Doctor

Doctor
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Guilds
Illustrator(s)	Lorraine Schleter
Card text
Name a card. Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Trash the matches. Put the rest back in any order. Overpay: Per overpaid, look at the top card of your deck; trash it, discard it, or put it back.

Doctor is an Action card from Guilds. It is a trasher that trashes cards from your deck rather than your hand, and has an overpay effect that allows you to trash from your deck immediately when you buy it. Once it's in your deck, its trashing can be tricky to use optimally, since it depends on knowing (or guessing) which junk cards are on top of your deck.

A finicky and unreliable card, Doctor was removed from the second edition of Cornucopia & Guilds and replaced with Infirmary, another trasher with a similar but more controllable overpay effect.

FAQ

Unofficial FAQ (2022)

• When you play this, you name a card, reveal the top three cards of your deck, trash each of those cards that has that name, and put the other cards back on your deck in any order.
• You do not have to name a card being used this game.
• If there are fewer than three cards (after shuffling), just reveal as many as you can.
• When you buy this, you can overpay for it; if you do, then (after gaining it) for each extra you paid over the cost, you look at the top card of your deck, and either trash it, discard it, or put it back on top.
• If you overpaid more than , you may do different things for each card you look at, and you will look at the same card again if you put it back on top. For example if you bought Doctor for , you would look at the top card four times; you might end up first trashing a Copper, then discarding a Province, then putting a Silver back on top, then putting that Silver back on top again.

Other rules clarifications

In 2022, online implementations of Doctor got errata to trigger when you gain it by buying and overpaying for it.

• You gain the Doctor before you begin looking at cards from your deck. This means that it's possible to reach the Doctor you just gained, and trash it.

Deprecated official FAQ (2017)

When you play this, you name a card, reveal the top three cards of your deck, trash each of those cards that has that name, and put the other cards back on your deck in any order. You do not have to name a card being used this game. If there are fewer than three cards (after shuffling), just reveal as many as you can. When you buy this, for each extra you pay over the cost, you look at the top card of your deck, and either trash it, discard it, or put it back on top. If you overpay more than , you may do different things for each card you look at, and you will look at the same card again if you put it back on top. For example if you bought Doctor for , you would look at the top card four times; you might end up first trashing a Copper, then discarding a Province, then putting a Silver back on top, then putting that Silver back on top again.

Strategy

Doctor offers two ways to trash: a potent on-buy effect that rewards hitting higher price points, and an unreliable but potentially quick on-play effect. Typically, the on-play effect is best viewed as a complement to the overpay effect, helping you finish cleaning up your deck. In most Kingdoms, Doctor is not worth buying at (i.e., without overpaying), and is usually skippable if more accessible or reliable thinners like Chapel are present. With certain opening splits, however, it makes for a very strong early purchase.

Doctor’s overpay effect is strong primarily because of how immediately and significantly it improves your deck. With most thinners, you need to wait to draw and play the card, but simply overpaying for Doctor can immediately thin your early deck, perhaps even before the first reshuffle. For this reason, Doctor is an exceptionally good purchase on a / opening split: not only can its overpay effect trash two of your starting cards before turn 2, but it is also more likely to trash Estates than Coppers, while additionally giving you a chance of generating more than on turn 2. This can be even stronger if you can overpay more, for example with a Coffers from Baker’s setup or the from Desperation. A Doctor overpay may also be appealing on other opening splits (such as /), but its benefits are generally less pronounced than they would be in the / case. An overpay on a / split, for instance, does thin two cards, but does so while triggering a much worse shuffle.

If you do not have a favorable split for opening with Doctor, it may be worth trying to set up for a larger overpay later. Typically, this will mean trying to spike a high amount of early in the game using an effect such as Baron or Stockpile. The tradeoff, however, is that as the game proceeds you will have more good cards in your deck, and so you’ll be more likely to find them as part of Doctor’s overpay. Because you won’t want to trash these, this can reduce the efficiency of the Doctor overpay (i.e., every overpaid might equal much less than one card trashed). Additionally, because topdecking a card means you will be unable to trash any more cards, it is often beneficial to discard all cards you do not want to trash, except if the last card you look at is one you’d like to keep. If you are primarily buying Doctor for its overpay effect, it is often a good target for trash-for-benefit and similar effects afterwards, for example Remodel, Advance, or Way of the Horse.

Doctor’s on-play effect can be effective thinning, but using it successfully can be tricky. Trashing up to three cards from the top of your deck is potentially efficient, in part because of the major cycling advantage it provides; however, because you need to name a card to trash in advance, Doctor only works well if you can reasonably assume that one or more copies of that card are on top of your deck. It therefore rewards careful deck tracking and works best in the early game and when trashing cards that you have many copies of (most notably Copper), giving you a good chance to trash multiple cards at once. Later in the game, as you add good cards and are less likely to find your intended junk, it can be worth using supporting effects. If you can draw your entire deck, discard effects can be used to put junk in your discard than trash it with Doctor. Similarly, effects that inspect the top of your deck (such as Cartographer) can help to increase the efficiency of Doctor's trashing. Doctor also counteracts some Attacks, allowing you to trash the Curse from Sea Hag or junk from your hand after an opponent’s Ghost Ship. It is worth noting that Doctor can struggle when you need to trash junk you only have one or two copies of, including (often) your last remaining starting cards, as well as Shelters and Ruins. After trashing, Doctor can occasionally still be useful: in particular, if you have spare terminal space, you can name a card that is not in your deck to inspect and reorder the top three cards of your deck, helping you find the specific cards you need early in your turn to draw your deck.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Name a card. Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Trash the matches. Put the rest back on top in any order. When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each you overpaid, look at the top card of your deck; trash it, discard it, or put it back.	Guilds	June 2013
		Name a card. Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Trash the matches. Put the rest back in any order. When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each you overpaid, look at the top card of your deck; trash it, discard it, or put it back.	Guilds & Cornucopia (2017 printing)	March 2018
		Name a card. Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Trash the matches. Put the rest back in any order. Overpay: Per overpaid, look at the top card of your deck; trash it, discard it, or put it back.	2022 Rephrasing overpay	June 29, 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Arts
Finnish	Lääkäri
French	Médecin
German	Arzt			Nenne eine Karte, dann decke die 3 obersten Karten vom Nachzieh­stapel auf. Überein­stimmungen werden entsorgt. Der Rest wird in beliebiger Reihenfolge wieder auf den Nachzieh­stapel gelegt. Wenn du diese Karte kaufst, darfst du mehr dafür zahlen. Pro , das du zusätzlich zahlst, darfst du dir die oberste Karte vom Nachzieh­stapel ansehen und sie entsorgen, ablegen oder zurücklegen.	(2013)
	Arzt			Nenne eine Karte. Decke die obersten 3 Karten deines Nachzieh­stapels auf. Entsorge die Überein­stimmungen und lege den Rest in beliebiger Reihenfolge zurück. Wenn du diese Karte kaufst, darfst du überzahlen. Pro , das du überzahlst, sieh die oberste Karte deines Nachzieh­stapels an. Entsorge sie, lege sie ab oder zurück.	(2019)
	Arzt			Nenne eine Karte. Decke die obersten 3 Karten deines Nachzieh­stapels auf. Entsorge die Überein­stimmungen und lege den Rest in beliebiger Reihenfolge zurück. Überzahlen: Pro überzahltem , sieh die oberste Karte deines Nachzieh­stapels an. Entsorge sie, lege sie ab oder zurück.
Japanese	医者 (pron. isha)			カード1枚を指定する。山札の上から3枚を公開する。その中の指定したカードをすべて廃棄する。残りを好きな順番で山札の上は戻す。 これを購入するとき、追加でコストを支払ってもよい。追加で払ったコストにつき1度、山札の一番上のカードを見て、それを廃棄するか、捨て札にするか、山札の上に戻す。
Korean	의사 (pron. uisa)
Polish	Medyk				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Доктор (pron. doktor)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Casimir III's father, Vladislaus the Elbow-High, lived to be 72. During Casimir's long reign, the Black Death hit Europe, and yet the Kingdom of Poland was largely spared. What was their secret? Careful rat management? Good health care? Probably being away from trade routes was a factor, but I like to consider all the angles. We had Rats in the last expansion, so it must be time for a Doctor.

The second main theme of Guilds is overpay. These are cards you can pay extra for to get more out of them. The amount you pay determines how much you get; you don't just get to overpay a certain specific amount. With Doctor, each you overpay lets you look at another card. Overpay by and you will look at the top card, trash it or discard it or put it back, then look at the top card again and make another choice, then a 3rd time, then a 4th time. Get it? If you put the card back you will get it again the next time, so that's not a great option until you are about out of overpays.

Doctor also does something when you play it. You can get rid of something you anticipate not wanting in your next 3 cards. It's exciting enough that you might actually buy one for , although you will prefer to buy one for or or something.

Overpay can be fed by coin tokens, just look at that synergy. And your options increase even further. Let's say you have and a coin token, as with yesterday's example. In addition to whatever else, you could get a Doctor and overpay , or cash in the coin token and get a Doctor overpaying .

Overpay is something that happens when you buy a card. Didn't we have that already in Hinterlands? Well yes, but it doesn't feel especially similar. As the little "+" next to the "3" reminds you, overpay cards don't have a fixed cost (except when you trash them to an Apprentice or something; then Doctor costs no matter what you actually paid). They increase the number of purchase options you have.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Guilds Previews, June 2013

Secret History

Again as recounted in the Hinterlands secret history, I tried several "when gain" trashers for that set, and was not happy with any of them. The main problem was that you would buy the card just for the trashing, and end up with whatever other effect in your deck randomly. The solution was to make that other effect also trashing. Doctor gives you three options per card you see on the overpay in order to make sure you're as happy as possible with the outcome. The when-play part gets in the name-a-card thing I mentioned.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Guild Cards, June 2013

Retrospective

I like the overpay though it goes overboard to be friendly at the expense of being wordy. There was probably a better direction there. I mean really on-gain trash is done perfectly on Cemetery. But anyway. The on-play was trying to be part of a "name a card" mini-theme that only ended up on it and Journeyman, and didn't amount to giving the set any more identity. I like randomness but I don't enjoy this randomness. And then to get this patchwork of anti-fun, you just need tons of tiny text.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X., May 2021

Second Edition removal

Over the years I grew disenchanted with how random this is. It's also more complicated than it had to be.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Cornucopia & Guilds 2E, February 2024