Dominion or Intrigue: which one should you buy first?

Wait, isn't Intrigue standalone?

It was. The first edition of Intrigue (2009) came with its own Treasure and Victory cards, so you could start with either box, and a lot of older advice says so. The 2016 second edition dropped them: it has 300 cards to the base game's 500, and no Copper, Estate or Province among them. You need the base game, or the separate set of basic cards Rio Grande sells, to play it.

So the real choice is between the base game alone and the Big Box (base game and Intrigue together, second editions, with extra basic cards for five and six players). Which one depends on whether you want Intrigue's cards, and those are where our simulator gets interesting.

Which box has the stronger cards?

We added every kingdom card to a simple Big Money deck and played it against Big Money alone, 20,000 games per card (the full test is on our overpowered-cards page). Here is every card, by box.

Intrigue's average card is stronger, and it has three cards that make a money deck worse (Lurker, Wishing Well and Mining Village) where the base game has eight, including Village and Throne Room. Fair warning on those: they need other Actions to shine, and a money deck has none. This test measures what a card does for a simple deck, the deck most new players build.

Which one is more lopsided?

Strong cards are good news only if they keep each other in check. So we looked at the head-to-head games between each box's best cards. In the base game, the average matchup between its top five is won 66% to 34%, mostly because Witch beats everyone. Among Intrigue's top seven, the average is 57% to 43%, and 13 of its 21 matchups are closer than 60/40.

That makes Witch the base game's problem. It shows up in 38% of random base-game kingdoms (10 of 26 piles, exact), and with only base-game cards the best answer we found is Sentry, which wins 18%. Add Intrigue and the picture changes: Witch shows up half as often (19%), and Masquerade passes the Curses back for 48%.

Is Intrigue really more interactive?

A lot of older advice says so. We counted, and it isn't. Both boxes have four Attacks and six cards that touch the other players. What Intrigue has is choice: six cards ask you to pick an effect (among them Minion, Nobles and Pawn), the base game has none. That, and four Victory cards that do something else too, is what makes Intrigue feel more interesting.

The flip side of choice is reading. An Intrigue card has 20.7 words on average, a base-game card 14.9. Neither box adds a single rule beyond the basics, which is why both are good first games. The base game is simply the gentler start.

So which should you buy?

• Not sure you will like deck-builders: the base game. It is the only one that plays alone, and its cards are the easiest to read.
• Sure you will play a lot: the Big Box. You get both boxes, the answer to Witch, and cards for five and six players.
• Already own the base game: Intrigue is a fine second box if you want more of the same game. If you want the game to change, our expansion ranking puts Seaside and Prosperity first.

Dominion Big Box (second edition)Base game and Intrigue, two to six players. Affiliate link.

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Or separately: Dominion Intrigue

Questions people ask

Can you play Dominion: Intrigue without the base game?

Not the second edition. It has no Treasure, Victory or Curse cards. A first-edition Intrigue (2009) is standalone, if you find one second-hand.

What changed in the second editions?

Both boxes swapped out their weakest cards in 2016. The base game dropped Adventurer, Chancellor, Feast, Spy, Thief and Woodcutter; Intrigue dropped Coppersmith, Great Hall, Saboteur, Scout, Secret Chamber and Tribute. Update packs with only the new cards exist for owners of the first editions.

How many players?

Two to four with the base game; Intrigue adds cards, not players. The Big Box adds basic cards for five and six. All of our simulations are two-player games.

Which expansion next?

See the best Dominion expansions, ranked, with a "which box next" path.

How we tested

Strength numbers come from our Dominion simulations: every kingdom card of both second editions with its own tuned buy rule, added to Big Money and played against Big Money, 20,000 games each, plus a round robin of all cards against each other (2,000 games per pairing). The head-to-head grids use the 12 strongest cards from that round robin. "Strong" means 65% or more against Big Money, the B tier and up on the overpowered-cards page. The answers to Witch come from the same test; the ban-list follow-up adds five cards from later boxes.

Card facts (attacks, choices, words per card) are keyword counts on the card text from the open dominiontabs card database, the same counts as on our expansion ranking. Product facts (editions, card totals, Big Box contents) are from Wikipedia's Dominion article and retailer listings, checked in November 2026.

Limits. Two-player games, with only the tested cards in the supply. Our bots play money decks well and engines poorly, so Village, Throne Room and other engine cards look worse here than they are. The Witch odds assume a fully random kingdom.