Dismantle

Dismantle
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Promo
Illustrator(s)	Elisa Cella
Card text
Trash a card from your hand. If it costs or more, gain a cheaper card and a Gold.

Dismantle is a promotional Action card. It is a Remodel variant that trashes a card and gains both a cheaper card and a Gold.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• Trashing is not optional.
• If you trash a card costing , or if you have no cards left in hand to trash, nothing else happens.
• If you trash a card costing or more, you gain a cheaper card and a Gold. Both come from the Supply, and are put into your discard pile. The cheaper card goes into your discard pile first. For example, if you trash a Silver (costing ), you could gain an Estate (costing ).
• There will almost always be a cheaper card in the Supply, since Copper and Curse cost , but if there aren't any, you still gain a Gold.
• If there aren't any Gold left in the Supply, you still gain the cheaper card.
• Cards that cost only $P (like Transmute from Alchemy) or only (like Engineer from Empires) do not cost or more.

Other Rules clarifications

• Cards that cost or plus some amount of , like Apothecary or Fortune, do cost " or more". For instance, you could Dismantle a Fortune and get a Province and a Gold, or an Overlord and a Gold.

Strategy

Dismantle is best viewed as a gainer rather than a thinner, as in many cases it gains two cards for every card trashed.

Dismantle is usually not an effective card in the opening. Using Dismantle to trash Estates effectively converts an Estate into a Gold while adding a Copper to your deck; this is usually not worth the loss of deck control in the early game, but can be useful in the midgame to get your first Gold for Dismantle fodder. Using Dismantle to trash a card such as Copper is also weak as it reduces your hand size by two, uses up a terminal Action slot, and provides no benefit this turn. Furthermore, you are likely to miss your desired pricepoints, and haven’t even trashed the worst cards in your starting deck (Estates). Opening with Dismantle therefore incurs serious opportunity costs.

Later in the game, Dismantle can serve as a passable gainer with sufficient draw and village support. Dismantle is usually best when used to gain cards, trashing and re-gaining the Gold supplied by previous Dismantle plays. While this is much more draw intensive than many other gainers, as it requires you to have an additional stop card in deck, it can still be useful to score with Duchies or build more quickly in Kingdoms with limited additional gains. Because Dismantle gains two cards at a time by trashing one in hand, it requires more overdraw than most other gainers for gain and play, and as such synergizes best with draw to X cards such as Cursed Village.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Trash a card from your hand. If it costs or more, gain a cheaper card and a Gold.	Dismantle	December 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Ontmantelen			Vernietig 1 kaart uit je hand. Kost deze of meer, pak dan een goedkopere kaart en een Goud.
Finnish	Purkutyö
French	Démantèlement
German	Abbruch			Entsorge eine deiner Handkarten. Wenn jene oder mehr kostet, nimm eine billigere Karte und ein Gold.	(2019)
Japanese	取り壊し (pron. torikowashi)			手札1枚を廃棄する。そのコストが以上の場合、それより安いカード1枚と金貨1枚を獲得する。
Russian	Разъединение			Выкиньте карту из руки. Если она стоит или больше, полусите карту дешевле и Золото.

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Dismantle was in Nocturne for a while, moving over from Empires with the Boons. Now it is a promo. Adam Horton suggested it.

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

Altenburger wanted a promo, this time to be used in some way in conjunction with having a bunch of tournaments for Dominion's 10th anniversary. There was no time to make a card. Dismantle was a card I had that had been working fine but had been cut from Nocturne (due to Nocturne having other cards that gain Gold).

The initial card was suggested by playtester Adam Horton, for Empires (which had no room left). His initial suggestion was for "something like" "trash a card from your hand, gain a card costing up to less into hand (or a Curse?), +." Based on that I initially tried "Trash a card from your hand. Gain a cheaper card. If you did, +." It seemed promising and went into the Nocturne file. When the time came to work on it again, we tried it with +, then a Night version that gained Gold, then the final version.

Altenburger also wanted the world champion for this coming year to get to make a card. We said no! We are willing to put their face on a card, that is as far as we will go. However, as it happens, Adam is the current world champion. So a world champion did get to design a card.

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