Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[DG]

We've got all the expansions out. We've had plenty of time to play with them. What do we think is the best designed Dominion card?

This doesn't have to be the most powerful. It can be the most elegant. The most fun. The most ingenious. The simplest. The most game changing. Anyone can bring their own ideas to the debate. Just to provoke some ideas, I'll suggest that farmland is a well designed card. Absolutely fit for purpose, simple to play, a unique effect, but perhaps not exciting enough for most people's tastes.

No variants please. Most people don't know the variants.

[mail-mi]

I really like develop. I don't really know why, but it's fun to find ways to use it really well.

And counterfeit.

[SirPeebles]

I like Menagerie a lot.  It isn't going to win the game for you on its own, but it has fun interactions with lots of cards and has the potential for a happy little boost without ever really backfiring.  It's also cheap enough that I can get it without agonizing much.

[Awaclus]

I'm going to say Count. It does a lot of things quite elegantly.

[BraveBear]

My vote would be for Fortress.

There were only a couple ways to look at trashing before fortress (TFB, gaining and trimming) but I keep finding new ways to use trashing when fortress is on the board.

A lot of these interactions are elegant e.g. Lookout, Mercenary engine, defense against governor, and the list goes on. 

[Jack Rudd]

I like City. It has an interesting decision attached (can I get these Cities active in time for them to make a difference?), has interesting timing issues (is it worth emptying a pile now to activate my Cities and run the risk of my opponent's getting the initiative by getting his off first?) and is wonderfully thematic.

[mustang255]

I personally really like Apprentice.

He's non-terminal trashing and drawing, that forces you to make interesting and game-changing decisions.

He can set up mega-turns, or just help you trim your deck. Almost every board benefits from having it in some way, and best of all, despite all these good things, it isn't even overpowered.

Kind of ironic that he comes from the worst set.

[Teproc]

<=

Double Tactician gets all the love because it's cool and stuff, but really the card in itself is great in that it highlights a major thing in Dominion strategy : wasting a turn to get a "double turn" is very powerful. Even if you're not abusing it, Tactician makes you feel like you're cheating, which is what I look for in a card of Dominion.

Menagerie and Apprentice are also great though.

[Polk5440]

Tactician is a great choice. The "it's better to have one great turn and one dud turn rather than two average turns" revelation was a great moment in my learning of the game.

[markusin]

<=

Double Tactician gets all the love because it's cool and stuff, but really the card in itself is great in that it highlights a major thing in Dominion strategy : wasting a turn to get a "double turn" is very powerful. Even if you're not abusing it, Tactician makes you feel like you're cheating, which is what I look for in a card of Dominion.

Menagerie and Apprentice are also great though.

I feel like most Alchemy cards make you feel like you're cheating, and yet they end up oddly balanced.

I'll second City as being a really neat card. It really makes you think about what the game will look like in the long term.

Personally, I really like the way Horse Traders plays out. It defends against attacks in a cool way, even benefitting from weak attacks like Spy. The on-play effect has all around good utility. Though the +buy seems to come from nowhere, the slog strategies that benefit fromnthe coin effect tend to like extra Copper.

And yeah, Tactician has a habit of making the seemingly impossible possible.

[silverspawn]

definitely menagerie. honorable mentions to watchtower and tactician

[TheMirrorMan]

I get back to base ... Chapel. It's elegant, simple, powerful and can be tricky at the same time (with Pirate Ship, thief, Rogue, Saboteur and the like). But there is rarely a board where you can "just skip it" and if it is on the board, you better look at it!

[scott_pilgrim]

Procession: it's the TfB card where the B is dependent on what the card does, and not just on its cost or type.  And it's just so hard to play well, and how (or whether) to play it varies enormously depending on the rest of the board.

[c4master]

At the moment, I think, "best designed" is likely to be Margrave because it does a lot of cool stuff, yet has a drawback, especially if you play several of them.

I'd also like to mention Watchtower is it really is what a good reaction card should be. It counters nearly every attack and is still useful if there are no attacks at all.

[Marcory]

Jack of All Trades--looks super-complicated, but is actually quite simple, and does so many powerful things (draw, curse/ruins trashing, economy-boosting) in a deceptively understated fashion.

[Moneymodel]

Monument. It's just two vanilla effects, but the VP chips weren't something we could expect only knowing the previous expansions, and the points can seriously amass in an engine

(Kind of cheating, but I also want to say Butcher, but in a totally different way. It takes the remodel concept and the coin tokens concept to create a really unique strategy with a lot of different options)

[Burning Skull]

*Scout joke*

[AdamH]

Jack, Tactician, and Embargo all get my vote. Which one do I think is the best designed? That's a tough call. Let's say Tactician with Embargo a close second.

Also, the fact that Chapel exists means that Dominion was well-designed. That's the answer to a different question but still interesting IMHO.

[SirPeebles]

Jack, Tactician, and Embargo all get my vote. Which one do I think is the best designed? That's a tough call. Let's say Tactician with Embargo a close second.

Also, the fact that Chapel exists means that Dominion was well-designed. That's the answer to a different question but still interesting IMHO.

So many of my fan card ideas slowly evolve into Embargo.

[shark_bait]

I love Embargo.  Nothing flashy, only $2, but it does a phenomenal job at impacting how players approach a Kingdom.

[silverspawn]

Jack, Tactician, and Embargo all get my vote. Which one do I think is the best designed? That's a tough call. Let's say Tactician with Embargo a close second.

Also, the fact that Chapel exists means that Dominion was well-designed. That's the answer to a different question but still interesting IMHO.

So many of my fan card ideas slowly evolve into Embargo.

so many of my ideas are menagerie variants

[cayvie]

Best designed card in a vacuum is a weird idea.

I vote for Copper, or maybe Estate.

[KingZog3]

Jack, Tactician, and Embargo all get my vote. Which one do I think is the best designed? That's a tough call. Let's say Tactician with Embargo a close second.

Also, the fact that Chapel exists means that Dominion was well-designed. That's the answer to a different question but still interesting IMHO.

So many of my fan card ideas slowly evolve into Embargo.

so many of my ideas are menagerie variants

So many of my ideas are variations on being awesome.

[KingZog3]

I'm a big fan of the new Factory promo, its like a more fun labratory, and lab was my previous favourite

Wait, the new promo is out?

[SirPeebles]

I'm a big fan of the new Factory promo, its like a more fun labratory, and lab was my previous favourite

Wait, the new promo is out?

Haven't you heard?