Berserker

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Berserker
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Hinterlands
Illustrator(s)	Julien Delval
Card text
Gain a card costing less than this. Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand. When you gain this, if you have an Action in play, play this.

Berserker is an Action-Attack card from Hinterlands (Second Edition). It is a gainer and a handsize attack that can be played immediately when you gain it if you already have another Action card in play.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you gain a Berserker, if you have an Action card in play, you play the Berserker; this means it will go into play, and you'll gain a cheaper card and then the other players will discard down to 3 cards in hand.
• They can still use cards like Moat then.
• If you gain a Berserker with no Actions in play, however, you don't play it.

Other Rules clarifications

• If you gain and play this with Innovation, Berserker loses track of itself, so Berserker telling you to play it will fail.
• If you have no Actions in play, but gaining this causes you to put an Action in play (e.g. you react with Sheepdog, or call a Duplicate), that will let you play the Berserker.
• If you gain this on another player's turn (e.g. their Barbarian trashes your Border Village), and you have an Action in play (most likely a Duration card), you can play the Berserker and attack them during their own turn. You'll discard the Berserker from play during their Clean-up.
• If you played 5 Highways, Berserker will cost , so it'll fail to gain a card.
• If another player would draw cards from you gaining the cheaper card (e.g. they played a Monkey), Berserker will force them to discard afterwards. This is in contrast to Skirmisher, which attacks the other players before they draw cards from Monkey.
• If you have an Action in play, playing the Berserker is mandatory.
  • However, if you gain a Berserker to your hand (e.g. with Artisan), the Berserker will be played from your hand, meaning it may get stopped by Voyage or Warlord.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Gain a card costing less than this. Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand. When you gain this, if you have an Action in play, play this.	Hinterlands (Second Edition)	July 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
German	Berserker			Nimm eine Karte, die weniger kostet als diese. Jeder Mitspieler legt seine Handkarten bis auf 3 ab. Wenn du diese Karte nimmst: Falls du eine Aktionskarte im Spiel hast, spiele diese Karte.
Polish	Berserk			Dodaj kartę kosztującą mniej od tej karty. Każdy z pozostałych graczy odrzuca tyle kart, aż będzie miał ich 3 na ręce. Kiedy dodajesz tę kartę, zagraj ją, jeśli masz w grze kartę Akcji.	(2024)

Trivia

Official card art.

The art depicts developer Dale Yu. He was previously depicted on Navigator, which was removed.

Preview

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

Berserker is another Attack that attacks right away. But the Attack is more meaningful, and it comes with more stuff.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Hinterlands 2E Preview 3

Secret History

Donald X. posted a screenshot of some of the outtakes on Discord [1].

We tested over 26 Berserkers. Man. I don't know the exact count because some variants we tried without me printing them out. Most could attack when gained. Some were Knight-family, some Militia-family. There were several issues that repeatedly came up, that wanted to be addressed: it should be played when gained, not just attack, so that Moats would work against it; it should have no way to wreck an opening /; the resources should be useful when gained, without stepping on Nomads; the text should fit on the card. And I mean, ideally it should be fun and not wreck the game and all that. 26+ tries, attacks are hard, and the when-gain trigger made it harder.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Hinterlands 2E

Further thoughts by Donald X.

With the new rules for playing cards, theoretically cards that are gained to your hand (like Ghost Town) can be reworded to be like Berserker.

"To hand" is simpler in that maybe something messes the situation up, and if that means it's not in your hand that's no problem, and if it means you don't have the card to put it into play, well it used to be that that was a problem. These days however, we don't play the card if you lost it, so, aside from needing to know that, [Ghost Town] would work with "play this." It does seem like I would have done that, and just lived with not being able to Exorcist those cards (as usual Dominion doesn't need any particular cute combo). But, this doesn't seem like the kind of change I'd make with errata.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.