Plaza

Plaza
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Guilds
Illustrator(s)	Ryan Laukat
Card text
+1 Card +2 Actions You may discard a Treasure for +1 Coffers.

Plaza is an Action card from Guilds. It is a village that allows you to exchange Treasure cards in your hand this turn for money in the form of Coffers to spend later.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• First you draw a card and get +2 Actions; then you may discard a Treasure.
• You can discard the card you drew if it is a Treasure.
• If you discarded a Treasure, you add a token to your Coffers mat.

Strategy

Plaza is a useful village that offers a relatively weak bonus in the form of a discard-for-benefit effect that can generate Coffers. Like any other village, it can play an important role in enabling engine building, although many alternative options (such as Wandering Minstrel) usually offer better value at the price point if you have the choice. Also as with other villages, Plaza is best added to your deck as soon as you have established some deck control and have multiple terminals that you want to be able to play on the same turn, typically in the early midgame.

Plaza is usually best thought of as economy neutral, shifting from turn-to-turn via Coffers, rather than a net increase to your economy. Before you can draw your deck, Plaza can help you to smooth out your between turns or save up to spike a higher price point by discarding a Treasure (usually Copper) that you don’t need this turn. Occasionally, this can mean that Plaza is an attractive addition to your deck slightly earlier than other villages would be. Once you can draw your deck, this use case is less valuable, but the improved flexibility of Coffers compared to means that it’s still often worth discarding a Copper to make this exchange. Plaza’s bonus effect can also increase your total available if you have overdraw or can make use of a specialized effect like Settlers to draw the discarded Treasure back into your hand. Additionally, discarding a Treasure can sometimes provide other benefits, notably with draw-to-X effects such as that of Watchtower, where Plaza effectively allows you to sift past a Treasure to draw an extra card; similarly, Poor House can generate more if you discard a Treasure before playing it. In these scenarios, discarding more valuable Treasures than Copper can often be reasonable.

If you will be triggering a reshuffle it's usually a bad idea to discard with Plaza, as doing so adds stop cards to that new shuffle; this means there are cases in which it’s best not to discard even though you would prefer the Coffers to the extra from a Treasure in hand. In some cases, you may be able to delay playing Plaza until after triggering a reshuffle, although this will sometimes be impossible given your needs for terminal space. Similarly, playing other draw cards before Plaza may be worthwhile if you would like to generate a Coffers but have not drawn a Treasure yet.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Card +2 Actions You may discard a Treasure card. If you do, take a Coin token.	Guilds	June 2013
		+1 Card +2 Actions You may discard a Treasure for +1 Coffers.	Guilds & Cornucopia (2017 printing)	March 2018
		+1 Card +2 Actions You may discard a Treasure for +1 Coffers.	Cornucopia & Guilds (Second Edition)	March 2024

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Plaza
Finnish	Suihkulähde (lit. fountain)
French	Place du village
German	Platz			+1 Karte +2 Aktionen Du darfst eine Geldkarte ablegen. Falls du das tust, nimm dir eine Münze.	(2013)
	Platz			+1 Karte +2 Aktionen Du darfst eine Geldkarte für +1 Taler ablegen.	(2019)
Japanese	広場 (pron. hiroba)			+1 カードを引く +2 アクション コイントークン1枚を得るために、財宝カード1枚を捨て札にしてもよい。
Korean	광장 (pron. gwangjang)
Polish	Rynek				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Площадь (pron. ploshshad')

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Originally this also let you trade a coin token for +1 Card. The card was plenty good without that, plus I wanted to cut complexity wherever I could.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Guild Cards