Are you looking for a Dominion kingdom for a quick game? In this post we explain how different card types influence how long it takes to play a kingdom.
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Cards that trash cards
Cards that trash cards are the most important factor in making a quick Dominion kingdom. Trashing bad cards from your deck makes it much better and this in turn speeds the game up a lot. Examples of cards that trash cards are: Chapel, Trading Post, Remodel, Mine, Bishop, Mint and Forge.
The strongest trash card in all of Dominion is certainly Chapel. However, we don’t find Chapel particularly interesting to play with, because it’s an easy to use unconditional card. Cards like Mint and Forge are more interesting, because they also have the potential to thin your deck greatly, but they’re more situational and thus harder to play. Greatly designed cards like Mint and Forge are why Dominion Prosperity is our favorite Dominion expansion.
No attack cards
Attack cards are designed to slow down your opponent. If your kingdom contains attack cards, players thus have the opportunity to slow each other down, which makes the game take longer.
No cards with (+card) +action
Cards +action slow the game down enormously in terms of clock time, because they lead to longer turns. If a player has multiple actions he also has more options to consider, which will cause him to have slower turns. This is especially true for cards with +card +action, because they give a player even more options to consider. And some of these options weren’t in his hand at the beginning of his turn so he didn’t have a chance to think about them in advance.
Cards with a positive effect for all players
Some cards don’t only help the player that plays them, but also all other players. If someone plays Bishop, for example, every player is allowed to trash a card from his hand. And if someone plays Vault, all other players are allowed to discard two cards to draw a new card. These cards subtly speed up the game because they have a bigger positive effect on the group of all players than the cards that help only one player.
Building a quick kingdom
A quick kingdom thus contains trash cards, cards with positive effects for all players, and no attack cards or cards with +1 card +1 action. A very quick kingdom that meets all these criteria is this Prosperity kingdom.