Way of the Butterfly

This page is awaiting large-scale edits by the community to meet quality and format standards. The information on this page may be outdated. Join the #wiki-general channel on the Dominion Discord server to participate.

Way of the Butterfly
Info
Type	Way
Set	Menagerie
Illustrator(s)	Marco Morte
Way text
You may return this to its pile to gain a card costing exactly more than it.

Way of the Butterfly is a Way from Menagerie. It is similar to Upgrade in that it gains a card costing more than another card, but instead of trashing the card, it simply returns it to the Supply.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You only gain a card if you manage to return the card to its pile. A non-Supply card (like Horse) can return to its pile; a card with no pile, such as Necropolis (from Dark Ages), fails to return to its pile.
• The card you gain comes from the Supply, and can be any type; if there is no card in the Supply costing exactly more than the returned card, you do not gain one.

Other rules clarifications

• Cards bought from the Black Market deck do not come from a pile, so Way of the Butterfly has no effect on them.

Strategy

In a / opening, if any Actions are in the Kingdom, one can be played as Way of the Butterfly to obtain a key card. This effect is almost identical to that of Feast; see Feast’s strategy page for more details.

Way of the Butterfly can be used with early Trashers such as Chapel once they have finished trashing the starting Coppers and Estates so that they are no longer useless Dead cards.

In the late game cards can be cannibalized into Duchies.

Synergies

• A just-gained Villa can immediately be played as Way of the Butterfly to gain a card, enabling early and frequent access to cards.
• Animal Fair can be played as Way of the Butterfly to gain a Province.

• Possession can use Way of the Butterfly to remove Action cards from your opponent’s deck.

Anti-Synergies

• Cards with when-trash effects, such as Fortress.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		You may return this to its pile to gain a card costing exactly more than it.	Menagerie	March 2020

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
German	Weg des Schmetterlings			Du darfst diese Karte auf ihren Stapel zurücklegen, um eine Karte zu nehmen, die genau mehr kostet als sie.	(2020)
Japanese	チョウの習性 (pron. chō no shūsei)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

At first you trashed the card. That's no good with Fortress and Adventures tokens. Also I gave it an anti-Throne wording.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Menagerie