Butcher

Butcher
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Guilds
Illustrator(s)	Lynell Ingram
Card text
+2 Coffers You may trash a card from your hand, to gain a card, costing up to more than it per Coffers you spend.

Butcher is an Action card from Guilds. It is a Remodel variant that uses the Coffers mechanic to determine the cost of the card you gain. Used in the most straightforward manner, it will remove its Coffers instantly to gain a card costing more than the trashed card, like Remodel. However, it offers other tactical options, such as gaining a less expensive card to save Coffers for later; using Coffers from other sources to reach higher price points; or refraining from trashing and becoming a vanilla source of Coffers instead.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• First add two tokens to your Coffers mat.
• Then you may trash a card from your hand and remove any number of tokens from your Coffers.
• The number of tokens you remove can be zero.
• If you trashed a card, you gain a card costing up to the cost of the trashed card plus the number of tokens you removed. For example you could trash an Estate and remove six tokens to gain a Province, or you could trash another Butcher and remove zero tokens to gain a Duchy.
• You can remove the tokens you just added.
• Removing tokens for this ability doesn't get you to spend, it just changes what cards you can gain with this ability.

Other rules clarifications

• If you trash a Silk Merchant, you can immediately use the Coffer you gain from it to gain a more expensive card with Butcher.

Strategy

Butcher is a very versatile card that works well in both money strategies and engines, and is relevant through all stages of the game.

As a Remodel variant, Butcher is powerful in the early game for converting Estates into more useful cards, in the midgame as a gainer (potentially for gain and play), and in the endgame for threatening to either mill or gain Provinces. Compared to Remodel, however, Butcher’s additional Coffers mechanics offer far more flexibility. If you convert an Estate into a , for example, you’ll have a Coffers left over, which is very useful in the early game for affording cards. Additionally, you can store up Coffers from previous Butcher plays or other Coffers generators such as Baker to Remodel cards such as your starting Coppers into more useful cards that cost or more. Later in the game, this also makes you less reliant on Remodeling Golds into Provinces, as you may instead be able to use a as fodder instead. Playing a Butcher without trashing a card (e.g., because everything you want is more than the card you want to trash), or gaining a card of the same (e.g., when milling a Province) also allows you to bank Coffers, and doing so can allow you to threaten to Butcher for or purchase multiple Provinces in the endgame.

It’s usually best to gain a Butcher in the early game (perhaps as your first card) if there are good cards to Remodel your Estates into. Later in the game, you might consider adding another copy or two as your terminal space and ability to provide fodder for Butchers improve, in order to increase the amount of gains in your deck.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Take 2 Coin tokens. You may trash a card from your hand and then pay any number of Coin tokens. If you did trash a card, gain a card with a cost of up to the cost of the trashed card plus the number of Coin tokens you paid.	Guilds	June 2013
		+2 Coffers You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, remove any number of tokens from your Coffers and gain a card, costing up to the cost of the trashed card plus per token removed.	Guilds & Cornucopia (2017 printing)	March 2018
		+2 Coffers You may trash a card from your hand, to gain a card, costing up to more than it per Coffers you spend.	2022 Wording change Cornucopia & Guilds (Second Edition)	June 29, 2022 March 2024

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Slager
Finnish	Teurastaja
French	Boucher
German	Metzger			Nimm zwei Münzen. Du darfst eine Karte aus deiner Hand entsorgen und eine beliebige Anzahl Münzen zahlen. Wenn du eine Karte entsorgt hast, nimmst du dir eine Karte, deren Kosten maximal so hoch sein dürfen wie die Summe aus den Kosten der entsorgten Karte und der Anzahl der gezahlten Münzen.	(2013)
	Metzger			+2 Taler Du darfst eine deiner Handkarten entsorgen. Wenn du das tust: Entferne beliebig viele Marker von deiner Taler-Karte und nimm eine Karte, die maximal so viel kostet wie die entsorgte Karte plus pro entferntem Marker.	(2019)
	Metzger			+2 Taler Du darfst eine deiner Handkarten entsorgen, um eine Karte zu nehmen mit Kosten bis in Höhe der entsorgten plus pro gezahltem Taler.
Japanese	肉屋 (pron. nikuya)			コイントークン2枚を得る。手札1枚を廃棄してもよい。廃棄した場合、好きな枚数のコイントークンを支払い、その枚数と廃棄したカードのコストの和以下のコストのカード1枚を獲得する。
Korean	도살자 (pron. dosalja)
Polish	Rzeźnik				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Мясник (pron. myasnik)

Trivia

Official card art.

Butcher is the only card that allows you to remove tokens from your Coffers outside your Buy phase.

Preview

King Casimir only lived to be 60. Did he ever go bald? The wikipedia article doesn't say. If so though that would be in line with the 4th theme in Guilds: bald people. And one of those bald people is Butcher.

Butcher also fits the 5th theme of Guilds, which is, wordy cards. Take two coin tokens, you may trash a card, something something, gain a card, something something, man I'll just buy one, I'll figure out what it does when I play it. Butcher is a Remodel that you spend coin tokens to pump up. With enough coin tokens you can go straight from Curse to Colony. You can also just trade a card in for something at the same cost or less, while keeping the two coin tokens for later. There are a lot of ways you can go.

Butcher gives you a special use for coin tokens. That's not a theme of the set, that's just Butcher. It provides some coin tokens itself, so it's not like you have to have another Guilds card with it to make it do its thing. It's all been taken care of.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Guilds Previews

Secret History

I wanted some other way to use coin tokens if I could get one. Butcher lets you spend them as part of a Remodel. It also gives you coin tokens, so it won't be sad when there are no other coin tokens around. For a while I considered making a simpler version of this, but ended up going with the full-on tricky version. The wording is convoluted, and not even technically correct - it says "plus the number of coin tokens," which never confuses anyone, but it should convert the units - "plus per coin token." It ended up with this phrasing because a phrasing that said "per coin token" got read by some people as gaining you a card per coin token spent, rather than adding them to the cost.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Guild Cards

Retrospective

I considered simplifying Butcher but didn't. It seems to have worked out but if I were working on the set I'd look at that again.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Rewording

Well it hasn't gone to print yet, so let me know how it goes. It was always a tricky thing to phrase. There's my current best attempt. Sure there's some concern that people won't understand it; no change there.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X., 2022