Alms

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Alms
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Matthias Catrein
Event text
Once per turn: If you have no Treasures in play, gain a card costing up to .

Alms is an Event from Adventures. It allows you to gain a card costing up to if you have no Treasures in play—even if you have no available to spend at all!

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You can only buy this once per turn.
• When you do, if you have no Treasures in play, you gain a card costing up to .
• The gained card comes from the Supply and is put into your discard pile.

Strategy

There is no strategy article for Alms, but it has been discussed on the forum.

Events are harder to rate than cards, but Alms is a game-changer, no doubt. For one thing, it completely throws a lot of opening theory out of the window, since it now enables / or even / openings. Alms typically does nothing on your big turns, as it does nothing when you have any Treasures in play, but it is almost always bought at least once in a game, as it mitigates the effects of bad draws or otherwise weak turns.

Alms is awesome with heavy trashing. Usually, your Chapel turns end without buying a card. With Alms, however, you can trash all of the junk out of your deck and STILL gain a good card up to .

Synergies

• Heavy trashing: Chapel, Count, Steward
• Good cards you might want multiples of in the opening: Spice Merchant, Ironmonger
• Virtual money with +Buy: Baron, Wine Merchant, Storeroom
• In Treasure-less decks, such as with Poor House, Alms can be bought even on your good turns
• Gainers: Workshop and friends
• Rushes and slogs, such as with Gardens
• Cards like Mint and Mandarin, which can remove played Treasures
• Treasure Map as you can get two of them into your deck before the first reshuffle.
• When used with Villa, you can get one extra coin and a +buy before playing treasures.
• Spoils since when they are played immediately go back to their pile.

Antisynergies

• Most money-based strategies
• Lack of good cards below
• Horn of Plenty
• Handsize attacks like Militia and Cutpurse are less effective
• Since buying Alms is not buying a card, the attacks from Haunted Woods and Swamp Hag also suffer

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Once per turn: If you have no Treasures in play, gain a card costing up to .	Adventures 1st Edition	April 2015
		Once per turn: If you have no Treasures in play, gain a card costing up to .	Adventures 2nd Edition	August 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text
Dutch	Aalmoes
Finnish	Almut
French	Aumône			Une fois par tour : si vous n'avez pas de carte Trésor en jeu, recevez une carte coûtant jusqu'a .
German	Almosen			Einmal pro Zug: Wenn du keine Geldkarten im Spiel hast, nimm dir eine Karte, die bis zu kostet.
Japanese	施し (pron. hodokoshi, lit. charity)			1ターンに1度のみ:場に財宝カードがない場合、コスト以下のカード1枚を獲得する。
Russian	Милостыня (pron. milostynya)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Late in the going, an Event wasn't seeming too hot, we never bought it. I needed a replacement and tried this. First it just gained you a card costing up to , no limits, because what, why not try that. As you can see instead it is a more sane thing that just means, you're never doing worse than a .

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Adventures

Donald X.'s opinion

Alms was a late one. It worked out, phew. It's more like a rules change than most of the Events that are like rules changes. We tried it without "once per turn" but it was cwazy. As LF notes it's hard to remember it later in the game, unless you've been using it a lot for some reason. As everyone notes it's nice with trashers. It can also be a boost in heavy attack games. This is all obvious but that's what I have to say about Alms.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Let's Discuss Adventures Events: Alms

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