Mine

Mine
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Base
Illustrator(s)	Claus Stephan
Card text
You may trash a Treasure from your hand. Gain a Treasure to your hand costing up to more than it.

Mine is an Action card from the Base set. It is a remodeler which allows you to trash your Coppers to gain Silvers and trash your Silvers to gain Golds. It can also trash and gain other Kingdom Treasures. Since it gains the treasures directly to your hand, you get to use them immediately, and you get the benefit of the improved Treasure for the rest of the game.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You can, for example, trash a Copper to gain a Silver, or trash a Silver to gain a Gold.
• The Treasure you gain comes from the Supply and is put into your hand; you can play it for the same turn.
• If you do not have a Treasure to trash, you do not gain one.

Other rules clarifications

• The Treasure you gain does not need to cost exactly more than the trashed Treasure; it can cost that much or less, and can even be another copy of the trashed Treasure.

First edition

In the first edition of Dominion, Mine's text did not include "you may": trashing a Treasure was mandatory if Mine was played. Donald X. Vaccarino revised the card because that offered no provision for keeping the player honest: if a player claimed that they had no Treasure in hand, and that was why they weren't activating Mine's ability, there was no way for their opponents to verify that this was the case. This rarely made a difference in gameplay, however.

Strategy

Mine is rarely worth gaining, primarily due to its high opportunity cost: it’s an expensive card at , a price point highly likely to offer something that will benefit your deck much more than Mine at any stage of the game.

Although trashing your Coppers is usually an important objective, the primary reason to do so is to thin your deck by reducing the density of stop cards, allowing you to draw and play your powerful Action cards more frequently. Mine’s major weakness is that it doesn’t help with this goal, because it replaces Copper with another Treasure. Swapping Copper for Silver or Silver for Gold increases your purchasing power slightly (analogous to gaining a Peddler), but won’t do anything to help your deck run more smoothly. Mine is also very slow to enact these improvements: although you can at least play your new Treasure immediately, Mine only upgrades one Treasure at a time. Because this benefit is slow to accumulate, it has the greatest impact when Mine is acquired early; but as a payload card that doesn’t help with deck control, it’s a poor choice early on. Furthermore, as a terminal card, Mine competes for terminal space with other cards that are likely to have a much greater impact, such as draw cards like Smithy or more effective trashers like Chapel.

Mine might have a role to play when useful Kingdom Treasures such as Supplies are in the game and gains are otherwise severely limited. Gaining Ducat with Mine does provide a thinning effect, since you can trash an additional Copper; gaining Stockpile works similarly, since the Stockpile is Exiled when you play it. Finally, with Capitalism, Mine can gain certain Action cards, which is likely to be more powerful than gaining Treasures.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information. Caveat emptor.

• 2012 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Trash a Treasure card from your hand. Gain a Treasure card costing up to more; put it into your hand.	Dominion	October 2008
		You may trash a Treasure from your hand. Gain a Treasure to your hand costing up to more than it.	Dominion (Second Edition)	October 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	礦坑 (pron. kuàngkēng)
Czech	Důl
Dutch	Mijn			Vernietig een geldkaart uit je hand. Neem een geldkaart die ten hoogste meer waard is en neem deze op handen.	(2009)
	Mijn			Je mag een geldkaart uit je hand vernietigen. Neem een geldkaart die ten hoogste meer kost en neem deze op handen.	Tweede editie (herdruk 2019/2020) one or more other versions listed here "…en neem deze direct op handen."
Finnish	Kaivos
French	Mine			Vous pouvez écarter une carte Trésor de votre main. Recevez une carte Trésor coûtant jusqu'à de plus	Erreur de traduction en Français : La Carte Trésor est reçu dans la main.
German	Mine			Entsorge eine Geldkarte aus deiner Hand. Nimm dir eine Geldkarte, die bis zu mehr kostet. Nimm diese Geldkarte sofort auf die Hand.	(2008)
	Mine			Du darfst eine Geldkarte aus deiner Hand entsorgen. Nimm eine Geldkarte auf deine Hand, die bis zu mehr als sie kostet.	2. Edition (2019) one or more other versions listed here
Hungarian	Bánya
Italian	Miniera
Japanese	鉱山 (pron. kōzan)			手札の財宝カード1枚を廃棄してもよい。 それよりコストが最大高い財宝カード1枚を手札に獲得する。
Korean	광산 (pron. gwangsan)
Norwegian	Gruve
Polish	Kopalnia			Wyrzuć z ręki na śmietnisko dowolną kartę skarbu. Dodaj kartę skarbu o koszcie większym maksymalnie o od kosztu wyrzuconej karty. Weź nową kartę skarbu na rękę.	(2015)
	Kopalnia			Możesz wyrzucić z ręki na Śmietnisko dowolną kartę Skarbu. Dodaj na rękę kartę Skarbu kosztującą maksymalnie o więcej od wyrzuconej karty.	II Edycja (2018)
Romanian	Mină
Russian	Рудник (pron. rudnik)			Вы можете выкинуть Сокровище из руки. Получите в руку Сокровище не более чем на дороже выкинутого.
Spanish	Mina			Elimina una carta de Tesoro de tu mano. Gana una carta de Tesoro que cueste más. La carta ganada va directamente a tu mano.	(2009) doesn't have the "up to" of "Gain a Treasure card costing up to more" "…Gana una carta de Tesoro que cueste hasta más…"
	Mina			Puedes eliminar una carta de Tesoro de tu mano. Gana una carta de Tesoro que cueste hasta más. La carta ganada va directamente a tu mano.	Segunda Edición (2021)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Of the 10 Actions in the first game ever of Dominion, this has changed the least. It always cost , and always let you trade Copper for Silver or Silver for Gold. The only difference is that now it phrases this as "gain a Treasure costing up to more," as if someday there might be other treasures that this would also work with.

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

Development

Another early principle was to not change cards that were working fine. For early cards in general, I simply didn't try alternate versions; the card had to be clearly weak or strong or bad in whatever way for me to change it. We bought Mine; it was always . The one thing that changed about it was phrasing it as "costing up to more" rather than "Copper for Silver or Silver for Gold," so as to include expansion Treasures.

Another early principle was to not be so clear as to how good cards were. Mine seemed better then.

There were enough cards to want to replace in the main set that I didn't get to Mine. And it certainly does fine work for new players.

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