Non-terminal draw
Cards that can increase your handsize without depleting your number of available Actions are referred to as non-terminal draw cards. They make a welcome addition to almost any engine strategy, in which large handsizes allow you to find and line up your key engine components.
The simplest vanilla non-terminal draw card is Laboratory; cards that have similar effects are therefore sometimes referred to as Lab variants.
Non-terminal draw is closely related to duration draw: playing a duration-draw card on one turn provides an effect similar to playing a non-terminal draw card on your next turn.
List of non-terminal draw cards
These draw a specified number of cards—typically a total of +2 Cards, occasionally more—and can draw any card. Cards in italics have been removed.
- Dominion: Laboratory
- Seaside: Tide Pools
- Alchemy: Alchemist
- Dark Ages: Madman
- Guilds: Advisor
- Adventures: Lost City
- Empires: Encampment
- Renaissance: Experiment
- Menagerie: Destrier, Horse, Way of the Horse
- Allies: Distant Shore, Lich, Sibyl
- Plunder: Landing Party
- Rising Sun: Litter, Root Cellar
- Promos: Governor
Conditional effects
These cards are restricted by only being able to increase handsize in certain circumstances; if the condition is not met, most will be simple cantrips, or even reduce handsize.
- Intrigue: Wishing Well -- you need to guess the top card of your deck after drawing one card to draw another one.
- Alchemy: Apprentice provides net non-terminal draw if you trash a card costing
or more. - Prosperity: City -- Only if a supply pile is empty.
- Cornucopia: Menagerie -- Only if you have no duplicate cards in hand.
- Hinterlands: Stables -- If you can discard a Treasure from your hand.
- Adventures: Storyteller -- You need to have
to spend to increase your handsize. - Adventures: Teacher, Lost Arts, Pathfinding can all upgrade Action cards to draw extra cards or generate extra Actions, generating non-terminal draw from suitable targets.
- Empires: City Quarter -- Variable amount of draw. You need at least two other Action cards in hand to increase your handsize.
- Nocturne: Cursed Village -- Variable amount of draw. Only increases handsize from a sufficiently small starting handsize.
- Allies: Capital City -- You need to have generated
before. - Allies: Battle Plan -- If you can reveal an Attack card from your hand.
- Plunder: Swamp Shacks -- If you have six or more cards in play.
- Plunder: Shy -- only works at the beginning of your turn, and only once per turn.
- Rising Sun: Artist -- if you have two or more unique cards in play..
- Rising Sun: Rice Broker gives net non-terminal draw if you trash an Action card.
Specific-card drawers
A subset of conditional non-terminal draw. These non-terminal cards only draw cards of a specific type or other category, and increase handsize if they find such cards.
- Scout draws Victory cards.
- Sea Chart draws a card you already have in play.
- Apothecary draws Coppers and Potions.
- Scrying Pool draws Actions.
- Hunting Party digs for a card not already in your hand.
- Vagrant draws certain junk cards.
- Magpie draws Treasures.
- Settlers draws Coppers from your discard pile.
- Bustling Village draws Settlers from your discard pile.
- Patrician draws cards costing
or more. - Will-o'-Wisp draws cards costing or less.
- Seer draws cards costing from to
. - Hunter draws cards of different types.
- Poet draws cards costing or less.
Non-terminal duration draw
These non-terminal cards increase handsize on future turns, not immediately.
Unreliable non-terminal draw
These cards are not usually considered Lab variants, but can play that role in some decks:
- Ironmonger can act as Lab variants depending on what card is on top of your deck.
- Shanty Town acts as a Lab variant if you have no Action cards in hand, but otherwise decreases handsize.
- Diplomat acts as a Lab variant if your handsize is small, but otherwise is terminal.
- Native Village hides away cards, rather than drawing them, but can non-terminally add them to your hand.
- Trusty Steed and Courser are difficult to gain and you can generally only get one copy of them, so they're hard to use as the basis of an engine.
- Crossroads provides non-terminal draw the first time you play it on a turn, if there are multiple Victory cards in your hand.
- Cultist is technically terminal, but will allow you to play additional Cultists after it.
- Imp allows you to play an Action that you don't yet have a copy of in play, which can make it non-terminal if the other Action you play also is.
- Avanto allows you to play a cantrip Sauna if you have one in your hand after drawing, giving you back the Action you used to play Avanto.
- Sheepdog can provide draw without using up an Action if you gain a card while you have it in hand.
- Goatherd provides non-terminal draw if your opponent trashed multiple cards on their last turn.
- Emissary is only non-terminal if it makes you shuffle while drawing.
Related cards
These cards draw multiple cards but overall only maintain handsize rather than increasing it.
- Secret Passage is a non-terminal source of +2 Cards, but then you return a card to your deck, so it maintains handsize rather than increasing it.
- Fugitive and Ferryman are non-terminal sources of +2 Cards, but its required discard means it maintains handsize, rather than increasing it.
- Forum is a non-terminal source of +3 Cards, but its required discard means it maintains handsize, rather than increasing it.
- Recruiter gives you Villagers if you trash a card with a non-zero coin cost, allowing you to recover the Action you used to play it if you want to. However, since trashing is mandatory, this doesn't actually increase handsize.
Gallery
===Unconditional===Sort by Name
===Conditional===Sort by Name
===Only specific cards===Sort by Name
