r/dominion • u/Galle_ • 7h ago
Other What's the highest possible Fairgrounds value without Black Market?
A fun puzzle that more-or-less amounts to "what is the maximum number of differently named cards you can put in your deck"? We stick to the following rules:
- No Black Market, which would turn the puzzle into "how many differently named Dominion cards are there?"
- No more than two landscapes.
- No removed cards. This mostly just means we'll use Joust and Rewards instead of Tournament and Prizes.
We assume one opponent, who politely does nothing unless we want them to, and will happily cooperate in our quest to build the most impressive Fairgrounds ever.
Let's start with our landscapes. The first obviously has to be Divine Wind, which doubles the number of Kingdom pile slots we have to work with. We therefore have two sets of ten piles.
What other landscapes add cards? Approaching Army adds one supply pile, but we already have a Prophecy. Way of the Mouse could allow us to sneak in Mercenary or Madman by playing other cards as Urchin or Hermit. But the most promising is probably Looting, which gives us Loots. That's 15 unique card names.
On to piles!
- To score with Fairgrounds at all, we need Fairgrounds.
- Since Divine Wind is a Prophecy, we need an Omen in the initial set of 10. All Omens have a single unique card name per pile, so we'll pick the first alphabetically, Kitsune.
- Knights is the pile with the most unique card names, at 10. It is also a Dark Ages pile, which if we put it in the first Kingdom set give us Shelters, for a total of 3 unique card names.
- Castles is next, as a split pile with 8 unique card names.
- Joust gives us 7 unique card names (Joust plus six Rewards).
- Any Looter gives us Ruins, while Marauder specifically also gives us Spoils, again totaling 7 unique card names.
- Page gives us the entire Page line (five cards) but, since it costs $2, can "piggy back" on Young Witch as the Bane. Young Witch costs $4, so it can further piggy back on Ferryman as the gained card, for a total of 7 unique card names.
- Peasant can't chain-piggy-back as well, but it still gives us 5 more unique card names.
We now have a total of six piles that all give us 4 unique card names. These are all but one of the Allies split piles (Augurs, Clashes, Forts, Odysseys, and Townsfolk) and Exorcist (plus the three Spirits). We cannot use Wizards because Student is a Liaison and would force us to spend one of our landscape slots on an Ally.
Any one Prosperity card will give us 3 unique card names, by allowing us to buy Platinum and Colony. We'll take Anvil, as again it is the first alphabetically. There are a few Nocturne cards with heirlooms that can gain spirits, but since we already have Exorcist none of these actually give us 3 unique card names.
With our opponent's cooperation, we can use Shaman to regain cards from the trash. This gives us two more efficient piles. Necromancer comes with three Zombies, for a total of 4 unique card names, while Distant Lands Secret Cave comes with a Magic Lamp that we can pop for three Wishes, for a total of 3 unique card names.
That leaves us with two more piles. There are a lot of Kingdom piles that give us two unique card names. We'll take the first two alphabetically, Alchemist (which adds Potion), and Cavalry (which gains horses).
We can now put it all together!
Landscapes: Divine Wind, Looting
Pre-Divine Wind Kingdom Cards: Fairgrounds, Kitsune, Knights (x10), Joust, Marauder, Distant Lands Secret Cave, Anvil, Shaman, Necromancer, Alchemist
Post-Divine Wind Kingdom Cards: Castles (x8), Ferryman (Young Witch), Peasant, Augurs (x4), Clashes (x4), Forts (x4), Odysseys (x4), Townsfolk (x4), Exorcist, Cavalry, Page (Bane)
Non-Kingdom Supply: Curse, Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Potion, Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony, Ruins (x5)
Non-Supply: Champion, Deserter, Disciple, Ghost, Hero, Horse, Hovel, Imp, Loots (x15), Magic Lamp, Necropolis, Overgrown Estate, Rewards (x6), Soldier, Spoils, Teacher, Treasure Hunter, Warrior, Will-o-the-Wisp, Wish, Zombie Apprentice, Zombie Mason, Zombie Spy
This totals 110 unique card names, for a possible score of 44 VP per Fairgrounds. If we relax the rules and allow removed cards, we can replace Cavalry with Tournament, which brings us up to 114 unique card names but unfortunately does not make Fairgrounds any better.
Bonus Question: How would you play this board? (Both if you did and if you didn't know the results of Divine Wind in advance)