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[Jack Rudd]

It's Theory's avatar!

Is this the most overpriced card in Dominion?
When would you get this in preference to Gold?
What, other than Tunnel, does it combo with?

[AdrianHealey]

And how would you change it to be worthwhile?

[AdrianHealey]

I guess I *might* buy it when:

(1) There is a strong (copper) trasher, making it more possible I draw gold or better (maybe silver).
(2) I have plenty of actions
(3) I have +buy without virtual coin

am I missing something?

[LastFootnote]

And how would you change it to be worthwhile?

This ain't no Variants forum! Take it outside!

[Awaclus]

I guess I *might* buy it when:

(1) There is a strong (copper) trasher, making it more possible I draw gold or better (maybe silver).
(2) I have plenty of actions
(3) I have +buy without virtual coin

am I missing something?

The only reason I have ever bought Adventurer and not regretted it was when:

4) There is a strong terminal +cards, that pile runs out, there are enough splitters, and you still want more draw for your engine and Adventurer is the next best option

[faust]

I think Adventurer is mostly useless in Big Money. The biggest drawback is terminal-ness, and then it doesn't provide enough coin to make up for that usually. Which is a shame, cause BM is usually when you have lots of Treasures.

To make it happen in an engine, you need a pretty specific environment.

- Treasures need to be part of your strategy, ideally a key part (Horn of Plenty?)
- Copper trashing must be available.
- ideally there is some sifting to ensure that you have enough treasures in your discard.
- Adventurer is usually only worth it if there is no better source of draw.

So if you don't have this, you can usually ignore Adventurer. With one exception: Procession can force you to gain them! And then you should have a plan for what to do with them.

[jsh357]

Copypasted from identical reddit thread:

Aside from Horn of Plenty games I very rarely buy this card. It's not bad for those since you may have passed up on drawing Horns with Warehouse or something and Adventurer can scoop them up at the end, but even then at $6 it's steep for what the card does. Maybe the worst card in the game when considering its price to quality ratio.

Then again, I've lost to people who go for it, so clearly those decks where it's all right exist, but generally you can do something better.

[werothegreat]

This could easily have been and it would still be weak.  Compare to even just Journeyman.  J-man costs less, draws more, still can skip over stuff, and is more likely to actually draw stuff you can actually use this turn without having to trash Copper into oblivion.

[xyz123]

It's main strength is that it allows you to have a small number of good treasure cards in your deck because it is guaranteed to find them. The downside is that such a deck requires a number of other things to be in place and even if they are all present, there is a good chance there is also a better payload option.

I think this can be a trap card for new players. It certainly was for me. When going through the "buy lots of action cards without a coherent plan" phase, I saw Adventurer as a way of ensuring I would have a reasonable amount to spend that turn. For a while this made me think it was a good card, even a must buy at times.

[Marcory]

Adventurer is useful in games with junkers and where you can only trash Coppers (Moneylender/Spice Merchant/Counterfeit/Miser/etc), and in which you were able to buy decent treasures before your deck got junked. (Perhaps you got the Gold from Market Square or Soothsayer).

I could also see a combo with Scrying Pool or Wandering Minstrel, in which you draw all of your actions and then use Adventurer to draw the Golds you discarded.

[Awaclus]

To make it happen in an engine, you need a pretty specific environment.

- Treasures need to be part of your strategy, ideally a key part (Horn of Plenty?)
- Copper trashing must be available.
- ideally there is some sifting to ensure that you have enough treasures in your discard.
- Adventurer is usually only worth it if there is no better source of draw.

I think that Copper trashing not being available is more likely to make Adventurer worth it in an engine. If you can just trash your Coppers, either you're probably going to have enough draw anyway or it's not an engine board at all. When you can't trash them, at least Adventurer can help by removing them from your draw pile (and putting them into your hand instead).

[pacovf]

To make it happen in an engine, you need a pretty specific environment.

- Treasures need to be part of your strategy, ideally a key part (Horn of Plenty?)
- Copper trashing must be available.
- ideally there is some sifting to ensure that you have enough treasures in your discard.
- Adventurer is usually only worth it if there is no better source of draw.

I think that Copper trashing not being available is more likely to make Adventurer worth it in an engine. If you can just trash your Coppers, either you're probably going to have enough draw anyway or it's not an engine board at all. When you can't trash them, at least Adventurer can help by removing them from your draw pile (and putting them into your hand instead).

How is it better than Moat then?

[Beyond Awesome]

This card is awful. Come on guys, let's not pretend otherwise.

Worst card in Dominion, maybe. Pirate Ship and They give this a run for its money.

Essentially, just about every kingdom card is better than this, so the odds of ever getting this are slim, and if you do your probably going to lose. I think maybe I have bought it one or two games and win, but come on, this card is awful.

[Seprix]

This is arguably the worst card in Dominion. I don't know what's worse, Harvest, Adventurer, or Scout.

Worst card in Dominion, maybe. Pirate Ship and They give this a run for its money.

Pirate Ship is way better than this card, and it's not even good.

Worst card in Adventures is probably Miser.

[J Reggie]

The existence of this card shows how much Dominion has changed since the early days. Donald and the playtesters must have thought this card was really powerful, as Big Money strategies were seen as more often being the dominant strategy. It only draws treasure cards; it's really the best thing Big Money could ask for, right? I'm glad there aren't too many of these cards, but this one is cool.

 Thinking about this, I wonder if the fabled "+2 cards +$2" would be considered balanced now at $5, if a little boring? Donald has often said that he considered it too strong with what he knew, or something along those lines. The fact that Adventurer is priced at $6 but is now clearly worth a lot less points to the idea that there may have been BM enablers way back when that were considered too strong but would really have been just fine.

[schadd]

i think it is unproductive to discuss this card except for how it easily communicates that we are discussing base set now, as in  if you skipped to the next productive one and started on bureaucrat cellar then people would be like ehhhh what the devil is goin on eeere

[E.Honda]

This card is just really Bad. Im trying to imagine a scenario where it does anything useful for you but there just doesnt seem to be one. If youve trashed your coppers and want to draw your treasures theres probably another and better source of draw that also lets you draw your Action cards. If you havent trashed your coppers then its even worse.
Also the fact that it is Terminal makes it really weak since there is usually better payload for your engine that competes with it for Terminal space and as noted before in an engine youre gonna draw stuff ( including your treasures) anyway

[SirSlugma]

It's weird how bad this card is, since most other Base cards (even the oft-maligned Chancellor and Thief) have their edge uses.  There's just so few reasons why you ever want this for $6 - the best case I can think of off the top of my head is if you have a Gold gainer and can use this to reach more Golds, in a deck where you have trashed your Coppers?  Maybe in a Good-Stuff kind of deck where you can't just draw everything easily?  I dunno, it would be semi-viable at $5; it's still pretty bad.  But at $6 it's like, hey, let's just buy a Gold instead (or a superior component for an engine).

[J Reggie]

I did actually use this card recently in a campaign game with Market Square, a bunch of trashing, and no other draw. I'm not sure it was the best thing, but it seemed to work well, and I won.

[ConMan]

I agree that a lot of stars need to align for this to be worthwhile. You need good Copper trashing, but for some reason you still want a few Treasures in your deck, but your deck has to be built that you can't just draw them as part of an engine or whatever. But, at the same time, you need a way to hit $6 to actually buy Adventurer (or some other means of gaining it). So, uh, wtf?

Some rough thoughts: It's got a little bit of use in a HoP game, since it both finds the HoP and adds an extra unique card. And it means you don't actually have to hit $6, just 6 unique cards in play.

Does it have synergy with any other special Treasures? Maybe Relic, because then you're increasing your ability to attack on a regular basis. Potion, a little bit, including in Scrying Pool or Familiar games where you either want to get your Treasures out of the way where possible, or where you might have a lot of junk in your deck to dig through. Coin of the Realm? It's kind of like Scheme-ing your Villages, I guess, but it's not that great given you have to use one of those Actions to play it in the first place. Loan kinda sorta maybe but not.

So very broadly, I think that Adventurer is at its strongest when you're using it to find Treasures for purposes other than +Coins, and you lack the means of drawing those Treasures on a regular basis in any other way. Does that sound right? The only other case I could think of is Philosopher's Stone, since you don't reduce the size of your deck like you would by drawing it with lots of +Cards, but when do you ever run a PStone deck by trashing Copper?

EDIT: Also maaaaaaaaaybe in a situation where you use Scheme to top-deck the Adventurer as a proxy for top-decking your Treasures? But then you'd need a reliable way of playing Scheme, like King's Court, and if you've got KC/Scheme on the board then odds are good you've got a better payload than Adventurer.

[JW]

As a $6 Action, Adventurer combos with Procession + $5 cost action  + trash for benefit.

[amoffett11]

Adventurer is a card that I'll never buy when I'm playing online, but it's a card I buy a lot when I'm playing IRL, because mostly my IRL games are with people who don't play Dominion as much as me.  "Hey, Adventurer is on the board, I'll see if I can make it work this game".  Usually it doesn't.  The first time I did this my opponents followed suit and bought Adventurer over Gold, because "hey, he's buying Adventurer, he must know something we don't".  Ya, I do know something you don't:  Adventurer is really bad, and I'm buying it to handicap myself.  The next time I bought it, I would tell everyone "this card sucks, but I'm going to try and make it work".

[Donald X.]

A good example of the power level of Adventurer is the campaign level where you start with it, and your opponent starts with Witch. I had to play this one a lot as it kept being too hard.

I think it's nuts to compare it to Thief etc. The cost makes Adventurer weak; the abilities make Thief weak.

[ConMan]

As a $6 Action, Adventurer combos with Procession + $5 cost action  + trash for benefit.

Possibly as a stepping-stone to King's Court, too.

[Davio]

I think this could cost $5, have +1 Action on it and still be a mere "okay" card.

So yeah, it's really bad, the cost is too steep and it's not gamewarping enough to spend a precious action on.

[pst]

I also think it has worked to find Fool's Gold for me, and I remember having bought it when I had lots of Golems and cantrips, so running out of actions was not often a problem.

[wachsmuth]

I remember this one game where I was playing the big City-Rabble-Mountebank engine versus someone doing Count-Adventurer big money on a colony board. I somehow lost and was very surprised by it. Anyway, if you can trash down just to Platinum and maybe Gold with Adventurer, that really counters Rabble pins. Best use I've seen of it so far.

[Awaclus]

To make it happen in an engine, you need a pretty specific environment.

- Treasures need to be part of your strategy, ideally a key part (Horn of Plenty?)
- Copper trashing must be available.
- ideally there is some sifting to ensure that you have enough treasures in your discard.
- Adventurer is usually only worth it if there is no better source of draw.

I think that Copper trashing not being available is more likely to make Adventurer worth it in an engine. If you can just trash your Coppers, either you're probably going to have enough draw anyway or it's not an engine board at all. When you can't trash them, at least Adventurer can help by removing them from your draw pile (and putting them into your hand instead).

How is it better than Moat then?

By virtue of being in the kingdom when Moat is not. It is pretty much worse than Moat in every way.

[Accatitippi]

I have this theory that goes: over time Dominion strategy has shifted towards later, faster greening as the player base got more experienced, and engines more viable.
Earlier on, you'd have to cope with green decks much longer than we usually do now, and this explains why early Victory skippers/sifters are on the pricy and (now) useless side of the spectrum (Adventurer, Scout). It also explains how Scrying Pool ended up being much cheaper than Golem.

That was all for me guessing what goes on in Donald's and the Dominion playtesters' minds.

[Jack Rudd]

As a $6 Action, Adventurer combos with Procession + $5 cost action  + trash for benefit.

Possibly as a stepping-stone to King's Court, too.

It does. But you'd still probably only get it in the absence of an actually useful $6 action.

[assemble_me]

It's pretty good with copper trashing and when there's Platinum/Colonies around and there's no strong engine to be build. The nice thing is that it sifts very well through green cards.
Just look at my greatest moments post:

When Mine into Adventurer beats Procession/Fortress:

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160317/log.0.1458246091735.txt

also as saved stream:

https://www.twitch.tv/assemble_me/v/56618442 (starting at 1:08:45) - the chat was not convinced it was correct. Anyways, it felt pretty good

Mostly it's good when its brother in yellow, Venture, would be good, but it's a little worse than that because it's a terminal

[Accatitippi]

It's pretty good with copper trashing and when there's Platinum/Colonies around and there's no strong engine to be build. The nice thing is that it sifts very well through green cards.
Just look at my greatest moments post:

When Mine into Adventurer beats Procession/Fortress:

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160317/log.0.1458246091735.txt

also as saved stream:

https://www.twitch.tv/assemble_me/v/56618442 (starting at 1:08:45) - the chat was not convinced it was correct. Anyways, it felt pretty good

Mostly it's good when its brother in yellow, Venture, would be good, but it's a little worse than that because it's a terminal

Venture also chains, which is pretty good at times.

[Davio]

It's pretty good with copper trashing and when there's Platinum/Colonies around and there's no strong engine to be build. The nice thing is that it sifts very well through green cards.
Just look at my greatest moments post:

When Mine into Adventurer beats Procession/Fortress:

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160317/log.0.1458246091735.txt

also as saved stream:

https://www.twitch.tv/assemble_me/v/56618442 (starting at 1:08:45) - the chat was not convinced it was correct. Anyways, it felt pretty good

Mostly it's good when its brother in yellow, Venture, would be good, but it's a little worse than that because it's a terminal

Sifters are awkward in the end game.

On one hand, they help find your good cards between those pesky VP cards, on the other hand they accelerate shuffling so you will draw them into your hand more often.

[assemble_me]

Sifters are awkward in the end game.

I think Sifters are pretty good in the endgame. They decrease the chance that you chocke. Discarting the green junk is just great.

[Chris is me]

Adventurer is very rarely good. Here are some things that make it better.

Copper trashing in the presence of junking attacks - think Spice Merchant, Miser, Counterfeit, or Moneylender. You can thin your deck but you will still have several additional stop cards at the end and need something to push you up over the slog. Soothsayer might be the best junker here since it gives you Golds that Adventurer loves to draw.

Ferry, actually, makes Adventurer an affordable anti-junking card as well. Especially if there is no +Buy (which would make buying more of a cheaper card better), Ferrying Adventurer makes it a perfectly reasonable $4 cost card.

Tunnel, duh.

[Seprix]

Adventurer is very rarely good. Here are some things that make it better.

Copper trashing in the presence of junking attacks - think Spice Merchant, Miser, Counterfeit, or Moneylender. You can thin your deck but you will still have several additional stop cards at the end and need something to push you up over the slog. Soothsayer might be the best junker here since it gives you Golds that Adventurer loves to draw.

Ferry, actually, makes Adventurer an affordable anti-junking card as well. Especially if there is no +Buy (which would make buying more of a cheaper card better), Ferrying Adventurer makes it a perfectly reasonable $4 cost card.

Tunnel, duh.

But Ferrying Adventurer versus anything else...

[Marcory]

I tried Adventurer/Tunnel (in a game with copper trashing) against a bot and it was decent. Probably wasn't the greatest strategy on the board, but I might try it IRL if it comes up.

[Kirian]

I think this could cost $5, have +1 Action on it and still be a mere "okay" card.

So yeah, it's really bad, the cost is too steep and it's not gamewarping enough to spend a precious action on.

That wouldn't be strictly better than Lab, but it would be quite good if your only payload is treasures.

[AJD]

I think this could cost $5, have +1 Action on it and still be a mere "okay" card.

So yeah, it's really bad, the cost is too steep and it's not gamewarping enough to spend a precious action on.

That wouldn't be strictly better than Lab, but it would be quite good if your only payload is treasures.

It would be close enough to strictly better than Venture to be questionable, though.

[iamsparticus]

Worst card in Dominion, maybe. Pirate Ship and They give this a run for its money.
[/quote]

Pirate Ship is far better. On boards where there is no source of virtual money (or strong virtual gain) Pirate Ship can utterly dominate. Adventurer has no such cases where it dominates.

[JW]

While Adventurer is not a good source of draw compared to other draw cards, it be a decent source of draw for the difficult to set up Mandarin-Horn of Plenty-Kingdom $2 treasure golden deck combo.

For those who haven't seen it, Stef pulls off the Mandarin-Horn of Plenty (+Harem) golden deck here (using Shanty Town for some draw).

[DG]

I see more games where people don't buy adventurer when they should, than games where people do buy adventurer when they shouldn't. People seem to ignore it even when drawing two treasures is perfectly fine.

[LastFootnote]

I bought (at least one) Adventurer in a game recently, and it was good for my deck. But those situations are quite rare.

As Donald has implied in the past, Venture is pretty much the fixed version of Adventurer.

[Donald X.]

I have this theory that goes: over time Dominion strategy has shifted towards later, faster greening as the player base got more experienced, and engines more viable.
Earlier on, you'd have to cope with green decks much longer than we usually do now, and this explains why early Victory skippers/sifters are on the pricy and (now) useless side of the spectrum (Adventurer, Scout). It also explains how Scrying Pool ended up being much cheaper than Golem.

That was all for me guessing what goes on in Donald's and the Dominion playtesters' minds.

While some of what you say is true, that isn't really the explanation for Adventurer.

In the early days cards often did not get tried in very many forms. After an initial period when cards were way off, there was a period where I would make a card, guess at what it should cost and how best to phrase it and all that, and then if we were buying it and it didn't seem unbeatable, it would never change. While I liked the idea of a card being as cheap as it could be, I did not actually test cards at cheaper costs if we were buying them.

Adventurer is one of those cards. It cost $6. We bought it. Done. Scout, same deal.

Those two cards also had shorter lifespans than some. Scout was one of the 5 cards added to Intrigue to get it to 25 cards; Adventurer was from a batch of new cards after RGG took the game.

You get better at these things as you go along. Seaside is more polished than the main set and Intrigue; Prosperity is more polished than Seaside. Still if you ask why say Trade Route doesn't cost $2, the answer is, I didn't even consider it. It cost $3 and we bought it. I wanted to have no $2's in Prosperity, but I never thought, "I would make Trade Route cost $2 but I don't want any $2's."

Gradually the cost of a working card got more scrutiny, perhaps in part due to the weight of all of the published cards. In Adventures there's nothing that just got a free ride based on us buying it. Some of the fiddling around involved things like, how many $2's should there be, but e.g. Coin of the Realm cost $3 once, Dungeon cost $4. And it's not like you wouldn't buy them at those costs.

[ehunt]

After this thread I ran to the simulator to prove how y'all are laughably underestimating this card on Platinum/Colony boards, where, in the absence of a good engine, it's a strong buy.

Anyway, turns out I was wrong. Very wrong. Adventurer is not a very good card.

[Seprix]

Now I'm curious. Is there any strategy at all where Adventurer is just legit OP with a simulator?

[Doom_Shark]

It is pretty good with TR. As long as you've gotten rid of (most) coppers, it almost guarantees you a province. Same deal with KC, except it can ramp you up to province more easily, and if you've bought platinum, even to colony. And it (sort of) works with plaza and makes miser better. and for those of you who said you don't like miser, try opening miser-copper, then getting villages, draw power, and misers. But I'm getting off topic.

[theJester]

I remember seeing an expert game where winning strategy was opening Chapel/Chapel, quickly trashing starting cards, and using Platina-hunting Adventurer as a payload. I don't remember any specifcs, though.

I really like one thing with cards such as Adventurer or Harvest: while they're weak most of the time, it's all more fun and a challenge to find a board where they're actually great.

[Seprix]

I remember seeing an expert game where winning strategy was opening Chapel/Chapel, quickly trashing starting cards, and using Platina-hunting Adventurer as a payload. I don't remember any specifcs, though.

Weird! That sounds hilarious and fun.

I really like one thing with cards such as Adventurer or Harvest: while they're weak most of the time, it's all more fun and a challenge to find a board where they're actually great.

I know, right?

[tripwire]

I just posted in the Chancellor thread about the value of cards in the base set that help teach new players to become better players. I think Adventurer has the opposite effect.

It costs a lot so people assume that it must be good, and worst of all, it actually is good when you are a bad player. It can be a life saver when your money density has become too low because you've over-terminaled and greened too early. As a result, it can get in the way of recognizing the mistakes you're making.

I think this is what bothers me the most about the card.

[wachsmuth]

Another thing that slightly bothers me about Adventurer is that it's not even that fun. Many other situational or weak cards at least have pretty interesting and novel effects that few or no other cards can do, such as Coppersmith, Treasure Map, Scout, Contraband, Counting House etc. Adventurer is just weak terminal draw, a weaker and more expensive version of many other cards. Even when you do get Adventurer to work, it's rarely worth the reward, because the card's just not that interesting.

[ehunt]

Another thing that slightly bothers me about Adventurer is that it's not even that fun. Many other situational or weak cards at least have pretty interesting and novel effects that few or no other cards can do, such as Coppersmith, Treasure Map, Scout, Contraband, Counting House etc. Adventurer is just weak terminal draw, a weaker and more expensive version of many other cards. Even when you do get Adventurer to work, it's rarely worth the reward, because the card's just not that interesting.

I think the physical mechanic is entertaining IRL, particularly in a Swindler game (which, let's face it, is the type of game where you're most likely to have Adventurer) where your deck is full of junk.

[J Reggie]

Maybe Adventurer gets better in games with Crown!

[Co0kieL0rd]

Maybe Adventurer gets better in games with Crown!

Keep on dreaming.

[Seprix]

Adventurer combos with Delve! Hey, that's something!

[Co0kieL0rd]

Adventurer combos with Delve! Hey, that's something!

Without Copper trashing, I'd still rather have a Lab, since I can stack more Labs on top of it.