Every Dominion Expansion, Ranked: Which to Buy First
Dominion has more than fifteen expansions, and you need exactly none of them for your first fifty games. But when you’re ready, the difference between buying Prosperity first and buying Alchemy first is the difference between falling deeper in love with this game and wondering what went wrong.
Here’s our ranking — organized as buy first, buy eventually, and buy last — for players expanding from the base set.
Buy First: The Big Three
1. Prosperity. Dominion with the volume turned up. Platinum (a 5-coin Treasure) and Colony (a 10-point Victory card) extend the game’s ceiling, and the Kingdom cards are built around big turns and big payoffs. It makes every game feel like the late-game — which is the part everyone loves. If you buy one expansion, buy this one.
2. Seaside (Second Edition). Duration cards — orange cards whose effects carry into your next turn — are the single best mechanic any expansion adds. Lighthouse protects you while you build; Wharf is arguably the strongest draw card in all of Dominion; Fishing Village makes engines hum. Seaside games feel meaningfully different from base games without being harder to teach.
3. Intrigue (Second Edition). More of exactly what the base set does, with sharper edges: cards with choices (“choose one: +2 coins or trash 2 cards”), Victory cards that do things, and the nastiest cheap attacks in the series. Intrigue is the right first buy if what you want is more base Dominion rather than new mechanics — and its 300 cards mix seamlessly into everything.
Worth knowing: expansions don’t stack rules — you just shuffle more kingdom piles into your selection pool. Owning three expansions doesn’t make the game harder; it makes the ten-pile draw more surprising. That’s why buy order is about fun-per-dollar, not difficulty.
Buy Eventually: The Strong Middle
“Okay, I own the big three and I’m hooked. Now what?”
Now you buy by personality. Hinterlands (Second Edition) is the pick for engine lovers — its “when you gain this” effects reward smart shopping and make every buy phase interesting. Menagerie is the pick for variety junkies: Exile mats, Horse tokens, and Ways make it the most inventive modern set, and its card quality is sneaky-high. Dark Ages is the pick for players who loved Chapel — it’s an entire expansion about trashing, upgrading, and playing in the graveyard, with the best rags-to-riches arc in the series. It’s also the most complex of the three, which is why it’s here and not higher.
Cornucopia & Guilds (now sold as one combined set) rounds out the tier — variety-scoring cards like Fairgrounds and the coin-token economy of Guilds are both gentle, clever additions that mix well with everything.
Buy Last: The Specialist Sets
What most players do: buy expansions in release order, which puts Alchemy — the consensus weakest set — third in their collection.
What actually works: treating the later, heavier sets as graduate school. Adventures (Events, tokens, upgrading Travellers), Empires (debt costs, Landmarks), Nocturne (Night phase, Hexes), and Renaissance (Villagers, Projects) are all good — but each adds a new subsystem to track, and they reward tables that already know the game cold.
And then there’s Alchemy. The Potion — a second currency you need for the set’s best cards — forces you to warp your deck around one expansion’s gimmick, and most of its cards aren’t worth the detour. It has defenders, and Possession is a legendarily chaotic card, but if you’re going to skip one Dominion box, the entire community will point at the same one. Rio Grande now sells it bundled with Cornucopia’s old printing for a reason.
Plunder, Allies, and Rising Sun — the newest wave — are genuinely strong (Plunder’s Loot cards especially) but sit here purely on ordering: they’re richer experiences after you’ve internalized Durations and Events elsewhere first.
The Honest Budget Advice
Base Dominion plus Prosperity plus Seaside is a complete hobby — hundreds of hours, thousands of distinct kingdoms, roughly $130 total. We’d rather see you play that trio for a year than shelf-stuff six boxes you sample twice.
One box per season of active play is the right pace. Each expansion earns its price only after you’ve seen a few dozen of its kingdoms — and if you’re still testing whether Dominion itself deserves the shelf space, start with our full Dominion review and the base-set card rankings before spending an expansion dollar.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Dominion expansion should I buy first?
Prosperity, with Seaside a close second. Prosperity’s Platinum and Colony cards amplify the game everyone already loves, while Seaside’s Duration cards add the best new mechanic in the series. Either is a safe first buy; Alchemy is the one to avoid buying early.
What is the best Dominion expansion overall?
Prosperity for most players — its big-money, big-turn design makes every game feel climactic. Enthusiasts often argue for Seaside’s Wharf-powered engines or Dark Ages’ depth, but Prosperity is the crowd-pleaser that improves the most tables.
Is Dominion Alchemy really that bad?
It’s the weakest set, yes. The Potion currency forces your deck to detour for cards that mostly aren’t worth it, and its best games need several Potion cards in the kingdom at once. Buy it last, or only as part of a bundle.
Do Dominion expansions require the base game?
Yes for almost all of them — expansions add kingdom cards but not the basic Treasure and Victory cards you need to play. Intrigue Second Edition is also not standalone. The base set (or Dominion online) is the required foundation.
Can you mix multiple Dominion expansions together?
Yes, and that’s the intended endgame — shuffle all your randomizers together and draw ten kingdom piles from the whole pool. Rules complexity barely rises because each game still only uses ten piles; you just see fresher combinations.
How many Dominion expansions are there?
Fifteen-plus and still growing — the line runs from Intrigue (2009) through recent sets like Plunder and Rising Sun, with several older sets reissued as improved second editions. Nobody needs them all; three well-chosen boxes cover years of play.
Do this first: if you own only the base game, put Prosperity in your cart and play your next ten games knowing Colonies are coming. The base set is about to feel like the opening act.