Cellar

Cellar
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Base
Illustrator(s)	Matthias Catrein
Card text
+1 Action Discard any number of cards. +1 Card per card discarded.

Cellar is an Action card from the Base set that acts as a sifter, replacing cards you do not want in your hand with an equal number of cards from the top of your deck. A similar card is Warehouse, which allows you to draw three cards from your deck before having to discard three cards.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You can't discard Cellar to itself, since it isn't in your hand any longer when you resolve it.
• You choose what cards to discard and discard them all at once.
• You only draw cards after you have discarded.
• If you have to shuffle to do the drawing, the discarded cards will end up shuffled into your new deck.

Other Rules clarifications

Example play of Cellar:

Alice has a hand of Cellar, Copper, Smithy, Curse, Estate. There is one card left in her draw pile.

Alice plays Cellar, choosing to keep her Smithy and discard three cards - Copper, Curse, Estate. She puts them in her discard pile. Then she draws the one card left in her deck, shuffles her discard pile to make a new deck, and draws two more cards.

Strategy Article

Original article by theory.

Like most other Actions, Cellar is a versatile card. Early game, it cycles through your deck so you can quickly play your newly-bought cards. Mid-game, it fixes unlucky draws in order to set up your engine. Late-game, it helps you avoid your Victory cards to scrounge together enough money to end the game, and can keep your engine firing reliably even in the face of a handful of green.

The efficacy of the card is directly tied to your hand size. Cellars are best with large handsizes; for instance, a Laboratory/Alchemist chain or a +Actions/+Cards engine. In games with smaller handsizes (e.g., Militia-/Goons-heavy games), Cellars are more of a liability than a benefit.

Note that you need not actually discard any cards to the Cellar; this can be useful to lower the price of the Peddler or to activate a Conspirator chain.

One of Cellar’s best features is its ability to control reshuffles. Suppose you draw a hand of 4 Victory cards and a Cellar, and you have no more cards left in your draw deck. Instead of Cellaring all 4 Victory cards, you can instead Cellar exactly 1 Victory Card, thus triggering the reshuffle, and then end your turn and discard your hand (which will hopefully still be junk). The quality of your draw deck is thus improved because you have kept a hand full of Victory cards out of the reshuffle.

Players that draw two or more Cellars in a single hand often face a decision of whether or not to Cellar the other Cellar. The answer depends on your deck composition and how many other cards you are Cellaring. Cellaring the other Cellar allows you an extra card in your hand, but saving the other Cellar allows you a second chance to draw. Generally speaking, if you are Cellaring more than two other cards, you should almost always save the other Cellar; if you are Cellaring only one other card, you should probably Cellar the other Cellar as well.

Cellars are also useful in crappy decks that have been Witched or Mountebanked. It’s often worth giving up one slot in your hand in order to be able to cycle through your bad cards.

The biggest drawback to Cellar is that it’s been largely outclassed by Warehouse, whose ability to draw 3 cards and look at them before discarding means that Cellar is superior only if you’re discarding 5 or more cards at once.

Synergies/Combos

• Cards that increase hand size: e.g., Laboratory, Alchemist, Caravan, Tactician, and +Cards/+Actions engines.
• A 5/2 split, because it lets you cycle through your deck faster to play your Action again
• Draw-up-to-X cards such as Watchtower or Jack of all Trades, but especially Library, which weeds out unwanted Actions but not unwanted Treasures or Victory cards. Cellars can alleviate the problem of a late-game Library drawing nothing but Victory cards.
• Curse-based attacks

Antisynergies

• "Dense" decks, e.g., Market-based decks, where the lowered hand size hurts and you don't have anything you want to discard
• Opponents’ handsize-lowering attacks (Militia, Goons, Torturer, Minion, Ghost Ship)
• Warehouse

Alternate versions

• 
  Digital version for Dominion Online
• 
  French version
• 
  German version

Trivia

Official card art.

In other languages

• Chinese: 地窖 (pron. dìjiào)
• Czech: Sklepení (lit. vault)
• Dutch: Kelder
• Finnish: Kellari
• French: Cave
• German: Keller
• Hungarian: Pince
• Italian: Sotterraneo
• Japanese: 地下貯蔵庫 (pron. chika chozōko)
• Korean: 저장고 (pron. jeojang-go)
• Norwegian: Kjeller
• Polish: Piwnica
• Romanian: Pivniţă
• Russian: Погреба (pron. pogryeba)
• Spanish: Sótano

Secret History

The oldest version of this didn't give you +1 Action. It obviously needed it, got it early on, and survived unscathed since.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Dominion Cards