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[sffc]

Scavenger is a card whose power may not be obvious at first glance.  It looks a whole lot like the card Chancellor always wanted to be, similar to how Noble Brigand is like the card Thief always wanted to be.  So, what makes Scavenger worth having its own article?

Scavenger's power arises from the fact that it lets you search essentially your entire deck, finding exactly the card that you want, and topdecking it.  This is actually pretty awesome.  If Scheme is the card that lets you save an Action that you played this turn, Herbalist is the card that lets you save a Treasure that you played this turn, and Haven is the card that lets you save something that you could have played but didn't, Scavenger is the card that lets you save something that you never even saw this turn.  Better yet, unlike Scheme and Herbalist, it works on non-actions as well as actions.

Early in the game, you can Scavenge cursing attacks like Sea Hag and Witch to win the curse split.

Later in the game, You can Scavenge your Platinum, Goons, or other power card, depending just on the frequency that you draw a Scavenger.

Scavenger also helps put together unrelated combos.  For instance, consider Tournament.  If your only Province is in your discard pile and you know you have Tournaments coming up soon, Scavenge it to the top of your deck.  If you have +Actions, you can even Scavenge a Province that you revealed this turn in order to gain multiple Prizes at once.  If you have lots of Scavengers and even more +Actions, you can topdeck more complicated combos together.  For example, play a Village followed by two Scavengers, topdecking your Talisman and your Quarry.  In an engine, Scavenger increases reliability by being able to topdeck key components for next turn.

In a similar manner, Scavenger rewards you for diligent deck tracking.  Yeah, you can just dump your whole deck into the discard and pull out the power card, but if you are already going to play it next turn (or at worst the turn after), you may get more by just top decking from the cards already in the discard. On the flip side, some cards like altar can be so powerful that it is worth it to dump the deck every time they aren't in hand in order to play them ASAP.

However, Scavenger really shines when it is part of its own combo.  Below, I point out a few of the most notable.

Combo: Scavenger/Stash

Requirements: 2 Scavengers, 3 Stashes

This is one of the first combos that was documented in Dark Ages.  It is pretty straightforward: every turn, play Scavenger, put your deck into your discard pile, and topdeck your other Scavenger.  During cleanup phase, you draw the second Scavenger, and when you reshuffle, put all three Stashes on top.  In the absence of handsize-reduction attacks, you are now guaranteed a Province every turn.

Some players might be more comfortable with having 4 Stashes instead of 3 to guard against the possibility of drawing both of your Scavengers in the same hand.  However, the probability of this happening before you buy your fourth or fifth Province is quite low, and if it does happen, the combo is quick to get going again.

Works With: Cursing attacks, Looters

Conflicts With: All handsize-reduction attacks, Minion, Pillage

Combo: Scavenger/King's Court

Okay, what card besides Counting House doesn't combo with King's Court?  I am pointing out this combo because it is extremely resilient, and it guarantees a Province or Colony every single turn.

Requirements: 2 Scavengers, 2 King's Courts, 2 Silvers (or 2 Platina for Colony games)

Here's how it works.  Draw King's Court, Scavenger, Silver, and two other cards.  KC the Scavenger, don't discard your deck, and instead topdeck the KC, Scavenger, and Silver that are in your discard pile from last turn.  Play the Silver.  Buy a Province.  Draw 5 Cards.  Rinse and Repeat forever.

What makes this particular combo worth noting is that it is immune to Militia, Goons, Margrave, and Ghost Ship.  In fact, the only cards that could normally mess up this combo are Minion, Pillage, and (immediately after a reshuffle and with bad shuffle luck) trashing attacks like Rogue and Thief.

Works With: Handsize-reduction attacks and most other attacks

Conflicts With: Minion, Pillage, faster King's Court combos, Masquerade in the presence of handsize-reduction attacks

Combo: Scavenger/Golem

Requirements: 1 Scavenger, 2 Golems, exactly 1 other Action

This is similar in principle to Golem/Scheme.  Play your Golem, making it find your Scavenger and any other Action card of your choice (say, a powerful attack).  Play the wildcard Action, and then play the Scavenger, discarding your deck if necessary and topdecking your other Golem.  Rinse and Repeat.

Counting House fits extremely well in the wildcard spot, even better than it did in Golem/Scheme.  Let your Golem find your Scavenger and your Counting House, play the Scavenger to discard your deck, and play the Counting House to draw all of your Copper.

Works With: Strong attacks, Counting House

Conflicts With: Minion, Pillage, Looters (for ruins are actions), Necropolis, Masquerades that give you action cards

Combo: Scavenger/University

Requirements: At least 1 Scavenger and 1 University; the more the better.

Watchtower is a powerful cards because it lets you topdeck something you just bought or gained, enabling you to play it an extra time than you normally would have been able to before the end of the game.

Scavenger can work in a similar manner to Watchtower for Action cards that gain something.  Gain your card, then Scavenge it for next turn.  Unfortunately, most card-gainers are terminal.

University not only lets you gain a card costing up to $5, but it also gives you actions.  So, you can play University to gain a $5 Action and then immediately Scavenge it.  If you have a cantrip in hand, you can even draw and play the $5 Action from University on the very same turn that it was gained.

Works With: Good $5 Actions, Cantrips

Combo: Scavenger/Reactions

Requirements: At least 1 Scavenger and 1 or 2 Reactions

Scavenger comes to the rescue when you blow out your birthday candles and wish, "if only there were a way to ensure that I always have my Trader, Tunnel, or Watchtower in hand when my opponent plays an attack."  Since Scavenger doesn't require that you actually draw the card from your discard pile right away, if Scavenger is your last Action, you can ensure that your Reaction is available between turns.

Works With: Strong Reactions in the presence of Attacks

Conflicts With: Minion, Pillage

Combo: Scavenger/Scavenger

Requirements: 2 Scavengers

With 2 Scavengers in your deck, you can simply Scavenge a Scavenger every turn to ensure that you always start with at least $2.  Nifty!

The guaranteed $2 is useful in many situations, but especially in Alternate VP games, when your money density becomes exceedingly low.  With a guaranteed $2, you just need $2 out of the other 4 cards in order to get your Silk Roads or Gardens; that's a $0.5 average card value.  For contrast, you woud normally need a $0.75 average card value to consistently purchase $4 AltVP.

Scavenger/Scavenger works especially well in the presence of Throne Room.  Throne your Scavenger, topdecking your other Throne Room and Scavenger.  You are now guaranteed $4 every turn.  Just one Copper and you have your Duke (requiring $0.33 average card value).

Scavenger/Scavenger and especially Scavenger/ThroneRoom are also resilient to most attacks, including handsize-reduction attacks.

Works With: Most attacks, Throne Room

Conflicts With: Minion, Pillage, faster non-AltVP strategies


Do you know of any other Scavenger combos?  Let me know here, and I can incorporate them into the article.

[Jimmmmm]

When I first saw Scavenger I thought it was just a Chancellor with a nice little bonus. But really the top-decking is super good and the Chancellor part is just to help facilitate it.

[PitzerMike]

Scavenger looks pretty cool.
I'd like to play with Dark Ages cards right now but I have to wait for the German release (October 15th).

[HiveMindEmulator]

This is a well-organized and well-written list of Scavenger combos. To be a full front-page article, it would be nice if you said a little more about Scavenger in general. Like move the last section up to the top and give a little more explanation. Talk about reliability in general. It's like Scheme except for cards you didn't play rather than cards you did play (making it not work if you draw your whole deck, but maybe helping you up until that point). Talk about how it's a generally decent opening especially if there is some key card you want to find and play repeatedly (like Witch, for example). Then list out the other specific combos you got into.

[jomini]

A few other combos:
Scav/Nv - Buy a province, next turn play village -> Scav -> Nv to top deck the province and keep your deck hitting hard.

Scav/Gainers (e.g. University) - While more difficult than Wt setups, Scav can let you gain & play a card on the same hand which can become quite powerful with the right engine setups.

Scav/Treasure map - This is easiest as the three card combo of Tr/Scav/Trmp where you just discard your deck once and top deck the two Trmps you had in it. With a bit more effort you can use Scav to top deck a previously dead Trmp and vastly increase your odds of hitting two Trmp this shuffle. As an added benefit, if you have the admittedly unlikely shot at it you can play village -> Scav -> Trmp and top deck a +buy or TfB card to make better use of the 12 coin hand.

Scav/Scrying Pool - Use Scav to either top deck last turn's Sp after you've drawn up this turn, or use a discard (like cellar, warehouse, secret chamber, etc.) to discard it and set up your hand for huge draw next turn.

Scav/PStone - top deck your potion to buy more Pstones early. Top deck your Pstone's later to buy more green. Maybe top deck a gainer or +buy as needed to bulk up Pstones or to make use of high Pstone density hands late in the draw deck.

Scav/Rebuild - top deck a rebuild, buy a duchy, rebuild estates to duchies or Oge to estate to duchy; rebuild duchies to provinces. Works well with 2 rebuilds & multiple Scav as rebuild -> Scav can keep the green flowing.

Scav/Goons - You can quickly accelerate your goons acquisition by top decking silvers and you can also top deck the goons a turn after buying them - potentially depriving your opponent of a chance meet parity for another shuffle. Additionally, Scav/goons can go wild on copper buys if there is a good 3 pile setup.


Scav/tournament - Scav competes heavily with tournament, but it can be useful to line up your first province & tournaments. It can also be useful to discard, draw, and discard the same province for multiple prizes. I also like its ability to accelerate the early province buy if you can top deck your first gold. On the flip side, like courtyard, Scav can be blindingly effective at countering Trnmnt by ensuring that you always start the next hand with a province to reveal.


This leads to another point - scav can also be an amazingly strong counter:
Scav/mountebank - top deck your single curse and never (in a strong engine deck) get cursed again.
Scav/reactions - be it trader, moat, beggar, or tunnel, you can use Scav to ensure that the reaction spends a lot of time in hand without having to overbuy the reaction. This is particularly good for reactions you don't always want to play so much, but really want to have in hand just for the reaction (e.g. trader is quite helpful in a swindler game, but once you've trashed your estates, you may wish to have him around to turn curses into coppers, but prefer to play something strong like Scav/Swndlr/Smithy).




Scav, even more than Chancellor, rewards you for deck tracking. Yeah you can just dump the whole deck into the discard and pull out the power card, however, if you are already going to play it next turn (or at worst the turn after) you may get more by just top decking from the cards already in the discard. On the flip side, some cards like altar can be so powerful that it is worth it to dump the deck every time they aren't in hand to play them ASAP.

[HiveMindEmulator]

^Some of those are cute ideas, but I think you're overstating them a bit. You seem to be implicitly assuming you have infinite Scavengers and can always play them. Otherwise It's just a case of general Scavenger use: play a good card more often.

[Young Nick]

Robz and I can attest that Scavenger/Rebuild is a very real and potent combo.

[jomini]

^Some of those are cute ideas, but I think you're overstating them a bit. You seem to be implicitly assuming you have infinite Scavengers and can always play them. Otherwise It's just a case of general Scavenger use: play a good card more often.

Nah I'm just assuming that using a 4 coin card allows you to mass a good bit more and not worry so much about terminal collisions. For instance, Pstone/Scav isn't going to be a major powerhouse, but it will result in getting Pstones much faster and playing them more often late game. I'd still want some other helper card there to make it work (or otherwise a really weak board otherwise), but there are many such helpers that would work (e.g. hamlet, pawn, etc.). Some are situational, like I would only use Scav/Nv or Scav/Curse as a Mntbnk counter in a strong engine, some are a bit more general like Scav/rebuild where there are unlikely to be too many other good cards to buy on sub-5 hands.

[Markov Chain]

Scavenger is also strong with any one powerful card, because each Scavenger guarantees that the powerful card will come up next.  If you have just one Possession, then every Scavenger lets you put the Possession in your hand for next turn (and if you possess your opponent's Scavengers, you can top-deck an estate).  If you have one Platinum, then every Scavenger lets you start the next turn with $5.

[mischiefmaker]

Scav/Nv - Buy a province, next turn play village -> Scav -> Nv to top deck the province and keep your deck hitting hard.

This is kind of interesting in an engine deck where you can actually make use of the actions (similar to Apothecary/Native Village, but without the economy of Apothecary). Without draw, though, I'm having a hard time seeing how your deck hits hard in the first place, since your five card hand is Scavenger-NV-3 random cards, meaning you need to average $2/card to get to Province. Plus you have to have enough Villages and NV to get the combo set up, further reducing the likelihood that you can generate the necessary coin.

[jomini]

Mischief: Scavenger is a pretty good card to have in an engine regardless; it provides by payload (coins that can buy stuff) and increased reliability (top decking key engine components for next turn). In addition, Scav/Native village can allow you to "trash" without having to have a trasher on the board. So yes, you are going to want draw, and you are likely to want some other type of village for the first Scav (even a necropolis) to not play the Nv too blind, but there are a LOT of boards like that.

I'm not saying the Scav/Nv is a game winner on its own, but it is a good bit more than just the sum of its parts.

[sffc]

Scav/Nv

Native Village combos like this are difficult to put together because it depends on drawing your Scavenger with a Village of some sort.  This is a main reason why a non-terminal self-spy card like Apothecary makes one of the most powerful combos in the game when paired with NV.

Scav/Gainers (e.g. University)

Scavenger/University is a great combo, because University not only gains a card, but it also gives you the +Actions that Scavenger needs.  I'll add this to the article.

Scav/Treasure map

Haven should be better at matching Treasure Maps than Scavenger.  Plus, Scavenger costs $4, competing with Treasure Maps.  However, you could open Scav/Silver and be all-but-guaranteed two Treasure Maps by turn 4.  I can add this to the article, but I'm not convinced that it is a strong enough combo.

Scav/Scrying Pool, Scav/Rebuild, Scav/Goons

These are all good combos, but they seem more like "Scavenge a Power Card" than a combo that uses Scavenger's unique abilities.

Scav/PStone

This sounds like Herbalist/PStone.  It's worth noting in the article.

Scav/tournament

I think I mentioned this one already in the article.

Scav/mountebank

This is an interesting one.  I'm not convinced though that taking a 4-card hand every turn and slowing down cycling is worth the 2-3 Curses and Coppers that this would save you from gaining?  Sounds like something into which the Simulator could give us insight.

Scav/reactions

This is a nice generalization of Scav/Mountebank.  I'll add it to the article.

Scav, even more than Chancellor, rewards you for deck tracking. Yeah you can just dump the whole deck into the discard and pull out the power card, however, if you are already going to play it next turn (or at worst the turn after) you may get more by just top decking from the cards already in the discard. On the flip side, some cards like altar can be so powerful that it is worth it to dump the deck every time they aren't in hand to play them ASAP.

This is a very good point.  I'll add this to the article as well.

[sffc]

This is a well-organized and well-written list of Scavenger combos. To be a full front-page article, it would be nice if you said a little more about Scavenger in general. Like move the last section up to the top and give a little more explanation. Talk about reliability in general. It's like Scheme except for cards you didn't play rather than cards you did play (making it not work if you draw your whole deck, but maybe helping you up until that point). Talk about how it's a generally decent opening especially if there is some key card you want to find and play repeatedly (like Witch, for example). Then list out the other specific combos you got into.

Thanks for the kind words.  I've taken your advice and moved the Scavenger/Combo combo to the main discussion at the top.  I also lengthened that discussion, and I renamed "Scavenger/AltVP" to just "Scavenger/Scavenger".  There's a cool synergy between Scavenger, Haven, Scheme, and Herbalist that I pointed out as well.

[sffc]

I have incorporated these comments in to the article in the OP.  For reference, I put the original draft of the article in a Pastebin: http://pastebin.com/vNynVX3z

Thanks for all of your feedback!  Let me know if there's anything else that can be changed to improve the quality of this article.

[jomini]

Scav/Nv

Native Village combos like this are difficult to put together because it depends on drawing your Scavenger with a Village of some sort.  This is a main reason why a non-terminal self-spy card like Apothecary makes one of the most powerful combos in the game when paired with NV.

Scav/Gainers (e.g. University)

Scavenger/University is a great combo, because University not only gains a card, but it also gives you the +Actions that Scavenger needs.  I'll add this to the article.

Scav/Treasure map

Haven should be better at matching Treasure Maps than Scavenger.  Plus, Scavenger costs $4, competing with Treasure Maps.  However, you could open Scav/Silver and be all-but-guaranteed two Treasure Maps by turn 4.  I can add this to the article, but I'm not convinced that it is a strong enough combo.

Scav/Scrying Pool, Scav/Rebuild, Scav/Goons

These are all good combos, but they seem more like "Scavenge a Power Card" than a combo that uses Scavenger's unique abilities.

Scav/PStone

This sounds like Herbalist/PStone.  It's worth noting in the article.

Scav/tournament

I think I mentioned this one already in the article.

Scav/mountebank

This is an interesting one.  I'm not convinced though that taking a 4-card hand every turn and slowing down cycling is worth the 2-3 Curses and Coppers that this would save you from gaining?  Sounds like something into which the Simulator could give us insight.

Scav/reactions

This is a nice generalization of Scav/Mountebank.  I'll add it to the article.

Scav, even more than Chancellor, rewards you for deck tracking. Yeah you can just dump the whole deck into the discard and pull out the power card, however, if you are already going to play it next turn (or at worst the turn after) you may get more by just top decking from the cards already in the discard. On the flip side, some cards like altar can be so powerful that it is worth it to dump the deck every time they aren't in hand to play them ASAP.

This is a very good point.  I'll add this to the article as well.

I understand about the Nv difficulties it is just that: 1. There will be a lot of double village boards and 2. Necropolis works just find as the starting village.

Scav is not the best Treasure Map enabler, but it is a good enabler. I'm not going to say it is dominant, but it is good enough I'd be strongly tempted to run with it in most 4er games.

Even if you want to just leave it at Scav/power card, a couple of examples of what those power cards would be could come in awfully handy.

As far as using Scav to set up reactions, well, how much it is worth is going to depend on the type of deck I have, no? A strong engine can almost always top deck the curse if you are going to draw most of the deck anyway, you may as well have the curse in hand (it is even stronger if you have something secret chamber or cellar where you can discard the curse after drawing it). If you are playing Big Money/Mountebank yourself, then yeah, top deck your Mntbnk. Some engines are, of course, going to like top decked reactions more (e.g. menage decks don't mind a top decked curse or a watchtower) others are going take a bigger hit (e.g. trader in a library deck).

[WheresMyElephant]

Is there a good argument for why Scav+Reaction is better than replacing the Scavenger with another copy of the Reaction?

 My intuition would be that in terms of how often you hit the Reaction, the two choices are roughly equal, though if anyone disagrees I'd love to hear why. Otherwise, I guess there are three other factors, which could come into play but are by no means certain:

* The Scavenger trick essentially gives you a free Chancellor along with (the rough equivalent of) an extra copy of your Reaction. So obviously this could be good, but not always. Although if it's terminal density you're worried about, buying an extra Reaction copy could be equally bad. There's also the question, are you even going to use the discard ability knowing that your Reaction will miss the reshuffle? Otherwise you're not even quite getting a "free Chancellor" but a plain terminal Silver.

* Opting for the Scavenger can prevent undesirable collisions between the two copies of the Reaction. Though again, it could be that a Reaction/Scavenger collision is equally annoying or more so.

* If your opponent's attack no longer scares you then, like Scheme, Scavenger can switch gears and start topdecking Gold or whatever. So that's nice, if it happens.

[Asklepios]

Combo: Scavenger/King's Court

That's one of those exceptionally clever combos I would NEVER have thought of! Very cool!

Any idea how competitive it is to build towards this combo? I worry that - like so many cool ideas - it may not be faster than straight BM.

I'm also thinking that Kc/Scav/Platinum would be good too in Colony games, and possibly it being a colony game would mean more time to set it up, even if the components are even more expensive.

[jomini]

Is there a good argument for why Scav+Reaction is better than replacing the Scavenger with another copy of the Reaction?

 My intuition would be that in terms of how often you hit the Reaction, the two choices are roughly equal, though if anyone disagrees I'd love to hear why. Otherwise, I guess there are three other factors, which could come into play but are by no means certain:

* The Scavenger trick essentially gives you a free Chancellor along with (the rough equivalent of) an extra copy of your Reaction. So obviously this could be good, but not always. Although if it's terminal density you're worried about, buying an extra Reaction copy could be equally bad. There's also the question, are you even going to use the discard ability knowing that your Reaction will miss the reshuffle? Otherwise you're not even quite getting a "free Chancellor" but a plain terminal Silver.

* Opting for the Scavenger can prevent undesirable collisions between the two copies of the Reaction. Though again, it could be that a Reaction/Scavenger collision is equally annoying or more so.

* If your opponent's attack no longer scares you then, like Scheme, Scavenger can switch gears and start topdecking Gold or whatever. So that's nice, if it happens.

1. Scav comes with +2 coin. This means that early on you can still hit 5 or 6 coin, doubling up on something like trader or beggar can really trash your early economy.
2. Scav can allow you to make good use of discard cards to ensure the reaction is in hand with minimal engine space. For instance, say you have a young witch bane of duchess. If you have a card like warehouse or cellar you can toss the duchess (the weakest of the terminal silvers) and draw better cards, but still use the Scav to top deck the duchess every single hand. So something like Necro/Labs/storehouse/scav/duchess can completely nerf a Yw, every hand without having to pile up a bunch of terminals that end up dead in your hand.
3. Scav/reaction/gainer/TfB can let you trash the reaction you don't want to play, gain a new one into the discard, and then top deck it. Something like Scav/Apprentice/Iw can top deck something like horse traders, then play it off an enemy spy, apprentice the Ht, gain a new Ht with Iw, and then Scav it to deck top for another six card hand. When you buy reactions you have to wait to get them in deck and then you still have crappy odds of them being in any particular hand of five. Scav, particularly in an engine, let's you top deck them the moment you gain and ensure you start every hand with one reaction in it.
4. Scav has a lot more flexibility. Let's say that I go trader/Scav against a witch. Too many traders mean that I have little to flood into silver (once the estates are gone), but blanketing the deck traders lowers my buying potential. Once the curses are gone, I can top deck golds, and prior to that turns with Scav let me get more use of trader when it matters. Particularly if I double deck track and know where your witch is, I can opportunistically top deck gold, scav, or something else (like my own witch).

Asklepios:

It is a pretty strong combo actually. You need six cards, with two of them being silver, to assure a province every turn (barring the usual suspects like minion). You can open Scav/Silver, certainly buy a second Scav on the second shuffle and then buy silver/gold until you hit Kc (which isn't that long). Your biggest misses will be pulling a second Kc into hand, but even that tends to only drop you down to a duchy for a hand or two. If your silvers collide, you still have really good odds of hitting 2 coin off the coppers You can, of course, go for Kc/Kc/Scav/Scav/X/Y (if X is non-terminal draw you can play Y), which might be worth the overbuild on colony boards.

The bigger shot is that Kc/Scav just shrugs away attacks. You don't care if they muck around with top deck, you don't care much about curses, and hand size reduction actively helps you (barring minion and pillage). There aren't that many combos that are so resistant and most of those are three or more card combos.