Pirate Ship
Pirate Ship | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action - Attack |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Seaside |
Illustrator(s) | Franz Vohwinkel |
Card text | |
Choose one: Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes a revealed Treasure that you choose, discards the rest, and if anyone trashed a Treasure you take a Coin token; or, + per Coin token you’ve taken with Pirate Ships this game. |
Pirate Ship is an Action-Attack card from Seaside. When you play Pirate Ship, you have two options. You can "attack" other players by making them trash Treasure cards from the top two cards of their deck; if you're successful, your Pirates get a Coin token on your Pirate Ship mat! Alternatively, when you play Pirate Ship, you can choose to exploit the Coins you have and get + per Coin token your pirates have plundered. (This does not use them up.)
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When you first take this card, take a Pirate Ship player mat.
- If you use the Pirate Ship to trash treasures, a player with just one card left reveals that last card and then shuffles to get the other card to reveal (without including the revealed card); a player with no cards left shuffles to get both of them.
- A player who still doesn't have two cards to reveal after shuffling just reveals what he can.
- Each player trashes one Treasure card at most, of the attacker's choice from the two revealed cards.
- As long as you trashed at least one Treasure card in this way, place a Coin token on your Pirate Ship player mat.
- You can't get more than one Coin token each time you play Pirate Ship, no matter how many treasures it trashes.
- If you choose not to try to trash treasures from the other players, the Pirate Ship is worth one coin for each Coin token on your Pirate Ship player mat.
- The Coin tokens are cumulative, so after you have used your Pirate Ships to trash coins 3 times (and you trash at least one Treasure card each time), any Pirate Ship you play could be worth .
- Pirate Ship is an Action-Attack and players can reveal Secret Chamber even if you choose to use Pirate Ship for the coin value.
Other Rules clarifications
Strategy Article
There isn't a strategy article for Pirate Ship.
Pirate Ship is a card which can be devastatingly strong in certain circumstances, but which is often deceptively weak. Pirate Ship is a very slow card; the attack often benefits opponents by trashing copper, and it provides no benefit until the attack has hit, and usually only becomes worth the cost of once it has hit a number of times.
The power of Pirate Ship can vary drastically depending on the number of players; in 3- or 4-player, Pirate Ship has a much lower chance of 'missing' when attacking. Pirate Ship can be powerful if it is played many times per turn such as with Throne Room or King's Court and a good source of +Buy, but is weak if there are good actions which give +Coin. (In that case, the attack of Pirate Ship clears out your opponents' Coppers and is a benefit for them!)
Pirate ship is strongest against big money strategies, and weaker against engines. Big money decks are full of coin, so the attack is likely to hit, and these decks also benefit less from the trashing of copper. Engines, on the other hand, benefit greatly from the trashing of copper.
Playing against Pirate Ship
Lighthouse offers a hard counter to Pirate Ship, while also boosting early-game economy in the first few rounds where Pirate Ship has the possibility of reducing buying power. Secret Chamber, however, offers another counter that, while not quite a hard counter, can be superior in some circumstances: when an opponent plays Pirate Ship, you can choose to top-deck two unwanted Action or Victory cards. If the player goes ahead with the attack, you benefit from having these cards discarded, and the attack is guaranteed to miss. This defence works best when you have an action-rich engine and/or have not trashed your starting Estates.
Buying virtual coin can protect against Pirate Ship; Fishing Village is especially beneficial, as it provides coin roughly equivalent to Silver while helping set up an engine that will benefit hugely from the trashing of copper. Any of the Peddler variants are also beneficial. Filling your deck with cheap cantrips (Pawn is great as it can provide coin too) will also make the attacks less like to hit.
In Multiplayer games, if everyone buys Pirate Ship, it is especially important to make sure that your early game economy is not devastated by the trashing of all your coin. In the absence of virtual coin or a way to block the attack, it can be beneficial to buy a Pirate Ship yourself so that you'll have some source of virtual coin. However, if you did not open with Pirate Ship, it's usually too late to catch up in these scenarios, both because you will have fewer chances to play the card, and because each time the attack is played, future attacks become less likely to hit.
When there are stronger cards or strategies, the best counter to Pirate Ship can be to ignore it. If a curser like Witch or Mountebank is on the board, Pirate Ship can be a slow distraction, allowing opponents to reach faster and fill your deck with curses. Discard attacks are also often more powerful than Pirate Ship.
Synergies/Combos
- Opponents playing a big money strategy
- Boards without a good engine strategy and with no stronger attacks
- lack of +Coin on actions
- +Buy for late in the game.
- more than one opponent
Antisynergies
- Lighthouse
- Secret Chamber
- Opponents' engines
- Good sources of virtual coin like Festival or Death Cart, Peddler variants, or any good terminal Silver paired with a Village
- Cheap cantrips and cheap +Buy
Trivia
Card Art
Secret History