Dominion Expansion #1: Intrigue

The first expansion for Dominion is actually a full standalone game. It's essentially the original Dominion but with 25 different Kingdom cards. It introduces a number of new "mechanics" with the two most common being "split" cards (cards that are both victory and action or victory and treasure) as well as the "choose" cards (choose one of the following options on how to play the card). These cards provide a great deal more "customization" in the card pool as well as more interaction between players.

The first group of cards I looked at was the cards I considered "Game Changers".

Baron: This is my favorite new card as it provides a much needed breath of life to the lowly Estate. I think this is a great buy on the first turn and can easily lead to a gold purchase on turns 3 or 4 (I've even bought a 3rd turn Province although that takes a bit of luck). It's a great card to see in a card pool with Gardens since you won't be thinning out your existing estates and it lets you either buy something good (when paired with an estate) or get a free estate. It's also always coupled with +buy so that's a bonus as well. I wouldn't fill up your deck with estates unless you were going Gardens (and even then it's a bit dangerous). Best in a card pool with Upgrades or Remodels as you can burn it off later when you don't need it anymore.

Minion: This is my second favorite card in the new set. It's arguably the most powerful as Turbo-Minion decks can be almost autowins (particularly if coupled with Festival and/or Throne Room). The key to this type of deck is to get your deck somewhat thin and have some +action/+money cards to create virtual money. Eventually, there will be a point where you hit a critical mass and can be nearly guaranteed of buying 1-2 Provinces per turn.

Swindler: This is arguably the best 3 cost purchase in Dominion. It grants +2 coins (i.e. nearly as good as a silver) while also giving you some control over your opponents decks. It's most insidious use is to convert copper to curses. If the card pool contains no card thinning that can be a tremendously powerful ability. One mistake I see a lot of people make is converting things to Duchies willy nilly. Sometimes that's right (early on typically) but once a player has amassed a decent number of actions in their deck, losing one of them to be converted to a Duchy might actually be a good thing.

Saboteur: This is a game changer for everyone else at the table. It's dreadful vs. a Gardens deck (because it has such a high likelihood of hitting a Gardens). It will encourage other players to start filling their deck with anything and everything that costs 3 or more. The one bonus going for the other players is that this is the only attack in the game that does absolutely nothing for the player who played it. It can be especially bad in a game with weak 2-3 buys as you'll often just lose the card it hits rather than replace it with a Copper or Secret Chamber.

Conspirator: Any deck that is hitting a lot of actions will love the Conspirator. The guaranteed +2 Coins is nice but it really shines as a filler card in a long chain. The presence of this card alone will make you prioritize +Buy cards as it will make you highly likely to burn through the vast majority of your deck and have 13, 14 or even the holy grail of 16. A game with Bridge and some +action cards (Great Hall, Village, Festival, Market, etc) will see some ridiculous buying turns.

Critical "helper" cards
Courtyard: A very, very good 2 buy card. This card is a terminal action but it's a very good one. It also helps to compensate for being a terminal action by letting you put a card back on top. Hit a Nobles with your three cards? Put it on top for you to draw in a moment. I wouldn't fill my deck up with these but I'd buy two in most games if I had a chance.

Pawn: I've already talked about how much I love this card. I'll prioritize +Buy cards just to pick up a few of these when I have 5 or 7. They're very, very nice. They especially shine in any deck trying to maintain an action chain (Minion, Conspirator, Village, Festival, etc).

Scout: This is a pretty nifty card in the right deck. It has a place in almost any deck if you can buy one late (when you've got multiple VPs that are potentially clogging things). But it really shines in a deck with Great Hall, Nobles and/or Harem.

Shanty Town: One of the two Village replacements in the Intrigue set. It's not terrible and in the right deck it might be okay (a deck with not TOO many actions or one with lots of +1 action cards). I don't see it being a dominant card but it's probably only slightly less powerful than Village.

Mining Village: It's Village with an extra option. Generally, there are better four cost cards out there but this one isn't terrible. My brother really likes it but I think it's best in a deck that WANTS to trash it (i.e. a deck that doesn't want to be bloated) but a deck that's like that probably isn't an "action chain" deck. It's a bit of a tricky card.

Bridge: I really like this card. I hadn't been impressed by it before but I'm appreciating it more and more now. It turns a copper, silver hand into a hand that can buy two silvers. It makes a 8 coin hand into a Province buy and an 8 coin hand into a Province Buy + a silver. It's not overpowered by any stretch but it's better than first blush.

Ironworks: Functionally, it looks like a souped up version of Workshop and in many games that's exactly how it plays, but there are some games in which it is paired with Conspirator and/or Great Hall and the card has a transformative effect on the game. It becomes an ideal chaining card. It becomes a first turn no-brainer. These games tend to end with the exhaustion of three piles rather than Provinces so plan accordingly.

The "Defense" cards:
Secret Chamber: Whether you prefer this card over Moat relies entirely on the pool of attack cards you've been given. Moat is preferable against Witch, Spy, Bureaucrat, Militia, Saboteur and Swindler. Secret Chamber, on the other hand, is preferable against Torturer, Thief, Minion. Those are general comments and some card pools or specific hands may prefer one over the other. The actual Action for the card isn't all that great but it's not really intended to be.

Masquerade: This is a "fun" card but I don't really think it's a "good" one. The best use I can see for it is in a deck with +2 action cards and Militias where you could reliably force your opponents to discard down to their best 3 cards and then play this card. It CAN get rid of a curse (and guaranty you don't keep one). It's also important to remember that you can trash ANY card from your hand, not just the one you drew. Might work well in conjunction with Baron as well where you don't mind getting the extra Estate.

Trading Post: This is a great card early that will get less and less useful as the game goes on. Unfortunately, as it costs 5, the earliest you're likely to be able to buy it is Turn 3 and therefore you'll be using it on turn 5-7. If the deck has limited other thinning options or you're likely to see curses, it can really be a great card though. Don't underestimate the power of drawing the Silver into your hand either.

Steward: One of my favorite new cards. This one lets you choose (a theme in this set) from three options. +2 cards, +2 coins or trash 2 cards. The fact that it MUST be 2 cards trashed is limiting like Trading Post but not a deal breaker. It works really well in a deck with Festival where you can use it's optional abilities to the fullest.

Other cards:
Wishing Well: This is a truly interesting card. I already wrote a bit about this so I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about it. The more I've played, the more I think that this card is better than expected. It's not nearly as good as Laboratory but if you're the kind of player that really pays attention to your deck and what you've played (i.e. playing in a serious setting) I think this card could be nearly as good. Numerous times playing, I found myself sitting on 6 coins after drawing the card from Wishing Well. In thinking about my deck, I realized I had 2 silvers and I was pretty sure I'd already played one of them. In this situation, I've got like a 1 in 8 chance of drawing a silver but a 3 in 8 chance at an estate. So it's better to say "Estate" and filter that out of my next turn's draw. Worst case scenario, I draw the silver and put it back and then I'm drawing a silver next turn.

Coppersmith: We played a game the other night where this actually became useful. It was a setup with almost every +action card imaginable (Festival, Minion, Shanty Town, Ironworks, Scout, Great Hall, Conspirator, Steward and Nobles I believe). In this setup, I pretty much never want to buy a copper as I'm going to rely on virtual money (Minions, Festivals, Conspirators to draw). I also have a chance to draw nearly my entire deck each turn. I don't know if the Coppersmith was the right purchase here but it seemed to work well for me. Multiple times I was able to have 6 virtual money, 3 coppers and a couple buys and then buy a Province and Conspirator. I should have been more aggressive with the Steward early on but it was still a really fun game.

Tribute: Not to be flippant but, buy this if your opponent is buying split cards and don't buy it if they're not. It gets much, much worse if other people are giving off curses.

Torturer: I go back and forth on this card. Is it better than Witch? I'd say, probably not. Is it good? Certainly. It does more for you then Militia until the Curses run out. It loves Throne Room but so do most cards. It's also liable to be good longer than Witch since, at least some of the time, players will have cards to discard rather than drawing a curse. It's interesting but not dynamite.

Upgrade: An interesting card. In a game with a good progression of cards (some 2, 3, 4, 5, 6s) this can be really good. It does replace itself and it does let you trash a copper or curse and get nothing. I think it's a bit overpriced at 5 but sometimes it's the only card in the game that can do those things.

The Victory cards:
Great Hall: The least sexy and perhaps most powerful of the split cards. This card's presence makes Ironworks, Conspirator, Scout and Tribute significantly better cards. It's a huge game changer and I'm not sure it's wrong to buy these instead of Silver until they're depleted.

Nobles: A very powerful card. I tend to get sucked in to buying these over gold a bit too much (I think). They're great when you get two of them at the same time but they do tend to water your deck down "slightly". I think the first two times you hit 6 you should probably buy gold but after that buying these is probably best... I'm not certain, however.

Harem: On the other hand, this card should probably be bought instead of gold until depletion every time. Yes, it will make your deck "slightly" slower than buying gold but the 2VPs should more than make up for that. Possibly it's better to buy 1 gold first. Maybe someone can do the simulations.

Duke: This is a highly controversial card at our table. Some people love it. Some people hate it. My brother and I have a running argument over whether it's better to buy the Duke's first or the Duchies. I maintain that buying the Duke's sets you up for your opponent buying the Duchies just to mess with you. He thinks that the Duke buyer will come out better in that situation.