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Secret history of Jack-in-the-boxDungeon: this card has been around since quite early. It's alright, it lets you trash, it doesn't slow you down, it's pretty vanilla. It didn't make it into the base set, but with this cool new expansion, I can finally add it in. Much rejoicing was had.
Politics: I always get complaints that there isn't enough interaction in Dominion. They are wrong, of course, but Jay is very business-oriented, so he told me "make a card with more interactions, will you?", and I had this outtake lying around from another game I am working on which may or may not be a Dominion spin-off, so I obliged. Since this card was meant to represent Intrigue, it had to have the dual action-victory type (actually now it has triple typing, how cool is that I ask you), so I came up with this, playtested it for two games, and since nobody seemed to be openly against it once I suggested that maybe we should playtest 6-player Dominion some more, here you are. Now you can play diplomacy in 40 minutes instead of 40 hours. No, no, no need to thank me, I do it for the Greater Good.
Tide: people love their duration cards. Don't get me wrong, they are nice, but it's logistically complicated to print new ones, because what do you do to explain how they work in the rulebook. But this expansion doesn't have a rulebook at all, since it is marketed for the hardcorest fans of mine, so yay I guess. This one also gives you choices, which is a premiere, no other duration card does that, unless you count haven, but that's neither here nor there. Sure, one of the two choices has some rule issues, but you'll get over it quickly, especially since it is the worst option anyway, why would you take it in the first place. Also some people forget what they chose the previous turn, don't play with them. As an added bonus, this card also helps new players understand that a strong turn and a bad turn are better than two middle ones, so slap this into a game with your mother to help her learn advanced techniques faster.
Witch doctor: this is in many senses a fixed Possession. Many many senses, I tell you. The price is right. It doesn't feel like an attack, except against yourself. Only one (or two) of your opponents benefit from it. This card is better balanced when there are two extra turns, but then again two extra turns take forever to resolve, so people get bored
very quickly, that's why there's the clause about the second turn taking place only if it's the first time you play with it today; nobody wants to go through it twice in quick succession, believe me. There are many other reasons that should be apparent when reading this simple and elegant card. I am not going to tell you how to use this card correctly, I prefer when people find it by themselves.
Unobtainium: Well this one was obvious. Prosperity's theme is spendy, so we might as well go overboard, explore the limits of Dominion, and how expensive can a card be before nobody buys it anymore. To boldly go where no man has gone before they say. You only play with Unobtainium when Colonies are out, of course. You might have noticed that 11$ is exactly the cost of a colony, and that Unobtainium gives you an extra buy, there's a hint right there on how you want to use this card.
Surgeon: Cornucopia cares about diversity. Surgeon cares about diversity. For only two, you might trash two estates and a copper, and still have a four card hand, how strong is that, even better than chapel I tell you. It does share the same problem that lookout, since you might trash your precious provinces, and labs, and pretty much everything else really, but if your deck only consists of unique cards costing 3+, maybe you shouldn't have played surgeon in the first place, unless you want to undo all the hard work you did to get there for some reason.
The Jack in jack-in-the-box: I know that hinterlands theme is cards that do stuff when bought/gained, but there was this joke to be made, so I went with it. This is a stronger version of Jack-of-all-trades, in case you hadn't noticed. Need more economy? Here's a gold, to make up for the fact that you bought The Jack instead of a gold. People messing with the top of your deck? The Jack doesn't even notice as he cleans it (note, you can even leave those victory cards on top, Scout likes that). You had to discard your cards? The Jack laughs and gives you more than you know what to do with them. Got stuff that you don't like in your deck? Not anymore. All in all, The Jack smiles at you and then you win. I noticed during playtesting that some people had trouble reading all that text in the card, that's why I tell people to squint in the card itself, in case they forget.
The end is nigh: looters! Self-replacing attacks! Two concepts that work, just check Dark Ages. This one gives ruins, which is definitely stronger than discarding down to four cards, and it is only worth 3$, and comboes with itself since it is considered a Ruins (the typing is important). Since there is no rulebook with this expansion, you don't know whether you can gain a "The end is nigh" when you have to gain a Ruins or not, so you'll have to debate it with your fellow players. The end is nigh becomes stronger as you receive more ruins, and it even comboes with vagrant, there's some cool theme for you people.
Fat cow: a common question is why there is no action card that gives +3$. Mainly because they are boring and hard to price. This solves both problems, because coin tokens are awesome like that. You can use those tokens now, or later, that's the whole point. A baseline strategy for Fat cow is play it 8 times ->
-> Profit! But there are other strategies too, of course. Amass them before your bridge megaturn. Use them with butcher, transform your lowly coppers into provinces, amaze your friends. Play seven fat cows on the same turn but only use the coins on the next (achievement unlocked!). Truly limitless strategies."
