Dominion Strategy for Beginners: Big Money and Beyond

The first Dominion strategy every new player should learn is the one that feels like cheating: buy Silver, buy Gold, buy Provinces, and ignore almost everything else. It is called Big Money, and it beats most people’s first ten attempts at building a clever deck. Once you understand why, you understand the game.

This guide covers the base game of Dominion, which is what most people own. The dozens of expansions add new cards but the thinking is the same.

How does Dominion work?

Each player starts with the same ten-card deck: seven Coppers and three Estates. Each turn you draw five cards, play any Action cards (one per turn unless a card gives you more), play Treasure cards for money, buy one card (unless a card gives you more buys), and put everything, including the new card, into your discard pile. When your draw pile runs out, you shuffle your discard pile to make a new one.

The game ends when the Province pile is empty or any three supply piles are empty. Most points come from Provinces (six points), Duchies (three), and Estates (one). The catch is that Victory cards do nothing in your hand; they clog your deck and make your turns worse.

Ten Kingdom cards are chosen at setup from a larger pool. Every game uses a different ten, which is why Dominion stays fresh and why strategy is about reading the ten in front of you.

What is Big Money and why does it win?

Big Money is the simplest possible plan:

1. With eight or more coins, buy a Province.
2. With six or seven coins, buy a Gold.
3. With three to five coins, buy a Silver.
4. Late in the game, buy a Duchy with five coins instead of a Silver, and an Estate with two instead of nothing.

That is it. A player following this plan with no Action cards at all typically buys four Provinces in around seventeen turns. A beginner building an elaborate engine often has not bought a single Province by then.

Why does it work? Because every Treasure you add raises the average money per hand, and Dominion is a race. The Action cards that beginners love, the ones that let you draw cards or gain extra actions, take several turns to assemble into anything. Big Money is scoring while the engine player is still building.

Big Money is also the measuring stick. A strategy is only good if it beats Big Money. Many do, but only when the kingdom supports them, and learning to tell when is the real skill.

What is Big Money plus one card?

The first step past pure Big Money is adding a single Action card to the plan. Usually one or two copies, bought early, that make your money hands better.

The classic in the base game is Smithy (draw three cards). Buy one Smithy with your first four-coin hand, then follow Big Money. The Smithy turns five-card hands into seven-card hands and reaches Province money more often. Big Money with a Smithy beats plain Big Money consistently.

Other single cards that work the same way in the base game include Militia (attacks every opponent by making them discard down to three cards while giving you two coins) and Moneylender (trashes a Copper for three coins). One or two copies. Not five.

A table of what a beginner should think about each base-game card type:

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When does an engine beat Big Money?

An engine is a deck that draws most of itself every turn, using Villages for actions and draw cards for cards, and then does something big: buys two Provinces in one turn, or attacks every turn, or gains cards for free.

Engines beat Big Money when the kingdom provides three things:

• Trashing. A card like Chapel that removes Coppers and Estates from your deck. A deck with ten cards in it draws itself every turn. A deck with thirty cards does not.
• Draw plus actions. Enough Villages and draw cards that you can chain them without running out of actions.
• A payoff. Extra buys (so you can spend fourteen coins on two Provinces instead of one), or a strong attack, or a card that gains Provinces directly.

If one of those is missing, the engine will be slow and Big Money plus one card will win the race. If all three are present, a well-built engine wins by two or three Provinces.

Beginners build engines in kingdoms that do not support them. The tell is a deck full of Villages with nothing to play after them, or a Smithy chain with no way to spend fourteen coins. Before you commit, ask: what does this deck do when it draws itself? If the answer is “buy one Province,” play Big Money instead.

When should you buy Provinces, Duchies, and Estates?

Timing the green cards is where most beginner games are lost.

• Buy a Province whenever you have eight coins. There are exceptions in advanced play, but a beginner who waits for a better engine is almost always wrong.
• Start buying Duchies when the Province pile is at four or fewer. This is the Penultimate Province Rule territory. A Duchy with five coins is better than a Silver once the game is in its last four or five turns.
• Buy Estates only in the last two turns. Before that, an Estate costs you more in dead draws than it earns.
• Never buy the penultimate Province if it leaves your opponent able to win by buying the last one. Count the score. If you are behind after buying the second-to-last Province and your opponent can hit eight coins, buy a Duchy instead and keep the game going.

Counting is not optional. Keep a running tally of Provinces and Duchies out loud if your table agrees to it. A player who knows the score is at seven to five Provinces makes a different last turn than one who thinks the game is close.

What mistakes lose Dominion games for beginners?

A short list, in order of how often we see them:

1. Too many terminal actions. Two Smithies in one hand means one does nothing. Buy a Village or stop buying Smithies.
2. Buying Action cards instead of Silver with three or four coins. Early Silvers are what get you to Gold. A cheap Action you have no plan for is not.
3. Not trashing when Chapel is available. A Chapel deck feels like going backward for four turns and then wins by a mile.
4. Ignoring attacks. If Witch is in the kingdom and your opponent buys one, you will receive ten Curses over the game unless you also buy one or find a Moat. Buy one.
5. Buying Victory cards too early. Duchies on turn five clog the deck that was supposed to buy Provinces on turn twelve.
6. Not shuffling properly. This sounds trivial. A deck that is not shuffled well draws the same hands and ruins the game.

If you want the vocabulary behind all of this, our explainer on deck building games covers how Dominion started the genre, and the comparison Dominion vs Clank! looks at the game that put a board under the mechanic.

Dominion is a game you can play five times in an evening with five different kingdoms, which makes it one of the best games for a group that likes to argue about what should have happened. The game is the reason. The people are the point.

FAQ

What is the best Dominion strategy for beginners?

Big Money with one strong Action card, usually Smithy or Militia in the base game. Buy Silver and Gold, buy Provinces at eight coins, and add Duchies late.

Is Chapel good in Dominion?

Chapel is widely considered the strongest card in the base game. It lets you trash Coppers and Estates quickly, producing a small deck that plays its best cards every turn. It needs good cards to draw into, so pair it with a plan.

How many Action cards should you buy in Dominion?

For a Big Money deck, one or two terminals. For an engine, as many as the Villages can support, with trashing to keep the deck small.

When does Dominion end?

When the Province pile is empty, or when any three supply piles are empty. Watch the pile counts in the last third of the game.

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