Apothecary

Apothecary
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Alchemy
Illustrator(s)	Ryan Laukat
Card text
+1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the Coppers and Potions into your hand. Put the rest back in any order.

Apothecary is an Action card from Alchemy. It is a cantrip, that also lets you draw any Copper or Potion cards from the top 4 cards of your deck into your hand.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You draw a card and get +1 Action first.
• Then reveal the top four cards of your deck, put the revealed Coppers and Potions into your hand, and put the other cards back on your deck in any order.
• You cannot choose not to take all of the Coppers and Potions.

Strategy

Apothecary is a cantrip with a deck inspection effect that can act as non-terminal draw of Coppers and Potions. While it is usually preferable to thin all the Coppers in your deck in favor of more efficient stop card payload and use more general-purpose draw, Apothecary can be relevant if the Copper thinning options and available draw are weak. While its cost does force you to commit by buying a Potion and limits how quickly you can add Apothecaries to your deck, the fact that Apothecary can draw the Potion does reduce some of the downside of having an additional stop card.

Apothecary is very efficient draw if it reveals only Coppers and Potions, increasing your handsize by four. This is likely to occur in two cases:

• In the early game, before you’ve added many cards to your deck, Apothecary is very likely to draw cards. As a result, it offers strong cycling, and may even help you spike a higher price point (e.g. Altar). While opening with a Potion or otherwise gaining it early can have a high opportunity cost, it may be able to cycle you quickly to your later purchases. As you build and add non-Copper cards to your deck, however, Apothecary becomes less and less effective, though cards that specialize in trashing Estates (e.g. Scrap) may allow it to remain useful longer.
• By combining Apothecary with sifting effects such as Warehouse or Silos, you may be able to trigger shuffles consisting mostly of Coppers, guaranteeing that it will draw well. This has the effect of converting Apothecary's ability to increase hand size into general-purpose draw by trading out Coppers for other cards and redrawing the Coppers with Apothecary. Sifters are also helpful when an Apothecary reveals that you have multiple cards on top of your deck that your next Apothecary won't be able to draw.

Apothecary can occasionally be useful for its deck inspection abilities. Some effects greatly benefit from knowing the specific identity of the cards on top of your deck, for example Native Village, Chariot Race, or Wishing Well. More generally, other draw cards benefit from the ability to reorder your shuffle, allowing you to ensure you draw a draw card rather than a stop card; this often means that you should play your Apothecaries before other cards that draw.

Given its relationship to Coppers, it’s worth checking if anything changes the value or accessibility of said Coppers. For instance, Apothecary can make scoring   with Fountain more viable as it can be much easier to maintain deck control. On the other hand, Heirlooms reduce the number of Coppers in your starting deck, and may make Apothecary less appealing.

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.

• Mean Mr Mustard's 2012 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the revealed Coppers and Potions into your hand. Put the other cards back on top in any order.	Alchemy 1st Edition	May 2010
		+1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put the Coppers and Potions into your hand. Put the rest back in any order.	Alchemy 2nd Edition	December 2018

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	藥劑師 (pron. yàojì shī)
Czech	Lékárník
Dutch	Apotheker
Finnish	Apteekkari
French	Apothicaire
German	Apotheker			+1 Karte +1 Aktion Decke die obersten 4 Karten deines Nachziehstapels auf. Nimm so aufgedeckte Kupfer und Tränke auf deine Hand und lege den Rest in beliebiger Reihenfolge zurück.	(2019)
Italian	Farmacista
Japanese	薬師 (pron. kusushi, lit. doctor)			+1 カードを引く +1 アクション 山札の上から4枚を公開する。公開した銅貨とポーションを手札に加える。残りを好きな順番で山札の上に戻す。
Polish	Aptekarz				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Аптрекарь (pron. aptyekar')			+1 Карта +1 Действие Раскройте 4 верхние карты вашей колоды. Положите раскрытые карты Меди и Зелья в руку. Положите остальные раскрытые карты назад в любом порядке.
Spanish	Boticario			+1 Carta +1 Acción Revela las 4 cartas superiores de tu mazo. Las cartas reveladas de Cobre y de Poción van a tu mano y las demás cartas reveladas vuelven a la parte superior de tu mazo, en el orden que quieras.

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

There are a bunch of cute tricks you can do with Apothecaries, but one of the simplest combos is just another Apothecary. The first Apothecary gets some Coppers and maybe a Potion into your hand, and lets you reorder the other cards you looked at. Then the second Apothecary draws you the card you wanted that you put back (and who knows, maybe more Coppers).

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion: Alchemy Preview

Secret History

The original version of this had you discard the other cards, rather than put them on your deck. Some people really disliked that. Seeing their good cards go by. This version not only solved that problem, it's better all around.

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