The Peel Association

 

• Danigral - 2 out of 5. Too expensive for what you get. With some extra attachments he can be a nice beat stick, but you can get something better for the cost (not to mention being easier to play) for cost 6 or even cost 4. His ability sounds nice, until you realize that you opponent just has to spend 1 card to make any resource match he wants. It might be good with Torch the Joint to get rid of any colored resource your opponent plays...but this is really reactive play for late game.
• dboeren - 4 out of 5. Nasty effect on your opponent’s largest domain making them waste cards re-activating it.
• Ire & WWDrakey - 4 out of 5 - We’re hedging our bets on the fact that more worthwhile Government support is on the way, but this is definitely one of the more complicated Societies, with plenty of possibility to be extremely irritating.
• Wilbur - 3 out of 5 - A super nasty effect, but hard to play before your fate is looking grim. With serious cost reduction, Peel Association could definitely go up a notch, so I’m prepared to revise this evaluation once the recently announced Agency box and Lt. Wilson Stewart enters the cardpool. Still, in true Agency fashion, it’s got a subpar icon spread: at cost 6, it can’t defend a story from Degenerate Serpent Cultist (assuming it was left for defense last turn, since it can’t ready itself, either). Still, might be a part of the Agency resource destruction strategy that has always been a piece or two short.

There is a set of cards of this form  - costing 6 but reducing as you are losing.

They are all pretty weak, but they also improve a bit if you are playing a 3 player variant (or more I guess, but I have never played with more than 3).

 

Danigral - 2 out of 5. Too expensive for what you get. With some extra attachments he can be a nice beat stick, but you can get something better for the cost (not to mention being easier to play) for cost 6 or even cost 4. His ability sounds nice, until you realize that you opponent just has to spend 1 card to make any resource match he wants. It might be good with Torch the Joint to get rid of any colored resource your opponent plays...but this is really reactive play for late game.

He says the opponent has to spend one more resource on top of the neutral ones to make a resource match. But as I remember, if you put a neutral card as your first resource it's only a match for other neutrals. Neutrals only become a usable resource for colors that were put before it, no?

*Never mind, my brain slipped*

He says the opponent has to spend one more resource on top of the neutral ones to make a resource match. But as I remember, if you put a neutral card as your first resource it's only a match for other neutrals. Neutrals only become a usable resource for colors that were put before it, no?

I'm not sure where you get that idea. To make a resource match, you just have to have the faction represented in that domain. It doesn't matter whether it was added before or after other cards in the domain.

Now, more to the original point, another card will only make the domain usable for a single faction, so the Peel Association ability is proportionately more grief for multi-faction decks. It also can create problems for playing Loyal cards and heavy steadfast. I'm imagining a happy outcome where you deprive an opponent of the full steadfast count he needs for his furshlugginer dormant Cthulhu. (I got spanked by one of those last week, and I'm on the alert for ways to de-fang them.)

Like Carthoris said, the order of the resources on a domain is irrelevant.  Neutral resources act just like any other resource except they don't themselves provide you with a resource match.  They're basically just a colorless resource, like colorless mana in Magic, if you're familiar with that analogy.  They help you with the quantity of a cost, but not the color of a cost.  Otherwise, they're no different from any other resource.

And I think this card is weak by itself, but I could see it being effective in the right deck.  If you play the Peel Association to blank your opponent's biggest domain, and then you follow that up with the Blackwood Initiative and Karl Heinrich, you're putting your opponent in a position where he's suffering some serious card disadvantage.  Plus, if you can bounce your own Peel Association and play it again, you can hit more domains, or the same domain again.

Like I said above, my problem with this strategy is it seems too slow to me, and it also doesn't help you deal with your opponent's board.  You'll be winning the battle of card advantage, but your opponent might be winning the battle of board advantage.  This strategy would want the game to last a long time because it would need a long time even after it's set up to be able to make a big difference for you.