Dominion

Dominion created the deck-building genre of games, where players start with identical decks of basic cards and gradually acquire more powerful cards to build their own unique deck. As the ruler of a small medieval kingdom, players buy action cards, treasure, and victory points to create efficient combinations and expand their dominion. The game’s innovation lies in how your deck becomes more powerful throughout the game, but victory points clog up your deck, creating an interesting tension.

Each game uses 10 different kingdom card piles selected from the many available, ensuring high replayability as different card combinations create new strategic possibilities. Success requires carefully balancing your deck composition between actions, treasure, and victory points. The game’s elegant design and countless possible combinations have inspired numerous deck-builders, but many still consider Dominion the best implementation of the mechanic.