Hermit
Hermit | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Dark Ages |
Illustrator(s) | Claus Stefan |
Card text | |
Look through your discard pile. You may trash a card from your discard pile or hand that is not a Treasure. Gain a card costing up to . When you discard this from play, if you did not buy any cards this turn, trash this and gain a Madman from the Madman pile. |
Hermit is an Action card from Dark Ages. It is a single-card trasher, since it lets you trash a card which is not a Treasure, and a gainer, since it lets you gain a cheap card (often a Silver). However, if you buy nothing on the turn you play a Hermit, you trash the Hermit and instead gain a Madman, a powerful one-shot card.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When you play this, look through your discard pile, and then you may choose to trash a card that is not a Treasure, from either your hand or your discard pile.
- You do not have to trash a card and cannot trash Treasures.
- A card with multiple types, one of which is Treasure (such as Harem from Intrigue), is a Treasure.
- After trashing or not, you gain a card costing up to .
- The card you gain comes from the Supply and is put into your discard pile.
- Gaining a card is mandatory if it is possible. Then, when you discard Hermit from play--normally, in Clean-up, after playing it in your Action phase--if you did not buy any cards this turn, you trash Hermit and gain a Madman.
- The Madman comes from the Madman pile, which is not in the Supply, and is put into your discard pile.
- It does not matter whether or not you gained cards other ways, only whether or not you bought a card.
- If there are no Madman cards left, you do not gain one.
- If Hermit is not discarded from play during Clean-up--for example, if you put it on your deck with Scheme (from Hinterlands)--then the ability that trashes it will not trigger.
- (This ruling is not accurate, see below)
Other Rules clarifications
- Buying a card with Black Market from the Black Market deck prevents a Madman gain, even if no card is bought during the player's Buy phase that turn.
- The example with Scheme is wrong, as Hermit is still discarded from play. In this scenario, two things happen simultaneously, and you get to choose the order :
- (Hermit) Trash the Hermit and gain a Madman
- (Scheme) Hermit goes on top of your deck
- If you resolve (1) then (2), you gain a Madman, the Hermit goes to the Trash, and then (2) doesn't do anything because Scheme lost track of the Hermit.
- If you resolve (2) then (1), you put the Hermit on top of your deck, then Hermit attempts to trash itself but fails because it lost track of itself, then you still gain a Madman because you do as much as you can of the Hermit statement.
- This works almost identically with Prince.
Strategy Article
In the early game, it can be used to trash Estates and Shelters and gain Silvers. In this role it might seem superficially similar to Jack of all Trades, but it is significantly weaker at this since it does not draw up to 5 cards - just plain Hermit-Big Money probably isn't that great. It can trash cards from your Discard pile, which makes it a tad better trasher, though.
At some point, you can forego your Buy for the turn to transform the Hermit into a Madman. This is sort of like a one-shot Tactician - you forego your buy in exchange for doubling your handsize on a future turn. You're not quite foregoing your whole turn because you did gain a card and lose a Hermit, but you're not quite doubling a future turn because playing a Madman starting from a normal 5-card hand will leave you with 8 cards and 2 actions, not as good as Tactician's 10 cards, 2 actions, 2 Buys. And since Hermit just looks at whether you bought anything, you can't do the equivalent of double Tactician.
If you use Hermit to gain a Hermit and buy nothing, then you've essentially spent your buy on a Madman. Not so bad.
Hermit may see extra use in games with Cursers. This will give the Hermit something useful to trash for much longer - and Hermit is pretty good at trashing Curses in a thick deck, since it can trash from the discard pile. It also might increase the value of Madman turns - it might be harder to reach or for important cards when you're being Sea Hagged all the time, but Madman will get you to your Goons or Forge or just Gold easily.
Hermit may be usable for mega-turns because of how Madman stacks. The first Madman you play in a turn gives you +4 Cards, the second would give you +7 Cards! Even with no other card draw, if you spend your Buys buying Hermits, Villages, Throne Rooms, or Bridges, you might be able to pull off a mega-turn when you get enough of those and a few Madmen.
Scheme and Prince allow you to get effectively infinite Madmen, by moving Hermit when it would be discarded, so that Hermit loses track of itself when trying to trash itself.
If you have comments on whether these strategies are viable, or ideas for other Hermit strategies, please feel free to discuss it on the forums!
Synergies/Combos
- Combo: Hermit and Market Square
- Cursers?
- Bridge and Highway?
- Rogue - allows you to restore Hermits that were trashed to obtain Madmen. This is especially useful when the stack of Hermits is empty because multiple players have pursued Madmen.
- Fortress - use Hermit on a Fortress in your discard pile to return it to your hand to use—while gaining a
Antisynergies
- Tactician?
- Handsize attacks. A Madman played from a Militia'd hand will only draw 2 cards, making it equivalent to a "level 1" City – better than nothing, but probably not worth the opportunity cost.
Alternate versions
Digital version for Dominion Online
German Version by HiG
Trivia
In other languages
- Dutch: Kluizenaar
- Finnish: Erakko
- French: Ermite
- German: Eremit
- HiG translation error : omitted "from the Madman pile."
- Japanese: 隠遁者 (pron. intonsha, lit. recluse)
- Korean: 은둔자 (pron. eundunja)
- Polish: Pustelnik (note: as referred to in Polish Empires rulebook)
- Russian: Отшельник (pron. otshyel'nik)
- Spanish: Ermitaño
Preview
Hermit turns into Madman, a card that isn't in the supply. You can't buy a Madman; if you want one, you have to get a Hermit and then not buy something. And then you only get it once! Somehow it's worth the trouble.
Turning a card into a specific new non-kingdom card requires a pile of ten of those cards. Yes do you really need ten, I know. But you do. And well how much of the set wanted to go to that stuff, rather than say new kingdom cards? So in the end I just did two of those. Now you know one of them.Secret History
I tried the bottom on another card that didn't survive, then put it here. Originally I thought I would have several cards that upgraded into specific non-supply cards, but each one both requires 10 extra cards to handle it, and gives me a card with a ton of text on it. So there are only two. The premise originally came from thinking about Pirate Ship, at a point when it was too late to change it. I realized that I could have made it that Pirate Ship either attacked or upgraded, and it upgraded into a Retired Pirate that made money. This change wouldn't have addressed any problems, it was just a cute thing I could have done, if I'd thought of it in time and had been willing to give up a card slot for it. So after that I planned on one day doing such cards. "If you didn't buy anything" was an obvious simple trigger, and a nice fit for a Hermit. If he doesn't go into town often enough, he goes mad.