Thief
Thief | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action - Attack |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Base |
Illustrator(s) | Julien Delval |
Card text | |
Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck. If they revealed any Treasure cards, they trash one of them that you choose. You may gain any or all of these trashed cards. They discard the other revealed cards. |
Thief is an Action-Attack card from the Base set. It allows you to 'steal' Treasures from opponents by making them trash treasures from the top 2 cards of their deck and then letting you gain them. It is great when your opponents have trashed all of their Coppers and gained other Treasures, or when you have multiple opponents, but not so good when you're likely to be trashing your opponent's Coppers for them; it also gives you no bonus on the turn you play it. It is similar to Noble Brigand from Hinterlands, which addresses these weaknesses.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- A player with just one card left reveals that last card and then shuffles to get the other card to reveal (without including the revealed card); a player with no cards left shuffles to get both of them.
- A player who still doesn't have two cards to reveal after shuffling just reveals what he can.
- Each player trashes one Treasure card at most, of the attacker's choice from the two revealed cards, and then you gain any of the trashed cards that you want.
- You can only take Treasures just trashed—not ones trashed on previous turns. You can take none of them, all of them, or anything in between.
- Put the Treasures you decided to gain into your Discard pile. The ones you choose not to gain stay in the Trash pile.
Other Rules clarifications
The treasures are trashed and then gained, so any things that happen on-trash happen first, and then any on-gain abilities activate afterwards.
Strategy Article
Currently, there is no Thief strategy article.
Thief is typically a very weak card, and was at one point voted the Worst card. (It later lost this spot to Scout). Thief appears strong to many new players, who remember the times Thieves stole their Gold but forget the times Thieves cleared out all their useless Coppers. In practice, Thief is often very weak for the following reasons:
- It gives you no benefit when played. The treasure you get is delayed by a shuffle, and if the Thief had been a better action card or a Silver, you could have probably bought a good card instead of having to steal one.
- It often helps the opponent by clearing out their Coppers.
- Thief is also significantly weaker in 2-player than in 4-player. It's not unusual for the Thief attack to have no effect at all, if your opponent reveals two Action or Victory cards!
So in many cases, Thief is unlikely to hit anything good; the cases where Thief is likely to be good are listed below in the Synergies section.
Synergies/Combos
- Opponents' heavy trashing allows the Thief to have a high chance of stealing good cards, if the main source of money is still Silver and Gold.
- Alternate Treasure-based decks such as those relying on a high Venture or Fool's Gold density are vulnerable to Thief.
- When you have more than one opponent, Thief becomes a reasonable Gardens enabler.
- King's Court can facilitate a very large number of Thief plays, and it is possible to deplete your opponent of treasure entirely!
- Top-deck inspection attacks such as Spy, Oracle, or Scrying Pool allow you to get a good treasure on top of your opponents' decks.
Antisynergies
- When the opponent does not trash their own Coppers, Thief is likely to hit Coppers, helping them.
- An engine made up of mostly Actions is unlikely to be hurt by Thief, even if the engine has a few Golds or Silvers in it.
- Actions which give +$ make Thief ineffective.
Trivia
In other languages
- Czech: Zloděj
- Dutch: Dief
- French: Voleur
- German: Dieb
- Hungarian: Tolvaj
- Italian: Ladro
- Japanese: 泥棒 (pron. dorobō)
- Norwegian: Tyv
- Polish: Złodziej
- Romanian: Hoțul
- Russian: Вор (pron. vor)
- Spanish: Ladrón
Secret History
Retrospective