Miser

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Miser
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Marco Morte
Card text
Choose one: Put a Copper from your hand onto your Tavern mat; or + per Copper on your Tavern mat.

Miser is an Action card from Adventures. It is both a pseudo-trasher, hiding away your Coppers, and a source of +. It is the only card that makes use of the Tavern mat that is not a Reserve card.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You may choose to put a Copper from your hand on your mat even if you have no Coppers in hand; nothing will happen.
• You may also choose to get + per Copper on your mat if there are no Coppers on your mat; nothing will happen.
• Putting a Copper from your hand on your mat is not trashing it; Coppers on your mat are not in play, but count as part of your deck when scoring at the end.

Strategy

There is no strategy article for Miser, but the card has been discussed on the forum.

At first glance, the card Miser seems most similar to is Pirate Ship, except for the fact that it trashes your own Treasures (Copper) instead of your opponent's. This sounds like a terrible deal, but one of the reasons Pirate Ship is so weak is that it, like Thief, has the very unfortunate tendency to thin your opponent's deck by trashing their Copper (although Silver, Gold, etc. could also be trashed by Pirates), thereby making their deck better instead of worse. Miser, on the other hand, helps you thin your own deck, so it's a lot better in that sense.

Of course, Miser is not a power card, because it's pretty slow; (pseudo-)trashing only one Copper per play is rather lackluster. At least something like Trade Route, also a single-card trasher, can trash any card, not just Copper, and it's cheaper on top of it. By the time your Miser reaches + or more, your Big Money opponent might already have won. The thing to take away from this: don't use Miser unless you have a plan to utilize its slow, large Pirate Ship-like benefit later on in the game.

So how to do this? Not unlike cards such as Mine and Taxman, which are also difficult to use but not terrible, Miser gets exponentially stronger if you can play it more often. Your deck will be thinner quickly, and you will be able to use Miser's ability to your advantage.

So how do you play Miser as often as possible? You could get multiple Misers, but be aware that Miser is terminal, so you will risk collision; plan ahead what you're going to do if Misers collide. Another option is Throne Room variants, so you can play your Miser more than once when you see it. Prince and Scheme are other possibilities: Prince of Misers is extremely strong, although hitting could be difficult at times. Of course, you can also use sifters: the usual suspects, such as Cellar, Warehouse and Guide, work well.

Miser shines when there is good Estate trashing, but no great Copper trashing. If there is strong Copper trashing, which can be anything from Chapel to something like Moneylender or Spice Merchant, Miser is just too slow. But if the only way to trash Copper is one at a time anyway, without giving a direct bonus (trash for benefit cards such as Apprentice but also Remodel come to mind), then Miser might be a good addition to your engine.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Choose one: Put a Copper from your hand onto your Tavern mat; or + per Copper on your Tavern mat.	Adventures 1st Edition	April 2015
		Choose one: Put a Copper from your hand onto your Tavern mat; or + per Copper on your Tavern mat.	Adventures 2nd Edition	August 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Vrek			Kies één van de volgende: leg een Koper uit je hand op je Herberg- tableau; of + per Koper op je Herbergtableau.	(2015)
Finnish	Saituri
French	Miséreux (lit. poor person)
German	Geizhals			Wähle eins: Lege ein Kupfer aus deiner Hand auf dein Wirtshaustableau oder + pro Kupfer auf deinem Wirtshaustableau.	(Nachdruck 2021)
Japanese	守銭奴 (pron. shusendo)			次のうち1つを選ぶ:「手札の銅貨1枚を酒場マットに置く」:「酒場マットの上の銅貨1枚につき+」。
Polish	Skąpiec				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Скряга (pron. skryaga)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

I was looking for more things to do with tokens, and made a thing that either gave you a token or gave + per token, but made you put a token back when you got the card. The penalty was cool but it didn't need it, and we're not made out of tokens, so I used Coppers, thus making it also a way to get rid of Coppers. In the end it is like the friendly version of Pirate Ship; you get rid of your own treasures instead of theirs. I tried something very similar in Seaside back when, but turned it into Pirate Ship.

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

Why only Coppers?

I wanted to avoid potential confusion on the Tavern mat. The only card there that isn't a Reserve card is Copper.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.

Retrospective

Miser is the fixed version of Pirate Ship, trashing Coppers from the correct player's deck. And it's still weak.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2020