Death Cart

Death Cart
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Looter
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Marco Morte
Card text
You may trash this or an Action card from your hand, for +. When you gain this, gain 2 Ruins.

Death Cart is an Action–Looter card from Dark Ages. When played, it gives +; but it forces you to trash either another Action card or itself to get the . It also comes with two Ruins, which conveniently make for good Actions to trash, if you can draw them with the Death Cart.

Death Cart is the only Looter that is not a junking attack.

FAQ

Official FAQ (2020)

• When you play Death Cart, you may trash it or an Action card from your hand. You do not have to do either.
• If you do either you get +.
• When you gain a Death Cart, either from buying it or from gaining it some other way, you also gain two Ruins.
• You just take the top two, whatever they are.
• If there are not enough Ruins left, take as many as you can.
• The other players get to see which ones you got.

Deprecated official FAQ (2017)

When you play Death Cart, you get +, and either trash an Action card from your hand, or trash the Death Cart. If you have no Action card in your hand, you will have to trash the Death Cart, but you can trash the Death Cart whether or not you have an Action card in hand. When you gain a Death Cart, either from buying it or from gaining it some other way, you also gain two Ruins. You just take the top two, whatever they are. If there are not enough Ruins left, take as many as you can. The other players get to see which ones you got. If you use Trader (from Hinterlands) to take a Silver instead of a Death Cart, you do not gain any Ruins. It does not matter whose turn it is; if you use Ambassador (from Seaside) to give Death Carts to each other player, those players also gain Ruins. Passing cards with Masquerade (from Intrigue) does not count as gaining them.

Strategy

Death Cart is a weak terminal payload card. While it generates a large amount of , it also comes with two Ruins on gain, adding a total of three stop cards to your deck and putting a significant strain on your deck control. In addition, because the sustainable use of it requires terminal space, fodder (likely starting with the Ruins it came with), collision with said fodder, and the sacrifice of two cards' worth of hand size, other sources of payload are often easier to use and more reliable in the long run, and Death Cart is skippable in many Kingdoms.

Death Cart does, however, have three use cases:

1. It can be serviceable payload in decks that can address most of these issues. Most often, this comes from having a very high level of deck control, and can occur with very strong draw options that prefer Action-based payload, for example Scrying Pool, City Quarter, or Cursed Village. You’ll then also need terminal space to spare, and probably therefore villages. On top of all this, if you plan to play a copy of Death Cart more than three times you’ll need a way to resupply it, as otherwise you’ll have to trash it; sources of +Buy to buy Ruins or cards that generate fodder well (such as Fortress) can help solve this. Similarly, in the late stages of the game, if you have enough overdraw to gain-and-play a Death Cart, you can avoid some of its long-term downsides, most importantly by trashing one of its Ruins before it can impede your ability to draw your deck.
2. Other times, Death Cart is important for the Ruins it gains. For example, this may be useful to access a strong Way such as Way of the Horse, or to provide fodder for a trash-for-benefit effect such as Advance. The effect of getting three total Action cards with one gain (e.g. with a Workshop variant) can also be relevant in the endgame to score with effects like Museum, or to facilitate a pileout by emptying the Ruins pile.
3. Because it can generate so much , Death Cart can be used to spike very high price points such as for a Province to use with Tournament. In the early stages of the game where this is relevant, however, you may not have the deck control to collide Death Cart with a Ruin, and so it is fairly likely that you will have to trash Death Cart itself, which has the undesirable side effect of leaving you with two Ruins in your deck.

Although it's rare for this to be an important consideration, the presence of Death Cart does make it very likely that +Buy is available in the form of Ruined Market. If Ruined Market is visible (and crucial as the only source of +Buy), obtaining a Death Cart may be a decent way to add it to your deck. However, if it is not visible, it is very rarely a good idea to go looking for it, as gaining a Death Cart in that case is just as likely to leave Ruined Market exposed, allowing your opponent to gain it, as it is to gain you a Ruined Market.

External strategy articles

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

• terminalCopper's 2013 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+ You may trash an Action card from your hand. If you don't, trash this. When you gain this, gain 2 Ruins.	Dark Ages	August 2012
		+ You may trash an Action card from your hand. If you don't, trash this. When you gain this, gain 2 Ruins.	Dark Ages (2017 printing)	September 2017
		You may trash this or an Action card from your hand, for +. When you gain this, gain 2 Ruins.	Dark Ages (2020 printing)

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	運屍車			+ 你可以移除你手上一張行動卡，如果你沒有移除，則移除此卡。 當你獲得此卡，獲得兩張遺跡。
Czech	Pohřební kára			+ Můžeš zahodit na smetiště kartu akce z ruky. Pokud tak neučiníš, zahoď na smetiště tuto kartu. Když tuto kartu získáš, vezmi si 2 ruiny.
Dutch	Dodenkar			+ Je mag een actiekaart uit je hand vernietigen. Doe je dat niet, vernietig dan deze kaart. Als je deze kaart pakt, pak dan 2 Ruïnes.
Finnish	Ruumisvaunu
French	Charrette de cadavres
German	Leichenkarren			+ Du darfst eine Aktionskarte aus deiner Hand entsorgen. Wenn du das nicht tust: Entsorge diese Karte. Wenn du diese Karte nimmst, nimm 2 Ruinen.	(2019)
	Leichenkarren			Du darfst diese Karte oder eine Aktionskarte aus deiner Hand für + entsorgen. Wenn du diese Karte nimmst, nimm 2 Ruinen.
Japanese	死の荷車 (pron. shi no niguruma)			+ 手札のアクションカード1枚を廃棄してもよい。廃棄しなかった場合、これを廃棄する。 これを獲得するとき、廃墟カード2枚を獲得する。
Korean	시체운반수레 (pron. siche-unbansule)
Polish	Trupi wóz				Although Polish version is not released, this card is referred to in the Polish version of Empires rulebook
Russian	Труповозка (pron. trupovozka)
Spanish	Carro de los Muertos

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

This card exists to provide a way to give yourself Ruins. So that people don't just hate it, it gives you a use for the Ruins it comes with, a use so good that you almost feel like coming with Ruins is a plus. This has a when-gain ability, like those Hinterlands cards. My initial plan was to do these here and there in the sets after Hinterlands, back when Hinterlands was half of the 2nd expansion. That didn't work out, seeing as how Hinterlands is 6th, but well here's another when-gain card anyway.

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

Rewording

[T]he change is to stop you from e.g. Band of Misfits as Death Cart and you don't trash anything ever [once cards like Band of Misfits got errata.]

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2019