Stables

Stables
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Hinterlands
Illustrator(s)	Dennis Lohausen
Card text
You may discard a Treasure, for +3 Cards and +1 Action.

Stables is an Action card from Hinterlands. Stables allows you to discard a Treasure, often Copper, for non-terminal draw.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You may discard a Treasure card from your hand.
• This is optional.
• If you did discard one, you get +3 Cards and +1 Action.
• You draw after discarding, so if you have to shuffle to get the 3 cards, you will end up shuffling in the card you discarded.

Strategy

Stables is a strong but somewhat unreliable non-terminal draw card. Its importance depends on the alternative options for draw, the density of Treasure cards you will build towards having in your deck, and how confident you can be of colliding Stables with those Treasures.

Stables has the effect of non-terminally increasing your hand size by one, equivalent to a Laboratory with both a minor benefit and a moderate disadvantage. The benefit is that you often get a small amount of additional sifting in comparison: as well as the single net card's worth of draw, you effectively exchange a stop card (often a weak one in Copper) for another card that has a chance of helping your turn progress further. With sufficient total draw, you can eventually redraw the discarded Treasures, effectively moving stop cards that you won't need until the end of your turn to the bottom of your deck. On the other hand, the disadvantage is that Stables only works if you have a Treasure in hand to discard; if you don't, it's a terminal stop card that does nothing for you. This has a few consequences:

• You’ll typically want to have at least as many Treasures as Stables, as in the ideal shuffle each Stables would collide with one Treasure. With the large difference between Stables drawing and not it’s usually best to buffer this slightly, and given Treasures are usually much easier to acquire (e.g., your starting Coppers), it’s usually best to have a few more Treasures than copies of Stables.
• Effects that reduce the risk that you won't draw a Stables and Treasure together are very useful. These include sifters, e.g. Dungeon, other forms of draw to complement Stables (especially Duration draw like Haunted Woods), and effects that allow you to topdeck or save cards for the following turn, e.g. Church.
• Stables often requires careful shuffle management, because discarding lots of Treasures carries the risk of causing a shuffle consisting mostly or exclusively of these; if you can't draw all the way back through them, there is a high chance of at least one dud turn. The effect can persist for more than one turn because the result is also to separate your Stables from your Treasures, creating a risk that you will subsequently draw the former without any of the latter, leaving you with another dud.

Stables is more appealing—and can act as the primary draw card for your engine—in Kingdoms where Treasures are attractive additions to your deck in any case, such as those with Horn of Plenty or Supplies, or where there is a lack of payload alternatives to Silver and Gold. Capitalism can also increase the appeal and reliability of Stables draw, as can a lack of good options for Copper thinning. Conversely, the presence of Stables (particularly if it's the only or best option for draw) can also make Treasures themselves slightly more attractive than otherwise, and may somewhat encourage deprioritization of Copper thinning.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		You may discard a Treasure. If you do, +3 Cards and +1 Action.	Hinterlands	October 2011
		You may discard a Treasure, for +3 Cards and +1 Action.	Hinterlands (2016 printing)	December 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Stáje
Dutch	Stallen
Finnish	Hevostalli
French	Écuries
German	Stallungen			Du darfst eine Geldkarte aus deiner Hand ablegen für +3 Karten und +1 Aktion.	(2019)
Italian	Stalla
Japanese	厩舎 (pron. kyūsha)			手札の財宝カード1枚を捨て札にしてもよい。捨て札にした場合、+3 カードを引く、+1 アクション。
Polish	Stadnina				Although Polish version is not released, this card is referred to in the Polish version of Empires rulebook
Russian	Конюшня (pron. konyushnya)
Spanish	Caballerizas

Trivia

Official card art.

Theme

You pay for a steed to take you partway through your deck.

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

Secret History

Originally you drew the cards, then discarded a Treasure. If you had no Treasure to discard, yeeha. That version was too strong.

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