Dominion Tournament
Perhaps, I should just rename this journal
When Doug got the e-mail announcing a Dominion tournament at Pandemonium he immediately forwarded it on to me. That would have been useful if Kevin hadn’t sent me the e-mail a half hour earlier. You would think these people thought I liked the game or something. Neither of them could attend, but I was able to experience my first opportunity of playing Dominion competitively. I had never been to the store before, despite it not being too far from me, since it caters to a bit of a younger more ccg/role playing audience.
For those of you unaware of Dominion, it is a card game designed around deck building. Throughout the game you gain cards that are subsequently shuffled into your deck. The tension comes from there being victory cards, which don’t help you do anything during the game, but are necessary to win. Thus you have to balance making your deck as powerful as possible with getting points. There are some constants in every game, but there are also cards called kingdom cards that you use 10 different sets of each game. With expansion there are currently 78 kingdom cards which translates to over 1 trillion possible setups. To some extent the game is a puzzle, as you must figure out how to make the best deck with the possible cards available, while keeping opponent’s actions and the randomness of shuffling in mind. Unlike a traditional ccg, since all cards are communal, no player will ever have a built in advantage at the beginning of the game.
The tournament was formatted so that the winner was the person with the most victory points after three games. Read that part again. Winning was of no important, just gross points. Players would rotate between playing Intrigue or the base game with preselected kingdom sets, and would be matched up with players who scored similar totals during the last game (not all previous games, just the last one). This is a ludicrous format for any number of reasons, as the goal of Dominion is not to maximize points, but rather outscore one’s opposition. A 50-48 win is no more impressive than winning 10-3. It would be like the gold metal in hockey being awarded to the team that scores the most goals in the round robin, except each game would also have to take place at a differently sized arena as well. It encourages behavior such as collusion and maximizing points over winning, while resulting in longer games. Likewise it give advantages to players who’s setups happen to have extra victory point card, among other problems.
I played Intrigue in round 1. The set-up featured harems and great halls, so I focused on adding those artificial points with some help from ironworks. When those piles were done I moved on to duchies until that pile was also down to 1. Next came estates, as my deck was too bogged down to buy more than the occasional province. Eventually one player bought the last duchy just so we wouldn’t be playing forever. Strategically it wasn’t smart since there were 4 provinces remaining, but from a sanity stand point it was the right call.
Game two featured the top players from round 1, you know the intrigue players. We agreed to forgo witches, although other attacks were fair game. The most popular buys turned out to be militia and council room, which caused hand sizes to constantly fluctuate. At times, thanks to well timed throne room, a player’s hand could go from 5 up to 7, down to 3, and back to 5 before he even he started his turn . Thanks to some large starting hands (as high as 9), and a lot of money in my deck, I ended up with some impressive hauls, peaking with a 19 coin, 3 buy round. I won the game going away.
I opened game three with a library, chapel, which is pretty much all you need to know. When you can draw your entire deck on a library you will probably get the cards you want. Eventually, I ended up with two libraries and 2 festivals. I didn’t have enough money for huge turns, but was able to get a province pretty consistently. At least until we were down to one province and I went on to duchies, as dominion was meant to be played.
I ended up winning the first tourney by 2 points, which the tourney runner took as proof of the format working, since I had also won all three games. Of course if my nearest competitor happens to have a victory point kingdom card in his last intrigue set, he would have won, without having played any better or worse relative to me.
The host had enough prize support to run another tourney if people were willing. My willingness to play Dominion tends to be on high side, and a shiny dominion treasure box increased the temptation. He charged the entry fee again for the 8 remaining players, which was kind of surprising, but it isn’t like playing Dominion for money and prizes is a bad investment for me. He agreed to change the format to 4/3/2/1 points based on finish and only use points as tiebreaker. I still don’t like using points as all, better to use percentage of points or even a quick tie-breaking game, but it was a market improvement. This time we would be using both the base set and Intrigue and picking our own kingdom cards.
Having a tourney win under by belt, I went for the holy grail, choosing bridge, throne room, and cellar with my choices. I focused on buying these 3 plus villages and festivals, never buying a treasure card the entire game. I had trouble pulling off a mega hand though as there wasn’t anything available to trash cards, and only the unaffordable nobles to extend hand size. I was trying to at least get a bunch of duchies and dukes, but another player was able to get a double throne room, double bridge down and wipe out the duchy pile. For a while it looked like I was going to finish in the single digits as I kept having hands in which I throne-roomed a bridge, but only had one additional coin. Finally, a hand that started with 2 throne rooms, 2 cellars, and a village, ended with a double throne room double bridges giving me enough coins to get 2 provinces and 4 estates . Even after some nice hands after that one, I wasn’t sure that I had won, but my 11 estates made the difference.
Someone chose chapel as a kingdom card for game 5, so I considered going for a turbo remodel strategy (get to 5 cards and just keep remodeling), but it seemed too risky given the tie-breaker. Instead we ended up with a lot of attack cards, as one player who didn’t think she could win took solace in making sure everyone else felt pain too. One player went for a chapel strategy, but the attacks slowed him down too much for it to be effective. Another player tried to go for ironworks to increase deck size and later buy gardens. While he ended up with more cards in his deck than me, we were both still in the 30’s, and I was able to get procure more gardens. After getting gardens, I went for duchies, as provinces were well out of my price range. At one point my first 4 cards drawn in a hand were gardens, which caused one player to be comment his happiness I had a dead turn, but worried I had at least that many gardens. The chapel player out provinced me 4-0, but since that was all he had, I still out-scored him 37-24. After the game he asked me to tell him my secret. Don’t run a pure chapel deck in a 4 player game with a ton of attack cards, would be a reasonable start.
The last game’s set-up featured a ton of cards that gave extra actions, making conspirator the obvious card to build around . Despite this, only one player really went for it, and didn’t buy enough conspirators to maximize his advantage. I ended up getting a lot of money early, so I had a pretty boring, but effective deck. I did learn that upgrade is an excellent defense for the torturer since if you had one in your hand taking the curse was an obvious choice. Sometimes I even wanted to be tortured, since I didn’t have another card I wanted to lose. This did backfire on another player though who took a curse to upgrade and then subsequently drew another curse when he went to play the upgrade. I won the game by a handful of points, securing an undefeated day, and my 2nd tourney win.
My haul was $36 in store credit which converted to Pandemic for $1.08, an Intrigue poster, and a shiny Dominion box that can’t actually fit any Dominion cards in it, but is cool nonetheless. I need to find a way to increase my stakes, since it turns out I’m pretty good at these tournament things.
When Doug got the e-mail announcing a Dominion tournament at Pandemonium he immediately forwarded it on to me. That would have been useful if Kevin hadn’t sent me the e-mail a half hour earlier. You would think these people thought I liked the game or something. Neither of them could attend, but I was able to experience my first opportunity of playing Dominion competitively. I had never been to the store before, despite it not being too far from me, since it caters to a bit of a younger more ccg/role playing audience.
For those of you unaware of Dominion, it is a card game designed around deck building. Throughout the game you gain cards that are subsequently shuffled into your deck. The tension comes from there being victory cards, which don’t help you do anything during the game, but are necessary to win. Thus you have to balance making your deck as powerful as possible with getting points. There are some constants in every game, but there are also cards called kingdom cards that you use 10 different sets of each game. With expansion there are currently 78 kingdom cards which translates to over 1 trillion possible setups. To some extent the game is a puzzle, as you must figure out how to make the best deck with the possible cards available, while keeping opponent’s actions and the randomness of shuffling in mind. Unlike a traditional ccg, since all cards are communal, no player will ever have a built in advantage at the beginning of the game.
The tournament was formatted so that the winner was the person with the most victory points after three games. Read that part again. Winning was of no important, just gross points. Players would rotate between playing Intrigue or the base game with preselected kingdom sets, and would be matched up with players who scored similar totals during the last game (not all previous games, just the last one). This is a ludicrous format for any number of reasons, as the goal of Dominion is not to maximize points, but rather outscore one’s opposition. A 50-48 win is no more impressive than winning 10-3. It would be like the gold metal in hockey being awarded to the team that scores the most goals in the round robin, except each game would also have to take place at a differently sized arena as well. It encourages behavior such as collusion and maximizing points over winning, while resulting in longer games. Likewise it give advantages to players who’s setups happen to have extra victory point card, among other problems.
I played Intrigue in round 1. The set-up featured harems and great halls, so I focused on adding those artificial points with some help from ironworks. When those piles were done I moved on to duchies until that pile was also down to 1. Next came estates, as my deck was too bogged down to buy more than the occasional province. Eventually one player bought the last duchy just so we wouldn’t be playing forever. Strategically it wasn’t smart since there were 4 provinces remaining, but from a sanity stand point it was the right call.
Game two featured the top players from round 1, you know the intrigue players. We agreed to forgo witches, although other attacks were fair game. The most popular buys turned out to be militia and council room, which caused hand sizes to constantly fluctuate. At times, thanks to well timed throne room, a player’s hand could go from 5 up to 7, down to 3, and back to 5 before he even he started his turn . Thanks to some large starting hands (as high as 9), and a lot of money in my deck, I ended up with some impressive hauls, peaking with a 19 coin, 3 buy round. I won the game going away.
I opened game three with a library, chapel, which is pretty much all you need to know. When you can draw your entire deck on a library you will probably get the cards you want. Eventually, I ended up with two libraries and 2 festivals. I didn’t have enough money for huge turns, but was able to get a province pretty consistently. At least until we were down to one province and I went on to duchies, as dominion was meant to be played.
I ended up winning the first tourney by 2 points, which the tourney runner took as proof of the format working, since I had also won all three games. Of course if my nearest competitor happens to have a victory point kingdom card in his last intrigue set, he would have won, without having played any better or worse relative to me.
The host had enough prize support to run another tourney if people were willing. My willingness to play Dominion tends to be on high side, and a shiny dominion treasure box increased the temptation. He charged the entry fee again for the 8 remaining players, which was kind of surprising, but it isn’t like playing Dominion for money and prizes is a bad investment for me. He agreed to change the format to 4/3/2/1 points based on finish and only use points as tiebreaker. I still don’t like using points as all, better to use percentage of points or even a quick tie-breaking game, but it was a market improvement. This time we would be using both the base set and Intrigue and picking our own kingdom cards.
Having a tourney win under by belt, I went for the holy grail, choosing bridge, throne room, and cellar with my choices. I focused on buying these 3 plus villages and festivals, never buying a treasure card the entire game. I had trouble pulling off a mega hand though as there wasn’t anything available to trash cards, and only the unaffordable nobles to extend hand size. I was trying to at least get a bunch of duchies and dukes, but another player was able to get a double throne room, double bridge down and wipe out the duchy pile. For a while it looked like I was going to finish in the single digits as I kept having hands in which I throne-roomed a bridge, but only had one additional coin. Finally, a hand that started with 2 throne rooms, 2 cellars, and a village, ended with a double throne room double bridges giving me enough coins to get 2 provinces and 4 estates . Even after some nice hands after that one, I wasn’t sure that I had won, but my 11 estates made the difference.
Someone chose chapel as a kingdom card for game 5, so I considered going for a turbo remodel strategy (get to 5 cards and just keep remodeling), but it seemed too risky given the tie-breaker. Instead we ended up with a lot of attack cards, as one player who didn’t think she could win took solace in making sure everyone else felt pain too. One player went for a chapel strategy, but the attacks slowed him down too much for it to be effective. Another player tried to go for ironworks to increase deck size and later buy gardens. While he ended up with more cards in his deck than me, we were both still in the 30’s, and I was able to get procure more gardens. After getting gardens, I went for duchies, as provinces were well out of my price range. At one point my first 4 cards drawn in a hand were gardens, which caused one player to be comment his happiness I had a dead turn, but worried I had at least that many gardens. The chapel player out provinced me 4-0, but since that was all he had, I still out-scored him 37-24. After the game he asked me to tell him my secret. Don’t run a pure chapel deck in a 4 player game with a ton of attack cards, would be a reasonable start.
The last game’s set-up featured a ton of cards that gave extra actions, making conspirator the obvious card to build around . Despite this, only one player really went for it, and didn’t buy enough conspirators to maximize his advantage. I ended up getting a lot of money early, so I had a pretty boring, but effective deck. I did learn that upgrade is an excellent defense for the torturer since if you had one in your hand taking the curse was an obvious choice. Sometimes I even wanted to be tortured, since I didn’t have another card I wanted to lose. This did backfire on another player though who took a curse to upgrade and then subsequently drew another curse when he went to play the upgrade. I won the game by a handful of points, securing an undefeated day, and my 2nd tourney win.
My haul was $36 in store credit which converted to Pandemic for $1.08, an Intrigue poster, and a shiny Dominion box that can’t actually fit any Dominion cards in it, but is cool nonetheless. I need to find a way to increase my stakes, since it turns out I’m pretty good at these tournament things.