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[werothegreat]

C'mere, little fella... I'm not gonna hurt ya...

-How many of these do you want?
-Do you want to open with this, or wait a couple turns?
-What cards does it work well with?
-How does it compare to other single-card trashers?

[GendoIkari]

This card blew me away when I first saw it. Mostly because it was shortly after a long discussion in the Variants forums about how ridiculously strong a cantrip trasher for less than $5 would be. Of course the Reserve delay is what weakens this enough to allow it to exist, but that wasn't obvious at all right away.

[Eran of Arcadia]

Not only is there a delay, but you are limited to trashing cards that start out in your hand rather than cards you draw during your turn.

[E.Honda]

I have never played with this card so this is pure speculation. I think a nice comparison is trade route which also trashes a single card (and gives you a buy but that buy normally doesnt help much early on). Trade route is slow and doesnt give you any benefit as long as there are no tokens on the trade route mat. Rat catcher is even slower but the upside is that it doesnt hurt your hand when you play it as its a cantrip and also just takes one card away from your hand when you use it to trash whereas trade route takes two cards away (trade route + trashed card) and takes an Action to use which generally is weak. I think rat catcher is a lot better due to not being terminal and not weakening your hand as much, with the downside of being slower.

[Chris is me]

It rarely hurts to pick up a cantrip, but every time I've ever bought a second Ratcatcher, one of them has stayed on my mat the entire game.

This is great versus Cursers though, as well as Draw To X (Jack of All Trades in particular) or decks that have limited terminal space.

[gkrieg13]

You can also buy it to trash your trasher and then get rid of itself.

[pst]

Extra nice when not only your future but also your current hand can become better by removing a card. I recently had a turn that otherwise would have been really weak be a strong turn because I could trash Duchess from a hand of Shanty Town, Duchess and 3 non-actions. Something similar could happen with Menagerie as well.

[jomini]

One of the major differences with Ratcatcher is getting over the impulse to trash ASAP. If it misses the shuffle, you want to wait to trash with it until either you kill your worst card (e.g. Hovel), or you would risk it missing the shuffle again (e.g. you have 7 cards, including a Smithy, left in deck). You absolutely can benefit from skipping a trash on T5 to get a $5 and still trash on T6 most of the time.

This also makes it a good fit for triggering on-trash bonuses, most notably Market square. While it is annoying when you are trying to kill the last few coppers, it is very handy to double the odds of lining up trashing & Mrksqr.

He works surprisingly well with other trashing. Even a delayed cantrip does not hurt Steward or Salvager trashing and you can leave his trashing ability until another turn when you end up with things lining up badly (e.g. GoldGoldEESteward). Remake seems like a very nice option here - clear out some coppers, eventually dispose of the Remake, and help Remake more quickly go Estates -> Silvers -> Remakes -> $5s.

[drsteelhammer]

I think jomini is right, it is best at supplementing other trashers because Ratcatcher itself is really, really slow. If you can pick up a second with not much opportunity cost, that usually works good enough aswell

[Accatitippi]

I really think the "flavour" text in the OP should have been "SQUIT."

[Dingan]

Seems slow, hence the price point, although the cantripness makes up for a lot.  Seems pretty comparable to Trade Route and Trader (when Trader is used solely for clearing out Coppers).  I can see synergy with draw-up-to-X, high cycling, decks where it's more-crucial-than-normal to be thin, and of course extra buys is a plus.  Minion, Scrying Pool, and Advisor stand out to me as synergizers.

This is great versus Cursers though, as well as Draw To X (Jack of All Trades in particular) or decks that have limited terminal space.

I don't think Ratcatcher would synergize with straight [double] Jack because in straight double Jack, (1) the game usually goes pretty quickly and hence you don't have time to cycle cantrips through your deck, much less play them very often, and (2) you won't often have extra buys.  Of course if you're adding components that help alleviate these 2 things, then yes Ratcatcher could certainly be used to thin out Coppers.