Sauna

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Sauna
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Promo
Illustrator(s)	Ossi Hiekkala
Card text
+1 Card +1 Action You may play an Avanto from your hand. This turn, when you play a Silver, you may trash a card from your hand.

Sauna is a promotional Action card. It's a cantrip that allows you to trash a card when you play a Silver. It is a split pile card, with five copies of Sauna sitting on top of five copies of Avanto.

FAQ

Unofficial FAQ (2022)

• When you play Sauna, you first draw a card and get +1 Action.
• You may then immediately play an Avanto from your hand. This does not take up one of your Actions, including the Action provided by Sauna.
• You can only play an Avanto this way directly after playing the Sauna, not if you played another Action card in between, even if you have a Sauna in play.
• When you play Avanto, you first draw 3 cards.
• You may then immediately play a Sauna from your hand. This does not take up any of your Actions, and Sauna will still give you +1 Action if you play it this way.
• You can only play a Sauna this way directly after playing the Avanto, not if you played another Action card in between, even if you have an Avanto in play.
• You can play Sauna and Avanto in alternation this way, taking up only the Action for the first of the cards you play.
• You can do this until you don't have the respective card in hand after playing the other.
• When you play a Sauna, you cannot immediately play a Sauna from your hand without using up one Action. The same goes for playing Avanto after Avanto.
• Once you have played a Sauna, you can trash a card from your hand anytime you play a Silver later that turn.
• If you play the same Silver several times, such as with Counterfeit (Dominion: Dark Ages) or Crown (Dominion: Empires), you may trash a card each time you play the Silver.
• You do not have to trash anything when you play a Silver.
• You can decide whether to trash a card every time you play a Silver, you do not have to decide once for the entire turn.
• When you have played several Saunas, or have played the same Sauna multiple time (e.g. with Throne Room), and then play a Silver, you can trash a card from your hand for every time you have played a Sauna. You can still decide to not trash a card each time.

Other rules clarifications

In 2022, Sauna got errata to let its trashing effect not depend on the Sauna being in play, but rather be an effect of having played the Sauna.

Deprecated official FAQ (2016)

When you play Sauna, you first draw a card and get +1 Action. You may then immediately play an Avanto from your hand. This does not take up one of your Actions, including the Action provided by Sauna. You can only play an Avanto this way directly after playing the Sauna, not if you played another Action card in between, even if you have a Sauna in play. When you play Avanto, you first draw 3 cards. You may then immediately play a Sauna from your hand. This does not take up any of your Actions, and Sauna will still give you +1 Action if you play it this way. You can only play a Sauna this way directly after playing the Avanto, not if you played another Action card in between, even if you have an Avanto in play. You can play Sauna and Avanto in alternation this way, taking up only the Action for the first of the cards you play. You can do this until you don't have the respective card in hand after playing the other. When you play a Sauna, you cannot immediately play a Sauna from your hand without using up one Action. The same goes for playing Avanto after Avanto. While Sauna is in play, you can trash a card from your hand anytime you play a Silver. If you play the same Silver several times, such as with Counterfeit (Dominion: Dark Ages) or Crown (Dominion: Empires), you may trash a card each time you play the Silver. You do not have to trash anything when you play a Silver. You can decide to trash a card every time you play a Silver, you do not have to decide once for the entire turn. When Sauna leaves play, such as being trashed with Procession (Dominion: Dark Ages), you cannot use its effect anymore. When you have several Saunas in play and play a Silver, you can trash a card from your hand for every Sauna you have in play. You can still decide to not trash a card each time.

Strategy

At first glance, Sauna/Avanto seems like an overpowering monolithic combo-- providing draw, a village effect, and trashing all in one. Indeed, at low to moderate levels of play simply buying Saunas and Avantos will often win if not contested; a deck that consists of several of both and exactly $8 in money will draw deck and be able to purchase a Province extremely consistently (further, once able to draw the entire deck, it can often trash all unnecessary cards for even further consistency). Likewise, if contested in a monolithic strategy, having 3 of the Saunas and Avantos can be a decisive advantage (you could also imagine simple extensions of this scenario, where Saunas are effectively the only village, or Avantos the only draw).

However, at higher levels of play and with recent expansions increasing the average power of a card, straight Sauna/Avanto is rather infrequently the best strategy available on a given board. The main reason is that, if uncontested, Sauna/Avanto is very slow to start up. Saunas are typically weak on their own, especially en masse, and the deck only begins to kick off once it has Avantoes. Versus a player ignoring the pile, a Sauna/Avanto player needs to spend $25 and 6 Buys (5 Sauna + 1 Avanto) to even acquire their first draw card. Those eight or so turns can be used to build an engine more smoothly, often containing gainers, +buy, and more efficient forms of payload that could Province sooner, double Province, or simply have endgame potential.

Another minor point is that the opponent can steal the Avantoes from you, and their deck will probably be better at gaining $5s than yours is. Some more minor but still important considerations include:

a) if you're truly going monolithic, you'll have to buy the 5th Sauna and uncover Avanto for your opponent, which will likely enable them to get three of the Avantoes;

b) supposing your opponent has built another kind of engine in the meantime, Avantoes aren't even that bad for them; even without the Sauna effect they are expensive Smithies.

Now, there are situations which mitigate many of the downsides listed above. The main case is when Sauna is the best trasher available, and you need to get 1-2 anyway to get your deck clean. At times, if both players do this, you might come close to uncovering the Avantoes, and it might be situationally useful to get Avantoes now that the opportunity cost has been lowered. Situations essentially like this probably describe the majority of situations in which top players against top players will get Saunas + Avantoes.

A second context is with a card that can gain extra actions, which will lower the opportunity cost of gaining several Saunas and maybe Avantoes, and also will help avoid the problem named above of having to uncover the Avantoes for your opponent. (Keep in mind, though, that you need the capacity to gain the Sauna and buy an Avanto with your remaining cards, which isn't always that easy. Also, your opponent could get a gainer to help build their engine, and then you might have to play this sort of endgame-y dynamic in order to try to be the first to get Avantoes).

In summary, monolithically going straight for Sauna/Avanto is often not the best strategy, but there are several factors that might make it more appealing, and if the Saunas start to run (or if you're against a person that goes for monolithic S/A anyway), you will often need to keep your eye out for opportunities to be the first to grab Avantoes. As such, the presence of Sauna/Avanto often induces some interesting strategy considerations on a board, even if ultimately no one even gains any Avantoes.

An occasionally important tactics note: if you have more Saunas than Avantos in your draw pile, and you draw both a Sauna and an Avanto, you should probably play the Sauna first. The situation is reversed if you have more Avantos than Saunas in your draw pile. This maximizes the number of likely free plays.

Example Kingdoms

Where Sauna is strong

Example 1 [images]
	Bridge Troll			Rabble			Scepter			Wayfarer			Prince
	Caravan Guard			Masterpiece			Trade Route			Village			Sauna/Avanto
Landscapes and Additional Cards
	Dominate			Way of the Monkey

Sauna is good here because:

• The board allows for playing a large number of Bridge Trolls, which makes that the goal - trashing will help this deck become consistent faster
• Sauna is a better trasher than Trade Route - it is non-terminal and is not a stop card
• Avanto may not be uncovered here - there is plenty of draw with Wayfarer coming at a lower price and a player is unlikely to feel the need to have more than 2 Saunas for trashing

Example 2 [images]
	Embassy			Mint			Soothsayer			Tragic Hero			Nobles
	Raze			Amulet			Sauna/Avanto			Artificer			Displace
Landscapes and Additional Cards
	Trade

Sauna is good here because:

• The presence of Displace makes it likely that you will want to play multiple terminal actions each turn, which requires a village
• The other village here is Nobles, which is too expensive to be using exclusively when there are other options
• Using Sauna/Avanto chains for draw will lessen the number of villages here which need to be used for draw, which allows more payload playing

Where Sauna is weak

Example 3 [images]
	Sauna/Avanto			Coven			Pooka			Recruiter			Forge
	Candlestick Maker			Bureaucrat			Conspirator			Diplomat			Port

Sauna is not good here because:

• Recruiter and Pooka together provide ample trashing which Sauna will be slower than
• Port and Recruiter are both strong villages, so that aspect of Sauna is not needed
• Diplomat provides draw; however, Avanto will be better if an opponent takes the time to uncover it, but by then you should be well ahead from not using your buys on unnecessary Saunas

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Card +1 Action You may play an Avanto from your hand. While this is in play, when you play a Silver, you may trash a card from your hand.	Sauna/Avanto	September 2016
		+1 Card +1 Action You may play an Avanto from your hand. This turn, when you play a Silver, you may trash a card from your hand.	Replacing "while this is in play"	June 29, 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Finnish	Sauna			+1 Kortti +1 Toiminta Voit pelata Avannon kädestäsi. Kun pelaat Hopean tämän kortin ollessa pelissä, voit tuhota kortin kädestäsi.	(2016)
French	Sauna			+1 Carte +1 Action Vous pouvez jouer un Trou dans la glace de votre main. Lorsque cette carte est en jeu, quand vous jouez un Argent, vous pouvez écarter une carte de votre main.
German	Sauna			+1 Karte +1 Aktion Du darfst ein Eisloch aus deiner Hand ausspielen. Solange diese Karte im Spiel ist: Wenn du ein Silber ausspielst, darfst du eine Handkarte entsorgen.	(2016)
	Sauna			+1 Karte +1 Aktion Du darfst ein Eisloch aus deiner Hand ausspielen. Solange diese Karte im Spiel ist: Wenn du ein Silber ausspielst, darfst du eine deiner Handkarten entsorgen.	(2019)
	Sauna			+1 Karte +1 Aktion Du darfst ein Eisloch aus deiner Hand spielen. Wenn du in diesem Zug ein Silber ausspielst, darfst du eine deiner Handkarten entsorgen.
Japanese	サウナ (pron. sauna)			+1 カードを引く +1 アクション 手札のアヴアント1枚を使用してもよい。 これが場にある間、銀貨を使用するとき、手札1枚を廃棄してもよい。
Polish	Sauna			+1 karta +1 akcja Możesz zagrać Przerębel z ręki. Kiedy ta karta znajduje się w grze i zagrywasz Srebrnika, możesz wyrzucić na śmietnisko kartę z ręki.	(2016)
Russian	Сауна (pron. sauna)

Trivia

Official card art.

Sauna/Avanto was the first Promo to be released under the second edition format.

Secret History

The Finnish publisher wanted a promo, to celebrate a company anniversary I think. We like to be friendly. They wanted something that somehow involved Finland. They suggested Sampo, a magical thing from the Kalevala. No-one would know what that was, and also no-one knows what it is; descriptions of it vary significantly. It could be an axis mundi, a mill, a compass, etc. So what more concrete thing could actually remind people of Finland? I think jsh357 suggested saunas. And the word "sauna" is actually a loanword from Finnish. They are super Finnish. And they had medieval ones.

I tried a couple different concepts, mostly trying to key off of Baths, the Empires Landmark. You know, so stuff where if you didn't do anything you got something. The final concept was instead based on the idea of them being therapeutic.

It seemed nice to try to promote the most recent expansion, something only previously done with Summon. We talked about potential Landmarks, e.g. Northern Lights. I felt like it would be better to have a full pile this time, and it was hard coming up with more Landmarks. A split pile was perfect; it's novel to Empires, it doesn't require anything else, you can just play with it like a regular pile. And there's this thing, where they go back and forth from the sauna to the avanto. That sounded cool to simulate and I mean there it is.

Avanto started as printed but I did try other versions at some point. There were a few versions of the trashing Sauna, trying to be fair and exciting. Towards the end the big thing was, should it trigger multiple times. It will be very slow early on, and then there will be a turn where you can trash a bunch of cards, due to multiple triggers. I felt like it was better to have that.

The card was done in May, but it took a while for the Finns to get the artist going. It was for them so we didn't rush them. It looks like it's coming out at Essen.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, 'The Secret History of the Dominion Promos'

Retrospective

It would have been easy to slightly weaken Sauna/Avanto, I considered it and everything; Stef said at the time, well are you okay with this being as dominating as Governor.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2019