Cost reduction
Cost reduction is a recurring mechanic in Dominion. Rather than directly fielding coin, cost-reducers decrease the cost of cards, an effect which becomes more valuable with more buys. Typical cost reduction instructions follow this wording:
- [All cards or some subset of cards] (including cards in players' hands) cost less this turn, but not less than .
List of cost-reducers
- Bridge - the archetypal cost-reducer, and the only one that can be throned
- Quarry - only affects Actions
- Peddler - only reduces its own cost, depending on how many Actions are in play
- Princess - reduces costs by , but only one copy
- Highway - cantrip
- Bridge Troll - effectively increases costs for opponents with the - token
- Ferry - reduces a single Supply pile's cost by
Strategy
Most cards that reference a specific cost in do well with cost-reducers, as most such cards use the specific cost as an upper limit. For example, Workshop can gain any card costing up to ; without cost reduction, this effect is rather weak, but with four Highways in play, a Workshop can gain Provinces. On the other hand, cards that give a scaling effect per cost in of another card (most often trash for benefit cards) will do less well with cost-reducers, as their effect will be diminished, and cards that reference a cheaper card will give no effect if their cost has been reduced to . For examples, trashing a Silver to an Apprentice when you have Princess in play will only draw you one card, and with five Highways in play, Band of Misfits can't do anything.