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Tournaments and Events / Official Dominion Tournament at U-Con, Nov. 18 2023, 11am - 7pm, Ypsilanti, MI

« on: October 01, 2023, 01:14:35 pm »

For the first time since 2019, U-Con's official Dominion tournament is back! Come join other top-tier players for an in-person tournament using real cards. All attendees will also receive Dominion promo cards, courtesy of Rio Grande Games.

The tournament is taking place as part of the U-Con gaming convention in Ypsilanti, MI. It will feature curated kingdoms with cards drawn from all expansions up to and including Plunder. The kingdoms have been tested to ensure that they will emphasize strategy and high-level play. In past years, this tournament has included many top players, who are active members of forums.dominionstrategy.com, the Dominion Discord, the Dominion subreddit, and BoardGameGeek.

You can register in advance online, or in person at the convention, though there are a limited number of seats. You will need both a convention badge (found under "Buy Badges") and a tournament ticket ("Buy Tickets") . Only a Saturday badge is required for the tournament, but many players stay for the whole weekend and game together outside of the tournament.

(As in previous years, the tournament will be taking place in the clubhouse, where we will have more space and fewer distractions, instead of the main hotel ballroom. You'll need to stop at the main desk in the hotel to pick up your badge and tournament ticket first)

This is my first year organizing this tournament, taking over for Elestan who has been running this tournament for nearly a decade. I hope to see you there!

Game Reports / Strangest game of Dominion I've played in a while

« on: June 20, 2016, 01:46:12 pm »

I played this game against my wife the other day, and it was one of the most interesting Dominion boards I've played in a long time. I don't usually post in this subforum, but this board seemed worth sharing. What made this board really interesting was:
* Tactician is the only +buy
* Double Tactician is really good with Outpost
* Alchemist stack is also really good with Outpost, but Alchemists can't be placed back on top after playing Tactician
* You can buy Donate to get a slim, efficient deck
* The number of villages is quite limited when playing Double Tactician
* But if you bought a Coin of the Realm before you went Double Tac, you can use that as a one shot village
* Wolf Den makes you want to double up on things you wouldn't normally get two of, such as potion and Outpost
* Jester is good payload and can make piles run fast (which junks the decks), but unpredictably (which makes it hard to know when to get a second Donate)

Even having played the board, I'm still not sure what the best strategy here is. My wife and I both did Double Tactician and skipped the Alchemists. But a case could definitely be made for single Tactician with an Alchemist stack, or maybe even an Alchemist stack that just does single Province. Which strategy do you think is best? Does it depend on what your opponent does?

Tournaments and Events / January 2nd Ann Arbor f.ds and friends meetup

« on: December 29, 2015, 08:29:57 pm »

To celebrate the end of the holiday season, my wife and I are planning an informal Dominion meetup in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. Since we had so much fun at the U-Con tournament, we'd love to get back together and play some Dominion with local f.ds members.

The location is still TBD, but it will be on January 2nd around noon. If you have any interest in coming, you're welcome to come and bring any friends who might also be interested. (and if you have any good ideas for a location, feel free to share that too)

We'll post more details soon. But I hope to see you Saturday!

Rules Questions / Prince + Beggar reaction

« on: September 21, 2015, 09:19:53 pm »

Beggar is the only card that reacts to attack that doesn't say reveal or discard "from your hand."

Suppose that you have set aside Beggar with Prince and then your opponent plays an attack. Can you discard Beggar from its set-aside limbo state and gain the two silvers?

Variants and Fan Cards / Ben's cards

« on: June 20, 2015, 05:32:03 pm »

Over the past few months I've been working on making some of my own Dominion cards. Mostly they're just random ideas, but there are a couple themes lurking that may get organized enough to turn into a fan expansion someday:

1) Cards that get treasures into play during the action phase (a la Black Market and Storyteller) and action cards that benefit from having treasures in play.
2) Cards that would best be online only (Elixir and Quintessence - since they really should only be in the game if there are other Potion cards). I've been working on my own online Dominion interface and am planning to implement them there.

I'm sure some of these ideas have probably been done before, but I'd love to know what you guys think about them:

Variants and Fan Cards / Could this idea work?

« on: May 05, 2015, 11:16:11 am »

I was trying to think of ideas for ways that a card's power could change as the game goes on. This is what I came up with: a card that is more expensive and more powerful at the beginning of the game, but decreases in cost and power as the game goes on.

Gold rush
$3
Action
-----------------------
+1 Buy
Trash this. +$1 for every two cards in the Gold rush pile, rounded down.
-----------------------
This card costs $1 less for every two copies of Gold rush in the trash, rounded down (but not less than $0)

Could something like this work (it almost certainly would need some adjustments) or is the idea just hopelessly broken?

Rules Questions / Walled Village + Scheme

« on: March 24, 2015, 12:57:09 am »

Apologies if this has been asked before. A search didn't reveal anything.

Suppose I play three actions during my turn, Scheme, Walled Village, and Smithy. At the start of my clean-up phase I could presumably choose which of Scheme or Walled Village to resolve first. If I choose Scheme first, I can put my Smithy on top of my deck. Now when I resolve Walled Village, my Scheme is the only other action in play. Am I allowed to put the Walled Village on my deck? Or is it no longer the start of my clean-up phase?

Game Reports / What's the best strategy here? Rats + Death Cart?

« on: March 02, 2015, 03:15:32 pm »

Code: [Select]

Forager, Death Cart, Scout, Rats, Worker's Village, Counting House, Saboteur, Catacombs, Pillage, Hoard
I was playing this game in real life the other night. It was a shelters and colonies game, and it looked to me like a Catacombs-BM board, but the trick would be trying to get to Platinum quickly. I opened Forager+Rats, while my opponent opened Pillage-<nothing>. My plan was to thin and use Death Cart to vault from Rats to Platinum. Anyway, the Spoils from Pillage let my opponent get to Golds and Platinums much more quickly.

What do you guys think the winning strategy here is? Does it involve Rats/Death Cart? Or just Forager and Catacombs? Something else?

Dominion General Discussion / Dominion Data Mining: Cards that correlate with skill

« on: January 08, 2015, 12:52:17 pm »

Working off suggestions from the previous thread, I've taken the 90,000 game database of games by top-100 players and looked at how the player's skill (represented by their TrueSkill rating) correlates with what cards they gain. Fortunately, top-100 players also play plenty of low-ranked players, so there are lots of examples of both low- and high-ranked players in the database.

The table below shows two different rankings. Both measure the correlation coefficient between gaining a certain card and the skill of the player. Positive numbers mean that the card tends to be bought more often by high-ranked players than low-ranked players. Negative numbers mean that the card tends to be bought more often by low-ranked players. The ranking on the left is an unweighted ranking, which means that the correlation is between skill and whether the card gets gained or not (gaining it multiple times doesn't make any difference. The ranking on the right is a weighted ranking, which means that here the number of times the card is gained makes a difference. So on the right side, you can say, for example, that good players seem to know to get lots of wharves, whereas bad players seem to overbuy some good cards like Tournament or Bishop.

	Unweighted ranking		_____________________		Weighted ranking
Rank	Card	Correlation		Rank	Card	Correlation
1	Butcher	0.127		1	Governor	0.206
2	JackOfAllTrades	0.106		2	Wharf	0.172
3	Wishing Well	0.104		3	JackOfAllTrades	0.148
4	Vineyard	0.087		4	Hunting Party	0.144
5	Governor	0.085		5	Wishing Well	0.141
6	Chancellor	0.081		6	Vineyard	0.138
7	Duke	0.080		7	Stonemason	0.112
8	Courtyard	0.077		8	King's Court	0.111
9	Warehouse	0.071		9	Apothecary	0.111
10	Masterpiece	0.070		10	Butcher	0.107
11	Scavenger	0.065		11	Duke	0.106
12	Fairgrounds	0.062		12	Stables	0.100
13	Oracle	0.056		13	Scrying Pool	0.097
14	Journeyman	0.056		14	Horn of Plenty	0.096
15	Apothecary	0.055		15	Fairgrounds	0.095
16	Masquerade	0.055		16	Menagerie	0.095
17	Counterfeit	0.054		17	Oracle	0.094
18	Duchess	0.051		18	Watchtower	0.093
19	Stonemason	0.050		19	Masquerade	0.088
20	Ambassador	0.041		20	Warehouse	0.087
	...				...
187	Moneylender	-0.094		187	Spy	-0.089
188	Trade Route	-0.096		188	Remodel	-0.093
189	Expand	-0.096		189	Forge	-0.096
190	Treasure Map	-0.099		190	Soothsayer	-0.102
191	Coppersmith	-0.103		191	Tournament	-0.102
192	Marauder	-0.106		192	Island	-0.105
193	Soothsayer	-0.107		193	Expand	-0.105
194	Talisman	-0.113		194	Baker	-0.106
195	Transmute	-0.115		195	Feast	-0.106
196	Spy	-0.118		196	Trade Route	-0.107
197	Golem	-0.118		197	Transmute	-0.109
198	Feast	-0.123		198	Tribute	-0.114
199	Mine	-0.128		199	Bishop	-0.119
200	Alchemist	-0.132		200	Treasure Map	-0.127
201	Tribute	-0.155		201	Mine	-0.130
202	Bishop	-0.158		202	Scout	-0.145
203	Scout	-0.171		203	Marauder	-0.146
204	Taxman	-0.177		204	Saboteur	-0.168
205	Saboteur	-0.195		205	Taxman	-0.172
206	Pirate Ship	-0.262		206	Pirate Ship	-0.204

Dominion General Discussion / Dominion Data Mining: Card Rankings

« on: January 05, 2015, 04:35:56 pm »

Everybody loves the card rankings that Qvist puts out, but I've always secretly wondered how these lists compare to the way the top players really play the cards.

So I've collected over 90,000 game logs of the top 100 Dominion players on the Isotrophish rankings (2-player, pro rating, no bots) and analyzed them to determine how the best players in the world approach the cards. Obviously there are a lot of differing opinions on the best way to determine which of two cards is better. The method I've chosen is to measure the percentage of kingdoms containing card X where the top-100 player gains card X. If card X really is one of the best cards, then it should be bought on almost every kingdom where it is available. The nice thing about measuring cards this way is that it puts cards like Cultist (where you usually want as many as possible) and Chapel (where you usually only want one) on equal footing.

The list below orders the cards by how often they are gained. In the next couple posts, I'm planning on splitting these by cost and comparing them to Qvist's card lists.

Rank	Card	% games gained	# games gained	# games available
1	Tournament	95.4%	7467	7825
2	Governor	93.0%	2417	2598
3	Border Village	89.3%	6708	7512
4	Fishing Village	89.2%	7006	7854
5	Wharf	89.0%	7092	7965
6	Forager	88.7%	7094	7999
7	Goons	88.4%	7053	7979
8	Masquerade	87.7%	7031	8015
9	Chapel	87.6%	8408	9596
10	Ironmonger	87.2%	6947	7970
11	Mountebank	86.9%	6757	7779
12	Ambassador	83.6%	6757	8078
13	Squire	83.4%	6452	7732
14	Hamlet	83.2%	6564	7892
15	Plaza	82.7%	5953	7196
16	Warehouse	82.6%	6674	8084
17	Hunting Party	81.1%	6246	7705
18	Candlestick Maker	80.9%	5859	7242
19	King's Court	80.8%	6276	7769
20	Black Market	80.6%	2729	3386
21	Minion	80.1%	6252	7807
22	Wandering Minstrel	79.4%	6215	7828
23	Crossroads	79.2%	6112	7713
24	Swindler	79.1%	6447	8147
25	Cultist	79.0%	6103	7730
26	Market Square	78.9%	6162	7813
27	Nobles	78.8%	6284	7978
28	Caravan	78.3%	6029	7698
29	Hermit	78.3%	6232	7964
30	Counterfeit	78.2%	6107	7805
31	Worker's Village	77.8%	6055	7778
32	Steward	77.7%	6282	8083
33	Menagerie	77.7%	6100	7854
34	Urchin	77.1%	6126	7947
35	City	77.0%	6146	7985
36	Butcher	76.5%	5317	6954
37	Witch	76.4%	7123	9323
38	Grand Market	75.8%	6179	8156
39	Scheme	75.6%	6016	7954
40	Remake	75.2%	5689	7566
41	JackOfAllTrades	74.9%	5929	7911
42	Upgrade	74.9%	6005	8013
43	Lighthouse	74.4%	5877	7898
44	Rebuild	74.4%	5800	7800
45	Herald	74.3%	5315	7153
46	Shanty Town	73.9%	5996	8118
47	Peddler	72.8%	5649	7755
48	Junk Dealer	72.5%	5792	7984
49	Spice Merchant	72.1%	5549	7692
50	Knights	71.8%	5530	7698
51	Stables	71.8%	5668	7896
52	Courtyard	71.7%	5741	8005
53	Tunnel	71.3%	5640	7913
54	Island	70.9%	5594	7891
55	Festival	70.7%	6534	9245
56	Throne Room	70.5%	6517	9241
57	Margrave	70.4%	5485	7793
58	Highway	70.0%	5451	7791
59	Haggler	69.5%	5382	7744
60	Laboratory	69.1%	6234	9018
61	Great Hall	69.1%	5804	8397
62	Conspirator	69.0%	5438	7880
63	Fool's Gold	68.2%	5415	7936
64	Fortress	68.1%	5316	7807
65	Oasis	68.0%	5305	7798
66	Salvager	68.0%	5357	7880
67	Baker	67.5%	4824	7150
68	Scrying Pool	67.4%	5142	7634
69	Cellar	67.3%	6418	9533
70	Bazaar	67.2%	5326	7930
71	Village	67.1%	6354	9464
72	Apprentice	66.8%	5105	7643
73	Mining Village	66.2%	5264	7952
74	Tactician	66.2%	5214	7879
75	Stonemason	66.2%	4883	7381
76	Haven	65.8%	5152	7830
77	Farming Village	65.8%	5103	7760
78	Marauder	65.7%	5086	7739
79	Vagrant	65.5%	5350	8164
80	Bridge	65.5%	5203	7946
81	Bandit Camp	65.2%	5279	8096
82	Soothsayer	65.0%	4617	7100
83	University	64.9%	4919	7574
84	Sea Hag	64.7%	5068	7829
85	Pawn	63.7%	4975	7807
86	Militia	62.8%	5750	9161
87	Horse Traders	62.7%	4972	7933
88	Monument	62.2%	5001	8044
89	Inn	61.7%	4816	7810
90	Watchtower	61.5%	4916	7990
91	Market	61.3%	5720	9327
92	Native Village	61.2%	4781	7814
93	Gardens	60.6%	5620	9271
94	Walled Village	60.6%	797	1315
95	Familiar	60.0%	4553	7592
96	Torturer	59.9%	4663	7782
97	Ill-Gotten Gains	59.9%	4591	7664
98	Ironworks	59.9%	4832	8073
99	Count	59.8%	4607	7700
100	Altar	59.7%	4726	7916
101	Ghost Ship	58.6%	4550	7760
102	Hoard	58.2%	4765	8182
103	Bishop	57.9%	4598	7935
104	Quarry	56.8%	4470	7876
105	Sage	56.6%	4517	7987
106	Lookout	56.0%	4420	7888
107	Merchant Guild	55.5%	3869	6972
108	Wishing Well	55.4%	4504	8126
109	Farmland	54.6%	4263	7812
110	Doctor	54.6%	3887	7124
111	Remodel	54.2%	5088	9394
112	Trade Route	54.1%	4366	8070
113	Alchemist	52.9%	3986	7534
114	Silk Road	52.7%	4094	7772
115	Young Witch	52.6%	4029	7666
116	Jester	52.5%	4023	7658
117	Moneylender	51.9%	4917	9466
118	Smugglers	51.0%	4066	7965
119	Advisor	50.7%	3609	7115
120	Pearl Diver	50.2%	4021	8014
121	Embassy	48.7%	3734	7669
122	Embargo	48.4%	3902	8059
123	Expand	48.4%	3848	7957
124	Smithy	48.1%	4491	9341
125	Cartographer	47.9%	3623	7556
126	Storeroom	47.8%	3806	7958
127	Duke	47.7%	3731	7823
128	Council Room	47.7%	4444	9326
129	Fairgrounds	47.5%	3749	7892
130	Rabble	47.3%	3701	7832
131	Vineyard	47.2%	3578	7588
132	Apothecary	47.1%	3570	7575
133	Harem	46.7%	3687	7902
134	Vault	46.6%	3677	7888
135	Catacombs	46.4%	3568	7685
136	Mint	46.1%	3655	7936
137	Trading Post	45.3%	3585	7907
138	Band of Misfits	45.2%	3457	7646
139	Hunting Grounds	45.0%	3515	7805
140	Scavenger	44.9%	3570	7958
141	Oracle	44.9%	3521	7849
142	Treasury	44.2%	3424	7743
143	Horn of Plenty	44.0%	3409	7750
144	Forge	43.9%	3496	7970
145	Moat	43.7%	4160	9516
146	Trader	43.7%	3352	7676
147	Prince	43.4%	289	666
148	Envoy	43.1%	795	1843
149	Journeyman	42.2%	3005	7129
150	Baron	41.7%	3330	7984
151	Nomad Camp	41.2%	3165	7686
152	Loan	41.0%	3333	8127
153	Golem	40.4%	3032	7503
154	Feodum	40.4%	3102	7687
155	Duchess	40.1%	3117	7773
156	Possession	37.8%	2815	7452
157	Procession	37.7%	2907	7714
158	Mystic	37.5%	2926	7806
159	Bank	36.9%	3011	8149
160	Develop	36.4%	2900	7965
161	Workshop	35.3%	3286	9319
162	Cutpurse	34.9%	2719	7791
163	Library	34.6%	3242	9358
164	Armory	34.6%	2742	7935
165	Rats	34.4%	2696	7843
166	Rogue	33.2%	2520	7588
167	Venture	33.2%	2657	8002
168	Poor House	32.0%	2521	7871
169	Pillage	30.7%	2402	7815
170	Graverobber	30.7%	2381	7752
171	Fortune Teller	29.7%	2354	7919
172	Outpost	29.6%	2344	7906
173	Beggar	29.4%	2306	7840
174	Feast	29.3%	2683	9159
175	Death Cart	29.2%	2287	7828
176	Talisman	28.8%	2292	7959
177	Merchant Ship	28.7%	2278	7931
178	Spy	28.4%	2621	9243
179	Woodcutter	27.6%	2622	9506
180	Herbalist	26.2%	2061	7877
181	Secret Chamber	25.6%	2105	8235
182	Taxman	25.4%	1808	7114
183	Noble Brigand	24.9%	1939	7784
184	Masterpiece	24.6%	1797	7309
185	Tribute	23.5%	1815	7739
186	Saboteur	20.7%	1605	7772
187	Navigator	19.3%	1484	7692
188	Explorer	18.7%	1489	7943
189	Royal Seal	18.7%	1491	7994
190	Stash	16.9%	306	1811
191	Mine	16.7%	1572	9431
192	Treasure Map	16.2%	1294	7972
193	Mandarin	16.0%	1277	7998
194	Chancellor	13.7%	1305	9512
195	Bureaucrat	13.3%	1251	9395
196	Pirate Ship	12.9%	995	7705
197	Philosopher's Stone	12.1%	907	7518
198	Scout	11.2%	868	7739
199	Cache	11.2%	854	7627
200	Contraband	10.9%	865	7960
201	Coppersmith	10.2%	786	7734
202	Harvest	9.7%	759	7859
203	Thief	8.5%	777	9188
204	Counting House	8.3%	660	7916
205	Transmute	7.6%	584	7661
206	Adventurer	7.4%	684	9278

Dominion General Discussion / Openings that are better for P1 or P2

« on: December 23, 2014, 01:23:15 pm »

Recently, I collected logs for about 90,000 games involving the top 50 players on the Isotropish ranking, and one thing I've been analyzing is openings. I noticed something unexpected: there are certain openings that are much better for either P1 or P2. If I take the openings and exclude everything that's been opened less than 50 times, here's what falls out.

Top openings that are much better for P1 than P2

Opening	Type	Number of occurences	P1 win %	P2 win %
Moneylender-Fishing Village	4/3	124	76%	29%
Soothsayer-Chapel	5/2	64	80%	32%
Soothsayer-Silver	5/3	72	81%	34%
Remake-Swindler	4/3	82	77%	30%
Salvager-Market Square	4/3	87	72%	28%

Of course, Dominion has a strong first-player advantage built in, so those results aren't especially interesting. What I find much more interesting is that there are openings that are substantially stronger for P2 than for P1.

Top openings that are much better for P2 than P1

Opening	Type	Number of occurences	P1 win %	P2 win %
Rebuild-Silver	5/3	90	36%	67%
Spice Merchant-Lookout	4/3	51	33%	60%
Caravan-Workshop	4/3	59	39%	64%
Quarry-Trade Route	4/3	64	35%	57%
Quarry-Lookout	4/3	77	35%	57%

My first impression here is that the openings in the second table look like higher risk/higher reward openings, which would lend some evidence to the recent discussion about changing strategy/tactics when you're ahead or behind in the game.

Any other thoughts?