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[florrat]

There have been many puzzles already about putting a lot of cards in the trash,^[1][2] and the general agreement is that it is not possible to put all cards in the trash.^[3][4]

However, it is possible to put all but one card X in the trash. Question, what are all possible values for X?

Example: Province is possible, since you can put all cards except a single Province in the trash.

Rules:

• Only one card can be outside the trash. Note: only one copy of a card, not one pile. This card can be anywhere.
• Other than that, all cards used must be trashed. If Black Market is used, all cards from the Black Market deck must be in the trash. Also all Mercenaries, Prizes, Spoils and Madmen must be trashed if they are used in the game.
• All cards must be in the trash at the same time (which is probably the end of the game)
• You may completely choose the number of players (although I can't find solutions with multiple players which do not work single-player), the kingdom, whether you play with Shelters and/or Colonies. If you want you can assume perfect shuffle luck
• Just to emphasize: All rules must be obeyed, including the rule that the game ends after a turn when 3 piles are empty

[ghostofmars]

Possible are also Procession and BoM (as Procession).

Procession chain into Bridges and Gainers to gain the rest of the supply, trashing them with Watchtower in hand. As final action trash WT with the last Procession play.

Draw is no problem, because I can use the second Procession on a Native Village and draw all cards I need. Actions and gains can be increased by Feast and Mining Village w/o any card remaining in play. As I don't need to buy a card, it's no problem that WT needs to be trashed before the buy phase.

[2.71828.....]

I haven't thought much, but it seems to me like the only possible answer is watchtower.

Why?

You have to purchase (gain) a card to end the game.  Consider the very last card gained.  This card must either be your last card or it must be trashed.  It cannot be your last card, because you would have to purchase it individually (trashing all cards used to purchase it) which is impossible since the game would already be over.  So the last card gained must be trashed.  What is the only card that trashes gained cards?  Watchtower.

[Destierro]

It is possible to trash all cards isn't it? Chapel / Death Cart leaves nothing in your deck.

[florrat]

@ghostofmars: Yep, that works! Nice found. There are (quite a lot) more, though!

@e: Watchtower works as well. But it is certainly not the only one.

@Destierro: If you found a solution that trashes all cards, I'd love to see it. I'm not sure what you exactly mean with Chapel / Death Cart. Do you mean the following?
(1) Gain all cards
(2) Trash all cards with Chapel (except for that Chapel and one Death Cart)
(3) Trash Chapel with Death Cart
(4) Self-trash Death Cart
In that case, that doesn't work. It is not possible to do (3) and (4) in the same turn. But after the turn where you do (3), all piles are empty, which means the game ends before you can do (4).

[KingZog3]

@ghostofmars: Yep, that works! Nice found. There are (quite a lot) more, though!

@e: Watchtower works as well. But it is certainly not the only one.

@Destierro: If you found a solution that trashes all cards, I'd love to see it. I'm not sure what you exactly mean with Chapel / Death Cart. Do you mean the following?
(1) Gain all cards
(2) Trash all cards with Chapel (except for that Chapel and one Death Cart)
(3) Trash Chapel with Death Cart
(4) Self-trash Death Cart
In that case, that doesn't work. It is not possible to do (3) and (4) in the same turn. But after the turn where you do (3), all piles are empty, which means the game ends before you can do (4).

Yeah, he thought it meant all cards in your deck.

[SirPeebles]

Farmland ought to be possible.  Do Feasts, Mining Villages, BoMs or what-not to get down to nothing aside from:
Supply: Province, Farmland
Hand: Overgrown Estate (or Cultist), Trader

Buy the Province.  Then buy the Farmland, trash OE to draw your Province, then reveal your Trader to not gain the Farmland.  Then buy the Farmland again, trash the Province, reveal Trader.  Then buy the Farmland again, trash the Trader, and gain the Farmland.

To have the cash, you can use Coin tokens.  To get the spare buys, play Procession-Procession-Wharf-Wharf on the previous turn.

Edit:  I think Doctor should work in a similar fashion.  Clear everything aside from Province and Doctor.  Buy Province, then buy a Doctor and overpay to trash Province.

As a twist on this, Talisman is possible.  Same as the Doctor scenario, but have a Talisman in play.  Buy a Province.  Then when you buy a Doctor, choose to resolve Talisman first to gain the Doctor.  Then overpay to trash both itself and the Province.

[florrat]

Yup, Farmland is possible. I had another (I think slightly simpler) solution with Farmland:

Do the usual stuff with Watchtower: buy or gain everything and immediately trash it with Watchtower, except that you leave one Farmland in the supply. Then buy Farmland, and trash Watchtower with it.

One thing which is not yet clear in your (and actually also my) solution is how do you get rid of all cards your cards you gained via Feast? Probably you want to also have a Watchtower in your hand, and then buy two more Farmlands: one for the Watchtower and one for the Procession which you still had from the Procession chain previous turn.

Doctor works indeed in a similar fashion.

Wow, your Talisman solution is really cool! I didn't had that one yet.

So now we have 7 solutions: Procession, BoM, Watchtower, Farmland, Doctor, Talisman and Province (well, actually: I've only stated that Province is possible, maybe you still want to figure out a solution for it). There are still more!

[scott_pilgrim]

Example: Province is possible, since you can put all cards except a single Province in the trash.

I may be missing something obvious, but why is Province possible but not (necessarily) every card?  That is, what's special about Province that means it could be the last card, without the same solution applying to any arbitrary card in Province's place?  Does it have to do with the game ending when Provinces run out, because that's the only thing I can think of that could possibly make Province different from other cards (in an "easier" way).

Or does it have to do with HoP maybe, in which case any victory card would work.  Is the Province solution supposed to be trivial, or are you expecting us to figure it out, or is it in another thread?

Edit: Oh, you just posted that you didn't give us a solution.

Also, out of curiosity:

If Black Market is used, all cards from the Black Market deck must be in the trash. Also all Mercenaries, Prizes, Spoils and Madmen must be trashed if they are used in the game.

Am I the only one who imagines that the Madman pile, Black Market deck, Prize pile, etc. exist in every game, just that there is no way to access them without Hermit, Black Market, Tournament, etc. so we don't bother putting them out on the table?  That has some sort of elegance to it, it means you don't have to execute some special set-up step for Hermit, Black Market, etc.  Of course we all know what you mean when you say that all cards "used" in the game need to be in the trash (e.g. Mercenaries don't need to be in the trash if Urchin is not on the board), but I'm curious if this is the common interpretation of what actually happens behind the curtains of a Dominion game, or if it's just something I made up.

[Jimmmmm]

Farmland ought to be possible.  Do Feasts, Mining Villages, BoMs or what-not to get down to nothing aside from:
Supply: Province, Farmland
Hand: Overgrown Estate (or Cultist), Trader

How do you get the draw to play enough Feasts and BoMs to gain at least 13 cards and then trash them all?

[SirPeebles]

Example: Province is possible, since you can put all cards except a single Province in the trash.

I may be missing something obvious, but why is Province possible but not (necessarily) every card?  That is, what's special about Province that means it could be the last card, without the same solution applying to any arbitrary card in Province's place?  Does it have to do with the game ending when Provinces run out, because that's the only thing I can think of that could possibly make Province different from other cards (in an "easier" way).

Or does it have to do with HoP maybe, in which case any victory card would work.  Is the Province solution supposed to be trivial, or are you expecting us to figure it out, or is it in another thread?

Edit: Oh, you just posted that you didn't give us a solution.

Well, the last Province needs to be in the Supply at the start of your last turn.  Somehow you need to gain it.  You could use a gainer, but then what about the card you gained it with?  The cards which can gain AND trash themselves include Feast, Hermit, and Horn of Plenty.  Feast and Hermit cannot gain Province without price reduction, and then the price reducer would be in play.  Horn of Plenty would need a bunch of cards in play to gain Province.  Rather than use a gainer, you could just buy it.  But then how are you going to trash it before the game ends?

So mostly, the only solutions which don't lead to Province are ones with buy phase shenanigans (Watchtower, Farmland, Doctor, Talisman), Procession or BoM since they allow you to trash all the actions you play, and potentially cards which can directly gain Province (Remodel, Rebuild, Altar, etc.).

[SirPeebles]

Farmland ought to be possible.  Do Feasts, Mining Villages, BoMs or what-not to get down to nothing aside from:
Supply: Province, Farmland
Hand: Overgrown Estate (or Cultist), Trader

How do you get the draw to play enough Feasts and BoMs to gain at least 13 cards and then trash them all?

You get the Feasts et al. from the Wharves you Processioned last turn (Procession lots of them!).  As for the cards you gained, you can use florrat's Watchtower fix in the Farmland case.  In the Doctor/Talisman cases, you don't need to draw them since you can just overpay with Coin tokens and trash them all from the draw pile.

Actually, scratch that.  In both cases, you can just buy all of the remaining cards using your stack of buys (from Wharves) and coin tokens.  You don't need to fuss with a massive Feast-ish binge.

[Jimmmmm]

Actually, scratch that.  In both cases, you can just buy all of the remaining cards using your stack of buys (from Wharves) and coin tokens.  You don't need to fuss with a massive Feast-ish binge.

Ah yes good plan.

[florrat]

Is the Province solution supposed to be trivial, or are you expecting us to figure it out, or is it in another thread?

Province might not have been the best example, because the solution with Province is highly non-trivial. On the other hand, no other solution is trivial, all involve quite a bit of steps. Perhaps Procession is the simplest, because most other solutions require some help of duration cards last turn.

I'm actually not sure whether the solution is in another thread. When I posted the opening post, I thought it was, but I can't find it (browsing through the threads I linked in the opening post might give you a lot of ideas, though).

If Black Market is used, all cards from the Black Market deck must be in the trash. Also all Mercenaries, Prizes, Spoils and Madmen must be trashed if they are used in the game.

Am I the only one who imagines that the Madman pile, Black Market deck, Prize pile, etc. exist in every game, just that there is no way to access them without Hermit, Black Market, Tournament, etc. so we don't bother putting them out on the table?  That has some sort of elegance to it, it means you don't have to execute some special set-up step for Hermit, Black Market, etc.  Of course we all know what you mean when you say that all cards "used" in the game need to be in the trash (e.g. Mercenaries don't need to be in the trash if Urchin is not on the board), but I'm curious if this is the common interpretation of what actually happens behind the curtains of a Dominion game, or if it's just something I made up.

Yeah, you're right, I probably formulated my puzzle technically incorrect (I prefer to have it the other way around: seemingly incorrect, but technically correct).

[SirPeebles]

I don't think you can imagine the Black Market deck as always existing, since even if it is inaccessible, its composition could add an eleventh kingdom card, Potion, Ruins, or a starting Coin token.

[2.71828.....]

Rules:

• Only one card can be outside the trash. Note: only one copy of a card, not one pile. This card can be anywhere.
• Other than that, all cards used must be trashed. If Black Market is used, all cards from the Black Market deck must be in the trash. Also all Mercenaries, Prizes, Spoils and Madmen must be trashed if they are used in the game.
• All cards must be in the trash at the same time (which is probably the end of the game)
• You may completely choose the number of players (although I can't find solutions with multiple players which do not work single-player), the kingdom, whether you play with Shelters and/or Colonies. If you want you can assume perfect shuffle luck
• Just to emphasize: All rules must be obeyed, including the rule that the game ends after a turn when 3 piles are empty

If I am just misunderstanding something in your solutions tell me, but I don't see how any of them (aside from doctor) are able to account for 14 supply piles (3 Victory + 3 treasure + 10 supply - 2 random empty piles)

Farmland ought to be possible.  Do Feasts, Mining Villages, BoMs or what-not to get down to nothing aside from:
Supply: Province, Farmland
Hand: Overgrown Estate (or Cultist), Trader

Then the game is over.  You are finished and this solution does not work.  More than 3 supply piles are empty already.

I think Doctor should work in a similar fashion.  Clear everything aside from Province and Doctor.  Buy Province, then buy a Doctor and overpay to trash Province.

The game is still already over.  So this solution does not work.  Although, I think Doctor is a solution.  You keep the game alive long enough to stockpile a bunch of coin tokens.  You buy everything to empty the supply and overpay for doctor with tons of coin tokens, and trash everything you just bought.

As a twist on this, Talisman is possible.  Same as the Doctor scenario, but have a Talisman in play.  Buy a Province.  Then when you buy a Doctor, choose to resolve Talisman first to gain the Doctor.  Then overpay to trash both itself and the Province.

This doesn't work because you have already emptied all the other supply piles.

[SirPeebles]

I don't mean to imply that you empty all but four cards by the start of your last turn.  For sure, a decent chunk of gaining and trashing is done during that final turn.

[AJD]

I don't think you can imagine the Black Market deck as always existing, since even if it is inaccessible, its composition could add an eleventh kingdom card, Potion, Ruins, or a starting Coin token.

And note that Black Market has setup instructions on the card, while Hermit, Tournament, etc. don't, supporting scott_pilgrim's analysis for the case of those.

[2.71828.....]

I don't mean to imply that you empty all but four cards by the start of your last turn.  For sure, a decent chunk of gaining and trashing is done during that final turn.

but then how do you account for all the other cards gained except for watchtower or doctor? 

Farmland ought to be possible.  Do Feasts, Mining Villages, BoMs or what-not to get down to nothing aside from:
Supply: Province, Farmland
Hand: Overgrown Estate (or Cultist), Trader

Buy the Province.  Then buy the Farmland, trash OE to draw your Province, then reveal your Trader to not gain the Farmland.  Then buy the Farmland again, trash the Province, reveal Trader.  Then buy the Farmland again, trash the Trader, and gain the Farmland.

The question is how can you trash the cards you have gained?  You cannot play any more actions since you are now in your buy phase.  You cannot use trader since the cards would not be trashed only replaced by a (presumably empty) silver pile.  Now, I do think your solution might work, but I think it needs to be adjusted slightly.

Do Feasts, Mining Villages, BoMs or what-not to get down to nothing aside from:
Supply before the buy phase: Farmland, Province, 12 other kingdom cards
Hand: Cultists (variable amount, but at least 4+OE), trader
Deck: 28 or fewer cards

Buy all the piles except farmland (not revealing trader). 
Buy Farmland, trash cultist, reveal trader not to gain farmland.  Do this a total of five times so you draw the 13 cards you just bought. 
Now, if you had cards in your deck you will need more cultists and possibly an OE in your hand.  At most there could be 28 other cards gained that turn and put in your deck.  You can gain at most 31 cards (30 from cultist trashing, 1 from OE) so the 13 cards that you must buy + 28 others that you may need to draw.  This is assuming you have 43 buys from your other plays (for 31 cards you would need 11 buys for trashing cultists+31 buys to trash other cards+1 buy to trash trader=43 buys)

Keep buying farmland, trashing all the other cards, revealing trader not to gain farmland.

Then finally buy the farmland, trash the trader, and you end with only farmland.

[achmed_sender]

Am I missing something or can you just do CC supply emptying*, then draw the things and play Count: put on top a self-trasher and trash your whole hand, draw the self-trasher because of OE's on trash and play the last card (Mining Village, Embargo, whatever)

*of course it's more difficult and takes maybe 1-3 turns longer because you have to leave 1 card of every pile so as not to 3-pile.

[RTT]

Am I missing something or can you just do CC supply emptying*, then draw the things and play Count: put on top a self-trasher and trash your whole hand, draw the self-trasher because of OE's on trash and play the last card (Mining Village, Embargo, whatever)

*of course it's more difficult and takes maybe 1-3 turns longer because you have to leave 1 card of every pile so as not to 3-pile.

how do you want to gain these last cards from every pile without playing a card? you could procession all the cards you play but then you have procession beeing the last card.


BTW. i know which card is´nt in the kingdom for sure: fortress

[Jimmmmm]

BTW. i know which card is´nt in the kingdom for sure: fortress

Hmm maybe. Although:

All cards must be in the trash at the same time (which is probably the end of the game)

So if you have a Fortress from the Black Market and it's the last thing you trash, you've still satisfied the puzzle.

Also, if you Count your Fortresses, are they all in the Trash at the same time? (This is only relevant if Count is a solution of course.)

[achmed_sender]

Am I missing something or can you just do CC supply emptying*, then draw the things and play Count: put on top a self-trasher and trash your whole hand, draw the self-trasher because of OE's on trash and play the last card (Mining Village, Embargo, whatever)

*of course it's more difficult and takes maybe 1-3 turns longer because you have to leave 1 card of every pile so as not to 3-pile.

how do you want to gain these last cards from every pile without playing a card? you could procession all the cards you play but then you have procession beeing the last card.

Hmm, stupid me.

How about that:

I'm not sure how to start this, but you want to come to a point where you have 10 Hermits in play for changing them into Madmen. On the final turn, you play: Procession: Then many KCs and Processions and TR's on special cards:
1.) Hunting Grounds, you draw many cards and gain more KCs (due to the Processing) and Duchies/Estates. The Duchies will be tradered in order to empty the Silver pile. (This has to happen before step 2.)
2.) 2 Bridges for...
3.) Gaining the cards that can't be gained through Procession. This is possible with Ironworks/Armory/Workshop.
4.) Beggars for emptying the Copper pile
5.) A card like Storeroom to discard and rediscard the gained Tunnels --> Gold pile empty

At this point you should have a big hand, all cards in the supply costing $4 or less, and most- if not all - of the cards bought. Your only card in play is Procession. Now you play 8 Madmen in order to get ALL the cards in your hand ( could also be used between the steps 1.) to 5.) if the handsize gets to small in practice), then processing a Count, Putting back 2 Madmen and trash all the cards.

(I hope there are enough KC'ed Processions to do all this stuff, in doubt, you gain 9 of them, but also with BoM available)

EDIT: Please don't say me Procession on Madman doesn't trash Madman... 

[ghostofmars]

For all of these, if I need a large hand size. I played BoM (as Procession) -> Procession chain -> Wharf's last turn, so that I get a large hand, a lot of buys. This turn I can play the BoM as any self trasher (e.g. Feast) to get rid of it.

Solution for Province (requires an opponent):
As usual gain all the card in the supply except for Province using Feast, BoM, MV and trashing all of them with WT.
Supply: Province, Hand: WT, Dame Anna
Play Dame Anna, trash WT, opponent has trashed his deck to contain 1 knight, so that Anna is trashed.
Buy Province with coin tokens.

Black Market: Play lots of different treasures, then Counterfeit->HOP to gain the rest of the supply (including Province). Buy Mint from Black Market, trash all treasures. Trash all gained cards with WT. Play Hermit, trash WT. Skip buy phase, Hermit is trashed and Mad Man pile empty. Btw Does buying from the Black Market count as buying for the purpose of Hermit? Otherwise use the Dame Anna trick as above.

The Dame Anna trick works also with all gainers that upgrade to 8, e.g. Remodel Gold -> Province, gain the rest of the supply with Feast, MV, BoM. Trash all gained cards with WT. Finally, Dame Anna trashes itself and WT (and the opponent knight).

[SirPeebles]

Solution for Province (requires an opponent):
As usual gain all the card in the supply except for Province using Feast, BoM, MV and trashing all of them with WT.
Supply: Province, Hand: WT, Dame Anna
Play Dame Anna, trash WT, opponent has trashed his deck to contain 1 knight, so that Anna is trashed.
Buy Province with coin tokens.

First, you don't have an opponent.  Second, what about the cards in your opponent's hand?  One way to maybe arrange this would be for your opponent to trash down to one knight, then Possess her and have her trash her knight while Possessed.  Then during your turn she will have an empty hand and just a knight in her discard.  But you'll have to do something with your Possession.