The purpose of this list is to provide one source for all of the really good articles on Dominion strategy that exist on the internet, outside of this blog. If you’re just starting to get into Dominion seriously and you want to read a whole bunch of really great stuff that will make you better at the game, this list will help you out a lot.
What makes an article good enough to be on this list? Let me start by saying that this list is subjective, if you think there’s an article that’s amazing that didn’t make this list, well, that’s great! Maybe it’s also amazing. But at the end of the day the articles on this list are the ones that I, Adam Horton, thought were good enough to make it and that’s the cutoff. I did, however, have some criteria that I used to determine this for myself (once again, mostly subjective):
- The article should not contain any bad advice: many older articles were centered around Money Density strategies, which for a long time were thought to be better than anything else. Several expansions were released since then, and people in general have gotten much better at playing Dominion since then so we’ve realized that drawing your deck is pretty great. Unfortunately, this took many older articles out of the running, but you’ll find that if an older article does make it on this list (there are several!) the advice given is general enough that it should prove to be timeless. It also means that if there’s a piece of advice given in the article that I think is just wrong, I didn’t include the article. So when you read through this list, take comfort in knowing that if you read something in one of these articles, it has the Adam Horton Seal Of Approval For Good Advice™ (AHSOAFGA™). I’d like to think that if there’s an oversight or bad thing that I didn’t catch on one of these articles, that it’s small enough to not be a huge deal, hopefully I’m a good enough Dominion player that my subjective opinion is worth something.
- The article should contain some good advice: this seems trivial, but there are a lot of articles out there that don’t say much in terms of strategy; like you get done reading it and you don’t feel like you took anything away. Each and every article on this list should open your mind to something that fundamentally improves the way you play Dominion. Like, you finish reading the article and you feel like you are a better Dominion player because of it. Sure, some of the articles are less advanced concepts, so you may already know about it. Oh well.
- A word about comments: many of these articles have threads that follow them. For the most part, I would recommend only taking comments into consideration if they were made by the OP of the article. There are very few exceptions to this, which I will now list:
- Ruined Market as the only +Buy
- key cards in Dominion: a report card
- Travelling Fair/Counting House
The first two were intended to be discussions that ended up being good enough that I thought they deserved a spot on this list. So they don’t quite fit the mold of “articles” but they are so good that they should be read. The third one just has a lot more detail in the comments that is correct for the most part. I should also say that the better article-writers have gone back an edited their own articles based on feedback that people gave, so keep that in mind if you decide to read comments. You’re pretty safe just not reading comments, though. In fact, I’ll go ahead and mark the ones where the comments are particularly relevant.
I’ve sorted these articles into three categories, the three Cs: Concepts, Cards, and Combos. I’ll make an effort to keep this list updated as articles that I really like continue to come out. I should also mention that as of right now, there are no articles centering around Empires cards. As a whole, I don’t think people (myself included) are good enough at Dominion to reach the level required to write an article good enough to make that list. There are a lot of articles out there and the point here is to only select the best. I hope it helps you get better at Dominion!
I took the time to point out a couple of articles that were very, very well-written. I remember concepts from these articles drastically reshaping the way I played Dominion for the better so go ahead and take extra stock on those distinguished articles and really think about them.
Concepts
Dominion 101: The Village by Wandering Winder
Engines can overcome Curses by Wandering Winder
The Myth of Big Money Choking by ragingduckd (excellent article)
Ruined Market as the only +Buy (read the comments)
key cards in Dominion: a report card by ehunt (read the comments)
The Good-Stuff Deck by Wandering Winder
Building the First Game Engine by geronimoo
Multiplayer Series by Polk: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Cards
Ghost Ship by HiveMindEmulator
Cartographer by Wandering Winder
Ambassador by Wandering Winder (excellent article)
Rebuild Mirrors by ragingduckd and SCSN
Combos (or similar)
Native Village/Bridge by Wandering Winder
Mandarin/Capital by DedicatedDan
Counting House/Travelling Fair by gamesou (read the comments)
Articles I’ve written
I’ve written enough articles that I suppose I could have a “best of” list here. It’s separate because I’m probably biased since I’m the author of those articles.
Discipline in the Opening by AdamH
Payload and Deck Control by AdamH
Last additions were in September 2019: Villages, Draw, and Payload/Deck Control articles added.
Last check for new articles was in October 2023. I’m still around and reading what’s out there, but no articles have been published in the last 4 years that I think are good enough to make this list.