Exorcist
Exorcist | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Night |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Nocturne |
Illustrator(s) | Joshua Stewart |
Card text | |
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a cheaper Spirit from one of the Spirit piles. |
Exorcist is a Night card from Nocturne. It's a trasher that can gain Spirits, and is the only card that refers to the Spirit type.
Contents |
[edit] FAQ
[edit] Official FAQ
- The Spirits are Will-o'-Wisp, Imp, and Ghost.
- If for example you trash a Silver, you can gain a Will-o'-Wisp or Imp, as those both cost less than Silver.
[edit] Strategy
Exorcist is a Night card and trasher that can also gain Spirits. Exorcist can trash any kind of junk, although its trash-for-benefit effect makes it better at trashing Estates or Shelters than cards costing (most notably your starting Coppers), for which it provides no additional benefit. Even if a more efficient thinning option is available, Exorcist can be important as a way to access Spirits, which are sometimes the only available source of draw or a village effect.
Exorcist is a particularly effective early game trasher, as using it to trash an Estate and gain a Will-o'-Wisp has a twofold effect on deck control: not only does this thin your deck by replacing a stop card with a cantrip, the Will-o'-Wisp also has a good chance of acting as non-terminal draw, given that your deck mostly consists of Coppers at this point. For this reason, Exorcist is often a strong opening purchase unless there are even faster ways to get thin (e.g. Chapel), or your priority is to hit a high price point, typically . As a Night card, Exorcist consumes no terminal space, so unlike a terminal trasher (such as Priest), it can be paired with a useful terminal (for example Peasant) without risk of terminal collision. If you cannot trash an Estate (either because you’ve trashed all of them already, or you’ve failed to collide them with your Exorcist), trashing a Copper is still thinning, but with much less benefit. Exorcist thus tends to work well with effects that can either encourage collision (e.g. Gear) or trash Coppers more effectively (e.g. Bonfire), while copies of Exorcist beyond the first will have diminishing returns.
When viewed as a gainer, Exorcist’s relevance depends on two primary considerations: the relevance of the Spirits you can gain, and the effort necessary to provide fodder to trash. In some cases, Exorcist's ability to gain Imp or Ghost can provide access to effects that might otherwise be unavailable in the Kingdom, specifically reliable draw and/or villages. These effects might be particularly important if they would allow you to support more payload, particularly stop cards such as Horn of Plenty (with Imp) or terminals such as Bridge (with Ghost). On the other hand, the overall cost of acquiring these Spirits can be rather high. Acquiring suitable trashing targets can have a high opportunity cost, especially if you need them to be expensive enough to gain a Ghost, and it can take multiple turns to ultimately play your gained Spirit, as you need to gain your fodder, collide it with Exorcist, trash it during the Night phase, and then draw and play the Spirit. As a result, doing this many times to amass large numbers of Spirits is often only worthwhile if the payoff is particularly high, though it can be substantially easier with the proper gainers providing fodder. Good trashing targets for obtaining the more expensive Spirits include cards that you no longer need, such as a trasher or Silver that you used in the early game, and easily gained cards of limited utility: for instance, a Gold gainer can provide fodder for Exorcist to gain Ghost, while a spare Horse can be turned into an Imp that won't leave your deck. Other good targets include those that are generally useful with trash-for-benefit effects, such as Rats, Fortress, or cards you only wanted for their on-gain effects, e.g. Cemetery. If Spirits are particularly important and you have sufficient gainers providing fodder, it can be reasonable to gain a second Exorcist with the intent of using it solely to gain Spirits more quickly.
[edit] Versions
[edit] English versions
Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
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Trash a card from your hand. Gain a cheaper Spirit from one of the Spirit piles. | Nocturne | November 2017 |
[edit] Other language versions
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[edit] Secret History
[edit] Donald X.'s opinion