Dominion Promos Rules

Dominion Promo Rules

This accessible reference covers the Dominion promotional cards currently represented by Rio Grande Games' promo listings and the associated 64 Ounce Games accessibility materials: Envoy, Black Market, Stash, Walled Village, Governor, Prince, Summon, Sauna/Avanto, Dismantle, Church, Captain, and Marchland. Use the normal Dominion rules except where a promo adds a special setup, timing, scoring, or card-movement rule below.

Envoy

When Envoy is played, reveal the top five cards of your deck. If your deck has fewer than five cards, reveal what you can, shuffle your discard pile, and continue revealing until you reach five cards or run out of cards entirely.

The player to your left chooses one of the revealed cards for you to discard. Put every other revealed card into your hand. Even if fewer than five cards could be revealed after shuffling, the player to your left still chooses one revealed card to discard when at least one card was revealed.

If an effect changes who is considered the player to your left or changes turn order, use the player who is actually to your left when Envoy resolves.

Black Market

Setup

Before the game, create a separate face-down Black Market deck using Kingdom cards that are not in the Supply. The players should agree on which cards will be included. Rio Grande recommends at least 15 differently named Kingdom cards and normally only one copy of each chosen card. Everyone may see which cards are selected before the Black Market deck is shuffled.

The Black Market deck is not a Supply pile. Emptying it does not contribute to the normal game-ending empty-pile condition. If a card placed in the Black Market deck requires additional setup—such as Young Witch needing a Bane pile—perform that setup as required by that card.

Playing Black Market

Receive Black Market's coin bonus, then reveal the top three cards of the Black Market deck, or all remaining cards if fewer than three remain. You may buy one of those revealed cards.

This purchase occurs during your Action phase, not your Buy phase. You may play Treasure cards from your hand to help pay for the Black Market purchase. Those Treasures enter play normally and remain there for the rest of the turn. Coins from Actions already played earlier in the turn may also be used.

You may play more Treasures than are needed for the Black Market purchase, or even play Treasures and choose not to buy a revealed card. Unspent coins remain available when you later reach your normal Buy phase. Coins already spent on the Black Market purchase cannot be spent again.

Buying a card through Black Market does not use one of the Buys available in your later Buy phase. It also does not count as a card bought during the Buy phase for abilities that specifically ask what happened during the Buy phase.

After the purchase opportunity, put the revealed Black Market cards that were not bought on the bottom of the Black Market deck in an order you choose. If the Black Market deck is empty, you still receive Black Market's printed coin bonus but there is nothing to reveal or buy.

Cards purchased from Black Market are gained normally, but no matching Supply pile is created. Effects that require a copy “from the Supply” cannot obtain a Black Market-only card unless that card also happens to have a normal Supply pile for some other reason.

Stash

Stash is a Treasure worth its printed coin amount when played. Its special ability applies whenever Stash is among the cards you are shuffling to form or rebuild your deck.

During that shuffle, you may place each Stash being shuffled anywhere you want within the newly shuffled portion of your deck rather than randomizing that Stash with the other cards. With several Stashes, you may group them together or spread them apart.

Do not look at the faces of the ordinary cards you are shuffling in order to choose Stash's exact neighbors. If some cards remain in your deck and are not part of the shuffle, you may inspect those remaining cards as the normal Stash rule allows before placing the shuffled portion beneath them, but Stash cannot be inserted among cards that were not part of the shuffle.

If an effect shuffles your entire deck, there is no untouched portion of the deck to inspect. Stash's distinctive physical card back can make its location or presence visible in some zones; for accessible play, simply announce when a Stash is knowingly located in a public or otherwise inferable position rather than relying on that visual distinction.

Walled Village

When played, draw a card and receive +2 Actions.

At the start of Clean-up, before discarding cards from play or drawing your next hand, check each Walled Village you have in play. If you have no more than two Action cards in play total, counting that Walled Village, you may put it on top of your deck instead of discarding it.

The check counts Action cards currently in play, not every Action you played earlier in the turn. An Action that has already left play does not count. Duration cards or other Actions still in play from an earlier turn do count. If your only Actions in play are two Walled Villages, each can qualify and you may topdeck either or both.

A Walled Village must actually still be in play when this Clean-up ability resolves; if it moved elsewhere earlier, it cannot be topdecked by this ability.

Governor

Governor always gives +1 Action. Then choose one of three modes. Resolve the chosen mode in turn order beginning with you; this is important when a Supply pile may run out.

Draw Mode

You draw three cards. Each other player draws one card.

Gain Mode

You gain a Gold if one is available. Each other player gains a Silver if one is available. Resolve gains in turn order, so a nearly empty pile may run out before every player receives a card.

Upgrade Mode

You may trash a card from your hand and gain a card costing exactly two coins more. Each other player may trash a card from their hand and gain a card costing exactly one coin more.

A player only gains a replacement card if that player actually trashed a card. When an exact-cost replacement exists and is available, the gain is mandatory after choosing to trash. If no card at the exact required cost is available, the trashed card remains trashed and no replacement is gained.

You cannot trash the Governor that you are currently resolving because it is in play, not in your hand. You may trash another Governor from your hand.

Governor's “exactly more” comparison uses the normal Dominion cost-comparison rules. Special cost components such as Potion or Debt must be treated as separate cost components rather than automatically converted into coins.

Prince

Prince is a Command card. When you play it, you may set aside a non-Duration, non-Command Action card from your hand that currently costs no more than Prince's allowed coin limit. Cost reduction can therefore make a normally more expensive card eligible. A card with Potion or Debt in its cost is not eligible merely because its coin portion is within the limit.

If you set aside a card, Prince stays in play for the rest of the game. At the start of each of your turns, including qualifying extra turns, play that same set-aside Action. This play is mandatory and does not use your normal Action for the turn.

The Action itself remains set aside rather than moving into your play area permanently. Follow its play instructions as normally as possible. If it tries to move itself, the attempted movement normally fails because the physical card must remain set aside for Prince. An effect whose bonus specifically depends on successfully moving or trashing itself may therefore fail; an effect that gives a later benefit without making that benefit conditional on the move can still produce the later benefit.

If you do not set aside an eligible Action when Prince is played, Prince has no ongoing card to track and is discarded normally during Clean-up.

At the end of the game, return Prince and its set-aside Action to the cards you own before final scoring.

The Action played by Prince at the start of your turn happens without spending your normal Action. Start-of-turn ordering can matter when several Durations, Reserve effects, Projects, or other start-of-turn abilities also need to resolve.

Summon Event

Summon is an Event bought during the Buy phase. Buying it uses a Buy and pays its cost, but Summon itself is never gained into your deck.

When you buy Summon, gain an Action card from the Supply within Summon's cost limit. If that newly gained Action is still in the location where Summon expects to find it, set it aside face up. At the start of your next turn, play the set-aside Action without using your normal Action.

The summoned card becomes an ordinary card in play once it is played. Unless its own rules keep it in play longer, discard it during the normal Clean-up of that turn.

If another gain reaction moves the gained Action before Summon can set it aside, Summon can lose track of it and will not play that card next turn. Some cards have a built-in gain destination that Summon is designed to follow—for example, a card that normally goes directly onto your deck when gained—while an unrelated reaction that moves the card elsewhere can prevent Summon from setting it aside.

If the summoned card has a start-of-turn effect when played, that effect can apply because Summon plays the card while it is still the start of the turn. Keep the set-aside Summon card in a clearly separate place until it is played.

Captain

Captain is a Command card that stays in play into your next turn. When it resolves, choose a visible non-Duration, non-Command Action card in the Supply costing no more than Captain's printed limit and play that card without gaining or moving it. At the start of your next turn, Captain lets you make that choice again; the second choice can be the same card or a different eligible card.

Only the currently visible top card of a Supply pile is eligible. Captain cannot reach a buried card in a split pile, a card from an empty pile, or a non-Supply card. The chosen Action remains physically in the Supply. If that Action normally tries to move itself, that movement fails because the card is not actually leaving the Supply.

This distinction matters for self-trashing Actions: an ability that merely instructs the card to trash itself can be attempted, but any bonus specifically requiring that the card was successfully trashed will not be earned. By contrast, an Action that moves some other Supply card can still do so normally; for example, a gainer can even gain a copy of itself if one is available.

If no eligible card exists when Captain is first played, Captain still remains in play and checks again at the start of your next turn.

Church

When Church is played, you may set aside up to three cards from your hand face down. You may look at your own set-aside cards. Church stays in play until the following turn.

At the start of your next turn, return that set-aside group to your hand and then you may trash one card from your hand. The card you trash does not have to be one of the cards that Church set aside.

With multiple Churches, keep each group separate. On the next turn, resolve one Church completely—return its group, then take its optional trash—before resolving the next Church. You may choose the order in which the Church effects resolve.

Dismantle

Dismantle requires you to trash a card from your hand if you have one. If the trashed card has a coin cost of at least one, gain both a cheaper card and a Gold. The cheaper card must cost strictly less than the trashed card; it does not need to cost exactly one less.

If you trash a zero-cost card, or have no card available to trash, the gain portion does not happen. If no legal cheaper card remains, you can still gain the Gold; if the Gold pile is empty, you can still gain the cheaper card.

Cost comparisons use Dominion's normal multi-component cost rules. A card whose cost consists only of Potion or only of Debt does not satisfy a requirement that its coin cost be at least one, while a card that includes a positive coin component can.

Sauna and Avanto

Sauna and Avanto are designed to chain into one another. After resolving Sauna's initial draw and Action bonus, you may immediately play an Avanto from your hand without spending another Action. After resolving Avanto's draw, you may immediately play a Sauna from your hand the same way. You can continue alternating the two as long as you have the required next card in hand.

The free follow-up play must happen immediately after the matching card resolves. Playing another Action in between breaks that opportunity. Sauna cannot freely play another Sauna, and Avanto cannot freely play another Avanto.

After you have played Sauna during the turn, each later play of a Silver can let you trash a card from your hand. This is checked each time the Silver is played, so replaying a Silver can create another opportunity. Multiple Sauna plays can create multiple trash opportunities for each Silver play. Current Rio Grande wording treats this as an effect of having played Sauna, so it does not depend on Sauna remaining in play afterward.

Marchland

Marchland is a Victory card whose end-game value scales with the number of Victory cards you own. Count Marchland itself along with your other Victory cards, divide the total by three, and round down to determine the victory points supplied by each Marchland.

When you gain Marchland, you receive +1 Buy and may discard any number of cards from your hand, including zero. You receive one additional coin for each card discarded this way.

Use the normal Victory-pile quantity: eight copies in a two-player game and twelve copies with three or more players.

Cross-Expansion Timing Notes

Black Market's mid-Action-phase purchase is a true purchase and can trigger “when you buy” abilities, but it is not a Buy-phase purchase. Prince's recurring Action and Summon's one-time Action are played without using the default Action for the turn. Captain likewise plays a Supply Action without gaining it, so movement-dependent effects need special attention. Sauna and Avanto can create immediate alternating plays without spending additional Actions. Walled Village checks cards still in play rather than cards merely played earlier. Stash changes a shuffle but does not let you inspect ordinary shuffled card faces. Governor's multiplayer options resolve in turn order, which can determine who receives the final card from a low Supply pile. Marchland's gain effect resolves at the moment it is gained, while its variable victory-point value is calculated only for scoring.

Accessibility Notes

For Envoy, read all revealed card names in reveal order before the player to the left chooses a discard. For Black Market, read the three revealed card names, costs, and relevant types before the active player decides whether to buy one; also keep the Black Market deck physically distinct from the Supply. For Stash, verbally identify the position chosen within the shuffled portion—for example “third card down in the shuffled section”—so positioning is not communicated only through the special card back.

For Walled Village, announce the number and names of Action cards still in play before deciding whether to topdeck it. For Governor, state the chosen mode before any player resolves it and proceed around the table in order. For Prince and Summon, keep set-aside cards in a fixed labeled location and announce the card again every time it is automatically played. For Captain, announce the eligible Supply card chosen on each resolution and make clear that the physical card stays in its pile. For Church, keep each face-down set-aside group in a separately labeled location. For Sauna/Avanto, announce each free chained play and each Silver-triggered trash opportunity. For Marchland, keep the gain-time discard count verbal and count Victory cards aloud during final scoring when needed.