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Lighthouse in Dominion:Seaside costs only 2 yet is a duration card that provides +1 Action on the first turn and +1 coin per turn it is active. On top of that it provides protection against any attack cards while it activated.

It seems to me this is an incredibly powerful card for being worth only 2. If backed up by a couple higher coin you could easily get 8 coin and buy provinces. All the while you are protected from any immediate threats. The main advantage IMO is gained from having +1 each turn. This adds a lot to a players buying power.

So what can you do to stop someone from abusing this card?

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  • From how you are talking about it, I suspect you might think Duration cards last forever. They don't! They only last through your next turn. Check the rules for a handy and easy way to keep track of which Duration cards go away on which turns.
    – Mag Roader
    Dec 28, 2013 at 19:29
  • Yeah, it lasts only for the next turn. But it is useful to have two turns of added buying power. On your second turn it essentially makes everything one cheaper.
    – johnsoe
    Dec 30, 2013 at 20:18

2 Answers 2

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If there are tons of attacks, sure, it's pretty useful. But setting aside the defense (which often isn't relevant), the coin it provides isn't really terribly powerful, so no, it's not at all overpowered.

It's basically a copper that gives you one more coin the next turn. In order to get that extra coin you had to add a copper to your deck - the turn you play Lighthouse one of your five cards only gets you one coin. A silver generally does more for you.

So you don't really have to do anything to keep people from abusing it. Just buy bigger better cards. You can do a lot better than +1 coin.

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Lighthouse only provides $2 per time you play it: $1 this turn, and $1 the next. This is comparable to the $2 from a Silver. In some ways it is problematic: having the $2 be split across two turns is usually worse than having it in one spike; and it can be "drawn dead" with a card like Smithy. Also, Lighthouse shares the common disadvantage to Duration cards that it won't be shuffled into your deck if it happens to be in play when you shuffle. The compensation, of course, is protection from attacks, which can be invaluable if there are powerful attacks around.

If there are powerful attacks in the Kingdom, Lighthouse is an important card that blunts the effectiveness of attacks and importance of those cards. If there are no worthwhile attacks, Lighthouse is usually an unimportant card and most decks would be better off with Silver or another card.

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