Dominion Cornocopia thoughts.

Last night I got to play a game of Dominion with some of the new Cornocpoia cards. Money well spent! Tournament is the crown jewel of the set and for a good while it is going to be hard to convince people to not use it. I can tell right now that tournament+chapel or tournament+epic card draw is going to quickly become a group favorite. Personally I am thinking Tournament+ Tactician. That will allow me to have a much greater chance of getting my provinces in play in addition to my various prize cards that we pick up. I was initially worried that prizes would never show up after once we grab tournaments but I found that fear to be largely unfounded. Most of us who had prizes didn't have expertly turned decks, and at most we only had moderate card draw and yet our various prizes showed up often enough that we were all glad we had them around. The Trusty Steed is amazing, and is by far the best prize in the pile. Followers is made of dick. Followers is paticularly made of dick when you follow it up with a Tournament+Province. That happened once in our game and one of the other players discarded a province and was immediately made angry. Bag of gold is nice as it allowed me to line my pockets and having a gaurnteed gold in the next turn is something worth smiling over. Princess and the treasure one didn't get used very much. The princess was snatched up to late in the game and the treasure one ended up with me but I had already ditched most of my mining camps leaving me with no extra actions to spend. HOWEVER! The treasure prize and university is going to be an amazing combo once it happens!

The other thing about Tournaments is that they can't be won with colonies. Even since I got the Colonies people have been ignorning provinces in favor of the big guns. This was even after I explained multiple times that the game will end when either the colonies or the provinces supply pile is empty. Now for the first time in a LONG time people were buying provinces again which is exciting. The thing I wish the most is that I wish there were more prize cards. Like I wish we had 15 prize cards and then we pick 5 at random or something like that. I could easily do this with all the blank cards I have and I am now seriously considering it but playtesting annoys me.

The other big bad card in the set is the Jester. Which we also played with. In a two player game I can see the Jester being only slightly more than a minor annoyance. In a four player game though the Jester puts the game on rocket skates and sends it hurtling twords its inevitable conclusion. It was the Jester that single handedly took out two stacks of cards, earned that player at least three gold and shoved all sorts of curses in our deck. The scary thing is that he didn't even go Jester heavy. He could of and if he did the game wouldn't of lasted nearly as long as it did. However, I think he lost his nerve when he thought he was behind on victory points. Either way the Jester is the ultimate tool of the speed deck. It will send the rest of the players scrambling for duchies and other things as they try to keep their decks from being over run by curses. New favorite attack card? Why yes I think so. It doesn't quite dominate like the pirate ship but it comes close.

The other cards did what they did and we liked them for it. Hamlet is a fun little card and our ability to choose between an additional +buy or +action became well loved. Menagerie is a fun card but HARD to get off. I think three of us bought into them fairly heavily and we were only able to get off the +3 card draw once each. Though one time it didn't go off because I had two colonies sitting in my hand and I tell you I didn't feel bad about that.

All in all I am thrilled with this new set. It will breathe additional life into a game that hasn't even come close to becoming stale! Which is nice because I spent monies on it. On thursday or tuesday, or maybe wensday I'll play some more with the other cards and see how I like them. KK adios.