You were delaying this to make it your 2000th post?
Paragraph 2, "when do get Island?" should probably be "when to get Island?"Isn't that just a matter of style?
You can say "when do you get", but "when do get" doesn't work.Paragraph 2, "when do get Island?" should probably be "when to get Island?"Isn't that just a matter of style?
Paragraph 2, "when do get Island?" should probably be "when to get Island?"Isn't that just a matter of style?
So lets try what is following strategy on this kingdom?
island, ironworks, workshop, armory, hoard, moneylender, menagerie, wishing well, procession, apothecary, colony, shelters
Another time to consider Island is when you have otherwise built an engine, but end up with a spare $4 during the build-up. For instance, on a colony board you may hit $7 and your best option is to grab Island/Silver so that next turn you can mat your trasher and then buy Plat (this assumes that the $1 differential between Gold & Silver is not worth a card). This is risky if you don't currently have overdraw, but netting 2 VP and a slightly more reliable engine when you do have overdraw in a deck drawing engine can go a long way.I think I covered this with the sentence: "If you have a nice engine in a slim deck that's afraid of green cards, you can consider it to exile your Provinces, but make sure that the late thinning is really necessary." This is the rare case of when Island is okay because it just fits into the current turn perfectly, even if there is no enabler. Or do you think that's something different?
Another strong set of combos are with Gardens and Silk Roads - both are good options for Island. Gardens a nice if only because Island is another short pile that your slog deck can pick up whenever it would have gotten a Gardens that gives VP as well. Silk road makes Island a very nice buy, it is a cheap VP card, it can protect your precious green from trashing attacks (e.g. Swindler), and you have to worry less about keeping your deck up to $4 a hand when maybe a third or half your green will go vanish as it is set aside. Normally for these alt-VP you'd want to open some sort of enabler first (obviously Iw is great, but even weaker things like Workshop or Squire can be quite viable) and maybe get a few copies (e.g. Spamming Squires & Silvers).I don't consider Gardens an enabler for Island, I think it's a trap. A Garden deck is usually huge, which makes the thinning from Island almost irrelevant. Silk Road can certainly be a reason to buy it, but almost exclusively for the VP rather than the exiling. You very likely shouldn't buy Island it over Province or Silk Road, so if anything you'd buy it over a Duchy, which I don't think is important enough to deserve a mention.
Not as good is Vineyard. Vineyard decks are very likely to have strong draw and being able to mat the Vineyards themselves or the eventually useless Potion; while less commonly a threat Islands can help hide Vineyards from things like Swindler (Vineyard -> nothing/Transmute) or Masq (say something like Cutpurse/Masq). Less useful is with Fairgrounds as Island is not a terrible way to gain & hide crappy terminal actions that might otherwise muck up the deck; obviously Fairgrounds/Island is just $2 more expensive than provinces, but gives 2 VP more so you might be able to build an extra turn or two to set that up when Province/Island is just a bit too slow.I agree that all of these can be theoretical reasons to buy Island, but I honestly don't think any of these cases is relevant enough to deserve a mention; I consider them edge cases.
Pool is another card that works very well with Island, the 16VP that Pool can draw is pretty nice, and Pool decks benefit a lot more than normal from Estate clearing and setting aside Provinces, particularly when Pool itself is your only draw. On a related note, Island can be good to grab if (for completely other reasons) you've already gained a Transmute; over two turns you can swap $4 of value into $12 of value or $6 of buying power.I don't think Pool enables Island. I agree that trashing is good for SP decks, but Island is just a really slow trasher, every other trasher is probably better. And yeah, Island is an Action card and can be drawn with SP, but so can any other trasher.
Island has some synergy with Ironmonger in that it can both decrease deck size and turns Ironmonger into a lvl 2 City when it hits, not strong enough of its own right, but it can make an engine viable if you have some other reason to go for it.Again, I don't see this as relevant enough to be mentioned. If it was Great Hall, sure, but Island sets itself aside after you use it once, so you're not likely to hit it with Ironmonger more than once.
A fun trick is using Island to set aside just enough VP so that you can gain 2 Rats (or just one if you can gain mid-action phase) and then threaten to clear out the Rats whenever you draw deck (play a Rats, gain a Rats; play a Rats, gain a Rats, draw a Rats; repeat). If you have two piles likely to drain completely and quickly (e.g. Curses and Fishing Village); you can tuck away an Island and then gain all the Rats in one go for a surprise win against folk who haven't seen it; for people who have you can sometimes force some interesting end games where if they gain X (say a fifth highway on a Hermit/Highway board) you can instantly end the game. The game rarely sets this up for you unless you are playing Seaside/Dark Ages, but it is worth it at least once to auto-pile the Rats for the fun of it.Well, I have only been able to use a 3 pile of rats to end the game like once or twice in my career, although I often hoped for it, and I don't think Island is a crucial part for that. You can also do with fortress and VP's in your hand, with a victory chip, with a curse in your opponents deck, or just by buying an Estate at the end of your turn with virtual coin.
Defensively, Island can be useful. Swindler can be very dangerous when you have Prince/Peddler out that can nuke provinces, you are going alt-VP, or the other guy might be able to Swindle a huge number of times (or with high targeting like mass Rabble/Swindler) after the last Province is gone on the last turn (e.g. Rabble stacks 3 Provinces on your deck top, one Prov in supply, he plays 3 Swindlers); other trashing attacks are mostly dangerous to alt-VP, but Island can protect at least some VP. B-crat, Fteller, and Rabble can provide a decent nudge towards going for $12 instead of $16 as a greenless deck never slows down to those attacks.I can see using Island to protect your Provinces as being a thing, but it would require both swindler (as it is the only card which can kill a Province effectively), Prince or Peddler, and decent enough support to make it better than a silver. That's too narrow.
Possession is an odd duck case, but Island does open up a lot of options. For instance, it makes it a lot safer to do something like build an engine off Ambassador or Masq as you can use the power cards, then safely hide them. the opponent then has to spend time getting double Amb or double Masq which is often another turn for you to win the game if they've gone Possession and you haven't. Likewise, if you want to keep your deck below $8 after you've gotten above that, Island can turn your deck into "a duchy at best". On the other hand, Island itself can majorly hammer you if it is still in your deck at the wrong time; Island -> set aside Possession is brutal.I highly doubt that using Island to prevent your opponent from abusing the synergies with Possession works. For one, Island is one of the three main synergies (as you said), but also because both of the other two (Amb and Masq) can hand out cards to your opponent; so even if you go through the trouble of exiling your masquerade with Island before he can play Possession, he can just pass you another Masquerade with little effort.
Another time to consider Island is when you have otherwise built an engine, but end up with a spare $4 during the build-up. For instance, on a colony board you may hit $7 and your best option is to grab Island/Silver so that next turn you can mat your trasher and then buy Plat (this assumes that the $1 differential between Gold & Silver is not worth a card). This is risky if you don't currently have overdraw, but netting 2 VP and a slightly more reliable engine when you do have overdraw in a deck drawing engine can go a long way.I think I covered this with the sentence: "If you have a nice engine in a slim deck that's afraid of green cards, you can consider it to exile your Provinces, but make sure that the late thinning is really necessary." This is the rare case of when Island is okay because it just fits into the current turn perfectly, even if there is no enabler. Or do you think that's something different?
I don't consider Gardens an enabler for Island, I think it's a trap. A Garden deck is usually huge, which makes the thinning from Island almost irrelevant.That depends on if Gardens are contested or not. If they aren't, then Island is very nice. It takes only 8 gains to empty the pile which is often 1.5 turns shorter than piling out a kingdom card and they are worth double the points of Estates. If your opponent goes something Garden intolerant, then you can hide your estates and get by with fewer early enablers; further most Gardens enablers work pretty well with Island.
Silk Road can certainly be a reason to buy it, but almost exclusively for the VP rather than the exiling. You very likely shouldn't buy Island it over Province or Silk Road, so if anything you'd buy it over a Duchy, which I don't think is important enough to deserve a mention.If Silk road is not going to be contested, then you should go Island early and keep a steady mix. Exiling the estates and the odd Silk Road does increase the frequency with which you hit enablers. If some of your enablers are non-terminal (Iw being king, but also things like Candlestick maker and Pawn) it really does increase the rate at which you pile down green.
I agree that all of these can be theoretical reasons to buy Island, but I honestly don't think any of these cases is relevant enough to deserve a mention; I consider them edge cases.More I'd go with Alt-VP being a mention; Island does work really well when you are bloating out a Vineyards deck as it counts twice and can hide your Vineyards. For the rest it applies mostly on boards where things are non-trivially obvious.
I don't think Pool enables Island. I agree that trashing is good for SP decks, but Island is just a really slow trasher, every other trasher is probably better. And yeah, Island is an Action card and can be drawn with SP, but so can any other trasher.Yeah, but only Nv can sock away green to keep your pool deck reliable as it scores points, and on a lot of Island/Pool boards there will either be no other trashing or stuff that isn't so nice at trashing - like Hermit or Counterfeit that makes Island good at popping off stop cards that would otherwise be left.
I don't think I ever had a game where using Transmute to trash a card with several types was strong.It is a pretty good thing when the deck already supports Transmute for some other reason. For instance I did a Pool/Transmute/Familiar/Necropolis/Remodel/Island deck. Potion was a given with both Pool and Familiar, Transmute was decent at killing Curses and coppers and then tossing in Islands let me get golds to remodel to Provinces without having to spend multiple turns going Transmute -> Duchy -> Gold -> Remodel. Again this is only good if you've already gotten Transmute for some reason that negates the opportunity cost (e.g. you hit $1P on a Familiar board) and you can use a lot of card value or reliable draw to pair up Island & Transmute.
Again, I don't see this as relevant enough to be mentioned. If it was Great Hall, sure, but Island sets itself aside after you use it once, so you're not likely to hit it with Ironmonger more than once.
Well, I have only been able to use a 3 pile of rats to end the game like once or twice in my career, although I often hoped for it, and I don't think Island is a crucial part for that. You can also do with fortress and VP's in your hand, with a victory chip, with a curse in your opponents deck, or just by buying an Estate at the end of your turn with virtual coin.Absolutely correct, on the other hand Island is one of the easier ways to keep the threat an option after the opponent gets a province. Again I say this more because it is really fun to do rather than it being really strong thing.
using Island to protect your Provinces as being a thing, but it would require both swindler (as it is the only card which can kill a Province effectively), Prince or Peddler, and decent enough support to make it better than a silver. That's too narrow.You are forgetting about Alt-VP. Fairgrounds, Silk Roads, and sometimes even Feodum and Gardens all can be killed by Knights, Rogue, Swindler, and Sab (if Sab can be played enough).
I highly doubt that using Island to prevent your opponent from abusing the synergies with Possession works. For one, Island is one of the three main synergies (as you said), but also because both of the other two (Amb and Masq) can hand out cards to your opponent; so even if you go through the trouble of exiling your masquerade with Island before he can play Possession, he can just pass you another Masquerade with little effort.More aptly, he can pass you a Masq or Amb one turn later than if you have the Masq or Amb already in deck for him, which can be long enough to win the game. Spend $4 late game for an extra turn? That is a pretty good trade. Further, if your opponent cannot play both Possession and Masq/Amb the same turn (e.g. a no-village engine), then you can keep setting aside the poison card they give you.
I can see using Island to protect your Provinces as being a thing, but it would require both swindler (as it is the only card which can kill a Province effectively), Prince or Peddler, and decent enough support to make it better than a silver. That's too narrow.
I can see using Island to protect your Provinces as being a thing, but it would require both swindler (as it is the only card which can kill a Province effectively), Prince or Peddler, and decent enough support to make it better than a silver. That's too narrow.
Is Swindler/Peddler even something to consider in this case? Unless there really isn't any +buy or action-chaining, Peddlers are gonna run out before anyone buys a Province (especially with Swindler in play), and then the Swindler is more likely gonna become a liability because it could go Peddler-->Province instead.
Prince on the other hand, yeah, I don't think I've ever seen the Prince pile emptied.
So would you say this article is about done?
Yeah, I think the advice that Island competes on price with Gardens/Silk Roads indicates that the trap is supposed to be "buying Islands before all the Gardens/Silk Roads are gone" not "buying Islands after all the Gardens/Silk Roads are gone".
I guess what they are saying is not to be fooled into thinking that it's a good plan to alternate between buying Gardens/Silk Roads and buying Islands, in the vain hope that you can use your Islands on your Gardens/Silk Roads and stop the green from clogging your deck.
Added! Hope you don't mind, but I included a short "Traps" section detailing reasons against the poor advice previously in the strategy section of the article.
http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Island#Strategy_Article
In the year 2018, no one thinks buying Scout is ever a good idea anymore.In the year 3018, etymologists ponder the origin of the phrase 'combos with Scout'.
In the year 2018, no one thinks buying Scout is ever a good idea anymore.In the year 3018, etymologists ponder the origin of the phrase 'combos with Scout'.
So no mention of Laboratory here. Removing one card from your deck is very similar to adding a Laboratory to your deck.... which means that Island should function a lot like a Laboratory that's also worth 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png). Of course, what makes it not as strong as that is that the turn you play it is really bad; being -1 action and -2 cards. But once you've gotten past that one-time downside, it should be very similar to Lab.
So my question is... why isn't this way stronger? An actual Lab for (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) that also included 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) would be crazy. Is it all because of the on-play downside, or am I missing something?
Of course, what makes it not as strong as that is that the turn you play it is really bad; being -1 action and -2 cards.That's a pretty big downside.
So my question is... why isn't this way stronger? An actual Lab for (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) that also included 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) would be crazy. Is it all because of the on-play downside, or am I missing something?Ignoring the presence of trashers which do the thinning job that Island does better I think it all comes down to Island being dead on the turn you play it. It is kind of like Hireling vs. Lab, that Hireling is dead on the turn you play it could make the card situationally worse than Lab although it is an auto-Lab in all future turns.
it all comes down to Island being dead on the turn you play it. It is kind of like Hireling vs. Lab, that Hireling is dead on the turn you play it could make the card situationally worse than Lab although it is an auto-Lab in all future turns.Given you don't have an engine yet, delaying the benefit by a shuffle (Island v. Lab) is a bigger deal than delaying it by a turn (Hireling v. Lab).
So no mention of Laboratory here. Removing one card from your deck is very similar to adding a Laboratory to your deck.... which means that Island should function a lot like a Laboratory that's also worth 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png). Of course, what makes it not as strong as that is that the turn you play it is really bad; being -1 action and -2 cards. But once you've gotten past that one-time downside, it should be very similar to Lab.
So my question is... why isn't this way stronger? An actual Lab for (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) that also included 2(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/VP.png/16px-VP.png) would be crazy. Is it all because of the on-play downside, or am I missing something?
Kind of makes me wonder if gain-to-your-hand options make Island into a decent finesse play, or if setting aside a Province in the middle of the turn is just a feel-good substitute for something more powerful most of the time.
Island might do well as an addition to any engine in asymptotic Dominion, but no one actually plays that, so it could be a moot point. You could even use your last Throne on Island after you draw your deck and Island with two other Victory cards at the end of most turns, but this is probably not a realistic goal for a finite Dominion...
Asymptotic Dominion with Labs requires gaining more Labs than Victory cards + Treasures; otherwise, you draw only green and eventually stop when "you have flipped 5 more Tails than Heads", which eventually happens with probability 1. The probability of this catastrophe per turn in the long run is some function of what % of your deck is Laboratory, and catastrophe has probability 1 for P(Lab)<= .5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton%E2%80%93Watson_process#Extinction_criterion_for_Galton%E2%80%93Watson_process
Of course, knowing that doesn't make me better at Dominion. Demonstrably... :(
So X years later, the consensus seems to be that this is a very situational finesse card that you most likely buy at specific times depending on the board and your shuffle luck?
One problem with this card as an alternative to Duchy is that the action doesn't help you until two shuffles later. Sometimes, that's too late, and you threw away 1 VP for nothing. So in this case, it can still function as $4 consolation prize. You don't always want to spend $4 on 2VP three or more shuffles before the game ends...
So X years later, the consensus seems to be that this is a very situational finesse card that you most likely buy at specific times depending on the board and your shuffle luck?
One problem with this card as an alternative to Duchy is that the action doesn't help you until two shuffles later. Sometimes, that's too late, and you threw away 1 VP for nothing. So in this case, it can still function as $4 consolation prize. You don't always want to spend $4 on 2VP three or more shuffles before the game ends...
According to the stats markus has been collecting (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18988.0), Island (https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AIJetp0WiAAmcy4&v=photos&cid=4375584A8C199C03&id=4375584A8C199C03%213566&parId=4375584A8C199C03%213826&o=OneUp)is gained pretty often:
<Island stats>
Island is gained substantially more than Duchy (https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AIJetp0WiAAmcy4&v=photos&cid=4375584A8C199C03&id=4375584A8C199C03%213476&parId=4375584A8C199C03%213826&o=OneUp), Gardens (https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AIJetp0WiAAmcy4&v=photos&cid=4375584A8C199C03&id=4375584A8C199C03%213516&parId=4375584A8C199C03%213826&o=OneUp), and Silk Road (https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AIJetp0WiAAmcy4&v=photos&cid=4375584A8C199C03&id=4375584A8C199C03%213707&parId=4375584A8C199C03%213826&o=OneUp) - and just as often by the winner, unlike those three cards (which are gained more often by the loser). Island is even gained more often than Distant Lands (https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AIJetp0WiAAmcy4&v=photos&cid=4375584A8C199C03&id=4375584A8C199C03%213470&parId=4375584A8C199C03%213826&o=OneUp); I think there's a case that Island has been underrated in recent years. Temple (https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AIJetp0WiAAmcy4&v=photos&cid=4375584A8C199C03&id=4375584A8C199C03%213738&parId=4375584A8C199C03%213826&o=OneUp)is also an interesting comparison point, and I think Island comes out looking better.