Destrier

Destrier
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Menagerie
Illustrator(s)	Garret DeChellis
Card text
+2 Cards +1 Action During your turns, this costs less per card you've gained this turn.

Destrier is an Action card from Menagerie. It provides non-terminal draw like Laboratory, but becomes cheaper with each card you gain during your turn.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• Destrier costs less per card the player whose turn it is has gained that turn.
• For example, you could play a Sleigh to gain two Horses, then use Workshop to gain a Destrier, as it would cost .
• Destrier only cares about cards gained by the player whose turn it is; for example, playing Witch to give other players Curses will not lower its cost.
• See the Unusual Costs section.

Other rules clarifications

• Destrier's cost changes immediately as soon as you gain a card; this can have some tricky interactions with effects that cause you to gain multiple cards, and it can be important to keep track of the order in which cards are gained and what Destrier costs at each point in time. For example, if you overpay for a Stonemason, you gain two cards with the same cost; this means that if the first card you gain is a Destrier, the second one can't be a Destrier as well (because it no longer has that cost).

Strategy

Destrier is a Laboratory variant that costs by default but can be bought more cheaply if you have gained other cards before it on the same turn; thus, it offers cheap non-terminal draw to decks that are gaining many cards with sources of +Buy and/or gainers, especially those that are nonterminal. Laboratory is a powerful card at , so gaining Destrier cheaply is excellent value and buying it at or even may also be the right move if you can’t reduce the cost any further. When plenty of gains are available, the Destrier pile can sometimes be emptied quickly; this may form part of a three-pile ending. This may require careful management of your Buys and : for example, buying a Copper or another cheap card first may transform extra Buys into for the purpose of buying Destriers, though generally adding a junk card just to make a Destrier cheaper is unwise for your deck’s reliability.

There are multiple ways to gain lots of Destriers in a turn, all of which involve the use of gainers and +Buy to exploit the fact that each Destrier gained during a turn costs less than the previous one. The best sources of +Buy are cheap cantrips, such as Market Square or Hamlet; Seaway can enable many different cards to perform this role. Cards that are gained in pairs, such as Port or Experiment, are especially useful for activating Destrier’s cost reduction. You can use a gainer to either gain Destriers directly or reduce their cost to make them easier to buy (or gain with a Workshop variant). For example, Vampire is very useful for gaining Destriers since it is played after the Buy phase. Horse gainers, such as Sleigh, are a very good option for reducing Destrier’s ; while the gainers themselves are generally terminal, the Horses help your deck consistency and are often gained in bulk. Extra Buys can also be used with Stampede or Populate, which each gain a large number of cards.

When Destrier is at its full price of , it can be useful with trash-for-benefit effects towards the end of the game. For example, it can be Remodeled into a Province, which is likely efficient if you were able to acquire the Destrier cheaply. It is important to note that losing a Destrier may have a pronounced effect on your deck’s effectiveness (so it’s preferable to do if you have overdraw), and this can be done only once per turn, since gaining the Province makes the rest of your Destriers cost .

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+2 Cards +1 Action During your turns, this costs less per card you've gained this turn.	Menagerie	March 2020

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Krijgsros			+2 Kaarten +1 Actie Tijdens jouw beurten kost deze kaart minder per kaart die je deze beurt hebt gepakt.	(2020)
German	Schlachtross			+2 Karten +1 Aktion Während deiner Züge: Diese Karte kostet weniger pro Karte, die du in diesem Zug genommen hast.	(2020)
Japanese	デストリエ (pron. desutorie)
Polish	Koń bojowy				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Trying to get one more weird cost into the set. Changed from counting all gains to just your own, suggested by Matt.

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

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