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[theory]

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Chapel is the most powerful Dominion card relative to its cost, and I'm unlikely to make another card that powerful (relative to its cost).

That's not the same as it being bad for the game though. I think Chapel provides a lot of play value for new players. First it seems weak - there are multiple BGG threads complaining, what good is Chapel in games without Witch? Then you try trashing Estates and then trashing everything and it's such a rush. Then you explore games where you don't just start Chapel / Silver, and some people in the end find the 5-card Chapel decks. It's this play value that got Chapel into the main set. Its power level was no secret.

For experienced players Chapel is often more like "this game has different rules" than it is like a normal card. We all buy it and have sleek decks and then see where we go from there. I still like those games, and the people who don't can stop playing with Chapel. Chapel is one of four pillars of altering the base game - Chapel, Thief, Witch, Gardens. They all shake the game up significantly, in related ways, such that combinations of them are also interesting. They play differently as people get better at the game and well I like that too.

Chapel is not unbeatable. Recently I looked at the last four logged playtest games that had Chapel in them. It lost three of them - one to Gardens and two to attacks. It's strong but still not automatic.

People often talk about changing the cost and I don't think that gets you anywhere. At $4 you get less interesting games, not more interesting ones, and exchanging the 2/5 opening being especially good for the 2/5 opening being especially weak is a wash for me. If I had thought it was a mistake to print it at $2, I would have replaced it, not charged more for it.

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And I will add, that this is the case in general. In that other thread about changing costs, there are a few cards where you could change the cost without really helping or hurting anything, but in general the cards that are weak or strong can only be fixed by changing what the card does. They just aren't far enough off.

And there are cards that are weak or strong; all cards costing $5 can't be identically powerful without being identical, and anyway while it's nice that people praise the playtesting Dominion sets get, you do get better as you go along.