| 206. Possession Possession is one of two entries in a list of cards that I truly hate. It is also one of the most disliked cards by the community, and rightfully so. Possession sucks, and this is regardless of the fact that it's a very high skill card. There are countless assets to dislike about this card, and I will list a few. It's luck dependent how fast you get it, and your potion is useless if you don't draw it with enough coin. (This kind of applies to Province aswell, but at least if you don't hit 8$, you can use all treasures for something else). It makes your opponent use your deck's strength against you, which is just a terrible feeling, and that's really the worst crime a card can even be guilty of. It makes you have to degrade your own deck, sometimes to the point where it can't buy or gain good cards anymore. It counters itself, forcing you to buy even more Possessions once both Players started with it. It kills coin tokens. It makes TfB stupidly powerful. It causes the most retarded combination in the game, with masquerade, amb, or island. And, as we hear now, it also destroys combos with Prince.
The concept behind Possession is of course that it's a sort of super workshop that just happens to work with another Player's deck, but is ultimately a gainer, which is why it's not labeled as an attack. Now, even if we ignore the synergy with Attacks, Bishop, Possession itself, and other cards that break this logic, the fact still remains that you can absolutely hurt your opponent by controlling his deck. If he has a nice engine with storeroom in it, it can even be a pin. Draw deck, play Storeroom, discard 0/6, play storeroom, discard 1/0, and voilá, the next hand consists of 5 useless cards. The fundamental problem here is really that, in order to execute the logic that Possession is trying to follow, you'd have to include a lot more edge cases on the card, which is impossible because there isn't enough space.
I really, really hate this card. I can't really overstate how much I hate it. Every other dominion card - hell, even every fanmade card - is exponentially better than Possession in my book. This card does not need to exist. |
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205. Masquerade Masquerade is entry #2 in the previously mentioned list. For a while, I thought this card was actually worse than Possession, but it's absolutely not. Really, it's not even close. The only reason I ever thought so was that I had forgotten how bad Possession really is. I probably was lucky not to play with it for a while.
That said, I still hate it, and the reason for that is that pass mechanic is not designed to hurt your opponent, so when it does, it feels unjustified and unfair quite similar to possession. They are my cards. Not yours. *sigh*
Why is this different from playing Rogue twice? Because Rogue is a card designed to trash my opponents cards, it's reasonably strong, priced at 5$ where it belongs, and it has the proper attack type. I'm okay with it hitting my cards, and I'm happy if it hits cards from my opponent (plus Rogue is mostly a gainer anyway). When my opponent passes me a good card with Masquerade though, I am not happy. In fact, it makes me sad. I feel the need to apologize in the chat. I didn't want this card. I don't deserve it. I also don't need it. It doesn't belong to me. It's just an unfair advantage.
My fix for this card is, cut the passing. "+2 cards, you may trash a card from your hand" is a card I'd have no problem with. It'd still be super strong, and it'd be different enough from other trashers to be worth doing. Of course, I'm the only person on the planet who dislikes this card, so that's pretty redundant. |
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204. Rebuild Everyone knows what's wrong with rebuild, do I even have to say anything? Just read this post, Donald says it all. |
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203. Scrying Pool Scrying pool is, by all means, really not a bad concept. Provide +1 Card per Action card you flip, and a cantrip bonus to back it up. Draw a non-Action card, and you get a cantrip. One Action, a Lab, two Actions, two Labs, and so forth. Sounds strong, but cool.
The problem really is that the card does too much. Why does it attack? Dunno, but the fact that it does causes two bad things. One, what I'm saying for the next card. Two, the card is too strong. Yes, being strong can be okay, but Scrying Pool is not chapel. Scrying Pool is supposed to be good in decks where you reach high action density, like Herald. But in reality, it's almost always a must-buy (SCSN was absolutely right here).
I vaguely recall Donald X saying the attack on Scrying Pool was his biggest regret on any published card (dunno if that's still the case). Well, I can say that, if it didn't have the attack, it'd jump several hundred ranks upwards. |
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202. Spy There are four different attacks that are meant to mess with your opponent's draw pile in Dominion: Rabble, Oracle, Fortune Teller, and Spy (and Sea Hag, but let's forget about that for the moment). Four problems come to mind for these kinds of attacks: they could be swingy, they could be weak, they could be tedious, and they could become pointless upon repeated play. Rabble, to give an example of a well-designed card, largely avoids all of these problems. Spy, on the other hand, has all four of them, and the only reason that he's not even lower on this list is that, by being so weak, he's usually just a non-factor.
It's worth noting that Scrying Pool is not only the exact same attack as Spy, it's also almost the same card. Both cards are non-terminal, both card draw +1 card minimum, and both cards spy on all decks. The only differences are, Scrying Pool can draw additional cards, and Scrying Pool spies before drawing. |
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201. Pirate Ship The first thing I want to say here is that I don't consider 3+ player games in these rankings. So, if I say that Pirate Ship is weak, I mean it's weak in 2 player. Unfortunately, unlike other weak cards, I don't like what Pirate Ship does, even on boards where it's strong. In addition to being super swingy, it can also lead to really weird situations, that you may or may not enjoy depending on your taste. Maybe if, after pumping the card for the entire game, the reward you get was not in the form of coins, I would like it more. But as is, I find games where it's good mostly boring and/or frustrating. |