Removed cards
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Revision as of 03:48, 25 November 2017
Several cards that were published in the first editions of Dominion and Intrigue were removed from those sets, and replaced by new cards, when their second editions were released. Cards chosen for removal were chiefly those that turned out to be underpowered or rarely useful in gameplay.
Contents |
History
When the first editions of Dominion and Intrigue were released, understandably not much was known about the relative strengths and weaknesses of each card - playtesting with a select group of people can only get game designers so far. Early on, Dominion was often criticized for having too many relatively useless Action cards; some people even went so far as to call Dominion a 'solved' game in which the key to victory is just buying Treasure (see also Silver test). Over the years, after the release of many expansions, Dominion became more balanced, very weak Action cards became more uncommon, and engines got more and more opportunities to shine. Nevertheless, some of the early cards still remained notorious for being laughably weak for their cost, with especially Scout and to a lesser extent Chancellor and Adventurer often being ridiculed for being useless.
Already back in 2012, Dominion designer Donald X. elaborated on the things he would do differently if he had a 'Dominion time machine'. However, it took quite some time before actual steps were taken to update the early sets.
On September 21, 2016, Jay Tummelson posted a message on the BoardGameGeek forums that Dominion was getting a 'face lift', meaning that the original Base set as well as Intrigue got second editions that would replace the original first editions. The most notable of these changes was the fact that each set had 6 Kingdom cards as well as the blank cards removed, and replaced with 7 completely new Kingdom cards. A few days later, the new rulebook revealed which cards were going to be deleted (see below).
Reception
Overall, most people were content with the upgrades, praising the removal of weak cards and the addition of a handful of exciting new cards. The only controversy came from the removal of Coppersmith from the second edition of Intrigue, which many frequent forum members were unhappy about. Coppersmith, while not a power card, was probably the strongest of the removed cards, and a fairly unique one as well. It was argued that Coppersmith was mainly removed because it tends to be a trap card for newer players; while occasionally useful as payload in an engine, it is typically a card newer players buy early on in the game, only to regret it a few turns later. A poll on the Dominion Strategy forums revealed that a little under 40% of forum members would miss Coppersmith the most out of the removed cards.
List of Removed cards
Dominion
Chancellor, Woodcutter
Feast, Spy, Thief
Adventurer
Intrigue
Secret Chamber
Great Hall
Coppersmith, Scout
Saboteur, Tribute
Clarification by Donald X.
Chancellor: This is both confusing and weak. The ability is totally worth having, if you can spare an action to play it; but the odds are that something else is a better use of your action and so much for that. One trick is, a $3 terminal action is actually competing with $5 terminal actions. I mean they both use up an action. So being cheaper isn't enough; you'd rather get Silver now and wait and get the $5. There is still room for terminal actions that cost $3, but Chancellor, not so much.
Feast: Feast is fine but really dull. It just adds nothing to the game; you consider buying it, but whether you do or not, your deck ends up whatever it was going to be anyway. Feast just doesn't change anything. I always point out, if I open Silver/Silver and you open Silver/Feast, and on turn three I draw 3 Coppers and Silver and buy a $5, and on turn three you draw 3 Coppers and Feast, trash Feast for that $5 and buy Silver, at that point our decks are the same. Okay so you can Workshop them and you can Throne Room them. The Workshop thing is fine but not enough to feel like I have to have the card. The Throne Room / Feast combo is the number one rules question in Dominion. Man let's just get rid of that.
Spy: This is both weak and slow. Make one decision per player; now play another Spy and make another decision per player. These days I prefer Spies to look more like Rabble and Fortune Teller: no +1 Action, no decision. I thought I would replace Spy with something like Rabble, but as you can see I didn't. Dominion itself is joining the ranks of the later expansions, that go lighter on attacks and heavier on non-attack interaction.
Thief: This is one of the weakest cards in the game. I mean you knew going into this that some of these cards were going to have to be some of the weakest cards, that was a reason for replacing them, but well Thief is way down there. New players are scared of it, maybe it will eat all of their Treasures and shut them out. Then you realize you aren't choosing to gain the Coppers and in fact are happy to lose them. Then you stop buying Thief. It ends up sometimes useful in games where you actually want Copper (e.g. multiplayer Gardens games), or games where your opponent is relying on Treasure but trashed their Coppers, or sometimes with special Treasures in expansions. But uh, most games it just sits there. I could do better. You can argue that Thief provides a certain learning experience, that there's real gameplay in learning that the card is weak the hard way; but other cards can provide learning experiences that leave the cards contributing more once they're figured out.
Woodcutter: Woodcutter is fine, it's totally fine. It's just, the main set had six vanilla cards, and did it need six? Cards that do things are more interesting. I felt like five would be enough. The card to take out wanted to be one of the +Buy cards, since I thought having three of those was better than having four (even if all three cost $5, which is what happened). Market is way more beloved so Woodcutter was the card to cut.
[...]
Coppersmith: The 6th card dropped. I wanted to drop the same number of cards as with Dominion, and had only picked five. My playtesters leaned towards Coppersmith. I had a new Coppersmith-like concept to try - which didn't work out. Coppersmith is an interesting dud, there are games where it's useful. They aren't common though. I used to use it as an example of how a not-so-good card would still be better than a main set dud; I could improve the main set by replacing say Feast with Coppersmith. But when the time came, Coppersmith didn't make it either. It's fun to win with a card that you can only rarely win with, but very few Dominion cards should be trying to fill that role (and enough still are).
Great Hall: For new players, maybe Great Hall is reasonable; it does nothing, but it can be interesting considering Upgrading Estates into them, or getting them for Conspirators or something, and then uh well later on they are better than Estates at least. There are more good things to Upgrade Estates into now though, or power up Conspirators with; Great Hall was not competing there. A card that did something would be more interesting.
Saboteur: Long ago my pick for worst card relative to its cost. It's got three huge problems: some people hate that it's an attack that doesn't otherwise help you; it's weak; and it's crazy wordy. On top of that some people just don't like trashing attacks, and the set already has Swindler. Some people do like them, but did I mention that the set has Swindler?
Scout: People often cite this as the weakest card in the game. I dunno, there are different metrics. There's "how often do I get it," there's "how sad am I when you give me one with Ambassador." You know. I'd rather your Ambassador gave me a Scout than a Thief. In all-Intrigue games, Scout gets to draw you some Harems and Nobles and Great Halls. New players like it; it's all upside, right? It is pretty weak though. And I could preserve the premise on its replacement.
Secret Chamber: People don't cite this one anywhere near as often as Scout or Thief, but I actually get it even less often. The reaction is confusing and rarely useful; the top part is a fine ability but very weak, it wants to come with more stuff.
Tribute: This isn't that good, but is better than most of these cards. It's not popular though. Hosing Nobles / Harem / Great Hall is not great. Some people feel like it's attacking them, since it can flip over good cards; I think it tends to help as much as hurt, but so what, I don't need people to feel bad over a non-attack. I'll say it for everyone: it wasn't the greatest card in the world; it was just Tribute.