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[stechafle]

Why does Hideout have Curse gaining when trashing a Victory card rather than just a prohibition on trashing Victory cards?

[crj]

Um... because that way you can use Hideout a second time to trash the Curse? And because it buffs Hideout when the Curses run out?

[Commodore Chuckles]

I think the idea is to make its utility last longer by giving you more stuff to trash.

[Awaclus]

Um... because that way you can use Hideout a second time to trash the Curse? And because it buffs Hideout when the Curses run out?

I think the idea is to make its utility last longer by giving you more stuff to trash.

Thanks Donald X!

[Donald X.]

Why does Hideout have Curse gaining when trashing a Victory card rather than just a prohibition on trashing Victory cards?

It was part of the premise, a cool idea for a card. "Takes two plays to trash Estate," isn't the same as "can't trash Estate," it's some new card, like I was trying to make. Then it worked out, you sometimes consider whether it's better to trash Copper or Estate, and it keeps the village part working longer.

[yed]

Hey Donald! Just wondering, will there ever be any good head-way made with a Dominion phone app? Been itching to play it on the go for ages now. Thanks heaps!

Yes, there has been no formal announcement, but someone is working on it now, a real company with published games.

Will it be possible to play against each other if one player uses dominion.games web and another uses this new mobile application?

[ipofanes]

and it keeps the village part working longer.

That's what I liked most about it when I saw it first.

[Donald X.]

Hey Donald! Just wondering, will there ever be any good head-way made with a Dominion phone app? Been itching to play it on the go for ages now. Thanks heaps!

Yes, there has been no formal announcement, but someone is working on it now, a real company with published games.

Will it be possible to play against each other if one player uses dominion.games web and another uses this new mobile application?

I don't know, but I recommend pessimism there.

[TheOthin]

Have you been keeping up with Eldraine previews? In particular, have you seen the "on an adventure" token?

[Donald X.]

Have you been keeping up with Eldraine previews? In particular, have you seen the "on an adventure" token?

I have been keeping up with previews, but haven't seen that token.

- Adventures look great, like a twist on ETB, or sometimes kicker-ETB, and ETB is a great mechanic.
- Food looks good, every set can benefit from something like that, a token that cards can make and refer to that does whatever, whether a creature with a non-evergreen ability, or not.
- Adamant is utterly dull, it does nothing. It must be there to tie in with devotion in upcoming Theros, but devotion is way better.
- I'm not big on tribal themes; the Knight cards so far are not exciting. I don't know if they really go for Faerie tribal or not.

- There is a minor saboteur theme and well they will probably do this better than they have in the past.
- WU has a "care about both enchantments and artifacts" theme and well it will be as interesting as the cards are, and obv. is there to tie in with Theros.
- two cards turn an artifact into a 4/4. Maybe it's just those two though. uh who doesn't enjoy animating artifacts.

The flavor premise is great, though the Knights sure don't hold up their end there. So far they're just some Knights. The round table card doesn't remotely make me think of a round table.

[TheOthin]

Have you been keeping up with Eldraine previews? In particular, have you seen the "on an adventure" token?

I have been keeping up with previews, but haven't seen that token.

- Adventures look great, like a twist on ETB, or sometimes kicker-ETB, and ETB is a great mechanic.
- Food looks good, every set can benefit from something like that, a token that cards can make and refer to that does whatever, whether a creature with a non-evergreen ability, or not.
- Adamant is utterly dull, it does nothing. It must be there to tie in with devotion in upcoming Theros, but devotion is way better.
- I'm not big on tribal themes; the Knight cards so far are not exciting. I don't know if they really go for Faerie tribal or not.

- There is a minor saboteur theme and well they will probably do this better than they have in the past.
- WU has a "care about both enchantments and artifacts" theme and well it will be as interesting as the cards are, and obv. is there to tie in with Theros.
- two cards turn an artifact into a 4/4. Maybe it's just those two though. uh who doesn't enjoy animating artifacts.

The flavor premise is great, though the Knights sure don't hold up their end there. So far they're just some Knights. The round table card doesn't remotely make me think of a round table.

The token is here, it made me think of Dominion: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/d074nh/eld_on_an_adventure_token/

The round table definitely seems to be a flop. (Personally I like Adamant, I think there's a lot of cool design space in which-colors-you-spend-to-cast-this-matters effects. Food and Adventures are cooler though.)

[whatwhen]

Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?

[Wizard_Amul]

Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?

"THE INITIAL DESIGN
...

How should money work? There are a bunch of options. A key thing was that I wanted money in your deck, but didn't want you to trivially get a tiny deck by playing all of your money. So money is really income; you play a treasure and get some coins and then at end of turn it's in your discard pile ready to be reshuffled back in.

You draw 5 cards a turn. This was so that you'd see your whole deck during the game; it was a problem I'd already addressed in Spirit Warriors II. If you just drew one card a turn you wouldn't so much be playing the deck you were building, unless the game lasted forever. So, draw 5 each turn, discard everything you didn't play. Let's churn through some cards. This meant lots of shuffling and well there was no-one to tell me how crazy that was.

It's hard to shuffle a tiny deck. I felt the minimum I could ask was about 10 cards, and at the same time I liked getting two turns before the first shuffle, so 10 it is. I didn't want your initial cards to really be your deck, to feel like they were key players; the cards you bought were supposed to do that. So you start with junk. Day one it was 5 Coppers, 5 Estates. The Estates could have been blank, but it seemed cute to have them be worth a VP, and it meant I didn't need to make another card for that slot."

Source: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8619.0

The bold emphasis is mine. If you take that into consideration, drawing 5 cards a turn makes it exactly 2 turns before your first shuffle.

[Donald X.]

Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?

I wanted to draw a lot of cards each turn, and just picked 5. As noted it goes into 10 twice, but of course the starting deck could have been e.g. 12 with drawing 6 per turn.

[allanfieldhouse]

Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?

I think it's pretty obvious... my hand has five fingers, so my Dominion hand has five cards.

[Awaclus]

Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?

I think it's pretty obvious... my hand has five fingers, so my Dominion hand has five cards.

Only people with 15-finger hands can play engines.

[Marcory]

Why does Dominion draw to 5, instead of to 4 or 6?

I think it's pretty obvious... my hand has five fingers, so my Dominion hand has five cards.

Only people with 15-finger hands can play engines.

Your ableism is transparent. You're completely overlooking people with three arms, or with particulary flexible feet.

[NoMoreFun]

Were non uniform piles considered for any other expansions, or just Empires (and Knights)?

Do you have stats on how often cards are bought to assess opportunities for split piles? (Eg cards that often get bought 2-4 times per game, but rarely more than 5)

[Donald X.]

Were non uniform piles considered for any other expansions, or just Empires (and Knights)?

Do you have stats on how often cards are bought to assess opportunities for split piles? (Eg cards that often get bought 2-4 times per game, but rarely more than 5)

Varying piles are a thing I could reuse if I ever wanted. They were an obvious idea from early on, and the Knights are from 2007. I didn't think of specifically going half and half until Empires. The varying VP pile idea was sitting in the file for years before LastFootnote wanted to try it for Empires. So in some sense it was considered for earlier expansions.

I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.

[Wizard_Amul]

Do you have stats on how often cards are bought to assess opportunities for split piles? (Eg cards that often get bought 2-4 times per game, but rarely more than 5)

I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.

I think that's the point of the question--if you know that there are certain cards where each player only buys at most 1-2 of them, a split pile with that card on top won't be great if you never get to see the bottom card. I think for most of the 5/5 split pile cards in Dominion, the top card is something you wouldn't mind having even 3-5 of, with gladiator being an exception but having an easy to trash the rest of the pile. The only split pile top card that I would say is an exception to one of those is catapult--with no +1 action, players often only get 1-2 each. Of course it sometimes is still correct to each buy 2-3 and get to the rocks below.

All that said, I remembered after I finished typing that all of the above refers more to a 2 player game and that the cards are balanced more for 3-4 players. With 3-4 players, if each player buys 1-2 copies of a card, going through 5 cards of any pile can be very easy.

[NoMoreFun]

I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.

I suggested those numbers for cards that are popular but where people wouldn't resent there only being 5.

[Donald X.]

I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.

I suggested those numbers for cards that are popular but where people wouldn't resent there only being 5.

They'll resent never seeing the bottom card though. Now if you only want 2-4 of the bottom card, that's okay.

[NoMoreFun]

I don't have stats, just experience. How many copies you'd buy isn't the whole story; if we'll buy 2-4, we won't see the bottom card.

I suggested those numbers for cards that are popular but where people wouldn't resent there only being 5.

They'll resent never seeing the bottom card though. Now if you only want 2-4 of the bottom card, that's okay.

Unless it's good and/or works super well with the top card, then they'll buy more of the card than usual to see the lower card instead of it being a waste of cards that never gets bought.

[NoMoreFun]

Speaking of which, do you generally aim to design cards where the pile would feasibly be emptied in at least some games?

[Donald X.]

Speaking of which, do you generally aim to design cards where the pile would feasibly be emptied in at least some games?

It's not a concern. It doesn't come up either; with 5 players that's just 2 copies each, and there are very few cards you'll overwhelmingly stop at one of.