Here's a variant of Dominion that I like to play, called
Battle Royale:
• All available cards are in the kingdom (except those specifically banned below)
• Platinums & Colonies are in the kingdom (if available)
• Players start with Shelters (if available)
• For each 10 Ruins in the game, use 2 from each kind
• The following cards are banned:
Band of Misfits,
Black Market,
Border Village,
Chapel,
King’s Court,
Young Witch• Players start with identical hands
• Silent VP auction to decide who goes first. (VPs are deducted from point count at the end of the game.) In case of tie, choose randomly.
•
Card erratas:
Bridge – Replace sentence with
“While this is in play, cards cost 1 coin less, but not less than 0 coins”Coppersmith – Replace text with
“While this is in play, Copper produces an extra 1 coin this turn.”Graverobber – Replace the first two words with
“You may choose one:”Masquerade – After the first sentence, add
“(If a player does not have any cards in hand, he takes the card passed to him and passes it to the player on his left.)”Moneylender – Prepend the text with
“You may”Possession – Append the text with
“A player cannot have two consecutive turns under the influence of Possession.”Scrying Pool – Replace the first sentence with
“Reveal the top card of your deck and either discard it or put it back.”Thief – Replace the second sentence with
“If they revealed any treasure cards, you may choose one for them to trash.”Throne Room – Replace the first sentence with
“You may choose and Action card in your hand.”Here it is in pdf format.===Discussion===
Black Market and
Young Witch were banned due to the mechanics of playing with all the cards ever made. The rest were banned for the sake of ensuring variety... that is, making sure the same strategy doesn't get played every time by every player.
The banned/errata list could evolve further if something emerges that proves to dominate all other options.
In the preceding games that shaped the current lists:
(a) We learned that the game isn't fun if there's always a run on a certain card... because that just boils down to shuffle-luck... e.g. who gets $7 early and buys the most
King's Courts (or $6 and
Border Village). What we want is lots of viable strategies, lots of interesting decisions, and each player buying the right card for the circumstance. What we don't want is "automatic buys"... that is... playing without thinking because some cards/strategies just dominate that hard.
(b)
King's Court was the first auto-buy. There's just way too much that can be done with it. Originally, the
Bridge-KC full house was the only thing that mattered since it always won. Hence why Bridge was errata-ed. But even fixing Bridge (and subsequently,
Masquerade) didn't stop KC from still being the supreme card in the game.
(c) No surprise that the power attacks came next.
Mountebank,
Witch, &
Goons. (Jury's still out on
Sea Hag... it's a dead card when the curses are gone...)
(d) Everyone always got a
Chapel (and I learned that Chapel can't keep up with an opponent using KCed-Mountebanks), but the game is more subtle without Chapel-acceleration.
(e) Also everyone always got a
Border Village... which essentially gets your engine two cards in one buy.
==update 4/3/2013==
Removed
Ambassador from the banned list after reading that you can't Ambassador away a shelter and this format always plays with shelters.
==update 4/22/2013==
Added
Band of Misfits to the banned list.
-
Yeah, this is basically a God card in Battle Royale. Ambassador, Lighthouse, Fishing Village, Sea Hag... When included it's a race between the players to see who can amass the most... and then about 5 hours of analysis-paralysis on how to best use them each turn.Added
Fortress to the banned list.
-
Upgrade + Fortress often wins in 7-8 turns and we couldn't find any counterRemoved
Goons,
Mountebank,
Witch from banned list.
-
Currently, attack decks lose to combo/mega-turn ones. We decided to bring back the power attacks and see if that changes anything.
