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[Gherald]

Lol @ Townsfolk being within the top 20%, as a "9" would imply. Absolutely ludicrous.

Sycophant, Merchant Camp, Forts, Galleria are the only piles the community rated lower than Townsfolk. That's fair -- but all those piles do something/serve a role that can add an interesting angle to a kingdom, whereas Townsfolk mostly take up space. Lamest pile of the set, give me any other random pile instead.

[grrgrrgrr]

Swap having such a high variance: This seems like its usefulness depends heavily on the kingdom. I gave it a 0, not because it's completely useless but because I was only doing an inter-set comparison and this definitely seemed like the weakest card relative to its cost. It's basically a cross between Advance and Transmogrify, but it lacks the main thing that makes those two useful: the fact that they're "always there when you need them". With Swap you have to collide with a good target when you play it, which can be difficult. If you're relying on Swap to save your engine in case it duds, it seems like it would be better just to buy more villages, especially since villages are usually cheaper than Swap.

I know it's bad to rip people on their first-impression votes, but this is quite frankly embarrassing. Do you really think that Donald X would've greenlighted this card if this was really 0-worthy? Especially considering this has no expansion-specific mechanics and Donald is now extremely experienced with designing Dominion cards?

It is absolutely nothing like Advance. The comparison with Transmog is slightly more sensible, but it is still very flawed. First, it only works on starting hands, so it is definitely not "always here when needed". And it is also hindered by the fact that is played over two turns and is a stop card.

From my limited experience, Swap is a powerhouse. You can swap Ruins, cheap actions and actions that outran their usefulness for 5-costs with Swap, which is very nice with +Buy. And tech that is situationally useful like Library also becomes much more valuable. But Swap requires to approach Dominion differently and it is also somewhat difficult to gauch if it is the next Recruiter, or if it is the next Rebuild. (and it also had a fairly high chance to pop up with Sycophant, which biases the experience considerably)

Lol @ Townsfolk being within the top 20%, as a "9" would imply. Absolutely ludicrous.

Sycophant, Merchant Camp, Forts, Galleria are the only piles the community rated lower than Townsfolk. That's fair -- but all those piles do something/serve a role that can add an interesting angle to a kingdom, whereas Townsfolk mostly take up space. Lamest pile of the set, give me any other random pile instead.

Townsfolk's claim to faim is that Town Crier is pretty sweet for a $2 cost early on. And there are also a few boards where Elder is good, but with almost any "Choose N" card, it screams Nombo.

I'm also quite surprised at AdamH's take on this, but I also know he is a very good Dominion player, so he might be right.

[4est]

Yeah, Swap is clutch. Check back in a year, opinion will come around on this card and that variance will vanish as the community gets more experience with it and realizes how powerful it is.

Advance and Transmogrify indeed are both poor comparisons for Swap. I've been thinking of it more like a reusable Wish. Yes, it eats an Action card, but gaining $5s to hand is insane. Artisan is the only other official card that does this (without cost reduction), and it's terminal, requires you to topdeck a card, and costs $6. The supposed challenge of "colliding Swap with a good target card" isn't how Swap works; if there's literally ANY other Action in your hand that could be a better (or more immediately useful) Action in your hand, it's a target card.

To grrgrrgrr's point, Swap requires players to think differently about how they play Dominion. Players have to let go of their attachment for the cards they bought a few turns ago and embrace the cards Swap can put in their hand INSTANTLY.

Swap is a fun one for sure, and it's easily my favorite card from Allies. Go play some more games with it!

[vidicate]

Adding to the Swap love. It’s easy to look at it and see its ability for Lurker/Squire/Altar/Advance/Transport shenanigans. And the variance in ratings at this early stage is I’m sure at least partly due to those who haven’t really let Swap out of that box. (Late edit: It’s funny that there actually is a (better) version of Advance in Allies. (Not Swap, in case that wasn’t clear.))
Transmogrify is a pretty great card, and is indeed a better comparison to Swap, but there’s a reason for the cost difference.

Now for the big reveal:
Swap
is
<drumroll>
Overlord

OK, now that you’ve picked yourself up off of the floor …
After we put the obvious differences between these two cards aside (and even notice they’re the same on the “stop-card-scale” with one being a cantrip and the other a Command), they can perform virtually the same function in your deck/engine with every play. There will of course be people that will find it tough to let their tight deck composition give over to some flux, and those same people may never come around and thus will still view Swap more poorly. I urge you to just go with it though. Seriously.

Anyway, Overlord that Transport/Advance’s mid-turn is best Overlord. Swap is shooting up my current favorites list.

[Commodore Chuckles]

I know it's bad to rip people on their first-impression votes, but this is quite frankly embarrassing. Do you really think that Donald X would've greenlighted this card if this was really 0-worthy? Especially considering this has no expansion-specific mechanics and Donald is now extremely experienced with designing Dominion cards?

As I said, I don't think it's completely worthless. I also made a writing mistake in that post: I meant to say I was doing an intra-set comparison, not an inter-set comparison. That is, I was comparing the Allies cards relative to each other with no regard to any other expansions. But either way, if giving a card a 0 is "embarrassing", then I'm wondering why we were given that option in the first place.

[grrgrrgrr]

I know it's bad to rip people on their first-impression votes, but this is quite frankly embarrassing. Do you really think that Donald X would've greenlighted this card if this was really 0-worthy? Especially considering this has no expansion-specific mechanics and Donald is now extremely experienced with designing Dominion cards?

As I said, I don't think it's completely worthless. I also made a writing mistake in that post: I meant to say I was doing an intra-set comparison, not an inter-set comparison. That is, I was comparing the Allies cards relative to each other with no regard to any other expansions. But either way, if giving a card a 0 is "embarrassing", then I'm wondering why we were given that option in the first place.

My apologies for my harshness, and you are free to rank the cards however you like. Personally, however, I'd keep 0's for the complete duds; cards that either cause the board to be a 9-pile board in virtually all setups, or cards that are just very poorly designed. Which is extremely unlikely on newer sets but not outright impossible. And I, and many others, completely disagree with your take on Swap (it is #1 on the Thunderdominion card list). But you just shared your first impression and I "penalized" you by answering so harshly and that was bad of me.

[BraydonM]

I know it's bad to rip people on their first-impression votes, but this is quite frankly embarrassing. Do you really think that Donald X would've greenlighted this card if this was really 0-worthy? Especially considering this has no expansion-specific mechanics and Donald is now extremely experienced with designing Dominion cards?

As I said, I don't think it's completely worthless. I also made a writing mistake in that post: I meant to say I was doing an intra-set comparison, not an inter-set comparison. That is, I was comparing the Allies cards relative to each other with no regard to any other expansions. But either way, if giving a card a 0 is "embarrassing", then I'm wondering why we were given that option in the first place.

Well the issue is it was never established if this is a relative or absolute power scale. If 0-10 is just ranking cards where 0 is worst and 10 is best then of course something has to be 0. (And it’s explorer) Other people are thinking of it as 0 meaning the card has zero power or no use, which is of course a wrong way of thinking caused by a poor understanding of the game. I got the impression you meant 0 simply as the worst card in the set.

I would still say that’s wrong for Swap and I personally would label Courier as the worst in set. Couriers position is arguable but I don’t think a good case can be made for swap as the worst even intra-set.

Some things you may be missing about Swap intra-set:

• Swap can let you buy sycophants for favors and turn them straight into 5s. (As big a coin upgrade as expand but on a cantrip)
• Swap helps Tent a lot as you can use Tent to more easily hit 5 early and then swap it out for a 5.
• Swap returns an obsolete card like Broker after you finished trashing but is never itself a dead card.
• Swap can somewhat undo Barbarian trashing as a cantrip.
• Swap can allow you to quickly take from a split pile after rotating it, for example if you reveal Warlord you can then Swap something into a warlord and then rotate the pile or potentially swap many things into warlord to gain a majority of them.

There’s probably more I’m missing but it is certainly not without uses and that is before we get into increasing the reliability of your deck. You will sometimes want to swap down if you have 3 terminals in hand and need actions from another card on board but that can generate enough value in one turn to justify it and you can also swap back up whenever is convenient.
[/list]

[vidicate]

You will sometimes want to swap down if you have 3 terminals in hand and need actions from another card on board but that can generate enough value in one turn to justify it and you can also swap back up whenever is convenient.

Yessss… come to the dark side:

Overlord that Transport/Advance’s mid-turn is best Overlord. Swap is shooting up my current favorites list.

Play it like a Command card and never look back, baby.

[brokoli]

The only way Swap adds value in your deck is by turning a low-value card into a higher value card (typically, a $2 into a $5). But to make this works well, you need a good way to buy/gain a bunch of cards. There are some obvious examples. Death cart, Rats, things that give horses… also Squire for its 2 buys (with squire in hand for a total of $6, you can buy three squires to swap them later).
If there is no synergy of this kind, then Swap looks more like a sifter to me. A way to get a more-controlled deck with the right cards coming at the right moment. In this case, unlike overlord, Swap doesn't add a lot to your deck except this flexibility.

So in a board with say, good thining and few (or no) +buys/gains, I think I would easily skip Swap.

[GendoIkari]

The only way Swap adds value in your deck is by turning a low-value card into a higher value card (typically, a $2 into a $5). But to make this works well, you need a good way to buy/gain a bunch of cards. There are some obvious examples. Death cart, Rats, things that give horses… also Squire for its 2 buys (with squire in hand for a total of $6, you can buy three squires to swap them later).
If there is no synergy of this kind, then Swap looks more like a sifter to me. A way to get a more-controlled deck with the right cards coming at the right moment. In this case, unlike overlord, Swap doesn't add a lot to your deck except this flexibility.

So in a board with say, good thining and few (or no) +buys/gains, I think I would easily skip Swap.

I'm a bit confused by this. If I understand your example of changing a to a correctly, then by "add value to your deck", you mean that playing it makes your deck better (as opposed to buying it makes your deck better). But under that understanding, Overlord never adds value to your deck. The advantage of Overlord is completely in the flexibility it provides... when you don't account for flexibility, an Overlord is just a more expensive version of whatever you played Overlord as, so it's a bad bargain.

In the same way, Swap wouldn't be any good if you don't need the flexibility. If you know what card you want to gain with Swap ahead of time, then just buy that card instead (and if you know what card you're going to play with Overlord ahead of time, just buy that card instead).

So Swap doesn't need to "add value to your deck" in terms of making your deck better by upgrading cards. Even if you only ever use it to replace a with another , then it's acting just like Overlord. You can consider its effects to be the same as "play a card costing up to from the supply." As long as you have any action card in your hand along with the Swap, and then with some trading shenanigans going on as well.

[Imrahil3]

The only way Swap adds value in your deck is by turning a low-value card into a higher value card (typically, a $2 into a $5). But to make this works well, you need a good way to buy/gain a bunch of cards.

Chapel and Moneylender would like to have a word with you.

[ehunt]

Regrets I already have:

Herb Gatherer is stronger than it seemed a week ago, which makes the Augurs pile worth breaking into.
Barbarian is more than Swindler+. You probably lose if your opponent is playing one every turn and you aren't.+

Royal Galley -- yeah, the naysayers are right.

[Holger]

The only way Swap adds value in your deck is by turning a low-value card into a higher value card (typically, a $2 into a $5). But to make this works well, you need a good way to buy/gain a bunch of cards. There are some obvious examples. Death cart, Rats, things that give horses… also Squire for its 2 buys (with squire in hand for a total of $6, you can buy three squires to swap them later).
If there is no synergy of this kind, then Swap looks more like a sifter to me. A way to get a more-controlled deck with the right cards coming at the right moment. In this case, unlike overlord, Swap doesn't add a lot to your deck except this flexibility.

So in a board with say, good thining and few (or no) +buys/gains, I think I would easily skip Swap.

I'm a bit confused by this. If I understand your example of changing a to a correctly, then by "add value to your deck", you mean that playing it makes your deck better (as opposed to buying it makes your deck better). But under that understanding, Overlord never adds value to your deck. The advantage of Overlord is completely in the flexibility it provides... when you don't account for flexibility, an Overlord is just a more expensive version of whatever you played Overlord as, so it's a bad bargain.

In the same way, Swap wouldn't be any good if you don't need the flexibility. If you know what card you want to gain with Swap ahead of time, then just buy that card instead (and if you know what card you're going to play with Overlord ahead of time, just buy that card instead).

So Swap doesn't need to "add value to your deck" in terms of making your deck better by upgrading cards. Even if you only ever use it to replace a with another , then it's acting just like Overlord. You can consider its effects to be the same as "play a card costing up to from the supply." As long as you have any action card in your hand along with the Swap, and then with some trading shenanigans going on as well.

Yes, both cards give you similar flexibility. But buying Overlord also essentially adds an extra Action card to your deck, which buying Swap does not.
E.g. with an Overlord and one other non-terminal Action card in hand, you can play the Action card from hand plus an extra Action from the supply. With Swap and one other non-terminal Action card in hand, you can only play one Action from the supply, instead of the one from your hand (unless you're lucky and Swap's "+1 card" draws you another Action card).

Of course, that's fine in terms of power level as Overlord does not have Swap's "upgrading" ability and costs 8 debt instead of $5.

[Gherald]

Yep, Swap and Overlord are super similar in letting you play any $5, I would just summarize the differences as:

- Overlord costs 8 debt, Swap has a cost of and whatever card you are replacing each time you play it
- Swap will (hopefully) permanently improve your deck for the next shuffle, Overlord does not improve your deck when played. So in this sense Swap's effect is clearly more powerful. But Overlord doesn't require being lined up with something to swap out. That's the simple tradeoff.

[GendoIkari]

The only way Swap adds value in your deck is by turning a low-value card into a higher value card (typically, a $2 into a $5). But to make this works well, you need a good way to buy/gain a bunch of cards. There are some obvious examples. Death cart, Rats, things that give horses… also Squire for its 2 buys (with squire in hand for a total of $6, you can buy three squires to swap them later).
If there is no synergy of this kind, then Swap looks more like a sifter to me. A way to get a more-controlled deck with the right cards coming at the right moment. In this case, unlike overlord, Swap doesn't add a lot to your deck except this flexibility.

So in a board with say, good thining and few (or no) +buys/gains, I think I would easily skip Swap.

I'm a bit confused by this. If I understand your example of changing a to a correctly, then by "add value to your deck", you mean that playing it makes your deck better (as opposed to buying it makes your deck better). But under that understanding, Overlord never adds value to your deck. The advantage of Overlord is completely in the flexibility it provides... when you don't account for flexibility, an Overlord is just a more expensive version of whatever you played Overlord as, so it's a bad bargain.

In the same way, Swap wouldn't be any good if you don't need the flexibility. If you know what card you want to gain with Swap ahead of time, then just buy that card instead (and if you know what card you're going to play with Overlord ahead of time, just buy that card instead).

So Swap doesn't need to "add value to your deck" in terms of making your deck better by upgrading cards. Even if you only ever use it to replace a with another , then it's acting just like Overlord. You can consider its effects to be the same as "play a card costing up to from the supply." As long as you have any action card in your hand along with the Swap, and then with some trading shenanigans going on as well.

Yes, both cards give you similar flexibility. But buying Overlord also essentially adds an extra Action card to your deck, which buying Swap does not.
E.g. with an Overlord and one other non-terminal Action card in hand, you can play the Action card from hand plus an extra Action from the supply. With Swap and one other non-terminal Action card in hand, you can only play one Action from the supply, instead of the one from your hand (unless you're lucky and Swap's "+1 card" draws you another Action card).

Of course, that's fine in terms of power level as Overlord does not have Swap's "upgrading" ability and costs 8 debt instead of $5.

I did already mention "As long as you have any action card in your hand along with the Swap", which is what stops Swap from being simply a cheaper and OP version of Overlord with no drawback. But it's not right to say that buying the Swap doesn't act like adding another action card to your deck. It's more like buying the Swap acts like adding whatever kind of card to your deck that you have the most of. If your deck is 80% action cards and 20% treasure cards, then Swap is like adding a card that's an action 80% of the time. But even those times that it's not, it's not like you just didn't add a (good) card, you're getting whatever was on top of your deck, which in the worse-case scenario is making your next turn better by getting junk off the top.

Granted, when you are fully drawing your deck, Swap becomes worse compared to Overlord because the +1 card no longer does anything... but I'd imagine that's true of every cantrip and just every card with draw.

[Wizard_Amul]

Yep, Swap and Overlord are super similar in letting you play any $5, I would just summarize the differences as:

- Overlord costs 8 debt, Swap has a cost of and whatever card you are replacing each time you play it
- Swap will (hopefully) permanently improve your deck for the next shuffle, Overlord does not improve your deck when played. So in this sense Swap's effect is clearly more powerful. But Overlord doesn't require being lined up with something to swap out. That's the simple tradeoff.

I disagree that Swap's effect is clearly more powerful in that case--true your deck is better with the card that was swapped into it, but now Swap is just a cantrip if you don't have anything else you want to swap out. On the other hand, Overlord on the next shuffle can be the card that you swapped in last turn or any other card--Overlord is more flexible. If you have more actions you want to swap out in the future, Swap can debatably be said to have the more powerful effect on a given turn--Overlord's flexibility and not having to line it up with anything are still advantages, though.

[Gherald]

You can always swap out the card you swapped the last time. The flexibility to play a card as anything you want every cycle is exactly the same as Overlord other than having to line up the thing you're swapping with the card's play.

So again that's the simple tradeoff:  As compared to Overlord, Swap's play needs to be lined up with something to swap, but every play can (hopefully will) improve your deck for the next cycle.

[Gherald]

I confuse nothing, I talk about two separate things as separate things. You are the one confusing the two, sir.

Swap does two things, it improves your deck (if and only if you line it up with something lesser to swap) and it offers flexibility, the ability to play an action as anything else.

Overlord only does one of these things.

The cards are really not all that similar

The cards play VERY similarly -- more similarly than anything else you can compare Swap to. If you don't use Swap like an Overlord, you're missing the point of the card.

[Gherald]

Explaining how cards play very similarly, as Swap does to Overlord, is in no way suggesting they're identical, should be bought in the same situations, or that you should ignore what makes the cards different as already discussed: Swap needs components to work.  A deck of coppers and estates is not that deck; apparently you need someone to state this explicitly in order to talk about the card's similarity to Overlord? That's just dumb to even have to acknowledge, this is a forum for people who want to talk about dominion strategy not pretend others don't know basic game concepts.

[JNails]

This whole conversation got me thinking about the striking similarities between Order of Masons and Annex. If it lets you play your Importer one more time, that's even like gaining an extra Duchy. Pretty strong if you ask me.

[Gherald]

Seems this is what you are talking about:

You can always swap out the card you swapped the last time. The flexibility to play a card as anything you want every cycle is exactly the same as Overlord other than having to line up the thing you're swapping with the card's play.

Here the idiom "you can/could always" is to communicate there is an alternative to a situation given prior, which in this case was this wrong statement:

Swap is just a cantrip if you don't have anything else you want to swap out.

That, I was explaining, is not true. You "always" (as an alternative) have the recourse of using swap on a previously swapped thing; Swap does NOT just become a mere cantrip when there's nothing else new to swap. My use of "always" here is in regards to that recourse being available, not some absolute/literal "always" in the sense of all requirements to play the card and re-swap the thing you swapped last time will be met. No, I was not saying that at all. As my next sentence notes perfectly clearly (adding emph.): "The flexibility to play a card as anything you want every cycle is exactly the same as Overlord other than having to line up the thing you're swapping with the card's play.".

---
To just reiterate: Provided you can line it up with something (anything, including something previously swapped), Swap does what Overlord does.

And yes, I say you miss the point of the card if you don't understand and acknowledge this equivalence to Overlord. It's key to understanding what the card is capable of. Meanwhile, no one misses the remodel variant aspect of Swap as it's just obvious, but if all you do is think about it as a remodeler you aren't getting the point of the card, it's closer to being an Overlord+ that can also improve your deck (with the - of having to line it up)

[ehunt]

my first impression is that swap is a super controversial card

[allanfieldhouse]

my first impression is that swap is a super controversial card

Isn't that more of an "allies first impressions" thread first impression though?

[Honkeyfresh]

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScf1l3OO1HN80cYXR9T-Jz4jbOBjgK9DsnXQ8AITsVQHwSitA/viewform?usp=sf_link

Rate each Dominion card (or card-shaped-object) on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being the most powerful. The cost of the card, not just the effect, should be taken into account for your score. I have a few suggestions:

1. Your name is "required," you can put anything there though -- I'd prefer some username that I can recognize so that I can make sure submissions are unique. If you troll me, I reserve the right to not count your input :-P

2. You can pick and choose which cards you rate -- feel free to leave some cards blank if you don't want to rate them for whatever reason.

3. You may use whatever criteria you like for your ratings.

This may be helpful for looking up what cards do: http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Allies

This form will accept responses until March 23-24ish, 2022. After that, I'll collect the data and write up a post similar to the ones I did for the last three expansions:
http://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-nocturne-first-impressions/
http://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-renaissance-first-impressions/
https://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-menagerie-expansion-first-impressions/

Just saw this.  Are we still allowed to fill em out?  Been playing a lot and have a good feel I think for the cards.  Thanks for doing this anyway!

[4est]

The other thing I just realized Swap can do (that Overlord cannot) is trigger Swap pileouts.

As long as you have other non-Swap (or non-other-empty-pile) Action cards in hand or on top of your deck, you can repeatedly Swap stuff for more Swaps and churn through the whole pile to end games out of nowhere. I won a game on piles today with one Swap in hand that I chained together to gain the remaining 5 Swaps in the Supply. Look out for these pileout opportunities!