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1

Dominion Articles / Combo: King's Court/Scheme

« on: October 29, 2011, 05:30:22 pm »

King's Court is a very swingy card. In a typical game, you will play KC - KC - copper-copper-estate, only to have your opponent play KC - mountebank next turn, or vice-versa. Scheme, however, eliminates most of the swing by allowing you to topdeck two king's courts and a scheme every turn. In the worst case, if you have no other targets for a king's court after playing KC- - KC - scheme, you'll still have a five card hand and three actions, and you'll still be able to return all three combo cards to the top of your deck.

If King's Court and Scheme are out on the same board as any cursing attack, this combo is a no-brainer. In the absence of discarding attacks, it may well be worth it to go KC -  KC - scheme - scheme - (horrible attack) - (other horrible attack), playing scheme x3, schemex3, (horrible attack)x3, then (other horrible attack) x1.

This combo, as far as I can tell, has three effective counters. The most effective is minion, which seems to be the best scheme counter at any rate. Next up is possession - however, KC + KC + scheme is probably the best possible enabler for possession, so a possession board may well be a race to set up KC, KC, scheme, scheme, possession, possession. Last but not least comes the sheer opportunity cost of buying two king's courts, which is probably not worth it in the absence of +buy and good card-drawing actions. Militia is not a very effective counter: while it will cause a discard down to KC - KC - scheme, if your deck is at least 33% actions, which is not difficult to attain by repeatedly buying schemes, your second and third plays of KC will likely find targets, making KC-KC-scheme worth keeping.



 

2

Variants and Fan Cards / Meta Cards

« on: August 17, 2011, 02:39:38 pm »

I've noticed that a few dominion cards, rather than having a direct effect like +money or +actions, instead change the way another card behaves or the way a turn phase behaves. Let's call these cards "meta" cards. Coppersmith is the most prominent example: it makes copper produce an additional +$1. Hoard is a lesser example, since it changes your buy phase so you gain golds when you buy victory cards, as is goons, which allows you to gain +1 VP for buying things. Throne room and King's Court define their effects based on another card in hand, so they're also tentatively meta cards.

As you'll notice, not many meta cards exist and those that do are often quite powerful; goons and KC are unstoppable on the right board. Since the theme hasn't been explored much, I'm attempting to concoct an expansion around the concept, and I'm curious what other people think. Here are some examples:

Sewer
---
+1 action
+1 buy
---
While this is in play, you may set aside an estate or curse to draw 2 cards. At the end of your turn, discard the cards set aside.
---
Reaction: When you gain a card, you may reveal this to trash it and gain an estate in hand.
Action/Reaction (5)

Effectively, this card turns an estate into a laboratory (wow!), so it might make flooding your deck with estates a viable strategy. However, any turn in such a deck that skips a sewer is going to suck. Note that any turn with a single sewer in hand in the initial deck will net $4 in the worst case scenario, and $5 if there is at least one estate in hand, so this card can make some big money.

As for the interaction with curses, it's probably too strong, but I wanted to include it just for thoughts.
Smelter
---
+2 actions
+$1
---
While at least one smelter is in play, when you trash a card, draw another card.
---
Action (3)

This card is meant to support weaker trashers like trading post, which becomes +2 cards +$2 trash one card with smelter support, or trade route, which becomes significantly more attractive. I didn't want it to stack because, while drawing four cards for each card you chapel away sounds hilarious, it's probably broken.

3

Variants and Fan Cards / Dominion:Transgression feedback

« on: July 01, 2011, 10:31:00 pm »

Dominion:Underworld Transgression started as a joke. It's now a (mostly) playable expansion with around eleven cards themed around criminals and sharing a loose common mechanic: cards that fight amongst themselves like petty thugs.

Among the cards solidifying this theme are:

• Catacombs, a powerful but perilous drawer/trasher that "trashes" cards into a shared mat where they can be drawn by other Catacombs users;
• Outlaw, a card that gives opponents with at least two cards worth at least $5 each in hand curses (note that Outlaw is such a card!);
• Slum, a cheap village that cannot draw cards in the presence of opposing slums;
• Blackmail, a card that gives out "scandals" that initially handicap a player but provide free trashing.

The cards are available here, conveniently sorted into lists of cards that need lots of feedback and cards that are probably balanced enough for playtesting:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1la8dGiAIxe6jZqWlGdDuGJlb0Z2icimbWBxrSIOiBUM

Old designs for retainer and some other cards are preserved below, so the old discussion still will make sense to newcomers.
As for why the name was changed, interested playtesters decided that "Underworld" had more of an infernal connotation than a criminal one.

SLUM (revised)
--
+2 Actions
Each opponent may reveal a slum from hand. If nobody does, +1 card.
Action - (2)

HIGHWAYMAN (was BRIGAND, changed b/c this name might be more recognizable)
--
+1 Action
+(1)
Each other player reveals his hand, then discards the card with the highest cost from his hand.
Each other player draws a card.
-
Action/Attack - (3)
It's a very, very spammable attack that interacts wonderfully with any card-discarding attack. It is better than silver for minion players - and the hand reveal lets you know if you should use minion's attack! It is also powerful against mid-game opponents, where estates give much less protection against the attack, but it won't help you get to $6.

EDIT: STILL MORE CARDS

MINSTREL
--
+1 card
+1 action

If any minstrel remains in the supply, +$1, trash a card from your hand, and gain a minstrel.
-
ACTION (3)

The dirty hippie plague! I'm sure conspirator players will love it. Minstrels aren't criminals, but they weren't the most respected of personages (see also: courtesans), so they fit.

RACKETEER
--
+$2
Each player reveals the top three cards of his deck, discards either all the treasures
 or all non-treasures from these cards, then returns the others to the top of the deck.
ACTION/ATTACK (4)

RETAINER
--
+1 card
+1 action

+ 1 coin if you have no retainers in hand. Each opponent discards a retainer or reveals a hand with no retainers.
-
ACTION/ATTACK (2)

Back in the day, nobles kept "retainers" as private armies of thugs, hence the (somewhat obscure) name. The +1 coin if you have no other copies in hand means it's quite inferior to peddler - may try a version without this nerf. The $2 price point is probably too cheap for the nerfed version and too expensive for the unnerfed version.

UNNERFED RETAINER
+1 card
+1 action
+$1

Each opponent discards a retainer or reveals a hand with no retainers.
-
ACTION/ATTACK (4)

This would definitely be a powerful $4 card - however, peddler alone isn't enough to win, so it would be interesting to see whether a player spends $4 buys monopolizing this stack or doing something else that actually gives them a chance of winning.

This card is prisoner's dilemma incarnate - if several players get it, I am hoping they all end up with sucky hands and no benefit.

Edit: On further recollection, Retainer is just as obnoxious a card in multiplayer as the old "Slum" was (thanks to wanderingwinder for feedback), and since it's an opening buy, it dramatically exacerbates first-player advantage. Not sure if i should keep this card.

Another Edit: peddler can EASILY make the difference between a win or loss, see
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201107/05/game-20110705-210348-6027cc16.html