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[Jacob marley]

Alchemy is an interesting thought, maybe even a 2nd edition.  I think Alchemy might not be worth salvaging, at least not urgently.

Alchemy needed a second edition way more than Intrigue.

People hate it so much as-is that a rework might have not attracted much attention.  There are also some balance and tempo problems intrinsic to having an alternate currency, and it might take a very long time to fix all of them together as a set.

Also, Scout.  (Mill is a nice re-work too.)

There's not really anything wrong with Alchemy anyway, aside from Transmute being rather weak.  I think the best thing that could be done would simply have been upgrading it to a 300 card set.  But that would take a lot of work and a lot of testing.

Other problems:
Spy attack on Scrying Pool
Possession - When it can be used to spend another players coin tokens, or muck up their adventures tokens (+1 card/action/etc), it becomes an attack that is not an attack, which is a big problem.

[Beyond Awesome]

Familiar's cost should also be $2p

[Jacob marley]

Possession is the most hated card among casual players. I would drop it because of how much it turns people off.

It goes beyond hatred.  Given all the non-card assets that have been introduced in Guilds and adventures, Possession is very much an attack now, but it is not called an attack and cannot be defended against as attacks can.  This is a mechanical problem that cannot be addressed without a major rewrite of the card.  Best to get rid of it.

[Awaclus]

It goes beyond hatred.  Given all the non-card assets that have been introduced in Guilds and adventures, Possession is very much an attack now, but it is not called an attack and cannot be defended against as attacks can.  This is a mechanical problem that cannot be addressed without a major rewrite of the card.  Best to get rid of it.

What is or is not an Attack is completely arbitrary — while your opponent's Militia might hurt your chances of winning the game, your opponent's Bridge might hurt your chances of winning the game just as much if not more. Even though you might perceive revealing a Moat to an Attack as "defending" because of flavor, you're really just reacting to the fact that a card with the type Attack is played, and it's to be expected that you can't react to a card with the type Attack being played when a card without the type is played.

[sudgy]

I personally am kind of hoping for an unlikely Dominion: Rebuilt.
I'm not sure how it would work exactly, and it's probably a very bad idea money-wise, but I can dream. A set with Feast for 2$, some sort of working Adventurer and Thief, a Rebuild that doesn't suck, Cultist with an "or" clause, errataed Possession, fast Scrying pool, cheaper Familiar, maybe even all of Alchemy rebuffed plus some.

Your wish was partly granted!

Jinx.

Oops...  I saw the new post then read the rest of the thread because I forgot about it...

[Holger]

Possession is the most hated card among casual players. I would drop it because of how much it turns people off.

It goes beyond hatred.  Given all the non-card assets that have been introduced in Guilds and adventures, Possession is very much an attack now, but it is not called an attack and cannot be defended against as attacks can.  This is a mechanical problem that cannot be addressed without a major rewrite of the card.  Best to get rid of it.

IGG is a much worse "pseudo-Attack" than Possession. Whether Possession has the Attack type or not would rarely matter anyway, since there's only 3 cards in all of Dominion which can prevent an Attack, plus only one or two that would help the Possessed rather than the Possessor (Secret Chamber/Diplomat to make your possessed hand worse and occasionally Beggar). And it's good that you can't trash Squire to gain Possession.

[Aleimon Thimble]

There's not really anything wrong with Alchemy anyway, aside from Transmute being rather weak.

I strongly disagree. Almost half of the cards in Alchemy have a significant design flaw, and percentage-wise, that makes it the worst set by far, way worse even than the old Base set. (Even though I will admit it also has a couple of the coolest cards, including Apothecary, University, Golem and Apprentice, whereas the Base set by comparison is fairly bland.)

- Transmute is terribly underpowered, might be even worse than Scout.
- Philosopher's Stone is also too weak and rarely useful.
- Possession has the immense FAQ, the rules confusion, the errata, and so on. The idea is cool, but it might just be unfixable.
- Scrying Pool takes too much time to resolve (even though it's a great card otherwise).
- Familiar is too swingy.
(- Herbalist is okay but also a bit on the weak side)

[McGarnacle]

There's not really anything wrong with Alchemy anyway, aside from Transmute being rather weak.

I strongly disagree. Almost half of the cards in Alchemy have a significant design flaw, and percentage-wise, that makes it the worst set by far, way worse even than the old Base set. (Even though I will admit it also has a couple of the coolest cards, including Apothecary, University, Golem and Apprentice, whereas the Base set by comparison is fairly bland.)

- Transmute is terribly underpowered, might be even worse than Scout.
- Philosopher's Stone is also too weak and rarely useful.
- Possession has the immense FAQ, the rules confusion, the errata, and so on. The idea is cool, but it might just be unfixable.
- Scrying Pool takes too much time to resolve (even though it's a great card otherwise).
- Familiar is too swingy.
(- Herbalist is okay but also a bit on the weak side)

I'm a big fan of Alchemy, so I tend to agree with Wero.
- Transmute I agree with.
- PS is weak, but not unusable
- Possession is obnoxious, but I just check the FAQ when I play. You often don't buy it, but it still changes the game, which is cool.
- Scrying Pool is better when both players go for it. Max they play 5-6 a turn (Bcs you both bought some). Yes, it is painful, but the idea is really cool. KC can take forever, too, or Magpie, Menagerie, etc.
- Familiar is swingy, but not terrible.
- Herbalist is, like PS, weak, but I still get it sometimes. Sometimes I even spend for it...

[Minotaur]

There's not really anything wrong with Alchemy anyway, aside from Transmute being rather weak.

I strongly disagree. Almost half of the cards in Alchemy have a significant design flaw, and percentage-wise, that makes it the worst set by far, way worse even than the old Base set. (Even though I will admit it also has a couple of the coolest cards, including Apothecary, University, Golem and Apprentice, whereas the Base set by comparison is fairly bland.)

- Transmute is terribly underpowered, might be even worse than Scout.
- Philosopher's Stone is also too weak and rarely useful.
- Possession has the immense FAQ, the rules confusion, the errata, and so on. The idea is cool, but it might just be unfixable.
- Scrying Pool takes too much time to resolve (even though it's a great card otherwise).
- Familiar is too swingy.
(- Herbalist is okay but also a bit on the weak side)

I'm a big fan of Alchemy, so I tend to agree with Wero.
- Transmute I agree with.
- PS is weak, but not unusable
- Possession is obnoxious, but I just check the FAQ when I play. You often don't buy it, but it still changes the game, which is cool.
- Scrying Pool is better when both players go for it. Max they play 5-6 a turn (Bcs you both bought some). Yes, it is painful, but the idea is really cool. KC can take forever, too, or Magpie, Menagerie, etc.
- Familiar is swingy, but not terrible.
- Herbalist is, like PS, weak, but I still get it sometimes. Sometimes I even spend for it...

I can't trust someone who likes Cornucopia.  I'm still bitter about Tournament being a thing.

[Jacob marley]

Possession is the most hated card among casual players. I would drop it because of how much it turns people off.

It goes beyond hatred.  Given all the non-card assets that have been introduced in Guilds and adventures, Possession is very much an attack now, but it is not called an attack and cannot be defended against as attacks can.  This is a mechanical problem that cannot be addressed without a major rewrite of the card.  Best to get rid of it.

IGG is a much worse "pseudo-Attack" than Possession. Whether Possession has the Attack type or not would rarely matter anyway, since there's only 3 cards in all of Dominion which can prevent an Attack, plus only one or two that would help the Possessed rather than the Possessor (Secret Chamber/Diplomat to make your possessed hand worse and occasionally Beggar). And it's good that you can't trash Squire to gain Possession.

There is one key factor you are missing.  By design, attacks affect all other players, while Possession only affects the player to your left.  In 2 player, this distinction is meaningless, but in 3+ it is significant.  When player A plays a Militia, B, C, and D all either discard or block the attack through moat or lighthouse.  When player A possesses, they can can spend all of player B's coin tokens, or turn B's disciples into unwanted teachers, or move adventures tokens to useless cards, etc to damage B's chances, but C and D are unaffected. 

By the design of the game, cards that are attacks should have the potential to damage all other players, cards that are not attacks should not damage any players.  If cards were the only game pieces, you can argue that possession does not actually damage the possessed player (though there are certainly times where this happens, such as when the possessor discards the possessed players alchemist chain when he could top deck it) since deck composition is unchanged after the possessed turn.  In the presence of all the other additions mentioned above, possession in effect becomes an attack that damages only one player.  In 3+ player, I view this as unacceptable, and therefore view the card as fundamentally flawed in it's concept.  Fixing it is impractical at best.  I feel that the card is fixable and should not be part of the game.

[GendoIkari]

I have no problem with the pseudo-attack part of Possession... it only matters in combination with a few specific cards, and in those cases it generally just means that going for those few specific isn't a great idea of Possession is on the board.

I do have a problem with 2 things about Possession though...

1. While Mission and Outpost go out of their way to ensure that you can't get more than 1 extra turn out of them, Possession doesn't do that. Playing multiple Possessions in a turn is just so game-warping.

2. The rules confusion. Aside from the fact that the card itself is wordier than any other, the interactions it has with Outpost, other Possessions, etc, still cause rules questions to this day, and it's about the only thing in Dominion where the answer to a "how does this work" isn't just "do what the card says, literally, in order, doing as much as you can".

[grrgrrgrr]

-A promo card for those owning all expansions?

I was thinking about the following:

Name: Mixed Village
Price: $5
Effect: +2 Actions, +1 Card, play both cards from the Mixed Village mat, ignoring the +2 actions, +1 card part.
Setup: Put two Action cards in the Mixed Village mat, that have +2 actions, +1 card in their effect, that cost $4.