Chancellor

Chancellor
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Base
Illustrator(s)	Matthias Catrein
Card text
+ You may immediately put your deck into your discard pile.

Chancellor is an Action card from the first edition of the Base set. It allows you to discard your deck, speeding up your reshuffles. It is rarely an effective addition to your deck and was removed from the second edition of Dominion.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You must resolve the Chancellor (decide whether or not to discard your Deck by flipping it into your Discard pile) before doing other things on your turn, like deciding what to buy or playing another Action card.
• You may not look through your Deck as you discard it.

Other Rules clarifications

• Putting your Deck in your Discard pile in this manner does not count as individually discarding each card in your deck, and you may not use Reactions that require discarding a card (such as that of Tunnels) as you put those cards in your discard pile with Chancellor.

Strategy

Chancellor is a terminal silver, or effectively a Silver that uses up an Action to be played, that grants you the option to discard your deck in exchange. This is quite weak for several reasons:

1. Chancellor has some serious competition at its price. A stronger card such as Masquerade or Steward could have taken its spot. On top of that, Chancellor also competes for precious terminal space.
2. With good draw and/or strong trashing (such as with Wharf and Chapel), Chancellor’s power quickly becomes inconsequential, because it is likely that you will draw your deck every turn anyway.
3. Chancellor can be frustratingly random. It fares better when you play it when you have just shuffled your deck, so its power is wasted if it is close to the bottom.

In Kingdoms where there are plenty of villages and no competing cards, gaining Chancellor is less unappealing, and it can be directly compared to buying Silver or nothing. The deck discarding ability of Chancellor can be helpful for a couple of reasons:

• Putting your deck into your discard pile allows you to find your stronger cards quicker. For instance, if you buy a Witch, a powerful card, you want to draw and play it as soon as possible. If you have discarded your deck with Chancellor that turn, you’ll reshuffle your deck at the end of the turn with your newly bought Witch included, and will draw it sooner.
• Putting your deck into your discard pile allows you to draw your weaker cards less. Discarding your deck when you know the rest of your shuffle is mostly Coppers and Estates allows you to effectively skip drawing those cards, reducing the risk of a dud on your next turn(s).

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information. Caveat emptor.

• Drew Hardin and Theory's 2011 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+ You may immediately put your deck into your discard pile.	Dominion 1st Edition	October 2008

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	大臣 (pron. dàchén)
Czech	Kancléř
Dutch	Raadsheer (lit. councillor)			+ Je mag je trekstapel direct op je aflegstapel leggen.
Finnish	Kansleri
French	Chancelier			+ Vous pouvez immédiatement défausser votre deck.
German	Kanzler			+ Du darfst sofort deinen kompletten Nachziehstapel auf deinen Ablagestapel legen.	(2013) one or more other versions listed here
Greek	Καγκελάριος (pron. kankelarios)			+ Μπορείτε αμέσως να τοποθετήσετε την τράπουλά σας στα σκάρτα.
Hungarian	Kancellár
Italian	Cancelliere
Japanese	宰相 (pron. saishō, lit. prime minister)
Korean	법관 (pron. beobgwan, lit. judge)
Norwegian	Rikskansler
Polish	Kanclerz			+ Możesz natychmiast umieścić swoją talię na swoim stosie odrzuconych kart.
Romanian	Cancelar
Russian	Канцлер (pron. kantslyer)
Spanish	Canciller			+ Puedes poner inmediatamente tu mazo en tu pila de descartes.	First Edition (2008)

Trivia

Official card art.

Chancellor and its variants extremely useful in the context of Dominion puzzles, which often start with "Assuming you have perfect shuffle luck, can you..."

Donald X. Vaccarino describes Messenger and Scavenger as "fixed" versions of Chancellor.

Secret History

When Valerie got her copy of the game at Origins 2007, she also got a copy of the first expansion as I had it then. So when cards left the main set, she knew all about those expansion cards, and on one occasion nominated this card to be swapped into the main set. I think she was looking for another + card, to provide another anti-Thief option. I really like having the card in the main set, as it's simple but subtle. New players are always like, huh? Why would I want to do that?

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

Retrospective

Chancellor doesn't add much and would have been better in Intrigue (where it came from); the fact that it's a puzzler is way better in an expansion than in the main set.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, What Donald X. Might Do With a Dominion Time Machine

Second Edition Removal

This is both confusing and weak. The ability is totally worth having, if you can spare an action to play it; but the odds are that something else is a better use of your action and so much for that. One trick is, a terminal action is actually competing with terminal actions. I mean they both use up an action. So being cheaper isn't enough; you'd rather get Silver now and wait and get the . There is still room for terminal actions that cost , but Chancellor, not so much.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Dominion 2nd Editions