**FOREWORD**: We played with proxies of a total of 9 Intrigue cards using the commonly-accepted Campaign rules of replacing the most bought, least bought, and loser's choice of cards with new ones, along with the 6-player rules given in the new rules and the BGG promos. Also reviewed is Masquerade; we had played this proxy before. Our group already has pre-ordered two copies of Intrigue from our FLGS, so no worries there. We also purposely played with only 9 new cards as to find new surprises when Intrigue arrives.




The cards we played, and thoughts, are as follows, in order of which they came up in our campaign.

PAWN: Jack of All Trades, Master of None
Cost: 2
Action
Choose two, but not the same: +1 Card; +1 Action; +1 Buy; +1 Coin.

Great utility knife, and it appeared in two games- one with Village and one with Market. In both cases, we all wanted either Village or Market over Pawn, but in both games the Pawns ran out. It can be a good invisible card in your deck, or a mediocre finish to a long chain of Villages. All in all, we thought it was good back-up to the normal cards that always run out, such as Village, Market, Lab, and Festival.





SCOUT: We admit it, we played it wrong the first few games.
Cost: 4
Action
+1 Action. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put any revealed Victory cards into your hand and the rest on top.

While this card lasted for 7 out of 10 games, our view on it was skewed thanks to initially reading it as DISCARDING the other cards revealed rather than PUTTING THEM BACK. HUGE difference.
The proposed combo brought forth with Cellar is not as good as one would think; you need both of them in your hand, have enough cards to discard to the Cellar after the Scout, and make sure you get quality cards after Cellaring. Only pulled off once successfully in four games.
Some surprising combos with Scout will be discussed further down with the respective cards.

Final Verdict: Works well with others



SECRET CHAMBER: A Better Coin Than Shield
Cost: 2
Action-Reaction
Discard any number of cards: +1 Coin for each card. You may reveal this when another player plays an attack. If you do, +2 Cards and then put 2 cards back on top of your deck.

We had many games with Secret Chamber and Militia, of which it did wonders; being able to decide what are the worst cards out of 7 instead of 5 was great. Against Bureaucrat, not so much. Witch, allows you to strategize your hand. Spy, became a game of bluffing; we often found the Spy discarding a card that would normally be left on top, such as Curse or Estate, because they possible hid a better card under it for their next hand and we could possible play another Spy to get rid of it. We were unable to play it against Thief. Thoughts on new attacks below.
What surprised us was it's other ability: Discard any number of cards: +1 Coin for each one. We found ourselves buying it for this ability alone. It could turn a hand full of green/purple cards into 3/4 coins! Not so bad, especially with the green cards given to you by Scout!

Surprise Factor: 8



BARON: The New Thief
Cost: 4
Action
+1 Buy. You may discard an Estate. If you do, +4 Coin. Otherwise, gain an Estate.

The Baron, we found, was very unreliable. Even with Scout and filling our decks with Estates, the Baron would more often than not gain an Estate. However, when it did go off, it often got a Province. We found this similar to the Thief; either you trash a Copper from everyone else, or you get 3 Gold. Sadly, we were unable to play it in a Gardens deck.

The Thief has become a Baron in his greatest heist.



COPPERSMITH: 3rd Turn Province
Cost: 4
Action
All Coppers played produce an additional 1 Coin.

Yes, the play described did happen. CCCC/Coppersmith. Pow.
However, unless one went all coppers, the Coppersmith quickly lost power. A good example was this hand: Gold, Silver, Copper, Coppersmith, Woodcutter. Woodcutter gets more coins out for you. And our group hates Woodcutter.

Kentucky Derby Prediction: Breaks the speed of sound out the gate, breaks leg on first curve.



SWINDLER: From Rags to... Rags?
Cost: 3
Action-Attack
+2 Coin. Each other player trashes the top card of their deck. You choose a card with the same cost that they gain.

This card was rarely played in its first game, and played heavily in its second game. It often just led Coppers to be made into Curses. Other values were usually just replaced with the same value. However, during the second game, it was able to keep one player down who already was playing weak. I smell a Kingmaker. Unreliable kingmaker, though.

Want to end your game of Dominion early? Buy a Swindler, only just one small payment of $3! Just call 1-800-SWI-NDLE!



NOBLES: A Better Buy Than Gold?
Cost: 6
Choose one: +3 Cards or +2 Actions. 2VP

In one game, we did find it a better buy than Gold. It's a Smithy, a non-profit Festival, and a Duchy minus the Estate built into one! And just like Nobles in real life, they go well with Throne Room, as do all of the choice cards. When Throned Room, it became either a +6 Cards for big treasure hauls, or a +3 Cards +2 Actions for a powerful lubricant for your deck. In its second game, there were no Throne Rooms avalible, but those conniving Nobles still pulled their weight.

Coming this fall on HBO: Desperate Nobles, a show about Nobles who, despite their wealth and abundance, complain on and on.



GREAT HALL: Buy all of them. Now.
Cost: 3
Action
+1 Card. +1 Action. 1VP

A no-brainer. A invisible Estate that combos VERY well with Scout. The one game we played it in, Ironworks was avalible. We didn't go through 3 rounds before they were gone.

Should You Buy It?: Yes.



IRONWORKS: The person who buys the least of these loses.
Cost: 4
Action
Gain a card costing up to 4. If it is... an Action, +1 Action; a Treasure, +1 Coin; a Treasure, +1 Card.

^^ True story. Great lubricant and a way to buy all those cards you need. Though tends to lose steam later in the game when the effect you want from it involves buying a less-than-stellar card.

Should You Buy It?: While you can.



DUKE: An Alternate To Provinces
Cost: 5
Victory
Worth 1VP for each Duchy in your deck.

There has been a lot of math on the power of Dukes. But in praticality, you have to start buying them like crazy. For every Province your opponent buys, you basically have to buy a Duchy and a Duke. If it can be pulled off, it WILL win games.

Does Not Look Like: Borat



MASQUERADE: The New Library
Cost: 5
Action
+2 Cards. Each player passes a card from their hand to the player on their left. Then you may trash a card.

In the games we played with Masquerade, we thought about and discussed situations where it would be powerful. We found that, like the Library, there are many situations where you would want it. But just like the Library, even when those situations came up, no one wants to buy it.

Rating:




All in all, we are loving the new cards. Can't wait for it!

You don't like the library? You crazy man. Library trumps militia and works insanely well with Festival.

Perhaps if you quoted his entire thought, instead of just the part you wanted to comment on, it would make more sense (and would make your own comment redundant). It's common knowledge that Library trumps Militia and works well with Festival, but it's a late-game card and as such it is pretty hard to use it effectively without buying a lot of copies, which noone ever does being late-game and all.

But needless Library-strategy-threadjacking aside, I have found the original post great. It's nice to see a small review of each card and learn how it plays. (It would be nice to have a small blurb of text describing what each card does, though, because I think many people are not as familiar with the new cards like they are with the good old set).

However, I will *again* ask the same question from another thread. Do the new choice-cards slow down the game too much and how much work is overall accounting? Since it wasn't mentioned at all in the article I am hopeful that it truly wasn't a big deal then...

(bypassing the Library threadjacking...)

I found that the slowdown wasn't really any worse than what you would experience with a lot of attacks in the base game.

The only accounting problem I had was with the Bridge. Rather than try to track each individual Buy (and the discount for each), we would say something like,

"OK, I have 5 Coins, 3 Buys and a Bridge, so I can Buy one card worth 6 Coins, or two cards worth a total of 7 Coins (excluding Copper) or three cards worth 8 Coins."

It's a bit confusing, but not as bad as the alternative.

A smaller accounting problem sometimes comes up with the Mining Village. Sometimes you have to pay attention to what you're doing with them if you're playing a Village/Smithy variant deck using Mining Villages as the Village. You might play several Mining Villages in a turn but only trash one or two of them, meaning you have to remember the extra Coins in addition to the extra Actions.

We usually found ourselves knowing the choices on the choice cards before our turn. We eventually just announced "Card Action" whenever we played Pawn.

I can see the accounting involved with more of the choice cards. Bridge, though, I never thought would be an accounting nightmare.
All in all, the only reason the game would be slowed down would be if no one wants to rush for Provinces and instead go for tons of cards such as the new Victory cards.

Also, as for the Library, I think Branko sumed up my point on them.

I am currently editing the original post to include the card abilities.

Yes, Bridge seems to me the worst accounting offender, followed closely by Mining Village and all the choice cards.

The Bridge+multiple-buys was the thing I was most wary of. Two Bridges, three Buys and 5 Coins make my head hurt. I don't think I would reason the Jeff described though, I would simply say "Province now costs 6, Duchy costs 3, Village costs 1. Buy away".

Mining Village also seems fiddly, since you have to trash it without trashing it (if you put it in the trash right away you lose your visual bonus action/card/coin reminder, but if you don't trash it right away you have to remember that it was, in fact, trashed). It would be nice if you could postpone the trashing until the Buying phase,however this would both clash with the text on it as well as cause some pretty wonky problems when Black Market is in play.

Turn it upside down if you're trashing it?

The Baron is extremely reliable when you buy him on your first turn. Baron/Silver has a 67% chance of buying you a gold on turn three or four.

Yes, we pulled this off a few times. However, in mid- to late-game, he becomes more unreliable, even with strong support.

Btw, this sentence kinda confuses me. It sounds like you feel you were forced to get an Estate. You know you can avoid gaining an Estate if you don't want it, right? (unless that +Buy is somehow crucial..)

What was the problem with Secret Chamber against Bureaucrat? Was it that unusual to draw 2 or fewer victory cards out of 7?

EDIT: My laptop is stupid and clicked Submit before I was done.




Yeah, that was stupid of me. It should read:






As for the Bureaucrat-Secret Chamber interaction:

Depending on the 7 cards you were given, assuming you had one of your starting Estates, you had a choice:

Either place the Estate back on top of your deck and do the Bureaucrat's job for it;

Or ruin your current hand by keeping that Estate in your hand and having the Bureaucrat put it back for you.

We tended to do the first option, and realized that the Secret Chamber was not really doing anything in response to the Bureaucrat.

While I haven't tried it myself yet, I have to disagree with that analysis. The power of Bureaucrat is that it forces you to draw the same victory card twice. Secret Chamber averts this by allowing you to in effect "undraw" the card and draw something else in its place, so that your draw is not wasted.

That is true, but that was also the point I was making. The Victory card will end up in your next hand either through Bureaucrat or Secret Chamber. With many cards in the set dealing with cards that are upcoming in a player's deck (Swindler, Tribute, Scout, Saboteur, etc.) or cards relying upon other specific cards to be in your hand with them (Coppersmith, Baron, Masquerade to an extent, etc.), this effect is damaging to those cards no matter what (Though a Bureaucrat might accidentally set off a Baron ). At least you can make it so that the Bureaucrating player thinks he didn't hurt you.

Actually, for each of the examples you give the Secret Chamber having been played would tend to be either neutral or positive. If I have a Scout in my hand, I think I would view the ability to swap victory cards onto the top of my deck as a bonus rather than a penalty, since I can then use the Scout to weed out the victory cards without using up any draws at all. Similarly for Tribute, if the top two cards of my deck tend to be victory cards (the standard variety, not Harem or Nobles), then at least I also tend to gain when it gets played. And in the case of attack cards like Swindler and Saboteur, I'll have an opportunity to use the Secret Chamber a second time and pull the victory cards back into my hand if I so desire.



This I can see, although Moat causes you the same problem if the Baron happens to be in your next hand.

Presumably, Swindler works best when there are weak/situational cards like Library or Coppersmith, the latter of whom is even more useless than normal due to Swindler killing are their Coppers.


Masquerade costs 3, not 5. As a 3 card, it is very good, as it generically allows you to draw cards, trashes cards if need be, but most importantly, allows you to decimate small but powerful decks. This card is the best Chapel killer out of both sets, as it takes away their cards and gives them to you, but it doesn't even count as an attack.

You also have to remember that I can put that victory card (assuming I only have one) two deep in my draw deck, thus my +1 draw cards will still be effective.

I'm with Ian, you really seem wrong about that. Swapping the Estate from your hand for a card from your draw pile is very different from putting the Estate back on top of the draw pile. In the former case, you get the same total value of cards between this turn and next turn that you would otherwise have had, you just rearrange which cards come on which turn. In the latter case, your total value over the two turns is reduced because out of the 10 cards that you draw over those two turns, 2 of them are the Estate and you only get 8 other cards, rather than 9.

I'll admit, I had misread the first few posts about this, and now that it has been restated several times, I must admit that the Secret Chamber does have an effect against the Bureaucrat.

Also, the Masquerade misread of cost changes it greatly... as a 5, it sucks. As a 3, it's an interesting Draw card.