Banquet

Banquet
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Empires
Illustrator(s)	Brian Brinlee
Event text
Gain 2 Coppers and a non-Victory card costing up to .

Banquet is an Event from Empires. It lets you get and cards at a discount, with the penalty of also junking your deck with extra Copper.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You can do this even if the Copper pile is empty.

Strategy

Banquet is a weak Event that provides a cheap way to gain a card costing or less at the cost of taking two Coppers along with it. Junking yourself is not often worthwhile, but Banquet can be very helpful if you have a way of getting rid of the Coppers easily or if they are actively beneficial. Banquet can also allow you to pile out more cheaply.

Infrequently, you can use Banquet to supply you with powerful cards early and often if you have a good way of trashing the Coppers before they can interfere with your deck control. For example, if you have a Monastery (which lets you trash one junk card per gain) or Watchtower in hand, you can neutralize them readily; similarly, you might use Banquet to obtain strong payload cards cheaply before buying Donate. In general, however, opening with Banquet for a card is counterproductive, as the advantage of playing the a shuffle early is outweighed by the Coppers causing you to see that more infrequently and simultaneously dragging down the average quality of your deck.

Sometimes Banquet’s Copper gaining increases its appeal. If extra net gains are difficult to come by, you may be able to make use of the Coppers, e.g. as fodder for a card like Forager to trash. In other cases, certain effects form powerful synergies with Banquet by making Copper specifically a valuable card to gain. In particular, Guildhall combined with repeated Banquet purchases can generate enough Coffers to start reliably buying a single Province per turn rather early in the game. Banquet also works very well with a Spices-based money strategy, since it not only makes this Treasure easier to gain but also provides an increase in money density via the flood of Coppers that is somewhat helpful for this strategy; for similar reasons.

Occasionally, Banquet can also help with scoring, even though you can’t use it to gain Victory cards. It adds extra cards to your deck quickly, which is beneficial late in the game when Gardens points are relevant. The Coppers can also provide  , e.g. with Fountain or Palace.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Gain 2 Coppers and a non-Victory card costing up to .	Empires	June 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text
Dutch	Banket			Pak 2 Koper en een niet-overwinningskaart die ten hoogste waard is.	(2016)
Finnish	Juomingit (lit. bacchanal)
French	Banquet
German	Bankett			Nimm 2 Kupfer sowie eine Nicht-Punktekarte, die bis zu kostet.
Japanese	宴会 (pron. enkai)			銅貨2枚とコスト以下の勝利点以外のカード1枚を獲得する。
Polish	Bankiet
Russian	Банкет (pron. bankyet)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

This started as a Treasure for that was worth and came with a Copper and a (then, a Copper and a non-VP ). I liked it like that, but changing it to an Event saved a slot and made it less fast at running out piles.

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

Donald X.'s opinion

It's fun to gain Coppers when it's the move. Banquet tantalizes you with a turn one you couldn't otherwise have, but of course it asks a lot in exchange.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, $3 Cost Card Rankings Bottom Half