Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Game Reports => Topic started by: Davio on July 21, 2014, 03:40:07 pm
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Kingdom: Lighthouse, Apothecary, Wishing Well, Gardens, Procession, Rats, Pillage, Rebuild, Stables, Tribute, Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse, Potion
Caution: Shelters were used!!!
My opponent dove head first into Rebuild.
I chose to go with Apothecary and Wishing Well, managing to snag 5 Duchies in the process.
Only after that stage I grabbed Rebuilds and turned 5 Duchies into 5 Provinces for a come from behind win.
I had thought about doing some cute Procession-Rats thing, but thought it would be too much trouble for too little gain.
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I like Apothecary. When I play Apothecary and my opponent doesn't, I win. When I decide Apothecary is ignorable and my opponent uses it, he wins. When we both play Apothecary, someone who used Apothecary wins.
Long story short, Apothecary is a great card that provides cycling and cash in addition to control over the top of the deck. Wishing Well is great for picking up those pesky green cards. I sincerely believe that Apothecary is one of the strongest and most under-rated cards in Dominion.
You definitely did the right thing by incorporating it into your deck.
Procession/Rats is not a thing here. A play results in a net increase of 1 Rats and with no +Buy to get fodder or other way to trash Rats it is a losing proposition.
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I mostly agree with SB (there are indeed some boards where apothecary doesn't work). Here, with wishing well and stables, apothecary becomes especially good, and therefore an important card. (without wishing well I don't know how good it would be on this board)
To answer your question though: I don't think there is any way around rebuild here. With basically any card that gives +buy maybe you could ingore and win, but not without that.
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Also, the log is here (http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20140721/log.53663e55e4b0462a80927424.1405971292697.txt), and I am not so sure that your opponent would have lost had he started naming gardens for his rebuilds and buying estate or garden every time. Deplete the province pile some (hopefully) and keep building up VPs (as opposed to what he did on T17 for example. going gardens-->gardens and buying a gardens does nothing for him)
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If your opponent names Estate instead of Province on T6 and buys a 2nd Rebuild (and a 3rd asap, since you don't seem to be mirroring) instead of a Duchy, he should win easily.
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(there are indeed some boards where apothecary doesn't work)
Yeah, yeah... I know there are. There are also boards where you want Adventure and will buy Scout for $4.
The more games I play with Apothecary present the more I realize that it is one of those cards that you need a very good reason to ignore. The opportunity cost is so low only being $2P. Any +Buy usually means that mid-game can result in Apothecary plus another card. The cycling, especially early game, is essential to its success allowing for you to get to your newly bought Actions much earlier than your opponent. No other card except for Navigator (which is terminal and only cycles if you don't like the cards) allows for 5-card cycling. Other top tier sifters like Warehouse only gives +3 Cards and results in a decrease in handsize while Apothecary increases it.
The main drawback to Apothecary is that by itself it chokes on green pretty hard. Usually there is something present like another sifter, village/draw, or card that interacts with the top of the deck.
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I hate kingdoms where there is no good way to trash rats. Rats are so fun to play, but too often aren't viable.
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(there are indeed some boards where apothecary doesn't work)
Yeah, yeah... I know there are. There are also boards where you want Adventure and will buy Scout for $4.
The more games I play with Apothecary present the more I realize that it is one of those cards that you need a very good reason to ignore. The opportunity cost is so low only being $2P. Any +Buy usually means that mid-game can result in Apothecary plus another card. The cycling, especially early game, is essential to its success allowing for you to get to your newly bought Actions much earlier than your opponent. No other card except for Navigator (which is terminal and only cycles if you don't like the cards) allows for 5-card cycling. Other top tier sifters like Warehouse only gives +3 Cards and results in a decrease in handsize while Apothecary increases it.
The main drawback to Apothecary is that by itself it chokes on green pretty hard. Usually there is something present like another sifter, village/draw, or card that interacts with the top of the deck.
Great points on Apothecary -- it's definitely one of my favorites. When there's no trashing, I buy Apothecary much more often than not. It just feels so good. And it helps your +draw cards (especially cantrips) get exactly the cards they need. The last game I played had no trashing cards, Mystic, and a source of +buy and it was a match made in heaven.
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dunno about that. often enough there's just something better.
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Like...are you asking if its viable to completely ignore Rebuild here? My answer is an emphatic "no". Id say in 95% of Rebuild kingdoms this will be the case.
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Like...are you asking if its viable to completely ignore Rebuild here? My answer is an emphatic "no". Id say in 95% of Rebuild kingdoms this will be the case.
no... this doesn't sound right. more like 80%. there is a bunch of stuff that's faster than rebuild, you just have to stay calm and accept that you'll be drastically behind in points for most of the time.
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Also, the log ln is here (http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20140721/log.53663e55e4b0462a80927424.1405971292697.txt)
FTFY
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Like...are you asking if its viable to completely ignore Rebuild here? My answer is an emphatic "no". Id say in 95% of Rebuild kingdoms this will be the case.
no... this doesn't sound right. more like 80%. there is a bunch of stuff that's faster than rebuild, you just have to stay calm and accept that you'll be drastically behind in points for most of the time.
Well, at least there are different ways of incorporating Rebuild. :-\
My opponent could certainly have played better and I thought he would be trashing Province for Province, but he just panicked and started picking up weird cards.
I thought it would be really important to pick up the Duchies first and deny him the Province fodder so I could turn all of those Duchies into Provinces myself.
The cute part about Apo-WW is that I could know exactly which card to name for Rebuild and where to place it.
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The main drawback to Apothecary is that by itself it chokes on green pretty hard.
Wasn't there a card that specifically sifts green?
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The main drawback to Apothecary is that by itself it chokes on green pretty hard.
Wasn't there a card that specifically sifts green?
;D
Wishing Well and Rebuild do a pretty good job of sifting.
You only need to reach $5 here, not $8 so that makes it definitely easier.
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Like...are you asking if its viable to completely ignore Rebuild here? My answer is an emphatic "no". Id say in 95% of Rebuild kingdoms this will be the case.
no... this doesn't sound right. more like 80%. there is a bunch of stuff that's faster than rebuild, you just have to stay calm and accept that you'll be drastically behind in points for most of the time.
your missing my point. Yeah, theres lots of stuff thats faster than rebuild, but Im talking about cases where you can ignore rebuild completely.
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Like...are you asking if its viable to completely ignore Rebuild here? My answer is an emphatic "no". Id say in 95% of Rebuild kingdoms this will be the case.
no... this doesn't sound right. more like 80%. there is a bunch of stuff that's faster than rebuild, you just have to stay calm and accept that you'll be drastically behind in points for most of the time.
your missing my point. Yeah, theres lots of stuff thats faster than rebuild, but Im talking about cases where you can ignore rebuild completely.
me too. i don't think rebuild is a good idea in most engines that beat rebuild, so you do ignore it completely.
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Going back to the original game, there's an early option to wish for a copper with 4 copper+potion in hand. This assumes that the rebuild is more valuable than the apothecary. I'd also guess that a rebuild is better than the first duchy even though you trash the hovel. You'll probably play it enough times to recoup that duchy, the hovel won't last long anyway, and the rebuild can also clear the top of your deck after playing apothecaries.
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If your opponent names Estate instead of Province on T6 and buys a 2nd Rebuild (and a 3rd asap, since you don't seem to be mirroring) instead of a Duchy, he should win easily.
Urob does buy a second Rebuild (T8), but too late. He also buys Estates unnecessarily. A Rebuild game that lasts 20 turns without attack cards is very suboptimal play indeed, unfortunately.
I'd like to see games where buying Rebuild only in the late game is a good idea, though...
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No other card except for Navigator (which is terminal and only cycles if you don't like the cards) allows for 5-card cycling.
Tactician and Envoy also cycle 5 cards. It is not uncommon for Golem and Hunting Party to cycle 5+ cards as well, especially in the early game. Chancellor and Scavenger can do something similar to cycling 5+ cards. Rebuild and Farming Village could cycle more than 5 cards, but in common cases they do not.
EDIT: I missed the big drawers and sifters: Madman, Scrying Pool and Crossroads can draw more than 5 cards, and Cellar and Storeroom can sift more than 5 cards. Cartographer could also cycle 5 cards. At least as good as Navigator can.
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Like...are you asking if its viable to completely ignore Rebuild here? My answer is an emphatic "no". Id say in 95% of Rebuild kingdoms this will be the case.
no... this doesn't sound right. more like 80%. there is a bunch of stuff that's faster than rebuild, you just have to stay calm and accept that you'll be drastically behind in points for most of the time.
your missing my point. Yeah, theres lots of stuff thats faster than rebuild, but Im talking about cases where you can ignore rebuild completely.
me too. i don't think rebuild is a good idea in most engines that beat rebuild, so you do ignore it completely.
If there is an engine good enough to beat a standard Rebuild-thing, maybe including Rebuild into the engine is even better? I mean, it's still a non-terminal Gold if you look at it in that light.
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me too. i don't think rebuild is a good idea in most engines that beat rebuild, so you do ignore it completely.
If there is an engine good enough to beat a standard Rebuild-thing, maybe including Rebuild into the engine is even better? I mean, it's still a non-terminal Gold if you look at it in that light.
"I want the game to go long" vs "I want the game to be short" are very important concepts in dominion that probably deserve some article.
It provides a very clear answer to this "How to play rebuild vs engine" debate.
The rebuild player wants the game to be as short as possible, either gaining the points himself or just destroying them.
The engine player wants to come back from behind, so the higher "half the points in the game" is the better.
-> Buying a rebuild in the engine is almost always a terrible plan.
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Hmm, is it because you want both the Duchies and Provinces and not just the Provinces?
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Like...are you asking if its viable to completely ignore Rebuild here? My answer is an emphatic "no". Id say in 95% of Rebuild kingdoms this will be the case.
no... this doesn't sound right. more like 80%. there is a bunch of stuff that's faster than rebuild, you just have to stay calm and accept that you'll be drastically behind in points for most of the time.
your missing my point. Yeah, theres lots of stuff thats faster than rebuild, but Im talking about cases where you can ignore rebuild completely.
me too. i don't think rebuild is a good idea in most engines that beat rebuild, so you do ignore it completely.
If there is an engine good enough to beat a standard Rebuild-thing, maybe including Rebuild into the engine is even better? I mean, it's still a non-terminal Gold if you look at it in that light.
It's a non-terminal Gold that you can only use to upgrade Victory cards. In an engine, you usually don't want to have "suboptimal" (if any) Victory cards in your deck, except in the very late game. You'd rather trash the starting Estates/OE as soon as possible than try to rebuild them. Only if there is no other Estate trasher might Rebuild be useful, but usually it will still be better to buy a Gold (if you have $6) or a $4/$5 engine component to improve your engine instead of hurting it (Rebuild only gives VPs, and is one more otherwise "dead" card to draw).
Also, Rebuild is dead if you draw it with all the remaining starting Estates/OE in hand, which is much more likely in engines than in BM.