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[werothegreat]

So I've so far only done Dark Ages articles, and I figured I'd try my hand at something less recent.

Pawn is definitely not a power $2.  At first glance, Squire even seems to be intrinsically better.  But Pawn has its place - when played right, it can be helpful, and even essential in certain Kingdoms.

What does Pawn do?

Like many cards in Intrigue, Pawn offers the player a choice between multiple options.  Given the inexpensive nature of the card, the options are not really anything to write home about - +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, or +$1 - you get two different options.  This makes Pawn remarkably flexible - it can be a pure cantrip, or a gimped Herbalist, or any other combination you like.  However, this flexibility can lead to analysis paralysis, particularly in new players, who often deliberate for several minutes before finally choosing +1 Card, +1 Action.

Well, then why do I want this?

Typically you want to construct your deck to avoid only hitting $2, but that can't always be helped.  In those cases, it usually doesn't hurt to throw a Pawn into the mix.  But Pawn shines when it is the only source of +Buy - in those cases, players may often overspend just to get their hands on a couple.  If that Pawn gets you a turn where you can buy two Provinces (or even just two Duchies), then it did its job.  Pawn can also help in deck control - even when just used as a cantrip, it does give some measure of control over when you shuffle.

Pawn is also useful, and sometimes integral, to strategies centered on Action-heavy decks.  Due to their cost and ability to give +Buy, Pawns can be used to spark a Conspirator or Herald engine, and are immensely useful in acquiring Peddlers.  Any engine that has cards that draw to a certain size, such as Library, also enjoy having Pawn along to play disappearing money.

Okay, I got a Pawn - how do I use it?

That depends on the context.  If you always use it as +1 Action, +1 Card, you might as well have not bought it in the first place, because the card replacing it would have just been in your hand anyway.  You should have at least some plan to use Pawn in a way that merited purchasing it.  But once it's in your deck, you may have a hand where you'll want to play Pawn as a cantrip, and there may be some games where you'll mostly be playing it as a cantrip, but to play Pawn well, you have to realize that it can do a lot more than that.

The trick to using Pawn correctly is knowing what's coming next in your deck.  So when you play with Pawn, you should keep track of what cards you're gaining and what cards you've already played this shuffle.  So ask yourself - what am I most likely to draw next?

Non-Action: +1 Card, +$1 - this will net you the most Coin.  If your Coin fielded this turn already exceeds $8 (or if you want to purchase multiple cards this turn), then of course +1 Card, +1 Buy will be more suitable. 

Action, in engine: Same as above, since, although your next card is likely an Action, you'll most likely still have Actions left to play that next card with.

Cantrip, no Villages: +1 Action, +1 Buy or +1 Action, +$1 is a solid play, turning Pawn into a gimped Minion of sorts.   

No idea: Probably best to choose +1 Buy, +$1 (unless you have more Actions in hand).

In general, once your engine is at a point where your next cards are most likely Actions, then the +1 Action non-draw plays become quite powerful, since you'll want to save your Actions for more powerful terminals.  So when should one play Pawn as +1 Card, +1 Action?  When you have limited Actions, and want to keep searching through your deck for a key card.  In situations where you'd be using Pawn only for this, it's probably best to just ignore Pawn.

Remember that Pawn is almost never the centerpiece of a strategy; it is very much a support card.  Sometimes you pick Pawns up with the intent of using them for +Buy later, or because you hit $2 and there's nothing else at that cost that you really want.  Just make sure to keep in mind Pawn's ability to adapt, and don't just keep choosing the same options because you don't know what to do with it.  Make sure you're picking the right two bonuses for your current turn.

The cheap nature of Pawn also allows you to amass a lot of them.  This can help with 3-piling, simply by buying out the Pawns, and can definitely turn an engine producing a lot of coin (such as with Poor House or Merchant Ship) into one that buys several Provinces per turn.

Particular interactions

Poor House likes Pawn, since it will take up space in your hand that could have been a Treasure, and the +1 Action, +1 Buy or +1 Action, +$1 options allow you to still play your Poor House without risking potentially drawing a Treasure.

Any card that likes lots of potentially non-terminal Actions will do well with Pawn - Peddler, Scrying Pool, Vineyard, Conspirator, Death Cart, to name a few.  Gardens does quite well with Pawn, it being a cheap source of +Buy.

Throne Room and etc!  These cards expand the range of options Pawn has.  With Throne Room, you can use Pawn as terminal draw for the first play, and still use it for +Action on the 2nd play if you draw an Action.  Throne Room can even turn Pawn into a makeshift Village.  But this tactic requires two cards to get the effect normally produced by one, so don't go out of your way to pursue this.

Cards that inspect the top of your deck or place a card there also do well with Pawn - simply make sure there's a Treasure or Victory card there so that you can play Pawn for terminal draw without fear.

One unique aspect about Pawn is that it can either decrease or maintain your handsize while still keeping you at the same number of Actions.  Menagerie in hand?  Let's disappear some of those Pawns.  Looking for your Madman?  Use Pawn as a cantrip.  This works especially well with Library, since, once you've finished playing your Pawns in hand for +1 Action, +$1/+1 Buy, it can skip over dead Pawns that you draw.

When should I ignore Pawn?

Pawn, like Cellar, is less useful when discard Attacks are in the Kingdom - true, the Pawn can just be used for +1 Card, +1 Action, but more often than not you'll find yourself just discarding them, and if you had not bought them in the first place, you would have had a better hand to choose three cards from.  In general, contexts where a potentially self-replacing card like Pawn does more harm than good, should result in Pawn avoidance - for example, in 3- or 4-player games where Attacks abound, and having a Moat in hand is critical - a Pawn would soak up a spot in your hand that could be better filled by the Moat.

Terminal draw, such as Smithy BM, conflicts with Pawn, since they are now competing for an Action.  Generally playing the draw card will be stronger, but with too many Pawns, you'll be getting dead draws.

Pawn becomes less useful when better sources of +Buy are present, such as Market or Wharf.  What Pawn has going for it in these instances is that it is cheap, so it's easier to procure, and easy to spam, but you'd rather have the better card in your deck.  However, Pawn can still be piled out in these instances when necessary.

In summary:

Don't be afraid to use Pawn for terminal draw, either with +$1 or +1 Buy.  Either option is usually better than the cantrip option.  Just realize that you have, well, options.

Goes well with:
Minion
Engines
Throne Room, etc
Deck inspection/Top decking
Library, etc

Conflicts with:
Against discard Attacks
Terminal draw BM
Better +Buy

[Davio]

Pretty good article, but I'd like the article to point out a bit more that Pawn can be non-terminal action money. This is very nice for cards like Minion, as you mentioned, but also works with cards like Tactician and of course Scrying Pool.

Maybe Poor House, but my DA experience is seriously underwhelming so I have no clue.

The fact that it's non-terminal action money means it works well in engines and very bad in terminal draw big money type decks. Indeed, if you play 4 consecutive Pawns as +1 Card / +1 Action just looking for that critical action card, it's not so great.

[achmed_sender]

Pawn is maybe the best cheap card for cards like, vineyards, scrying pool, death cart, peddler or conspirator

[lespeutere]

I'd say hamlet is better for all of them except scrying pool. Not sure about death cart, though, but I think, hamlet is better there, too.

[-Stef-]

I like the basic ideas of the article, just some points you may want to add:

* village/smithy decks. Add a few pawns to these decks, and it's no longer a problem to buy 'too many' villages. What I use the pawn for highly depends on the draws, but most of the time it will be card+action or card+money. Your article stresses a lot on the 'pointlessness' of playing pawn for card+action, which I think is a good point to make for new players. However, it's only pointless if you play it for card+action all the time. Being able to balance out between 'this turn has too many actions', 'this turn needs actions' and 'wow this turn is so great I need a buy' is the flexibility that makes pawn a good card in these decks.
* Opening Pawn/Silver in stead of Silver/Silver. This is a very good plan on boards with strong $5 cards that eventually will enable you to build an engine. Playing the Pawn for card/money is completely safe on you first reshuffle, almost as good as a Silver, and later on you have faster deck cycling.
* Peddler & Scrying Pool. They should be on top of the list 'goes well with'. Conspirator right below it.
* Minion. You mention minion, but really pawn/minion is great. Almost always I play pawn for action+money in such decks, the buy only comes when the deck is really strong. Minion should also be on top of the list 'goes well with'
* Throne Room on a Pawn actually isn't that great. Sure, in a throne room deck I want a lot of actions and pawn is cheap, so I'll probably buy a few pawns in there. But I always hope I can throne something else. A two-card combo that results in a village... hmmm....
* I think your reasons to ignore pawn are both valid but should be swapped. Discard attacks are the best reason to ignore pawn. Better sources of +buy are probably my third reason to ignore pawn. Playing with lots of terminal draw is somewhere between those two.
* End game control. Although pawns don't grand lots of power, lots of pawns can turn into lots of buys right when you need them. The thread alone could be important on an impending three pile ending.
* Both Vineyards and Gardens go pretty well with pawn.

[Tables]

I think you're being far too critical of the +1 card +1 action play. The key thing with doing that is, yes, the pawn doesn't give you any benefit, but it also doesn't hurt you. It's not unusual to hit $2 in a game with no other $2's at least once, and in that situation, you're often happy to just grab a pawn (terminal draw decks being the obvious exception). With no real plan for that pawn, it's often better to just cycle to your next card than it is to play it as a bad terminal.

Pre-post-read: I see Stef already made this point. Well okay, add my voice to him.

[lespeutere]

I think you're being far too critical of the +1 card +1 action play. The key thing with doing that is, yes, the pawn doesn't give you any benefit, but it also doesn't hurt you. It's not unusual to hit $2 in a game with no other $2's at least once, and in that situation, you're often happy to just grab a pawn (terminal draw decks being the obvious exception). With no real plan for that pawn, it's often better to just cycle to your next card than it is to play it as a bad terminal.

Pre-post-read: I see Stef already made this point. Well okay, add my voice to him.

And I think you at least phrase it, if not are too uncritical saying it doesn't hurt you. I agree with -Stef- and you that it's not as critical as wero presented it in his OP but there are more than just edge cases imho where I abstain from buying pawn even with 2$ - one of them being terminal draw/BM as you pointed out.

[Jimmmmm]

I think most often I buy Pawn because "I may as well get this with my spare $2 because something other than the cantrip option might be good at some point".

[DG]

I think a lot of right things have been mentioned here but they can be expanded a little.

- Pawns can work well with villages. There was a post recently where pawns were used to empty the city pile to win a colony game.
- Playing actions before a discard/draw has more applications than just minions. It can apply with tacticians, libraries, menageries, etc.
- Pawns aren't great with thrones, but given their cost they can be makeshift enabler for throne, procession, golems, and king's court.

There probably ought to be an article about when cheap action cards are bad for your deck. It's the same thing each time and it is a common mistake in play. It's not just hand size attacks and in a variety of decks these cheap cards come with a hidden cost.

[Awaclus]

I think most often I buy Pawn because "I may as well get this with my spare $2 because something other than the cantrip option might be good at some point".

Yes, this is why I buy it, too. And then I almost always use it for +1 Card, +1$.

[ipofanes]

There probably ought to be an article about when cheap action cards are bad for your deck. It's the same thing each time and it is a common mistake in play. It's not just hand size attacks and in a variety of decks these cheap cards come with a hidden cost.

Most obvious deterrent to cheap action cards is Golem, but I agree there are more subtle reasons, such as a missed opportunity to counter opponent's tournament, to have the needed reaction or bane, the Fool's Gold you would have liked to unfool etc.

As these are more subtle points and Pawn is likely to benefit the most decks a bit, I think of Pawn as the "would I buy X over Pawn for $2" card, similar to Silver for $3 and Laboratory for $5.

[philosophyguy]

Minor tactical point: when Throning a Pawn and your goal is anything other than a village, you should choose the non-+1 Action option the first time you play it. Example: first time, choose +Card, +Buy; second time, choose +Card, +Action.

The reason for this is that you get a little bit more information about whether you need the action. If you draw coin and you know you only have 1 action remaining in your 5 card draw deck, you may want to choose +Card +Coin rather than +Card +Action the second time around.

[jomini]

The biggest thing about Pawn is the non-terminal +buy/non-terminal +coin aspect of it. This is normally my number one reason for buying pawn outside of "I have nothing else to do with this 2 coin". Think about the +1 coin, +1 card option. Until your deck has an average value of more than one coin/card, this is strictly inferior to a terminal silver (e.g. Duchess); even when your average value exceeds 1, you still are looking at something fairly close to a terminal silver.

+buys often wins a lot of games and Pawn is often phenomenally better than Market - the opportunity cost for buying Pawn is often a silver instead of a power 5 (like Merchant Ship) and that is big when engine building. Likewise, being able to add in a +buy without having to drop an action is fairly large as well. Assuming you have a power terminal in your deck (something for big coin, an attack, Expand, etc.) then a non-terminal +buy requires both the card itself and the village to keep your action balance on target. Overbuying villages just to be able to hit Pawn as a terminal is pretty terrible, yeah you have the option to try to salvage a busted turn that way, but it is much better to use additional actions you normally sacrificed a silver to get on something worth substantially more than a silver. In a classic village smithy engine, a classic lab engine, etc. the action needed to make pawn a terminal is almost always worth more than the coin or card you get when using pawn as a terminal. Only when you start tipping your action balance towards more reliability should you expect to play pawn as a terminal in most engines.


Coupling off that is Pawn's ability to warp endgame. With cost reduction (e.g. Princess rocks for this), the number of pawns you can buy is limited only to the +buys you have in play ... which is often limited buy the number of Pawns you own. A strong engine can often draw gobs of Pawns and once you have the possibility of 8 buys and 2 cost reduction, the opponent now has to be ever vigilant about you three piling Pawns/Estates and something else. A strong setup for this that already complements pawn is Watchtower. Using the disappearing cash nature of pawn makes Wt very strong draw for an engine. Being able to use a few Pawns for +buy and Wt'ing away Curses can also present a 3 pile threat. Forcing the opponent to grab some green early can really kill his deck (e.g. Wt engines) and let you then build further and megaturn out as he slowly stalls.

Pawn also works well with diversity loving decks - Fairgrounds, Harvest, Horn of plenty, etc. all are a natural fit for Pawn. Likewise, Pawn is a really nice activator card - Conspirators, HoPs, and Peddlers all work well off a cheap non-terminal like Pawn, even it is just played as a Cantrip.

Another big use of Pawn as a simple Cantrip is with top deck control. Say you have Apothecary/Pawn. Some turns you might want to use the Pawn for dead draw (e.g. cleaning some green off the deck top after you've chain played several Apothecaries), other times you want to move the next Apothecary to deck top, play a cantrip Pawn, and then keep playing Apothecaries. Other top deck options, like Lookout, Develop (which can often give you spare Pawns), etc. can all make cantrip Pawn quite viable. Knowing what is on top of your deck makes Pawn a good bit stronger so you can always choose the best use of live or dead draw and the best benefit of +1 buy (e.g. you will hit 10 coin) or +1 coin (you'd hit 7 coin without it) with dead draw.

[werothegreat]

Made some modifications.

[dondon151]

I wouldn't say that Pawn is ignorable when Market is present. Market is an expensive +buy and Pawn is a cheap one.

More importantly, wero, you might want to clarify that when stronger +buy is present, Pawn's role in your deck is ignorable, but as a kingdom card it's not ignorable, because it's a spammable, cheap card that will probably get emptied really quickly (or can get emptied really quickly on big turns).

[werothegreat]

I wouldn't say that Pawn is ignorable when Market is present. Market is an expensive +buy and Pawn is a cheap one.

More importantly, wero, you might want to clarify that when stronger +buy is present, Pawn's role in your deck is ignorable, but as a kingdom card it's not ignorable, because it's a spammable, cheap card that will probably get emptied really quickly (or can get emptied really quickly on big turns).

Noted.

[WanderingWinder]

Minor tactical point: when Throning a Pawn and your goal is anything other than a village, you should choose the non-+1 Action option the first time you play it. Example: first time, choose +Card, +Buy; second time, choose +Card, +Action.

The reason for this is that you get a little bit more information about whether you need the action. If you draw coin and you know you only have 1 action remaining in your 5 card draw deck, you may want to choose +Card +Coin rather than +Card +Action the second time around.

Well, maybe. More specifically, if you KNOW you're going to want at least one action eventually (you have another action in your hand you want to play, and for some reason you throned the pawn instead - I don't know why, maybe counting house or something), then you should absolutely take the action first, because maybe you'll want another. The advice you're giving is good but only applies if you have no other action to play, and is actually further negated for the situation where no matter what you draw in the first, you'll be taking an action in the second, just in case you draw an action there.
Of course, most often it doesn't matter.

[philosophyguy]

Well, maybe. More specifically, if you KNOW you're going to want at least one action eventually (you have another action in your hand you want to play, and for some reason you throned the pawn instead - I don't know why, maybe counting house or something), then you should absolutely take the action first, because maybe you'll want another. The advice you're giving is good but only applies if you have no other action to play, and is actually further negated for the situation where no matter what you draw in the first, you'll be taking an action in the second, just in case you draw an action there.
Of course, most often it doesn't matter.

Thank you; I knew my original comment was missing something. Pretty much - whatever you might want to double up on, you should take the first time. Whatever you know you'll only want once at most, you can safely save for the second time.

[Jimmmmm]

Well, maybe. More specifically, if you KNOW you're going to want at least one action eventually (you have another action in your hand you want to play, and for some reason you throned the pawn instead - I don't know why, maybe counting house or something), then you should absolutely take the action first, because maybe you'll want another. The advice you're giving is good but only applies if you have no other action to play, and is actually further negated for the situation where no matter what you draw in the first, you'll be taking an action in the second, just in case you draw an action there.
Of course, most often it doesn't matter.

Thank you; I knew my original comment was missing something. Pretty much - whatever you might want to double up on, you should take the first time. Whatever you know you'll only want once at most, you can safely save for the second time.

But mostly, if you want to draw, do it first.

[Guy Srinivasan]

I love Pawn/Peddler/X so much. I don't know if it's good, but I love it.

[werothegreat]

Any further thoughts on the article as it stands?

[jomini]

Any further thoughts on the article as it stands?

It still sounds like you are overselling the usefulness of the dead draw options. It is perfectly normal to pick up a pawn on a 3 coin hand and play it as a Cantrip most of the time, you do this a LOT in engine play. Take something like a Torturer engine, yeah I'll grab pawn early on so I can later use it as +buy. This means that when I have Pawn/Torturer in hand, I'm almost always going to first play the Torturer if I have spare actions and almost always going to play the Pawn as a cantrip when I don't. I need the action to hit the Torturer so now I look at my deck and say what is worth more to me: 1 card, 1 coin, or 1 buy. Well, unless I think I need to buy two villages at 6 coin or I'm already at 7 coin ... the +buy isn't worth anywhere near as much as a card. Likewise, unless my deck is utter crap, 1 card is worth more than a coin.


You hit this a LOT in engines. You buy the pawn when the opportunity cost is low, which tends to be early in the game. You play it as a cantrip whenever it would conflict with a power action, sometimes as a non-terminal coin, and rarely as a terminal coin until the engine starts firing strongly. Then you really want the +buy to pick up multiple components and eventually double green cards.

Yeah, early on you can use it as a weak silver (+ $1, +1 card), but it doesn't take long until you should mostly be playing it for +buy or cantrip so it doesn't gum up your engine.

I really just don't think you "usually" want a non-cantrip option on Pawn, you really only want to use non-cantrip when you get something better than a silver - which is what you usually give up to play pawn like that.

[werothegreat]

I added a paragraph.  I'm not saying you should never use it as a cantrip - I'm just saying there are usually stronger options.  Not every board has trashing, and there will plenty of times where you'll pick the cantrip option at $7 only to draw a Province or an Estate.  For your Torturer example, I would most likely use Pawn for +1 Action, +$1 rather than as a cantrip, unless I knew I had a high probability of a Village coming up.  I'm obviously not going to play the Pawn as terminal draw with a Torturer in hand, and I don't believe I suggested to do so in the article.

[eHalcyon]

I added a paragraph.  I'm not saying you should never use it as a cantrip - I'm just saying there are usually stronger options.  Not every board has trashing, and there will plenty of times where you'll pick the cantrip option at $7 only to draw a Province or an Estate.  For your Torturer example, I would most likely use Pawn for +1 Action, +$1 rather than as a cantrip, unless I knew I had a high probability of a Village coming up.  I'm obviously not going to play the Pawn as terminal draw with a Torturer in hand, and I don't believe I suggested to do so in the article.

If you're at $7, obviously take the $1 to hit $8 (in a Province game, unless you still need a Gold, etc. etc.).  I don't think jomimi is saying to cantrip all the time.

In your Torturer example, why make the Pawn a Copper?  If you cantrip into Copper, it's about the same as taking the $1.  But maybe you also have a chance of finding a Village.  Or it helps your cycling.  If that $1 really matters, take the money... otherwise cantrip might very well be better.

I think jomimi's point is that you always want to evaluate the situation and choose the best option for the context.  You shouldn't overvalue any particular set of options as best by default.

[werothegreat]

I think jomimi's point is that you always want to evaluate the situation and choose the best option for the context.  You shouldn't overvalue any particular set of options as best by default.

Right.  And I thought I made that clear enough in the article.