Scouting Party

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Scouting Party
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Joshua Stewart
Event text
+1 Buy Look at the top 5 cards of your deck. Discard 3 and put the rest back in any order.

Scouting Party is an Event from Adventures. It's a sifting deck inspector that lets the buyer discard cards from the top of their deck.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you buy this you get +1 Buy (letting you buy another Event or a card afterwards).
• Then look at the top 5 cards of your deck, discarding 3 and putting the rest on top of your deck in any order.
• If there are fewer than 5 cards even after shuffling, you still discard 3 of them; if there are only 3 cards left between your deck and discard pile, all 3 will be discarded.
• Scouting Party is unaffected by the -1 Card token; if it is on top of your deck, replace it after resolving Scouting Party.

Strategy

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

Scouting Party is rarely a strategy in and of itself, but it can be a benign little addition to your Buy phase if you happen to have leftover, for example on those pesky hands, or just hands with no good Kingdom cards. The fact that it doesn't cost a Buy helps a lot with this. Unless you happen to know that there are only good cards on top of your deck, there is often no reason not to buy Scouting Party if you have the money. It is most effective on boards with mediocre to weak trashing; if the trashing is strong enough, you won't really need the sifting Scouting Party provides.

Tunnel has the best synergy with Scouting Party by far, and the only reason to consider Scouting Party a legitimate (Big Money) strategy. Best case scenario, it can gain you a multitude of Golds per turn for cheap.

Scouting Party is also a great opener when you have a / opening split, and you want to open a power like Ambassador, Masquerade or Steward. It's not as good as Travelling Fair for these situations, but still pretty good.

Synergies

• Tunnel
• Doctor: leave the bad cards on top, then overpay for Doctor to trash them
• Apothecary, which tends to leave Victory cards on top of your deck
• Cards that require a lot of deck control: Counting House, Philosopher's Stone, Rebuild
• Opponents' Attacks that mess with the top of your deck: Sea Hag, Rabble, Spy
• Opening / with power cards

Antisynergies

• Strong cards you might want in multiples: Hamlet, Page, Fool's Gold
• Good cards at every price point
• Strong trashing: Chapel and friends
• Wine Merchant also wants you to have leftover money

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Buy Look at the top 5 cards of your deck. Discard 3 of them and put the rest back in any order.	Adventures	April 2015
		+1 Buy Look at the top 5 cards of your deck. Discard 3 and put the rest back in any order.	Adventures (2017 printing)	August 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Verkennerseenheid (lit. scouting unit)			+1 Aanschaf Bekijk de 5 bovenste kaarten van je gedekte stapel. Leg er daavan 3 af en doe de rest in een volgorde naar keuze terug op je gedekte stapel.	(2015)
Finnish	Tiedustelupartio (lit. reconnaissance patrol)
French	Pistage (lit. tracking)
German	Spähtrupp			+1 Kauf Sieh dir die obersten 5  Karten deines Nachzieh­stapels an. Lege 3 davon ab und den Rest in beliebiger Reihen­folge zurück auf den Nachzieh­stapel.	(2015)
	Spähtrupp			+1 Kauf Sieh die obersten 5 Karten deines Nachzieh­stapels an. Lege drei davon ab und den Rest in beliebiger Reihen­folge zurück.	(Nachdruck 2021)
Japanese	偵察隊 (pron. teisatsutai)			+1 購入 山札の上から5枚を見る。その中の3枚を捨て札にし、残りを好きな順番で山札の上に戻す。
Russian	Поисковый Отряд (pron. poiskovy otryad) (lit. search party)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

An easy early one.

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