Hinterlands is the sixth expansion to Dominion. Designer Donald X. Vaccarino has revisited it to scrap nine of the cards that didn't work as well and add nine new ones to bring the total unique cards in the Hinterlands set to twenty-six. Some of the new additions revise old versions, and some of them are totally new. Reactions receive a lot of focus in this revision.
How does first edition / second edition work?
All expansions, including Hinterlands, come with the up to date content on purchase. To play with these new cards, buy Hinterlands. If you're itching for that nostalgic game, Hinterlands First Edition cards are still being supported as a standalone pack. This pack includes the nine cards that have been since removed. If you already owned Hinterlands before we published this revision, you lucky duck, you now own both. We do this so we aren't scooping anyone's favorite card out from under them. If you own both Hinterlands and Hinterlands First Edition you can choose which you want to play with or combine them together.
Notes from Donald included below.
"Hinterlands 2E! What were the odds. But here it is.
As with the other two sets, I had no specific objective for Hinterlands beyond... actually, you know what? This set could use more of a theme. I love having lots of when-gain cards, but it's just a bit invisible. What about... Reactions? The set already has three of them. Yeah, let's go with that. A Reactions subtheme. And then, just taking out bad-to-print cards for good-to-print ones.
Mandarin is very weak. You heard it here. Good rules of thumb: never get involved in a land war in Asia; don't buy Mandarin.
Weaver has no relation to it; Mandarin was doing nothing for the set. Weaver is a Reaction, starting in on that new subtheme. It's a Workshop, and you can play it when you discard it. Also fitting Hinterlands' other invisible theme, which is filtering.
Embassy is dull but okay; it lost out on numbers. It was a borderline card that people really didn't need to exist.
Wheelwright is unrelated. You discard a thing to gain a thing. Another way to discard those Tunnels and Weavers. And note that it's the second new way to gain cards, for the set where cards do things when you gain them.
Oracle isn't weak or strong really, but it's crazy slow. It's the bane of playtesting; they endlessly flip over the card you actually wanted to playtest. I haven't played with it in years, except for one game to make sure I really wanted to get rid of it. I did.
Witch's Hut again ties into the filtering theme. It's both the new Embassy and the attack that replaces Oracle.
As usual, the preview cards will be playable on dominion.games; in fact for those of you who aren't subscribing, previews will include all of Hinterlands.
Nomad Camp is basically a Woodcutter with a penalty; you don't tend to want it to be gained onto your deck. Woodcutter is already not a very good Woodcutter.
Nomads, now there's a sweet Woodcutter. So often there is some cute trick it can do.
Duchess had to be weak, since you could take one for free with a Duchy. It was still too weak. Man, it could at least have only looked at your own top card, without letting your opponents do it too.
Guard Dog has no connection, and is another new Reaction. Okay so. If they play say Witch, you can react to play your Guard Dog. If they play say Militia, don't react, just save Guard Dog for your turn, and then you'll draw 2 extra cards. Of course there are also all the other ways you can get the 4 cards. It's another one that plays into the filtering theme.
I like Cache, except for it being bad. If only I could move the +Buy from Margrave onto Cache (and from Wharf onto Merchant Ship). But I can't. And I mean. It's bad.
Souk is unrelated, beyond being another when-gain card. It rewards a small hand size, such as you might have after playing some filtering cards. And it gets in another when-gain trigger.
Noble Brigand is a fixed Thief, and yet still too weak. Bandit turns out to be the actual fixed Thief.
Berserker is another Attack that attacks right away. But the Attack is more meaningful, and it comes with more stuff.
Ill-Gotten Gains is a cute concept, but in practice makes for bad experiences. It was hard to even try to make a replacement along the same lines; I don't want games to be about emptying a certain pile that also empties the Curses, plus the Duchies.
Cauldron isn't tied to gaining Cauldrons, so it doesn't empty its own pile, just the Curses, and it's not even great at emptying those. But it's a Silver with a +Buy so it doesn't have to always Curse them. And it ties into the when-gain theme, being better with cards like Border Village.
Silk Road was another borderline card. The experts were sure they didn't have to see it any more. I couldn't just replace it with another Victory card though - they take two extra cards, and the update pack just had room for one extra card. Hinterlands is no longer the set with 3 Treasures, 3 Victory cards, 3 Reactions; now it's, 2 Treasures, 2 Victory cards, 6 Reactions.
Trail is such a thing of beauty. It's like the most Hinterlandsy Hinterlands card. It plays into both the when-gain and filtering themes, and is a Reaction. You can imagine a board where there's no combo for it, but really it never happens.
Three cards got errata. As you know, I was avoiding this-turn and also when-buy. So. Farmland is now when-gain. To avoid loops with Fortress, it can't gain Farmland. That was just the simplest fix. Haggler is this-turn; now you can Throne Room it. It still cares about bought cards, because it had to, but it triggers on gains like everything else. And then Highway is also a Throne-able this-turn." - Donald X. Vaccarino