This year, over 200 players entered to compete in the Dominion 2019 Online Championship. Only 8 players remain. This interview features amoffett11, who will be playing Quarter Finals against RTT this Saturday, October 26 at 18UTC.

Congratulations again on making it this far in the Championship! 

xtruffles: Can you tell me a bit about yourself? (Ie. where are you from? What do you do?)

amoffett11: Thanks! Well, I live in Southern Ontario. I’m on the wrong side of 30 now. Like everyone else it seems, I went to school for Computer Science, but I didn’t enjoy it much, so now I work in administration in a small college.

xtruffles: That’s cool – doing what you enjoy is more important. Also, it’s exciting to see you represent Canada in the Quarterfinals! How long have you been playing Dominion and how did you discover the board game?

amoffett11: I’ve been playing for a little more than 4 years now; I found Dominion the same way I find most games: my brother pulled it out onto the table and we played a couple times. Dominion though was different, I took a big liking to it right away, and quickly got my own copy. When that wasn’t enough, I looked online and found Making Fun – I played through the campaigns, started playing online, and then joined the league not long after. I don’t think I’ve missed a League season in the time since.

xtruffles: Wow. How many of seasons of league has that been?

amoffett11: I’d have to look it up. I think my first season was 15 or 16 and we’re at 36 now. So maybe this next one is my 20th, or the last one was. My first match was against Aku Chi in D division – how far we’ve come.

xtruffles: Wow haha. That’s amazing. What is your favorite and least favorite card in Dominion?

amoffett11: It’s hard to pick a favourite. A couple that come to mind are like Menagerie and Diplomat. You get that little adrenaline rush when they go off. Or something like Innovation. I like cards that make you think about how to play through your turns, not just click village, click smithy, repeat. And of course Black Market, that might be my actual favourite. I don’t get the hate.
Least favourite, probably something like Familiar or Cultist. I don’t like the attacks where one player tends to fall behind the race and the game is just over. I prefer Ambassador or Torturer even over those two. With the blacklist now, I can just add the cards I hate and never play with them again. I didn’t think I’d use the Blacklist at all, but actually I don’t miss those couple cards I’ve added.

xtruffles: Yeah, I can definitely see the attack cards often being game deciding. Black Market is also one of my favorite cards as well. What do you find to be the most challenging card to play with in Dominion?

amoffett11: Donate. I like to dive right into a board – “Hey that card looks good and so does that one, let’s buy them and let’s go”. Donate forces me to actually stop and think about what I’m doing before I’ve even started. I think Donald X. likes to say something like “Donate separates the men from the boys”, and well, sometimes I like to just play around and not be a Dominion grown-up.

xtruffles: Haha. Never growing up seems like a good plan. Speaking about more cards, two new cards were released this year – Church and Captain. What are your impressions on the new promos?

amoffett11: I like them both. Seaside was the first expansion I played after Base (the same day I first played Dominion) and the Orange cards were a big reason I fell in love with the game. They just look so aesthetically pleasing and their effects are so cool. So, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Orange ones.
Church though, I really like when you’re using it not to trash, but as like a Super Haven. You need 6 Havens to hide 3 Provinces, but you can hide 3 Provinces with just 2 Churches. Hopefully I’ve done that math right.

xtrufffles: Haha, math seems good

amoffett11: Captain is fun because it’s really strong. Hopefully that guy in the picture loses his next match though

xtruffles: Right, you’re facing Captain up next in the Championship! So, other than yourself, who do you think will win the championship? Why?

amoffett11: If I can’t pick myself, it’s tempting to pick the guy who will beat me. He’s had quite the year, winning a couple A divisions and he wears a lot of hats. But actually I’m going to go out on a limb and pick one of the players I picked in the beginning of the tournament and that’s drsteelhammer. I don’t know, just a feeling. And Germany I tell you, they’re pretty strong.

xtruffles: Sometimes you just have to go with your gut. Yeah, that Captain guy is pretty strong. I wonder if it’s the hats. 🙂 What has been the most memorable Dominion game you have played? (Doesn’t necessarily have to be from the championship)

amoffett11: I think a couple games from this Championship I’m going to remember for awhile. This is my favourite tournament to play in and I’ve never made it nearly this far, and some of the crazy stuff I’ve had in a couple of the deciding games will be memorable for me. Having the Ruined Market appear in the Game 7 against Bryan, and the last game against SamE where I still don’t really know what happened to hit $16 on my last turn. I just clicked Play all Treasures, clicked both Provinces, and then just kind of sat in shock for a few seconds. Did that really just happen? (Sorry SamE!) One other game that comes to mind was when I just a wee discord-er in the first crew battle and I managed to beat Mic Qsenoch in a game.

xtruffles: Yeah, I think those type of wins can be extremely exhilarating. Sometimes they almost feel a bit magical, heh.

amoffett11: I’ve definitely had a little bit of magic in my last two matches.

xtruffles: A bit more magic and you’ll be in the Finals. But don’t discredit yourself – it takes a large amount of skill to make it so far and take advantage of the small magic moments in the game. Moving a bit away from dominion, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time outside of Dominion?

amoffett11: I like to watch movies. My dad raised my brother and I to love sports so I also like to watch sports, and usually some fantasy sports in whatever leagues my brother is in. I like to play baseball in summer and also play a lot of other board games.

xtruffles: Are you a Raptors fan? They just won the NBA Championship last year. Could be foreshadowing another Canadian winning another Championship haha.

amoffett11: Hockey and baseball are my two favourites; I follow the Raptors pretty closely but am guilty a little bit of hopping on the bandwagon and watching them more when they’re good. It was pretty cool to experience a championship season though, a first for me. I’m too young to remember the Jays’ back-to-backs. Definitely a feeling I want to chase in this tournament!

xtruffles: For sure! On the topic of teams, you’re organizing this year’s World Cup. Do you have any hype words for players reading this and have enjoyed the Championship?

amoffett11: I guess I’m contradicting what I said earlier but the World Cup is my favourite tournament.

xtruffles: Haha.

amoffett11: I think the last one went pretty well, but this time we’re taking what we’ve learned and hopefully we can make things even better. It will be more fun for both players and spectators so sign up! We do our best to find a way for as many people as possible to participate. Especially if you’re from outside the US, there’s probably a team looking for you to join, and it seems like we get a couple of new teams every year. If you are from the US, keep your eyes peeled, because it looks like they’re going to have a qualifying tournament starting soon. Either way, look for more updates in the next couple of weeks as this tournament comes to a close! Hype!

xtruffles: Extremely hype. I think regardless if you play or not, there will be some amazing matches to spectate! 😀 So, I have one last question for you! What advice do you have for Dominion players looking to improve at the game?

amoffett11: I had a lot of ideas for what to say here. But ultimately, I think the only advice I have to give is: have fun playing this game. It is a game after all. I think there are some players who only have fun if they’re winning, but if you can have fun playing, win or lose, I think in the long run you’ll end up playing better. Also, there’s a lesson in every loss. Sometimes you learn the same lesson many times, but I think it’s a good idea to try to figure out why you lost, even if it’s just something like a bad shuffle. And in games you win, your opponent lost, so you can try to figure out what happened to them. If a game’s a tie, I don’t know what to tell you, you just wasted your time.

xtruffles: Haha. Well, thanks for answering all of my questions. Best of luck moving forward.

amoffett11: Thanks!