This article assumes you have played or are familiar with how to play this game, if you aren’t read my Dominion Card Game description and review.

Here is a list of the cards involved in this deck:

Cellar, Chapel, Feast, Gardens, Laboratory, Thief, Village, Witch, Woodcutter, Workshop

The main goal of this strategy for this deck is gaining tons of cards and scoring a lot with the Gardens. The key cards are Gardens, Thief, Woodcutter, and Workshop. Given a 3-4 opening treasure split I would buy a Workshop and a Thief. The Thief is better with more players and may not be worth getting in a 2-player game. If you are dealt an opening 2-5 treasure split a Laboratory is always useful and a Cellar will help this deck later.

Like all games of Dominion you will have to adjust your strategy based on what other players do. If you seem to be the only one collecting Gardens then you can spend a bit of time building up your hand. Workshop and Woodcutters are good to let you get an extra card on your turn. In a 3-player game the Thief may get you 2 extra cards and in a 4-player game he might get you 3 extra. He is especially good early on when other players have a higher concentration of treasure. He might even get you a couple Gold.

Once you sense the mid-game approaching you should start using Workshops and buys to purchase Gardens. A Cellar will help unclog the deck and as I said before, a Laboratory doesn’t hurt and a Village is useful too. If you continually get four treasure during your buy phase a Feast can turn into a Duchy later. Also always buy a Province when you get to eight treasure.

At the end-game get any Victory Points you can and keep amassing as large a deck as you can. Extra buys from the Woodcutter and using your Workshops will help you gain more cards. If you are the only one employing the large deck / Gardens strategy you have a good chance of winning.

If one or two other players are going after Gardens you will have to be more aggressive in buying them. This means buying them sooner than you might like. Most other players won’t want to buy them early to avoid clogging up their hands, but don’t let that deter you. Buying a Cellar a bit earlier will help, but whatever you do make sure you get at least 4-5 Gardens by the end of the game.

Hopefully these tips will help you win that next game of Dominion you play using the suggested Size Distortion deck. Do you have any tips for this deck I didn’t think of?