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[schadd]

congratulations! your prize is humans!

a lot of people have a distaste for this card. ah, dang, he got a province first. oh, but i got mine with a tournament first, so i win. that's life. (that's liiiiiiiiiife)

i think that in terms of the game it's pretty not really cool. it has the same problem that market grande has which is that you'll just do a bunch of dumb stuff like buy silvers to try to get it and then once you do, you can't do the fun engine stuff that it would in theory allow. it also doesn't really appreciate fairgrounds because, well, provinces are already a good portion of the way to empty, let's just do those.

but, for the other reasons that dominion is fun, tournament is sehr gut. your newbie friend asks if there's a card that rewards you for having provinces and you say "no, there tends to not be things that.. oh wait, yeah there is, it's tournament."

and, as donx put it i think, some of these couldn't have existed anywhere else; you draw a hand full of trusty steeds and then think for a few years; being able to buy followers would mean the game never ends; princess just gets out of hand too quickly (the other ones are scary enough); bag of gold is stupidly good in the early game and in bm and stupidly bad towards the end (whoops that's the only time you can get it, alas); diadem is just not good too many times.

-how big of a deal is the first province, real talk?
-trusty steed or followers?
-when do you stop buying tournament?

[wachsmuth]

but, for the other reasons that dominion is fun, tournament is sehr gut. your newbie friend asks if there's a card that rewards you for having provinces and you say "no, there tends to not be things that.. oh wait, yeah there is, it's tournament."

When your friend asks this, you could also respond Explorer.

[werothegreat]

but, for the other reasons that dominion is fun, tournament is sehr gut. your newbie friend asks if there's a card that rewards you for having provinces and you say "no, there tends to not be things that.. oh wait, yeah there is, it's tournament."

When your friend asks this, you could also respond Explorer.

You can also reveal it for Gladiator if the player to your left hasn't bought one yet.  Maybe try to set up a Chariot Race as well.

[Davio]

This is a typical love/hate card.

I love grabbing an early Province, winning Tournaments and getting the best prizes.
I hate grabbing an early Province, never getting them to align and being stuck with the worst prizes.

It's very hard to ignore and that aspect makes it even less fun than losing the Tournaments, I don't like cards that have such a powerful hold on the kingdom (Rebuild is also a well known culprit).

This is also the card that broke the "both players can get the same cards" mantra which made me fall in love with Dominion in the first place.

[Accatitippi]

I like Tournament, but I'm not a fan of the prize blend.
Followers in particular, but also Princess can be very unfun.
Followers is no fun and often very powerful just in virtue of giving 2vp on play while also handsize attacking and drawing. If both players had rushed Provinces by means of money, the game often becomes an unfun BMish thing where you have a big point and economy advantage over your opponent.
Princess is awesome +Buy, and it can leave one player able to easily double-P while the other is limited to one Province per turn.

Tournament would be nice if it only gave out small utility cards to improve your deck (like Trusty Steed and Bag of Gold, if BoG worked), and I guess having very situational cards works too.
Amazing payload, on the other hand, is bad on unique cards, because while having or missing a single component doesn't generally make or break a deck, having or not having just that one amazing payload card defines what that deck can ever aspire to do.

[Chris is me]

I only get Trusty Steed first if one of the following is true:
- I'm trashed down enough that I could re-draw the Province in the same turn
- I have another Province in my deck I could draw the same turn
- My opponent doesn't have a province yet (and no way to gain mid-turn, etc)

I gain Diadem a lot more than I gain Bag of Gold; usually it's when the extra +$2/+$3 would tip me to the next Province.

Gaining Bag of Gold instead of a Duchy happens very rarely for me, maybe less than 20% of the time.

[trivialknot]

I like tournament.  Even when tournament dominates, it isn't really a strategy in itself.  It's more of an objective, and you construct some other strategy to achieve that objective.  You want to spike an early province, and then either add a lot of sifting/draw or a lot of tournaments to increase chance of collision.  A lot of chance is involved, I suppose, but I'm okay with that. 

On the prizes...
There was that game where I got Princess to immediately buy a Province... and then I suddenly realized I could use those Duplicates on my tavern mat.  Good times.
Trusty Steed is usually a Lost City, but I also like the silver gain.  It's better than Bag of Gold at doing whatever Bag of Gold is supposed to do.

[luser]

Here it bit depends on player skill how much its chance based. If there is good engine that you could play then its best to build it and gain tournament turn before/on turn you first hit 8 and get princess on next turn for your multiprovince engine. In these games followers is just discard attack as both of you need to trash curse/estate and steed isn't that good.

What changes is when there isn't strong enough engine or you couldn't play it. These are repetitive moneyish mirror games. For these one gets around 3 tournaments and money to hit province early and be able to probably connect it with province. In these one who first gets followers typically wins due to opponents deck. Its because provinces hurt opponent when blocking tournament and followers discard often prevents buying provinces so your tournaments stay unblocked longer.

As bag of gold its mostly attempt to spike province next turn.

[A Ladder]

This is a typical love/hate card...This is also the card that broke the "both players can get the same cards" mantra which made me fall in love with Dominion in the first place.

What I've done for my IRL games is make a separate stack of prizes for each player. That way we all get a chance at getting the prizes. This makes a much more fun Tournament game IMO. Otherwise I would hate this card due to the games I've played where someone gets the only source of Cursing or +Buy.

I typically just end up getting Trusty Steed before the other prizes as I like to keep my engine going, and if I'm lucky I can swing back around to another Tournament and get my Province back in my hand.

One memorable game I had was where I was using Menagerie as draw and needed one more Kingdom treasure to ensure hitting $8. Ergo, I picked up Diadem before the other ones.

[JThorne]

What I've done for my IRL games is make a separate stack of prizes for each player. That way we all get a chance at getting the prizes.

Tournament for Millennials.

[McGarnacle]

I feel like a lot of the new Dominion expansions are improving Diadem somewhat. Champion is really helpful, and I think Bustling Village might help too.

[wachsmuth]

I feel like a lot of the new Dominion expansions are improving Diadem somewhat. Champion is really helpful, and I think Bustling Village might help too.

Storyteller too is a combo with Diadem.

[McGarnacle]

I feel like a lot of the new Dominion expansions are improving Diadem somewhat. Champion is really helpful, and I think Bustling Village might help too.

Storyteller too is a combo with Diadem.

How?

[schadd]

I feel like a lot of the new Dominion expansions are improving Diadem somewhat. Champion is really helpful, and I think Bustling Village might help too.

Storyteller too is a combo with Diadem.

How?

you tend to be out of actions by the end of your turn when you would generally play diadem, whereas with storyteller you can play it before you have to do terminals

[singletee]

I feel like a lot of the new Dominion expansions are improving Diadem somewhat. Champion is really helpful, and I think Bustling Village might help too.

Storyteller too is a combo with Diadem.

How?

you tend to be out of actions by the end of your turn when you would generally play diadem, whereas with storyteller you can play it before you have to do terminals

But then you have to spend it.

Edit for elaboration: By the time you draw your Diadem you may have already drawn most of your deck, so the extra draw won't do you much good. It might be something to keep in mind as a tactical move (you notice you have a lot of actions floating around, a lot of cards to draw, and Storyteller, Tournament, Province in hand).