It is the craziest Event in Dominion so far (Sorry, Donate). It impacts the game like few other card-shaped things do, sometimes completely warping the way you approach building your deck. And, I think, it is still heavily underrated by a large part of the player base.
In this article, I try to highlight two different ways to incorporate Inheritance into your strategy, and also offer some thoughts on when going for Inheritance is the wrong move. This we will start with, because it is the easiest part.
When to not go for InheritanceIf you see Inheritance in a kingdom, your first impulse should always be to ask yourself "Can I make Inheritance work here?" In most cases, you will want to use Inheritance, but there are boards on which you don't. Aside from obvious cases like, there is no possible Inheritance target, you should look for these conditions:
- Do you start with Estates?
- Is there a non-terminal action costing $4 or less?
- Is there an easy way to buy/gain multiple Estates in a single turn?
If you answered at least two of these questions with "no", then you can probably ignore Inheritance. On the other hand, if you answered at least two of these with "yes", chances are you want to go for Inheritance in some way.
This evaluation is the easy part. But how to incorporate Inheritance into your strategy? There are two different strategy archetypes for this. I will outline them first and then talk a bit about when to go for which.
The Inheritance RushIn an Inheritance Rush, you first and most important goal is to buy Inheritance as soon as possible. After that, if your opponent also goes for Inheritance, your next move is usually to try and win the Estate split.
To reach your first goal, you must throw some of your Dominion wisdom out of the window: Trashing is not a priority. Instead, you should focus on getting $7. Copper-trashing can still be worth it if it also provides economy (like Moneylender/Counterfeit) or cycling (like Spice Merchant). But you want to hold on to your starting Estates, if you have those. This strategy wants to open with cards that can spike high price points (Baron excels at this; but even Coppersmith or Death Cart can be worth it). Events such as Save or Expedition are a big help too.
Also, remember that you will soon get three copies of some card at once; you may want to delay buying those. If your plan is to inherit Villages, don't buy one when you have only 2-3 terminals in your deck.
Once you managed to murder your parents and snatch the Inheritance, often you will want to get as many Estates as possible. They're good for your deck, and winning the split provides a comfortable VP lead over your opponent without slowing you down. At this point, you will need to add +buy and gainers to your deck, which you probably didn't want earlier since they don't help you reaching $7.
After the Estates have drained, you should have put together a decent deck. From then on it's just usual Dominion play until the end.
Example games:
Game 1 - Here I focus on economy early on (opening Moneylender/Silver) while my opponent chooses a more traditional trashing approach with Amulet. I never gain more Estates, but choosing the Inheritance Rush is still worth it.
Game 2 - Here my opponent and I both choose to build similar engines, but due to using Inheritance, I get a sizable lead in VP and villages, promting my opponent to resign.
Game 3 - again I forego trashing in favor of more sifting (Dungeon), and use a spiking card (Wine Merchant) to get to Inheritance quickly.
Inheritance as supportSometimes, the Rush is not the way to go, but Inheritance may still be useful. If Inheritance is only used as support, then you play the game much like a usual game, but at some point - maybe instead of your first Province - you buy Inheritance. Playing "normally" means you focus more strongly on trashing, maybe even trashing your starting Estates.
You will reach $7 much later in such games, and then you have to ask yorself whether Inheriting is still better than greening. Often enough, it will be.
There is less to say about this way to play Inheritance, since it is less a strategy on its own and more fitting Inheritance into whatever strategy your were already playing.
Example games:
Game 4 - here, the presence of Sea Hag turns the game into a slog, which means getting to $7 will be hard. You still want to get Inheritance since Ironmonger is such a juicy target.
Game 5 - here, lack of amazing targets means that building the engine takes precedence over inheriting, which is why I open Loan. I still luck into an early $7 thanks to Borrow.
Game 6 - my opponent goes for the Rush, while I focus on getting to Champion first. That turns out to be important, as I can later destroy his deck with inherited Pages and Warriors.
When to go for which strategyNow that we saw both ways to play Inheritance, let's tackle the most important question: When do you want to do which? Obviously, that one is not easy to answer. The main reason not to go for a rush are attacks. Going for the Rush often means delaying the attack, which is particularly bad with junking. Also, most attacks will actively prevent the other player from getting to $7 anytime soon.
The other thing to consider is: would you normally open with the card you want to inherit? If your inheritance target is best in the earlier game stages, then the Rush is better. If it is more of a mid- to late-game support card, then you can also delay Inheritance.
Finally, I would like to address some more specific issues that may come up when playing with Inheritance:
Selecting the right targetUsually, the best target for Inheritance on a given board is glaringly obvious, but there are cases when things are not that easy. Usually, some cantrip is the best option - remember, you will have lots of them in your deck. Select a target that will not only benefit you for the next shuffle, but for the rest of the game. Sometimes, you might not want the cantrip at all if it does too little for your deck.
Example games:
Game 7 - I go for Scheme while my opponent picks Tournament. The problem with Tournament is that it's not a true cantrip - if I have a Province in hand and you have a hand of all Tournaments, it's a dud. Tournament just gets too risky in the late game, and my Schemes are just as good at lining up Tournament with Province.
Game 8 - here, I sheepishly go for Wandering Minstrel (it's a cantrip after all!) while my opponent chooses Envoy, and that's just so much better in this Big-Money-like game.
Cost reductionThis is a tricky one. Cost reduction enables you to Inherit more valuable targets, but it also means that you have to delay your Inheritance more than you'd like. The main problem is that Cost-reducers don't actually help you to buy Inheritance, so you better have some plan to get there. If you do, it can work out beautifully. These games are usually not Rushes, but only use Inheritance as support.
Examples games:
Game 9 - I use Highway to inherit more Highways and my deck just explodes from there.
Cost, type, triggers, tokensIt's important to remember where your inherited Estates are like the original cards - and where they differ.
Cost: The Estates still cost only $2. Remember this when planning to inherit Band of Misfits or Border Village.
Type: You will have lots of Action-Victory hybrids in your deck. This is great for cards that care about that stuff (Crossroads, the Iron family, even Scout) and changes the interaction with some attacks (Rabble gets hard-countered while Bureaucrat gets stronger).
Triggers: The Estates become yours as soon a you buy them, and stay your until they are trashed. That means you can make use of any on-buy, on-gain of on-trash triggers. Ever wanted to trash a Hunting Grounds, gaining 3 more Hunting Grounds?
Tokens: Tokens placed on the pile you inherited from are sadly not copied, and you cannot place tokens on the Estate pile.