With the relative success of my previous thread on
Ruined Market as the only +Buy, I thought I'd share some thoughts I had about a similar, less discussed topic that deserves just as much time in the spotlight.
We've seen those boards before, those ugly, ugly boards with no Villages. Now I know you're thinking "Those boards aren't worth playing, Adam. Just resign and move on to another game; hopefully that will have a village in it." and your instincts are pretty good! But one day I was hovering over the resign button when I thought to myself "Self, I didn't get to the top 55 of the leaderboard by just giving up when things looked grim. Let's make something out of nothing here!" I clicked over to the next page and saw the most beautiful thing:
There on that board with all terminals I found my respite here. In the darkness I found the one place where I could play an Action card and know that my turn isn't over yet, I can still go on.
It goes without saying (even though I'm about to say it) that in Dominion, the person who plays more action cards usually wins the game, this gives rise to various axioms we universally adopt around here without question such as Always Play Your Necropolis (APYN), and the P1 T1 "checkmate" Necropolis (I can't count the number of games I've won just from my opponent resigning after I slam down that sweet, sweet Necro on turn 1 before they ever get a chance to get on the board). When Ruined Village is your only chance at Multiple Action Turns (MATs), you really have to commit in order to make it work.
What if Ruined Village isn't on top? Well then you might have to look for synergy in order to get your Double-Ruin turns, that way you spend less time digging through the Ruins and more time playing Action cards. Workshop seems pretty good for this.
Consider a kingdom where the only non-terminals are Golem, Ironworks, and Ruined Village. Just think about the explosive synergy here! Golem really wants to hit those non-terminals, and what better way to put them into your deck than with Ironworks -- by gaining a Ruined Village you make Ironworks non-terminal itself! Who needs terminals? Playing a Golem could hit an Ironworks and a Ruined Village, you play your Ironworks to gain some more Ruins and now you have an extra action so you can play your Ruined Library and refresh your hand! The power is unspeakable!
Happy April First, everyone!