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[mameluke]

With Dark Ages and all of the other sets, we have a lot of different trashers. They all give different benefits, of course. Some are better at trashing curses than others, and this also depends on the cost -- e.g. Transmute is terrible, so is Develop, Bishop is iffy, and Junk Dealer is pretty good. How would you rank all of the trashers we have, considering their ability to trash curses?

for reference: http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Trasher

[Robz888]

Gotta be Masquerade!

[mameluke]

My vote would have to be Forager. It's cheap, non-terminal, and pretty easy to get +$2. But even the normal +$1 isn't shabby.

[Robz888]

No, it's Masquerade. Why trash Curses when you can give them back to your opponent and trash something else? And with +2 Cards Masq gives you a fairly large hand with which to do it.

So, so good.

[mameluke]

I know this has been done to death here but I'm usually hesitant to get a curses if Masq is on the board.

[achmed_sender]

On some boards, Altar could be a honorable mention too, because Curses into Wharves/HPs/Cities,... is a huge deal

[PSGarak]

RATS.

Ok, seriously though... If Ambassador counts as a trasher, then it deserves to be mentioned with Masquerade. I think Masquerade has the slight edge because of the +Cards, but Ambassador is better when a) you have 2 curses in hand b) Throne Room/KC c) 3+ players. But, as mameluke mentions, Cursing in unlikely with either of these cards available.

As a general rule, I like Upgrade for trashing Curses & Coppers, simply because it's a cantrip. Trashing with Upgrade doesn't slow your deck down as much as, say, Chapel or Count where you basically lose a whole turn while you're trashing. I don't have much experience with Junk Dealer, but I expect my opinion would be similar.

Sea Hag and Torturer deserve special mention, because the Curse ends up in a different location, and that makes me favor different trashers. With Sea Hag, Lookout becomes a much better trasher in general, although Upgrade stays very good. Trading Post is very good against Torturer, and in some cases you're better off for having been Tortured. Forge vs Torturer is also nice.

[jsh357]

So I'm going to assume we mean Curse-trashing after the fact, yes?  (This rules out Watchtower and Trader)

These are my opinions.  Someone else feel free to take my list and modify it.

GOD TIER
Masquerade: Sends a Curse back to the opponent and can trash one regardless.  God Tier.
Jack of All Trades: Gains you Silver, you don't mind using your Trash effect on a Curse, cycles cards.  Also God Tier.
Hermit - You can trash from the discard, you can trash and gain new parts for your deck, maybe even a Madman.

HIGH TIER
Junk Dealer - Nonterminal, gives you cash and Curse is the optimal target for trashing.
Trading Post - Not as good as Jack for going Curse-> Silver, but it can trash something else too.
Upgrade - Nonterminal, you want it for other stuff too.
Remake - Can trash 2 at a time, and you can do something like Estate -> Silver at the same time.
Lookout - Obvious Sea Hag interaction, but it's second only to Hermit in trashing things outside your hand.
Forager - Nonterminal, gives you money for it.
Mercenary - Harder to get, but gives you a great bonus in addition to trashing if you have junk.
Altar - Replace a Curse with a Lab?  Don't mind if I do.
Trade Route - Not the best, but it's a wonderful late-game trasher once green cards have been bought.
Steward - You primarily want it to trash Copper and Estates, but it can also function as a Curse trasher.
Ambassador - See Steward, only with the benefit of attacking too.  Unfortunately, not as flexible as Steward.
Forge - Cost-prohibitive, but you can always trash excess Curses from hand with it.

SERF TIER
Dame Anna - Too much of a crapshoot to get, but if you do it's great for Curses.  Sadly, you can also lose it just by playing it if it hits another Knight, so it's just not reliable.
Apprentice - Nonterminal, but it really wants to be trashing bigger things.  Not a cantrip like Upgrade and Junk Dealer.
Transmute - If you're in a situation where you wanted Transmute in the first place, it's a great Curse trasher since you will draw it in hands where it can't do much else.
Count - A little unreliable, but worth mentioning.  You have to have hands full of junk, which doesn't always happen ironically.
Bishop* (Not counting opponent's Bishop) - Helps your opponent more than it helps you when trashing Curses.
Farmland - Cost is high, but it's a solid move in the late game.
Rats - Only good if you have a use for the Rats afterwards.
Chapel - Chapel is for Copper and Estates, Curses are just icing and you don't want to be in the position of playing your Chapel late in the game if you can avoid it.
Salvager - See Apprentice aside from the nonterminal part.  Still better than nothing.
Trader* (Not counting the ability to block Curses) - See Salvager
Develop - See Trader, only with Develop you needed to have a good plan for it in the first place.
Expand - $7 for a Curse trasher is too much; you are buying this for other things and trashing Curses as the gravy on your mashed potatoes.
Governor* (Not counting opponent's Governor) - Gaining an Estate for a Curse just isn't that good.  Can still be beneficial if there's a good $2 option, and Governor is of course good for other purposes.
Remodel - See Governor.

[dondon151]

I'll take one if I need one.

i.e., it depends on the kingdom!

[Lekkit]

I think Hermit probably deserves a spot in the GOD TIER. It's that good. You only need to draw it after or at the same time as the curse. In slogs this will most likely be the case, where Jack needs to be in the same hand as the curse.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I think it's not really important to look at what's good at trashing Curses. Trashing Curses is trashing Curses. What you really care about is what else the card does for you. As always, these benefits are highly kingdom-dependent. But generally the best trashers are also going to be the best Curse-trashers...

[sudgy]

I would say Forge and Chapel are good.  Chapel can do a lot at once (I've seen people trashing four curses at once  ), and Forge, if you can draw a lot, can do even more (and sometimes give you a card for it!)

[jaybeez]

I generally agree with Robz, Masq is hard to top as an anti-Cursing card.  Amb included.

But it also sometimes depends on the Curser.  Like, Trading Post is really really good against Torturer.

[mameluke]

In response to HME and others,

the best trashers are not always the best at trashing cursers. Apprentice and Salvager are the prime examples--good if they're the only trashers on the board, but with such a big list it's fairly often that there's more than one available. But those two cards were made for trashing other things--dead Sea Hags and Spice Merchants, estates, Border Villages, etc. But there are other cards, especially Remake and Upgrade that are great at trashing curses AND great at trashing other things. Masquerade falls into this class as well, because of the passing and +2 cards, and JOAT is also exceptional.

Great list, jsh.

[Beyond Awesome]

I think Hermit probably deserves a spot in the GOD TIER. It's that good. You only need to draw it after or at the same time as the curse. In slogs this will most likely be the case, where Jack needs to be in the same hand as the curse.

Agreed, Hermit is in the GOD TIER for curse trashing. I think a lot of players haven't played with it enough, but man, Hermit is amazing when it comes to dealing with curses.

[jsh357]

I think Hermit probably deserves a spot in the GOD TIER. It's that good. You only need to draw it after or at the same time as the curse. In slogs this will most likely be the case, where Jack needs to be in the same hand as the curse.

Agreed, Hermit is in the GOD TIER for curse trashing. I think a lot of players haven't played with it enough, but man, Hermit is amazing when it comes to dealing with curses.

I put it at third for a reason, after all.  Yeah, I guess it deserves to be up a tier.

[AdamH]

Chapel I think is much better than you give it credit for. The fact that it thins your deck so quickly makes it very easy to line up Chapel with curses before the size of your deck gets out of control. If Remake deserves a spot in the second tier then Chapel most certainly does.

[shMerker]

A lot of that tier list can be boiled down too "some trashers want to trash expensive cards".

When you use a card like Salvager or Expand that cares about the cost of the card being trashed you're missing out on most of what that card does. On the other hand a card like Trade Route--which does a thing for you and also trashes a card--wants to trash something cheap. You don't miss out on anything when you trash a curse so--barring some edge cases--a curse will always be the ideal target.

[mameluke]

It may also depend on how quickly you're gaining curses and other junk. Chapel might be better against Mountebank and Familiar since the junk comes in so very quickly, you might absolutely need to trash more than one thing at a time. Because of the price level of say, Upgrade, it'd be a lot harder to chain those and pull that off. And of course, 3+ players makes the situation even more dire.

[philosophyguy]

Hermit and Masquerade have to be the top of the list for me.

Masquerade has been discussed already, but I can't shake the memory of how powerful it was in a tournament game against Mountebank. The fact that it can handle different types of cards at once (pass one card, trash something else) and restores your handsize makes it even better than Ambassador in most situations.

Hermit is phenomenal because it can trash from the discard. Not having to have the curse in hand is So. Huge.

Jack is great as a response to cursing attacks, but I wouldn't rank it God tier for pure "trashing curses." The reason is that it has a smaller search space than Hermit and Masquerade (depending on how the spy effect plays), and there's a slight anti-synergy between the spy effect and the trash effect if you reveal the curse. Also, the Silver flood from Jack makes it progressively less likely that you'll find the Curses to trash, a problem Hermit doesn't have. Again, to be clear, Jack is awesome in cursing games, but for the pure "trashing curses" effect I put it in the "Beatified Saint" tier rather than the God tier.

[Stealth Tomato]

I think you're underrating Forge, but then again, I always think everyone is underrating Forge. It's tough to get on fast-Cursing boards, but it trashes Curses in a hurry and later transforms into a highly-flexible trash-for-benefit.

It also has unmatched trashing power with cards that can generate >5-card hands with actions to spare (in order: Tactician, Wharf, Lab variants, Village-Smithy variants)

[jonts26]

Forge is a generally weak curse trasher. The biggest problem is its just so expensive. And it's quite terrible unless you are drawing decent sized hands. Sure if you get lucky you can spike it on turn 3, but generally, especially with decent cursers you just wont be able to get it for some time.

There are going to be boards where you can get it fairly early and deal with the incomming curses, but those are probably boards with really good engines, and most really good engines involve cheaper trashers which will take care of the curses well enough on their own.

The times when Forge really shines is boards with a potentially strong draw engine but weak/no other trashing. In these games though, you generally work to win the curse war first, and then use Forge in the aftermath to clean up the mess.

[SCSN]

It also has unmatched trashing power with cards that can generate >5-card hands with actions to spare (in order: Tactician, Wharf, Lab variants, Village-Smithy variants)

Count is pretty decent too in that regard. I like it as a trasher in Double-Tactician and Scrying Pool engines.

[brokoli]

The times when Forge really shines is boards with a potentially strong draw engine but weak/no other trashing. In these games though, you generally work to win the curse war first, and then use Forge in the aftermath to clean up the mess.

Yep, I once had a game where Forge trashed 5-6 curses in a tactician 10 card hand.