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[Jack Rudd]

It's the Marmite of Dominion cards!

Is it worth passing up Ambassador or Masquerade when this card is on the board?
Is it worth slogging up your deck to defend against it?
What interesting interactions does it have with Adventures cards?

[mameluke]

In principle I like the idea of this card. Make your deck terrible so no one else wants to use it? Interesting. Load up on Attacks? Cool.

But we've all played the Possession game where we both buy Possession and you play it first. Mine is in my hand, and you of course don't play my copy. You draw enough to buy another one on my turn, meanwhile my Possession misses the shuffle. Now you can play another one, or two, and I haven't played mine once yet. Soon, you've played twice as many turns as I have, maybe even more.

There needs to be an Outpost like clause so you can't run wild with these. I don't know.

[Seprix]

Possession is not as good as people put value on. It's opportunity cost is equal to a Province, and may in fact be harder to get, since you have to line up $6 and a Potion. Possession is great for longer games, but not worth the investment in quicker games.

[Accatitippi]

In principle I like the idea of this card. Make your deck terrible so no one else wants to use it? Interesting. Load up on Attacks? Cool.

But we've all played the Possession game where we both buy Possession and you play it first. Mine is in my hand, and you of course don't play my copy. You draw enough to buy another one on my turn, meanwhile my Possession misses the shuffle. Now you can play another one, or two, and I haven't played mine once yet. Soon, you've played twice as many turns as I have, maybe even more.

There needs to be an Outpost like clause so you can't run wild with these. I don't know.

I have the same problem with King's court. You manage to play it first, oh look, you won.

Expensive, powerful cards make it very hard to play catch-up.

[singletee]

Anyone ever Jestered a Possession? Now that's some great value.

[Awaclus]

But we've all played the Possession game where we both buy Possession and you play it first. Mine is in my hand, and you of course don't play my copy.

I think I don't want to play your Possession regardless of whether or not Mine is in your hand.

[amoffett11]

Sometimes in a Possession game I'll just build me engine, but as soon as my opponent buys Possession (or sometimes as soon as they buy a Potion, if they didn't already have one) I'll just start greening immediately.  By the time they get around to Possessing me hopefully my deck is not great, and they're behind. 

I had a league recently with Scrying Pool, Steward, Crossroads, Necropolis and Possession.  My end deck had 2 Coppers and Potion for economy, but it could play 4 Possessions in a turn.  I would possess my opponent 4 times, buy a province each time, he would possess me twice, draw my deck, and he can't buy anything.  This is the dream scenario for a Possession mirror, have a deck that's useless for all but Possessing people. 

[Kirian]

It's the Marmite of Dominion cards!

Only Aussies and Brits like it, and Americans wonder why the specialty stores even carry it rather than just importing more good tea and real Cadbury?

[Dingan]

I used to hate Possession.  But I've learned to love it.  It can make the entire dynamic of the game wonky, and I like that.  Some random thoughts on it:

(1) Possession is a fancy Workshop-variant (can't remember where I first heard that; I definitely didn't make it up).
(2) I used to avoid at all costs getting Masquerade, Ambassador, or Island when there is Possession, especially if there are ways to play multiple Possessions per turn.  But I actually think there are many cases where it's a good idea to get them.
  - Ambassador -- if you get an Ambassador and your opponent doesn't, and there is no real immediate defense against it, you can just get such a large early lead and slow your opponent down so much, potentially to the point where they're never going to be able to afford a Possession.
  - You can always buy 2 Ambassadors, with plans of eventually passing one to them, in which case you're both in the same boat. Same goes for Masq.
  - If there are ways to trash your early Amb/Masq, then you might as well still get them
(3) Never ever ever resign on a Possession game.  They can get so wonky, you never know when you can pull off that crazy 3-pile.
(4) There are interesting "defenses" against Possession -- cards that make your opponent discard, cards that give you VP chips, Golem (which your opponent won't want to play and reveal a Possession), etc.
(5) Don't play Durations (especially Tactician), get a big Native Village mat, or accumulate a bunch of coin tokens if your opponent may play Possession
(6) Don't even try to understand the Possession-Outpost "synergy"
(7) If your opponent has a good deck, then the best defense against your opponent Possessing you isn't greening or building a bad deck; it's Possessing them more.
(8 ) It's fun upgrading Cities on your turn, then reaping the benefits on your opponent's [possessed] turn.

That's all I can think of for now.  There's probably a ton of other stuff.

[JW]

I had a league recently with Scrying Pool, Steward, Crossroads, Necropolis and Possession.  My end deck had 2 Coppers and Potion for economy, but it could play 4 Possessions in a turn.  I would possess my opponent 4 times, buy a province each time, he would possess me twice, draw my deck, and he can't buy anything.  This is the dream scenario for a Possession mirror, have a deck that's useless for all but Possessing people.

Possession + heavy trashing can lead to stalemate-prone games. For example, the post below references a game with Possession/Chapel where both players quickly got to the point of playing at least 1 Possession per turn, and had no economy in their decks (because building up would benefit the other player), so one person resigned to end the stalemate. Possession can lead to interesting situations, but it's a card I dislike for this reason. It's even worse in 3-player (if player A builds a heavy Possession deck to possess Player B, Player B can determine whether A or C wins based on whether they destroy their own deck). 

You generally want Masquerade/Ambassador in a Possession game unless there are other good alternatives. You need to get thin to hit $6P, and you can always use a second copy of Masq/Ambassador to give your opponent your first one.

Great minds think alike: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13454.0

As I said, starving to death is the official ruling.  I had to resign or face my demise!

I had a similar (but more interesting) game with Monsieur X about a week ago, the log seems to have never been recorded or whatever.  But that game had Governor, Spice Merchant and Possession (and no +actions) and was also really degenerate because of how Possession totally warps how Governor's "penalties" play out.  I got to a point where I couldn't gain any Golds because I was just going to get Possessed the next turn anyway, because we could both use Governor's draw with impunity to be sure to play Possession every turn no matter what (we had both thinned with Spice Merchants enough to do that easily).  I really wish I had the log because I feel like I'm not describing it well, but it was such a yucky game.

That game and this game I just played with Jeebus are like perfect distillations of what's wrong with Possession.

[Davio]

Golem + Possession is fun.