Souk
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| Souk | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
 |
| Type(s) | Action |
| Kingdom card? | Yes |
| Set |
Hinterlands |
| Illustrator(s) | Garret DeChellis |
| Card text | |
|
+1 Buy +  –  per card in your hand (you can't go below  ).When you gain this, trash up to 2 cards from your hand. | |
Souk is an Action card from Hinterlands (Second Edition). It's a source of +Buy that provides more virtual coin the smaller your handsize is. It also has a trashing effect when you gain it.
FAQ
Official FAQ
- For example, if you play Souk and have 3 other cards left in your hand, you'd get + (and +1 Buy), and then lose
for a net gain of +
. - You can't go below but might end up with less
than you started with. - When you gain Souk, trash up to 2 cards from your hand; you don't have to trash any.
Strategy
Souk can be very powerful, but requires several ingredients to be effective. When these ingredients are present, it is a game-changer. In a typical 5-card hand, if you cannot rid yourself of the other 4 cards, it is a terminal Gold, giving + and +1 Buy, which is not terrible, although it can become even weaker in the presence of card draw. If you manage to reduce your hand though, Souk quickly soars in value: with a 3-card hand it is worth , a 2-card hand, , and a 1-card hand, 
. If you somehow manage to end your turn with playing two Souks to empty your hand, you will net a whopping 
, which means with a bit more virtual coin, it is not hard to buy two Provinces in one turn. Ending your turn with three Souks also guarantees a double province buy.
More commonly though, Souk can just give you a fast path to single province buys. Souk can often be part of a rush strategy, especially if combined with cheap actions that synergize with it.
Actions providing +Action without card draw synergize particularly well with Souk, especially if they also provide virtual coin, as you can then rid your deck of treasures. Cards that allow you the option of discarding are even better. One of the best combos is with Hamlet which replaces itself but then allows you to discard up to two cards. Other good supporting cards include Oasis, Pawn, Squire, Villa, Town, Lighthouse, and Fishing Village. Capital City is a powerful combo too but is harder to set up as it also costs ; Festival is slightly less of a powerful combo and its cost is prohibitive but it can combine favorably with this card. The normally weak Cellar also becomes surprisingly useful when combined with Souk; it reduces handsize by 1, and can help you cycle to find other non-terminal actions. In general the cheaper cards are better, ideally the ones costing 
, because they can be bought quickly and their usual weakness of lack of draw and/or required discard becomes an asset in the presence of Souk.
Souk can be immensely powerful in thinned engines, and the trash-on-gain power synergizes with this, allowing you to thin your deck when you obtain it. To achieve this goal you usually need supplemental trashers, but if there are good villages you can sometimes achieve this by simply buying Souk repeatedly. Steward is a nice trasher that synergizes with Souk in the presence of villages, in that it can provide some virtual coin without card draw. Moneylender is another okay trasher that also provides some virtual coin. Regardless of the method of deck thinning, the thinning does not need to be perfect or thorough, especially in the presence of sifters.
In a game where Souk is strong, you often need to weigh the merits of a thinned engine going for a double province buy against a simple rush strategy.
Souk is also an obvious counter to handsize attacks; under the right circumstances these attacks will strengthen it. If you end up with a hand of Souk, a copper, and silver, you can buy a province, and the same is possible if drawing Souk with a helper card like Pawn. It is however more vulnerable to junking attacks, which tend to throw a wrench in engines while leaving you with full hands.
Synergies and Combos
- Rush: With a hand containing at most 2 cards you are willing to trash, you can gain-and-play Souks until the pile is empty.
- Capitalism: Capitalism allows you to play Souk in the Buy phase, which not only negates the need for Actions to play it, but also allows you to play it after playing other Treasures, drastically increasing the payload.
- Way of the Chameleon: Draw 7 cards and lose any you have accumulated so far (if any). And +1 buy.
Versions
English versions
| Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
 |
+1 Buy + – per card in your hand (you can't go below ).When you gain this, trash up to 2 cards from your hand. |
Hinterlands (Second Edition) | July 2022 |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German | Souk |  |
+1 Kauf + – pro Handkarte (du kannst nicht weniger als haben).Wenn du diese Karte nimmst, entsorge bis zu 2 deiner Handkarten. |
German print version mistakenly has Marcel-André Casasola Merkle credited as illustrator. | |
| Polish | Suk |  |
+1 zakup + – za każdą kartę, którą masz na ręce (nie możesz zejść poniżej ).Kiedy dodajesz tę kartę, wyrzuć na Śmietnisko maksymalnie 2 karty z ręki. |
(2024) |
Trivia
Preview
I like Cache, except for it being bad. If only I could move the +Buy from Margrave onto Cache (and from Wharf onto Merchant Ship). But I can't. And I mean. It's bad.
Souk is unrelated, beyond being another when-gain card. It rewards a small hand size, such as you might have after playing some filtering cards. And it gets in another when-gain trigger.
Secret History
