Magpie

Magpie
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Marco Morte
Card text
+1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Treasure, put it into your hand. If it's an Action or Victory card, gain a Magpie.

Magpie is an Action from Adventures. It is non-terminal draw that can only draw Treasures; if the next card is an Action or Victory card, it gains another Magpie, instead.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If the top card of your deck is a Treasure, it goes into your hand.
• If the card is not a Treasure, leave it on top of your deck.
• If the card is an Action card or Victory card, you gain a Magpie; once the Magpie pile is empty, revealing an Action or Victory card will not get you anything.
• If you reveal a Harem (from Intrigue), you both put it into your hand and gain a Magpie, since it is both a Treasure and a Victory card.

Strategy

Magpie is a strong cantrip that can act as a gainer for copies of itself, or provide non-terminal draw if a Treasure is on top of your deck after drawing the first card. The latter effect varies in strength: if Magpie will often reveal a Treasure, it can be almost as good as a Laboratory, while it may be little better than a cantrip on average if you have relatively few Treasures. However, the self-multiplying effect means that each Magpie after your first is effectively free; therefore, this first copy is almost always worth the investment, often in the opening, even if you intend to eventually build towards primarily non-Treasure payload.

In the early game, although drawing an extra Copper allows you to cycle through your deck more quickly and may help you afford a more expensive card that turn, gaining more copies of Magpie is generally still the more desirable outcome of playing one. This is because having an extra copy in your next shuffle will be significantly more impactful in the long run: it gives you a better chance of gaining even more Magpies, increasing your odds of adding even more free cards to your deck, which ultimately provides you with an advantage in terms of draw and deprives your opponent of this advantage. There is significant randomness involved in this process, so it may occasionally be worthwhile to improve your odds when the card is particularly important, for example by buying an extra copy of Magpie (or gaining one using a Workshop variant) rather than relying fully on its self-gaining effect. Occasionally, you can autopile the Magpies, e.g. if you have two copies of Magpie in hand, a third in your discard pile, and exactly one card left in your deck. Playing a Magpie then will draw the last card, topdeck the Magpie from your discard pile, and add another, so you can continue until the pile is empty. Dedicated topdecking effects like Watchtower may also enable a similar maneuver. Finally, because the early game usually involves a lot of Magpie gains, it can be an attractive target for Invest, as this turns your opponent's efforts to contest the pile into free draw for you.

Even if it is not the only form of draw, there are a few cases in which Magpie is especially useful in an engine, and it may therefore be particularly important to maximize your chances of winning the split:

1. If Treasures are the strongest available payload, which can happen with powerful Treasures (e.g. Horn of Plenty) or if you have to rely on Silver and Gold because there is no stronger Action-based alternative;
2. If it is difficult or impossible to thin your starting Coppers;
3. If you are making use of dual-type Action and Treasure cards (e.g. Crown, or with Capitalism).

Even if you have only a few Treasures, you may be able to use Magpie for consistent draw, increasing its importance, if you can inspect or influence the top cards of your deck, for example using Secret Passage. These effects can also be helpful to trigger the gaining effect while there are still Magpies available.

The possibility of obtaining many copies quickly and with minimal investment makes Magpie a prime target for certain effects that can make good use of abundant non-terminal Action cards, such as tokens from Teacher and Events like Pathfinding. It can also be used as fodder for trash-for-benefit and effects that need to return Action cards to the Supply: for example, you can play a Magpie for guaranteed draw with Way of the Horse or to gain a card costing with Way of the Butterfly and then immediately play another Magpie to regain the one you returned. Finally, since gaining many Magpies is so easy, the pile will usually empty quickly, making a pile-out more likely.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Treasure, put it into your hand. If it's an Action or Victory card, gain a Magpie.	Adventures	April 2015
		+1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a Treasure, put it into your hand. If it's an Action or Victory card, gain a Magpie.	Adventures (2016 printing) Adventures (2022 printing)	August 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Ekster			+1 Kaart +1 Actie Toon de bovenste kaart van je gedekte stapel. Is het een geld- kaart, neem deze dan in je hand. Is het een actie- of een overwin- ningskaart, pak dan een Ekster.	(2015)
Finnish	Harakka
French	Pie voleuse (lit. thieving magpie)
German	Elster			+1 Karte +1 Aktion Decke die oberste Karte deines Nachziehstapels auf. Ist es eine Geldkarte: nimm sie auf deine Hand. Ist es eine Aktions- oder Punktekarte: nimm eine Elster.	(Nachdruck 2021)
Japanese	カササギ (pron. kasasagi)			+1 カードを引く +1 アクション 山札の一番上のカードを公開する。それが財宝カードの場合、手札に加える。それがアクションカードまたは勝利点カードの場合、カササギ1枚を獲得する。 (両方に該当する場合、順に実行する)。
Russian	Сорока (pron. soroka)			+1 Карта +1 Действие Раскройте верхнюю карту вашей колоды. Еслн зто Сокровище, то положите его в руку. Еслн зто карта Действия или Победа, то получите Сороку.

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Recent studies show that magpies do not especially collect shiny objects. These are folklore magpies though, which still do. Magpie might find you a treasure, or perhaps just reveal another Magpie. Over time a single Magpie can turn into a whole flock of them. There are just ten Magpies in the pile; they're not Rats with wings.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Adventures Previews #1 - Lost City, Magpie, Hero

Secret History

Wei-Hwa Huang visited us early on, and in a discussion of an old version of Peasant, commented on the possibility of doing them something like Rats. I immediately latched onto the idea of doing a new Rats. A friendly Rats. Now the beauty of Rats is that it helps you but then starts to hurt you. Magpie just hurts itself. It's not Rats, it's a different thing. It does give you more Magpies though. I tried a few different versions and preferred this one.

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

Why doesn't Magpie have more copies in its pile?

Rats got the extra cards for balance reasons. It's not just balance for the person buying Rats; with 10 Rats, the person not buying Rats would sometimes snag a late Rats for a downside-free trasher. Now they have to wait longer for that and so it's less useful.

Port got extra cards to divide evenly in 2-player games. Hooray, it also worked for 3-player games. This was Sir Martin's suggestion.

Magpie didn't have these reasons pushing for more cards. I would not say that more Magpies would make it stronger across the board. However some games there's Training or Vineyard or something, and then it's good that there aren't more of them.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Is Magpie swingy?

I still like Magpie. There are other people who like it too; it's not universally hated. The whole game snowballs. I think your opponent having most of the Magpies also feels worse than it is; a lot of them end up just cantrips that do nothing. I mean it's good to get most of the Magpies, man, I'm not saying it isn't.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Donald X.'s opinion

Magpie does fit, with Ironmonger and Tournament, into the family of cards that help you go for on turn 3 without opening with Silver. That was a thing Stef didn't like about it; he wanted to have that Silver (that he didn't want) pushed at him. I think it's fine if some games there's one of those cards though.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Let's Discuss Adventures Cards: Magpie