SnowballingImagine standing on top of a mountain. You see some nice white fluffy snow. Absent mindedly, you pick some up and make a nice round ball. As you wave to your friend down at the foot of the mountain, you accidentally drop your snowball and it starts to roll down the mountain. To your horror, you watch as it grows bigger and bigger, gaining speed and momentum and eventually bowls over your friend and buries him in a mountain of snow.
The situation above represents the term called “snowballing”. In Dominion, this term represents a small advantage being used to generate a larger and larger advantage that eventually leads to victory. The tricky part about snowballing is using the knowledge of it to give yourself an advantage. The real finesse in snowballing is recognizing the kind of boards that can result in snowballing. It’s these kind of boards where giving yourself the best chance to snowball can give you the best chance for victory. In regard to snowballing, there are four main ways it can happen.
Sheer Dumb Luck – Okay, so the first category doesn’t really include any strategic insight. The insight is that you simply need to be aware that certain cards have large luck elements that can lead to victory. For that reason, it is often of paramount importance that these cards are included in your strategy. After all, it is impossible to snowball with these cards if you don’t buy them. The main cards in this category have interaction between players. The interaction for one player can be advantageous in such a way that the other player can not respond. You’ll notice that the main culprits are cards than can give curses to other players but also have the potential to miss for one player but not the other.
• Sea Hag
• Mountebank
• Swindler
• Young Witch
• Familiar (Luck of hitting $3P)
• Treasure Map
• Tournament
o These games are often decided by a few things which are incredibly luck dependent. There is the acquisition of a Province and the connection of said Province with a Tournament. In games like this, you generally want to purchase a Province as soon as possible. For that reason, engine building via trashing and subsequent build up different than in a normal game. You need to gauge the strength of an engine against the power of the Follower's attack. An engine with heavy trashing like Chapel, Remake or Steward (semi) can often get running smoothly enough that losing a few Prizes won't make a difference. However, in games with a viable engine only acquired through light trashing (think Lookout/Loan) the delayed benefit of those trashers is often not good enough to offset the damage done by losing the Tournaments.
Cards You Want More Of – Here, you see the cards where one player has an advantage due to an advantageous split of 6/4, 7/3, etc… A key feature about these games are that going first is a huge advantage. The advantage of going first is two-fold. First, and most simply, you have the first opportunity to obtain these cards giving you an inherent advantage. The other FPA is a little more subtle. By going first, you can make a 1-turn detour for an important card other than the card of interest and still maintain an even 5/5 split. For instance, in a Minion game, you can take a different $5 first if it will inherently help your deck in the long run (Jester w/ village support, Upgrade, etc). Or consider a Fool’s Gold game where the first player can open with some sort of trasher and still earn a 5/5 split. But because of opening with a trasher, they have a slimmer deck that has a higher probability of FG collision.
• Peddler
• Fool’s Gold
• Minion
• Ill Gotten Gains
• Hunting Party
• Gardens/Silk Road
• City (If piles are depleted, an advantage in these can be game winning)
• Grand Market (They are hard to rush, but have the property that the first purchase makes all subsequent GM purchases easier, thus snowballing)
Cards You Want First – These are the cards where you want them ASAP. The flip side is that these cards are often more expensive starting at $6 and increasing. With cards at a price tag like this, it is important to look at the other kingdom cards. You want to ask yourself whether any of them can assist in getting that other key card as early as possible. Some cheaper cards include (but is not limited to) things like Baron, Coppersmith, Tactician, etc. which provide the opportunity for large payouts in very early turns.
• Platinum
• King’s Court
• Goons
• Forge (think sheer dumb luck of turns 3/4 getting $7)
• Grand Market
• There are many $5 cost cards that you want ASAP. However the strategy in acquiring them is not as large due to the significantly easier price tag.
The Little Engine That Could – Picture two roller coasters. They start at the same height and travel the same distance. The first is a simple flat decline. The second starts with a steep incline and is more flat at the bottom. Anyone with any sort of general common sense will know that the second roller coaster will finish first. In Dominion, engines are the same way. When one player’s engine gets started before another players, it is almost impossible for the opponent to make up those lost turns.
The take away message from this is to look for ways to accelerate an engine. As with all of snowballing, luck can be a contributing factor, but it doesn’t have to be the only one. Strategic engine snowballing can be very subtly lead to victory for one player. Will trashing be necessary for a coherent engine or should I just start going straight for the engine components? Is there a way that I can disrupt my opponents engine to a greater extent than picking up this card would do to mine? Is there a way that I can ensure repeated good hands? What is the correct order to buy my engine components so that it runs as smoothly and quickly as possible? Correctly answering and responding to those questions can result in your engine snowballing a turn or two earlier than your opponents.
I recently played an engine game where the key cards were Fishing Village, Council Room, Rabble, Cutpurse and King's Court. This board also had Lookout for trashing. I opt to skip the Lookout and instead focus on FV/Cutpurse eyeing that King's Court. Although the Lookout for my opponent did trash and make a slimmer deck. My ability to get to KC earlier in a board with huge draw potential offset the small gain by trashing a few extra cards.
Consider this
masterpiece put together by olneyce. His early buys of FV and Watchtower were perfectly distributed to maximize his engine's potential. His utilization of a 2nd potion on turn 7 allowed for his Alchemist to be played more often as well as providing more opportunities for Golem purchases. He continues to push his advantage for an eventual 3-pile victory.
Conclusions - To wrap things up, snowballing can be a very frustrating or gratifying result of Dominion games depending on where you are on the mountain. However, one thing to remember is that you can’t snowball very easily if you don’t recognize the situations where snowballing can occur. It is therefore beneficial at the start of the game to recognize if snowballing can occur and do the best you can to ensure that you’re the one rolling the little ball of cute white fluffy snow down the hill into your opponent.
Comments/Questions/Critiques are welcomed and encouraged!