As it was foretold so long ago, so it has come to pass: the Dominion: Rising Sun expansion. Here I am with previews.
The future of Dominion is things that happen in the future. Prophecies are landscapes that change the game, but don't apply at the start of the game; it takes Omens being played a certain number of times before they happen. And Omens are just cards with a Sun symbol, which means you remove a token from the Prophecy. Let's see some of each.
So let's say Rustic Village is in this game, and also Rapid Expansion, and also it's a 2-player game. Rapid Expansion starts with 5 tokens on it; each play of Rustic Village removes a token; when the last token is removed, now you're going to start setting aside gained Actions and Treasures and having them leap into play next turn. The Prophecy applies to everyone and is just part of the game once that last token leaves it. Further +Suns don't do anything. There's no guarantee the Prophecy will ever happen, but the Omens tend to really encourage it.
It's 5 tokens with 2 players, 8 with 3, 10 with 4, 12 with 5, and 13 with 6. So now you know that. There are 6 Omens and 15 Prophecies, and you only use one Prophecy per game, even if there are multiple Omens.
Let's look at those Omens again.
- River Shrine is a trasher, and also can gain you a card if you don't gain anything in the Buy phase. There are probably situations where that comes in handy. It's cumulative, two River Shrines will gain you two cards.
- Rustic Village is simply a village that lets you do a little filtering. It's a poor exchange rate but you'll do it plenty.
- Poet is one of those sometimes-Labs, this time drawing cards costing $3 or less.
And there are three Prophecies today.
- Rapid Expansion makes gained Actions and Treasures leap into play next turn. Gain 8 cards and you will have 8 things waiting. Gain a Copper and well that will be waiting. Most things are happy to be set aside like this, but some can be sad; consider Sculptor.
- Panic means all of your Treasures will go away, but give +2 Buys while they vanish. You will have to somehow make progress without Treasures, or else buy a lot of Coppers back. Which you'll have the buys to do; we think of everything.
- Kind Emperor simply hands over an Action at the start of each turn, and when you first trigger it. Take an expensive one, or the one that your hand needs.
That's the previews! While you can't play with the cards yet, the playtesters can, and there will be videos of them playing with the new cards through the week, probably showing up about an hour after the previews.