Trasher

Chapel, a trasher card.

Trasher is the generic term for any card with the ability to trash one or more cards from your hand or deck. (Cards which trash another player's cards are considered trashing attacks, while cards that trash themselves are referred to as one-shots).

There are two main uses for trashers. The first is simply to eliminate weak cards from the deck ("deck-thinning"), in order to enable faster cycling and have more concentrated hands of useful cards—this chiefly involves trashing starting cards (Coppers or Heirlooms and Estates or Shelters) and Curses, but can also apply to cards that were purchased for early-game use and have outlived their usefulness, such as cursers after the Curse pile is depleted.

The second is to receive some benefit as a result of trashing a card—either by trashing a card that has an on-trash effect, or because the trasher itself has a useful effect that requires you to trash a card in order to activate it. Trashers in this last category are often referred to under the umbrella term "trash for benefit", though sometimes (as below) the term specifically refers to trashers that give better benefits for trashing more valuable cards.

Types of trashers

Multi-card trashers

These cards allow rapid deck-thinning. Chapel is the multi-card trasher par excellence due to the combination of its cheap price and the large number of cards it lets you trash; other multi-card trashers usually offer benefits in addition to trashing, or alternative effects that keep the card relevant after you've trashed all the cards you want to trash.

• Dominion: Chapel, Sentry
• Intrigue: Steward, Trading Post
• Prosperity: Forge
  • Mint has an on-gain trashing effect.
• Cornucopia: Remake
• Hinterlands: Souk has an on-gain trashing effect.
• Dark Ages: Mercenary, Count, Dame Anna
• Guilds: Doctor (which also has an on-buy trashing effect)
• Adventures: Amulet, Bonfire, Trade
• Empires: Temple, Donate
• Nocturne: Bat, Monastery (dependent on how many cards you gained)
  • Cemetery has an on-gain trashing effect
• Renaissance: Cathedral, Sewers (requires at least one other trasher)
• Allies: Sentinel, Peaceful Cult
• Plunder: Maelstrom, Secluded Shrine
• Promo: Sauna (dependent on how many Silvers you play)

Banish, from Menagerie, can be used to exile, rather than trash, multiple cards from your hand.

Trash for benefit

Several cards allow you to trash a card and receive a bonus or benefit that depends on the cost (or occasionally other properties) of the trashed card(s). These are commonly referred to as trash-for-benefit (or "TfB") cards (most trashers give you some benefit to your current turn other than trashing, and the term "trash-for-benefit" is sometimes used more broadly to refer to all such cards). Terminal TfB cards are usually soft terminals; when they collide with an expendable Action, they can use it for fodder, sometimes even to gain or buy a Province.

Cards that allow you to trash one or more cards and gain cards to replace them depending on the cost of the trashed card(s) are nicknamed remodelers. The following is a list of trash-for-benefit cards that provide other benefits scaled to the cost of the trashed card:

• Seaside: Salvager
• Alchemy: Apprentice
• Prosperity: Bishop
• Hinterlands: Trader
• Adventures: Raze
• Empires: Ritual
• Renaissance: Research, Recruiter
• Menagerie: Scrap
• Allies: Broker
• Plunder: Crucible

Related effects include the following:

• Dark Ages: Counterfeit provides a benefit scaled to the value of the trashed Treasure, rather than its cost.
• Empires: Catapult has an effect with a cost threshold, but not a scaling one.
• Empires: Sacrifice has an effect that depends on the trashed card's type, rather than its cost.
• Plunder: Maroon has an effect that scales with the number of types the trashed card has.

Single-card trashers

These trashers have effects that are independent of the properties of the cards being trashed, and most can trash any card. These have a variety of uses: many are deck thinners or improvers; but for Death Cart, for example, which can only trash Action cards, the trashing is in part a penalty to compensate for the strong + effect.

• Intrigue: Lurker, Masquerade
  • Lurker is the only Action card that can trash any Action card from the Supply.
• Seaside: Lookout, Sailor
• Prosperity: Crystal Ball, Investment, Trade Route
  • Watchtower is not usually considered a trasher, since it can only trash cards when you gain them. This is useful as a defense against junkers and as a way of activating cards' on-trash effects instantaneously, however.
• Dark Ages: Altar, Death Cart, Forager, Junk Dealer, Rats
  • Altar and Rats resemble Remodelers in that they trash one card and gain one card, but what card can be gained is not dependent on what card is trashed.
• Adventures: Ratcatcher, Plan
• Empires: Small Castle, Advance
  • Gladiator can trash copies of itself from the Supply.
  • Salt the Earth trashes a Victory Card from the Supply.
  • Advance resembles a Remodeler in that it trashes one card and gains one card, but what card can be gained is not dependent on what card is trashed.
• Nocturne: The Flame's Gift, Goat, Zombie Apprentice
• Renaissance: Hideout, Priest
• Menagerie: Goatherd, Way of the Goat
• Allies: Student, Acolyte, Woodworkers' Guild
  • Acolyte resembles a Remodeler in that it trashes one card and gains one card, but what card can be gained is not dependent on what card is trashed.
  • Woodworkers' Guild resembles a Remodeler in that it trashes one card and gains one card, but what card can be gained is not dependent on what card is trashed.
• Plunder: Pickaxe, Pious, Prize Goat, Rope, Scrounge, Shaman
  • Pickaxe resembles a Remodeler in that it trashers one card and can gain a card if the trashed card has a high enough cost, but other than the cost limitation what is gained is not dependent on what is trashed.
• Promo: Church
  • Sauna in effect allows you to use Silver as a single-card trasher.

The Menagerie card Sanctuary functions like a trasher, but Exiles cards instead of trashing them.

Copper trashers

These cards are primarily used for trashing Copper: Moneylender and Ducat can only trash Copper, while the others can trash other Treasure cards as well, but do not provide better benefits for trashing more useful Treasures.

• Dominion: Moneylender
• Prosperity: Loan
  • Mint's on-gain effect, while not a single-card trasher, is also best used for trashing Copper.
• Hinterlands: Spice Merchant
• Nocturne: Pooka
• Renaissance: Treasurer
  • Ducat has an on-gain trashing effect

Trashing Copper is also an important function of Counterfeit and Catapult, though they do give more powerful effects for trashing more valuable (or expensive) Treasures. Miser removes Coppers from your deck without trashing them.

Estate trashers

These cards can't trash Treasure cards and don't give better benefits for trashing better cards. Therefore in the early game they're most likely to be used for trashing Estates or Shelters specifically; later in the game, they may be used on Curses, obsolete early-game Actions, and cards with on-trash benefits.

• Hinterlands: Jack of all Trades
• Dark Ages: Hermit

Pseudo-trashers

These cards offer ways of removing cards from your deck other than trashing them. This can sometimes allow sneaky combos with Possession.

• Intrigue: Masquerade
  • Masquerade both allows you to pseudo-trash a card by passing it away and allows you to actually trash another card.
• Seaside: Native Village, Ambassador, Island
• Adventures: Miser
• Menagerie: Banish, Bounty Hunter, Sanctuary, Way of the Butterfly, Way of the Horse, Way of the Turtle
• Plunder: Cage
  • Cage removes cards from your deck for the long term, but only temporarily; they return to you when you start greening.
• Promo: Prince
  • (However, removing undesirable Action cards from the deck is not the best use of Prince.)