I agree that this is a weak copper trasher, but on boards that there are no good $2s, it is better than remodel, because copper->estate is just TERRIBLE. If there's an engine piece at $3, the difference is even bigger.
I guess in retrospect though, you won't USUALLY want to save coins, so depending on having an extra coin probably doesn't make sense. So yeah, you are mostly right. I still super like the card though, and I think the fact that its never a dead card makes it well worth the upgrade to 5. I love remodel, but hate when I get hands like copper,copper,silver,silver,remodel.
Nobody has mentioned that this is a decent Copper trasher. Estate->Silver leaves you an extra token, with which you can Copper->Silver. Though it may often be better to save those coin tokens, especially if there is a better treasure trasher available.
That's actually pretty weaksauce. Mine does the same thing, but it allows you to keep the Silver in your hand, as well as working in other ways, and it's one of the worst $5 cards. I think if you're using Butcher to turn Copper into Silver, you're probably doing it wrong.
But this is so much more useful than Mine overall! And you could also turn copper into a $3 engine piece. Our save up more coin tokens to hit $4 or higher. The Silver example is a minimum which is still decent.
I disagree! I think Butcher will be about as good of a Copper trasher as Remodel, which is to say: very bad. If you're using it to get $3 cost cards, you're giving up a huge opportunity cost of using the coin tokens on other things, such as buying $5 or $6 cards that are going to likely help you much more than turning a Copper into a $3 card.