Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Warrior on December 27, 2012, 07:21:23 pm
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Hi all,
I finished my Dominion collection over Christmas and I haven't played Alchemy yet. We have played the new sets by themselves to get used to the cards, but I was wondering the best way to use Alchemy. Should we play it by itself, use 5 Alchemy cards and mix with X expansion (any expansion mix recommendations would be great), or just throw it in with the rest of the randomizers? Thanks! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
warrior297
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As a small expansion, using only Alchemy cards is not going to be especially fun (you can do it once or twice, but... that's about it). The rule recommendation is that if you use a card with Potions in it's cost*, then you use between 3-5 of them. Personally I'd say that's a little high, 2-4 is probably better, but for your first games go ahead and try using 4 or 5 potion cards, plus maybe one of the others (or both).
*I think it's this, it might actually be if you use any Alchemy cards, use 3-5 Alchemy cards. Note there are 10 cards with potion costs, and 2 without.
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As a small expansion, using only Alchemy cards is not going to be especially fun (you can do it once or twice, but... that's about it). The rule recommendation is that if you use a card with Potions in it's cost*, then you use between 3-5 of them. Personally I'd say that's a little high, 2-4 is probably better, but for your first games go ahead and try using 4 or 5 potion cards, plus maybe one of the others (or both).
*I think it's this, it might actually be if you use any Alchemy cards, use 3-5 Alchemy cards. Note there are 10 cards with potion costs, and 2 without.
Thanks!
warrior297
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Oh, and as for which expansions to use, Alchemy's subtheme is 'cares about actions'. The cards are ones you probably want lots of, and they set up big engine type decks. Prosperity, especially Colony/Platinum games, also like engines, so they work very well together.
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Alternatively, just try some of the recommended sets of ten. A lot of those can be fun. I particularly like the Intrigue + Alchemy "Pools, Tools and Fools"
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Try a game with Vineyard and Rats.
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Personally, I think about half of the Alchemy cards work fine just by themselves such as Scrying Pool, Vineyards, Alchemist, and Familiar for instance. So, I know it recommends 3 to 5 Alchemy cards, but adding one just one to the kingdom adds a strategic element of should I buy a potion for that card or not.
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Personally, I think about half of the Alchemy cards work fine just by themselves such as Scrying Pool, Vineyards, Alchemist, and Familiar for instance. So, I know it recommends 3 to 5 Alchemy cards, but adding one just one to the kingdom adds a strategic element of should I buy a potion for that card or not.
This. This is one of the main things Isotropic taught me: just a single potion cost card is just fine. with 3-5, they tend to dominate.
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Alternatively, just try some of the recommended sets of ten. A lot of those can be fun. I particularly like the Intrigue + Alchemy "Pools, Tools and Fools"
we have all of the recommended sets of ten over on the wiki (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Dark_Ages#Recommended_Sets_of_10), including sets which pull from expansions that came out after alchemy.
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Alternatively, just try some of the recommended sets of ten. A lot of those can be fun. I particularly like the Intrigue + Alchemy "Pools, Tools and Fools"
we have all of the recommended sets of ten over on the wiki (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Dark_Ages#Recommended_Sets_of_10), including sets which pull from expansions that came out after alchemy.
Thanks!
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So am I hearing its better to use 1-2 potion cards instead of 3-5? Thanks for the input!
warrior297
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It plays quite differently. With 1-2, the strategic question is whether to buy a potion at all. With 3-5, you're pretty much always going to buy a potion, the question is how many potions and in what order to buy the potion-cost cards.
If you use 5 cards from alchemy, you're going to get similar-looking kingdoms pretty often, because alchemy just doesn't have that many cards.
I'd suggest playing it both ways! Sometimes do one, sometimes the other.
For a while, the way I'd randomize my sets IRL is that I'd randomly pick one expansion to "focus" on, pick 3 cards from that expansion, and then randomly pick the other 7 (which might include some from that expansion too!). This way, when I played an "alchemy-focused" game I'd get 3-4 alchemy cards, whereas in other games I'd usually get 0-1.