This article is aimed at newer players. It is intended to be the first in an ongoing series entitled "Dominion 101".Why is trashing good?Dominion is a rich, complex game, whose strategic depths continue to be plumbed by even the most experienced of players. But there are certain aspects of playing this deckbuilder that are considered fundamental to understanding it. Once you’ve gotten a handle on the basic mechanics of the game, there are a few strategic concepts that must be mastered before you can start to become a better player. It is the exploration of these fundamentals that will be the focus of this series, and our first topic is a concept that, when it clicks, can immediately improve how you play the game: the benefit of trashing.
Not every game of Dominion will have a card that lets you trash (hereafter referred to as a “trasher”), but quite a few do. Some trash a single card, others multiple, some do other things in addition to trashing, but all of them trash. The mechanic is simple: trashing removes one or more cards from your deck. The difficulty lies in understanding whether or not it’s a good idea to trash. New players usually understand the benefit of getting rid of Curses, which do nothing and detract from your point total. Of course you want to get rid of those, who wouldn’t? But often when a player is first told that they should trash their starting Estates and Coppers, they balk. Estates are worth points! And Copper is needed to buy cards!
So here we come to an idea of efficiency. Yes, you need points to win the game. Yes, you need coins to buy more cards. But each Estate in your hand is wasted space. That Estate could have been a Silver, or a Village, or a Market. But because you didn’t want to trash it, it’s in your hand, giving you effectively 4 cards to work with instead of 5. Would you rather have a hand of Estate, three Coppers, and Smithy, or a hand of Village, three Coppers, and Smithy? Substituting one card can make a huge difference. By getting rid of your starting Estates, you reduce the opportunities of wasted space in your hands from three to zero.
But what about the points? Let’s look at a scenario. Billy didn’t want to trash his Estates; he held onto them like an old woman onto her horde of near-feral cats, and that wasted space that keeps popping up in his hand means he keeps getting
when he could have gotten
or
when he could have gotten
. His sister Lisa, on the other hand, has smartly cleared out her Estates with a trashing card, and that extra
or
in each hand because she drew a Copper or Silver instead of a worthless Estate means she was able to pick up a key Action, or a Province. Now Lisa has three Provinces, and Billy still has his three starting Estates. That’s 18 points to 3. Having 6 points in one useless card is a lot better than only 1 point. It’s more efficient.
Also consider that by the time you’re buying Provinces, your deck is probably a lot larger, and will be able to better handle a Victory card that just takes up space, compared to your first two turns, when you have 10-15 cards in your deck.
For fun, imagine that instead of starting with 3 Estates and 7 Coppers, you start the game with just 7 Coppers. You’re guaranteed to buy a card costing $5 on your first turn, and have a chance to play it on your second turn! That’s insane, isn’t it? That’s how much those starting Estates slow you down.
But what about the Coppers? They actually do something… don’t they? Well, sure, they give you
. But there are better cards out there, and you’d rather be drawing those than a Copper. Imagine replacing your starting 7 Coppers with 3 Silvers. Or 3 Golds. Not “add to your deck”. “Replace with”. That’s only possible with trashing.
Let’s check in again with Billy and Lisa. Billy has finally figured out he needs to trash his starting Estates, but he’s holding onto his Coppers for dear life. Meanwhile, Lisa has trashed all her starting cards, and has a deck of 5 Markets, 3 Silvers, 2 Golds, 3 Villages, and 2 Smithies, in addition to her trasher. She is essentially guaranteed to draw her deck every turn, which will give her the ability to buy 2 Provinces. Billy has (somehow) managed to get the same cards, in addition to his starting Coppers. Theoretically, this gives him a higher coin output, even potentially buying 3 Provinces in one turn, but in practice, there’s almost no way that will happen. It’s far more likely he’ll have a hand of 3 Coppers, Silver, and Village, and then his Village will draw another Copper, and his turn will be over. While Lisa gets to draw her deck every turn and buy multiple Victory cards, Billy is stuck playing maybe one Action per turn.
Now to be fair, there are a few styles of deck that don’t really want to trash. You could be going for Gardens, and want your deck to be as big and bloated as possible, and aren’t really too concerned about making more than
. Or maybe you just want to buy Silvers and Golds (and maybe one Action) and run a Big Money deck. But Gardens needs certain other enabling cards to be present to give you more points than Provinces, and a Big Money strategy can never do better than buying one Province per turn. These strategies are usually beaten by an engine, which we’ll cover next time.
In conclusion: trash early; trash often. Trashing is your friend. (Coppers and Estates are not, they hate you, they say nasty things about you behind your back. KILL THEM ALL) Ahem. At the very least, trashing away your starting cards can give you an edge over your friends, and maybe then you can teach them something about how to play Dominion.