Improve
| Improve | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
 |
| Type(s) | Action |
| Kingdom card? | Yes |
| Set |
Renaissance |
| Illustrator(s) | Marco Morte |
| Card text | |
+ At the start of Clean-up, you may trash an Action card you would discard from play this turn, to gain a card costing exactly  more than it. | |
Improve is an Action card from Renaissance. It is a terminal silver and remodeler that upgrades an Action card you discard from play, thus allowing you to get the benefit of both playing a card and trashing it for a better card on the same turn.
FAQ
Official FAQ
- You can only trash an Action card that would be discarded this turn; you cannot trash a non-Action like Silver, or a Duration card that will stay out (but you can trash a Duration card that will be discarded).
- You can trash the Improve itself.
- The card you gain does not have to be an Action, it just has to cost exactly more than the trashed Action.
- Using this ability is optional, but if you trash a card then you have to gain one if you can.
Other rules clarifications
- If you put cards into your hand using Improve (e.g. you trash a Fortress, or gain a Den of Sin), they will get discarded during the remainder of Clean-up (unless you use Coastal Haven).
- If you use Improve to gain a 2nd copy of Improve, and then play it with Innovation, you can trash another Action from play.
- Because Improve triggers during Clean-up, if you use it to gain or trash a Trail, you can't use the Trail's Reaction.
- You can trash a Cargo Ship from play if it hasn't set aside a card yet. When you gain a card costing exactly more, Cargo Ship can still set it aside for your next turn, even though it's no longer in play.
- Similarly, you can trash a Taskmaster from play if you haven't gained a
-cost card yet. Then if you gain a card costing (with a 2nd Improve), Taskmaster will still repeat itself on your next turn (and potentially multiple turns), even though it's no longer in play. - You can trash a Garrison from play if it has no tokens on it. But when you gain a card costing exactly more, the Garrison is no longer in play, so you can't add a token to it, and it doesn't draw any cards next turn.
Strategy
Improve is a terminal Silver with the special effect of upgrading an Action card you have in play. Improve’s effect can be useful at any stage of the game—from the opening, where you can gain one intending to improve your Improve into a different card while also using the generated to afford a good card, to the endgame, where it helps you gain Duchies from your 
Actions. It also increases your pile pressure, i.e. the ability to threaten to end the game on your turn by emptying 3 supply piles.
Another use for Improve is to extract value from cards that have diminishing utility in the late game, such as Chapel. Improve also synergizes with restricted gainers. For example, a card like Ironworks can make it easy to acquire Actions; if the cards you really want cost , you can use Improve to bridge that gap.
Finally, Improve synergizes with 
Action cards that can be improved into Provinces. King's Court is an especially strong synergy, allowing you to build to a megaturn on which you play several King's Courts and 2–3 Improves, then gain 6 or more Provinces.
Versions
English versions
| Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
 |
+ At the start of Clean-up, you may trash an Action card you would discard from play this turn, to gain a card costing exactly more than it. |
Renaissance | November 2018 |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dutch | Verbetering (lit. improvement) |  |
+ Aan het begin van je opschoonfase mag je een Actiekaart die je deze beurt uit het spel zou afleggen, vernietigen om een kaart te pakken die precies meer kost. |
||
| Chinese | 改良 (pron. gǎiliáng) | ||||
| French | Amélioration |  |
+ Au début de votre phase d'Ajustement, vous pouvez écarter une carte Action que vous auriez défaussé de la zone de jeu à ce tour, pour recevoir une carte coûtant exactement de plus. |
||
| German | Fortschritt |  |
 |
+ Zu Beginn deiner Aufräumphase darfst du eine Aktionskarte entsorgen, die du in diesem Zug aus dem Spiel ablegen würdest, um eine Karte zu nehmen, die genau mehr kostet. |
(2019) |
| Japanese | 増築 (pron. zōchiku) |
+ クリーンアップフェイズの開始時に、場から捨て札にされようとするアクションカード1枚を廃棄してもよい。廃棄した場合、それよりコストが 高いカード1枚を獲得する。 |
|||
| Russian | Усовершенствование (pron. usovyershyenstvovaniye) | ||||
| Spanish | Modernizar (lit. modernize, Improve would be the verb Mejorar. The noun Mejora was taken for Upgrade.) |  |
+ Al inicio del Mantenimiento, puedes eliminar una carta de Acción que se descartaría este turno para ganar una carta que cueste exactamente más que la carta eliminada. |
The FAQ in the rulebook reads " less". The text in the card is correct.
|
Trivia
Secret History
, and triggered when discarding a card from play. It shifted to the start of Clean-up in order to avoid having it be possible for every effect in Dominion to happen in the middle of discarding your cards.
