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Author Topic: Why is Possession hated so much?  (Read 16261 times)

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LittleFish

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Why is Possession hated so much?
« on: December 09, 2018, 11:24:50 am »
+3

Why is Possession hated so much? I don't have Alchemy, but it still seems like a decent card.
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Holunder9

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2018, 11:28:38 am »
0

I dislike it because I simply don't understand it, it went through numerous rule changes and is by far the most complicated Dominion card (and I love complex cards).
I guess most folks who dislike it do so because the card allows somebody else to do something with THEIR deck.
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LittleFish

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2018, 11:30:29 am »
+1

I dislike it because I simply don't understand it, it went through numerous rule changes and is by far the most complicated Dominion card (and I love complex cards).
I guess most folks who dislike it do so because the card allows somebody else to do something with THEIR deck.
So the people that hate it are the ones that it get's used on?
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Dylan32

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #3 on: December 09, 2018, 11:38:22 am »
+3

I dislike it because I simply don't understand it, it went through numerous rule changes and is by far the most complicated Dominion card (and I love complex cards).
I guess most folks who dislike it do so because the card allows somebody else to do something with THEIR deck.
So the people that hate it are the ones that it get's used on?

I don't like it whether I'm the one who's deck is being used or if I'm using the other person's deck.  For one thing, about the best way to counter possession is to use it yourself and have a crappy deck so that you benefit from your opponents good deck while they don't get to do much when they use yours. Of course if both people are doing that, both decks are crappy, neither person can do much, and it ends up just being an incredibly slow, sloggy, miserable game.  It just literally is not a fun card to play with. It is interesting and potentially even fun initially, but once you've seen it several times and are playing against people that also know how to use it, it just becomes boring.
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #4 on: December 09, 2018, 11:53:04 am »
0

In general, having to sit back and watch someone else play with your carefully-built deck is super unfun. And as has been pointed out, not bothering to build a good deck because you know you'll get possessed isn't very fun either.
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Watno

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #5 on: December 09, 2018, 11:55:17 am »
+11

It leads to stalemates (where no player has an interest in changing the gamestate) a significant amount of times.
I think it would be perfectly fine if it was possible to agree on a draw.
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Chris is me

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #6 on: December 09, 2018, 12:18:21 pm »
+2

I dislike it because I simply don't understand it, it went through numerous rule changes and is by far the most complicated Dominion card (and I love complex cards).
I guess most folks who dislike it do so because the card allows somebody else to do something with THEIR deck.
So the people that hate it are the ones that it get's used on?

Not exactly. It's mostly that in a lot of two player games, the optimal play on a Possession board is to build a really boring, shitty deck that takes forever to play.

On any Donate board: you want to get at least 1 Possession, then Donate so your deck has nothing in it except Possession and can never pay off the debt. Then your opponent's Possesions are worthless and yours work until your opponent does the same.

On other trashing boards: you want to never build up past 6P to get your Possessions, then if mirrored,  slowly trash out any cards that let you do anything other than play Possessions.

Masquerade, Amb boards - give yourself free Provinces.

Any board with coin tokens or villagers: always spend all of your opponent's tokens so they can never do anything.

Some games are okay, these games suck though.
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LittleFish

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #7 on: December 09, 2018, 01:37:22 pm »
+1

On any Donate board: you want to get at least 1 Possession, then Donate so your deck has nothing in it except Possession and can never pay off the debt. Then your opponent's Possesions are worthless and yours work until your opponent does the same.


This sounds almost fun for the person who's doing it at least.
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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #8 on: December 09, 2018, 02:30:48 pm »
0

Possession creates a form of anti-Dominion, as other has pointed out, it's pretty fun the first few times but it's just get old in a way other types of games doesn't and even if I never hated Possession I don't miss it the slightest not being available on DO.

Possession and KC is a crime however. The fact that I never experienced it is perhaps why I don't hate the card.
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Holger

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #9 on: December 10, 2018, 03:44:20 am »
+2

On any Donate board: you want to get at least 1 Possession, then Donate so your deck has nothing in it except Possession and can never pay off the debt. Then your opponent's Possesions are worthless and yours work until your opponent does the same.


That's not a winning strategy. It just leads to a guaranteed stalemate if mirrored. Any winning strategy involving Possession (if there is one) must keep your own deck good enough to still do something if the opponent nukes his deck the way you describe.
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greybirdofprey

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #10 on: December 10, 2018, 08:29:03 am »
0

It's not fun to see your good turn pass by and another player getting all the rewards.
Plus Possession takes pretty long (although its price mitigates this).

There's probably a better way to do "get a benefit based on how good the deck of the player to your left is". Or a better way to do extra turns.
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Awaclus

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #11 on: December 10, 2018, 08:54:18 am »
+6

There's probably a better way to do "get a benefit based on how good the deck of the player to your left is". Or a better way to do extra turns.

And they're known as Smugglers and Outpost, respectively.
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UmbrageOfSnow

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #12 on: December 10, 2018, 09:49:55 am »
0

On any Donate board: you want to get at least 1 Possession, then Donate so your deck has nothing in it except Possession and can never pay off the debt. Then your opponent's Possesions are worthless and yours work until your opponent does the same.


That's not a winning strategy. It just leads to a guaranteed stalemate if mirrored. Any winning strategy involving Possession (if there is one) must keep your own deck good enough to still do something if the opponent nukes his deck the way you describe.

So Possession makes Dominion more chess-like.
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infangthief

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #13 on: December 10, 2018, 10:00:50 am »
+9

There's probably a better way to do "get a benefit based on how good the deck of the player to your left is". Or a better way to do extra turns.

And they're known as Smugglers and Outpost, respectively.
In the case of Smugglers, we have to remember that the player to Awaclus' left and the player to Awaclus' right are in fact one and the same.
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trivialknot

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #14 on: December 10, 2018, 10:34:44 am »
+3

I wish I could find the video, but there was a Dominion League finals game way back that had Possession, Mining Village, and Storyteller.  Neither player could do anything except play Possessions, because Storyteller would use up all their money.  And with Mining Village as the only village, you could sprinkle a few in to play multiple Possessions, but if you had too many then your opponent would get more out of them than you.  The game was stuck in quasi-stalemate for over an hour.

Sure, the game was memorable in its own way, but that's only because it was the very worst.  There were lots of other unmemorable competitive games where Possession just dragged the game down, resulting in a long and tedious slog.  And I say this as someone who typically likes slogs.

Banning Possession was great as someone who spectates competitive games.  And if you wish to play with Possession in your own casual games, well you can still do that.
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tripwire

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #15 on: December 10, 2018, 11:23:14 am »
+5

Keep in mind that people in this forum are going to generally be coming at things from a competitive standpoint. Possession can be a lot of fun if people aren't trying to maximize their win rate. Around the kitchen table, I've even used possession as a means for people to experience how fun playing a strong engine can be. I'll ignore it completely and build the best deck I can, and they buy possession and then get to try out my cool deck. It can also be fun to just throw possession in decks and not worry about protecting yourself from it.

If you are playing as competitive as possible, it can be fun when you figure out how to use it and other people haven't yet, but once everyone wraps their head around it, things can quickly became degenerate and unenjoyable. And you'll find particular card combos that make it oppressive.
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Holunder9

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #16 on: December 10, 2018, 11:26:35 am »
0

Any board with coin tokens or villagers: always spend all of your opponent's tokens so they can never do anything.
I understand that post-Empires rule change but previously Possession was much more fun as there were such soft counters in the presence of Coin and VP token gaining cards.
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DG

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #17 on: December 10, 2018, 01:12:42 pm »
+2

Possession was good in the way it changed the effects and value of kingdom cards to create unique games.
Possession was bad as the unique games it created could be degenerate, for lack of a better word, and less enjoyable than games without Possesion.
Possession was also bad for rule adjudications but that could have been managed.
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Chappy7

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #18 on: December 10, 2018, 03:44:31 pm »
0

Even Outpost can be frustrating at times.  Your opponent(s) getting two turns in a row sucks, even if you're also getting two turns in a row.  It sucks even harder when they use the deck that you have been building all game.
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Titandrake

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #19 on: December 11, 2018, 04:09:25 am »
+2

Even Outpost can be frustrating at times.  Your opponent(s) getting two turns in a row sucks, even if you're also getting two turns in a row.  It sucks even harder when they use the deck that you have been building all game.

I don't get why you're bringing Outpost into this. Outpost is fine, it's a bit inconsistent starting from a 3 card hand but it adds an interesting deckbuilding restriction of making a deck that can go off from 3 cards often enough.

Taking extra turns is fun but taking extra turns through Possession can lead to degenerate things. That's why we have things like Fleet now, the people who like taking extra turns can do so in a way that doesn't lead to sad gameplay.

I remember playing a game where my opponent was playing at most 1 Possession a turn with a deck that could just barely make $8, and I was playing 4 Possessions a turn with a thin deck that couldn't even buy Duchy. That was a funny game because it was basically a race to see if I could catch-up in VP if I got to take 4x as many turns. But it wasn't really that interesting because all the buy decisions were autopilot, and it took about 15 minutes of going through the motions before I got enough VP to make my opponent to concede.
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greybirdofprey

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #20 on: December 11, 2018, 05:16:29 am »
+1

There's probably a better way to do "get a benefit based on how good the deck of the player to your left is". Or a better way to do extra turns.

And they're known as Smugglers and Outpost, respectively.

Yes, that's the joke.
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crj

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #21 on: December 11, 2018, 12:05:43 pm »
0

I don't get why you're bringing Outpost into this.
My guess: because opponent taking a turn then you taking a turn is more fun than opponent taking two turns then you taking two turns, in terms of how long you sit around twiddling your thumbs.
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Chappy7

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #22 on: December 12, 2018, 12:45:58 pm »
0

I don't get why you're bringing Outpost into this.
My guess: because opponent taking a turn then you taking a turn is more fun than opponent taking two turns then you taking two turns, in terms of how long you sit around twiddling your thumbs.
Yeah I thought I made that obvious.  Part of why Possession is hated (or at least why I hate it) is because you can end up sitting around forever while your opponent takes multiple turns.  Especially when Throne room variants are involved.  Outpost is much MUCH less hate-able, but my point was that it is even not fun to watch your opponent take two turns in a row with outpost.  It isn't uncommon to get a full turn out of your 3 card turn.  Possession just takes the not fun part of Outpost and magnifies it.  A lot.
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jomini

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #23 on: December 12, 2018, 05:32:23 pm »
0

Possession also is terrible in multiplayer games. The classic example is player A goes Gardens on a bad Gardens board, Player B wins the game by playing Possession/the next best option, and player C is simply screwed. If they build a good deck, Player B just Possesses their deck every turn, often multiple times per turn. If they build a bad deck, Player C can go for a good deck. Yeah other cards, like Smugglers and Contraband can have similar problems, but there are often far more ways around those issues.

The other big problem with Possession not yet mentioned is its space efficiency. It is pretty rare in Dominion for one or even two cards in hand to be sufficient to gain a colony, let alone gaining two or more per turn. Possession can do it easily.

For instance, getting a province from treasure requires that you draw 3 stop cards on a standard board. Their minimum cost is $15. They take three gains to get. Possession is one stop card. It takes a single gain, and yeah $6P is high, it takes exactly one more turn that a gold in a thin/reliable deck. Worse, multiple province gains just require +action (and as pointed out become insanely powerful with Tr variants). Outpost, at least, requires overbuilding your draw to turn up a province equivalent. You can quite easily gain a province with a deck of Prov x4/Possession. And will gain a prov every other turn up until the Prov pile is empty.

All the tradeoffs in building up a deck go out the window if Possession is remotely viable. How do I draw all my treasures and power terminals at the same time? Who cares, gain Possession and trash the rest. How do I deal with the influx of green making combos less likely to hit? Who cares, gain Possession and trash everything else. Balancing draw, actions, gains, and coins for a Possession deck is so idiotically easy. When decisions become this trivial, strategy goes out the window.

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crj

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Re: Why is Possession hated so much?
« Reply #24 on: December 12, 2018, 05:59:29 pm »
0

I've only played with Possession in a multi-player game twice, which was probably two times too many.

One game was four-player. I was player A. Player B Possessed player C and "for fun" had them play King's-Court Possession. Player C then took three turns as player D and not surprisingly won.

Normally, Dominion is relatively immune to that kind of asinine kingmaking. If you play stupidly, it's you who suffers.
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