Dominion - BGG #146 · Rating: 7.60 · Weight: 2.3/5 · Players: 2-4 · Time: 30 min In 2008, Donald X. Vaccarino quietly released a card game about buying cards, and broke board gaming. Dominion didn’t just win the Spiel des Jahres - it spawned an entire genre. Every deck-building game published since owes something to it: the shared market, the card cycling, the tension between buying power and deck density. ...
There’s a moment, somewhere around turn seven of your first game of Dominion, where something clicks. You’ve been buying Silver and the occasional Province, letting your opponents snap up the Action cards - and suddenly you realise your deck is clean, efficient, and firing perfectly. You draw five cards that work together like they were designed to. They weren’t. You designed them. That’s deck building. Since Donald X. Vaccarino introduced the mechanic in 2008, deck building has spread into hundreds of games, spawned countless hybrids, and permanently changed what we expect from card games. This deep dive explains exactly how the mechanic works, why it’s so psychologically satisfying, and where to go once you’re hooked. ...
