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[sumrex]

Here it does not matter if the card is strong or weak, lets try to think about what cards are badly designed and how they could have come out better.

Bandit: Terrible for the Base Game as in there it devolves into Bandit BM almost every time, especially when playing with newer players. Thief was there to show that you should not rely on treasure alone, Bandit makes this laughably easy. New player wont get better using this.

Wizards: I know almost nobody plays in 5player games, but the shere possibility that one person almost instaloses because its not possible for them to buy the only trasher in the kingdom is extremely rough. Same for Sauna and 6p.

Hero: A BM card in a line that exclusively helps engines? And the treasure gaining isnt even optional. No matter what strategy you use, this line always has a card that you really dont want but have to play.

Cutpurse: The possibility alone that this leaves you with no way to ever recover is bad. Copper costs 0 because normally no matter how you play you can always buy copper and come back. Not with this. You wont ever get any kind of economy. Of course this mostly needs multiplayer, but there the wrong opening buy can already seal your tomb.

What are some cards for you that you think are badly designed?

[segura]

Bandit is weak and its presence does not undo the possibility of an engine Kingdom.

You really wanna evaluate a card based on 5P and 6P games? Like, „hey, Village sucks, I only get 2 in 5P games and if I am unlucky I only get 1.“

Hero is fine. You go hard on terminal draw in Champion Kingdoms so you don’t mind getting some payload en passant.

[Awaclus]

Bandit: Terrible for the Base Game as in there it devolves into Bandit BM almost every time, especially when playing with newer players. Thief was there to show that you should not rely on treasure alone, Bandit makes this laughably easy. New player wont get better using this.

Bandit is not a BM card, it is a card that punishes BM. If the engine components aren't there, I guess it's possible for Bandit/BM to be the best strategy, but man, the engine components are there a lot of the time in 2ed base only.

[Gherald]

I disagree with the OP, none of those cards are badly designed.

An example of a badly designed card is Potion and any card with that in its cost. But seriously Alchemy does have the most notably bad cards, for example Scrying Pool's attack takes too long to resolve, only masochists enjoy Possession, Transmute is a joke, and when was the last time you made Philosopher's Stone work even with Herbalist.

[Imrahil3]

Strangest hot takes I have ever seen.

I can’t tell you how many times I have absolutely whaled on somebody with Bandits with little or no retaliation and still either just barely won or outright lost.

Have you ever actually had a Cutpurse stalemate in a real game?

Student is such a weird trasher and slows down your deck cycling so much in the early game that I don’t consider it to be a huge loss. My bigger issue with the Wizards and similar split piles is that most of them would be more interesting if they were regular stacks of 10. Warlord especially would be very healthy for the game if it weren’t so hard to get to and split evenly.

[LastFootnote]

Hero: A BM card in a line that exclusively helps engines? And the treasure gaining isnt even optional. No matter what strategy you use, this line always has a card that you really dont want but have to play.

This is great actually. If all five members of the Page line were engine components, it would just be a one-pile engine. That would be bad design. Sauna/Avanto sort of shows how this can happen.

[silverspawn]

Imo, Fisherman. This card, what even is this card. 90% of the time it involves no strategy, you're just either lucky and get a ridiculously straight-forward and always desirable card in your deck for cheap, or you're not lucky and don't get that. When it does involve strategy (i.e., making your discard pile empty on purpose), said strategy is usually ridiculously straight-forward as well.

I mean, there were cards I disliked a lot more, but trying to be impartial, I can't think of another pick.

[Awaclus]

Student is such a weird trasher and slows down your deck cycling so much in the early game that I don’t consider it to be a huge loss.

It slows down your deck cycling by putting a good card on top of your deck. It is legitimately sometimes immediately resign-worthy if your opponent can rotate the Wizards before you get a chance to buy Student, but obviously that doesn't happen very often.

[segura]

Wizard is mitigated by so many things (always a trasher, decks are usually already thin, only one Curse per turn) that it is fairly weak in my opinion.

[X-tra]

I find it peculiar that you point towards the Page line, but targeted Hero instead of the obvious candidate for such a thread: Warrior.

I think the story is known by most by now, but a Warrior trashing an opponent's Warrior is not what I would consider the pinnacle of good design. It is an unfortunate effect that is even more likely to occur in multiplayer games, where only a handful of players get to be the lucky ones, while the others are left to smile and pretend they're having fun.

Meanwhile, Hero is a great card to add decent payload to an engine that basically plays itself via Champion. The real detrimental card to your Champion pursuit is Treasure Hunter, as it can add one or many stop cards early on with a deck that should barely have any control by this point. Treasure Hunter is a direct interference, and it has been designed that way to slow the speed at which you get Champion, just like Teacher was made a Reserve card to slow it as well.

[sumrex]

Bandit: Terrible for the Base Game as in there it devolves into Bandit BM almost every time, especially when playing with newer players. Thief was there to show that you should not rely on treasure alone, Bandit makes this laughably easy. New player wont get better using this.

Bandit is not a BM card, it is a card that punishes BM. If the engine components aren't there, I guess it's possible for Bandit/BM to be the best strategy, but man, the engine components are there a lot of the time in 2ed base only.

Always when ive shown new players bandit they bought a whole bunch of bandits and piled out gold. It doesnt matter if they win or lose, a gold gainer in base alone is questionable imo.

[sumrex]

Bandit is weak and its presence does not undo the possibility of an engine Kingdom.

You really wanna evaluate a card based on 5P and 6P games? Like, „hey, Village sucks, I only get 2 in 5P games and if I am unlucky I only get 1.“

Hero is fine. You go hard on terminal draw in Champion Kingdoms so you don’t mind getting some payload en passant.

Some cards scale better or worse, engines might be harder if the access to villages is limited because of the player, nobody cares. But if you have no chance, no matter what to get access to a critical component just because of my chair placement, nah not a good time

[sumrex]

Strangest hot takes I have ever seen.

I can’t tell you how many times I have absolutely whaled on somebody with Bandits with little or no retaliation and still either just barely won or outright lost.

Have you ever actually had a Cutpurse stalemate in a real game?

Student is such a weird trasher and slows down your deck cycling so much in the early game that I don’t consider it to be a huge loss. My bigger issue with the Wizards and similar split piles is that most of them would be more interesting if they were regular stacks of 10. Warlord especially would be very healthy for the game if it weren’t so hard to get to and split evenly.

Actually yes, one time. If it would only discard down to 3 coppers you could at least get out by buying silver a bunch, but not here.

[segura]

Bandit: Terrible for the Base Game as in there it devolves into Bandit BM almost every time, especially when playing with newer players. Thief was there to show that you should not rely on treasure alone, Bandit makes this laughably easy. New player wont get better using this.

Bandit is not a BM card, it is a card that punishes BM. If the engine components aren't there, I guess it's possible for Bandit/BM to be the best strategy, but man, the engine components are there a lot of the time in 2ed base only.

Always when ive shown new players bandit they bought a whole bunch of bandits and piled out gold. It doesnt matter if they win or lose, a gold gainer in base alone is questionable imo.

And because new players overvalued Bandit the card is overpowered?
That is like claiming that Thief is superstrong because all newbies were afraid of it.

[sumrex]

Wizard is mitigated by so many things (always a trasher, decks are usually already thin, only one Curse per turn) that it is fairly weak in my opinion.

Sorry, i meant the student in the wizards pile.

[sumrex]

Imo, Fisherman. This card, what even is this card. 90% of the time it involves no strategy, you're just either lucky and get a ridiculously straight-forward and always desirable card in your deck for cheap, or you're not lucky and don't get that. When it does involve strategy (i.e., making your discard pile empty on purpose), said strategy is usually ridiculously straight-forward as well.

I mean, there were cards I disliked a lot more, but trying to be impartial, I can't think of another pick.

Yeah, getting a 2/5 really makes one sad, its on my banlist lol. It encourages a strategy that is always the best strat either way, so whats the point. At least philosophers stone, gardens, counting house etc let you build your dekc in another way you dont usually do, no matter how bad some of these may be.

[Awaclus]

Always when ive shown new players bandit they bought a whole bunch of bandits and piled out gold. It doesnt matter if they win or lose, a gold gainer in base alone is questionable imo.

I don't think n00bs playing bad strategies and losing makes a game poorly designed.

[sumrex]

Always when ive shown new players bandit they bought a whole bunch of bandits and piled out gold. It doesnt matter if they win or lose, a gold gainer in base alone is questionable imo.

I don't think n00bs playing bad strategies and losing makes a game poorly designed.

But cards that encourage n00bs playing bad strategies and losing in the set most noobs come across makes it. I like leprechaun and market square, i dont dislike gold gainers but a straight always goldgainer in base?

[segura]

Always when ive shown new players bandit they bought a whole bunch of bandits and piled out gold. It doesnt matter if they win or lose, a gold gainer in base alone is questionable imo.

I don't think n00bs playing bad strategies and losing makes a game poorly designed.

But cards that encourage n00bs playing bad strategies and losing in the set most noobs come across makes it. I like leprechaun and market square, i dont dislike gold gainers but a straight always goldgainer in base?

So Thief and Treasure Map are also overpowered? Just because new players misevaluate them?
Dude, that is simply not a sound argument.

[silverspawn]

duuuuuude

[Águia Branca]

Always when ive shown new players bandit they bought a whole bunch of bandits and piled out gold. It doesnt matter if they win or lose, a gold gainer in base alone is questionable imo.

I don't think n00bs playing bad strategies and losing makes a game poorly designed.

But cards that encourage n00bs playing bad strategies and losing in the set most noobs come across makes it. I like leprechaun and market square, i dont dislike gold gainers but a straight always goldgainer in base?

So Thief and Treasure Map are also overpowered? Just because new players misevaluate them?
Dude, that is simply not a sound argument.

Nobody said they were overpowered, just criticizing them for misleading new players. Which I don't fully agree with, but...
Dude, don't strawman people.

[segura]

Dude, no strawman intended. The notion that the card is bad or overpowered or sucks or whatever because newbies don’t get it is beyond wrong.

On the other hand, if you play with 5 or 6 player, Bandit is significantly stronger. Then again, as Dominion does not scale well beyond 3 players, the meta problem is likely that high player count.

[LordBaphomet]

Surprised everyone is arguing about bandit instead of mentioning shit like wharf, margrave, etc that are just beyond broken.

[J Reggie]

If we're going to talk about base 2e cards, I think Sentry is the real culprit here. It's really swingy as a trasher, sometimes trashing two estates for one player while the other player is stuck putting good cards back on top. It also presents the player with a total of 10 different options on play, which imo is too much for base set.

But the great thing about dominion is for every 1 badly designed card there's like 100 well designed card, so you can just not play with the ones you don't like.

[Águia Branca]

Surprised everyone is arguing about bandit instead of mentioning shit like wharf, margrave, etc that are just beyond broken.

Broken or weak cards are explicitly not what this thread is about.

There are many examples of (arguably) suboptimal design in Dominion, most of which have been discussed ad nauseam (Possession, Rebuild, Governor, Swindler, Cultist, Spy and many other slow topdeck attacks and / or filterers). Other than those, I think the card design in Dominion is generally quite good. There are, however, some mechanics and some big picture stuff I dislike:
- Boons, Hexes and Loot; needlessly complex and swingy. Boons and Hexes were pretty unpopular already, why did there need to be Loot? In my opinion, Loot is actually even worse. The most meaningful difference between the Loots is often whether they have +Buy or not. Bad luck in that regard can easily decide a game, depending on how quickly you can get more of them. Apart from that, does the difference between, say, Amphora and Jewels, really justify a randomized 30 card pile you have to carry, get out of the box, shuffle and get familiar with?
- Potion costs (as mentioned by Gherald)
- The explosion of ways to play Action cards in the Buy phase, Treasure cards in the Action phase and Reaction cards just whenever you goddamn please is probably justfied by the amount of design space it uncovers, but there is a real cost with how much it distorts the flow of the game and confuses new players.
- The push of Engines has made Money and Slog games much less common, which is great for many expert players, but not so good for most casual players who don't typically enjoy sitting through 10 minute turns by their opponents. While Slogs and Money usually take more turns, those turns are much shorter and the games are more engaging and manageable. Also, it's now quite rare now to seriously have to decide between playing Engine or Money; Engine is almost always correct if there is a way to draw at all (you may not always have +Buy, but there are now so many gainers that single gain games are borderline exotic).