The Royal Bounty Hunter
The Royal Bounty Hunter is the one card in Kongedraeber that answers to no suit and no rank — a full wildcard in every Siege, and the reason going first in The Joust is worth fighting for.
RULES
There is exactly one Royal Bounty Hunter in the match, and it only ever exists in the deck belonging to whichever player won The Joust and took the first turn. The second player's deck has none at all.
As a full wildcard, the Royal Bounty Hunter resolves in a Siege as whichever card makes the hand it's part of as strong as possible — it can complete a Straight, a Flush, a Straight Flush, or stand in for any rank in a pair, trips, or quads.
It can be placed from hand into your Court, but never directly onto the Throne — it must reach the Throne some other way (for instance, being promoted up from Court once the Throne is empty).
If an opponent wins a Siege with a Straight Flush or Royal Flush and targets the Royal Bounty Hunter for Assassination while it's in your Court, the result is decided by a coin flip instead of an automatic removal: heads triggers The Bounty Sabotage (it's removed to the Dungeon), tails triggers The Outlaw's Escape (it survives untouched). It can also be declared as a face card for the purposes of a Retreat.
LORE OF THE COURT
He has walked away from worse than this. Ask him why the coin favors him as often as it does and he will only shrug — even he does not fully trust it, which is precisely why he keeps flipping it.
No ledger in the Court claims him. He was never sworn to a Throne, never placed by a Setup hand with any ceremony — he simply appears in the deck of whoever moved first, as if speed itself were the only oath he ever recognized.
Someone always pays, in the end. Sometimes it's him — and he would tell you he expected it, if he could still talk. More often, the coin lands his way, and he walks off the board owing the Court nothing at all.
STRATEGY
When to play it
Get him into your Court as soon as it's convenient — as a full wildcard he raises the ceiling of every Siege hand he's part of, so holding him back in your hand costs you Siege strength you could already be using. Winning The Joust matters partly because he only exists in the first player's deck at all.
Counters
You can't stop the wildcard effect directly, but you can attack the player, not the card — pressure their Throne so they can't Lay Siege, since a wildcard sitting unused in Court does nothing on its own. If he's exposed in Court, an Assassination attempt is still a coin flip in your favor half the time.
Synergies
He pairs with anything, by design — he's most valuable completing the hand you're already closest to (a near-Flush, a near-Straight) rather than being saved for a hand you haven't started building yet.