Dominion Seaside: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Deck-Building
Player Age: 13+Player Count: 2 - 4 PlayersTime to Play: 30 Minutes
Game Designer: Donald X. VaccarinoPublisher: Rio Grande GamesYear Published: 2022BGG Weight: 2.23Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Player Age: 13+
Game Designer: Donald X. Vaccarino
Introduction:
Dominion is a great Deck-Building game one of the core examples of pure Deck-Building. For the original review click here. This review is focused on the expansion of Seaside. The main focus of this expansion is easily the new card type, duration cards. These cards are represented by their orange border. They may be introduced in this set, but they are a re-occuring card type appearing in seven more expansions.
Action Cards:
The duration action cards are the focus but there are still some standard action cards in this expansion. Like most of the action cards in Dominion they may seem general but when paired with other cards they create interesting synergies.
My favourite action cards of this expansion would be the Salvager that lets you remove purchased cards that were great for early game but not great for the later game, even better is it adds a buy and gives you the money they cost. Perfect for removing the old strategies you had and converting them to point cards. Treasure Map is a great way to get fold especially if the deck the player has is smaller. Get two of these in the hand and both will be trashed for four golden cards.
Duration Cards:
The duration cards are a new mechanic introduced in this set. These are cards that will activate when played and activate when the situation is met. The cards in this expansion are set to activate at the start of the next turn, but some duration cards in other sets will be an ongoing bonus, or activated when a certain condition is met. The Tactician is the most interesting duration card for me, since it can only be activated if there is at least one card and it will have a negative effect on the turn played discarding that player's hand. On the next turn it will feel like two turns with an extra five cards, an additional action and a buy added.
Normally duration cards are action cards, the Astrolabe however is a treasure that will activate like a copper but for both turns, as well as creating an additional buy. The Pirate is an interesting duration reaction card, since it will react to a player purchasing a treasure. In response to that the Pirate player can gain any treasure card to their hand from the market that costs 6 or less, this could be a gold or any nifty treasure in the market.
Attack Cards:
Seaside provides some more attack cards, pirates are known for some ruthlessness after all.
To prevent this onslaught there is a new duration card called Lighthouse that shines a light and protects from any attacks coming before that player's next turn.
Player Mats:
There are two cards that refer to their individual player mats. The island let's the player set aside the island and one other card, these cards will count as in your deck at the end of the game. This is perfect to remove scoring cards from the players deck while still keeping them as scoring cards. It makes it even more fitting that the island also gives the players points. The native village is also a great use of this mechanism. It may actually work a little better. When played the player can either add the top card of their deck to the mat or gain all cards from the mat onto their hand. This can be used to store victory points and terrible cards to the side (using a card that lets the player look at the top of their deck) or it can be used to bank cards to the side for a larger more beneficial play on the future, for this to fully pay off the player will need a deck with multiple buys or multiple actions being allowed.
Final Thoughts:
- Influx of some more attack focused cards if that is the preferred style.
- Two new cards that give the players options to remove cards from their deck without destroying them. Perfect for victory cards.
Each dominion expansion has some great cards to add as well as general shakeups. Seaside focuses on a new card type that will be prominent on other expansions. Durations allow the player to activate the card on a later turn or the very next turn (based on the card). This adds complexity to the game but does add a new strategic element. For me I think some durations are good but I would probably only have two or three maximum in any game to not increase complexity too much. What I really enjoy from this expansion is some of the new actions and victory cards. These in particular are Salvagers, Treasure Map and two actions that feature their own unique storage boards. There are the island and native village cards that give the players an option to remove cards from their deck with trashing them. This could be to remove victory cards to be scored later but not reduce efficiency or by using the native village card to stack removed cards and bring all of them back on one turn creating a very large turn. There are some fun cards in this set even if you're not the biggest fan of duration cards. Like all dominion expansions it is a great way to shake up the variability in the game.
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