Loan
Loan | |
---|---|
Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Treasure |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Prosperity |
Illustrator(s) | Simon Jannerland |
Card text | |
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Treasure. Discard it or trash it. Discard the other cards. |
Loan is a Treasure card from Prosperity. When played, it digs through your deck for another Treasure card which you can trash or discard. Typically it is used to trash unwanted Copper, but can be frustrating in that you have no control over whether it will find a Copper or discard a Treasure you would have preferred to play..
It was removed from the second edition of Prosperity and replaced with Investment and Crystal Ball, new Treasures that can function as trashers.
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When you play Loan, you get , reveal cards from the top of your deck until revealing a Treasure card, and then decide whether to trash that card or discard it.
- Then you discard all of the other revealed cards.
- If you run out of cards before revealing a Treasure, shuffle your discard pile (but not the revealed cards) to get more; if you still do not find a Treasure, just discard all of the revealed cards.
Strategy
Before it was removed, Loan was a trasher of limited impact. Trashing is generally very good, but Loan is a weaker option for doing so because it is unable to trash the worst of your starting cards: Estates. If thinning is very valuable due to the availability of an engine with strong payload and you either have no better thinning option, or can pair Loan with a good Estate trasher, Loan can be helpful in the early game. When Loan is the only Copper trasher, it is often a difficult decision whether to purchase a Loan or to forgo trashing. In this context, Loan can be a good purchase when there is strong Action payload such as Goons or Bridge but the draw is unreliable. Loan is generally not useful in money strategies, and engines with very strong draw (such as Wharf) may be better off drawing through the Coppers rather than trashing them.
Loan’s main advantages in the early game are that it is non-terminal, only costs Coppers and Estates, acts similarly to a cantrip that can sift past Estates. This allows it to pair with other good opening cards, which are often terminal and may cost . Salvager is a good example of an Estate trasher that might work well alongside Loan for these reasons. The small amount of cycling in the early game helps you get to good cards faster.
, and, in a deck of mostlyOne of the disadvantages of Loan in the early game is that decks with Loan often struggle to hit high price points early. In the early game you often want to purchase at least one Silver or an equivalent source of in order to afford cards. Loan is a card you buy instead of a Silver, which means you’re less likely to hit important price points than someone who skips Loan. If Silver is your other opening buy, your Loan might find your Silver, both discarding it and also failing to trash a Copper. For this reason, players with Loan often try to avoid buying other Treasures, but following this rule may also slow down your build. Thus, building a deck that reliably trashes with Loan requires that you make effective use of sources of virtual coin such as Militia to make . Loan may still discard your Militia, but at least it will find a Copper to trash (and if it doesn’t discard your Militia, it will cycle towards it, so you should still get roughly the same number of Militia plays on average).
Later in the game, if you draw your deck, Loan will not trash any cards. If you are drawing your deck but still want to trash, you may need to use a card such as Oasis to discard a Copper before playing Loan.
Loan can also trigger a shuffle at an inopportune moment. If you know that you have no more Treasures in your draw pile and some in your discard, it can be important to choose not to play Loan so that you can shuffle the good cards you have in play or in your hand back into your deck at the end of the turn.
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 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
When you play this, reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Treasure. Discard it or trash it. Discard the other cards. |
Prosperity | October 2010 | ||
When you play this, reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Treasure. Discard it or trash it. Discard the other cards. |
Prosperity (2016 printing) | February 2017 | ||
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Treasure. Discard it or trash it. Discard the other cards. |
Prosperity (2020 printing) | October 2020 |
Other language versions
Trivia
Secret History
Retrospective
Donald X.'s thoughts on Loan being unpopular