gold) |
Trivia
Theme
Preview
, but two together are , and three are . Other quantities are left as an exercise for the reader.
Fool's Gold can also turn into Gold in the late game. You may not even want to do this when you're going all-out for Fool's Golds, but some games you just picked one up randomly when you had , or you got some to stop other players from getting all of them, or you got some and then realized, wait a minute, I do not have what I need to make this work. And then you wait patiently for someone to buy a Province, and cash in. The Gold you gain goes right on your deck, so you even have a chance to draw it before the game's over.Secret History
per copy you had, on a version of Ill-Gotten Gains. It needed a tortured wording to have it be that if you played three you got 
for each, since you play them one at a time. Bill Barksdale suggested having it be and then , which was much simpler. It's stronger when you have just two, and weaker when you have more than three, but that all worked out. Meanwhile the bottom started on a card in a later set, and bopped around a little before ending up here. At one point the Gold didn't go on top of your deck, but it's so late, it has to go there.
