Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Eggplantation on July 11, 2013, 02:34:37 am
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What card do you really appreciate the existence of? Cards that make you go, "Man, Don really nailed it with this one", or "Dang this card is soo cool/fun/hilarious/exciting/thematic that I can hardly contain myself!". There are soo many great cards in Dominion. So which ones grab your fancy and sit on your imortal podium of preference?
For me, one of these cards is Minion. 8)
It's just great, Donald was definitely having a good day that day. I am by no means a expert on it, as I have only played with it once or twice. One of these times was the other day, and it was really fun. I think it adds some unique gameplay, and is very satisfying when you minion shuffle your way to eight coins to claim the province, whilst sifting through your deck and slashing an arm or leg off your opponent's hand size.
I searched the forums and saw that a favourite card list had been done before, however this is slightly different. Favourite cards are a definite for discussion, but throw others in to that you think improve Dominion!
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Torturer, while probably not one of my top ten favorites, I find to be the closest card to what you're going for I think. In general I like it when board games make you pick between the lesser of two evils; Torturer is like a card that makes you do that by itself. Of course Dominion is a game about building up, so if every card was Torturer it would be silly. But having one card that makes opponents make negative decisions like that is pretty cool.
Soothsayer is also a good one (although I haven't played many games with it). I think Soothsayer is probably the most interesting junking attack since it gives the opponent a pretty sizable plus when you play it, but still generally not enough to compensate for the curse.
Of course, I also really appreciate the existence of my favorite cards (Fairgrounds, Rats, Mystic), but those are for the same reasons that make them favorites, which I don't really think is as much of what you're getting at. If you made a list of all of the cards ranked according to my favorites, and then another list with all of the cards ranked according to how much I appreciate their existence (as you put it), I think Torturer and Soothsayer would be the two cards which have the biggest difference between how much higher they are on the latter list than on the former list.
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Embargo: Changes the whole dynamic of the game
City: Does that too, so much fun to activate your own Cities during your turn
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Are you joking?
Minion is the dominion card I like least by far. It's so annoying amd swingy. You can have your hand of 5 awesome cards replaced by 4 crap cards, and that is the most frustrating thing that can happen.
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Cultist, because it is so much fun to chain around five Cultists in one turn, even if the Ruins pile already ran out.
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Horn of Plenty- It's a unique card as it's a zero-cost treasure so it acts more like a non-terminal gainer. One of my favorite things in this game is pulling of an HoP megaturn. I have a soft spot for gainers and specialized treasures and this card combines the two!
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Are you joking?
Minion is the dominion card I like least by far. It's so annoying amd swingy. You can have your hand of 5 awesome cards replaced by 4 crap cards, and that is the most frustrating thing that can happen.
That doesn't make the game any swingier though! Your probability of having crap cards replaced by awesome and vice-versa is exactly the same as it is to draw crappy versus awesome cards in your deck anyway. Minion's actual attack is basically just "discard one at random, and cycle your deck a bit"! You never get to play the cards you drew, the probability is exactly the same as just having drawn 4 cards instead of 5 and cycling some from the bottom of your deck.
Any swinginess is purely psychological, the cards average out.
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Tactician: Can work with so many different cards, encourages complex turns, very different/fun turns.
Throne Room: Changes how you look at all the other cards in any setup it is in. I actually "appreciate" throne room more than King's Court, because it's less powerful and cheaper. You can get it earlier, have more of them if you were feeling risky, and it isn't necessarily the most powerful/best idea, just one of many options.
Secret Chamber: A reaction that doesn't directly counter many attacks but always gives you a benefit, works so neatly against some attacks, really gets you thinking about counters to different attacks and provides much more interesting decisions.
Duke: Of the alternate VP cards, this is my favorite, they all encourage different styles of play, and maybe this is just me, but I think of Duke as being something that is more often close-to-as-viable-as provinces, so it isn't clear whether or not you should go for it, or whether you should go for provinces or fight over Duchies or what.
All the other alternate VP cards: Same logic as Duke.
Rats!: So thematic, so different and kind of fun. Takes one of the cooler but stupid bits of Transmute and makes it interesting and not stupid (often enough anyway.)
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Treasure Maps.
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Are you joking?
Minion is the dominion card I like least by far. It's so annoying amd swingy. You can have your hand of 5 awesome cards replaced by 4 crap cards, and that is the most frustrating thing that can happen.
That doesn't make the game any swingier though! Your probability of having crap cards replaced by awesome and vice-versa is exactly the same as it is to draw crappy versus awesome cards in your deck anyway. Minion's actual attack is basically just "discard one at random, and cycle your deck a bit"! You never get to play the cards you drew, the probability is exactly the same as just having drawn 4 cards instead of 5 and cycling some from the bottom of your deck.
Any swinginess is purely psychological, the cards average out.
Probability doesn't average out during a single game where you're attacked by Minion like 10 times. The difference ""discard one at random, and cycle your deck a bit" and Minion is that by discarding 1 random card, you can't turn a hand of 5 awesome cards into 4 bad ones (usually).
Without Minion, I'll get to see every card at some point (during my own turn). With Minion, it's possible I'll never see some cards.
Also, although you might skip a bad hand due to Minion sometimes, you would have gotten the good hand you get instead on the next turn anyway. So it doesn'tr make up for the frustration of having a good hand turned into absolutely nothing. I think Donald X once commented that during Minion games he doesn't look at his cards before it's his turn, in order not to be disappointed when he loses them. That illustrates pretty well how frustrating Minion can be imo.
The only other card that can completely wreck your hand is Pillage (and Possession, but that one is hard to get). But with Pillage, you will always loose your best card, and you have to take into account that it might happen when planning your strategy. But with Minion, it's just random. That's why it's swingy.
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Embargo makes almost every game interesting.
Also Thief. Sometimes it's a serious counter to an obvious strategy (like Fool's gold, IGG or Duke).
I love Procession and Develop too, even if I don't played much with procession right now. They can create very strange strategies.
Young witch is always different with the bane, that's cool.
Horn of Plenty and Bridge for megaturn crazyness.
Knights and Saboteur can destroy the game sometimes, but other times they are also great counters that can makes the kingdom very hard to analyze.
Also, Alt-VP cards deserve a special mention. Fairgrounds, Duke and Feodum first, because the strategy to play when these cards are on the board is not always easy. I like a little less Gardens and Silk road because sometimes the rush-strategy is too obvious, but still, I really like what they add to the game otherwise.
And of course, all my favourites (Menagerie, Island, Rats, Inn, Baron, Coppersmith, Outpost...)
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I really like the cards that use their mechanics in a cool or thematic way.
So wharf is kinda dull in that respect (sure it's powerful, but generic), but on the other hand, these cards are quite good:
1) Ill-Gotten Gains: I know lots of people hate it, but I love it. It's a perfect example of using the mechanics; you see it and think "$5 for a one-shot curse and a worse silver, no thanks" but then you realize, on-gain means both the IGG and curse piles empty at the same time!
2) City: already been mentioned, but this card is one of the most thematic in Dominion. Starts as a village, grows to be a city.
3) Swindler: another hated card, but so much fun. Yeah it's swingy, but making you adapt to unexpected cards can be fun. One of my favorite games ever involved Swindler, with my $4's kept getting turned into talismans, which I eventually used to drain the Secret Chamber pile the turn before my opponent's unstoppable city stack went off. An example of a trashing attack at it's most fun.
4) Courtyard: technically not designed by Donald, but provides simple, yet somewhat interesting choices even in a Big Money deck.
Edit: bolding
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Peddler -- one of my favorite cards in the game, and with extra buys around, the threat of the Peddler pile being wiped out in one or two turns is essential to keep in mind.
Counting House -- I love this card. It's seldom viable, but when there are supporting cards on the board (e.g. Chapel, Chancellor, Worker's Village, Bank); win or lose, having this work is one of the most satisfying plays in all of Dominion.
Lookout -- I love how helpful this can be in the early game and how risky it can be later.
Bishop -- I appreciate the existence of cards that benefit your opponents -- the option for an opponent to trash a card is friendly, and everyone wins. I enjoy playing Council Room and Governor for similar reasons.
Curses and Ruins would also make my list -- I'm glad there are cards that can junk up the deck. The existence of both makes games much, much richer.
Lots of others, but those are top of mind.
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Are you joking?
Minion is the dominion card I like least by far. It's so annoying amd swingy. You can have your hand of 5 awesome cards replaced by 4 crap cards, and that is the most frustrating thing that can happen.
That doesn't make the game any swingier though! Your probability of having crap cards replaced by awesome and vice-versa is exactly the same as it is to draw crappy versus awesome cards in your deck anyway. Minion's actual attack is basically just "discard one at random, and cycle your deck a bit"! You never get to play the cards you drew, the probability is exactly the same as just having drawn 4 cards instead of 5 and cycling some from the bottom of your deck.
Any swinginess is purely psychological, the cards average out.
Probability doesn't average out during a single game where you're attacked by Minion like 10 times. The difference ""discard one at random, and cycle your deck a bit" and Minion is that by discarding 1 random card, you can't turn a hand of 5 awesome cards into 4 bad ones (usually).
Without Minion, I'll get to see every card at some point (during my own turn). With Minion, it's possible I'll never see some cards.
Also, although you might skip a bad hand due to Minion sometimes, you would have gotten the good hand you get instead on the next turn anyway. So it doesn'tr make up for the frustration of having a good hand turned into absolutely nothing. I think Donald X once commented that during Minion games he doesn't look at his cards before it's his turn, in order not to be disappointed when he loses them. That illustrates pretty well how frustrating Minion can be imo.
The only other card that can completely wreck your hand is Pillage (and Possession, but that one is hard to get). But with Pillage, you will always loose your best card, and you have to take into account that it might happen when planning your strategy. But with Minion, it's just random. That's why it's swingy.
But the point is that Minion is worse than it appears due to you looking at your hand. Sure you can lose a great hand, but you can also lose your best cards due to Spy effects (especially Oracle) and those you *will* lose your best cards whereas Minion can actually help you. So yes, it is swingy, but that actually makes it less harsh than stuff like Spy and Oracle, right?
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Minion was probably just a ploy to make more money. When using it with physical play, you're bound to damage your cards after the 3,456,382,923 daily reshuffles it requires, and you have to buy a new set. Or you have to buy sleeves. I bet there was an under-the-table deal with the sleeve manufacturers.
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But the point is that Minion is worse than it appears due to you looking at your hand. Sure you can lose a great hand, but you can also lose your best cards due to Spy effects (especially Oracle) and those you *will* lose your best cards whereas Minion can actually help you. So yes, it is swingy, but that actually makes it less harsh than stuff like Spy and Oracle, right?
Since when does swingy imply less harsh?
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But the point is that Minion is worse than it appears due to you looking at your hand. Sure you can lose a great hand, but you can also lose your best cards due to Spy effects (especially Oracle) and those you *will* lose your best cards whereas Minion can actually help you. So yes, it is swingy, but that actually makes it less harsh than stuff like Spy and Oracle, right?
Spy and Oracle will never make me loose bad cards, only good ones (except if my opponent doesn't know what i want). It's an informed decison there.
I agree that it wouldn't be as annoying if you ddin't loose the cards from your hand, but you actually do, so I fail to see why this is relevant.
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But the point is that Minion is worse than it appears due to you looking at your hand. Sure you can lose a great hand, but you can also lose your best cards due to Spy effects (especially Oracle) and those you *will* lose your best cards whereas Minion can actually help you. So yes, it is swingy, but that actually makes it less harsh than stuff like Spy and Oracle, right?
Spy and Oracle will never make me loose bad cards, only good ones (except if my opponent doesn't know what i want). It's an informed decison there.
I agree that it wouldn't be as annoying if you ddin't loose the cards from your hand, but you actually do, so I fail to see why this is relevant.
I think there is a psychological tendency to notice extremes and not averages. So you're really going to remember that time that Minion discarded your KC KC Bridge Bridge Bridge hand and you're not really going to notice the average effect. Okay that hand was an exaggeration, but you'll probably find yourself thinking "Man, my opponent only plays Minion when I have a good hand!" a lot.
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But the point is that Minion is worse than it appears due to you looking at your hand. Sure you can lose a great hand, but you can also lose your best cards due to Spy effects (especially Oracle) and those you *will* lose your best cards whereas Minion can actually help you. So yes, it is swingy, but that actually makes it less harsh than stuff like Spy and Oracle, right?
Spy and Oracle will never make me loose bad cards, only good ones (except if my opponent doesn't know what i want). It's an informed decison there.
I agree that it wouldn't be as annoying if you ddin't loose the cards from your hand, but you actually do, so I fail to see why this is relevant.
My point was just that while yeah Minion can be swingy, the complaint that it destroys your hard is kind of silly. Plenty of other cards hurt your next hand even worse. Except for the psychological factor of having those cards in your hand (and obvious edge cases around things that topdeck for your next turn), the fact that its destroying your current hand compared to your next one shouldn't matter.
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But the point is that Minion is worse than it appears due to you looking at your hand. Sure you can lose a great hand, but you can also lose your best cards due to Spy effects (especially Oracle) and those you *will* lose your best cards whereas Minion can actually help you. So yes, it is swingy, but that actually makes it less harsh than stuff like Spy and Oracle, right?
Spy and Oracle will never make me loose bad cards, only good ones (except if my opponent doesn't know what i want). It's an informed decison there.
I agree that it wouldn't be as annoying if you ddin't loose the cards from your hand, but you actually do, so I fail to see why this is relevant.
My point was just that while yeah Minion can be swingy, the complaint that it destroys your hard is kind of silly. Plenty of other cards hurt your next hand even worse. Except for the psychological factor of having those cards in your hand (and obvious edge cases around things that topdeck for your next turn), the fact that its destroying your current hand compared to your next one shouldn't matter.
But it's the very point of those cards to discard my good cards, and they will always do it, not only if I get unlucky. You can adjust your strategy to it. Also, you need a lot more of those to potentially have the impact a single Minion can have.
I am aware that it's a psychological thing, but hating a card is a a psychological thing as well.
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Possesssion Some people hate it, but it adds an interesting dynamic to the game.
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Highway. The first one isn't much... nor is the second... or the third... but suddenly you have seven and oh CRAP he's upgrading his last three Coppers into Provinces.
It's not spammable like Minion (where it should almost always be the first $5 buy, and immediately starts yielding more copies of itself) or Fool's Gold (where it can be bought with almost any hand), but spamming it can yield impressive results.
I also have an unconditional love for Forge. Early in the game, it's relatively strong trashing. Later, it facilitates tons of different interesting moves (trashing Province for Province, converting extraneous components to useful ones, cannibalizing your deck for green) and introduces interesting opportunity costs (do I trash 2 cards by forging Gold-Copper-Curse, or one by forging Copper-Curse and get a more expensive buy?).
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The Alt-VP cards, for sure. And shelters - they're a fun change to the early game.
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Ambassador.
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Spy and Oracle will never make me loose bad cards, only good ones (except if my opponent doesn't know what i want). It's an informed decison there.
I agree that it wouldn't be as annoying if you ddin't loose the cards from your hand, but you actually do, so I fail to see why this is relevant.
Watno, I completely agree with you about Minion. The word you're looking for is "lose", though. Not "loose".
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Fishing Village
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I keep doing this, and had actually fixed it in an earlier post in this thread :P
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Can't believe I forgot my favorite card in the base set:
Militia.
No really. When you talk about power cards in the base set, people immediately think of Witch and Chapel, and it's not either one of those two, but it's still a good, solid card.
Having had to teach the game to a bunch of people has really made me appreciate this card; it's simple enough to explain readily, it hurts enough to make you feel it, and it doesn't hurt so much to make you hate the game (in the way that e.g. Torturer does). It's the perfect card to include in a teaching game, but it's also good enough to be useful in an actual, competitive engine. Does it have first player advantage? Sure, but so do most attacks. It's not nearly as bad as Torturer or even Cutpurse in a multiplayer game. Plus it has fun synergies like with Council Room.
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. Does it have first player advantage? Sure, but so do most attacks.
Militia and other discard attacks generally have second player advantage, as the second player's play of the card is more likely to hit the first player's hand on a later turn (T5 play by 2nd player hits T6 hand of first player), hence usually hitting a hand filled with stronger cards. I think Wandering Winder wrote an article about this somewhere...
Warrior
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I'm going to chime in with Beggar. I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I like cards that seem unassumingly weak but can be a life saver or game winner at the right time. Plus, it's thematically cool, and it interacts with Coppers, which you don't want either.
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3) Swindler: another hated card, but so much fun. Yeah it's swingy, but making you adapt to unexpected cards can be fun.
This. Suddenly every card in the game is important, and you not only have to think about what would be best for you, but what would be worst for you opponent.
Also, Swindler/Peddler is easily my favourite interacion in the game.
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Watchtower!!!
I love it. So many awesome uses. Combos with everything.
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. Does it have first player advantage? Sure, but so do most attacks.
Militia and other discard attacks generally have second player advantage, as the second player's play of the card is more likely to hit the first player's hand on a later turn (T5 play by 2nd player hits T6 hand of first player), hence usually hitting a hand filled with stronger cards. I think Wandering Winder wrote an article about this somewhere...
Warrior
Though, the first player is more likely to hit the second player's hand on an earlier turn, and early buys are much more important than later buys. And if you hit a hand filled with stronger cards, it doesn't matter because the strong cards are the cards that are going to stay in the hand and what's going to be discarded is junk anyway.
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. Does it have first player advantage? Sure, but so do most attacks.
Militia and other discard attacks generally have second player advantage, as the second player's play of the card is more likely to hit the first player's hand on a later turn (T5 play by 2nd player hits T6 hand of first player), hence usually hitting a hand filled with stronger cards. I think Wandering Winder wrote an article about this somewhere...
Warrior
Though, the first player is more likely to hit the second player's hand on an earlier turn, and early buys are much more important than later buys. And if you hit a hand filled with stronger cards, it doesn't matter because the strong cards are the cards that are going to stay in the hand and what's going to be discarded is junk anyway.
Well you usually have more junk in early hands than later hands (assuming we are still in the early game).
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Menagerie, Fairgrounds, Vineyard: all cards that add a unique mechanic to the game. Fairgrounds is probably the least interesting of the three, but when it's something you can go for, the choice and challenge of making a deck with 15 (20?) different cards is a cool dynamic to the game.
I will also second Watchtower, which has probably gotten more and more interesting with each expansion.
Also, I enjoy pretty much any trash-for-benefit card, with my favorites being Apprentice and Salvager. Fortress is always cool when it can be used for neat or unexpected combos.
And I have to include my favorite cards: Scrying Pool and Goons, which create pretty unique and awesome games. Unless someone gets to 6 early and runs away with the lead!
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3) Swindler: another hated card, but so much fun. Yeah it's swingy, but making you adapt to unexpected cards can be fun.
This. Suddenly every card in the game is important, and you not only have to think about what would be best for you, but what would be worst for you opponent.
Also, Swindler/Peddler is easily my favourite interacion in the game.
I think that I would really, really, really like Swindler, for that reason, except that its main use is just turning Coppers into Curses, and the interesting high-cost swindlings come only a few times per game. I wonder if you had it targeting a card costing $3 or more (like Saboteur) if it might be more fun? Not sure how that would compare to the existing Swindler power-wise, probably noticeably weaker, but varying a lot more depending on the board.
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that would make the swindler much stronger!
not hitting estates anymore and there are worse things than copper a swindler can hit.
your only 5$ for example or hitting your first gold and give you a fairgrounds or farmland.
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that would make the swindler much stronger!
not hitting estates anymore and there are worse things than copper a swindler can hit.
your only 5$ for example or hitting your first gold and give you a fairgrounds or farmland.
That's true that hitting your first $5 is brutal. Gold into Fairgrounds/Farmland is very board-specific (which is why I mentioned it would vary a lot more depending on the board). And skipping estates is also important, so overall I think you are right, it's probably a huge buff. I hadn't put much thought into it when I posted.
What if it targeted non-victory cards costing $2 or more and handed out non-victory cards? That's getting very specific though. I just feel like Swindler has so much potential to be an interesting card, but almost never plays out that way. On a lot of boards it's only interesting when it hits $3's or $4's; $5's you usually just give Duchy (at the beggining; $5's can get interesting late in the game I guess), $2's are almost always estates, except at the very end when they're the obvious $2 kingdom card (by that point in the game it probably doesn't matter though if there are multiple $2's to choose from), $6's can be interesting but often there's no choice, and usually there's not much choice and often it's trivial. Of course $0's are curses. Since $5's are generally where you get a lot of big, different, power cards, that's where it should get the most interesting, but you don't usually see the $5 kingdom cards getting swapped around much because they just become Duchies instead. Such a small percentage of your deck costs $3 or $4 that you don't get to experience the interesting cases all that often, and it's not very often that you actually end up adapting your strategy based on the kingdom cards that got swindled into your deck.
Am I way off on this? I can't really remember the last time that a Swindler caused me to change my strategy in a different way than any other curser would, but maybe it's just psychological bias since I'm more likely to remember the times it hits Copper than the times it doesn't?
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Well you usually have more junk in early hands than later hands (assuming we are still in the early game).
This tiny difference is more than offset by the fact that P2 is far more likely to get his first $5+ hand hit than P1 is.
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Minion is the dominion card I like least by far. It's so annoying amd swingy. You can have your hand of 5 awesome cards replaced by 4 crap cards, and that is the most frustrating thing that can happen.
You can have your hand of 5 crap cards replaced by 4 awesome cards. That is so awesome!
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That doesn't make the game any swingier though! Your probability of having crap cards replaced by awesome and vice-versa is exactly the same as it is to draw crappy versus awesome cards in your deck anyway. Minion's actual attack is basically just "discard one at random, and cycle your deck a bit"! You never get to play the cards you drew, the probability is exactly the same as just having drawn 4 cards instead of 5 and cycling some from the bottom of your deck.
Any swinginess is purely psychological, the cards average out.
I think you have confused "average" and "variance". Swingy means high variance. Obviously the average quality of your cards isn't affected by your opponent's Minion, but your variance is increased substantially, since you now aren't guaranteed to see all of your cards every shuffle.
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Counting House -- I love this card. It's seldom viable, but when there are supporting cards on the board (e.g. Chapel, Chancellor, Worker's Village, Bank); win or lose, having this work is one of the most satisfying plays in all of Dominion.
How does Chapel synergise with Counting House? Chapel wants to get rid of Coppers, Counting House wants more of them.
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Soo many great cards! :D
I do love myself some good Ill Gotten Gains. I really like that it does take some thinking about, but once you understand its power, you have a mini-mind explosion. It is also great that it isn't always a must but, such as when there is trader, or watchtower, or other cursers on the board, so you actually have to think about whether it is a wise strategy in the kingdom or not. That makes for a great card.
These are in no order of preference, but I also agree with the cards City, Tactician, Cultist, and Duke. All awesome cards. Those city stack smacks make for satisfying turns, and as Theory stated on the dominion blog, it is very nicely thematic, which adds a nice little bonus. It is very cool to see that Cultist evolved from a cool card, from Inn, in Donald X's Dominion outtakes (under 'The Early Days' section, +2 cards, you may play another Inn) into an excellent and fun junking attack. Is is great that even when the ruins run out, you are still happy t have them in your deck, with the possibly of crazy card chains!
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I most appreciate the Alt-VP cards. When I started playing Dominion, I thought, this is cool, every game is different because it has different cards. Then I thought, wouldn't it be even cooler if even the rules were different in each game, too? It wasn't until a few months later that I realised, Alt-VP cards already do that: they change the win condition. Gardens means you win by having a bigger deck, Fairgrounds means you win by having more different types of cards, Feodum means you win by having more Silvers. &c.
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Counting House -- I love this card. It's seldom viable, but when there are supporting cards on the board (e.g. Chapel, Chancellor, Worker's Village, Bank); win or lose, having this work is one of the most satisfying plays in all of Dominion.
How does Chapel synergise with Counting House? Chapel wants to get rid of Coppers, Counting House wants more of them.
Meant Cellar probably.
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King's Court. I'm glad all the crazy "what if there was a throne room that let you play a card 3 times" antics can be explored in a real card instead of in the worst imaginations of the fanbase. I do wish it couldn't play itself though; that seems to overshadow most of the cool things the card can do.
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Also I love Scrying Pool for being a card that lets your imagination run wild with all the zany possibilities, and not disappointing, but also not being overpowered.
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Maybe simply Village and its brothers in arms.
The presence of at least one of them changes the possible strategies dramatically.
Every expansion needs its Village (just to keep the ratio for random kingdoms in check) and my current favorite is the faux Village from Guilds: Herald.
There's nothing like playing a Herald like a mini Scrying Pool.
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Also I love Scrying Pool for being a card that lets your imagination run wild with all the zany possibilities, and not disappointing, but also not being overpowered.
Scrying Pool isn't overpowered?
It's nearly a must-buy even on action-light boards if there's +Buy, because the attack makes it so strong. In worst case, it's a Spy that discards before drawing instead of after.
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I don't think Scrying Pool is almost always a must-buy; there are plenty of boards where you just can't produce coin except with Treasures, and a lack of Villages is usually a good reason to ignore Scrying Pools completely, even if there's strong trashing. In the worst case it's a better Spy, OK, but you have to put that Potion in your deck to buy it, and Spy isn't a good card.
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Also, it's sometimes just faster to skip the scrying pool and build an engine without it.
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Maybe simply Village and its brothers in arms.
The presence of at least one of them changes the possible strategies dramatically.
Amen to that!
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Spy and Oracle will never make me loose bad cards, only good ones (except if my opponent doesn't know what i want). It's an informed decison there.
I agree that it wouldn't be as annoying if you ddin't loose the cards from your hand, but you actually do, so I fail to see why this is relevant.
Watno, I completely agree with you about Minion. The word you're looking for is "lose", though. Not "loose".
No, it's loose. The bad cards on your deck are tight, not loose, so they don't fall off when Spy and Oracle are played. But good cards are really loose; they're just way too cool, they can't be held down by the man. Fall right off the deck. And Minion makes all the cards in your hand loose---you drop them right into your discard pile.
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I always overestimate how powerful Squire is (or rather, how many you can buy without really weakening your deck), but I'm never annoyed at the card. I wish I could say that about every dominion card.
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I always overestimate how powerful Squire is (or rather, how many you can buy without really weakening your deck), but I'm never annoyed at the card. I wish I could say that about every dominion card.
You want to overestimate every Dominion card? Is that even possible?
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I always overestimate how powerful Squire is (or rather, how many you can buy without really weakening your deck), but I'm never annoyed at the card. I wish I could say that about every dominion card.
You want to overestimate every Dominion card? Is that even possible?
Sure it is. He thinks that Dominion is totally awesome!!!
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I'm starting to have an appreciation for Crossroads. It's not particularly great, on the whole, but it's subtly game-warping. Having Victory Cards be not entirely dead weight changes balance around in a way that throws off your instincts. Maybe you shouldn't have Advisor give him an estate, that could be a free draw, or even two! Maybe Vagrant and Scout are doing something useful! Maybe Rabble isn't making my day so bad after all! It's all so different, none of these cards are behaving like they're supposed to, and it's awesome.
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Scrying Pool, Possession, Fortress, Rats, Watchtower, King's Court.
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Scrying Pool, Possession, Fortress, Rats, Watchtower, King's Court.
you... you... :( that is a BAD kingdom. Though, there isn't a good way to get enough money to buy KC and Possession...
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Though a recent addition to the world of Dominion, I appreciate the existence of Masterpiece. It's a go-to card for when you anticipate a slog and when you just want to power through your opponents' junkers, all without the weirdness of Trader.
Also, I gotta give the nod to Horse Traders. Even without the reaction, the card is pretty nice to have in a fair amount of situations. The reaction gives you a different way to defend against attacks, especially against the attacks that only take effect when you have 5 or more cards.
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King's Court.
Goodbye.
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Baker, because it just opens up a world of new possibilities for the opening, and anything with coin tokens is generally pretty cool.
Pretty much anything with +Action or +Buy, because engines are fun!
Tunnel, Rats, Hoard, and Gardens, because they aren't often the best strategy on the board, but it's fun trying to make them work anyway.
Black Market and Knights because I actually kinda like the random, silly elements they add.
KC, Goons, Grand Market, Wharf, and Bridge because they each can make for really satisfying megaturns.
Marauder because Spoils and Ruins are both pretty fun.
Necropolis because dang, +Action in my starting deck!
City because it can really change the dynamic of the game AND can turn into a one-card engine if you activate it.
Peddler because it's a cool idea and satisfying if you can exploit it.
Colony because it means more time to play with my engine.
University because I love +Action and I love free engine pieces.
....I am going to list 90% of the cards if I don't stop myself!
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You forgot Hermit as a megaturn enabler. I built a megaturn deck with Bridge and it, and it worked well.
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Ruined Village, because it's hilarious.
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I recently uncovered a whole heap of appreciation for the card 'Procession' while playing a game the other day. Fortress and mystic were in the kingdom, so it was great. Procession the fortress and get free engine pieces and mystics - awesome. It is very satisfying to pull off a successful use of procession, however it is all the more special because it doesn't work well in every situation.
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Hmm... this is interesting. It's times like this that I wish I played Dominion more often.
Throne Room and King's Court. There's something satisfying about playing cards twice and three times, but it's even more satisfying when you can chain them together for megaturns (more so Throne Room than King's Court, which quickly gets out of hand). I always dream of a game with only Throne Room, King's Court, and terminals.
Forager when there are more Treasures than the basic three. One of the funnest games of Dominion I played was a Forager game with Talisman and Spoils on the board.
I will also second Watchtower because not only is it's draw-to-6 valuable, but also because trashing or topdecking cards is just so dang powerful.
And one more: Witch. The presence of Curses totally makes the game extremely interesting.
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omg herald! and candlestick maker! really all of guilds, but especially those two. oh and merchant guild, despite my earlier whining about it.
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Counting House -- I love this card. It's seldom viable, but when there are supporting cards on the board (e.g. Chapel, Chancellor, Worker's Village, Bank); win or lose, having this work is one of the most satisfying plays in all of Dominion.
How does Chapel synergise with Counting House? Chapel wants to get rid of Coppers, Counting House wants more of them.
You use Chapel to get rid of all those worthless Silver and Gold that you can't dig out of the discard pile.
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Border Village and Rats because a lot of their power and the best combos with them are simply due to their cost.
Border Village (once it's in your deck) is a $6 Village -- that can be remodeled into a Province! Once it's in your deck, it's better than Village because it costs $6. Even its below the line ability is great because it's overpriced. You can get a $5 card instead of a $2 card.
Rats is great with Apprentice, Salvager, Remodel, et al. because it costs $4.
It's just so cool that the cost itself matters when thinking about the strength of the card rather than the cost being purely a function of the card's power.
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Counting House -- I love this card. It's seldom viable, but when there are supporting cards on the board (e.g. Chapel, Chancellor, Worker's Village, Bank); win or lose, having this work is one of the most satisfying plays in all of Dominion.
How does Chapel synergise with Counting House? Chapel wants to get rid of Coppers, Counting House wants more of them.
You use Chapel to get rid of all those worthless Silver and Gold that you can't dig out of the discard pile.
Oh man, I bought a Platinum once in a Counting House game. That was the biggest mistake of the whole game. It should have been a Copper. (OK it should have been a Province because it was late enough but ya know...)
Cards I appreciate:
Steward because it's my favorite card. ILY Steward <3
Embargo because it scratches that strategic itch I have.
Cards like Coppersmith, Stonemason (sorta Develop too) because they aren't always the best, but when they get their moment in the sun they just shine so brightly.
Jack of All Trades because yeah it's easy to play DoubleJack, but it's so much fun to incorporate it into an engine and mop the floor with DoubleJack. So many different ways to support this card.
Ambassador because it's so interactive. Jack and Amb games are the farthest from boring that I can think of (most of the time)
Soothsayer because THAT is what cursing games are supposed to feel like!
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watchtower - worth buying maybe half the time it shows up, but really neat in all kinds of ways. does so many different things.
silk road - my favorite alt vp card. rushes can be kind of boring, but i prefer it in engines where it increases the number of points on the board. fun to plan around.
margrave - a great engine enabler. attacks, draws, and gives buys. Nothing too fancy, just a nice, compact, useful card.
governor - makes for interesting tactical games.
menagerie - planning for this is fun. having it pay off is fun.
Among the cards I might rather go without are Minion, IGG, Ghost Ship. The first two because they're so often totally board dominating and rule out other strategies (Rebuild fits here too, but I guess I haven't played it enough to get tired of it). Ghost Ship because it's just so painful to get hit with it every turn. I hate it so much that I even hate doing it to my opponents but I can't stop myself because it's so strong (obviously board dependent, but it happens). Probably the worst is when you've got a humming engine with just one GS and your opponent is just left in the dust.