Let's Play Dominion: An Experiment in Deckbuilding???

please forgive me for this i have no reason to do this other than giggling to myself about making a thread with a similar title to another



Dominion, the Deckbuilding Game!

Dominion is sort of the granddaddy of deckbuilding games. While, personally, I've played deckbuilders that I think are a bit more interesting with what they've added to the formula, you can't deny the roots. From 2008. Deckbuilding is a kinda new genre apparently.

If you're unfamiliar and thinking that building a deck is much older than 8 years, here's the basic idea. Each player starts with an identical deck of a few cards, and over the course of the game will be buying new cards to add to their own and build it up as the game goes on. When you reach the bottom of your deck, it's time to shuffle and now you've got all those new cards you bought to play with as well.

In Dominion, you're trying to have the most victory points at the end of the game, by having a decent amount of Victory cards. But not too many during the course of the game. Point cards are useless in your hand most of the time, and tend to clog up your deck.

For the full list of rules, click here.

Basic idea is that on your turn you, in this order
1) Can play a single Action card (Unless something says you can play more)
2) Can buy a single card using your money (Unless something says you can play more)
3) Discard all of your hand and draw five new cards.

Now the important bit.
I CHALLENGE YOU, FORUM, TO A GAME OF DOMINON.

We'll be playing using the Intrigue expansion, because why not.

Here are the cards available for purchase in this game.

Show Content

Spoiler
Purchasing cost of all cards is displayed in the lower left.
Number in parentheses after the card names is how many cards of that type are available.


Copper (46), Silver (40), and Gold (30) - Gives more purchasing power. Its worth is hard to miss. Displayed right in the middle.


Estate (8), Duchy (8), and Province (8). - The goal of the game is to own huge tracts of land. These are for victory points. They can't be played if in your hand but give you the displayed number of points at the end of the game.


Chapel (10) - Trashed cards are removed from the game entirely. This card can be used to ditch cards you don't actually want in your deck. Can not be used on itself, because it's no longer in your hand once you play it.


Moneylender (10) - Removes one of your Coppers from the game, to essentially turn it into a one time use Gold. You have three additional purchasing power for the turn if you use this card.


Village - (10) - When you play this card, you immediately draw one more card for your hand, and you can play two more action cards this turn.


Smithy (10) - When you play this card, you immedately draw three more cards for your hand this turn.


Festival (10) - Upon playing this card, you can choose to play up to two more action cards this turn. During the buy phase, you can also buy two cards instead of one, and have 2 additional purchasing power to do so with.


Nobles (8) - When you play this card, you can choose to either immediately draw three cards, or play two more actions this turn. Furthermore, it's worth 2 points for having in your deck at the end of the game.


Duke (8) - Worth 0 points on its own at the end of the game, but value goes up by 1 for each Duchy victory card you have in your deck. Otherwise does nothing.


Pawn (10) - Either gain an extra purchasing power, an extra card this turn, an extra action this turn, or the ability to buy an extra card. And choose two of those options.


Scout (10) - Helps clear the less useful cards out of your next hand. You get to immediately play another action card this turn after playing this.


Coppersmith (10) - Essentially turns each Copper in your hand into a Silver for the turn.

Let's flip a coin to see who goes first. Heads for me, Tails for you.



Tails it is! Here's your hand!



Your deck currently contains 7 Coppers and 3 Estates

Buy a silver!

You purchase one Silver and add it to your discard pile.


As you can't use your one remaining Coin to buy anything, the rest of your cards are discarded and your turn is over.

MY TURN

I use three Coins to purchase a Village



It is added to my discard pile, and I discard two Estates that aren't usable.

YOUR TURN

Here is your new hand.


Your deck consists of 7 Copper, 1 Silver, and 3 Estates

Let's buy another silver.

Consider that silver bought.



And, y'know, ain't using those estates so turn over.

MY TURN

I however am gonna buy me a Coppersmith.



Now, if I'm lucky, ALL my coppers are silvers! I mean, basically.

Discarding an estate.

YOUR TURN

Your deck is shuffled. Here's your hand.

You have seven coin to spend. Buy anything.

Your deck consists of 7 Copper, 2 Silver, and 3 Estates.

Nope, keep changing my mind. A Festival, if you please.

You got it. A Festival is now yours.



blah blah discard

MY TURN

I'm just gonna buy me Silver this time.



And that's it.

YOUR TURN

Your hand!

Okay, so if I'm reading this right, next turn we'll draw 1 Copper, 1 Estate, and three cards from our newly-shuffled deck.

Right now, I think we need to focus on picking up more action cards, both to take full advantage of our new Festival and to increase the likelihood of being able to use our base action on any given turn. I'm thinking either a Village or a Pawn would work best in this scenario; leaning Pawn for utility. Thoughts?

I think you're right, definitely a pawn. We don't have enough action cards yet for being able to play two to be very useful yet.

We should also look to moneylender to trash out some of our copper.

Alright I'm taking this as meaning you're buying a a Pawn. Done and done.



MY TURN

I am going to start by playing a Village to draw a new card.


and i drew an estate so that didn't help at all. Well I still get another action so I'm going to play my Coppersmith to turn the two copper in my hand into four.



and just nab a Silver with that.



So long, rest of my hand.

YOUR TURN
You take two cards, shuffle your discard pile into your deck, and grab three more.

I'd say the move to make is to play Festival and then Pawn (+Card/$ options), and see what we draw.

Agreed. That'll net us $6 plus up to $2 more to spend on up to two cards.

Alright your updated hand.

Have a Copper.
You can buy up to 2 cards this turn, and have 3 coins more than is in your hand.

So 7 to spend on 2.

I propose either another Festival/Pawn pair, or a Scout and Village.

How about maybe a gold?

I'd prefer utility over raw power, personally, and we may as well use that extra buy while we have it. If we bought a gold, we'd only have $1 left, which is only enough to buy a copper. Coppers aren't bad, but I feel we can get more outta this turn than Occasionally, Three Coin. Unless you have something in mind...?

You usually don't want more coppers, since the goal is pulling in $8 for provinces. Coppers dilute out higher value money, and adding more coppers can't bring your money higher than 5. One cheesy strategy might have been coppersmith + 4 coppers = 8, but that'd depend on not drawing the provinces you buy.

Right now our average $ is 4.23. 3.92 if we decide not to use our pawn as a +1 card.
I think moneylender's gonna help us buy more gold down the line, and clean up our draws as we build past $5/round.

I vote moneylender and a silver.

I don't know, I'm really feeling a Festival (a ton more untility) and a Chapel (to trash our crappy estates and coppers) - though another pawn wouldn't hurt either.

I'm with Gnauga. Moneylender and a silver makes good sense.

I wish to sow dissension within your ranks, but mostly within cyber, so I vote we kill cyber!

Done! Kablamo! Problem solved! We win!

If a third person is up for Moneylender + Silver, I'll make that your purchase.

Actually, put me down with Palamedes-- A Festival and a Chapel. I feel like the Chapel trumps the Moneylender, as the Chapel can be used to trash a lot of cards all at once, while the Moneylender can only trash one copper at a time loses use quickly as we lose Copper (and the likelihood of drawing both Moneylender and Copper on the same turn goes down). I mean, in theory we could buy Copper specifically for burning with the Lender later, but that feels a little iffy to me.

Additionally, as we use the Chapel to burn through Copper and Estates (which, while useful, can clog down the deck and keep us from drawing objectively-more-useful cards), statistically-significantly more of our deck will consist of action cards, which Festivals let us use lots of.

We could probably stand to pick up something with Draw on it in the next few turns, though. Maybe a Smith? Iunno, we'll see.

Chapel + Festival for me

Well when you put it that way, I don't have a problem with Chapelfest either.