Noble Brigand

Noble Brigand
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Hinterlands
Illustrator(s)	Joshua Stewart
Card text
+ Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes a revealed Silver or Gold you choose, discards the rest, and gains a Copper if they didn't reveal a Treasure. You gain the trashed cards. When you buy this, do its attack.

Noble Brigand is an Action–Attack card from Hinterlands. It is both a Treasure trashing attack, allowing you to steal your opponents' Silver and Gold, and a junking attack, distributing Copper to opponents with Treasure-light decks. It is widely regarded as an "improved" version of Thief, a weak card that was removed.

Noble Brigand is also weak and was removed from the second edition of Hinterlands. It was replaced with Berserker, which, like Noble Brigand, is an Attack card that can allow you to attack when it is gained; but unlike Noble Brigand it is a gainer and discard attack.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you play this, you get +.
• When you play this and also when you buy it, each other player reveals the top two cards of their deck, trashes a Silver or Gold they revealed that you choose, and discards the rest.
• Each of these players that did not reveal a Treasure at all gains a Copper from the Supply, putting it into their discard pile.
• Finally, you gain all of the Silvers and Golds trashed this way.
• This cannot trash any Treasures except Silver or Gold.
• Gaining a Noble Brigand without buying it does not cause this ability to happen.
• Noble Brigand is an Attack card, and when you announce it, players can use cards like Moat in response.
• However, buying a Noble Brigand is not "playing an Attack card," and so cards like Moat cannot respond to that.

Other Rules clarifications

• Because when-gain effects happen after when-buy effects, that means you can buy a Noble Brigand, do its attack, and then use Trader to get a Silver instead of keeping the Noble Brigand.
• If this trashed multiple Silvers or Golds, you gain those cards after each other player has been attacked.

Strategy

Before it was removed, Noble Brigand was a weak terminal payload card that was usually skippable. Because is an underwhelming output for a terminal stop card, its relevance in a Kingdom is mostly dependent on how useful it would be to steal a Silver or Gold with its attack and how likely that is to occur. The former is determined by the available payload options: if Action-based or alternative Treasure payload such as Bridge Troll, Horn of Plenty, or Platinum is available, the basic Treasures are far less important. Similarly, if it is easy to gain basic Treasures in bulk (e.g. via Delve), stealing a single Treasure may be unimpactful. The latter is dependent on the proportion of targets in your opponents' decks. In Kingdoms without thinning, this is likely to be low, as the ten starting cards will greatly reduce your odds of hitting a Silver or Gold. Even if thinning is available, it is still possible that your odds are low if your opponents’ decks are mostly composed of non-targets (e.g. cantrips). In the unlikely case that Silver and/or Gold are desirable payload and you have a reasonable chance of a successful attack, Noble Brigand may be usable.

In very rare cases, Noble Brigand’s on-buy effect can be used tactically to cause significant disruption to your opponent's deck at a critical point. For example, this may allow you to force them to trigger an unfavorable reshuffle. In most cases this will not be worth the opportunity cost of and a Buy while also adding a stop card to your deck; an exception might be against someone using the Counting House and Travelling Fair combo. Alternatively, with careful tracking of an opponent's deck, you may get an opportunity to steal a key single copy of a Treasure that their deck needs in order to function fully, for example Silver with Merchant or Gold with Legionary or Encampment. However, even with perfect tracking, the chance of finding that single copy can still be rather low, so this is generally a move of last resort.

Although Noble Brigand is technically a junking attack with the ability to distribute Coppers, this aspect is more of a weak consolation prize if you’ve failed to steal a Treasure. Additionally, Noble Brigand fails to junk if your opponent reveals any Treasure, including Copper or a Kingdom Treasure such as Crown. This means that not only is Noble Brigand relatively unlikely to junk your opponent in the first place, any successful junking further reduces the chances of it doing so again subsequently.

Noble Brigand is somewhat more likely to appeal in multiplayer games, both because money strategies are more common, and because you can gain multiple Silvers or Golds at once.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.

• timchen's 2012 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+ When you buy this or play it, each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes a revealed Silver or Gold you choose, and discards the rest. If he didn't reveal a Treasure, he gains a Copper. You gain the trashed cards.	Hinterlands	October 2011
		+ When you buy or play this, each other player reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes a revealed Silver or Gold you choose, discards the rest, and gains a Copper if they didn't reveal a Treasure. You gain the trashed cards.	Hinterlands (2016 printing)	December 2016
		+ Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes a revealed Silver or Gold you choose, discards the rest, and gains a Copper if they didn't reveal a Treasure. You gain the trashed cards. When you buy this, do its attack.	Hinterlands (2020 printing)	October 2020

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Zbojník (lit. bandit)
Dutch	Nobele bandiet
Finnish	Jalo maantierosvo
French	Noble brigand			+ Lorsque vous achetez ou jouez cette carte, tous vos adversaires dévoilent les 2 premières cartes de leur deck. Si une carte Or ou Argent est dévoilée, ils en écartent une, de votre choix, et défaussent l'autre. Ceux qui n'ont pas dévoilé de Trésor reçoivent un Cuivre. Vous recevez les cartes écartées.	translation error : "When you buy or play this, all your opponents reveal the top 2 cards of their deck. If a Gold or Silver card is revealed, they trash one of your choice and discard the other. Those who didn't reveal any Treasure gain a Copper. You gain the trashed cards." – This means that players who revealed neither a Silver nor a Gold put the revealed cards back on top of their deck.
	Noble brigand			+ Tous vos adversaires dévoilent les 2 premières cartes de leur pioche, écartent un Argent ou Or dévoilé que vous choisissez, défaussent le reste, et reçoivent un Cuivre s'ils n'ont pas dévoilé de Trésor. Vous recevez les cartes écartées. Quand vous achetez cette carte, effectuez son attaque.
German	Edler Räuber			+ Wenn du diese Karte kaufst oder ausspielst, deckt jeder Mitspieler die obersten 2 Karten seines Nachziehstapels auf, entsorgt nach deiner Wahl ein aufgedecktes Gold oder Silber, legt den Rest ab und nimmt ein Kupfer, wenn er keine Geldkarte aufgedeckt hat. Nimm die entsorgten Karten.	(2019)
	Edler Räuber			+ Jeder Mitspieler deckt die obersten 2 Karten seines Nachziehstapels auf, entsorgt ein aufgedecktes Silber oder Gold nach deiner Wahl und legt den Rest ab. Wer keine Geldkarte aufdeckt, nimmt ein Kupfer. Nimm die entsorgten Karten. Wenn du diese Karte kaufst, führe ihren Angriff aus.
Italian	Ladro Gentiluomo (lit. gentleman thief)
Japanese	義賊 (pron. gizoku, lit. gentleman thief)			+ これを購入・使用するとき、他のプレイヤーは全員、山札の上から2枚を公開し、あなたの選択により、公開した銀貨1枚か金貨1枚を廃棄し、残りを捨て札にし、財宝カードを公開しなかった場合、銅貨1枚を獲得する。あなたはこの効果で廃棄されたカードをすべて獲得する。
Polish	Szlachetny rabuś				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Благородный Разбойник (pron. blagorodny razboynik)
Spanish	Bandido Honrado

Trivia

Official card art.

Theme

I needed a name that meant Robin Hood without being Robin Hood.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Hinterlands Cards

Secret History

First the set had a Thief variant that gave you instead of the Treasures. It only gave you for one of the Treasures, to keep it from going nuts with multiple players. So if the best Treasure you trashed was Silver, you got +. Well this has wording problems. Some Treasures make variable amounts or do weird things. At the same time, it was weak. So it died.

I replaced it with a card I stole from a later set. "A later set." There are only two sets after this one, and one of them is a latecomer with its own special thing going on. When I say "a later set," I mean the 8th set, which was originally the 4th set, back before I showed Dominion to RGG, when there were only five expansions (then Hinterland and Seaside were split up, and Alchemy and Cornucopia were split up, and that accounts for seven). You might think, with all the cards I stole from "a later set," that it would be hurting for cards, but man, it is not. Anyway. I stole this from "a later set."

The premise is of course Robin Hood. Steals from the rich (those with Silver and Gold), gives to the poor (those with no Treasures at all). Ignores the middle-class (those showing Copper or special Treasures) (yes the middle class includes those with Platinum, Robin Hood does not realize how valuable Platinum is okay, he lives in a forest, they don't even have Platinum there). By not trashing Coppers, it avoids being horrible, and it can even give out Coppers, although don't expect that to be too common except you know against decks that trash their Coppers.

Noble Brigand comes right out of the gates attacking. This was a fun thing that I wanted on more attacks but it only survived here and on Ill-Gotten Gains (technically not an attack, but we all know a Witch when we see one). Maybe it's for the best that you'll never experience the joy of a when-gain discard-based attack just sitting there, promising that any hand you draw might be taken away, even if no-one has even bought the card yet.

Noble Brigand triggers on buying, not gaining. This was because you could get situations that forced you to play all further attacks in slow-mo. Jester is a good example. I play Jester, I hit your Noble Brigand, oh I want one of those. Only, everyone else has already revealed their card for Jester, no-one is wasting time. I know some of the cards Brigand will hit. Maybe normally I wouldn't take Brigand, I'd make you take another one, only, there's a Gold showing over there. Okay we have to play Jester in slow-mo this game to get rid of this situation. And well that's no fun. So, it triggers on buying.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Hinterlands Cards

Why does Noble Brigand trash and then gain the treasures?

It's all about having clear interactions with potential future cards, some of which I had already. Thief steals a Cache; do you get the Coppers? What if Thief hits a treasure that does something when trashed? Thief explicitly trashes and gains so that all such future things are covered. For example for a long time Haggler was when-gain, and would trigger on stealing a Gold with Noble Brigand. Plus Noble Brigand wanted to match Thief's wording if that worked out.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Newest wording

The original wording is no good. I can't live with it. And it's gone, treasure your collector's item first edition copies.

The new wording does something no other card does; it is not unique in that though, there are other cards that do something no other card does (for example, only Masquerade has the verb "pass," and it got a special separate rulebook explanation at the time, though now I'm happy just covering it in the card notes). I am cool with that. Maybe I should have sucked it up and had microtext on the card, or said "continued in rulebook." I went with something I knew everyone would understand; it's covered in the rulebook for the people who don't.

Again the cards are printed. And I mean no regrets so far.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Minor note about new printings

Other possibilities

New cards are avoiding "when you buy this" period, as casual players do not sufficiently distinguish it from "when you gain this." Noble Brigand is when-buy because when-gain caused you to have to resolve some stuff in slow-mo (I play Jester, it hits Noble Brigand, who should gain this, but in the meantime other players have revealed their top cards). If I had to do the effect now, it would be like Villa: gained to hand, +1 Action, return to your action phase, and there you go, you can play it if you want to.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Minor note about new printings

Second Edition removal

Noble Brigand is a fixed Thief, and yet still too weak. Bandit turns out to be the actual fixed Thief.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Hinterlands 2E Preview 3