Board 8 > Para Ranks the Dominion Cards

(+) Yeah! (+)

Do lists have a statute of limitations? I dunno, it's been like a month. Sorry Tom for stealing your thunder on this one but I am in DOMINION MODE at the moment and I am seriously aching to talk about some Dominion strategy. I sort of started to think about how I would order such a list after I disagreed with some of the early picks on Tom's list (or initially agreed with but realized later that I was wrong), and now I have a big list of Dominion cards and I am going to talk about them.

If you don't know what Dominion is, it's a card game, and an awesome one at that. It's like a collectible card game, except instead of building your deck prior to the game, you build your deck during the game. Lots of fun. Go check it out.

http://dominion.isotropic.org

This list ranks all 130 kingdom cards. This list, unlike Tom's, does not include the following cards: Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Potion, Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony, Curse, and the 5 Tournament prizes. The Tournament prizes are sort of tied to Tournament, and they're basically better than the vast majority of kingdom cards in the game, so I think it's better to leave them out and just talk about them with Tournament. The rest are just so vital to the playing experience that I don't know how to talk about them. I mean, Provinces and Colonies win you the game. Does that make them the best card? I guess. How do you rank Curses, Coppers, and Estates? They're obviously the worst cards to have in your own deck, but when you put them in other peoples' decks they rock. The only cards out of those that you could really debate the worth of are Silver, Duchy, and Potion, but still, I think it's best to just leave them out because comparing them to kingdom cards is really hard. All of the other optional, interesting victory and treasure cards are on this list, of course.

I sort of tried to rank this based on how good I think the card is, how likely I am to purchase it if it's on the board, and how often I feel like it wins games compared to losing them. On occasion, I rank a card a little higher or lower than i think its actual worth is just because I really like or really dislike the card, so there's a little room for error here and there but for the most part I think I am happy with the order of the list. Let's do this.

130. Chancellor
Set: Dominion


+2 $
You may immediately put your deck into your discard pile.
Cost: 3

Well, Tom and I both agree on this one, and for good reason. I don't think that there's a lot of debate over this one being the worst card in Dominion, or at least awfully close. "But it's not that bad, guys!" No, it really is. It cycles your deck and triggers reshuffles, and in most cards this is a good thing, but here you need to be a card counting monster to know whether or not using Chancellor's effect is a good idea, and even when it is, it's a rather minor and vague effect whose usefulness is basically impossible to predict, or to even perceive. The only time I've used Chancellor is when it gets Swindled into my deck, and I can't really tell the difference between using it and not using it. It's a fancy terminal Silver. If a card's going to be a terminal Silver with a crappy effect, I'll just take the Silver, thanks. I have never willingly bought a Chancellor, except one time tonight to end the game on piles (sometimes Swindler games are weird).

129. Explorer
Set: Seaside


You may reveal a Province card from your hand. If you do, gain a Gold card, putting it into your hand. Otherwise, gain a Silver card, putting it into your hand.
Cost: 5

There was one card, and only one card, that gave me pause about putting Chancellor in dead last on this list, and this was it. These are the two cards that I have probably never bought or attempted to play in any meaningful fashion, because they're simply terrible. What the hell is the purpose of this card? It's like a crappy Bureaucrat, and I mean, when you're a poor man's Bureaucrat, it's time to rethink the card. At worst, it's a terminal Silver that adds a Silver to your deck, but how badly do you actually want to load your deck with Silver? It's not usually a bad thing (although sometimes it is), but it's not really a game changer. If you can get a Province, then it becomes a terminal Gold that adds Gold to your deck, but that's only if you draw the Province in the same hand, for one, and even then it's not that good. When you're buying Provinces, you are in the end game, and the usefulness of this card starts getting highly questionable, because chances start getting sort of decent you won't see that Gold more than once again, if at all. I'd rather just have bought Gold in the first place instead of trying to f*** around with this terminal piece of s***. It goes above Chancellor because at least I know what the hell this card is doing, but that's about it. Maybe this card could be good in a really crappy kingdom where you just want to go big money - in fact, I may have tried it this way once and won. But that's a pretty rare scenario - I'd basically want any 5 card over this one.

they're basically better than the vast majority of kingdom cards in the game

nah

comparing them to kingdom cards is really hard

wuss :P

but yeah solid start

--
~Tommeri Uranius Bombaldi the Fourth, esq.
(aka not Krakenprophet)

128. Pearl Diver
Set: Seaside


+1 Card
+1 Action
Look at the bottom card of your deck. You may put it on top.
Cost: 2

Well, it's a cantrip with an almost entirely worthless secondary effect. Yay? Putting the bottom card of the deck on top of your deck is a really questionable effect - once in a rare while, you might use it to get a good card earlier, or draw the right cards together or something, but uh, usually you're not. Usually you're either just going to leave a crappy card where it is, or you're going to move a good card up for no real effect. Remember, unless you're using Chancellor or something, you're going to have to draw all of these cards eventually anyway. This doesn't cycle the deck, it just rearranges it kind of pitifully.

Now, that said, this is not a completely worthless card like the ones before it. I can think of a couple of uses for it. These include:

- Comboing with Native Village, putting a card on top and then knowing what it is when you Native Village it away - especially good if you are using Native Village as a pseudotrasher.

- Comboing with Farming Village. If you find a victory card or curse at the bottom, put it on top, play Farming Village to discard it. A minor effect, but if you are playing Farming Village, Pearl Diver will probably help your deck more than it hurts it.

- Comboing with Lookout to make extra sure you wind up trashing a card you want to trash with it.

- Starting up the most pathetic Conspirator chain ever.

- Saddest way to buy out all the Peddlers ever.

- Goons fodder.

- Swindler fodder.

- Remodel fodder.

- Good way to end the game on piles in a heavy buy game.

Okay, I'm already done thinking of ways to use this and I think the point is kind of made - even if you can think of a use of it, it's not a great one. At worst, it is just a cantrip so it's probably not cluttering up your deck that badly, but on the other hand, a lot of poor players will buy these things, play them, and then spend an entire minute getting analysis paralysis over the most unimportant decision possible. It's not just unimportant because it hardly matters either way, but it's also unimportant because they're wasting their time buying Pearl Diver so I'm practically guaranteed a win.

127. Woodcutter
Set: Base


+1 Buy
+2 $
Cost: 3

Let's discuss +buys for a moment.

Buys are, at the same time, overrated, underrated, and somewhere in between. Poor players will play a bunch of Markets, build up a ton of buys, and then buy out all the damn Villages. Good players will somehow manage to get like 30 money in one turn with 10 buys and empty the Province pile in the blink of an eye. I find myself having sort of a hard time with buys - a lot of the time, they're not really a useful thing to have around, since most of the time, buying two weak cards is worse than buying one strong one, unless you've got a good idea what you're doing. But when you need buys, YOU REALLY NEED THEM. Major engines that revolve around drawing an assload of cards often wind up with way more money than they know what to do with, and the difference between drawing 12+ money with 1 buy and drawing 12+ money with multiple buys is huge. This can't be overstated. When you don't have extra buys, there's really no purpose in getting more than 8 or 11 money. When you have extra buys, the sky's the limit, and I can't count how many times someone with a better engine has suddenly bought out like three Provinces on the last turn to overtake the lead and beat me.

So anyway, the point is, when you need +buys, you really need +buys. Sometimes the only source of those +buys is Woodcutter. When it is, that's kind of sad, but at least it is a potential source of them. When you don't need +buys, this is a terminal Silver roughly on the level of usefulness of Chancellor. Usually, in a deck where you can build a good engine, there'll be a better source of buys, like... any other card that grants buys, and this card can be safely avoided. And usually, it is.

126. Thief
Set: Base


Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck. If they revealed any Treasure cards, they trash one of them that you choose. You may gain any or all of these trashed cards. They discard the other revealed cards.
Cost: 4

I think this might be the only game that is more likely to be actively harmful than helpful and clutter up your deck uselessly at the same time, and that's really quite a feat. Most attacks are pretty awesome. This one isn't. This one usually doesn't even qualify as an attack. If you use this and hit only Copper, congratulations, you just helped your opponent win the game way faster than you probably realize right now. Not only did you just trim down their deck for them, you also just wasted your goddamn time buying and playing Thief. I'll probably have to say this a lot: Dominion is a short game. Don't waste your precious time playing a card like this that ends up helping your opponent and doing nothing else.

Now, of course, sometimes it hits, and when it hits, it can suck pretty bad. Having your Gold get Thieved away isn't fun, and can contribute to some pretty big swings, probably. Maybe. Although even if you do that, still keep in mind that you bought and played Thief, and even if you do successfully attack a good treasure in your opponent's hand, it is not doing anything for you right now. That's something to always take into consideration. This card is always a dead card - it can only help you in the future.

Despite all that, could it work? ...Maybe, but I doubt it. Playing this against a Treasure Map player might slow them down, if you're lucky enough to draw your Thief right after they play their Treasure Maps. Playing this against a big money deck, especially one that's employing some trashing of its own, might work, but I'm not convinced that it'll slow them down enough, or speed you up enough. Could it be more effective if you use cards like Spy to look at your opponent's deck and cycle through it? Again, maybe, but the real value of bothering to pull off this setup is highly questionable to me.

There's one more interesting note here, and that's multiplayer games. I forgot to mention in the beginning post that my impression of these cards is primarily based on 2-player games. Some of these cards may be better in 3 or 4 player games. Thief, at first glance, may appear to be one of these cards, but I actually think it isn't. Yes, you do have higher odds of hitting a valuable treasure and gaining it for yourself, and this is a good thing. However, consider this - you will probably never hit a valuable treasure in everyone's hand. And if you don't, guess what? You just turned into a kingmaker. The guy who lost his treasure is in trouble, but the other guy whose copper you just got rid of is now in easily the best position on the table. Chances are, you're always going to leave someone at the table in such a position when you play Thief.

Long story short: Trashing peoples' Copper for them is a really, really bad thing.

125. Stash
Set: Promo


+2 $
When you shuffle, you may put this anywhere in your deck.
Cost: 5

This card is basically perfect as a promo card. It's got a weird gimmick, it has a cute design where the back of the card looks different, and it basically has no impact on the game of Dominion, so people who don't own it can breathe a sigh of relief because they're not missing out on much.

Basically the only use I can think of for this is to buy a bunch of them and then always put them on top of your deck, guaranteeing a Province. Well... that sounds nice, but there's a few problems. One is that you're going to need four Stashes, and buying four Stashes is kind of going to take a while, and Dominion is a short game. Second is that you're only going to be reshuffling the deck so often... unless, I suppose, you use Chancellor. Holy s***, Chancellor + Stash combo! Is it awesome? No of course not, don't be stupid. But it's a funny thought.

Top-decking them all is really the only strategy I can think of with these things. Would you ever choose to shuffle them somewhere else? How f***ing prescient would you have to be to put these somewhere else in the deck in a way that guarantees their usefulness? What are you even going to do with them anyway? They're just Silver. At the end of the day, they're expensive Silver. Arguably, this could have some use when you're using upgrading or trashing-for-benefit cards, and I have occasionally used them in this way in decks where there just aren't any good 5's, but it's pretty rare and doesn't speak very highly of this card.

Oh, one other problem with this card - on isotropic, when it comes time to reshuffle the deck and it asks you where you want to put the Stashes, it doesn't tell you how many cards were remaining in the deck prior to the reshuffling! So like, if there are two cards in your deck, and you draw 5 cards at the end of your turn, you don't draw those two and then reshuffle and put the Stashes on top - you have to remember that there are two cards to be drawn still, and put the Stashes starting at the third position. Isotropic gives absolutely no indication of this. This makes the card really friggin' worthless when you can't even effectively execute its one useful feature.

124. Fortune Teller
Set: Cornucopia


+2 $
Each other player reveals cards from the top of his deck until he reveals a Victory or Curse card. He puts it on top and discards the other revealed cards.

This is probably the first card on the list so far that I feel like I could be underestimating - I am a big fan of attack cards, and this is one. But... no, I don't think so. Nobody ever seems to buy it or discuss it in any sort of strategy and all, and I think there's a good reason - the attack is just too weak. I guess it slows down your opponent a little, but probably not much early on, when they still have three estates clogging up their deck, and you're helping cycle their deck, which isn't really a positive outcome early on. But even if you don't wind up helping them, you can't really hurt them that badly. If you could chain this, like Rabble, you might have a better chance, but the attack only works once. And then it's just a terminal Silver besides that, and you don't want terminal Silvers unless they're doing something for you. This card is just too ineffective to be worth using.

Perfect list so far, I disagree with nothing here.

--
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thengamer.com/guru thengamer.com/xstats board8.wikia.com
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123. Harvest
Set: Cornucopia


Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck, then discard them. +1 $ per differently named card revealed.
Cost: 5

Okay here's another one that I simply just don't get. I've never really seriously played it, I've never seen anyone else really seriously play it, and I've hardly seen any strategy discussion about it. Given that it has a really low win rate, I think I'm not missing out on anything here.

I don't really get what the purpose of this card is - all it can do is grant you money by discarding some of your good cards. If you're lucky you can maybe expect a terminal gold out of this. Okay, here's the thing. Even if this card was just a terminal Gold, I still wouldn't buy it! I would buy any of these other really awesome 5's that exist, and wait to buy actual gold. But then there's a luck factor to it. Maybe if you're REALLY lucky, you'll hit that lucky +4 $. Is that really worth it? I'm still not sure I want this over a Gold. But then you have the chance of discarding like, two estates and two coppers, and congrats, you just played an expensive Chancellor. Yeah, no thanks. This card just doesn't generate enough money to be worth it, like something like Bank does, but 5 cost is too expensive for it to act as a "slingshot" card, even in a Colony game - in other words, a card you can use to generate a quick source of money to get into the higher tier of cards quickly. Moneylender is a slingshot. Mining Village is a slingshot. Baron is a slingshot. Harvest is not.

My suggestion for Harvest would be something like this:

Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put every differently named card revealed into your hand. Discard the rest.
Cost: 4

I dunno, something like that? This is probably too similar to Smithy and Envoy, but I think it seems like a reasonable and maybe slightly better alternative, and hey, Hunting Party is basically a slightly better Lab, so why not. But this version of Harvest, I just can't see a purpose for it. Honestly, I think it would probably be reasonable to just drop the cost of the card to 4 - it's still not a good opening buy anyway because your deck is almost entirely coppers and estates, but you might hit the other card you bought and get a +3 $, which would make it a decent slingshot, but still probably not better than the likes of, say, Moneylender, which does you the more important favor of trashing Coppers. But at a cost of 5, I just can't find a way to justify Harvest at all. Hell, even just give it +1 action, or +1 buy. Something.

What the hell is the purpose of this card? It's like a crappy Bureaucrat, and I mean, when you're a poor man's Bureaucrat, it's time to rethink the card.

Now, that's not fair. Bureaucrat isn't even a terminal silver.

Oh, one other problem with this card - on isotropic, when it comes time to reshuffle the deck and it asks you where you want to put the Stashes, it doesn't tell you how many cards were remaining in the deck prior to the reshuffling!

I think that is no longer an issue? Last time I played with Stash, I remember it going "Place your Stash, by the way you have already drawn these cards".

But then you have the chance of discarding like, two estates and two coppers, and congrats, you just played an expensive Chancellor. Yeah, no thanks.

If you discarded two estates and two coppers, then at least Harvest has significantly improved your next hand! That said, I think Harvest costs $5 because under an (unlikely) best case scenario, it is very powerful. There are a couple other cards I think this is true of, and I look forward to seeing whether you share my low opinion of them.

--
I don't like this duchy. Now, it's an adventurer.

MalcolmMasher | Posted 9/11/2011 2:12:55 AM | message detail | quote
I think that is no longer an issue? Last time I played with Stash, I remember it going "Place your Stash, by the way you have already drawn these cards".

This is probably true, the last time I played Stash was like a week ago or so. It'll be... well, still a bad card, but better now at least, since now I won't be splitting my stashes between two hands.

122. Bureaucrat
Set: Base


Gain a silver card; put it on top of your deck. Each other player reveals a victory card from his hand and puts it on his deck (or reveals a hand with no victory cards).

I'm sort of not sure what to think about this one. When I was starting to play Dominion early on, I thought this was a pretty good card - hey, I can get my early silver buys quickly, and then use those silvers immediately! And I can slow my opponents down at the same time! But it just doesn't really... work. Loading up your deck with silver isn't really that awesome, you only need a couple of silver buys early on to get up to the 5-cost actions and gold and then go from there. And the attack is kind of slow - it's like a crappy Ghost Ship basically. It's not the worst attack - I'd say it's better than Fortune Teller, since it slows down deck cycling - but it's still not great.

I think this card is potentially okay in Duke strategies - you can use that silver to just get up to 5 and not go for higher, and if your opponent decides to load up on Duchies then Bureaucrat's attack will hurt more. Then again, your opponent could do the same to you. Still, that is probably the one potential time that Bureaucrat has the possibility of making a difference, filling your deck with Silver you need to get to 5, and putting it on top of your deck to draw it right away. Even then I'm not really sure. (Likewise, this card is possibly the worst in the game in Colony games.) This is just sort of a weak card, one that I sort of expected to be better but it just doesn't really work out that way because Silver is not that strong. After all, I've already belittled terminal Silvers plenty in this list so far, and this is worse - it's a terminal Silver next turn, in exchange for adding Silver into your deck to be used later, when you're not going to need it that much because you want Golds instead.

My thoughts so far:

Explorer puts the Silver/Gold into your hand, while Bureaucrat puts it on top of the deck. Big difference imo!
As for Thief, if they Treasure Map they'll draw the Golds for their next hand before your turn starts, so you can't even pull that one off.

Also, my most important question: where the hell is Loan? I cannot seriously believe you're putting it above these other cards.

--
It's iubaris, not Lubaris.

Iubaris | Posted 9/11/2011 1:44:05 PM | message detail | quote
My thoughts so far:

Explorer puts the Silver/Gold into your hand, while Bureaucrat puts it on top of the deck. Big difference imo!

The biggest difference between Bureaucrat and Explorer is that Bureaucrat costs 4 and Explorer costs 5. This is something I'll probably point out later, but the difference between 4 and the difference between 5 is by far the largest in the game. The value of a card between 3 and 4 is not that much - the value of a card between 4 and 5 is gigantic. Bureaucrat can be reasonably opened, which is why it is a little better than Explorer. It also has an attack feature, which makes it better than Explorer. In my opinion, Bureaucrat is almost strictly the better card, if I had to make a comparison.

As for Thief, if they Treasure Map they'll draw the Golds for their next hand before your turn starts, so you can't even pull that one off.

Yeah this is true, I don't know why this didn't occur to me.

Also, my most important question: where the hell is Loan? I cannot seriously believe you're putting it above these other cards.

Well, aren't you going to be awfully surprised then!

121. Coppersmith
Set: Intrigue


Copper produces an extra 1 $ this turn.
Cost: 4

The crappiness of Coppersmith is pretty well documented by this point, it's probably one of the most infamously bad cards in the game. Is it as bad as they say it is? Yes. Yes it is. It's terminal, and it relies on you having copper in your hand. So right off, it's only good in setups without trashing, because I guarantee you if you can trash, you're better off getting rid of the coppers rather than try to turn them into something good.

It's also, like Harvest, sort of reliant on drawing the right things at the right time. If you only have one copper in your hand, well, this is an expensive, terminal copper. You need probably at least three copper AND this in your hand to make really good use of it, and that's asking a lot. Luck can frequently screw you out of being able to use Coppersmith well - or really, it's more like luck has to fluke you into it being good.

There are maybe a couple of strategies revolving around this that might work. An engine that draws a lot of copper and then KCs a Coppersmith could be really good, if you have a couple of +buys in there. Coppersmith might also combo well with Counting House... maybe. But we'll get to that one later.

120. Navigator
Set: Seaside


+2 $
Look at the top 5 cards of your deck. Either discard all of them, or put them back on top of your deck in any order.
Cost: 4

Phoenix Wright, is that you? When did you become a navigator and why do you look so awful?

This is a card that I may be underestimating just a little bit, but even if I am, it's just a card that I find boring and not really worth playing. It's another one of those terminal Silvers with a sort of minor effect tied to it, except this one costs 4 which is not so awesome. But how minor is the effect? Well, it's better than Chancellor, probably, but I think it's sort of similar to Chancellor, without necessitating you being a card counting genius.

It cycles through your deck, which is good. It can maybe avoid a bad hand, which is good - but what if you don't? If you look at the top five cards and decide that's a hand worth keeping, which is fairly likely, then this card basically did nothing except be an expensive terminal Silver. You need to be fairly certain that you're actually going to be looking at junk hands before you decide to buy this, but unless you're deliberately playing a junk deck, like Gardens, I don't know why you would expect junk hands to crop up frequently. Early game, you're reasonably likely to hit a hand like silver/copper/copper/copper/estate just as much as you are copper/copper/estate/estate/estate, although early game is the time when terminal Silvers aren't so bad. Mid-game this card's pretty much useless. Late-game, when you've started buying Provinces, it might prove to be a little bit better, but how many times are you going to get to play this late game, and to what end? You might see a junk hand and discard it, but the next one might be junk too. Is it worth taking the chance? What do you do if you look at a hand with 5 money in it? Do you pass up the chance for a Duchy to go for a Province, risking winding up with a lowly Estate instead? I don't like making these kinds of blind guesses.

I think the problem is, when I see this card, I feel like it's something that demands +actions or +cards to work well, but then at the very same time it's defeating the entire purpose - if you have a good engine going, you're not worried about drawing junk hands, you're just worried about drawing awesome hands faster than your opponent. Navigator isn't going to help in a fast card-drawing engine, not at all. It doesn't help big money that much either - I guess it could, but there are a lot better cards you could use for big money than this, since big money eventually expects to be drawing decent cards just about every hand. Is it good in junk decks? Maybe, but I'd rather have Scout, probably. Won't work in Goons decks because Goons demand +actions and would prefer to buy cheap cantrips over a Navigator.

There's also the fact that you can rearrange the cards that you come up with. Can this be used? It probably can, but I think in any case that you would do it it's just too unwieldy a strategy to use. First of all, you're going to need +actions coming from somewhere, and then you need a good strategy to use with it. I think that Native Village may be one of the best cards to combo with this; it gives you said needed +actions, and then you can rearrange cards as you see fit to put whatever you want on the native mat - perhaps a good way to pseudotrash by loading the mat with victory points? It's a slow and still slightly risky strategy though. I just don't know if it's worth it.

So I guess my problem with Navigator is that I just don't know when to play it, and what it's really for. I mean, I get the point behind the card - avoid junk hands, cycle your deck - but I just can't think of a strategy I'd play where I feel like this card is seriously helping me in a big way.

119. Talisman
Set: Prosperity


1 $
While this is in play, when you buy a card costing 4 or less that is not a victory card, gain a copy of it.
Cost: 4

One of the cardinal rules of Dominion is that one good and one bad is better than two mediocre. One good turn and one bad turn is better than two mediocre turns, and one good card and one bad card is better than two mediocre cards. So here we have Talisman, king of the mediocre.

Talisman is probably the first card on this list that I do truly understand what it's for, but it's incredibly niche. The fact that the difference between cards costing 4 and cards costing 5 is the biggest comes into play here. There's tons of 5-cost cards you want to spam; there aren't many 4-cost cards you want to spam. Caravan, yes. Mining Village? Farming Village? Fishing Village? Maybe. I don't know, really.

This really winds up being sort of a double-whammy of useless - Talisman is otherwise effectively a Copper, which is really, really bad, and it duplicates a sort of crappy or at best unnecessary card, cluttering and diluting your deck, which might not be such a great thing to do, plus you had to buy a Talisman in the first place which represents a lost opportunity cost to have bought a 4-cost card in the first place. So no matter what you do you are probably spending too much time dicking around with the low cost cards while someone else goes straight for the 5's and 6's.

So that's why it's usually useless. Let me explain why it's not always.

Bridge and Quarry.

Suddenly those 5 and 6 cost cards that you really want now cost 4 or less. Aha. Now you can Talisman them. This is a far more productive use of Talisman, and although it's still one you want to be really careful with, both in terms of its use (don't load up on more terminal attacks than you need) and its opportunity cost (how badly do you really need to duplicate those bazaars?), this is where I see things being potentially pretty lucrative, especially if Grand Market is in play, ESPECIALLY with Quarry. Talisman + Quarry + Grand Market? Holy god, go for it, immediately. Talisman and Quarry aren't Copper, so it works.

Talisman has a few other uses - it's all right in junk decks, though I'd still question it unless there are no sources of +buys on the board. Remember that Talisman itself is sort of a junk card, only acting as a Copper until your duplicated card comes into play somehow to help you later. Having that Talisman could come back to bite you in the ass later, unless you're diligently trashing, especially with trash-for-benefits. Talisman is also absolutely brilliant in the totally insane Talisman + Treasure Map + Watchtower or Royal Seal combo, although I've never seen this one actually come up personally, but it definitely sounds like a winner anyway.

But you have to be really careful about how you use Talisman. You ALWAYS have to weigh its opportunity cost and general crappiness versus the benefits of having more low-cost cards in your deck, and usually said opportunity cost and crappiness outweighs the benefits. But it's potentially a pretty interesting and fun card to use in the right circumstances.

Here's a neat Navigator combo for you - Navigator/Loan. My next hand is Copper Copper Silver Estate Estate? Well OK, let me just move those Estates up front and put a Copper after them, so that Loan discards both Estates and trashes the Copper. No +Actions required!

Tonight's bulletin: A Dominion card has cool synergy with another Dominion card. In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco... is still dead.

--
I don't like this duchy. Now, it's an adventurer.

Interesting, I didn't consider Navigator/Loan at all. That's a new combo to me, and it's a really good one. You don't need +actions to facilitate it because Loan is not an action, and Loan does indeed discard those victory cards, and then trash a copper for good measure. It also ensures (as long as you reveal a copper) that you are able to trash a copper with it, instead of discarding a silver or gold. That's pretty good really. I may have to reconsider Navigator after this revelation. It could also combo excellently with Farming Village as long as you've got a couple of them, since it can give actions and cycle through victory cards.

118. Pirate Ship
Set: Seaside


Choose one: Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes a revealed Treasure that you choose, discards the rest, and if anyone trashed a Treasure you take a Coin token; or, +1 $ per Coin token you've taken with Pirate Ships this game.
Cost: 4

I have to build a damn fortress of caveats around this card.

First of all, I don't really like this card. Not because I have a particular fear of it, although a lot of people do for some reason. I don't really know why - most people are playing 1v1, and nobody cares about Thief at all in the same way, but Pirate Ship always gets vetoed (it is statistically one of the most vetoed cards on isotropic) and for some reason I still see the occasional complaint about it. This is silly. No, I don't like the card because the card was really a terrible idea, because it's completely impossible to balance.

Second, the reason it's impossible to balance is because this card is probably the only one that is explicitly better the more people are playing. I really mostly planned this list out for 2-player games only. Don't mistake me for a 3 or 4 player game hater, all of the real-life Dominion games I play are at least 3 players, because I have more than one friend. But on isotropic, anything more than 2 players just goes too damn slowly because of a crippling analysis paralysis epidemic going around. So I'm strategically geared towards 2 player games.

This card isn't good in 2 player. It might be the worst card in 2 player, in fact. It might not be, but it's not much higher.

Everything I said in the Thief writeup about trashing other peoples' Copper being a really bad idea applies here. Trashing other peoples' Copper is a really bad idea. That's the first strike against this card. I could go on again about how it's kind of hard to hit Silvers and Golds but quite easy to hit Coppers, but you know the deal. Thief sucks, and the identical function of this card does too.

Where a wrench gets thrown into it is that unlike Thief, when you trash a Copper, you still get a benefit. You get a benefit from any treasure you trash - the value of this card's other action goes up by 1.

Now, can you get to obscene numbers this way? Sure. At what number does it really start to become worth it? I'd say you need 5 successful attacks before the amount of money this card starts generating really perks my interest.

That means playing Pirate Ship six times to get that 5 money just once - and that's only IF you attack successfully in all five attempts. You won't.

This is just a really big problem in 1v1. Dominion is a short game. You're not going to get to play Pirate Ship often enough to really start getting to awesome numbers. You just aren't. The fact that you have to choose between attacking and making money doesn't help, either, and it's terminal to boot. In 1v1, even if you do get up to a number like 5, was it worth it? You probably needed two Pirate Ships to pull this off in a reasonable amount of time, and the opportunity cost here is enormous. You've gotta buy these Pirate Ships, play them a lot, and risk trashing your opponents' Copper - which you will.

But in multiplayer games, suddenly you get way more opportunities to attack. In a 3-player game, you're going to be getting twice as many attacks. Just think about how much money you could be generating if you played like, a hypothetical 6-player game. I can DEFINITELY see Pirate Ship getting to completely broken levels in even a 4-player game - but the thing is, I really don't know. I just don't play Pirate Ship. I've hardly ever tried. I certainly haven't in 4 players. I really have no idea how well it goes.

The more and more I think about it, the more and more I think it is the worst card in 1v1 outright. I probably shouldn't have even ranked it at all. It's completely impossible.

You didn't make your understanding clear about Pirate Ship, but you can only gain one token per Pirate Ship played, even if you trashed three treasures in a four player game.

That said, since I nearly exclusively play Dominion IRL in 3 or 4 player games, I really hate that card.

Also, that Navigator/Loan combo is pretty neat.

--
It's iubaris, not Lubaris.

Ah, you're right. I've always read the wording of the card wrong for some reason. Quite frankly I think it's pretty obvious that I absolutely do not care about Pirate Ship. It's still better in multiplayer games because you're far more likely to hit a treasure, so there's still a balance problem, and it still has the kingmaker issue in multiplayer games because you're going to be trashing Coppers. My opinion of the card remains basically unchanged - I still think it's one of the worst cards in the game.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201109/13/game-20110913-001240-06116588.html

what

117. Counting House
Set: Prosperity


Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Copper cards from it, and put them into your hand.
Cost: 5

I feel like this card is sort of in the same vein as Explorer and Harvest. It's a 5-cost card that makes money, potentially more than 2, but has variance to it. Notice that the lower-variance one, Explorer, is ranked the lowest, and now the highest-variance one, Counting House, is the highest. That's because at least you have some option to control that variance, and in the case of Counting House, if you play it right you could wind up making money.

Is it really worth it? I don't think so.

For starters, there are the more obvious problems with this card. If you reshuffle this on top and draw it immediately, it's basically useless - normally, you're praying for this to end up on the bottom, below all your copper. So basically, if you're playing this without a strategy, don't. You need something to facilitate making sure that your copper ends up in the discard. Stuff that discards stuff is good. The other obvious problem is that, like with Coppersmith, you are relying on a crappy card in your deck to get ahead. I think that Copper-reliant strategies basically never work in the presence of decent trashing, since trashing strategies are pretty much always more optimal - the only exception I can think of is Goons, where you might want to buy a lot of free Copper and make use of it. There's also the problem that you only have 7 Copper in your deck, and you're probably not going to draw it all, especially if you can't discard from your hand. Without a strategy, you shouldn't expect more than 4 or 5, and that's not really worth it for such a risk.

Here's the biggest problem though - even if you can string together some strategy where you make use of all this Copper cluttering your deck, at the end of the day it's never going to be a functional, workhorse sort of strategy. It always winds up being a bizarre gimmick that takes a lot of effort to pull off, just to get beaten by a simple big money variant anyway. It's flashy but insubstantial. Can it make a s***load of money? It can. Can it be relied upon to do so reliably? I have yet to see anyone pull it off. Then again, nobody seems to really bother with Coppersmith and Counting House, not even in conjunction, since you need both +actions and +buys to make it work. Worker's Village is probably the best card for working with these two together, but then you still need a lot of things - like Vault or something else that can discard Copper, probably. Another terminal. King's Court also helps Coppersmith get all the Copper you drew into your hand to obscene values, but there are so many better King's Court strategies.

So that's Counting House. It's cute, it can do impressive things, but is it worth bothering with? Probably not.

From: Paratroopa1 | #019
You might see a junk hand and discard it, but the next one might be junk too. Is it worth taking the chance?

Uh, what?

It's not a chance at all, youre removing a junk hand, the end. The one after that is irrelevent unless you're discarding something with +cards in it.

--
Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

116. Moat
Set: Base


+2 Cards
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.
Cost: 2

Reaction cards. Let's get right down to the problem with Reaction cards - with one exception, for the reaction to do anything, you have to have drawn said reaction in your 5-card hand. So, say, with Moat, if you have a 20 card deck, with 1 Moat in it, you have about a 25% chance of having that Moat in your hand when an attack is played. It's a very risky move to buy a reaction for only this purpose.

The thing about Moat is that it is total dead weight in your deck unless you are able to use it as part of a really poor card-drawing engine - then you might be able to get away with it, but even then, a card that just does +2 Cards is really bad. Obviously, that's not what you buy it for, but like I said, its reaction ability is a risk, it only gives you slight odds of avoiding the attack you want to avoid, and the odds get worse the fewer Moats you have compared to the size of your deck. But even if Moat allows you to like, split the curses 4-6 instead of 5-5, so what? You added a Moat to your deck. You didn't really help yourself that much. It takes a lot of attacking before Moat really starts pulling its weight, because having a dead card like this slows you down.

There have been occasional attack-heavy games where I have used Moat and gotten a little lucky and had it help out, but generally it doesn't. Most of the time, when Moat is the only 2 on the board and I have 2 money in my hand, I don't buy it. So that says something about what I think of Moat. I think Moat is potentially obnoxious if you have a deck with enough Villages to facilitate a Moat engine, but really? A Moat engine? It would take a pretty specific setup before I'd really start considering this - strong attacks, like cursers, Militia, or Ghost Ship, Villages, and no other really good strategies on the board.

SpeedYoshi | Posted 9/14/2011 12:09:09 AM | message detail | quote
Uh, what?

It's not a chance at all, youre removing a junk hand, the end. The one after that is irrelevent unless you're discarding something with +cards in it.

Second hand could be junkier, which may make a difference late game. Besides that, buying a card is always taking a chance in Dominion - there are opportunity costs to consider.

I think I may have underrated Navigator just thinking about the fact that I put Counting House and Moat above it, but I pretty much always avoid Navigator.

115. Secret Chamber
Set: Intrigue


Discard any number of cards. +1 $ per card discarded.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, +2 Cards, then put 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Cost: 2

Uh, everything I just said about Moat? Pretty much applies here too. The effect is poor so the card is pretty much dead weight, and it's virtually impossible to rely on the reaction helping you.

The main reason I have Secret Chamber a slot higher is because I find its reaction more entertaining. It doesn't provide the flat protection from all attacks that Moat does, but it has a little more versatility in the fun little tricks it can do. Draw a Curse into your hand to discard against Mountebank. Switch around your treasures against Pirate Ship and Thief. Also, just the ability to rearrange your cards as necessary can help, I guess, but it's not that much of a help. And in the presence of Grand Market and the absence of Vault, it might help you get to Grand Markets faster. That's cool I guess?

Actually now that I think about it, I kind of hate this card, because people who play this don't know what to do with it. They'll reveal this card, and then get completely confused over which cards they should put back, only to reveal the card again when they're done, not realizing that they're looking at the same goddamn cards again. This is only useful if you're using Secret Chamber to dig up another reaction, which is an okay effect but I don't believe I've ever intentionally carried around that many reactions.

Also
Chancellor + Coppersmith + Counting House seems amazing

and impossible (maybe if any of these had +action)

but amazing none the less

--
Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

From: Paratroopa1 | #030
Second hand could be junkier, which may make a difference late game. Besides that, buying a card is always taking a chance in Dominion - there are opportunity costs to consider.

I think I may have underrated Navigator just thinking about the fact that I put Counting House and Moat above it, but I pretty much always avoid Navigator.

Yeah, I don't consider it a good card by any means. Its just that your logic is flawed. The second junk hand is meaningless, the decision is, 'is this hand worth discarding'

you're going to get that second hand regardless of what happens (unless, like I said, you're discarding something with +cards), so you're not actually risking anything

--
Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I sort of didn't word my thoughts very well.

It's funny how awful Secret Chamber is, but how amazing Vault is just with the addition of +2 cards.

--
http://www.last.fm/user/TehMop
Congrats to BlackTurtle!

Yeah, it is. Believe me, I'm well aware of how good Vault is.

I won't be discussing either of these cards for a while, I just wanted to share one of the coolest games I've played yet:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201109/14/game-20110914-211730-c80aeba8.html

Scrying Pool + Forge is a pretty sick combo. If you want the TL;DR version of this, just look at my final deck, the trash pile, and my turn 14.

I still haven't played with any of the Cornucopia cards. =/

--
It's iubaris, not Lubaris.

Cornucopia is a great set. I already got the two worst cards of the set out of the way - not a lot of Cornucopia cards will be on this list for quite some time.

114. Workshop
Set: Base


Gain a card costing up to 4$.
Cost: 3

One of the common mistakes that beginners make in this game is that loading up on low-cost cards is a really good idea, and that Workshop will help you towards this goal. Good players know why it doesn't work this way.

I think I've said this a bunch already but the difference between 4-cost and 5-cost is the largest in the game - that's why University is sought-after and Workshop is basically junk. But worse than that, Workshop is a completely dead card in your hand - it's terminal, draws no cards, generates no money. It cannot possibly help your current hand. All it can do is give you some weak cards later. I've seen some players buy this and Workshop Silver into your deck, but this is a pointless exercise - when you use that Workshop to gain a Silver, I could just buy a Silver instead of the Workshop and start ramping up to bigger and better cards, or even just buy two Silvers instead.

Because Workshop is a dead card and has the always present opportunity cost of having to buy it, you need to play it several times before you have enough cards that it was worth it, but because the cards you get aren't going to be good ones, it's just not going to be worth it.

There are still a couple of uses for this card. Probably the most notable are Gardens/Vineyards deck, with a decently spammable cantrip, such as Village, Caravan, or Great Hall. I've seen Gardens decks work on occasion, but even then, I would probably feel more comfortable if I saw Ironworks, or better yet University on the board. Workshop is a slow, lame card.

I don't know if it was correct to put this over Talisman - probably the main advantage that Workshop has over Talisman is that Workshop is not part of your buy, so you can use it and then still have 5+ money to buy something better with. Talisman demands that you use your buy to get an extra card, and I think that's more of a hindrance. On the other hand, Talisman isn't a terminal action, or an action at all, and it functions better with Bridge since Bridge is also terminal. I don't know, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day - they're both cards I would quickly pass up, usually without a second thought.

113. Outpost
Set: Seaside


You only draw 3 cards (instead of 5) in this turn's Clean-up phase. Take an extra turn after this one. This can't cause you to take more than two consecutive turns.

Here's a sign that we're getting out of the truly junk card territory, because here's a card that I think is a bit misunderstood - in fact I don't really understand it myself. It's not completely awful, but it's very, very niche.

Playing Outpost is, as a general rule, a pretty bad idea. That extra turn isn't going to get a lot done for you - 3 cards doesn't make an efficient turn hardly ever, and it's different from a turn where you got attacked by Militia or Goons because in those cases, you drew 5 and then discarded the two worst. A lot of times, players who overestimate Outpost will buy it, play it, and then in their extra turn only draw like Silver/Copper/Estate and buy another Silver, which basically makes it a fancy Workshop that cycles your deck a bit faster, which makes it worse than Workshop since it is a 5-cost card.

What you need with Outpost is a reliable card-drawing engine. Almost anything will do, but the best ones are Laboratory and Alchemist, with an honorable mention to Wharf (but it needs actions to help it out). Alchemist is especially good since you can put them on the top of your deck, ensuring that your Outpost turn will give you a few, which means you can immediately increase your handsize and turn it into pretty much a normal turn. Treasury can help in this same way - it's not as good as Alchemist, but it'll get you a little extra funding. If you manage to buy something worth at least 5, then the outlook for Outpost is a much better one.

I think my only question about Outpost at the end of the day is, is it better than simply having +buys? When is it better than having +buys? Where are +buys better? I don't really know the answers to these questions to be honest, and I can't speculate that much. I would probably use Outpost if I had an efficient engine and no +buys, because getting extra turns could make a big difference. But it's absolutely necessary to have a good engine or Outpost just isn't going to work - and it has a better chance of drawing you dead later in the game when you've got more green cards in your deck.

Also remember that like all cards of its nature, Outpost is a dead card in your current hand - it draws no cards, grants no actions, generates no money, and has no effect whatsoever on your current turn. As a matter of fact, buying Outpost without having a good engine is dangerous, because it's very likely to split up one good turn into two mediocre turns, like an anti-Tactician. I think this is why Outpost has a bad reputation, and it's mostly deserved, but once in a while Outpost will sneak up on you when the setup is right.

It also works ok with Minion decks.... A little unreliable, and I'd rather buy another Minion, but when they're all gone Outpost can be alright.

--
http://www.last.fm/user/TehMop
Congrats to BlackTurtle!

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201109/15/game-20110915-212751-46e34155.html

Here's another weirdass game. I sort of shifted gears halfway through and tried pretty much a completely crackpot strategy and somehow pulled out a win.

Reminder: It's the person with the most points at the end who wins, not the person with the most elaborate chain

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110915-175622-346af2dd.html

--
http://www.last.fm/user/TehMop
Congrats to BlackTurtle!

*hopes for more writeups tonight*

--
thengamer.com/guru thengamer.com/xstats board8.wikia.com
You should search for The Show, the cool podcast featuring Guru Champ Black Turtle!

Any advice for someone who's started playing, but loses most of the time? The one thing I need to remember is to not spend absolutely all of my money on cantrips and villages without buy ANY terminals or even silver/gold >_>

--
MMBN style fighting game made by me in the link below!
http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/184947-b8bn

I'll definitely do some writeups later tonight, in a little bit.

Probably my strongest piece of advice for someone starting out and struggling is to remember that buying power is what wins games. It doesn't matter how many action cards you have if you can't use them to draw gold and silver (or an action card that produces an equivalent amount) and then buy provinces. Make sure some of your early buys are silver, and then get a gold as soon as you can, preferrably by about turn 7 you should've made enough money in most setups to do so.

There's a strategy known as "big money" where all you do is buy silver, gold, and provinces (and duchies late game when you can't afford provinces), and ignores action cards except maybe for one smithy (or any other card that draws well on its own), and it's effective. It's boring, and it's overrated, but it's effective. Most strategies should be ones that modify this basic strategy, and for a beginning player, I'd say all strategies should be ones based on this strategy, until you know better (there are games where you don't want to buy silver, but for now assume that you do).

That said, I'm not saying that you should ignore action cards, because you shouldn't - just always make sure you've got enough treasure in your deck to buy provinces. And buy provinces early - don't wait. If you have 8 money and you're unsure of what to do, buy a Province - it's very, very hard to start buying them too early. I have on occasion regretted greening up too early, but I have far more often regretted greening up too late.

As far as action cards are concerned, although a lot of them look really good and most of them are in the right circumstances, there are two kinds of action cards I would zero in on - attacks, and trashing. Attacks, especially the kind that cost 5 or more, are well known for being some of Dominion's most effective cards, especially ones that hand out Curses. If you see Witch, Mountebank, Torturer, Familiar, Sea Hag, Ghost Ship, Ambassador, Militia, Goons, or (sometimes) Young Witch, pick one up and you'll do well. As for trashing, Chapel is the most surefire bet if it's on the board, but just about any card that can trash cards, except perhaps for Trade Route, is a solid buy, or even a must buy. Getting rid of your junk coppers, estates, and curses is a better way to improve your deck than buying lots of good cards, and the more aggressive trasher will probably win 9 times out of 10, if not more often.

The other thing to watch out for with action cards is having too many terminals, but it looks like you know about that already. If there are +2 action cards on the board, then get a couple and don't worry about terminals, but if there aren't, then don't go nuts with terminal actions. Gold and silver is what will get you to victory in those cases. But as I said before, always pick up at least one good attack and one good trasher if they're available without concern for how many actions you've got to spend.

To sum up:

- Buy gold and silver (don't overdo the silver though)
- Buy provinces ASAP, don't wait
- Attack early and often
- Trash early and often
- Be mindful of action economy

Even as a high intermediate/low expert player, I adhere to these five basic points in nearly every Dominion game I play. There's a lot more strategy to build on beyond these things, but these things always remain important to keep in mind.

Whew, that wound up being a longer post than I thought it would be, but I think this well sums up exactly what I would advise a beginning Dominion player to think about.

Excellent. That was great, thanks.

On a side note, I just finished a game that was prettymuch just spam fishing village/alchemist/festival, then buy a crapton of vineyards and everything else >_>... I lost because my opponent had one more vineyard than me >_>

--
MMBN style fighting game made by me in the link below!
http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/184947-b8bn

112. Smugglers
Set: Seaside


Gain a copy of a card costing up to 6$ that the player to your right gained on his last turn.
Cost: 3

This isn't one so much that I think is downright awful, more that I just really hate it and I still think it's pretty bad. As we speak, this card has easily my worst stats for "win rate given available" on isotropic - I don't win with it, and I don't win without it. I just get hosed by it and I don't know why.

I think the reason is twofold - one, it's an extremely high variance card. It is completely relying on drawing it on the same turn that your opponent buys or gains something awesome, draw it at the wrong time and it's a useless card. Two, it probably tends to favor the worse player, because it allows them to gain 5-6 cost cards without actually having the proper deck to do it, or even the proper knowhow on what cards are good buys, instead having the card copy the better player's buys. I don't think a worse player can win on Smugglers alone, but it sure doesn't hurt.

So as for the card itself - it's not really all that different from Workshop. It's better in some ways, worse in some ways. It's same in the way that it is a completely dead card in your hand - cannot improve your current hand whatsoever, and that's bad. It's worse in the sense that you have no control over what you get, unless both players are zeroing in on a specific strategy you're pretty much going to wind up with a cluttered, unfocused deck. It's also worse in the sense that if they're buying Provinces, or 7-cost cards like King's Court, then you can't do anything.

On the other hand, it allows you to gain 5 or 6 cost cards, and that is not a small deal. Depending on the game, this can be huge. Although it can't gain Provinces in the late game, which sucks, it can gain Duchies, which is awesome. When I do use it though, I prefer to use it in games where there's a really good 5 or 6 on the board and I want to have the best shot at getting them. Grand Market games in particular are a BIG one, since they're not easy to get, you desperately need them to win when they're available, and Grand Markets create a very Smuggler-friendly environment - if you have them, you're cycling through your deck quicker, and if they have them, they have a lot of extra money and buys, which means they're buying a variety of cards.

Overall though I very rarely ever play this card. I'm not a big fan of the cards that gain stuff, and this one is random as hell. It's one of my favorite veto cards among the non-broken cards, because seeing a player with no skill at all just Smuggle your Golds every time you buy one when they're too incompetent to build up the buying power themselves is really irritating. Normally poor players getting lucky doesn't bother me that much but Smugglers somehow gets on my nerves fast.

Also, I noticed a good combo today involving a card I already did a writeup for: Pearl Diver and Loan. Not that you should really be buying Pearl Divers unless you happen to have 2 money, but it still works with Loan nicely. Play Pearl Diver, if the bottom card is a Copper, move it up and trash it with Loan - if the bottom card is a victory or curse, move it up and then cycle through it with Loan. It can also work sort of nice with Lookout based on the same principle, since it basically allows Lookout to look at 4 cards instead of 3, which gives you better odds of a favorable trash.

Pearl Diver is still a bad card, but as I get better at Dominion I'm starting to notice these handy interactions a little more often.