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[bodybuilder]

Hello everyone, I am new to the forum and I need your help to eliminate some card from 3 sets: base, intrigue and prosperity

Unfortunately, I realize that there are some cards that have never bought because unnecessary, or frustrating, or boring. or even some seguno a strategy of its own! for example the chapel, who takes plays in a completely different way, or if they go out the gardens, it is a struggle to those who take more!
then I would like to create games more balanced, removing 5 cards from each set in order to still have 60 different types of cards that will add variability to the games, but they are a good choice, I do not want useless cards on the table, which mean that the obvious choice is always to take a silver card.

do you want to help me?

[michaeljb]

I'm going to take a wild guess that you're the same "bodybuilder" that asked this at BoardGameGeek. I don't think you're likely to get a different answer here than you did over there.

And just to throw in my two cents, I don't think throwing out any cards is a good idea, even the weaker cards that don't get used much sometimes make the games interesting. (Which is, of course, kind of what I saw in responses in the BGG thread)

Edit: in case anyone's interested in the BGG thread
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/968557/the-worst-cards

[Awaclus]

Remove Scout, Thief, Secret Chamber, Spy and Chancellor if you have to remove something. I can't really think of anything else that I never buy in games using only Base, Intrigue and Prosperity.

[bodybuilder]

Remove Scout, Thief, Secret Chamber, Spy and Chancellor if you have to remove something. I can't really think of anything else that I never buy in games using only Base, Intrigue and Prosperity.

thank you! these are the kinds of answers you want! I wait for more advice

[rrenaud]

Here is a decent list of the cards in those expansions. 

Base, Intrigue, and Prosperity card rankings.

Click quality, and it will sort the cards by their ability to help people win games on average according to a simple model I developed.  The model tries to mimic bunch of card rankings from experts in this community based mostly on observed play data from millions of games.

Of course, some of the most winning cards are arguably the most frustrating (Witch, Mountebank).  Some of the bad cards (eg, Workshop) can shine when paired with a good combo, like Gardens.

[WanderingWinder]

The question I would ask is why are you removing things. Your given reason is simply based on false premises - EVERY card has its uses, and virtually all of them can make a *huge* difference. Of course, there are a lots of boards where lots of the cards are basically meaningless - but you can't know this without seeing all the cards! If you start removing the 'weak' cards, then what you end up with is a confirmation of your beliefs, because often they need each other; but most important, all  your games start looking the same, and that makes things less interesting. Some of the best bits of the game are making those weak cards into real stars.

But what I really don't understand,, and what stops me from giving useful advice, is *why* you're wanting to get rid of these cards.

[rrenaud]

Maybe he wants to play 20 to 50 games of dominion in his life, he doesn't care to know what makes the game really tick, and he just wants to have fun with a quick heuristic that avoids trap cards.

Not everyone lives and breaths Dominion, and I think that's okay .

[WanderingWinder]

Maybe he wants to play 20 to 50 games of dominion in his life, he doesn't care to know what makes the game really tick, and he just wants to have fun with a quick heuristic that avoids trap cards.

But in games like this, I think that most of the fun is in finding that out for yourself. Of course, there are other kinds of people who just want to know how to win the few games you ever play, who prefer to just look up the answer to a problem rather than work it out for themselves. And while I don't understand that, I don't have a problem with it - but if he just wants to know what is good and what is bad in order to be a stronger player, than that is fine, but this is, for instance, why I am asking why he is asking. Because there I would point him to say qvist's rankings. But also in that instance, I would expect it to be more along the lines of 'what cards should I buy' and 'what cards should I never buy' than 'what cards should I not play with'.

Not everyone lives and breaths Dominion, and I think that's okay .

This seems like a personal affront.

[DG]

You've already had someone suggest removing secret chambers but I think that discarding cards for coin is an interesting ability and much stronger than many people think. You've already had someone suggesting removing thief but you've said that you like gardens and thieves are strong cards in multi player garden games. Spy is also a decent alternative to silver in the right deck. So yes you can remove cards in the hope of increasing variation in play but ultimately removing cards does reduce variation in kingdoms and reduce variation in play.

[bodybuilder]

The question I would ask is why are you removing things. Your given reason is simply based on false premises - EVERY card has its uses, and virtually all of them can make a *huge* difference. Of course, there are a lots of boards where lots of the cards are basically meaningless - but you can't know this without seeing all the cards! If you start removing the 'weak' cards, then what you end up with is a confirmation of your beliefs, because often they need each other; but most important, all  your games start looking the same, and that makes things less interesting. Some of the best bits of the game are making those weak cards into real stars.

But what I really don't understand,, and what stops me from giving useful advice, is *why* you're wanting to get rid of these cards.

then we say that the talk of eliminating the cards was born with the chancellor and all the cards that are in some way change the deck. I do not like this mechanic regardless, and 2 cards ever that I want to remove are the chancellor and the scout. then taking prosperity, I loved the platinum and the colonies, but I did not like the addition of components such as victory points, so I decided to remove the monument, the bishop and other cards that affect these components.

then I thought, why not create a set of identical cards for each expansion? and I thought toglierne 5 for each set is a good choice as between the various rankings, especially that of rrenaud that is very close to my tastes, I see that many people say that there are cards that have never picked up, so I do not think to do things so strange! some people prefer to have them but do not take them, and those who do not even want on the table (like me). also agricultural unbalanced cards banned from tournaments and are therefore eliminated! what's wrong?

[WanderingWinder]

The question I would ask is why are you removing things. Your given reason is simply based on false premises - EVERY card has its uses, and virtually all of them can make a *huge* difference. Of course, there are a lots of boards where lots of the cards are basically meaningless - but you can't know this without seeing all the cards! If you start removing the 'weak' cards, then what you end up with is a confirmation of your beliefs, because often they need each other; but most important, all  your games start looking the same, and that makes things less interesting. Some of the best bits of the game are making those weak cards into real stars.

But what I really don't understand,, and what stops me from giving useful advice, is *why* you're wanting to get rid of these cards.

then we say that the talk of eliminating the cards was born with the chancellor

Okay, I get this - chancellor rarely does all that much for you, so what is the point? What I don't understand is why you have to 'eliminate' the card. What actual purpose does that serve? Or are you just saying to not include it when you pick sets of ten cards? Because it's too boring? I get that, I suppose, but I think you will find that there aren't many cards you could get rid of that would have this little impact - perhaps scout and adventurer are about the only other cards that fit here.

and all the cards that are in some way change the deck.

But I don't understand what you mean by this. You want to get rid of cards that change the deck? What do you mean by the deck? And what do you mean by change? Because to my mind, all of them do, and I am not seeing how chancellor stands out in this regard. Could you re-phrase this possibly? Because right now I don't understand your meaning.

I do not like this mechanic regardless,

I presume that you mean deck-flipping; this would have me tell you to expect not to like scavenger, from Dark Ages, which is the only other card that really has this mechanic.

and 2 cards ever that I want to remove are the chancellor and the scout.

But I don't see how this relates. Indeed, I can find very little connection between scout and chancellor overall; the biggest is that both are pretty weak, but this is not at all a mechanical feature.

then taking prosperity, I loved the platinum and the colonies, but I did not like the addition of components such as victory points, so I decided to remove the monument, the bishop and other cards that affect these components.

And these have seemingly no connection at all! It seems to me that the real thing here is that these are just cards that you personally don't like. Which is totally fine, of course! But if that is the connection between them, then you can't possibly expect other people to be able to predict what they are!

then I thought, why not create a set of identical cards for each expansion?

I really don't know what you mean here. None of the expansions have any of the same cards, how could you make a set of identical cards from each expansion. You mean a set of cards you don't like? This is my best guess, but I really don't understand what you are saying.

and I thought toglierne 5 for each set is a good choice

And I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what you are trying to say here. Anyone have any idea?

as between the various rankings, especially that of rrenaud that is very close to my tastes,

See, but these ranking are based on strength, not how much you people like them. And so you will get cards like the VP chip cards here, as they're good. So I'm again confused.

I see that many people say that there are cards that have never picked up, so I do not think to do things so strange! some people prefer to have them but do not take them, and those who do not even want on the table (like me).

I see very few people who have played more than a handful of games who say that they have never picked up any card. Of course, it is not strange to almost never get a card, sure. But I ask you again, why do you feel a need to not have them on the table? What does it gain you to not have them on the table? I don't understand how this is a benefit over simply not buying them.

also agricultural unbalanced cards banned from tournaments and are therefore eliminated! what's wrong?

I again have no idea what you mean here.

[heron]

I believe that "and I thought toglierne 5 for each set is a good choice" means that bodybuilder wants to take out 5 cards from each set, because  it is similar to the italian verb togliere.

[brokoli]

In the beginning of my "dominion experience", there were some cards I really didn't like, but I then learned how to appreciate them...

[Davio]

Maybe he wants to remove some cards to make it more easy to carry?

When you go over to a friends house, you might not want to bring 9 boxes or 1 giant suitcase of Dominion cards.
So I think making a selection is OK.

Here's my advice: Look in the back of the rules for Intrigue and Prosperity, there are some recommended sets using base or base and Intrigue in the case of Prosperity. You can include a lot of the cards listed there. So instead of looking for cards to remove you can look for cards to include.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Maybe he wants to remove some cards to make it more easy to carry?

But he's a bodybuilder!

[dondon151]

I can completely emphasize with the TC. Often when I'm playing games in real life and I'm generating kingdoms, I would either re-generate the kingdom if there was a total dud or all of the players would agree to replace it with something else at random. You don't have the liberty to thoroughly experiment with all of the bad cards in real life.

Though, the only cards I typically never include are Chancellor, Counting House, and Scout. Even then, if a good kingdom for these cards come up, then we'll choose to play with them.

[SCSN]

I believe that "and I thought toglierne 5 for each set is a good choice" means that bodybuilder wants to take out 5 cards from each set, because  it is similar to the italian verb togliere.

Yeah, looks like he's using Google Translate and misspelled that word.

[Stealth Tomato]

The question I would ask is why are you removing things. Your given reason is simply based on false premises - EVERY card has its uses, and virtually all of them can make a *huge* difference. Of course, there are a lots of boards where lots of the cards are basically meaningless - but you can't know this without seeing all the cards! If you start removing the 'weak' cards, then what you end up with is a confirmation of your beliefs, because often they need each other; but most important, all  your games start looking the same, and that makes things less interesting. Some of the best bits of the game are making those weak cards into real stars.

But what I really don't understand,, and what stops me from giving useful advice, is *why* you're wanting to get rid of these cards.

then we say that the talk of eliminating the cards was born with the chancellor and all the cards that are in some way change the deck. I do not like this mechanic regardless, and 2 cards ever that I want to remove are the chancellor and the scout. then taking prosperity, I loved the platinum and the colonies, but I did not like the addition of components such as victory points, so I decided to remove the monument, the bishop and other cards that affect these components.

then I thought, why not create a set of identical cards for each expansion? and I thought toglierne 5 for each set is a good choice as between the various rankings, especially that of rrenaud that is very close to my tastes, I see that many people say that there are cards that have never picked up, so I do not think to do things so strange! some people prefer to have them but do not take them, and those who do not even want on the table (like me). also agricultural unbalanced cards banned from tournaments and are therefore eliminated! what's wrong?

At some point, eliminating cards you don't like makes the game no longer Dominion. Worse, when it's one player eliminating cards, they're naturally warping the game in favor of their own fun and advantage (to the relative detriment of their opponents).

If you think the card is badly made, you need to get better at using the card. Tournament in particular is swingy sometimes but rewards a different type of strategy (attacking the Provinces early) than might be successful in other games. Those changes in strategy are what make Dominion interesting. If you don't want the strategy to change, play a simpler game than Dominion.

[Mic Qsenoch]

DXV forbid someone should want to play anything less than the One True Dominion. It's damnable heresy.

[bodybuilder]

sorry for my english, I'm using google translate!

back to the topic. my request is pretty easy, I would like to eliminate the weakest 5 cards in the base set, of intrigue and prosperity. instead of arguing on my way to see the game, why not just tell me what are these 5 cards that I can do without it?

I do not want to be immoral, but only 18 replies rrenaud gave me a good tip. I would like to get some answers in more in order to have more support to confirm the limited usefulness of a given card.

and this is not to say that the cards that take away are completely useless, but I prefer that instead of a card less useful, there is one more useful. that's all!

[zporiri]

im sorry everyone is arguing with you needlessly. here are the 5 cards you won't miss if you removed them from their sets, in my opinion.

base: chancellor, bureaucrat, mine, adventurer, library

intrigue: secret chamber, great hall, scout, shanty town, wishing well

prosperity: trade route, talisman, contraband, counting house, royal seal

please don't argue with my list anyone, i won't argue back haha. these are my opinion, which the OP wanted. i didn't include cards like thief, because there actually are a lot of games where i would by it compared to some of the other cards i listed from base (trimmed decks and multiplayer games). library is almost always not preferable to smithy, except when you have non-terminal actions that don't draw cards, so i personally don't like library. i don't care if there are any edge cases to what i said, these are my opinion haha.

[Schneau]

If you just want the weakest cards, I'd recommend looking at the Qvist Rankings lists. Just pick some near the bottoms of these lists for each set.

[Kirian]

If you just want the weakest cards, I'd recommend looking at the Qvist Rankings lists. Just pick some near the bottoms of these lists for each set.

It's worth noting that these aren't just Qvist's personal picks, they're based on polling quite a large number of forumites.  Qvist just compiles the numbers.

[WanderingWinder]

sorry for my english, I'm using google translate!

back to the topic. my request is pretty easy, I would like to eliminate the weakest 5 cards in the base set, of intrigue and prosperity. instead of arguing on my way to see the game, why not just tell me what are these 5 cards that I can do without it?

I do not want to be immoral, but only 18 replies rrenaud gave me a good tip. I would like to get some answers in more in order to have more support to confirm the limited usefulness of a given card.

and this is not to say that the cards that take away are completely useless, but I prefer that instead of a card less useful, there is one more useful. that's all!

Certainly, I think most of this - at least for me - is a translation issue. If I had understood that you were just looking for weak cards, I would have thought, and maybe said, that I do think you are probably diminishing your overall enjoyment of the game - BUT, as that is your call to make, I would have at the same time pointed you to Qvist's rankings, as linked to a couple posts above this one. I hope you understand that it's not that we're trying to be obstinate or un-useful, but rather that your purpose wasn't really all that clear. Certainly I don't think anyone is trying to say that anything you were doing is at all immoral, perhaps at most unnecessarily self-limiting.

I certainly hope that you can understand well what it is that we are trying to say!

[DG]

"I would like to eliminate the weakest 5 cards in the base set, of intrigue and prosperity. instead of arguing on my way to see the game, why not just tell me what are these 5 cards that I can do without it?"

If we told you to remove copper and estates you wouldn't get very far. I'm sorry you don't feel happy with our responses but, to Dominion fans, your request is a bit like asking your dentist which teeth are the least useful because you don't want to keep them all. Not many dentists would give you a straight answer.

[Kirian]

"I would like to eliminate the weakest 5 cards in the base set, of intrigue and prosperity. instead of arguing on my way to see the game, why not just tell me what are these 5 cards that I can do without it?"

If we told you to remove copper and estates you wouldn't get very far. I'm sorry you don't feel happy with our responses but, to Dominion fans, your request is a bit like asking your dentist which teeth are the least useful because you don't want to keep them all. Not many dentists would give you a straight answer.

Wisdom teeth.  Especially impacted ones.

Edge cases FTW!

[WanderingWinder]

There are lots of analogies I can make to the request, while at the same time complying with it - presumably he's not hurting anyone with this information, at most whoever he is playing with by imposing this on them, and in the scheme of things, this is just so small.

But analogies are fun, so hey, let's go:
It would be like asking which chess piece we could do without.
Or which set piece really adds nothing to football (would we really miss a goal kick? yes).
Which event should we remove from the decathlon?
Which letter of the alphabet should we get rid of (incidentally, at least in English, I actually think there are a few which are technically superfluous - different languages have more, others less)?



On a more serious note, to the OP: I am a little bit confused if you are just looking for weak cards. In this case, I don't understand your mentioning of the following cards: Gardens, Chapel, Monument, Bishop, and the obvious allusion to Goons. These cards are all strong, very often game-changing. What do you find weak about them?

[bodybuilder]

I realize that you dominion enthusiasts are able to see the good in each card, because you have already found many strategies being able to create good combo, even with cards less useful.

my problem is that I want to delete cards prosperity that use the add-ins, and they are: trade route, bishop, monument and goons. then I would find myself with a set of 21 cards instead of 25.

then, given my obsession with things fair, I want to take at least 4 cards by the other set, then I joined the forum just to ask you veterans what might be these cards which I can not help it.

I'm probably wrong to say the weak cards, but I had to say the cards more unbalanced .. for example the chapel, is the only one that follows a strategy different from all the others, to discard the copper and victory points from 1 to take silver, and gold, and then use the usual strategy "big money" which is the most boring both for those who play for opponents.

I would rather based games more than anything else on the purchase of cards at the right time to just take money, which is why being neophyte, the first thing that came to mind was: if I remove the cards less useful then you also buy the cards more useful instead of buying only money!

[Tables]

I'm probably wrong to say the weak cards, but I had to say the cards more unbalanced .. for example the chapel, is the only one that follows a strategy different from all the others, to discard the copper and victory points from 1 to take silver, and gold, and then use the usual strategy "big money" which is the most boring both for those who play for opponents.!

This is actually the opposite of true. Chapel is actually a net negative on your deck if you follow it up with "big money". Chapel works best when working into an "engine", where you try and do things like drawing your deck, rapidly increasing buying power and buying multiple cards (ideally Provinces) per turn.

[bodybuilder]

right now I'm playing online against AI, he took the chapel, 1 village and 6 card spy, he continues to discard all my cards and I can not play! this is what I want to avoid!

[Kirian]

right now I'm playing online against AI, he took the chapel and village 1 and 6 cards spy, continues to scartarmi all my cards and I do not play! this is what I want to avoid!

You can usually assume the AI are idiots.  Especially with Spy.

[bodybuilder]

maybe it's an idiot, but it was boring to see him play only! I could not do anything! he played one card after the other and bought duchies.
I do not want this in my games

[heron]

That's more of an issue of the AI being stupid buying six spies. Just speed up the animation.

This is the latest list of players' least favorite cards, which may help you.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4054.0

If you wanted my advice for 5 cards to remove from base, I would pick Chancellor, Feast, Thief, Woodcutter, and Adventurer.
For people who dislike bodybuilder's request, let me rephrase it: If there were no way to acquire new dominion cards, and your house burned down, and five cards from each set were lost, which cards would you hope for them to be?

Also I believe scartarmi is supposed to be discard.

[Tables]

right now I'm playing online against AI, he took the chapel, 1 village and 6 card spy, he continues to discard all my cards and I can not play! this is what I want to avoid!

Spy only affects the top of your deck. You'll still have four other cards every hand, I don't see how this is really an issue?

[bodybuilder]

the problem is that he discarded all my money and my hand of cards each turn was formed only by victory points and curses! and then every hand was always the same,  it was boring just to see him play .. if I was playing so my group would be bored

[jsh357]

the problem is that he discarded all my money and my hand of cards each turn was formed only by victory points and curses! and then every hand was always the same,  it was boring just to see him play .. if I was playing so my group would be bored

I hate to be that guy, but... man, you could have done the same thing to him.  Or gone with the multitude of strategies that can easily beat a Spy-heavy deck.  The beauty of this game is that there are situations where even a weak card like Spy can shine.

[Tables]

Victory points AND curses? How did you get curses if all he had was Spies? On average, Spy doesn't affect your other four cards. If you keep drawing lots of curses and victory cards, you had a terrible deck, or terrible luck.

[bodybuilder]

he had also witches ..

however this is not the problem .. the problem is the strategy implemented with the chapel, if a player discards everything and you create the deck is impossible to beat. I want my games are balanced and not one-way

[dondon151]

If you pick a better strategy relative to everyone else, then you will be nearly impossible to beat regardless of the kingdom. You can trounce your opponents with 5 consecutive double-Province turns while hitting every single one of their hands with Militia (what I did once in a tournament game) or you can slowly build up that VP lead with a deck that is, on average, producing better hands every turn than your opponents'. In both cases, your opponents' chances might have been completely dashed as early as turn 5. It's not the fault of any single particular card.

This is the snowball "problem" of Dominion. I don't personally think that it's a problem, though.

In any case, I've thrown in my lot on what cards you should ignore the most often. I thought that I was helpful with my previous post, but maybe you missed it. Ignoring 5 cards per set is a bit much because there just really aren't that many terrible cards, and certain sets are worse than others. Like, I wouldn't really care if Chancellor, Feast, and Adventurer didn't exist, and some cards like Woodcutter and Thief are also generally ignorable in the main set. But, if it came to Prosperity, there is not one card in that set that I wouldn't play with on the basis of it being too weak. Maybe Royal Seal.

[bodybuilder]

I do not like loan (why should I trash my treasure?) and the cards that use the add-ins. no longer seems dominion if there are extra components!

[michaeljb]

I do not like loan (why should I trash my treasure?)

Because Copper is usually a bad card.

[Fuu]

...
I'm probably wrong to say the weak cards, but I had to say the cards more unbalanced .. for example the chapel, is the only one that follows a strategy different from all the others
...

To try and answer your question as best as possible, without resorting to 'it can't be done' or variants on 'it depends', I would say that if your aim is to not play with cards that are 'more unbalanced' and 'follow a different strategy', then I would select these ones:

Dominion:
Chapel
Gardens
(that's it - I can't bring myself to remove more than these two)

Intrigue:
Torturer
Minion
Maybe Steward, or Swindler?

Prosperity:
(you already selected Trade Route, Bishop, Goons and Monument)
King's Court
Mountebank

[Tables]

he had also witches ..

however this is not the problem .. the problem is the strategy implemented with the chapel, if a player discards everything and you create the deck is impossible to beat. I want my games are balanced and not one-way

If you can create an 'impossible to beat' deck, why didn't you do it?

Also, I can pretty much guarantee you that deck would be very beatable, even only knowing the cards you've named. Open Chapel/Silver. Buy Silvers while trashing Coppers and Estates, Grab a Witch or two ASAP and some Golds. Start buying Provinces soon after. Ignore Spies, they're too slow here. Most likely there's even something else useful you could add.

Disliking a card doesn't seem a good reason to exclude it. But ultimately it's your game. You can play it how you want (in person). And trust me, the extra component based things fit seamlessly into the game. They change the game, yes, but isn't that the whole purpose of an expansion to a board game?

[bodybuilder]

I'm coming to the conclusion, I thought to eliminate these cards:
prosperity: loan,  bishop,  goons,  monument, trade route (loan do not like, because I do not want to use the other components)
intrigue: scout,  wishing well,  saboteur,  coppersmith,  great hall
base: chancellor,  chapel,  woodcutter,  thief,  cellar

what do you think about?

[dondon151]

Some of those cards are rather strong and/or useful, and some are probably not as amazing as you think they are. I would highly encourage you to play with them instead of eliminating them.

[TWoos]

my request is pretty easy, I would like to eliminate the weakest 5 cards in the base set, of intrigue and prosperity. instead of arguing on my way to see the game, why not just tell me what are these 5 cards that I can do without it?

But that's not easy.  The strength of a card depends on which other cards it is played with.  Which is another way of saying, it depends on the kingdom.  But it also very much so depends on your personal playing style.  I'm willing to list the five cards I think I buy the least, though, if you really think it'll help.

Base: Chancellor, Spy, Thief, Cellar, Moat
Intrigue: Secret Chamber, Wishing Well, Coppersmith, Scout, Tribute
Prosperity: Counting House, Contraband, and you already removed the three victory chip cards


But the thing is, just looking at the ones I picked, you might say "Hey, Chancellor and Counting House?  Those go great together!", and that invalidates my choices.  Anyhow, I hope this helps you.

[Polk5440]

if I remove the cards less useful then you also buy the cards more useful instead of buying only money!

You want to play "interesting kingdoms" that probably don't have big money as the dominant strategy?

Maybe onigame's Dominion Set Generator would be of interest to you?

[Iron Hunny]

I honestly do not like the fact that you are looking to remove cards from a game that enhance different aspects of Dominion. There are several reasons why I think it's the wrong way to look at Dominion.

1) It takes a game/expansion DXV balanced and unbalances it.

Let's look at the cards you've suggested to eliminate from the Base set; the cards are chancellor, chapel, woodcutter, thief, and cellar. Already you've taken away one of the four cards in that set that provide +Buy, one of the five attack cards, a card that helps create strong engines (chapel), and a card that helps you not to choke on victory cards (cellar). Assuming a game with no moat on the board and with base set cards only, Witch becomes REALLY powerful now since your opponents cannot trash fast nor create an engine that won't easily choke on victory cards or curse cards (something that cellar helps with GREATLY). I could go Witch+Big Money and win every single time since I know that you can't hurt me because Thief will NEVER exist in any upcoming game and even if there's a Moat, I know I can break through eventually since you won't have a moat every time in your hand. Essentially, you create instability when you remove cards you "don't like" from a game.

2)Where will you stop?

Well now you see from my previous example that Witch+Big Money is essentially unstoppable due to the fact you've removed most cards that help counter Witch. So now you say "Well, let's just remove Witch then!". Now you think the game is "balanced and fun". However it's clearly the opposite; you just end up shifting the power.

Since curses cannot be handed out, Militia becomes another key card that can change the game. A couple more games go by and you find Militia annoying every time your opponent plays it because you can't build your engine while he's reducing your hand and throwing around massive combos. So now you've removed Militia. Bureaucrat then steps up to the plate for the next couple of games and you then decide to remove it too due to the massive amounts of victory cards in your hand. Then you might as well remove Moat because it serves no purpose now, four of the five attacks are gone. Spy is a weak attack and Moat doesn't do anything substantial against Spy.

Well....since spy sucks, let's just get rid of it too. More games go by and you notice that someone wins a lot because he's just buying as many cards as possible with tons of Markets and Festivals and then buying the Gardens to really have a high score. You remove Markets (since it replaces itself) and Gardens (so no one can just buy tons of cards and win) as a result. Now look at your Base set.

Out of the 26 cards you've started with, you have removed 12 and are now down to 14 cards with no interactivity between them (no attack cards are left). It's essentially the same game every time (something the Base set already suffers from) since there isn't enough variation between the cards to change the game at all. You've essentially neutered the game because one strong strategy emerges every time and have created a game that doesn't push any creativity or improvisation. This effect gets exasperated more as you add more expansions since you'll get connections between them that are really deadly. For example, Goons may be gone, but you can still do the famous Kings Court + Goons + Masquerade Pin with Militia substituting Goons (no victory tokens on the side, just the pleasure of watching the world burn). Might as well remove those cards as well if you dislike that combo. This point essentially goes back to point one and just throws off the balance, but once you've taken enough cards away and you've finally achieved a perfect balance, the game is below average at best and nowhere as good as it used to be.

3)Dominion is a learning experience.

I do not like loan (why should I trash my treasure?) and the cards that use the add-ins. no longer seems dominion if there are extra components!

This is what makes Dominion special; the fact that you learn as you play more games. I thought chapel sucked when I first started, I mean, why would you want to trash your precious money? It's CRAZY!

Then I started seeing people beat me because they got all the curses, coppers, and estates out of their deck due to Chapel and created an engine that buys two provinces every turn. So I LEARNED that Chapel helps speed your deck up tremendously. Loan is the same way. NO ONE wants coppers, which is why loan is there. It doesn't take up actions, and if you are building a engine friendly deck that generates virtual coin, Loan just get's rid of those coppers that get in the way. You learn when you play Dominion. If someone keeps winning when they buy Chapel, don't remove it from the game! BUY CHAPEL THE NEXT TIME YOU PLAY!

Also, the extra components EXPAND (hahahaha) the game and cause you to think differently, causing you to LEARN different strategies. Intrigue adds more interactivity, something the base set lacks. Seaside adds duration cards which help you for two turns, something that didn't appear previously. Alchemy added a new treasure and cards to buy with it. Prosperity added MORE treasure and victory tokens, points that don't clutter your deck with cards that are essentially useless until the game ends. Cornucopia tells you that "It's okay if you buy one of everything because here are some cards that reward you if you do!". Hinterlands shows you the cool effects of buying/gaining, something that helps you out instead of having tons of buys but not many options. Dark Ages trashes (hahahaha *slaps knee*) the myth (for newbies) that "Trashing=Bad" and throws in cards that ENCOURAGE trashing. I would talk about Guilds if I knew more about it, but it will do the same thing!

Dominion forces you to learn. You don't learn when you remove cards you personally don't want to see.

That's why I disagree with you and encourage you to play with ALL the cards.

[ConMan]

Yeah, if you want to get rid of Chapel and Loan because you don't like trashing cards, then you are missing a *huge* part of one of the main strategies - once the Coppers have bought things that are better than Copper (for a given definition of "better"), get rid of the Coppers. Not so good in Big Money, but in a lot of engines you want a thin, streamlined deck that can draw itself and produce a huge pile of money every turn, and all those starting cards slow that down an incredible amount.

Similarly, if you're being beaten by a bot that's only playing Spies and Witches, then what happens if you Chapel away all the Curses and Victory cards leaving you with just useful cards in the deck? No matter what he discards with the Spies, you are guaranteed to draw a good card next. Then, once you've built up a strong deck and gotten rid of any extra Curses the Witch passed, you can start buying Provinces and you should still have enough momentum that it won't matter when you draw one of them into your hand.

[pst]

for example the chapel, who takes plays in a completely different way,

The Chapel isn't that special. Getting rid of bad cards is a normal part of many Dominion games. The bad cards are your starting ten cards as well as any Curses and Ruins you get during the game. There are several cards to do this with, like Chapel, Remake, Steward, Upgrade, etc. Only in some games there are no good trashers, and you have to keep the bad cards all the game.

Chapel is especially good (for its price), but it's certainly not the only way to have good trashing. If you don't use good trashers it will be a game where it's more often is right to use mostly treasures, and also a game where you more often will be stuck with bad cards turn after turn, like you told us of a game where you repeatedly had just victory card and Curses on your hand, and that that wasn't fun.

[ConMan]

What we're trying to say (or at least what I think we're trying to say) is that if you've played about 100 games, mainly with just base cards against a bot, you're missing out on a lot. Even if you picked out the 5 worst cards in each expansion, you could put them all in a "Worst of Dominion" expansion and play with them and you'd still discover some amazing things about the game - sometimes Big Money really is the way to go, sometimes you really do need one of everything to do cool stuff, sometimes you want to trash down to 5 cards in your deck and sometimes you want to bloat your deck to ridiculous measures. Some cards work really well no matter what Kingdom they appear in, and some only shine when they're part of a complicated combination (and many of the cards you don't like fall in the second category).

So maybe you *want* to remove some cards, and you have every right to and play with just those cards you like, but you don't *need* to, and we really think you should give some of those disliked cards a try, maybe even look some of them up on the main site or the wiki and find out what makes them so interesting.

[Davio]

I'm a bit surprised by some of the puritan and elitist outcries here, if the guy wants to play Dominion with just Village and Smithy, let him.

I don't really understand the need to point out that every card has its usage. While I don't doubt that this is true to some extent, it's just a game in the end. If the OP says he enjoys the game more without bad cards, I'm not going to say "don't drop Scout, you'll use it some day!" Every person can have fun with Dominion in any way he or she pleases.

I've been guilty of replacing Torturer when I picked it randomly because it was a game with my parents and I didn't want to never make them play with me again, because they wouldn't spot the Village-Torturer combo. There are a plethora of reasons why we can do without some of the cards, all equally valid because they're all subjective. "Scrying Pool and Philosopher's Stone take too long to resolve", "Scout and Counting House are bad", "Torturer is mean!". It's a thing of beauty that there are so many cards to choose from that we can just remove some of them without it having much impact on the game (unlike chess).

Customizing Dominion isn't a bad thing, it doesn't cause you to go to Dominion purgatory in the afterlife, it's just a variant, that's all. So just go ahead and take out some cards. You might find yourself wondering some day... this kingdom could use a card that does X. At that point you can look back at the cards you took out to see if you can include some again.

And if you are wary of actually removing cards, how about creating a custom Black Market deck? You add one kingdom pile (15 cards in your case) with one copy of every card that you would want to remove. You can only buy the top card. This pile doesn't count towards the "3 piles" for ending conditions, it's just an experiment to see if in some games some of these cards will be purchased. You can define your own rules for Ambassador etc. You could also declare a rule that you can always buy any card from it, not just the top one, that should make it even more fun.

Anyway, I encourage you to experiment, don't listen to all the purists, if removing cards from the game makes it so you have more fun, by all means do it.

[DStu]

I'm a bit surprised by some of the puritan and elitist outcries here, if the guy wants to play Dominion with just Village and Smithy, let him.

I don't really understand the need to point out that every card has its usage. While I don't doubt that this is true to some extent, it's just a game in the end. If the OP says he enjoys the game more without bad cards, I'm not going to say "don't drop Scout, you'll use it some day!" Every person can have fun with Dominion in any way he or she pleases.

I've been guilty of replacing Torturer when I picked it randomly because it was a game with my parents and I didn't want to never make them play with me again, because they wouldn't spot the Village-Torturer combo. There are a plethora of reasons why we can do without some of the cards, all equally valid because they're all subjective. "Scrying Pool and Philosopher's Stone take too long to resolve", "Scout and Counting House are bad", "Torturer is mean!". It's a thing of beauty that there are so many cards to choose from that we can just remove some of them without it having much impact on the game (unlike chess).

Customizing Dominion isn't a bad thing, it doesn't cause you to go to Dominion purgatory in the afterlife, it's just a variant, that's all. So just go ahead and take out some cards. You might find yourself wondering some day... this kingdom could use a card that does X. At that point you can look back at the cards you took out to see if you can include some again.

And if you are wary of actually removing cards, how about creating a custom Black Market deck? You add one kingdom pile (15 cards in your case) with one copy of every card that you would want to remove. You can only buy the top card. This pile doesn't count towards the "3 piles" for ending conditions, it's just an experiment to see if in some games some of these cards will be purchased. You can define your own rules for Ambassador etc. You could also declare a rule that you can always buy any card from it, not just the top one, that should make it even more fun.

Anyway, I encourage you to experiment, don't listen to all the purists, if removing cards from the game makes it so you have more fun, by all means do it.

I think there are two reasons:  First, the OP gives conflicting goals.  He wants to have more diverse games, but seems to dislike game-changing cards like Chapel or Goons.  Which directly leads to Second: He doesn't seem have mastered the game.
Of course, mastering the game might not be the goal for everybody, but at least for all* of us, getting better in the game was the solution to the problems the OP is describing.  I mean, most of us probably found this forum (or some other resource that finally lead us here) by wondering about some "imbalance" in the game, be it the overpowered Village or the unbeatable Silver or whatever. So while we are only halfhearted helpful in assisting the OPs proposed solution (ban some cards), we are advertising what in our experiece has worked for us (keep playing).
And third, most of us think that banning cards does not really solve the OPs problem.  At least not at that point.  I as much as anybody has raged on some Possession or Governour or Scout ruining an otherwise (seemingly) nice board, and if you then take them out, so be it.  But doing so before you have explorered and realized all the directions a Domininon deck can deck an which cards contribute to this deck is a bit premature to have an informed descision on that.  So we can of course tell him which cards are overall the least influencal (an this as also be done more than once in this thread), but this will not really give more variety in the game.  For this, you have to play different types of decks.

*ingoring edge cases.

[lespeutere]

Well, this is an elitist community in the sense of all of us being very interested in dominion (or mafia). And most people, especially well-known and regular posters, are have at least a decent grasp of the game. Part of this is, that every card has its strengths and weaknesses, and this is something we don't want newbies to miss (or to forget). This is a phenomenon which, I think, evolves especially when people play within a never changing group of people such that innovative utilisation of cards happens very rarely. Typical cards to be misevaluated would be spy or thief, imho. Or it might even take a loooong time to realise how chapel can be used effectively (I remember DXV's comment on this how he just toyed around in one game with trashing his whole hand (coppers and estates) instead of just estates).
So, in other words, comments like 'chapel makes the game boring, as it's just about trashing estates and buying silvers and golds to get provinces' or 'he had 6 spies and destroyed my game with them; well, he had witches as well, so I only had curses and victory cards in my hands' makes me wanting to tell him that there is quite something to learn. And that he'll miss quite some points. And in addition to this, some of the discussion was somehow hampered by misunderstandings.

Anyway, if this helps you, bodybuilder, here's a list of 4 cards from base and intrigue (with some short comments) as you already mentioned 4 cards from prosperity (trade route, bishop, monumen, goons), so this would be fair again. I wouldn't recommend removing any cards, though. ;-)

chancelor (although I like it), spy (although there are sets were I'd prefer it to silver), thief (although it can be a good card in 4 (or 3) player games and especially with gardens), adventurer (which I really buy rarely).

coppersmith (maybe this is not too bad to remove as many new players think this is an absolutely great card), pawn (sure, this can be good, but again, maybe not too bad to removed as used for +1 card, +1 action too often), saboteur (as it belongs to the vicious circle cards (like thief and spy) within play groups: if he bought one, I HAVE to buy one myself to keep things even), scout (considered the weakest card in the game - so far)

[bodybuilder]

I still can not get out of it .. I like spy and thief because it is a mechanical interactive and easy to use. I do not like instead of chancellor scouts and maybe because I do not understand how easy it is to use them .. but it is also true that they are very debolie cards that you would prefer money and do not always take them. that's why I would like to take them off.
I like the cards reaction,  all, so even if I would like to keep them weak. I do not like wishing wells because I had to guess what's on my deck, or am I supposed to remember the order of cards put on the deck with the scout! and this memory game I do not like .. I like the cards of attack, but the saboteur it seems useless in this,  it does not create so much damage to take a card and give that costs less,  also slows down the game.

we do so, we start from the basic set and intrigue,  and Advise what to remove according to what I wrote above, so after we think of prosperity!

[pst]

I'm a bit surprised by some of the puritan and elitist outcries here, if the guy wants to play Dominion with just Village and Smithy, let him.

Absolutely, but instead of just removing the cards he doesn't like he asks us what cards he should remove.

He dislikes some cards for various reasons and doesn't want to play with them. OK, fine!

But then it seems like he assumes that this is what everyone thinks about the game, and that we who have played it more have thought the same about even more cards, and can warn him against those so he can avoid them as well, without having to actually play through the boring games with those cards, as we had to do. Then our answer must be that that is simply not the case.

That could certainly have been a good move if Dominion wasn't such a good game. It could have been the case that there are some bad cards that experienced players agreed on to remove from play to make it better, and then it makes sense to get in the know at once.

[dondon151]

I at least wouldn't suggest removing cards that you dislike, but removing cards that everyone dislikes. After awhile you'll find that people will come to a consensus on not including certain cards in certain kingdoms. Sometimes that really is because a card is too strong or its power is misjudged because the players haven't mastered the game.

I used to remove certain cards from kingdoms or strike them from my randomizer. Then I got way better at the game and I no longer cared about that. When playing with less experienced players, I'll choose to exclude certain cards that lead to demoralizing endgames. But this choice is also informed by a wealth of experience.

[Davio]

Just sidetracking for a bit here, but still relevant: Has anyone ever tried a drafting system (every player picks X cards) and did it lead to too many similar games or more varied games?

What I've done in the past is give every player a few random cards and let them pick which one to play with.
So for instance with 3 players I would give each player 6 random cards and let them pick 3. That gives us 9 kingdom cards and the tenth could be random.

It's a pretty fun mechanism. You could pick your own 3-card combo and be surprised it works great or not so well with the cards the others have chosen. If I recall correctly, it didn't automatically always include the same cards. Maybe too many Villages, but oh well.

There are other ways to draft, but in essence I find that it works decently enough.

[Mole5000]

Just sidetracking for a bit here, but still relevant: Has anyone ever tried a drafting system (every player picks X cards) and did it lead to too many similar games or more varied games?

What I've done in the past is give every player a few random cards and let them pick which one to play with.
So for instance with 3 players I would give each player 6 random cards and let them pick 3. That gives us 9 kingdom cards and the tenth could be random.

It's a pretty fun mechanism. You could pick your own 3-card combo and be surprised it works great or not so well with the cards the others have chosen. If I recall correctly, it didn't automatically always include the same cards. Maybe too many Villages, but oh well.

There are other ways to draft, but in essence I find that it works decently enough.

We often do a draft but we also deal out one extra pile than there are players.  The random extra cards come from that pile.  We added the extra pile because we were finding that when the group had the whole set to choose from between us the Kingdoms started to seem rather similar.

[SCSN]

Remove whatever cards you feel would make it more enjoyable and see how that works out! Others can't tell you what will make it fun for you, and you don't need their approval to experiment, it's your game.

But analogies are fun, so hey, let's go:
It would be like asking which chess piece we could do without.

When my father taught his impatient 5yo son to play, I got so bored by that slow-paced weak-moving piece called Pawn that I suggested banning them altogether. Luckily, he obliged, and I was getting really excited about this upcoming awesomeness where I could play all my strong pieces right away!

The first game was fun, the second, well, eh, kind of... but ever since the third I've appreciated Pawn as by far the strongest piece in the game.

[Blueswan]

I honestly do not like the fact that you are looking to remove cards from a game that enhance different aspects of Dominion. There are several reasons why I think it's the wrong way to look at Dominion.

1) It takes a game/expansion DXV balanced and unbalances it.

Let's look at the cards you've suggested to eliminate from the Base set; the cards are chancellor, chapel, woodcutter, thief, and cellar. Already you've taken away one of the four cards in that set that provide +Buy, one of the five attack cards, a card that helps create strong engines (chapel), and a card that helps you not to choke on victory cards (cellar). Assuming a game with no moat on the board and with base set cards only, Witch becomes REALLY powerful now since your opponents cannot trash fast nor create an engine that won't easily choke on victory cards or curse cards (something that cellar helps with GREATLY). I could go Witch+Big Money and win every single time since I know that you can't hurt me because Thief will NEVER exist in any upcoming game and even if there's a Moat, I know I can break through eventually since you won't have a moat every time in your hand. Essentially, you create instability when you remove cards you "don't like" from a game.

2)Where will you stop?

Well now you see from my previous example that Witch+Big Money is essentially unstoppable due to the fact you've removed most cards that help counter Witch. So now you say "Well, let's just remove Witch then!". Now you think the game is "balanced and fun". However it's clearly the opposite; you just end up shifting the power.

Since curses cannot be handed out, Militia becomes another key card that can change the game. A couple more games go by and you find Militia annoying every time your opponent plays it because you can't build your engine while he's reducing your hand and throwing around massive combos. So now you've removed Militia. Bureaucrat then steps up to the plate for the next couple of games and you then decide to remove it too due to the massive amounts of victory cards in your hand. Then you might as well remove Moat because it serves no purpose now, four of the five attacks are gone. Spy is a weak attack and Moat doesn't do anything substantial against Spy.

Well....since spy sucks, let's just get rid of it too. More games go by and you notice that someone wins a lot because he's just buying as many cards as possible with tons of Markets and Festivals and then buying the Gardens to really have a high score. You remove Markets (since it replaces itself) and Gardens (so no one can just buy tons of cards and win) as a result. Now look at your Base set.

Out of the 26 cards you've started with, you have removed 12 and are now down to 14 cards with no interactivity between them (no attack cards are left). It's essentially the same game every time (something the Base set already suffers from) since there isn't enough variation between the cards to change the game at all. You've essentially neutered the game because one strong strategy emerges every time and have created a game that doesn't push any creativity or improvisation. This effect gets exasperated more as you add more expansions since you'll get connections between them that are really deadly. For example, Goons may be gone, but you can still do the famous Kings Court + Goons + Masquerade Pin with Militia substituting Goons (no victory tokens on the side, just the pleasure of watching the world burn). Might as well remove those cards as well if you dislike that combo. This point essentially goes back to point one and just throws off the balance, but once you've taken enough cards away and you've finally achieved a perfect balance, the game is below average at best and nowhere as good as it used to be.

3)Dominion is a learning experience.

I do not like loan (why should I trash my treasure?) and the cards that use the add-ins. no longer seems dominion if there are extra components!

This is what makes Dominion special; the fact that you learn as you play more games. I thought chapel sucked when I first started, I mean, why would you want to trash your precious money? It's CRAZY!

Then I started seeing people beat me because they got all the curses, coppers, and estates out of their deck due to Chapel and created an engine that buys two provinces every turn. So I LEARNED that Chapel helps speed your deck up tremendously. Loan is the same way. NO ONE wants coppers, which is why loan is there. It doesn't take up actions, and if you are building a engine friendly deck that generates virtual coin, Loan just get's rid of those coppers that get in the way. You learn when you play Dominion. If someone keeps winning when they buy Chapel, don't remove it from the game! BUY CHAPEL THE NEXT TIME YOU PLAY!

Also, the extra components EXPAND (hahahaha) the game and cause you to think differently, causing you to LEARN different strategies. Intrigue adds more interactivity, something the base set lacks. Seaside adds duration cards which help you for two turns, something that didn't appear previously. Alchemy added a new treasure and cards to buy with it. Prosperity added MORE treasure and victory tokens, points that don't clutter your deck with cards that are essentially useless until the game ends. Cornucopia tells you that "It's okay if you buy one of everything because here are some cards that reward you if you do!". Hinterlands shows you the cool effects of buying/gaining, something that helps you out instead of having tons of buys but not many options. Dark Ages trashes (hahahaha *slaps knee*) the myth (for newbies) that "Trashing=Bad" and throws in cards that ENCOURAGE trashing. I would talk about Guilds if I knew more about it, but it will do the same thing!

Dominion forces you to learn. You don't learn when you remove cards you personally don't want to see.

That's why I disagree with you and encourage you to play with ALL the cards.

Epic first post! 

[Grujah]

DVX said that you can make kingdom in any way you like.
Preconstructed, all-random, draft-style.
That includes "all random with X cards vetoed".

It is in the rules!

[bodybuilder]

I like totally random, but I want to make sure that some cards do not ever come out,  just taking off!

[greatexpectations]

Here's my advice: Look in the back of the rules for Intrigue and Prosperity, there are some recommended sets using base or base and Intrigue in the case of Prosperity. You can include a lot of the cards listed there. So instead of looking for cards to remove you can look for cards to include.

You want to play "interesting kingdoms" that probably don't have big money as the dominant strategy?

Maybe onigame's Dominion Set Generator would be of interest to you?

this is time for a shameless plug for the Recommended Kingdoms page on the wiki. it has all of the recommended kingdoms from the expansion rulebooks as well as over 50 different tournament kingdoms.

[DStu]

Here's my advice: Look in the back of the rules for Intrigue and Prosperity, there are some recommended sets using base or base and Intrigue in the case of Prosperity. You can include a lot of the cards listed there. So instead of looking for cards to remove you can look for cards to include.

You want to play "interesting kingdoms" that probably don't have big money as the dominant strategy?

Maybe onigame's Dominion Set Generator would be of interest to you?

this is time for a shameless plug for the Recommended Kingdoms page on the wiki. it has all of the recommended kingdoms from the expansion rulebooks as well as over 50 different tournament kingdoms.

[OT: Should these use the Template for Kingdoms (see e.g. http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Dominion_%28Base_Set%29#Recommended_Sets_of_10 , or was there some reason against it.  If not, maybe the bot needs some exercise]

[greatexpectations]

[OT: Should these use the Template for Kingdoms (see e.g. http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Dominion_%28Base_Set%29#Recommended_Sets_of_10 , or was there some reason against it.  If not, maybe the bot needs some exercise]

they probably should use that template, yeah. when i entered the kingdoms i just copied and pasted from the sources. you (or others?) later formatted them. this page probably just had less visibility than the expansion pages.

[bodybuilder]

I finally decided! I preferred to take only the cards you do not like no matter which set they belong.
here is what I deleted:
base: chapel,  chancellor
intrigue: saboteur, scouts,  Wiching wells
prosperity: loan, trade route,  counting house,  contraband

I also left the cards that use the components victory points in prosperity.

additional advice for me?

P.S. I apologize if I'm seemed immoral and arrogant,  was not my intention

[Davio]

Sad to see Chapel go, there are a lot of boards where it isn't an auto-buy at all and even if it is, there is still some skill involved in using it. But you mentioned you don't like the memory aspect of the game and knowing exactly how much money you have in your deck can be taxing on your brain.

The rest of the cards: They won't be missed.

I would switch Chapel back in and remove Swindler, a tad too swingy for my tastes.

Otherwise: Go out there and have fun.

[bodybuilder]

if you think about it,  the chapel is the only card that allows you to trash cards without receiving anything in return. then you understand that it is a strategy in itself, and completely revolutionizes the game. I do not like it at all. it's different from all the others cards.

[Davio]

Well, you're still including Steward...

[Stealth Tomato]

maybe it's an idiot, but it was boring to see him play only! I could not do anything! he played one card after the other and bought duchies.
I do not want this in my games

if you think about it,  the chapel is the only card that allows you to trash cards without receiving anything in return. then you understand that it is a strategy in itself, and completely revolutionizes the game. I do not like it at all. it's different from all the others cards.

Excuse me while I be a dick for a moment: Your problem is not that certain cards make Dominion bad. Your problem is that you are currently not very good at Dominion. Part of the Dominion experience is learning to adjust your strategy for unusual boards or unusual situations. Most people here would in fact argue that this is the most fun and the most unique part of the Dominion experience. The same strategy does not work every time.

It sounds like you are trying to turn Dominion into an easier game. At that point, I recommend finding a different game.

[jaybeez]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you need to "fix" Dominion by excluding certain cards, maybe you'd be better off just playing a different game.  The variability of the experience is what makes Dominion fun (to me at least) and if you don't like that, maybe Dominion is not the right game for you.

Edit: Ninja'd by a guy with "stealth" in his name, how appropriate.

[bodybuilder]

I do not want to turn anything! At this point there should not be even the kingdoms preset,  instead we are and advises them the author!

evidently some cards need other to work well, so if they go out on their own (choosing randomly),  they are useless!

I avoid this problem by not ever go out casually cards that have mechanical properties that I do not like!

and stop making the purists,  I'm not saying that I removed the cards are not good, I'm just saying I do not like and therefore do not want them!

[DStu]

if you think about it,  the chapel is the only card that allows you to trash cards without receiving anything in return. then you understand that it is a strategy in itself, and completely revolutionizes the game. I do not like it at all. it's different from all the others cards.

I think you should test it a bit longer.  It's true that Chapel drastically changes the board, but it is not a (very good) strategy on itself.  Just buying Chapel and money will not beat say just buying Smithy and money.
Instead, the Chapel is a very strong enabler for all sort of combo-decks and engines, which are usually considered as the more interesting and diverse decks. Edit2: But if you don't like those, banning Chapel is certainly pretty efficient.

Edit: I don't think that per se banning some cards makes Dominion the wrong game for someone.  If you don't like them, don't play with them.  But when you first understand them, you will make a more informed decision.
Also, banning just 7 weak cards will not really in change much in your experience of Dominion, except you won't never see this cards.  On average, you have 1 of these cards per game, so if your kingdoms are boring with 10 cards, they will be boring by taking away the most boring one and adding another average card.  Banning dominant cards changes the game, but banning a few weak cards won't change it much.  It will just take away the situations where these cards are strong (i.e. Counting House is a nice counter to Mountebank)

:e

and stop making the purists,  I'm not saying that I removed the cards are not good, I'm just saying I do not like and therefore do not want them!

But you are asking for feedback, and we can't give you much feedback on which cards you don't like...

[math]

Most of your selections are good.  Chapel is the one I disagree with, but that has been addressed already by several others.

If you don't like these cards, don't play with them! You can pick kingdoms any way you like, and that includes removing any cards you don't like.  If you're just doing this for fun, that's all you need.

However, if you want to get better at the game, you need to learn how to play properly with Chapel.  Learning when to buy it, and when not to buy it, is one of the most important skills to help you improve at the game.

[Davio]

In my previous posts I mentioned some alternative ways to go about things: Looking at predetermined sets and drafting.

If you want to make the game more interesting, you can search these forums for sets as well, there have been some Kingdom Design contests. And for some official tournaments there were sets created as well.

[bodybuilder]

ok since we then explain to me how I should use the chapel?
in my game I do not ever waste Estates and copper,  except when they are forced

[serakfalcon]

in my game I do not ever waste Estates and copper,  except when they are forced

It helps to think this way: would you rather have Estates or Provinces? would you rather have coppers or silvers and gold? If you don't have estates or copper anymore, you can buy provinces faster and more often

[theory]

Having more stuff is not necessarily better.

If you have a deck of 10 Golds, then each 5-card hand is going to have $15 in buying power.

If you have a deck of 10 Golds and also 10 Coppers, then each 5-card hand has, on average, only $10 in buying power. 

[Stealth Tomato]

ok since we then explain to me how I should use the chapel?
in my game I do not ever waste Estates and copper,  except when they are forced

Why not? What don't you like about trashing bad cards?

Also, what they're talking about is this: Chapel and money loses to just money. Chapel and good actions beats just good actions.

[math]

If you want to learn how to use Chapel, you might start here: http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/11/17/dominion-chapel/

[DStu]

ok since we then explain to me how I should use the chapel?
in my game I do not ever waste Estates and copper,  except when they are forced

I assume waste=trash?
In this case, trash them.

Let's take an example: http://www.councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20130128-055223-235b2c07.html
this one seems quite low on cards that are not from Base/Intrigue/Prosperity.  key cards are Chapel, a Village (Mining in this case) and Conspirator.  Talisman is a Bonus.  Tha gam plan here is to get rid of all Coppers/Estates asap, get as many Conspirators as possible and some Villages to activate them. 

We both start Talisman/Chapel. 
Every time the Chapel is in hand play it and trash every Copper/Estate.  If not, build the engine.  This means here Conspirators and Villages.  The Talisman nicely double each buy, which lets us build up quite quickly.  The small deck means Conspirators are likely to activate, and we both play more or less our whole deck each turn.


How to exactly play this of course depends on the type of engine, but Laboratories, Markets, Minions, King's Courts and many more usually really like small decks, also Village+Smithy type engines, especially if there are strong attacks that you like to play every turn.

[bodybuilder]

you convinced me,  I put the chapel back in the game

now I want to say please, what do you think of:
wishing wells
saboteur
scouts
chancellor
loan
trade route
counting house
contraband

see if you can convince me even on these, or if I was right to remove them because they are weak

[Qvist]

Remove Thief and Adventurer instead of Loan/Wishing Well/Trade Route

[DStu]

see if you can convince me even on these, or if I was right to remove them because they are weak

As said above, I think "removing because weak" is not really right, because it doesn't help you much.  Only a tiniest fraction of strategies really use all 10 cards, so it does not really influence much if there is 1 more weak card on the board, because you wouldn't buy a strong one either as it doesn't fit your strat.

now I want to say please, what do you think of:

Instead of this, I will just say in which situations the card is helpful, so you can decide for yourself.

wishing wells

Is nice if you can pick them up easily (Workshops/Ironworks), and/or if one particular card dominiates your deck (maybe Conspirator).  Said that, of course also a possible activator for it.  Usually not game changing.

saboteur

Is weak but can lead to group-think it is strong, which is even worse.  Everybody destroys everyones deck, you have to like it to find that funny.  Usually only strong if you have a deck to play it every turn, and then most of the time you either have a better payload and/or add insult to injury for your opponent. Probably one of the cards that is really banned from some tables with informed players.

scouts

Would probably be voted worst card of the game if you ask here.  Interactions where already mentioned, with only 3 sets it's still stronger than in full random, but you probably won't miss it.

chancellor

Game-accelerator when you don't have other terminals (or plan on getting enough Villages) or want to get to some key-card fastly (Mountebank, Goons).  Not game-changing. Strong combo with Stash, but that's about it.

loan

Trashing is strong, especially in Colony games. Not being able to trash Estates is a drawback, but maybe something else can do this (Remodel), but can't trash Coppers (well).  Loan trashes without the need of an action, so you can safely open with a terminal.  If you want to go for an engine (maybe you tasted some blood once you played more with Chapel), getting rid of 7 Coppers really helps colliding thing, but build-up is more difficult because of the left Estates.

trade route

Did I say trashing is good? This one is also quite weak, especially as long as it gives +$0.  May assist Loan by trashing the Estates.  Quite strong against Cursers as you have much to trash there and usually Duchies are touched quite early there, getting Trade Route to $3 quite early in the game.  Also possibly strong with or against alternative Victory points, or other cards that give you/your opponent(s) incentives to buy/gain Victory cards early in the game (Hoard).

counting house

Needs all-in on the strategy, and is still mediocre in that case.  Best is defend against Mountebank.  Otherwise, on weak boards possible to grind your VPs with it.   Probably nothing (except counter Mountebank) which I would advice to do until you have played some more games.

contraband

Good if you have alternatives to buy.  So either you want 2 small engine pieces over Gold (or could at least live with it), or there are alternatives at the $6 price point (Hoard, Harem, Nobles, Goons), so your opponent has a hard time guessing what you want (or you wouldn't mind either way).  Remember, you don't have to play all your money at once, so first playing the Contraband before playing the rest of your money doesn't give you opponent to much information on what you can afford.

[bodybuilder]

I'm just a bit undecided about counting house and loan. the other cards I'm still convinced to leave out..

[Kuildeous]

You could probably get help with seeing how useful or useless a card is by having a game on Goko with one of these fine people.

Create a kingdom with an overpowered card (like Chapel) and ask the player to try to beat you without using that card while you do. Against a skilled opponent, you may see that Chapel is not that powerful.

Likewise, ask that person to play with a card that confuses you (like Loan). See how the player makes a good use of the card.

This isn't perfect. Sometimes the kingdom cards will make one card an obvious choice to buy or ignore. Chancellor can still be a decent card, but it won't necessarily win a game.

[Davio]

I'm just a bit undecided about counting house and loan. the other cards I'm still convinced to leave out..

You can leave them out, they don't fill a void necessarily.

For Loan, Trashing Treasure cards can be done in other ways: Chapel, Steward, Trading Post, Upgrade, etc...

Counting House needs a very special board to be good, one that won't come up often.
It's a solid soft counter to Mountebank, but you'll rarely have enough Coppers and an extra buy to make use of it.
Maybe some fantasy Festival-Gardens-Counting House deck?

[markusin]

I'm just a bit undecided about counting house and loan. the other cards I'm still convinced to leave out..

You'll know whether you want these cards or not when you play with them. Just as a heads up, they can both lead to frustration. Really, just remove the cards you don't want to play with, even if that includes something we perceive as random, like Forge.

We all have cards we don't like. I mean, many people played in veto mode on Iso, which allowed each player to remove one card from a randomly selected set to create a 10 card kingdom. Don't feel bad about swapping out cards as you see fit. You'll see those cards enough by playing with random decks on Goko anyway.

[GigaKnight]

I'll admit I didn't read the whole thread because it's really long and there are a lot of tangents here.  I skimmed and didn't see anything like what I'm about to say; forgive me if I missed it.

If I were to remove cards from Dominion, I would not simply choose cards I thought were the "weakest".  I would start with cards I just really, really hate (for me, this is just Saboteur and Possession, and I have removed them from my own copies).  Then I would move to cards that are purchased the least.  Even if those cards are actually pretty strong, I think the point of removing cards should be to increase the "interest density" of each Kingdom so that more cards per set look attractive/viable.  Thankfully, we also don't have to ask people to just list cards, because we have a pretty objective measure in Council Room data.  I'm not going to analyze it myself but it's there for whoever wants to define "purchased to least" (boy, we could have a whole second thread about that) and examine it.

I also don't think the analogies comparing cards to teeth or chess pieces or whatever are particularly accurate.  DXV has said (repeatedly, I think?) that Dominion doesn't need any single card and he's right.  That's one of Dominion's strengths and you have to get pretty pedantic to make that argument for chess or the alphabet - except the letter "C"... useless!

[AdamH]

From forever ago...

also agricultural unbalanced cards banned from tournaments and are therefore eliminated! what's wrong?

I again have no idea what you mean here.

I believe this refers to the board game Agricola where certain cards like Taster, Axe, and Wet Nurse are sometimes banned from tournament play because they are considered overpowered.

[GendoIkari]

This is fun. From now on, I think all forum threads need to be had with text that was translated through Google translate.

(To Bodybuilder, I sincerely don't mean any offense!

[heron]

I agree the rules.

[Kuildeous]

Yeah, having a conversation using Translate is definitely interesting. It's also a testament to the algorithm that we were able to get that far. I'm disappointed that no one admitted that his hovercraft is full of eels.

Though, I have to wonder what he's getting through Translate with our slang. And if he doesn't watch Monty Python, then he surely thinks the translation didn't work for "hovercraft full of eels."

[ftl]

To the OP: I would recommend just removing cards you don't like, rather than trying to come up with strategic justifications for it.

The cards you mentioned are very different. Chancellor and Chapel, for example, have little to nothing in common. Chancellor is a weak card which rarely sees any use and usually doesn't affect the game at all except for the occasional edge case, weak board, or bad play. Chapel is a strong card which usually fundamentally changes the game, and leads to a whole host of different strategies which are completely different than anything you can do without chapel.

Every card is going to be somewhere in between Chancellor and Chapel on that scale, pretty much. So it's hard to pick something that they have in common and remove cards like that.

It's ok to just remove cards you don't like. Dominion has a lot of cards, and there isn't any particular one that Dominion "needs" to have.

[KingZog3]

In my games IRL, we take out cards that are not fun. It has nothing to do with strength. We take out Treasure map because often it's just frustrating and annoying. Same with Goons and Familiar. But we leave Chancellor in because it's unique and still offers something to the game without being too good. Same with Pirate Ship, Thief, Scout, Counting House, Loan (I don't get people's problem with it), Explorer etc. and other such cards that aren't good, but still offer things to the game.

If you took out the weak cards, you'll end up playing with Witch, Mountebank, Sea Hag, Marauder, Ambassador, KC, Throne Room, Chapel, Cultist and Rebuild every game. Or something like that.

[GendoIkari]

Yeah, having a conversation using Translate is definitely interesting. It's also a testament to the algorithm that we were able to get that far. I'm disappointed that no one admitted that his hovercraft is full of eels.

Though, I have to wonder what he's getting through Translate with our slang. And if he doesn't watch Monty Python, then he surely thinks the translation didn't work for "hovercraft full of eels."

And for those who haven't seen it: http://translationparty.com/.

"Chapel is one of the strongest cards in Dominion, relative to its cost." -> "Chapel is the strongest rule and card costs."

[noon]

you convinced me,  I put the chapel back in the game

now I want to say please, what do you think of:

wishing well
saboteur
scout
chancellor
counting house
loan

These can be removed.

trade route

Good card, keep.

contraband

excellent card in some sets. Adds an interesting decision when played. Keep.


I'm late to the party, but my answer to your initial question is

base: thief, spy, chancellor, adventurer, bureaucrat
intrigue: wishing well, saboteur, coppersmith, secret chamber, scout
prosperity: loan, counting house, royal seal, ...

I can't get to five in prosperity. If you made me choose, then Talisman and Monument.

[bodybuilder]

thank you all for the answers. I'm still trying to get out.

I am sure that I will not: Chancellor,  scout,  saboteur,  wishing wells
but I'm still undecided about loan and counting house.

- loan seems good for trashing coppers, but it seems that there are many other cards that do it better
- counting house I think is good only against a mountebank, but it is also good if I have coppersmith? or it is not good to take the coppers from the cards discarded instead of her own deck?

[ftl]

The problem with Coppersmith and Counting house is that they're both terminal actions. Which means you need a village to play both of them.  So you need a hand where 3 of the top 6 cards are "village, coppersmith, counting house". If you're buying a lot of coppers to make your counting house worth a lot, then it's very unlikely that you'll get all those cards in hand, you might draw "counting house, village, 3 coppers" or "coppersmith, counting house, copper copper estate" or something like that.

The best way to get a particular combo of cards together is to build an engine - either play a lot of laboratories, or a lot of villages and smithies, for example. But in that case, you'll just draw all the cards into your hand, and so you don't even need the counting house.

[Watno]

Why don't you just try it out? Finding out in what combinations cards work is really fun.
For example: Loan. You're right that there are stronger cards for trashing. But if you still manage to pull off something great if there is no stronger trashing than loan on the board, that's even more rewarding.

[liopoil]

worker's village is very good for counting house. chancellor/scavenger is good too with counting house too, but again you need a village. scavenger more so because if you have a cantrip you can put counting house on top and draw it.

A kingdom with worker's village, counting house, coppersmith, mountebank, and scavenger/chancellor might be fun . Although mountebank would probably be ignored?

[Kirian]

Yeah, having a conversation using Translate is definitely interesting. It's also a testament to the algorithm that we were able to get that far. I'm disappointed that no one admitted that his hovercraft is full of eels.

Though, I have to wonder what he's getting through Translate with our slang. And if he doesn't watch Monty Python, then he surely thinks the translation didn't work for "hovercraft full of eels."

"A Scout is all the best cards of the Dominion."

[bodybuilder]

ok after playing other 3 games I confirm that I like loan and counting house
so now the cards that remain out are:
base: chancellor (I can not understand the usefulness)
intrigue: saboteur (no advantage and I've read that it is unbalanced in 3-4 players),  scout (as chancellor, I can not understand the usefulness),  wishing wells (it is frustrating to have to remember the order of the deck, if it is been modified, otherwise it is even more frustrating to guess!)
prosperity: trade route (I do not like it at all),  contraband (the opposition will always say: province or colony!)

now I ask you again, with patience, to give me a definitive judgment on these 6 cards,  I do well to leave them out? or some may be good?

I would like to sincerely enter again 1 of these, because I would only 5 cards out, and 70 cards for create  many random kingdoms! should be great! really do you want to leave me with only 69 cards?!

[WanderingWinder]

so now the cards that remain out are:
base: chancellor (I can not understand the usefulness)
intrigue: saboteur (no advantage and I've read that it is unbalanced in 3-4 players),  scout (as chancellor, I can not understand the usefulness),  wishing wells (it is frustrating to have to remember the order of the deck, if it is been modified, otherwise it is even more frustrating to guess!)
prosperity: trade route (I do not like it at all),  contraband (the opposition will always say: province or colony!)

now I ask you again, with patience, to give me a definitive judgment on these 6 cards,  I do well to leave them out? or some may be good?

I would like to sincerely enter again 1 of these, because I would only 5 cards out, and 70 cards for create  many random kingdoms! should be great! really do you want to leave me with only 69 cards?!

69 cards to 70 doesn't make that much difference.

The problem is, you don't understand the cards (and won't if you don't use them), and we cannot predict which cards you will enjoy, as we are not you.

[shMerker]

now I ask you again, with patience, to give me a definitive judgment on these 6 cards,  I do well to leave them out? or some may be good?

I would like to sincerely enter again 1 of these, because I would only 5 cards out, and 70 cards for create  many random kingdoms! should be great! really do you want to leave me with only 69 cards?!

I don't really know if the answer you want is out there. You could certainly play lots of fun dominion games with the 69 cards you have left over. Your reasons for disliking the cards you've listed seem based in fact. For example I like playing with Trade Route but I can't deny that it does require additional components. If that's a dealbreaker for you then, y'know, whatever. I'm not going to tell you how to have fun.

[ConMan]

Another problem you may be having is thinking "This card does X, but not very well. If this other card does X better, why don't I get rid of the first one?" but there are two reasons - firstly, the first card probably does something different: Loan, Mint and Mine all trash treasures, but in different ways; secondly, because not every game will have the "better" card in it, and you will need to decide whether the "worse" card is still worth buying for what it does.

For example, nearly any "Village" is better than the plain Village - Worker's Village gives you +Buy, Farming Village guarantees you'll draw a Treasure or an Action, Mining Village gives you an option to trash it for $2 - but sometimes the only village out there is Village, and if you still want to be able to play two terminal actions in a turn then you're going to want that card.

Again, I will suggest that if a particular card seems useless to you, then see if it has a strategy article. For example, you say of Contraband that people will just stop you from buying Province/Colony. And they will - but maybe what you really wanted to buy was Gold. Or a Village and a Smithy. Or some other neat combination of cards on the table. As the wiki and blog article points out, Contraband is not an "always buy", but if there are lots of different cheap cards you want then the opponent can't stop you from buying all of them, and once your deck has what it needs you stop playing the Contrabands so they can't stop you from buying those lovely Provinces.

If you don't want to play with a particular card, then go ahead and don't let us tell you that you should or you shouldn't. But I suggest that every once in a while you let one of those "removed" cards back in the game, and see what happens if you buy one or two of them. Play a game where you buy one Chancellor and up to two copies of another strong card, and any time you know both copies are in the discard then choose to let Chancellor flip the deck. Play a game with Scout, Great Hall, Harem and Nobles and see what happens when the Scout is actually drawing useful cards. It doesn't have to be every game, but once in a while see if you can understand when these cards have their moments.

[bodybuilder]

once you've convinced me! after playing other games I liked contraband, chancellor and scout.

the only ones that I can not find a utility are:
- Saboteur of which I have read that many other people have taken out of the game because it slows down the games.
- Wishing wells, works with Scout is true, but only with that!

thoughts on these two cards?

[sudgy]

Wishing Well isn't supposed to be used knowing what's there (although of course it combos with cards that do that), but it's more of a +1 Card, +1 Action, maybe draw one more card, and if not, learn what the top card of your deck is (which can be useful in certain situations).

[Jimmmmm]

Getting rid of Saboteur is fair enough I think. Some people like it, lots of people don't.

Wishing Well's pretty harmless. It's generally a good card to have, and in the right deck it works as a sort of half-Laboratory. I don't see a particular need to get rid of it, but I wouldn't particularly miss it.

[bodybuilder]

ok I am convinced of saboteur to delete it permanently. as well as trade route that does not please me at all.

Now the only question is wishing wells, let's see who can convince me to keep it

[Jimmmmm]

Trade Route can be pretty amazing in the mid-late game, especially if you have extra piles of Victory cards.

[bodybuilder]

no! on trade routes are already convinced: I do not like. I need to know if wishing wells also works well with other cards as well as scouts, and if it is worth to keep it

[Jimmmmm]

I think the bottom line is that we as players owe it to the designer and playtesters of the game to try out each of the cards for ourselves. Once we've played a few games with them, I think it's totally fine to remove cards that don't contribute to the fun of your group. But that's your personal choice, only you and your group know whether or not a particular card adds to the enjoyment of the game. Personally I, and probably most other people here, wouldn't remove any cards, and if I did, then the least fun cards for me would be different from the least fun cards for the next person. When you say you want to remove Chapel and the cards which give you VP tokens, I can't help but think, "No! Those cards are so much fun!" But if they're not fun for you, don't play with them.

So Wishing Well is a fine card. It's not great, but I wouldn't get rid of it. It has a few interesting interactions that if you don't know about then the best way to find out is to play with the card and see when it's good and when it's not so good. But the only reason you should remove a card is if it's not fun for your group, and no one here can tell you if a particular card is fun for you.

[Jimmmmm]

For more information on Wishing Well and its interactions etc, see here: http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/12/07/intrigue-wishing-well/

[bodybuilder]

I finally decided to also keep wishing wells. therefore remain outside only saboteur and trade route

[Emeric]

May be the end of this thread ! finally 115 posts to .... keep the cards ! Great !

[brokoli]

Man, if I had to remove cards from these 3 sets, it would be Witch, Mountebank and Goons...
But never Saboteur or Trade route !

[KingZog3]

Man, if I had to remove cards from these 3 sets, it would be Witch, Mountebank and Goons...
But never Saboteur or Trade route !

100% agree on Goons. I have not played a single game with Goons that has been fun, even when I'm the one racking in huge amounts of points. I don't understand why Trade Route is bad/not fun. It's a trasher, gives +buy and near the end of the game can make amazing money for it's price.

[Kuildeous]

Trade Route can look underwhelming at first. Let's face it: It often is underwhelming.

But like most of the cards, it has a chance to shine. If there are five or more victory cards out there, then it really changes the dynamic of the game. If it is in a kingdom with a decent trasher and no extra victory cards, then it can be forgettable.

I'll ask this of you, bodybuilder:  Do you want to remove a card that someone else might like? You say you don't like Trade Route, and I respect that decision. If someone else in your group likes it, then it's not fair to that player for you to remove it. What if another player chooses to remove Loan? You've warmed up to the card, and someone could choose to remove it. That wouldn't be fair.

The same could be said of Saboteur, but if everyone hates the card, then you could remove it.

Something else to consider is that you have 10 kingdom cards. Maybe one of them is a card you don't like, but you could all just ignore it. You have nine other cards to choose from (and your basic treasures). It's very rare for the players to buy from each of the 10 kingdom cards. Even the good cards get ignored sometimes. It's possible that nobody buys Witch because the kingdom is set up so that Witch is not a good strategy. These things happen.

So, I can understand why you don't like certain cards, but you may be depriving other players of the fun of that card. You don't find it fun, but someone else might.

Your players probably won't miss Saboteur, though.

[Awaclus]

Man, if I had to remove cards from these 3 sets, it would be Witch, Mountebank and Goons...
But never Saboteur or Trade route !

100% agree on Goons. I have not played a single game with Goons that has been fun, even when I'm the one racking in huge amounts of points. I don't understand why Trade Route is bad/not fun. It's a trasher, gives +buy and near the end of the game can make amazing money for it's price.

I also agree on Goons.

[Jimmmmm]

Goons is super fun.

[Davio]

The problem with Goons is that there is no real incentive to end the game as your main scoring comes from VP tokens you get from buying Coppers, Curses, Estates, etc... And of course the losing player can't end the game on a loss.

So it turns into a real slog where the winning player is slowly buying out cheap piles and the losing player is scrambling for green, making his own deck grind to a halt, or playing a similar Goons strategy. Worst case, both players are close together and neither can do both of these in the same turn: Get in front and end the game.

[Jimmmmm]

The problem with Goons is that there is no real incentive to end the game as your main scoring comes from VP tokens you get from buying Coppers, Curses, Estates, etc... And of course the losing player can't end the game on a loss.

If you're buying Coppers, Curses and Estates before you're ready to finish the game then you're doing something wrong.

[Stealth Tomato]

you convinced me,  I put the chapel back in the game

now I want to say please, what do you think of:

wishing well
saboteur
scout
chancellor
counting house
loan

Oo, I'll take up the mantle on Wishing Well! While usually a dumb card, it thrives in a few situations:

• When you can spam Wishing Wells. 10 Wishing Wells in a 30-card deck means you can repeatedly wish for Wishing Wells with about a 1/3 success rate. 10 in a 20-card deck should draw the whole deck reliably. This is however the least fun neat thing with Wishing Well.
• Combos with things that reveal the top of your deck, such as:
• Navigator. If you can get +actions and then play Navigator, you can then hit two guaranteed Wishing Wells.
• Cartographer. Like Navigator but better because it provides its own action.
• Apothecary. See Cartographer.
• Mystic. If you fail the Wishing Well wish, you can immediately pick up the card with Mystic.
• Survivors, although Survivors is obviously a crappy card.
• Scout, although Scout is also a crappy card.
• Pearl Diver, but only when you have only two cards left in your deck (this is a bad combo, don't rely on it).

Saboteur is expendable, it does very little besides make the game really unfun for most players. It can be a gamebreaker in high-level games (where an opponent who is way behind builds a Saboteur engine and starts killing the other player's Provinces; the player getting Sab'd is either left with a weak deck full of Duchies, or loses all his VP turning them into Golds), but in general it's just a weak card that makes the game unfun, and only recommended in desperate situations for very, very good players.

Scout is also expendable due to not being very good, but can be situationally useful (e.g. with Harem or Crossroads).

Counting House can be useful with strange combos (Warehouse) or against Mountebank, but doesn't provide anything integral to the game.

Chancellor can be killed simply because Scavenger replaces it and makes it into an actually useful card. That actually brings us to a list of cards that have been essentially replaced by more interesting versions (more interesting version in parentheses). Note that they all have the important distinction of being often useless and rarely bought (as opposed to, say, Village, which has also been replaced with more interesting versions but is itself a relatively useful card).

• Chancellor (Scavenger) $3 / $4
  
• Woodcutter (Nomad Camp) $3 / $4
  
• Workshop (Armory) $3 / $4
  
• Loan (Counterfeit) $3 / $5
  

[Davio]

Wishing Well is maybe a bit more easy to understand if you compare it to Laboratory.
Laboratory is a $5 card which reliably gives +2 Cards, +1 Action.

How would you price a card which, say, gives +1 Card, +1 Action 50% of the time and +2 Cards, +1 Action the other 50%?
I think it might be a solid $3, like Wishing Well is.

But with Wishing Well you can improve the odds of getting it right by
a) Knowing which card you have most of in your deck, in the beginning it's Copper
b) Knowing exactly which card is on top of your deck by using Scout, Apothecary, Navigator and others

I don't think you should look at Wishing Well and think you've failed if you didn't get it right, it's just a bonus if you did.
In this way it's comparable to Great Hall, a +1C, +1A with a little extra (1 VP) or Pearl Diver.

[yudantaiteki]

Man, if I had to remove cards from these 3 sets, it would be Witch, Mountebank and Goons...
But never Saboteur or Trade route !

100% agree on Goons. I have not played a single game with Goons that has been fun, even when I'm the one racking in huge amounts of points. I don't understand why Trade Route is bad/not fun. It's a trasher, gives +buy and near the end of the game can make amazing money for it's price.

I've never had that kind of bad game with Goons; I think it's pretty fun.

My choices for removal would be Governor and Ill-Gotten Gains, because of the brain-dead strategies that result from them.  Even if I win with IGG it feels dirty.  In 4+ player games I don't want to see Pirate Ship either; too often those games just turn into a luck race to who can get to 3-4 coins on their mat before all the money in everyone's decks is gone.

[bodybuilder]

there is someone who has enjoyed with saboteur? apparently is better off!

[WanderingWinder]

there is someone who has enjoyed with saboteur? apparently is better off!

I am not sure what you are trying to convey, but yeah, I have enjoyed saboteur

[LastFootnote]

I remember one 3-player game where I played Saboteur about 5 times each turn (thanks partially to King's Court). That was an amusing game, though I definitely wouldn't want it to happen too often.

[bodybuilder]

I understand that many people prefer not to have it in the game, and I would like instead of the positive opinions, because until now I have not read

[brokoli]

Man, I love Saboteur. It can sometimes change the whole dynamic of the game, just like Thief, by his destroying power. But Saboteur is more often useful than Thief. It's, IMO, a very skill card.

I don't know why people hate it so much, maybe it's just psychological : they don't want their card destroyed.

[KingZog3]

Man, I love Saboteur. It can sometimes change the whole dynamic of the game, just like Thief, by his destroying power. But Saboteur is more often useful than Thief. It's, IMO, a very skill card.

I don't know why people hate it so much, maybe it's just psychological : they don't want their card destroyed.

Thief shuts down decks that rely on only a few essential treasures. I think the main reason people hate Saboteur so much is that it's really just annoying (annoying is the key word). It also get's frustrating if your Province gets hit even though you had tons of $4-5 cards. It can also skip opponents coppers, curses, ruins and estates, which is good for them.

Addition: It's not really skill based. That's like saying Goons is skill based. It's not, you just need to build your deck around Saboteur and play it all the time, but that's just +Actions+Cards+X.

[bodybuilder]

but there is someone like me who have eliminated from the game?

[dondon151]

I lost a tournament game once because I was trying to whittle away at my opponents' decks with Thief and Saboteur and the TO decided to end the game prematurely due to time limit. Their decks were in no shape to end the game and I just needed another turn to exceed them in VP.

The thing with Saboteur is that they're incredibly demoralizing if you don't know how to deal with it. A game between decent players with Saboteurs destroying each others' decks is fun because you have to figure out how to get ahead of your opponent. A game where one player just reduces the opponent's deck to nothing but Coppers and Estates is not fun. It also takes a long time to play IRL, not only because it prolongs games, but because the action of revealing cards is time-consuming.

[eHalcyon]

Man, I love Saboteur. It can sometimes change the whole dynamic of the game, just like Thief, by his destroying power. But Saboteur is more often useful than Thief. It's, IMO, a very skill card.

I don't know why people hate it so much, maybe it's just psychological : they don't want their card destroyed.

Thief shuts down decks that rely on only a few essential treasures. I think the main reason people hate Saboteur so much is that it's really just annoying (annoying is the key word). It also get's frustrating if your Province gets hit even though you had tons of $4-5 cards. It can also skip opponents coppers, curses, ruins and estates, which is good for them.

Addition: It's not really skill based. That's like saying Goons is skill based. It's not, you just need to build your deck around Saboteur and play it all the time, but that's just +Actions+Cards+X.

I have to disagree.  Saying "that's just +Actions+Cards+X" is not at all fair.  There is a lot of nuance in how to set up an engine geared around spamming a card, whether that is Saboteur or Goons or anything else. 

Goons DOES take skill.  How do you set up your megaturn to maximize points?  Can you do it and end the game immediately by piling out?  If not, should you pull the trigger anyway -- will you have enough points that you can end the game in the next few turns without risking your opponent catching up and overtaking your point lead?  I'm not saying that there isn't any luck (e.g. being first to play Goons gives you an advantage in that handsize reduction makes it harder for an opponent to catch up, especially if they didn't manage to get a Goons of their own yet).  But there is definitely skill involved.

Likewise for Saboteur.  Aside from crafting the engine, you also have to know WHEN it is even viable.  Can you prevent the opponent from ending the game with a lead?  As you whittle down their deck, is there something useful you can do to score points of your own?  Is Saboteur too slow for this kingdom?  It takes skill to answer these questions.



As for why people tend to hate Saboteur -- there is definitely psychology to it, as others have already pointed out.  It's also a lot worse in games with 3+ players, which seem to be more common IRL from what I've seen.  In one of the first games of Dominion I ever played, my friends and I decided to end the game and remove Saboteur from future games.  It was a 4 player game and one player opened with Sab.  Since it was early, his first play of Sab destroyed our opening buys.  It got worse because of group think... pretty soon there were at least 2 Sab plays every round, not all played by the same player (and not even considering Throne Room, which was on the board).  Our decks just would not improve and it felt like the game was not progressing at all.

Now that I know better, I imagine that we would have gotten out of the rut eventually.  Decks will still get bigger which means Sab will be played less often.  But still, that first game felt terrible when four players were all playing it turn after turn.



But again, that was when we were first learning the game.  Now, I don't think any card is worth removing permanently.  Even cards that appear to be entirely useless can shine in the right kingdom.  It's worth leaving them in for those rare scenarios where you use the "worthless" card effectively and blow the minds of your friends.

[Watno]

Also, if Goons, a Village and draw are on the board, it's a pretty safe guess that Goons will be part of the winning strategy.
If Saboteur, Village and draw are on the board, it's not quite as easy.

[GigaKnight]

As for why people tend to hate Saboteur -- there is definitely psychology to it, as others have already pointed out.  It's also a lot worse in games with 3+ players, which seem to be more common IRL from what I've seen.  In one of the first games of Dominion I ever played, my friends and I decided to end the game and remove Saboteur from future games.  It was a 4 player game and one player opened with Sab.  Since it was early, his first play of Sab destroyed our opening buys.  It got worse because of group think... pretty soon there were at least 2 Sab plays every round, not all played by the same player (and not even considering Throne Room, which was on the board).  Our decks just would not improve and it felt like the game was not progressing at all.

Now that I know better, I imagine that we would have gotten out of the rut eventually.  Decks will still get bigger which means Sab will be played less often.  But still, that first game felt terrible when four players were all playing it turn after turn.



But again, that was when we were first learning the game.  Now, I don't think any card is worth removing permanently.  Even cards that appear to be entirely useless can shine in the right kingdom.  It's worth leaving them in for those rare scenarios where you use the "worthless" card effectively and blow the minds of your friends.

I had a very similar first experience with Saboteur.  Eventually people just bought Estates until piles ran out.  After I got more experience, my distaste for this card hasn't faded and that's probably just due to my preferences.  But the things I hate about Saboteur include:

• Extremely high variance. This is not unique to Saboteur, of course.
• Sloooows the game down. There's a lot of opportunity cost to buying and playing the card, after which it just hurts everybody else.
• Because it has a permanent effect on the value (not just power) of your deck, it typically just fights against ending the game. Cursers (the strongest attacks) at least empty a pile and then run out of steam.
• Does not scale well.  If you already don't like this card with 2 players, you'll hate it with 4.
• It's not even that good! As I mentioned, lots of opportunity cost, it's usually a mistake, and it's got all these other negative qualities.

The best thing I can say for it is that it adds "variety".  But I'm of the opinion that not all variety is good variety and I put Saboteur in my (very small) list of duds, even years later.

[KingZog3]

Man, I love Saboteur. It can sometimes change the whole dynamic of the game, just like Thief, by his destroying power. But Saboteur is more often useful than Thief. It's, IMO, a very skill card.

I don't know why people hate it so much, maybe it's just psychological : they don't want their card destroyed.

Thief shuts down decks that rely on only a few essential treasures. I think the main reason people hate Saboteur so much is that it's really just annoying (annoying is the key word). It also get's frustrating if your Province gets hit even though you had tons of $4-5 cards. It can also skip opponents coppers, curses, ruins and estates, which is good for them.

Addition: It's not really skill based. That's like saying Goons is skill based. It's not, you just need to build your deck around Saboteur and play it all the time, but that's just +Actions+Cards+X.

I have to disagree.  Saying "that's just +Actions+Cards+X" is not at all fair.  There is a lot of nuance in how to set up an engine geared around spamming a card, whether that is Saboteur or Goons or anything else. 

Goons DOES take skill.  How do you set up your megaturn to maximize points?  Can you do it and end the game immediately by piling out?  If not, should you pull the trigger anyway -- will you have enough points that you can end the game in the next few turns without risking your opponent catching up and overtaking your point lead?  I'm not saying that there isn't any luck (e.g. being first to play Goons gives you an advantage in that handsize reduction makes it harder for an opponent to catch up, especially if they didn't manage to get a Goons of their own yet).  But there is definitely skill involved.

Likewise for Saboteur.  Aside from crafting the engine, you also have to know WHEN it is even viable.  Can you prevent the opponent from ending the game with a lead?  As you whittle down their deck, is there something useful you can do to score points of your own?  Is Saboteur too slow for this kingdom?  It takes skill to answer these questions.

I take it back, there is skill involved, but I find, personally, that these cards are too luck based. Hitting an essential card early with Saboteur can ruin an opponent, but it's not a card I take out in my games. Getting a Goons early while you're still setting up an engine isn't skill. Those VP will help tremendously, plus the buy and attack part. Goons IS a card I take out in my games, although I have a feud with Goons. It's my archenemy so you probably can't take what I say about it completely at face value.

[Kirian]

Man, I love Saboteur. It can sometimes change the whole dynamic of the game, just like Thief, by his destroying power. But Saboteur is more often useful than Thief. It's, IMO, a very skill card.

Addition: It's not really skill based. That's like saying Goons is skill based. It's not, you just need to build your deck around Saboteur and play it all the time, but that's just +Actions+Cards+X.

I think a "skill" card does not necessarily have to be entirely skill-based while being played.  A major skill with Saboteur is knowing when to use it (rarely) and when not to.  But those times when it's great, it can be really, really great.

[Beyond Awesome]

To some extent every card is a skill card, some more than others. The true skill is really recognizing how all the cards in a kingdom either synergize together or don't synergize.

[Jimmmmm]

I think a lot of the skill of attack cards lies on the side of the person being attacked rather the one doing the attacking. Yes there's skill in deciding when to use Saboteur and when not to use it, but I'd say there's more skill in defending against a well-used Saboteur. Take Witch (and other Cursers) as another example. It doesn't take that much skill to use Witch. If it's there and there's no reason not to get one, you get one, maybe two, and then you play them as often as possible. Yes, there's skill in trying to use your other cards along with your Witch/es to win the Curse split, but a large part of the skill comes in figuring out the best way to deal with a deck that's being slowed down by Curses.

[LastFootnote]

Also, if Goons is , a Village and draw are on the board, it's a pretty safe guess that Goons will be part of the winning strategy.

Fixed that for you.

[shMerker]

This thread's title becomes more inaccurate as it goes on.

[sudgy]

This Any thread's title becomes more inaccurate as it goes on.

FTFY

[Titandrake]

This Any thread's title becomes more inaccurate as it goes on.

FTFY

But what if I made a thread with the title "This thread's title will become more inaccurate as it goes on"? Then your claim would imply that thread's title would become inaccurate, which would make that thread's title more accurate.

[Jimmmmm]

This Any thread's title becomes more inaccurate as it goes on.

FTFY

But what if I made a thread with the title "This thread's title will become more inaccurate as it goes on"? Then your claim would imply that thread's title would become inaccurate, which would make that thread's title more accurate.

What I am posting now is false.

[ftl]

You're lying.

[Jimmmmm]

You're right I always lie.

[Davio]

Re: Goons or any other high variance card

Those cards are fun when you're on the winning end of things, hitting that t3 Goons, but they're absolutely horrible on the receiving end. This is because getting and playing those cards first directly influences the other player. Having a Goons played against you on a turn where you had 4 Coppers and 1 Silver for your own Goons is devastating. Imagine your opponent getting 3 Goons turns in before you can afford your own. Not only did he get (at least) 3 VP, he got +$2 every time (helping him to get better cards, probably more Goons) and hampered you. So the effect works two ways, it helps the attacker and hurts the defender. Most attacks work like this, but are less brutal. The +2 Cards on Witch are helpful but not fantastic. Saboteur and Sea Hag are examples of attacks that hurt the defender, but don't help the attacker directly.

But we have to be realistic, Dominion is a game in which a good start goes a long way anyway. If you get an early Gold, that will help you to get more Golds and Provinces, it's as simple as that. If you're forever stuck in $4 and $5 land, that sucks.

Goons is just the type of card that exercebates (is that the right word?) this asymmetry and runaway factor. It's even worse because the piles can deplete really slowly. You might see a Goons player buying out the Great Halls first, then the Pearl Divers and finally the Estates or something like that, while the guy who is being pummeled is scrambling Silvers to get his own Goons going, too late of course. I wonder what Goons would be like when it gives you Estates instead of VP tokens...

It's a powerful combination: +$2, +Buy, Militia-attack and +1 VP token for every buy

I have less quabble with Monument because if your opponent is one turn ahead in getting a Monument that's not so bad, your odds might switch from ~50% to 45%, with Goons it's more like: Whoever gets and uses it first switches from ~50% to 75% or even higher.

Of course there is skill involved in using a Goons engine correctly, but if you're going full Goons with some Village you can't really fuck it up, not so bad that you're letting the early advantage go away anyway.

[Kuildeous]

Part of the fun with Saboteur is enduring the hardship if someone decides to go that route. Okay, sometimes it's not fun, but it depends on your outlook. I'm the type of person who enjoys games like Galaxy Trucker or Dungeon Lords, where the game is really out to get you and crush your little empire that you built. If I can apply that mindset to a Saboteur game, then it becomes a race. I am racing to win the game before the other player(s) can ruin my deck. I try to gain extra fodder to feed to the Saboteur so that my Gold is safe. Most of the time, other players won't buy it. Generally, I don't either, but sometimes it can be part of a valid strategy.

It is difficult to see the silver lining of Saboteur, though. I admit that.

[Kirian]

Saboteur, like explorer, fits the phrase "Not every card can be the best $5 card."

[Davio]

Well at least if someone goes Saboteur, you can go Saboteur yourself.
And if someone Saboteurs your Saboteur, you can always make an Xzibit meme out of it.

[Stealth Tomato]

Saboteur, like explorer, fits the phrase "Not every card can be the best $5 card."

Yes, but that's true because Explorer is a consistent workhorse. It has a specific job and it does it reasonably well.

Saboteur is none of those things.

[Awaclus]

Saboteur, like explorer, fits the phrase "Not every card can be the best $5 card."

Yes, but that's true because Explorer is a consistent workhorse. It has a specific job and it does it reasonably well.

Saboteur is none of those things.

But Saboteur has the specific job of being an attack, and while it doesn't do it very well, it does it better than nothing.

[pinkymadigan]

Man, I wish I would've seen this earlier.

Base: Village, Smithy, Council Room, Festival, Throne Room
Intrigue: Mining Village, Shanty Town, Courtyard, Bridge, Nobles
Prosperity: Worker's Village, City, Vault, King's Court, Rabble

Those are cards I refuse to play with. I don't even take them along to game night any more. In fact, I've used most of them for firewood.

Usually we just play a Kingdom with Copper, Silver, Gold, Estates, Duchies, and Provinces so one strategy doesn't dominate too much and people have lots of options.

[Jimmmmm]

Man, I wish I would've seen this earlier.

Base: Village, Smithy, Council Room, Festival, Throne Room
Intrigue: Mining Village, Shanty Town, Courtyard, Bridge, Nobles
Prosperity: Worker's Village, City, Vault, King's Court, Rabble

Those are cards I refuse to play with. I don't even take them along to game night any more. In fact, I've used most of them for firewood.

Usually we just play a Kingdom with Copper, Silver, Gold, Estates, Duchies, and Provinces so one strategy doesn't dominate too much and people have lots of options.

You had me worried for a sec.

[Schneau]

Man, I wish I would've seen this earlier.

Base: Village, Smithy, Council Room, Festival, Throne Room
Intrigue: Mining Village, Shanty Town, Courtyard, Bridge, Nobles
Prosperity: Worker's Village, City, Vault, King's Court, Rabble

Those are cards I refuse to play with. I don't even take them along to game night any more. In fact, I've used most of them for firewood.

Usually we just play a Kingdom with Copper, Silver, Gold, Estates, Duchies, and Provinces so one strategy doesn't dominate too much and people have lots of options.

Good job making sure there aren't any Villages available - you wouldn't want someone to be able to play 2 terminal actions in the same turn!

[pinkymadigan]

Good job making sure there aren't any Villages available - you wouldn't want someone to be able to play 2 terminal actions in the same turn!

Well, at first I tried a few games with them, but man, new people couldn't see the strategy and it was so overpowered. Do you think I should burn my +1 action cards too? It is pretty boring to watch those Spy chains. They totally demolish me. I'm not sure there is a way to overcome them.

[Kuildeous]

Keep in mind that the OP is communicating using a translator algorithm and probably won't recognize the sarcasm.

[pinkymadigan]

Keep in mind that the OP is communicating using a translator algorithm and probably won't recognize the sarcasm.

Yes, I get that. The sarcasm is for my morning enjoyment. It goes well with coffee.

I think the board as a whole has well documented that I'm kind of a jerk.

EDIT: for fun, I translated this post to Italian. "Sarcasmo" sounds like a new super hero.

[KingZog3]

Keep in mind that the OP is communicating using a translator algorithm and probably won't recognize the sarcasm.

Yes, I get that. The sarcasm is for my morning enjoyment. It goes well with coffee.

I think the board as a whole has well documented that I'm kind of a jerk.

EDIT: for fun, I translated this post to Italian. "Sarcasmo" sounds like a new super hero.

Ironic Man and is sidekcik Sarcasmo!

[Davio]

SarCosmo?

[bodybuilder]

ok at the end saboteur is out, I tried online and I do not like if he is in play. very low scores and match that ends early.

Now,  without opening another topic, I ask you: would buy seaside but also want to be sure that there are no cards unbalanced. I do not mean not good, but I mean cards like saboteur, that hurt their work, bringing boredom and frustration in games.

other question: what do you think of alchemy and cornucopia? seem to me the less beautiful for what they offer

[sudgy]

All cards are balanced.  The playtesters made sure of that.

Alchemy is actually one of my more favorite expansions.  Most people don't like it, however.

[ftl]

Seaside has Sea Hag, that slows games down. It's a really early curser. Some people really dislike Ambassador.

Honestly, I think Seaside is unbalanced in the other direction, it has so many power cards that speed the game up (Wharf, Fishing Village)...

Cornucopia is a lot of fun.

[KingZog3]

The only expansion with cards I don't like is Prosperity. The rest are all good. Seaside is fun and the Duration cards add a lot. True it's got many super strong cards, but I don't think that's a point against it.

Alchemy is ok. Some of the cards are really interesting, like Vineyards, Apothecary and Scrying Pool, which add so much and are really really fun. But it also has a lot of not fun cards like Familiar, Transmute, Possession and P Stone (P Stone can be ok, but almost always these cards are never bought or add very little to strategy and interest. Waste of space in my kingdom if you ask me).

[eHalcyon]

The only expansion with cards I don't like is Prosperity. The rest are all good. Seaside is fun and the Duration cards add a lot. True it's got many super strong cards, but I don't think that's a point against it.

Alchemy is ok. Some of the cards are really interesting, like Vineyards, Apothecary and Scrying Pool, which add so much and are really really fun. But it also has a lot of not fun cards like Familiar, Transmute, Possession and P Stone (P Stone can be ok, but almost always these cards are never bought and add very little to strategy and interest. Waste of space in my kingdom if you ask me).

Familiar almost never bought?  Whaaaat?

[yudantaiteki]

Familiar is hands down the best card with a potion in its cost, so if people aren't buying it it's just because your group doesn't realize how powerful cursing attacks are.  (Or you play a lot of 4+ player.)

[KingZog3]

Familiar is hands down the best card with a potion in its cost, so if people aren't buying it it's just because your group doesn't realize how powerful cursing attacks are.  (Or you play a lot of 4+ player.)

Sorry, I grouped it wrong It's not fun is what I meant. It's always bought, but what does it add? Everyone just goes for it.

[serakfalcon]

It's always bought, but what does it add? Everyone just goes for it.

Attack cards are fun

[KingZog3]

It's always bought, but what does it add? Everyone just goes for it.

Attack cards are fun

Can be, but the luck factor of Familiar's cost is not fun. If you say it's fun when one players gets 3P and the other doesn't, I won't believe you. Other attack cards are interesting. Even though Mountebank is powerful, it has a built in Moat. Witch is weak after curses are out. Cultist has really interesting effect with TfB. Pillage is brutal but one shot. Margrave and Rabble can be built into an engine etc. Maybe it's just me, but games aren't fun if I just destroy my opponent, and especially if they destroy me. It's also why Goons is a bummer for me. It's very often the best strategy and whoever pulls Goons off first is most likely the winner of the game.

[yudantaiteki]

Yeah the dreaded "2P on a Familiar board" is rage-inducing.

[WanderingWinder]

Familiar is hands down the best card with a potion in its cost, so if people aren't buying it it's just because your group doesn't realize how powerful cursing attacks are.  (Or you play a lot of 4+ player.)

I am actually starting to put my hands up and say vineyards has a spot in the discussion.

[KingZog3]

Familiar is hands down the best card with a potion in its cost, so if people aren't buying it it's just because your group doesn't realize how powerful cursing attacks are.  (Or you play a lot of 4+ player.)

I am actually starting to put my hands up and say vineyards has a spot in the discussion.

As a fun or not fun card? Or another part of the discussion?

[eHalcyon]

Familiar is hands down the best card with a potion in its cost, so if people aren't buying it it's just because your group doesn't realize how powerful cursing attacks are.  (Or you play a lot of 4+ player.)

I am actually starting to put my hands up and say vineyards has a spot in the discussion.

As a fun or not fun card? Or another part of the discussion?

I think as a "most powerful potion cost card"?

[KingZog3]

Familiar is hands down the best card with a potion in its cost, so if people aren't buying it it's just because your group doesn't realize how powerful cursing attacks are.  (Or you play a lot of 4+ player.)

I am actually starting to put my hands up and say vineyards has a spot in the discussion.

As a fun or not fun card? Or another part of the discussion?

I think as a "most powerful potion cost card"?

Oh. Perhaps, but I thought the point was to inform bodybuilder with which expansions he may like. He doesn't even like Chancellor because it's not that useful. I get the feeling cards like Familiar won't impress him.

[Stealth Tomato]

ok at the end saboteur is out, I tried online and I do not like if he is in play. very low scores and match that ends early.

Now,  without opening another topic, I ask you: would buy seaside but also want to be sure that there are no cards unbalanced. I do not mean not good, but I mean cards like saboteur, that hurt their work, bringing boredom and frustration in games.

other question: what do you think of alchemy and cornucopia? seem to me the less beautiful for what they offer

Seaside is a wonderful expansion, especially for social setups. It is arguably the most powerful set out there. You may not like Ghost Ship and Sea Hag though.

I personally love Cornucopia, but it can be extremely difficult to play, and requires a very good understanding of deck balance and fast-trashing strategies. I don't recommend buying it until you have pretty much all the other sets (and definitely not before Seaside or Prosperity).

Alchemy is bad because it's SLOW. Familiar, as noted, can be rage-inducing. Scrying Pool takes forever to resolve in live play. Philosopher's Stone does as well. And Alchemy games in general last extremely long and involve a ton of luck.

[eHalcyon]

Familiar is hands down the best card with a potion in its cost, so if people aren't buying it it's just because your group doesn't realize how powerful cursing attacks are.  (Or you play a lot of 4+ player.)

I am actually starting to put my hands up and say vineyards has a spot in the discussion.

As a fun or not fun card? Or another part of the discussion?

I think as a "most powerful potion cost card"?

Oh. Perhaps, but I thought the point was to inform bodybuilder with which expansions he may like. He doesn't even like Chancellor because it's not that useful. I get the feeling cards like Familiar won't impress him.

Thread discussion tends to wander after a while.

Familiar can be swingy, and that can irk some people... but it happens.  bodybuilder didn't complain about Swindler or Torturer (and yeah Torturer can be swingy -- who can get the chain going first?) so Familiar might be OK for him.  I'm actually not sure what he's not a fan of, aside from specific cards.  Some are generally not bought (e.g. Chancellor), some are frustrating and often weak (Saboteur).  He also seemed not to want to play with extra components (like VP tokens).  I can't figure out a general thing he dislikes.

Best advice is just to try everything.  If there are cards that are disliked, remove them.  No big deal.  Honestly, everything is balanced and everything can shine in at least a few scenarios, or not be worth buying in a few scenarios.  Some just are usually almost always worthwhile or worthless.  But nothing is 100% always bought or always ignored, I think.  But if you dislike a card, there is no great reason why you can't leave it out.

[Davio]

ok at the end saboteur is out, I tried online and I do not like if he is in play. very low scores and match that ends early.

Now,  without opening another topic, I ask you: would buy seaside but also want to be sure that there are no cards unbalanced. I do not mean not good, but I mean cards like saboteur, that hurt their work, bringing boredom and frustration in games.

other question: what do you think of alchemy and cornucopia? seem to me the less beautiful for what they offer

Cornucopia is great as it promotes diversity.

I will cut you short and explain Menagerie is a great card and different than Wishing Well. It's not that difficult to get a hand of uniques and Menagerie, especially after someone plays something like Militia or...Goons, or Minion, or Cutpurse or...well, you get the drift. Cornucopia also has Hamlet which is a great little Village for $2 and helps to activate Menageries.

Horn of Plenty is a great little helper as it's basically a non-terminal Workshop/Ironworks with much bigger potential. Again, if you diversify you can get Horns worth as much as a Province, bam!

You can do without Tournament, it's too much variance I think for your tastes (and for mine).

Hunting Party is better than Lab, there.

And Fairgrounds are great if you can make them worth as much as a Province or more. With Dark Ages and its many differently named cards that's not hard at all.

[bodybuilder]

Familiar is hands down the best card with a potion in its cost, so if people aren't buying it it's just because your group doesn't realize how powerful cursing attacks are.  (Or you play a lot of 4+ player.)

I am actually starting to put my hands up and say vineyards has a spot in the discussion.

As a fun or not fun card? Or another part of the discussion?

I think as a "most powerful potion cost card"?

Oh. Perhaps, but I thought the point was to inform bodybuilder with which expansions he may like. He doesn't even like Chancellor because it's not that useful. I get the feeling cards like Familiar won't impress him.

Thread discussion tends to wander after a while.

Familiar can be swingy, and that can irk some people... but it happens.  bodybuilder didn't complain about Swindler or Torturer (and yeah Torturer can be swingy -- who can get the chain going first?) so Familiar might be OK for him.  I'm actually not sure what he's not a fan of, aside from specific cards.  Some are generally not bought (e.g. Chancellor), some are frustrating and often weak (Saboteur).  He also seemed not to want to play with extra components (like VP tokens).  I can't figure out a general thing he dislikes.

Best advice is just to try everything.  If there are cards that are disliked, remove them.  No big deal.  Honestly, everything is balanced and everything can shine in at least a few scenarios, or not be worth buying in a few scenarios.  Some just are usually almost always worthwhile or worthless.  But nothing is 100% always bought or always ignored, I think.  But if you dislike a card, there is no great reason why you can't leave it out.

you missed some step .. I am using add-ons and I like them,  I learned to use chancellor, and the other cards. the only one that I take off is saboteur, because with him the games are completely different.

my question was if cornucopia and seaside have cards that make the game frustrating (as saboteur).

I do not like alchemy,  and will not take it.

[DStu]

Familiar is hands down the best card with a potion in its cost, so if people aren't buying it it's just because your group doesn't realize how powerful cursing attacks are.  (Or you play a lot of 4+ player.)

I am actually starting to put my hands up and say vineyards has a spot in the discussion.

As a fun or not fun card? Or another part of the discussion?

I think as a "most powerful potion cost card"?

Oh. Perhaps, but I thought the point was to inform bodybuilder with which expansions he may like. He doesn't even like Chancellor because it's not that useful. I get the feeling cards like Familiar won't impress him.

Thread discussion tends to wander after a while.

Familiar can be swingy, and that can irk some people... but it happens.  bodybuilder didn't complain about Swindler or Torturer (and yeah Torturer can be swingy -- who can get the chain going first?) so Familiar might be OK for him.  I'm actually not sure what he's not a fan of, aside from specific cards.  Some are generally not bought (e.g. Chancellor), some are frustrating and often weak (Saboteur).  He also seemed not to want to play with extra components (like VP tokens).  I can't figure out a general thing he dislikes.

Best advice is just to try everything.  If there are cards that are disliked, remove them.  No big deal.  Honestly, everything is balanced and everything can shine in at least a few scenarios, or not be worth buying in a few scenarios.  Some just are usually almost always worthwhile or worthless.  But nothing is 100% always bought or always ignored, I think.  But if you dislike a card, there is no great reason why you can't leave it out.

you missed some step .. I am using add-ons and I like them,  I learned to use chancellor, and the other cards. the only one that I take off is saboteur, because with him the games are completely different.

my question was if cornucopia and seaside have cards that make the game frustrating (as saboteur).

I do not like alchemy,  and will not take it.

The problem is that we don't know what you will find frustating, and what you have told so far does not really give us a good position for guessing.  Anyway, Seaside and what others may find frustating:
Sea Hag: Sea Hag is Curser (like Witch) that doesn't help your deck (like Saboteur) and is avaible the first turn (as it only costs $4) and curses very fast.  This leads to quite messy decks, because all these Curses and also Sea Hag will bring down your deck value.  It's probably the most extreme Curser in the game.
Pirate Ship: Pirate Ship destroys opponents Treasure. In 2p, it's a usually bad card that can help your opponent more than it hurts if they know what they are doing, but often leads to group-think where everybody in the group buys Pirate Ships, which leads to horrible decks where now one can afford anything as all the Treasure is destroyed.  And the worst is, as everybody bought Pirate Ships, a Pirate Ship player wins, leading to the impression the Pirate Ship is the best card of the world, so everyone will buy Pirate Ships in the future.
Ambassador:  Usually not considered a good card by new players, it actually is one.  Games with Ambassador (in 2p) often start with both players passing Estates and Coppers to each other for several turns. After this, often one player has a clean deck and the other one has a messed deck, such that the game is essentially decided, but might take some more time because it essentially just started, as all this ambassadoring took a long time but didn't do much.
Smugglers: Another weak card that can be group-thinked into a strong card.
Ghost Ship: Being under constant attack of Ghost Ships might also be not that much fun for some people.


Note that these are only the cards that for some reason some people find annoying, it doesn't imply that they are.  I myself actually wouldn't ban any card from Seaside, even the strong ones like Ambassador often allows alternative strategies countering them.

[serakfalcon]

Ghost Ship: Being under constant attack of Ghost Ships might also be not that much fun for some people.

Reveal a beggar, discard the beggar for 2 silvers, put another card back on top of the deck, play library, profit hehehe

[Awaclus]

Familiar isn't very luck based. Okay, so with Potion/Silver you'll get Familiar only about 70% of the time, of which some happens on turn 5. That's luck. But more often than not, there is a $3 or $2 on the board that actually makes it very likely to get a Familiar (Storeroom is probably the best, and then there's Fishing Village, Steward, Warehouse, Sage, Oasis, etc) or less likely for your opponent to get a Familiar (Oracle and Fortune Teller), and knowing which cards tweak the odds in your favor the most isn't luck, that's skill.

The topic kind of made progress while I was AFKing with the "post reply" tab open, but I guess I'll still post it.

[lespeutere]

you missed some step .. I am using add-ons and I like them,  I learned to use chancellor, and the other cards. the only one that I take off is saboteur, because with him the games are completely different.

Let me tell you, most games with saboteur shouldn't be all that different. There are some (but not all, by far) games where it is really useful. But otherwise, it's ignorable very often.

[Davio]

you missed some step .. I am using add-ons and I like them,  I learned to use chancellor, and the other cards. the only one that I take off is saboteur, because with him the games are completely different.

Let me tell you, most games with saboteur shouldn't be all that different. There are some (but not all, by far) games where it is really useful. But otherwise, it's ignorable very often.

That's true, enginey games in which you can play it over and over again are also often games in which you can buy/gain multiple cards per turn to make up for this loss.

[Qvist]

But more often than not, there is a $3 or $2 on the board that actually makes it very likely to get a Familiar (Storeroom is probably the best, and then there's Fishing Village, Steward, Warehouse, Sage, Oasis, etc) or less likely for your opponent to get a Familiar (Oracle and Fortune Teller), and knowing which cards tweak the odds in your favor the most isn't luck, that's skill.

For completeness sake, I like to add Courtyard as it's probably the best one.

[Polk5440]

you missed some step .. I am using add-ons and I like them,  I learned to use chancellor, and the other cards. the only one that I take off is saboteur, because with him the games are completely different.

Let me tell you, most games with saboteur shouldn't be all that different. There are some (but not all, by far) games where it is really useful. But otherwise, it's ignorable very often.

Unless there are three or more people playing. Then it is very hard to ignore if the other players pick it up.

[Watno]

Does Fishing village really help hitting $3p in t3/4?

[Awaclus]

Does Fishing village really help hitting $3p in t3/4?

I believe it does, because it brings the average $ in four cards closer to four the turn you play it and simply increases the average $ in four cards by one the next turn, and you need only $3 in four cards with the Potion. It's not the best Potion opener on a Familiar board but it's better than a Silver.

[pinkymadigan]

you missed some step .. I am using add-ons and I like them,  I learned to use chancellor, and the other cards. the only one that I take off is saboteur, because with him the games are completely different.

Let me tell you, most games with saboteur shouldn't be all that different. There are some (but not all, by far) games where it is really useful. But otherwise, it's ignorable very often.

Unless there are three or more people playing. Then it is very hard to ignore if the other players pick it up.

I think that makes it more ignorable than ever. In 3+ player games, if they are sab'ing each other, they are doing the attacking for you. All you need to do is concentrate on your own game and hope the swinginess doesn't hurt too much. You may lose big engine parts, and not be able to make an engine, but if my two opponents are sab'ing, I can make a simple linear money deck with some straight forward big draws (or other interspersed key cards if no drawing is available) that will waste them. Unless of course one of them can make an engine that sabs every turn and then they dominate the other player's sab'ing. Then that's the reward of gambling on Saboteur I guess.

[Stealth Tomato]

Familiar isn't very luck based. Okay, so with Potion/Silver you'll get Familiar only about 70% of the time, of which some happens on turn 5. That's luck. But more often than not, there is a $3 or $2 on the board that actually makes it very likely to get a Familiar (Storeroom is probably the best, and then there's Fishing Village, Steward, Warehouse, Sage, Oasis, etc) or less likely for your opponent to get a Familiar (Oracle and Fortune Teller), and knowing which cards tweak the odds in your favor the most isn't luck, that's skill.

The topic kind of made progress while I was AFKing with the "post reply" tab open, but I guess I'll still post it.

Remember, $3P is more expensive than $5 (it requires the same components as a $5 hand, AND your "$5" hand has to be the one with the Potion, not the one with the Silver). A gamebreaking card costing slightly more than $5 is indeed very luck based.

Better openings will increase your success rate, but don't change that it's an incredibly swingy card.

[bodybuilder]

I tried seaside and cornucopia cards against AI, and I did not like, especially the duration of seaside cards.

so I decided to take hinterlands or dark ages. I think that these 2 games, have not cards also apply the next round.

between hinterlands and dark ages, what do you recommend and why?

[pst]

Does Fishing village really help hitting $3p in t3/4?

Yes.

If you buy Potion/X with your opening 4/3 there are 12! = 479,001,600 ways to order your 12 cards after the shuffle. (Yes, there are lots of duplicates, but to avoid probability traps let's count them all anyway.) For how many of these can you buy a Familiar in turn 3 or 4?

	Silver	Fishing Village
Turn 3	156,643,200	143,942,400
Turn 4	156,643,200	171,158,400
Turn 3+4	313,286,400	315,100,800

So the increased probability of buying it t4 makes up for the decreased probability for t3, and all in all you are almost 0.6% more likely to get it in t3/4 if you go for Fishing Village instead of Silver.

(Now I'm getting interested in comparing this with some other Xs, but don't have time right now.)

[Jimmmmm]

I tried seaside and cornucopia cards against AI, and I did not like, especially the duration of seaside cards.

so I decided to take hinterlands or dark ages. I think that these 2 games, have not cards also apply the next round.

between hinterlands and dark ages, what do you recommend and why?

You're not going to get any useful information on what you'll like and what you won't like. You seem to have a distaste for a fairly random set of cards. Most people who play Dominion really like Duration cards. So my only suggestion to you is to keep trying the cards. If you don't like them at first, maybe you'll like them more as you play with them more, like you seem to have done with cards that give you VP tokens. If after you've played 10-20 games with Duration cards you still don't like them, then maybe they're not for you. But no one here could have told you that.

[Jimmmmm]

Does Fishing village really help hitting $3p in t3/4?

Yes.

If you buy Potion/X with your opening 4/3 there are 12! = 479,001,600 ways to order your 12 cards after the shuffle. (Yes, there are lots of duplicates, but to avoid probability traps let's count them all anyway.) For how many of these can you buy a Familiar in turn 3 or 4?

	Silver	Fishing Village
Turn 3	156,643,200	143,942,400
Turn 4	156,643,200	171,158,400
Turn 3+4	313,286,400	315,100,800

So the increased probability of buying it t4 makes up for the decreased probability for t3, and all in all you are almost 0.6% more likely to get it in t3/4 if you go for Fishing Village instead of Silver.

(Now I'm getting interested in comparing this with some other Xs, but don't have time right now.)

I'm not sure what else you could compare this with. A terminal Silver is going to be the same as a Silver. Lighthouse will be the same as Fishing Village. A Cantrip/Copper/Terminal Copper will be strictly worse. Maybe Wishing Well (along with the most sensible wish)? Secret Chamber? Pawn? Poor House? Actually, I think Poor House would be pretty good, since a hand with Poor House/Potion will guarantee 3P. Okay, so there are some suggestions, but I don't think there are terribly many other cards costing $3 or less which give you something other than $0, $1, $2 or $1+$1.

[Kuildeous]

If you dislike Sabotage and Seaside because they make Dominion too different, then avoid Dark Ages. Dark Ages has some cards that really twist the way we play Dominion. And if you don't like that, then skip Dark Ages.

Hinterlands is more like "pure" Dominion.

Personally, I love how the different cards change the game (I'm also a fan of Cosmic Encounter), but if you dislike what Seaside does to the game, you'll probably hate Dark Ages. This is all speculation, of course, since I don't know you.

[Jimmmmm]

Hinterlands is more like "pure" Dominion.

Nah, it's got that crazy on-gain mechanic.

[Kuildeous]

Hinterlands is more like "pure" Dominion.

Nah, it's got that crazy on-gain mechanic.

True, but so does Mint, so on-gain abilities aren't a problem for him.

I never thought of on-gain abilities as straying too far from the basic rules. It's a slight tweak.

[Jimmmmm]

Hinterlands is more like "pure" Dominion.

Nah, it's got that crazy on-gain mechanic.

True, but so does Mint, so on-gain abilities aren't a problem for him.

I never thought of on-gain abilities as straying too far from the basic rules. It's a slight tweak.

That was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I think the problem the OP is having is that he seems to have conflicting goals. He wants to check out the cards of the expansions, whose purpose is to add to the variety in Dominion by doing something different, but he doesn't like cards which are too different.

[Watno]

Does Fishing village really help hitting $3p in t3/4?

Yes.

If you buy Potion/X with your opening 4/3 there are 12! = 479,001,600 ways to order your 12 cards after the shuffle. (Yes, there are lots of duplicates, but to avoid probability traps let's count them all anyway.) For how many of these can you buy a Familiar in turn 3 or 4?

	Silver	Fishing Village
Turn 3	156,643,200	143,942,400
Turn 4	156,643,200	171,158,400
Turn 3+4	313,286,400	315,100,800

So the increased probability of buying it t4 makes up for the decreased probability for t3, and all in all you are almost 0.6% more likely to get it in t3/4 if you go for Fishing Village instead of Silver.

(Now I'm getting interested in comparing this with some Xs, but don't have time right now.)

wow, thanks for doing the math. so in one of 200 familiar games with fishing village buying it will be better than :p

but I actually thought fishing village would significantly hurt your chances to get familiar, and probably wouldn't have opened with fishing village for that reason.

[Davio]

At least the difference between them is so small that there should be other deciding factors to go one way or the other.

[Awaclus]

but I actually thought fishing village would significantly hurt your chances to get familiar, and probably wouldn't have opened with fishing village for that reason.

See, it's totally a skill card. 

Though, I have to admit that I thought the odds would be more in Fishing Village's favor, and I would have opened FV/Potion instead of Sage/Potion for example and gone for the FV instead of Silver even if Silver was going to be more useful in my deck later.

[bodybuilder]

Hinterlands is more like "pure" Dominion.

Nah, it's got that crazy on-gain mechanic.

True, but so does Mint, so on-gain abilities aren't a problem for him.

I never thought of on-gain abilities as straying too far from the basic rules. It's a slight tweak.

That was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I think the problem the OP is having is that he seems to have conflicting goals. He wants to check out the cards of the expansions, whose purpose is to add to the variety in Dominion by doing something different, but he doesn't like cards which are too different.

I simply said I do not like the cards that also effects the next round, that is, only the cards duration. then I would not buy seaside. saboteur no appeals to many people because it is broken in 3-4 players. I do not know why it is so strange! I like different mechanisms, just do not want the cards duration

[eHalcyon]

I think the point is that we cannot predict your tastes.  You say you don't like Duration cards -- well, Durations are a Seaside thing, so you don't have to worry about them in any other expansion.  But there was no way we could have predicted that you wouldn't like Durations, just like there's no way we can know if you'd like Potions, or on-gain effects, or on-trash effects.  You said you didn't like Cornucopia cards but there wasn't a specific reason for that either.

If we had a better idea of why you dislike certain cards, it would help us give advice.  Saboteur isn't broken even in 3-4p, though it can feel broken.  But it isn't really.  No cards in Dominion are broken.  Although this may depend on your definition of "broken" -- is it a card that always dominates every game it's in?  No Dominion card is like that.  Is it a card that is never purchased in an any game?  Again, no card is like that.

Durations aren't broken either.  Why don't you like them?  Is it that you have to remember it the next turn?  There are different things you can do to make it easier to remember.  I can't really think of anything else.  In fact, most people agree that Seaside is one of the best expansions.

So unless you give us a better idea of what you don't like and why, we can't really offer much in the way of suggestions.  The best advice is really to just try things out.

[Jimmmmm]

I think the point is that we cannot predict your tastes.  You say you don't like Duration cards -- well, Durations are a Seaside thing, so you don't have to worry about them in any other expansion.  But there was no way we could have predicted that you wouldn't like Durations, just like there's no way we can know if you'd like Potions, or on-gain effects, or on-trash effects.  You said you didn't like Cornucopia cards but there wasn't a specific reason for that either.

If we had a better idea of why you dislike certain cards, it would help us give advice.  Saboteur isn't broken even in 3-4p, though it can feel broken.  But it isn't really.  No cards in Dominion are broken.  Although this may depend on your definition of "broken" -- is it a card that always dominates every game it's in?  No Dominion card is like that.  Is it a card that is never purchased in an any game?  Again, no card is like that.

Durations aren't broken either.  Why don't you like them?  Is it that you have to remember it the next turn?  There are different things you can do to make it easier to remember.  I can't really think of anything else.  In fact, most people agree that Seaside is one of the best expansions.

So unless you give us a better idea of what you don't like and why, we can't really offer much in the way of suggestions.  The best advice is really to just try things out.

This is exactly what I was saying, just worded much better.

[WanderingWinder]

How did you come up with those numbers? I tried to run it in a break (okay, no sophisticated way of making sure there wasn't a mistake), but what I got was that:
The only way for FV(or equivalently lighthouse) to help you is if it is in your t3 hand *and* your t4 hand is C-C-E-E-P. The chances of this happening are 5 in 88.
The only way for FV to hurt you is if you have FV-C-E-E-P on turn 3 OR 4 (instead of having the silver). The chances of this happening are 7 in 66.
Ergo, you lose more than you gain, and your overall chances of getting familiar on t3-t4 decrease by 13 in 264, or a hair under 5%.

Anyone see a mistake with my math?

[Kuildeous]

Saboteur isn't broken even in 3-4p, though it can feel broken. 

Handy checklist for if a card is broken:

1. Is the card relatively new to you?
2. Did you ignore it?
3. Did your opponent(s) buy it?
4. Did you lose the game?

If you answer yes to all of these, then you may be tempted to claim that the card is broken. It might not even be the fault of the card that you lost, but if your opponent(s) bought the card (especially several copies), then it's easy to assume it's broken.

I know we felt that way about Pirate Ship when Seaside first came out. Man, that card seemed so broken. Then one day I chose not to buy it, and I won. It was such an eye-opener.

[WanderingWinder]

Saboteur isn't broken even in 3-4p, though it can feel broken. 

Handy checklist for if a card is broken:

Did it get to print?

ftfy

[GigaKnight]

I don't think it's particularly wise to focus on a specific word in discussion happening over Google translate.  You guys really took the word "broken" and ran with it, but he may just mean that a number of people don't think it's fun.

If nothing else, I hope this thread teaches F.DS to be a little bit less pedantic.

[bodybuilder]

In fact, I want to say that there are people like me who have eliminated saboteur from the game, and I also read that it is banned in some tournaments. so I think that is not a good card, maybe it is not broken, but it certainly is not good. About seaside, I do not like the mechanism duration because I do not like to remember the bonus that I will have next turn. I like the normal mechanical where each round is played and then cleaning it. I do not like alchemy because of potions. I do not like  cornucopia because the prize cards come out only if there is a tournament, otherwise adds little. I like interaction, and I'm looking for attack card but not frustrating as saboteur.

[eHalcyon]

The fact that it is being translated is reason why we should better define what "broken" means here.

"Frustrating" is also a tough call -- it's subjective.  You find Saboteur frustrating, but you did not mention Saboteur or Swindler.  I guarantee that there are players who find those two attacks much more frustrating than Saboteur.

[jsh357]

Being banned in 'some tournaments' means nothing; I played in a tournament where the TO banned Village and Witch, which is just silly if you know anything about the game.

[lespeutere]

The fact that it is being translated is reason why we should better define what "broken" means here.

"Frustrating" is also a tough call -- it's subjective.  You find Saboteur frustrating, but you did not mention Saboteur Torturer or Swindler.  I guarantee that there are players who find those two attacks much more frustrating than Saboteur.

FTFY

[KingZog3]

The fact that it is being translated is reason why we should better define what "broken" means here.

"Frustrating" is also a tough call -- it's subjective.  You find Saboteur frustrating, but you did not mention Saboteur or Swindler.  I guarantee that there are players who find those two attacks much more frustrating than Saboteur.

He did mention Saboteur.

[Awaclus]

I do not like  cornucopia because the prize cards come out only if there is a tournament

The prize cards are Tournament. That's like saying that the Smithy card comes out only if there is a Smithy.

[eHalcyon]

The fact that it is being translated is reason why we should better define what "broken" means here.

"Frustrating" is also a tough call -- it's subjective.  You find Saboteur frustrating, but you did not mention Saboteur Torturer or Swindler.  I guarantee that there are players who find those two attacks much more frustrating than Saboteur.

FTFY

Whoops!  Yes, I meant Torturer.  This is the first "FTFY" I've seen in a while that isn't a joke.

[GigaKnight]

The fact that it is being translated is reason why we should better define what "broken" means here.

"Frustrating" is also a tough call -- it's subjective.  You find Saboteur frustrating, but you did not mention Saboteur or Swindler.  I guarantee that there are players who find those two attacks much more frustrating than Saboteur.

By all means, seek a better definition.  Several posts started to discuss whether it was "broken" before anybody agreed on what bodybuilder was trying to say.

And, yeah, of course all these things are subjective. I didn't mention other controversial cards because they don't elicit the strong feelings that Saboteur does.   In particular, I wanted to voice that I've played this game for years and my opinion of Saboteur remains negative.  Experience doesn't automatically mean you appreciate all the cards, nor should it, right?

[KingZog3]

Experience doesn't automatically mean you appreciate all the cards, nor should it, right?

Agreed. All the cards are balanced, but some aren't fun. It's a matter of preference.

[Iron Hunny]

In fact, I want to say that there are people like me who have eliminated saboteur from the game, and I also read that it is banned in some tournaments.

Irrelevant. Tournaments ban things all the time for no reason other than it might give a SLIGHT advantage to the player. Even if whatever was banned had TONS of play testing (like Dominion), people will still ban stuff because they deem it "unfair". Personal opinion doesn't change the fact that Saboteur has been play tested a lot and is deemed by DXV to be a balanced card.

so I think that is not a good card, maybe it is not broken, but it certainly is not good.

Again, it's a matter of perspective. Do you want to get slightly ahead and Saboteur is on the board to destroy your opponents deck? If so, then go for it. If you think you can find a better combo, use that instead. There's really no "bad" or "good" cards, just how you use them. Saboteur is a pure attack card. It can make you jump ahead by trashing their Province or it will trash their actions and mess up their strategy. If you don't like it, fine, but it's no reason to remove it from the game. Someone else might like it and use it.

About seaside, I do not like the mechanism duration because I do not like to remember the bonus that I will have next turn. I like the normal mechanical where each round is played and then cleaning it.

If you read the rules to Seaside, it's really not that difficult of a concept. You leave the duration card out so you don't have to remember it from memory. That's how they work.

It also looks like you are disliking things just because it's a new mechanic. It's typically the mindset of someone who hasn't played many games and doesn't grasp the multitude of things Dominion showcases. Most beginners don't like trashing because they don't want to lose cards. However, if you take out all the junk in your deck, you are most likely to win (Edge Case: You Open Death Cart/Chapel, Chapel everything besides Death Cart, then use Death Cart on Chapel, don't buy anything, play Death cart again, then trash Death Cart because you didn't trash an action). You say you like cleaning everything up because it's "normal". Duration Cards don't change that, you just clean up everything minus the duration cards for that turn. Then on the next turn you clean it up.

I do not like alchemy because of potions. I do not like  cornucopia because the prize cards come out only if there is a tournament, otherwise adds little. I like interaction, and I'm looking for attack card but not frustrating as saboteur.

It's becoming increasingly more and more obvious that whenever you see something new Dominion offers you reject it immediately. Also, you are making very big generalizations that already put you in the mood to hate something. It's like a kid who gets fed a hamburger. The kid goes CRAZY for the hamburger and loves it. Then when you try to give the kid something else like a salad, the kid just says "Yeah, but it doesn't have meat. I like the meat the hamburger offers". OF COURSE the first thing you try is going to appear perfect. That doesn't mean everything that comes afterward is flawed and "adds little". We don't know what you like. We are showing you all the different flavors and dishes yet you cling onto the original burger you were offered with Dominion and deny everything else even though you haven't tried the other meals.

Someone said it earlier about how Dominion offers some complex mechanics in the base set and the following expansions; if you don't like what Dominion has to offer to change up the game so it isn't the same game every time, then maybe Dominion isn't the game for you.

Again, it's best that you play a dozen or so games with each expansion and have it influence your decision for later games. If I play several games of Dominion: Intrigue and find that I personally don't like Secret Chamber, it will have a small influence over me for randomizing games. I'll take a look at Secret Chamber and say "Does it look like it will offer something in this game?" If it does, even in the slightest, I'll keep it in the game. If it doesn't, I'll look to see if I could maybe replace that one card with another. I DON'T remove it from the game and never consider it ever again, which is what you seem to suggest every time you dislike a new card or a new expansion that you don't have.

tl;dr You should keep all the cards and have experience, not first impressions like "Sabotuer is bad. It's broken. I don't like it.", dictate which cards to use. This topic is a bit silly now.

[pst]

How did you come up with those numbers?

I answered in a new topic.

[brokoli]

If you think Cornucopia adds little, I can't do anything for you.