The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

Quartermaster is almost always a must-buy as long as there is anything halfway decent to gain for $4 or less, and if not, just gaining Silvers is still pretty powerful. Much of the time you will want two Quartermasters and will want to put cards into your hand pretty often, but don’t forget that you can gain Estates and never put them in your deck. Quartermaster has extra synergy with any victory card that it can gain, just for the sheer amount of points that don’t make your deck worse, but Cemetery is probably the most powerful of these.

The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

Frigate’s attack is absolutely devastating to almost any deck you can build in Dominion, but it hits the most powerful decks the hardest: the ones that draw a lot of cards. Drawing your deck is usually not going to be possible when Frigate’s attack is being played on you consistently, so unless you have some amazing defense, you’re probably going to be playing a Money Density deck. Fortunately, money density doesn’t mind throwing in three or four of these to shut down any decks with more ambitions.

Frigate is the only attack in Dominion that completely shapes the game in this way; it gives you an attack that money density barely cares about, which completely shuts down decks that try to draw cards.

The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

Going back to your Action phase is extremely good when you can use it to play actions that you might have drawn dead, this is most of what makes Villa so good. Launch is more accessible at the $3 price point than any other way of returning to your Action phase, and gives you a card and a buy on top of that.

While this doesn’t have the synergy with gainers and cost reduction that Villa has, it does draw a card and still has the terminal draw and draw-to-X synergies.

The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

When Peaceful Cult is in the game, you’re able to trash an Estate the first time you draw it in the opening, which is most of what makes it powerful. Most Liaisons will get much better, especially early in the game, when Peaceful Cult is the Ally.

The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

Sentinel’s power comes from its ability to be opened with, as well as it being able to trash two cards when played. The fact that it doesn’t trash cards from hand helps you have some buying power, but the normal downside of trashers that trash from your deck is mitigated with Sentinel because you get to select from five cards to trash, so it’s likely that you’ll find two cards you’re happy to trash.

The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

The main power of Clashes comes from Archer and Warlord. Archer’s attack is devastating against just about any deck, requiring you to have to build your deck much more if it’s getting played on you consistently. Warlord’s attack limits the overall potential of your opponents, and its duration draw is welcome in decks having Archer played on them consistently.

The other cards in the Clashes pile are not weak by any means, but making sure you can play an Archer consistently and getting as many Warlords as possible are the keys to playing well with the Clashes pile.

The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

The power of Island Folk, like any other Ally, varies a lot depending on which Liaison(s) are in play. However, the ability to take extra turns makes any Liaison worth focusing your strategy around.

When Island Folk is around, you usually want to just get as many Favors as you can so that you can take two turns at a time. Just be careful with some Liaisons, though. If you’re consistently getting your extra turn, you don’t need to make 5 Favors per turn to keep that up, since you’re likely to be playing your Liaisons twice before you need another 5 Favors.

The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

Taking an extra turn in Dominon is great, and Seize the Day doesn’t restrict what you do with your extra turn in any way. This event should be bought in pretty much any game it appears in.

Usually you’ll want to Seize the Day later in the game, where $4 and a Buy is a smaller price to pay relative to whatever else is going on in your turns. If you are playing a money density deck, Seize can serve as a re-roll for a bad turn when you’re greening. If you have multiple buys per turn, Seize the Day is a huge endgame threat that vastly changes what you have to play around when your opponent hasn’t used it, and if it isn’t played around, Seize the Day just wins the game for you.

The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

$3 and a Buy for only $3 is a lot of money, despite the downside of Exiling on-play. Being able to open with any other $4 card and feel pretty good about hitting $5 or even $6 makes it difficult to not get at least one Stockpile in the opening, and it’s fairly easy to buy one additional Stockpile right before each shuffle to keep them in your deck.

Stockpile is a card that is much more centralizing in 2-player games, because uncontested access to the pile lets you have amazing turns throughout the game, so you can be locked into contesting them until the pile runs out. With more players, the early-game benefits are still pronounced, but contesting the pile is less of a concern.

The Bite-Sized series of articles is meant to take the most powerful cards in Dominion and give a short explanation of what makes them powerful.

Tripling Actions is very good, as you may know if you’ve played with King’s Court. While Mastermind doesn’t offer the same craziness, because it doesn’t like to triple other Masterminds, it’s still very powerful. Costing only $5 allows you to put Masterminds in your deck far earlier, which changes a lot about the way you tend to build. Plus, the art is quite nice.

More discussion of Mastermind can be found on this podcast episode.