Swindler
| Swindler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
 |
| Type(s) | Action - Attack |
| Kingdom card? | Yes |
| Set |
Intrigue |
| Illustrator(s) | Alexander Jung |
| Card text | |
+ Each other player trashes the top card of their deck and gains a card with the same cost that you choose. | |
Swindler is an Action-Attack card from Intrigue. It allows you to replace cards in opponents' decks with less desirable cards of the same cost. It can be a high-variance card, depending on the luck of what card happens to be on top of the opponent's deck when you play it: Swindler can do anything from turning an opponent's powerful 
-cost card into a Duchy, to acting as a curser if it hits their Copper, to actually helping them by replacing an Estate in their deck with an Estate in their discard pile. In the late game, Swindler can accelerate the end of the game by milling Provinces.
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When it matters (such as when piles are low), go in turn order, starting with the player to your left.
- Each other player trashes their top card, and gains a replacement you choose with the same cost.
- The card they gain comes from the Supply and goes to their discard pile.
- For example if a player trashed Copper, you might give them Curse, which costs
like Copper does. - You can give a player back another copy of what they lost.
- If the Supply has no cards with the same cost as the trashed card, the player fails to gain a card.
Other Rules clarifications
- When-trashed effects trigger before the player who played Swindler has to choose which card the opponent gains. The opponent is the one who trashes the revealed card and resolves any when-trashed effects.
Strategy
Swindler is a terminal Silver with a highly variable but potentially strong trashing attack. The value of the attack depends greatly on random chance as well as the nature of the Kingdom, namely the pricing of the available cards. However, it can sometimes be devastating, most often when you trash an opponent's high-value early purchase and replace it with junk (often a Duchy), thus slowing their progress substantially. Therefore, if you have a use for the Silver's worth of early payload, can spare the terminal space at least initially, and anticipate a decent chance of hurting an opponent with the attack, Swindler can be a good opening buy.
To reap the full benefit of Swindler's attack, you need an available replacement for the trashed card that makes your opponent's deck worse. A common example are the basic cards, which are present in every Kingdom and allow Swindler to very effectively downgrade otherwise useful , , and cards. In the early game, Copper is the most likely hit and you can replace this with Curse, hurting their payload and making it harder to hit important price points. However, if you hit an Estate or Curse, the best option is usually to replace it with a copy of the same card, nullifying the attack's effect or even helping your opponent by cycling through their shuffle and effectively just sifting past a dead card for them. Later, as Swindler becomes more likely to trash useful engine pieces, you generally have a better chance of severely damaging your opponent's deck control and payload. Depending on the selection of cards in the Kingdom, this will often involve overloading them with terminals and stop cards such as Treasures or Victory cards. In the endgame, these considerations can be somewhat reversed: it may be most beneficial to trash Victory cards and replace them with the weakest available cards that do not provide 
. Occasionally, Swindler can bring the game to a sudden end by emptying a pile, notably if it trashes a Province and your opponent gains the last one from the Supply as a replacement. This can cause you to win or lose the game—depending on whether you have a lead in —and the risk can sometimes be a reason not to play Swindler.
Swindler is generally more impactful when replacing the trashed card is difficult. Usually, this occurs when additional gains are limited, as this means every successful attack is that much more difficult to undo. Less commonly, this can extend to cards for which there is no replacement available, e.g. Heirlooms and Prizes.
Swindler has a mild synergy with cost reduction: if you can reduce a card's price to , Swindler can replace it with a Curse or other junk. It also synergizes with topdeck inspection or manipulation (e.g. with Scrying Pool), because this can increase your odds of trashing the cards you would most like to target. In contrast, the presence of good cards with unique costs can make Swindler less impactful, because trashing such a card will only ever have the net effect of discarding it and lowering its Supply pile. This is especially common with cards that cost 
or 
, but also frequently applies to those with uncommon prices in 
, such as King's Court. Province usually falls into this category, although it can be replaced with Peddler or Prince if one of these is present.
As a distributor of junk that may not cost , Swindler can give your opponent trash-for-benefit fodder. This may mean that your opponent can undo the effect of Swindler via a Remodel variant, but it can still impose a significant inconvenience on your opponent because of the time and opportunity costs involved. However, if the cards gained via Swindler constitute useful trash-for-benefit fodder that your opponent would have needed to gain in any case (e.g. if Apprentice is the primary source of draw), its impact may be slightly attenuated. Swindler also becomes worse in the presence of cards that have strong on-gain effects (like Cemetery or Border Village) because the value of a new card of the same cost may greatly exceed the value that the trashed card would have had in your opponent's deck. Similarly, Swindler is weaker when it can trigger beneficial on-trash effects for your opponent, such as Sewers and especially Fortress.
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.
Versions
English versions
| Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
+ Each other player trashes the top card of his deck and gains a card with the same cost that you choose. |
Intrigue 1st Edition | July 2009 |
|
 |
+ Each other player trashes the top card of their deck and gains a card with the same cost that you choose. |
Intrigue 2nd Edition | October 2016 |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese | 騙徒 (pron. piàntú) | ||||
| Czech | Podvodník | ||||
| Dutch | Oplichter |  |
+ Iedere andere speler moet de bovenste kaart van zijn trekstapel vernietigen en ontvangt een kaart met dezelfde waarde naar jouw keuze. |
Eerste editie (2009) | |
| Finnish | Huijari | ||||
| French | Escroc | ||||
| German | Trickser (lit. trickster) |
 |
 |
+ Jeder Mitspieler entsorgt die oberste Karte seines Nachziehstapels und nimmt eine Karte, die das gleiche kostet wie die entsorgte Karte, und die du für ihn wählst. |
2. Edition (2021) one or more other versions listed here |
| Hungarian | Szélhámos | ||||
| Italian | Truffatore (lit. con man) | ||||
| Japanese | 詐欺師 (pron. sagi-shi) | + 他のプレイヤーは全員、山札の一番上のカードを廃棄し、それと同コストのあなたが選択するカード1枚を獲得する。 |
|||
| Korean | 사기꾼 (pron. sagikkun, lit. fraud) | ||||
| Norwegian | Bedrager | ||||
| Polish | Kanciarz (lit. gyp) |
 |
+ Każdy z pozostałych graczy wyrzuca na śmietnisko wierzchnią kartę ze swojej talii i dodaje wybraną przez ciebe kartę o takim samym koszcie. |
(2016) | |
| Russian | Мошенник (pron. moshyennik) |
 |
+ Каждый другой игрок выкидывает верхнюю карту своей колоды и получает карту такой же стоимости по вашему выбору. |
||
| Spanish | Embaucador (lit. trickster) |  |
+ Cada jugador (menos tú) elimina la carta superior de su mazo y gana una carta (que tú eliges) con el mismo coste que la carta eliminada. |
First Edition (2009) | |
| Embaucador (lit. trickster) |  |
+ Cada jugador (menos tú) elimina la carta superior de su mazo y gana una carta (que tú eliges) con el mismo coste que la carta eliminada. |
Second Edition (2016) |
Trivia
Secret History
didn't make the grade, and I needed a replacement. This card from the 4th set fit the bill. Originally it was "Each other player trashes the top card of their deck and gains a card costing less that you choose." Hitting Copper all the time made it very weak. I changed it to "a card with the same cost" and that made it a lot better - now Coppers turn into Curses. That's the version that got added to Intrigue, and it was tested a bit like that but was still pretty weak. I made it good enough by adding the +. The attack part is nice but needs that much help.Donald X.'s opinion
