On Pearl Diver

Pearl Diver in action.

Pearl Diver is a sad Dominion card from the Seaside expansion that is one of the worst $2 cost Dominion cards in the entire game. The cheap aspect of the card can sometimes work against new players, who assume that picking up a free Pearl Diver with a spare $2 never hurts. As it stands, having Pearl Divers in your deck can very much hurt, even if it is a cantrip. Sometimes getting a Pearl Diver is worse than not getting anything at all! In fact, if you do not topdeck anything with your Pearl Diver, it is no better than a cantrip in the first place, which does absolutely nothing in your deck, and barring some cases, strictly worse than nothing. However, with the right mindset, Pearl Diver can make your deck just that extra touch of better to squeak out a win. Every Dominion card has their uses, and it is always important to recognize this when analyzing any given board.

Pearl Diver in a nutshell

Pearl Diver simply draws a card and looks at the bottom card of your deck. If it is a good card, you will most likely top deck it. Otherwise, you will leave it on the bottom most of the time, hoping it misses the shuffle. To put simply, Pearl Diver slightly mitigates bad shuffle luck, and only sometimes. A sometimes useful tip is that if there is one card left on the deck and you play a Pearl Diver, you will shuffle to trigger the deck inspection ability. That’s about it.

Certainly, Pearl Diver is not great. Why is Pearl Diver so bad then, if it is at the very least a cantrip? Pearl Diver’s use does not often outweigh the cost it takes to get one. This is not to say that you should not take a Pearl Diver when you can get one for free, but there are scenarios where taking one for free is just worse than nothing.

Suppose an opponent plays a discard attack on you, and you have Pearl Diver and some other cards in hand. You can take a gamble and hope to draw a good card with Pearl Diver, or discard it instead. If you did not have Pearl Diver, you would have known what card you would have drawn anyways with the Pearl Diver, making a more effective choice as to what to discard instead. In those cases, having a Pearl Diver is worse than nothing. There are also conflicts with terminal draw, but any Dominion player worth his salt would not be making this mistake.

Comparables

Ignoring Chapel, $2 cost cards in Dominion generally have some sort of use, even when they are poor. Haven sets aside a card for next turn. Pawn provides flexibility with +buy. Raze trashes and cycles at the same time. Even lowly Herbalist provides a much needed +buy sometimes, and maybe you topdeck a Fortune. Heck, you might put a copper on top to help block Masquerade! Pearl Diver has none of these edgecase uses with its ability. There is nothing in the entire game that makes Pearl Diver's ability all that desirable.

On the bright side

Not to say Pearl diver does not have its uses. Cheap cantrips are a boon for Teacher engines, and Pearl Diver is certainly not the worst card in the $2 category for this. Pearl Diver is also an action card, which can boost Vineyards and help piledrive Peddlers, as well as activate Heralds and Scrying Pools. On a board with no villages, a King's Court, Disciple, or Throne Room provides ample village ability. However, these synergies are more of an effect of Pearl Diver being a cheap cantrip or just being an Action card more than it is for Pearl Diver's ability itself. But sometimes that is all you need to squeak out a win against an opponent.

To put this entire article into a sentence: You generally only pick up a Pearl Diver when it helps another strategy along.