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[Titandrake]

...

Not clever.

It wasn't clear to me whether you were being serious. It's hard to trust a person who decides writing a joke article about Pathfinding + Cursed Village is a good idea. I decided to troll back.

It's now clear to me that yes you were actually serious and okay I'll take this seriously now.

My take is that you have a point that is wrapped up in a lot of complaining that isn't actually important for your argument.

The TL;DR of your post is something like, "The Peasant line is very strong, so you always have to go for it, and if you miss a Traveller upgrade, or your Traveller upgrade misses the shuffle, then you're really far behind and the game isn't even close to ending because you still have to wait for them to hit Teacher first." That's not the whole TL;DR but it's most of it. But like, you haven't even written any of this. You've written around this point by complaining about a hypothetical player who's worse than you but is winning because of better luck. This certainly happens but complaining about a person who's only winning because of luck is the fastest way to make you sound petty.

If Peasant really is your number one most hated card in Dominion, it isn't enough to list reasons why Peasant is annoying, you have to list reasons why other cards aren't as annoying. Off the top of my head, why not KC or Swindler or Tournament or Cultist? I don't want hot takes, I want well argued hot takes.

[Donald X.]

The beauty of having a ban list - or playing irl where everyone has it - is that there can be cool fun cards like Peasant and King's Court and people who hate them don't have to play with them.

[Holunder9]

You've written around this point by complaining about a hypothetical player who's worse than you but is winning because of better luck.

It is also, if take markus' data as correct and representative which I cannot judge, factually wrong.

[Seprix]

Hunting Grounds, Minion, Sauna/Avanto, there are numerous cards in Dominion which support mono-card strategies.

Adventures indeed does not but events like Lost Arts or Pathfinding are far more radical than Peasant-Teacher here. Teacher sometimes spreads around more than 1 token in which case you need several copies of more than just one card in your deck. Sometimes it makes sense to keep a Peasant around as source of extra Buys, sometimes you can afford to gift the Buy token to a pile.

Compared to a Minion game this really is anything but "centralizing".

I'm guessing you mean LurkerGrounds by mono-strategy, because Hunting Grounds is never going to be a mono strategy, let alone centralizing.

Okay, let me define centralizing in this context, because there appears to be some confusion. If you can pretty much never skip it, it's centralizing. I'm talking overalls here, not single boards, not mono strategies.

Lost Arts and Pathfinding (except with Cursed Village) are absolutely not more radical than Teacher. Maybe I'm misunderstanding radical, but those two cards are so much less swingy?

It wasn't clear to me whether you were being serious. It's hard to trust a person who decides writing a joke article about Pathfinding + Cursed Village is a good idea. I decided to troll back.

It's now clear to me that yes you were actually serious and okay I'll take this seriously now.

My take is that you have a point that is wrapped up in a lot of complaining that isn't actually important for your argument.

The TL;DR of your post is something like, "The Peasant line is very strong, so you always have to go for it, and if you miss a Traveller upgrade, or your Traveller upgrade misses the shuffle, then you're really far behind and the game isn't even close to ending because you still have to wait for them to hit Teacher first." That's not the whole TL;DR but it's most of it. But like, you haven't even written any of this. You've written around this point by complaining about a hypothetical player who's worse than you but is winning because of better luck. This certainly happens but complaining about a person who's only winning because of luck is the fastest way to make you sound petty.

If Peasant really is your number one most hated card in Dominion, it isn't enough to list reasons why Peasant is annoying, you have to list reasons why other cards aren't as annoying. Off the top of my head, why not KC or Swindler or Tournament or Cultist? I don't want hot takes, I want well argued hot takes.

I still can't believe Pathfinding/Cursed Village isn't an obvious joke.

Well the real thing here is there's no point writing well-structured arguments on why you hate a card. Yeah, what applies to Peasant applies to other situations in Dominion, but Peasant in many ways encapsulates every one of those annoyances, all into one set of cards. Especially with no trashing. Play a set of Peasant games without any trashing. Ugh.

The point about having to justify my hatred for one card over other cards is really weird and makes no sense. Maybe I don't hate King's Court at all. You seem to think that it deserves it. I mean yeah there's those nonsense no trashing boards where you never connect KC-thing and the other guy does. Boy those suck hard. But King's Court isn't a card I hate. See, King's Court offers a wide swath of strategies and ways to play, and you have to play creatively and outside of the box quite often. With Peasant, it's brain-dead, there's not a lot of decisions that truly matter. Swindler? Yeah, Swindler is annoying. But everyone knows it's chaos incarnate. I guess I logically have to hate it as much as Peasant, except I don't, because that's not how this works.

Long story short, I don't think I could write a thesis on Peasant hatred that an English professor would be satisfied with. I guess that means I have no ultimate point. I dunno, at least this started an interesting discussion. That's nice, I like seeing conversations.

[Holunder9]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding radical, but those two cards are so much less swingy?

Most def. If the data says that the card is one of the most skill-dependent one that's the total opposite of your claim, namely that it is one of the most luck-dependent ones.

With Peasant, it's brain-dead, there's not a lot of decisions that truly matter.

Again, the data seems to disagree with you. And it is pretty obvious that Peasant, or Traveller lines in general, are one of  the most difficult cards to handle well. For example in a Kingdom without additional sources of extra buys, you have to judge whether you have the time to put the Buy token on a card or whether you have to add a Peasant (as a Herbalist) to your deck. This isn't trivial.
You could easily miss, in Kingdoms with other Attacks that Soldier could become a good payload card. But even if you see this you still gotta time a late Page buy well.

Dominion is game with luck and a game without anti-kingmaking mechanisms. So an explosive, snowballing engine card like  KC or Peasant can appear to be unfair or whatever. That's no reason to ramble though. It is not as if Peasant is Rebuild or Cultist level strong.
It is like playing Base, you draw your Chapel on turn 5 whereas the other dude draws it on turn 3 and trashes 3 Estates. Does this mean that Chapel is bad?

See, King's Court offers a wide swath of strategies and ways to play, and you have to play creatively and outside of the box quite often.

Eh, compared to Peasant, nope. Get some KCs, when you play them KC the (situationally) best card in your hand. End of story.
And yes, this is intentional hyperbole. Of course it is not that simple. But the notion that Peasant is more simple to play than the supposedly hypercreative King's Court is pretty ludicrous.

[Titandrake]

Honestly, I don't think the data is this big smoking gun. The old wisdom (idk if this is still true) is that Tournament and Black Market, two cards known for being swingy, are also both cards that make the better player win more often. The distinction is how swingy they are in the game, and how swingy they are across games.

Here's a simplified scenario. Let's assume that the reason good players win more with Black Market is because they can identify more cards that are important. So say, 20% of Black Market plays win them the game, instead of just 10%. These are just random numbers, don't read into them too much. Then, a better player wins more often because they can identify the extra 10% of wins that weaker players don't. But within the single game, it still looks like "Oh, I got the right Black Market buy and they didn't. That's no fun." Having better odds of pressing the "you win" button doesn't make actually pressing the "you win" button more fun, because there's no art in pressing a "you win" button. It's only fun if you like figuring out how to increase those odds, and it balances out the salt of losing despite playing it right.

So back to Seprix. I never said you didn't like King's Court. In fact, I like King's Court. I don't think it deserves hate, it's a fun card and I like playing with it on the board. I'm also not saying your opinion makes no sense because I can see parts of where you're coming from. The main thing I'm curious about is what makes Peasant special, because as far as I could tell, replacing "Peasant" with "King's Court" required changing very little about the rest of your argument. And as you noted, "Peasant" --> "Page" does a similar thing. It's not just that other cards share situations, it's that these card seem to share all the same critiques.

I wanted to know what piece was missing, that would make the argument only make sense with Peasant, and not with other cards. That, to me, is the interesting part of this. Logical self-consistency is a pipe dream, but in my experience there's usually something that resolves the contradiction (even if it takes a while to figuring out exactly how to say it.)

[Awaclus]

I still can't believe Pathfinding/Cursed Village isn't an obvious joke.

It is. The problem is that this also looks like an obvious joke.

[Chris is me]

There are way more meaningful choices in a Peasant game than you're making it out to be. Sure, adding reliable draw to a board follows a similar script, but the order of the token selections, decision to Teacher or Disciple, pacing, payload, etc are still meaningful choices. Maybe don't blame your losses on shuffles and figure out what other choices you could have made, such as a carefully timed +Buy or +Coin token.

[Beyond Awesome]

So, a card that almost no one ever talks about, but I'm sure is super swingy is Inheritance. Like a lot of the times getting Inheritance first is an auto win

[Commodore Chuckles]

So, a card that almost no one ever talks about, but I'm sure is super swingy is Inheritance. Like a lot of the times getting Inheritance first is an auto win

Yes, it can be very swingy. I think people complain about it less than, say, Tournament because sometimes it's actually terrible.

[markus]

Some cards tend to lead to snowballing and one player eventually crushing the other one. As a result, Peasant, Tournament, Ambassador and King's Court all have high resign rates. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they favour lower skill. Better players could make it more likely that they are the ones who come out ahead. (Tournament and Ambassador seem to help the weaker player a bit; Swindler and Chariot Race are the cards that seem to help weaker players the most, where weaker still means good player > level 50)

If your Chapel misses on a normal board and you are 1-2 turns behind in the end, it might feel better, but the chance of you actually winning the game are reduced to a similar extent as when Peasant misses.

[werothegreat]

All these words spent in this thread and still no one has reminded Seprix that Warrior trashing Warrior is far more swingy than anything the Peasant line does.

[Chappy7]

All these words spent in this thread and still no one has reminded Seprix that Warrior trashing Warrior is far more swingy than anything the Peasant line does.

Well I said this  "I hate that Warriors can trash Warriors, which is just begging for trouble."

[markusin]

...

Not clever.

I don't know about that, it sounds like a super long copy-pasta in the making.

All this time, and no one has mentioned how swingy Urchin/Mercenary is. Urchin really rubs it in your face when you are less lucky than your opponent, as you keep getting attacked. And there are no guarantees concerning when you will finally get a Mercenary. And then of course the other player's Mercenary attacks your own Mercenary hand. Like Peasant, it's not monolithic because you need other cards to win, but it's trashing, and maybe it's the best trashing and you have to go for it with a dumb double or even triple Urchin opening.

The worst part is the "lol no skill noob super lucky get good" saltiness it induces online. This might be the biggest reason for me to ban it.

Urchin is maybe less "centralizing" than Peasant as it is probably skippable in more games than Peasant. The snowball effect on it is still unreal.

[Commodore Chuckles]

All this time, and no one has mentioned how swingy Urchin/Mercenary is. Urchin really rubs it in your face when you are less lucky than your opponent, as you keep getting attacked. And there are no guarantees concerning when you will finally get a Mercenary. And then of course the other player's Mercenary attacks your own Mercenary hand. Like Peasant, it's not monolithic because you need other cards to win, but it's trashing, and maybe it's the best trashing and you have to go for it with a dumb double or even triple Urchin opening.

The worst part is the "lol no skill noob super lucky get good" saltiness it induces online. This might be the biggest reason for me to ban it.

Urchin is maybe less "centralizing" than Peasant as it is probably skippable in more games than Peasant. The snowball effect on it is still unreal.

Well, that's probably because this is a thread about Peasant, instead of just any card you hate. Regardless, everything you said is true. Unlike Peasant, I do hate Urchin, and would ban it in a heartbeat if I could.

[Kirian]

But hate on. And please ban-list, you can't come sooner. *stares at Sauna*

*stares in Rebuild*

[ehunt]

the most unfair card in Dominion though is Trade Route.

[NoMoreFun]

Must buy cards are ok IMO as long as they involve the rest of the kingdom to be powerful. It's why I like Chapel and KC but can't stand Rebuild.

Both Page and Peasant generally get their strength from how they affect other cards.

[NoMoreFun]

Like Peasant, it's not monolithic because you need other cards to win, but it's trashing, and maybe it's the best trashing and you have to go for it with a dumb double or even triple Urchin opening.

One of my big pet peeves is attacks which often get bought  for reasons other than the attack, but whose attacks are pretty strong anyway. I should be thinking about the fact I'm attacking my opponent and how the attack would impact their strategy, not just giving them a bad time as a side effect.

[Cave-o-sapien]

The beauty of having a ban list - or playing irl where everyone has it - is that there can be cool fun cards like Peasant and King's Court and people who hate them don't have to play with them.

It also means you can take a break from those cards, then realize you miss them, and enjoy them again.

[Beyond Awesome]

The beauty of having a ban list - or playing irl where everyone has it - is that there can be cool fun cards like Peasant and King's Court and people who hate them don't have to play with them.

It also means you can take a break from those cards, then realize you miss them, and enjoy them again.

I haven't missed Possession yet.

[greybirdofprey]

The beauty of having a ban list - or playing irl where everyone has it - is that there can be cool fun cards like Peasant and King's Court and people who hate them don't have to play with them.

It also means you can take a break from those cards, then realize you miss them, and enjoy them again.

I haven't missed Possession yet.

Yup, every time I try Possession again there is not a single other player who enjoys it.
In fact, the only ragequits I've ever seen in Dominion are Possession-related.

[Commodore Chuckles]

the most unfair card in Dominion though is Trade Route.

I'm still struggling to get the joke...

[Uiteindelijk]

Like Peasant, it's not monolithic because you need other cards to win, but it's trashing, and maybe it's the best trashing and you have to go for it with a dumb double or even triple Urchin opening.

One of my big pet peeves is attacks which often get bought  for reasons other than the attack, but whose attacks are pretty strong anyway. I should be thinking about the fact I'm attacking my opponent and how the attack would impact their strategy, not just giving them a bad time as a side effect.

Yes, this is a big reason my girlfriend and I stopped playing with attacks - she doesn't appreciate being hit by the same attack every turn, and Minion is great at that. Of course, I only bought the Minions because they stack really well; the attack was an afterthought for me. Of course, I considered simply removing the attack aspect from such cards, including Scrying Pool, but I haven't felt like doing that so I just removed attacks entirely.

In essence, it doesn't seem great to put a unique and useful mechanic on a card, and then also give it an attack that the player doesn't even necessarily want to use.

[Simon Jester]

Like Peasant, it's not monolithic because you need other cards to win, but it's trashing, and maybe it's the best trashing and you have to go for it with a dumb double or even triple Urchin opening.

One of my big pet peeves is attacks which often get bought  for reasons other than the attack, but whose attacks are pretty strong anyway. I should be thinking about the fact I'm attacking my opponent and how the attack would impact their strategy, not just giving them a bad time as a side effect.

Yes, this is a big reason my girlfriend and I stopped playing with attacks - she doesn't appreciate being hit by the same attack every turn, and Minion is great at that. Of course, I only bought the Minions because they stack really well; the attack was an afterthought for me. Of course, I considered simply removing the attack aspect from such cards, including Scrying Pool, but I haven't felt like doing that so I just removed attacks entirely.

In essence, it doesn't seem great to put a unique and useful mechanic on a card, and then also give it an attack that the player doesn't even necessarily want to use.

Depends on the player. There is a lot of us out there that want more attacks and heavy player interaction in one way or another. Adding these things "unnecessarily" is for us, more or less. One of the most interesting and rewarding aspects of Dominion is to learn how to counter and oneself utilize attacks to the max. Torturer and heck even Ghost Ship is among my favorite cards for this reason. 

I can agree that the spyfunction on SP is annoying, but that is a problem with the spy-mechanic, not attacks.