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Archive => 2016 DominionStrategy Championships => Archive => 2011 => Topic started by: theory on January 11, 2012, 06:31:57 pm

Title: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: theory on January 11, 2012, 06:31:57 pm
2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four (http://dominionstrategy.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/2011-dominionstrategy-com-championships-final-four/)


Over the next several days, we'll be posting interviews with each of the Final Four, gathering their thoughts on Dominion, boardgaming, strategy, and their most feared opponent(s).
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Qvist on January 13, 2012, 09:01:09 am
I hope this is the place to go, but I just wanted to thank for the great idea for the interviews. They first 2 were fun to read and I'm looking forward for the next 2 interviews. I'm also looking forward to view the videos of the coming matches on YT. And then I take the opportunity to wish those 4 players good luck. May the best one win.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 13, 2012, 10:10:32 am
I would really like to thank theory and rrenaud for making this tournament happen!

I know organizing and facilitating all of this was not easy.  I definitely look forward to future tournaments!
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: rrenaud on January 13, 2012, 10:24:08 am
To be fair, theory did approximately all the work. 

Other than making me review 100+ kingdom sets, that's actually kind of a pain ;P.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: painted_cow on January 13, 2012, 12:15:47 pm
Haha, I guess all betting WW because he has most posts here and published some gameplay commentaries :-)

Go RisingJaguar!
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Fabian on January 13, 2012, 12:16:57 pm
Haha, I guess all betting WW because he has most posts here and published some gameplay commentaries :-)

Go RisingJaguar!

What a bold guess there :p
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: theory on January 13, 2012, 01:30:02 pm
His lead is shrinking.  For a while he was polling over 70%.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 13, 2012, 01:30:27 pm
Haha, I guess all betting WW because he has most posts here and published some gameplay commentaries :-)

Go RisingJaguar!
Thanks for the support! =)

I haven't voted yet, but if I did... it would be for WW as well sadly.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 13, 2012, 01:37:28 pm
I assume I'm leading largely because I'm highest-rated. Also, it looks like a huge lead, bigger than it should, because it's just a 'who's most likely' thing. Like, I voted for me, but I'd only put my chances at ~1 in 3.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Geronimoo on January 13, 2012, 02:13:49 pm
WW is extremely solid, but the final games will be hand made kingdoms that will probably not favor Big Money (although I believe at least a few should be included). If I would still be in the tournament I wouldn't like my chances  :D I seem to remember WW saying BM is his specialty...
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: HiveMindEmulator on January 13, 2012, 02:16:39 pm
Currently, there is really nothing to base your vote on other than posts or ranking. I've only played RisingJaguar and manzi once each, and both have sub-25 post counts here, so I don't really know anything about them. Maybe after the interviews (or maybe even if there was a set of "highlights" of the games they played in the tournament thus far), it will be easier to make a slightly more informed vote.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: theory on January 13, 2012, 02:17:48 pm
Hence why I'm doing it with rrenaud: he is the engine representative on the committee and I am the BM rep.

FWIW, I think you can have interesting kingdoms where some kind of money strategy is best.  But obviously there will be no trivial solutions.

One question I cut out of the interview was whether you preferred BM or engines.  First, it's largely inferrable from the "favorite" and "least favorite" cards question, and second, people might be hesitant to answer truthfully.  And as Magnus Carlsen tells us: "Having preferences means having weaknesses" (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7778).

Currently, there is really nothing to base your vote on other than posts or ranking. I've only played RisingJaguar and manzi once each, and both have sub-25 post counts here, so I don't really know anything about them. Maybe after the interviews (or maybe even if there was a set of "highlights" of the games they played in the tournament thus far), it will be easier to make a slightly more informed vote.
You can change your vote at any time.  I considered doing "highlights", but alas, it turns out "Dominion SportsCenter" might just be the single least interesting thing in the world.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: chwhite on January 13, 2012, 02:20:37 pm
WW is extremely solid, but the final games will be hand made kingdoms that will probably not favor Big Money (although I believe at least a few should be included). If I would still be in the tournament I wouldn't like my chances  :D I seem to remember WW saying BM is his specialty...

WW is good at Big Money, but he's even better at alternate green cards.  Gardens, Duke, Silk Road games are his real specialty.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 13, 2012, 02:39:43 pm
Just curious...

Is the bronze medal games going to have the kingdoms that missed out of the finals? Or will it be similar to the other hundreds played during this tournament?
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 13, 2012, 02:58:06 pm
WW is extremely solid, but the final games will be hand made kingdoms that will probably not favor Big Money (although I believe at least a few should be included). If I would still be in the tournament I wouldn't like my chances  :D I seem to remember WW saying BM is his specialty...

WW is good at Big Money, but he's even better at alternate green cards.  Gardens, Duke, Silk Road games are his real specialty.

I agree! He also makes IGG games seem fun!

Currently, there is really nothing to base your vote on other than posts or ranking. I've only played RisingJaguar and manzi once each, and both have sub-25 post counts here, so I don't really know anything about them. Maybe after the interviews (or maybe even if there was a set of "highlights" of the games they played in the tournament thus far), it will be easier to make a slightly more informed vote.

I was also revisiting games, and came across this.  This pretty sums me up in a nutshell (and partly WW as well)? WW = correct strategy 95% of the time... Me = Shenanigans... I played poorly in the last couple turns, pretty sure I misused my cards, and should've realized walled village is a horrible village for this... but I still like my strategy though!

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111023-133606-ef85fef9.html
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: theory on January 13, 2012, 02:59:06 pm
Good question.  I didn't actually even plan for a Bronze game, but it could be a nice seeding mechanism for the next tournament we host (i.e., 1-2-3 get pre-seeded or something).

Probably random kingdoms.  I'm going to release the entire list of kingdoms and our comments afterwards anyway, so it's not like there's a huge benefit to seeing more kingdoms.  But I can be persuaded either way. 
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Fabian on January 13, 2012, 03:08:25 pm
WW is extremely solid, but the final games will be hand made kingdoms that will probably not favor Big Money (although I believe at least a few should be included). If I would still be in the tournament I wouldn't like my chances  :D I seem to remember WW saying BM is his specialty...

WW is good at Big Money, but he's even better at alternate green cards.  Gardens, Duke, Silk Road games are his real specialty.

I would agree with this. Before our quarterfinal match, I searched out a few of WW's posts on those cards, specifically to shrink the gap between us in that area. I got lazy though and didn't look very hard, but I definitely had the same thought as you.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 13, 2012, 03:09:43 pm
My motive for wanting those kingdoms in the bronze medal match is just to play some really fun kingdom with a really skilled opponent (if I lose to manzi).  So if there's a list of 7 "missed-the-cut" kingdoms lined up and ready to go, it would be nice! I'm sure it would be a lot of work to coordinate either you or rrenaud for the game though. 
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: DrHades on January 13, 2012, 04:55:40 pm
I know this is probably unreal to find time for, but...how about an exibition 4player game?  ;D
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: GendoIkari on January 13, 2012, 04:58:25 pm
I voted manzi based purely on the fact that he has never been pushed to a game 7 yet.

Also, just noticed that manzi is the only one of the final four that I've ever played against. And I won, handily. ;D
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: DrHades on January 13, 2012, 05:21:12 pm
I voted manzi based purely on the fact that he has never been pushed to a game 7 yet.

Also, just noticed that manzi is the only one of the final four that I've ever played against. And I won, handily. ;D

I voted for WW. Then I looked and he is the only one I've played among the top4 and I won that game (http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111127-160829-15bf76b1.html). By the time we played that game I think I was around level 15...maybe I'll change my vote  ;D
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Anon79 on January 14, 2012, 05:00:47 am
WW is extremely solid, but the final games will be hand made kingdoms that will probably not favor Big Money (although I believe at least a few should be included). If I would still be in the tournament I wouldn't like my chances  :D I seem to remember WW saying BM is his specialty...

WW is good at Big Money, but he's even better at alternate green cards.  Gardens, Duke, Silk Road games are his real specialty.

I would agree with this. Before our quarterfinal match, I searched out a few of WW's posts on those cards, specifically to shrink the gap between us in that area. I got lazy though and didn't look very hard, but I definitely had the same thought as you.
And Copper. Don't forget Copper.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Anon79 on January 14, 2012, 05:07:32 am
In the final 8 so far, all matches have been won by the person listed nearer the top. I'm going with olneyce.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: rrenaud on January 14, 2012, 10:30:51 am
In the final 8 so far, all matches have been won by the person listed nearer the top. I'm going with olneyce.

Indeed, it's hard to compete with top pixel advantage!
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: jsh357 on January 14, 2012, 11:45:45 am
I voted for manzi, but only because I played him once and he utterly destroyed me.  XD  His record in the tournament has been impressive as well.  I think it's anyone's game, though.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 17, 2012, 12:25:48 pm
Out of curiosity, when should we expect the last two interviews?
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: theory on January 17, 2012, 01:07:10 pm
I want to post manzi's before yours.  But he is still getting back to me.  He says by the middle of this week.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: theory on January 18, 2012, 12:09:37 pm
manzi's interview is posted. 
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 19, 2012, 03:43:53 pm
My interview is also posted, if anyone was interested.
And our match has been played. olneyce won, 4-2. I neglected to copy the logs (this will be fixed later). Video from my end will be up in a few minutes at http://www.youtube.com/user/WanderingWinder
Commentary will follow in the coming days, after I give myself some time to be objective.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Geronimoo on January 19, 2012, 05:23:30 pm
I don't get why you'd want to play without the point counter. It seems to be taking up a lot of your thinking time while it's really not interesting strategically. However, it does add to the suspense for people watching.

I like how you sucked in the first game and admitted it. People should realize that at the +40 level we're still far from playing the game optimally and mistakes are plentiful.

I feel you got a little unlucky in some of the games or olneyce got lucky. Don't know. Too bad you're out because the vids are great fun.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 19, 2012, 05:30:27 pm
I played without the point counter because I counted on my ability to focus and remember, though in retrospect that's prolly a slight mistake because that part of mah brain seems to have atrophied slightly. Yeah, I really sucked it up in game 1. He didn't play the optimal strategy either, I'm fairly sure, and I got slammed for doming to me realisation both too late and out of position.
There's 3 games in this match I'm really upset about, 2 where I think I got outplayed, 2 where luck I feel bit me, at least 2 where I think my strategy was clearly better... I still haven't made real analyses though.
And the videos should keep coming, though I need to concentrate on making them high quality. I'm churning out lots right now that aren't near as good, but I think that's a) 'cause I'm doing lots, and b) because it really helps for making a good video if I have someone pretty good to play against. Nobody really likes seeing a smooth Smithy/BM cruise. That's also probably bad for my own play level....
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 19, 2012, 05:40:36 pm
On the plus side, this means my kingdoms have a chance at being used in the finals.
Yes, I have shifty eyes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T55ArHjeR1c) right now...
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 19, 2012, 06:57:46 pm
Logs and comments on the games.  I recorded video, but I'm having difficulties chopping it into pieces.  Will get that fixed soon hopefully.

Game 1 olneyce 52 – 27 Wandering Winder
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/19/game-20120119-113746-9e7a2452.html
Key Cards: Hunting Party, King’s Court, Conspirator, Smugglers
In this game, my draws played me more than the other way around.  I hit $7 on turn 4 and felt obliged to take a King’s Court.  On my next three turns I got $5 and a Hunting Party, then $4 and a Conspirator, and finally $7 and another King’s Court.  That was some pretty good shuffle-luck – since those were precisely the pieces that I wanted.  From that point on, I pretty much hit way above $8 and bought a Province, or hit less than $8, and picked up a couple pieces to try and maintain my advantage.  I bought Great Halls as a potential tiebreaker – and as another action that I could King’s Court if necessary.  I think the only particularly clever thing I did was to snag a Smugglers on turn 16, which I was then able to King’s Court two turns later to get three Duchies.

Game 2 Wandering Winder 85 – 51 olneyce
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/19/game-20120119-114631-22a9e607.html
Key Cards: Wharf
Nothing particularly complicated here.  I tried to get fancy here, and bought a bunch of terminals on a board with no +actions.  Then, realizing that simple Wharf/Big Money was going to dominate me, I tried to get some Wharves, too.  But you know how that ends: my Wharves drew my Grand Markets dead, and my already significant deficit only continued to grow.

Game 3 olneyce 34 – 20 Wandering Winder
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/19/game-20120119-115604-815a0f03.html
Key Cards: Young Witch, Menagerie (bane), Forge
I think I played this one pretty well, though maybe people can comment on whether I just got lucky.  I bought Menageries far earlier than him.  My goal was to get some curses into his deck to slow him down, buy single copies of Silver and Gold, and then get a Forge to clean out as much as possible from my deck.  I was hoping for a synergy there – use the Forge to trash a bit, which will make it more likely my Menageries work as super-Labs, which in turn will give me bigger hands that I can Forge into useful parts.  On turn 15 this all came together, and my deck was pretty well set.  This game is also notable for having Tournament on the board and both of us basically ignoring it.

Game 4 Wandering Winder 41 - 41 olneyce
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/19/game-20120119-120545-c281283a.html
Key Cards: Tournament (Followers), Scheme, Baron, Lighthouse
A Tournament game, and a pretty interesting one, I think.  He went for the BM approach to getting Provinces, opening Silver/Courtyard, while I opted for Barons.  He got a Province on turn 6, while I got them on 7 and 8.  He won the first Tournament and picked up a Followers, which he then kept in his hand for a significant chunk of the rest of the game with Schemes.  Meanwhile, I was using Schemes to keep Stables on top to let myself draw a bunch.  I took a Trusy Steed on turn 13, hoping to use the +actions to play two Barons.  I did it on that turn, but actually only ever saw the Steed once more in the game.  I had four Provinces by turn 13, and spent the rest of the game trying to maintain enough parity with the other green cards to keep him from passing me. As we raced for Estates it became increasingly clear to me that his Followers giving out Curses was going to drag me further and further backward – and I was increasingly unlikely to hit $8 to get the final Province. 

I think we had both lost track of the score a bit though, because he ended the game with us tied, and thus lost as the first player – in a circumstance where he could have dealt out another Curse on the next turn.  I actually thought I was still ahead by a point or two so was surprised to find out I only won on the tiebreaker.  I’d certainly be curious to hear from people about the endgame.  What mistakes did we both make?  What should I have been doing once I had compiled a lead in order to block him out?

Game 5 Wandering Winder 34 – 24 olneyce
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/19/game-20120119-121352-7506532e.html
Key Cards: University, Smithy, Cartographer, Alchemist
He went for a pretty straightforward money game, buying only a Moneylender and two Merchant Ships.  I went for a massively complex engine – using Universities to gain Smithies, Cartographers, and Hamlets.  My engine got humming pretty well by turn 11, but I just didn’t have quite enough money to get good use from it.  Despite playing 15 cards on turn 14 I still only had $12 to spend.  Even worse, I didn’t have any drawing cards in my following hand, so when he bought the penultimate Province, I couldn’t do anything about it and he then finished off the game.  I'd like to think a better engine could win the game here, but is it just too complex to take on his more direct strategy?

Game 6 olneyce 35 – 34 Wandering Winder
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/19/game-20120119-122338-cb7b00ef.html
Key Cards: Rabble, Salvager, (Walled) Village, Caravan
We used identical starting hands, which meant we were both stuck with 5/2 on a board where it was not ideal.  I opted for a Salvager rather than a Rabble, hoping to trim my deck a bit and get some bang for my buck.  In a change from several of our previous games, I went for simplicity while he constructed an engine with villages and Rabbles.  I used my Salvager liberally, trashing my only Rabble on turn 11 to get a Province and my second Gold on turn 14 to do the same, and also trashing a couple Provinces to hold onto my lead. 

Once I got my fourth Province (with one trashed), I knew I simply had to keep him from getting too many of the other green cards to cut into my lead.  Then, I was able to trash another Province, guaranteeing me a 12-point advantage there.  If I could get three Duchies, he wouldn’t be able to catch me no matter what.  Unfortunately, he bought the final three Duchies, giving him a 6/2 split there – effectively neutralizing my Province lead.  So we started Estate-dancing, and I was able to one ahead every turn.  My real hope was to draw my Salvager with a Province, to trash it and finish out the game.  But absent that, I knew that if could hold onto my one-Estate advantage, I would win even if he bought the final Province.  Which is precisely what happened. On turn 22 I bought the final Estate – and then had to hold my breath through several more turns to find out if I had kept track of all the numbers correctly. 

A very hard-fought set of games, with some pretty interesting components.  The first player won every game except for the 4th one, which was decided on the tiebreaker.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Jorbles on January 19, 2012, 07:04:56 pm
I think olneyce has the score backwards on game 5.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Jorbles on January 19, 2012, 07:12:22 pm
I thought Game 4 was the most interesting one in the series, even though they lost track of the count they played very different strategies and I'm impressed with the way the differing strategies played out. Though I must say I'm surprised WW never picked up a Baron once he had that Followers in his hand and his deck started to clutter up with Estates. He mentioned it in the video, but never actually bought one. Not sure how much it would have made a difference in the end, but maybe if he'd opened with one and then shifted into his other strategy, but that might have given him too much terminal collision.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 19, 2012, 07:20:00 pm
I think olneyce has the score backwards on game 5.
Yep, oops!
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 19, 2012, 07:54:19 pm
My videos are uploaded here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/olneyce

No sound though.  I'm not smart enough to comment and try to keep track of things for these tournament games.

It's really interesting to watch these games from the opponent's perspective.  For example, I do like my Young Witch/Menagerie play in the third game, but there were a couple hard-luck moments for WW's draw there which were not apparent from my side.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: chwhite on January 19, 2012, 10:09:16 pm
I think Young Witch/Menagerie is a sensible opening here... I would have seriously considered opening Moneylender/Menagerie, possibly not even buying Young Witch at all (though I guess I'd probably have to get one and go for Moneylender on turns 3-4 instead).  There are all the elements for a powerful draw-your-deck Menagerie engine here, and I would have built it ASAP, trusting that I could use the Bane power to avoid more than a couple curses, and then use Forge and Tournament to transition into a stronger endgame.  WW didn't have the best of luck in this game, but I really think that not getting at least one Menagerie before the second reshuffle, and ignoring Moneylender entirely, was a huge mistake.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: brokoli on January 20, 2012, 03:46:41 am
About YW / Menagerie, I'm not sure. A curse on turn 3 can be devastating, but menagerie (at the begin) don't help to get the 5$ cards.

I think Wandering Winder made a big mistake ignoring baron in the fourth game.
Baron was hugely powerful : The presence of Scheme, Stables, Followers and courtyard helped a lot. Also, with a bit of luck baron help to get an early province, to use effectively with Tournament.

For the game 6 : Watching WW's video, we see how he was unlucky. All his golds appeared at the wrong time…
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: theory on January 20, 2012, 05:52:41 am
Nice match. 
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Axxle on January 20, 2012, 03:49:01 pm
How is everyone doing on their DominionStrategy.com Championships Playoff pools?  ;D

Excellent match, I think I'm going to put a lot of what I saw to good use.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: dan11295 on January 20, 2012, 04:58:08 pm
Game 1: Fairly obvious the Smugglers really burned WW. 2 of first 3 times it was in his had Olneyce bought nothing for him to smuggle.

Game 3: If Menagerie wasn't the bane its definitely not a good open. But as a bane where the only curse trasher is Forge, its much more viable.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: manzi on January 21, 2012, 11:25:54 pm
Semi Final No.2

manzi defeats Rising Jaguar for 4-3

logs and movies will be posted later (I missed some logs, so they will be poted from counsil room).

thanks for a game.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 22, 2012, 04:03:48 am
As reported earlier by Manzi, he beat me 4-3 in a very fun set where I play brilliantly at times, and not so most of the other.  Overall I'm happy with the way I've played aside from the last game. 

I'll post the logs quickly for people to look at and I'll make a video going over each of the logs (the recordings I created were corrupted unfortunately).  Quick thoughts are that I let 2 games really slip away from me where I thought I had the superior overall strategy but overlooked some troubles.  With that said, Manzi was very consistent and deserves this win.  The videos should be ready some time.

Edit: replaced with council room logs
1: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-183816-ff9e0951.html
2: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-185043-65fc5f5b.html
3: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-190237-03191a0c.html
4: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-192236-6de9af44.html
5: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-193056-e8685ab4.html
6: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-195846-98e371b6.html
7: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-201220-c78c8cda.html
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 22, 2012, 02:18:18 pm
Brief comments on my match
First: how is 'olneyce' pronounced exactly?
Okay, games.
Game 1: I dreadfully blow it. Smugglers is really bad. Silk Road looked shiny to me. But well, HP+Cutpurse is a baseline, I suspect just HP+Conspirator is even much stronger, and I don't know that you want KC. Pretty sure you don't want gold. Heck, you might not even want silver. But it's a little bit hard to sim. Um, that put me in a little bad shape. The early KC and connecting it so often really didn't help me. So I was pretty much already dead by the time he triple smuggled duchy.
Game 2: I thought about Haggler/GM. And Salvager can probably help that. But I hate salvager as an opener. And I just think that's a little too cute to reliably work. And slow probably. BM/Wharf is really darn strong. And gold is not that much worse than GM. There were some later decisions, like me double wharfing on $10, that would normally be interesting, but... I think the game was already fairly well decided by then.
Game 3: So I'm pretty sure Young Witch/Silver HAS to be better than YW/Men. Like, you need the money eventually, right? You're going to want at least a single silver. And it's better to grab it early. Maybe Mens on the second reshuffle. And I suppose Moneylender/Men is possible. But to get that forge, you'll need some money anyway. And you can also draw the Menagerie pretty meaningfully dead 1st reshuffle. Of course, he got like the perfect luck for his opening (well, to highlight it anyway). His men allows him to hit the YW turn 4, hitting me with a curse before my second reshuffle (1st turn advantage!), and I miss mine until the next reshuffle. And then he's able to block him, so it's quite a while before I'm able to hit him. Even so, it was a while before it was clear to me that I was losing (though probably I already was by the time he blocks my first YW, pretty massive % of the time). Well, I think his opening was wrong, but he was very likely to outplay me later anyway I guess. Still pretty upset about this one.
Game 4: Yeah, the tournament game. Well, I was really upset at him being able to get 3 provinces by the end of turn 9. That's massive. Like, actually baron works nicely with stables (which also goes well with tournament). His strategy was sound. Maybe better than mine. But he should not expect to have THREE provinces that early. Probably on average, a bit more than one. Well, I'm able to hit tournament first, but... well you know how it goes. It's hard to bring myself to look through the meat of this one. Anyway, it gets to the end and I haven't kept track of score well enough. But I think I was pretty well lost anyway. Here's what has to happen for me to win, assuming I didn't end it when I did. 1)I need him to not play lighthouse next turn. 2) I need him to not get to the last province before I do. 3 and most important, I need him to not be able to get the lighthouses out before I get that last province. Well, I just don't think that's all that likely. My deck is pretty clogged. Still, it's possible....
Game 5: Yeah, here I think maybe moneylender isn't right? I'm not sure. But I do get a little bit of a bad break in getting money bunched up all wrong. Check out turns 12, 13, 14... Well, his engine did a LOT better than I thought it could. But he doesn't have all that much money, and it's a touch hard for him to get extra buys or be able to make use of them. And even though the Cartographers make it pretty reliable, well... I can't think it was actually that much more reliable than my money at that point anyway. My gut tells me it's less, even. Well, I think this was actually not so close as it looked, and shouldn't have been as close as it was. But he played the engine a lot better than I thought possible.
Game 6: Yeah, well, I had a little bit of problems with stuff colliding. The last few turns before 50% VP, I thought I was drawing very poorly. And I probably slightly misbuilt the engine. Moreover, he got the lucky side of the coinflip, a little bit of luck in getting the lead early. Things fell well for him. Not that that should actually be too uncommon. Maybe 40% of the time he gets this lucky, 35% slightly less lucky, 25% significantly less lucky. I probably get luckier than I did maybe 65% of the time. Well, I think my strategy is slightly better than his, but with the lead, and first turn... well salvager is deadly good there for him. Yeah, once he got that lead, I think he was in pretty good shape. And his strategy took advantage of my rabbles fairly well. So I don't actually begrudge him this one all that much.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 22, 2012, 02:52:40 pm
Okay, some comments on the other semi-final:
Game 1: Wow, I'm surprised! Loan? Loan, really? Both of you? If you're going loan here, it's got to be for some kind of multi-bridge thing with bazaars, bridges, and caravans. Which neither of you then went for. I'm confused. Why did you open loan?
I would have opened Bridge/Silver and played fairly well BM. As I see it, there are a couple options. You can pick up an extra bridge or two at points, and bazaars at 5, or you can get treasuries at 5, build a pretty strong economy fairly quick, and then blitz out your green somewhere in the low teens. I don't think I'd touch shanty town. It doesn't work well with caravan , for one thing, if you've got any terminals at all. And basically the slight risk of that just makes silver better. Oh, and definitely no double caravan on turn 6....
Game 2: Wow, Oracle/Ironworks is gutsy, and then manzi is able to parlay all his highways at the right times to grab more with his ironworks. Like perfect luck. And I think too risky. Actually, I'm not in love with ironworks at all here, but if I were doing it, it would be to try to build a big ole Farming Village/Oracle engine. Which seems plausible at any rate. But more likely, I'd just go oracle+money here, which, especially with ventures, I expect to be quite strong. Thing is, highway isn't better than peddler here except to ironworks, and that's not so so plausible to get to go off very consistently. And oracle/BM, especially with the venture help, is fairly formidable.
Game 3: Whaaaa??? Transmute/Vineyards? BM/Island is pretty good, ya know. But more, I'm left thinking that you were either both without much of a plan, or that you changed it partway through, or... something. I expect that fairly well ignoring the potions is the way to go here. Islands, maybe a pawn eventually, Royal Seals and gold. Well, it's not flashy but it's not bad.
Game 4: Woodcutter almost has to be better than silver as an opener here. But more importantly, is it worth it to go for those apothecaries? Maybe it is. I wouldn't have, probably, but maybe it is. Forge I have little faith in, though. Again, I don't play it so well, so I could be wrong. If I did go apothecary, I'd probably go with a combo 'cary/IGG rush, wanting to pick up a couple provinces. Hmm, not sure here...
Game 5: You can go Hoard/Salvager here for sure. Haggler has a place in those decks. Or you can go Margrave/BM, in which case I think Gold>Hoard early. Actually Gold>Hoard there for most of the game there. I do not like mixing salvager with Margrave, and I don't like market here like at all.
Game 6: I do not understand this game. Will comment on it later I guess.
Game 7: Well, there are lots of things possible here, but I'm not opening village. And I'm not going grand envoy - there's too much else available. Probably something along the lines of what manzi did is about right here. I have a love for island, but with remake, you probably forego it until late. A little bit of money, then pick up lots of villages and some envoys and roll. There's a lot of skill in the mid-game there, picking stuff up to keep your engine running smoothing while getting victory, too.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 22, 2012, 03:12:32 pm
I will be posting videos rather soon, but quickly to reply to WW

Game 1: Yes, I didn't realize bazaar was there or more precisely, that kind of super turn.  Both our mistakes here. Edit: Both of us made mistakes here
Game 2: In short, Luck was against me.
3: I had a better vineyard plans but with his instant potions made me panic and dump my plan.  My fault
4: missed trasition to 'cary/IGG
6: was weird...
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: DG on January 22, 2012, 03:44:46 pm
I've run a simulator over a few of the games so I'll give an answer to some of the points raised

WW vs Olneyce #5: The simulator likes smithy/merchant ship. Not much advantage trashing copper here.

WW vs Olneyce #6: Salvaging out the estates is usually good in a rabble games
RJ vs Manzi #1: This is actually a more difficult deck to create than it looks, by my standards anyway. It's easy to mess up the loan or not get enough income. The simulator can find good success following Rising Jaguar's strategy so it's probably sound (given that the simulator won't play it as well a human).
RJ vs Manzi #4: Shame the simulator can't look into this one. I'd like to see whether smithy + iggs is simple and stupid enough to work.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 22, 2012, 03:53:32 pm
First: how is 'olneyce' pronounced exactly?
Yeah, I never really thought about people needing to actually understand my isotropic name.  It's my last name and first two initials, the format my college used for email accounts.  Which I just started using as my all-purpose login for stuff.  So it's pronounced Olney C E. 

I mostly agree with your other comments about the games.  All in all, I think there was only two clear strategic mistakes - by each of us in the first two games.  After that, I think we both chose strategies that were within 55/45 of each other, though you're likely right that I went down slightly worse roads.  In 5 I went for the engine that was probably a marginal loser, and in game 6 the reverse might have happened.  Though the engine in Game 6 is very likely better than the one I went for in Game 5.

I am positive that my strength is about mid-game play once I've committed to a strategy, even if I can't always spot the optimal strategy.  I think that means I tend to have a better chance of capitalizing on luck than other players might?  Or that might just be a rationalization. 

Anyways, there is no doubt that I had luck on my side over the course of the match - and the extent to which I can take credit for maximizing what luck offered to me can be an open question.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 22, 2012, 04:50:08 pm
1: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-183816-ff9e0951.html
2: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-185043-65fc5f5b.html
3: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-190237-03191a0c.html
4: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-192236-6de9af44.html
5: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-193056-e8685ab4.html
6: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-195846-98e371b6.html
7: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120121-201220-c78c8cda.html

Videoes were taking longer to make/upload/all that, so I'll just post my things up here. Sorry for not having the videos.  My commentary is horrible anyways =)

Game 1: Again, Bazzar/bridges/loan megaturn makes some sense here but I didn't quite notice it tbh.  The lack of +cards makes it a really tough sell though as it would be hard to get 5-7 Bridges together.  Other then that, I think I made 'optimal' (for my strategy) decisions.  Early $3 buy was horrible for him.  Harvest buy was horrible, never use it to my last turn.  I'm skeptical about his $6 bridge on MT9 (Manzi's Turn 9).  I understand it but gold is better here? I hit a snag with my money but manage to get the last province in time.  Honestly not a special game, first turn basically won this for me.

Game 2: We eliminate cursing games (mountebank/IGG) and go for highway shenanigans.  I think oracle was risky, but I can see its merit.  It help grabs the early $5 probably just as well as silver? Either way, I thought i was doing well at T4, with him causing a reshuffle to get his highway.  He then gets 6 of the next 7 highways and I don't really make any poor choices.  Spoiler alert: he wins.  I'm pretty upset after this game, going same strategy and getting obliterated feels horrible.  I tried to go vault BM but that wasn't going to help me.  Also, trying some sort of scheme/vault would let him get 10 highways, and that would be even worse.

Game 3: We both make this a vineyards game.  I'm surprised he opens potion.  I hit some really bad luck (in my mind) to get island/4coppers then island skipped by loan.  I thought that was stupid.  Transmute play was interesting, and I followed him.  Still think if I got 2/3 early islands and set aside my estates, my deck would've been superior but the first island missed and left that plan.  Btw, my last turn I was actually trapped I think.  If i transmute anything, I go from 12 to 11 actions losing 3 points.  He also had a potion/transmute in hand, so he could've ended the game. 

Game 4: My plan was to do something similar to painted_cow in an early game and use apothecary to get to 7/forge to trash.  In short, I played close to optimally with 1 major flaw.  How did I not notice IGG produces copper is a GOOD thing is beyond me (with apothecaries in play).  I'm an idiot. I should have bought out the IGGs instead of golding.  Woodcutter should've easily been used by Manzi to start, there's no reason not to, especially since alchemy cards in play.  But I was the bigger idiot, just not getting the last 3 IGGs.  If I did to this though, I'm sure I win a good chunk of the time.  (yes this would be hard to simulate...a lot of judgements made)

Game 5: Margrave/BM vs. Salvager/BM with hoards.  My margraves get some messed up reshuffling... First time around (T9) to play it, i trigger reshuffle.  Next time around (which was awhile T14), they collide and cause the reshuffle! I was so annoyed here.  Mixing salvager/Margrave was not good either although he also hits some weird salvager luck too.  He trashes two copper but 1 estate? That's gotta be on the lower side of luck.  I considered some sort of haggler for market/conspirator but without a $3 cantrip or trash, that would be a bad idea. 

Game 6: I don't even know how to begin this, my favourite game.  The game really changed when scheme was introduced as bane card.  Should bane card be shown before? I don't mind but wow that really changed things.  But peddler was now a really viable option and young witch looks dead.  I don't understand scheme/warehouse opening... but it works out for him, as he gets to trash a lot more stuff.  We trashed equally, but he has 2 more actions at turn 6.  That's when the game really changed again, embargoing peddlers.  I only did this because I was behind and was now more towards general big money.  Next turn I get Develop to remove the remake, i figure it was useless now, and torturer/silver seem like a good idea (i had like no money in my deck). 

Now my deck is in pretty good shape.  I have a torturer (hand size is huge with so many warehouses) and a thin deck with money to come.  He smartly embargoes provinces to slow me down, which it does.  Those curses are really hurting my deck.  Once the battle is 3-1 provinces, I embargoing provinces.  His deck was incredibly thin at that point and needed to be slowed down.  With that said, we start racing for duchies.  He wins 5-3 and cuts the lead drastically that i previously had. 

At turn 17, I make mistake after mistake... With duchies gone, curses winding down, provinces double embargoed, it can quickly be a three piles game.  Instead I decide to buy gold? I should've easily gone for estates to end it there.  I proceed to on T21.  Manzi picks up enough for a province on T22, but decides against it by going estate.  Not sure why, he would've tied me and provinces would be 'un-embargoed'. Although I do get 8 next turn, so maybe it was the right move. On T23 when I buy the final estate, he can't win.  He would've lost on turns.   

Never had so many times where the strategy drastically changes.  Scheme shows up, I embargo peddlers.  He embargoes provinces.  I double embargo provinces.  There was a lot to process in this one game alone.  Maybe it affected my thinking for the next game because...

Game 7: I don't know what I was thinking.  Oops? Despite that, if I were to build a similar engine, his would've been better regardless.  So I feel like he wins regardless.  Congrads to him.  He definitely played well and more consistently.  I tried searching for major mistakes, but i feel like I made more for sure.

I'm rather curious about people's thoughts on games 4 and 6. Those were some really wacky games.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: HiveMindEmulator on January 23, 2012, 01:52:50 am
Game 3: So I'm pretty sure Young Witch/Silver HAS to be better than YW/Men. Like, you need the money eventually, right? You're going to want at least a single silver. And it's better to grab it early. Maybe Mens on the second reshuffle. And I suppose Moneylender/Men is possible. But to get that forge, you'll need some money anyway. And you can also draw the Menagerie pretty meaningfully dead 1st reshuffle.
I have to disagree here. Without any really powerful 5, having a single silver at the first shuffle doesn't buy you much. If you're really lucky you can get a gold out of it (which you did), but most of the time, it won't really get you anything great. So you might as well get menagerie to stay (at least in probability) in the better position in terms of curses, which it does in 2 ways: decreasing the chance YW falls to turn 5, and giving you a chance to block a curse. Then you can add 2 cards which get you money in the second shuffle, which will set you up to get gold/forge.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: jonts26 on January 23, 2012, 02:10:26 am
I'm not sure menagerie actually decreases probability of YW missing the reshuffle, because the YW draws 2 cards. You increase the chance that drawing it turn 4 results in triggering a reshuffle when you play it. That said, I'm not sure it's a huge deal, but something to consider.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 23, 2012, 09:40:04 am
I'm not sure menagerie actually decreases probability of YW missing the reshuffle, because the YW draws 2 cards. You increase the chance that drawing it turn 4 results in triggering a reshuffle when you play it. That said, I'm not sure it's a huge deal, but something to consider.
Don't play the menagerie in turn 4 if you have it in hand with the YW. And if you can get them both turn 3, it's a big boon.
I'm still quite confident of getting the silver first though.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: jonts26 on January 23, 2012, 10:42:06 am
What if you draw just menagerie on turn 3. Is the correct play to not play it? I would think it depends on how much money you drew, if you needed another copper for your buy or not.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: StickaRicka on January 24, 2012, 04:56:40 am
Any chance the final // bronze-match will be streamed live? That would be AWESOME =)! Don't care about sound - though wandering's comments are must-hear for learning (and for great fun) =).

Best of luck to all of you.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 24, 2012, 11:25:08 pm
Any chance the final // bronze-match will be streamed live? That would be AWESOME =)! Don't care about sound - though wandering's comments are must-hear for learning (and for great fun) =).

Best of luck to all of you.
If there's a bronze match, I'll stream it live.
...is there going to be?

Also, has anyone talked about the final match yet? I'd love to be able to have a group in the lobby while it's going on, discussing the sets.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 25, 2012, 12:12:58 am
Any chance the final // bronze-match will be streamed live? That would be AWESOME =)! Don't care about sound - though wandering's comments are must-hear for learning (and for great fun) =).

Best of luck to all of you.
If there's a bronze match, I'll stream it live.
...is there going to be?

Also, has anyone talked about the final match yet? I'd love to be able to have a group in the lobby while it's going on, discussing the sets.
We're tentatively planning on playing Saturday evening (Pacific time), but need to coordinate with the organizers about distributing the sets, etc.

I have no idea how to stream things live.  Does it require special software?
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: theory on January 25, 2012, 08:25:32 am
rrenaud and I (mostly I, I think he's close to done) are still finishing up the analysis of all the submitted sets.

Whatever time works for you two will probably work for one of us.  Given that I'm now in London and rrenaud is still in New York, I'm sure we can find a compatible time.

I approve of WW's idea of set discussion in the lobby.  Maybe this forum needs a chat room.

I do think WW and RJ should play a Bronze match.  It will affect seeding for the next DS year-end tournament.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: DStu on January 25, 2012, 08:28:36 am
I approve of WW's idea of set discussion in the lobby.  Maybe this forum needs a chat room.

Or maybe promote the #councilroom@freenode? Aren't there Websiteplugins for IRC? Thought I have seen something like that...
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: theory on January 25, 2012, 08:32:08 am
That's right, I keep forgetting about that!  We could link to it more, or also look into integrating it somehow ... though I don't know where it would go.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Fabian on January 25, 2012, 09:37:22 am
There was even actual Dominion talk in that channel yesterday, which isn't very common in its current state :) Would be fun to see a dedicated dominionstrategy IRC channel though, for sure (be it that one or a new one).
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 25, 2012, 11:44:49 am
I do think WW and RJ should play a Bronze match.  It will affect seeding for the next DS year-end tournament.
Yeah I just PMed WW about that today so when he gets back to me, we'll let you know.  I figure it would be best to have it right before or at least on the same day.  But I"m currently somewhat busy on saturday (the day of the finals) so we may not be able to. 
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 26, 2012, 07:55:52 pm
rrenaud and I (mostly I, I think he's close to done) are still finishing up the analysis of all the submitted sets.

Whatever time works for you two will probably work for one of us.  Given that I'm now in London and rrenaud is still in New York, I'm sure we can find a compatible time.

I approve of WW's idea of set discussion in the lobby.  Maybe this forum needs a chat room.

I do think WW and RJ should play a Bronze match.  It will affect seeding for the next DS year-end tournament.
So we are planning to play at 6 PM Pacific time on Saturday (which is 11 AM on Sunday for manzi).  I can't imagine that's a good time for London, but New York probably?  He said he could go earlier by a couple hours if necessary.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Kirian on January 26, 2012, 08:41:02 pm
rrenaud and I (mostly I, I think he's close to done) are still finishing up the analysis of all the submitted sets.

Whatever time works for you two will probably work for one of us.  Given that I'm now in London and rrenaud is still in New York, I'm sure we can find a compatible time.

I approve of WW's idea of set discussion in the lobby.  Maybe this forum needs a chat room.

I do think WW and RJ should play a Bronze match.  It will affect seeding for the next DS year-end tournament.
So we are planning to play at 6 PM Pacific time on Saturday (which is 11 AM on Sunday for manzi).  I can't imagine that's a good time for London, but New York probably?  He said he could go earlier by a couple hours if necessary.

That's 9 PM in NY, and 2 AM in London.  I doubt moving the time even three hours earlier makes it a "good" time for Europe.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 26, 2012, 09:18:27 pm
rrenaud and I (mostly I, I think he's close to done) are still finishing up the analysis of all the submitted sets.

Whatever time works for you two will probably work for one of us.  Given that I'm now in London and rrenaud is still in New York, I'm sure we can find a compatible time.

I approve of WW's idea of set discussion in the lobby.  Maybe this forum needs a chat room.

I do think WW and RJ should play a Bronze match.  It will affect seeding for the next DS year-end tournament.
So we are planning to play at 6 PM Pacific time on Saturday (which is 11 AM on Sunday for manzi).  I can't imagine that's a good time for London, but New York probably?  He said he could go earlier by a couple hours if necessary.

That's 9 PM in NY, and 2 AM in London.  I doubt moving the time even three hours earlier makes it a "good" time for Europe.
Yeah, having the two players be a third of the world away means any workable time for us likely is very bad for someone at the other point of the triangle.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 26, 2012, 09:33:43 pm
rrenaud and I (mostly I, I think he's close to done) are still finishing up the analysis of all the submitted sets.

Whatever time works for you two will probably work for one of us.  Given that I'm now in London and rrenaud is still in New York, I'm sure we can find a compatible time.

I approve of WW's idea of set discussion in the lobby.  Maybe this forum needs a chat room.

I do think WW and RJ should play a Bronze match.  It will affect seeding for the next DS year-end tournament.
So we are planning to play at 6 PM Pacific time on Saturday (which is 11 AM on Sunday for manzi).  I can't imagine that's a good time for London, but New York probably?  He said he could go earlier by a couple hours if necessary.

That's 9 PM in NY, and 2 AM in London.  I doubt moving the time even three hours earlier makes it a "good" time for Europe.
Yeah, having the two players be a third of the world away means any workable time for us likely is very bad for someone at the other point of the triangle.
Probably not so bad on the East Coast US though.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 26, 2012, 09:44:31 pm
We're planning on playing the Bronze match on Friday (that's tomorrow when and where I post this) at 8 PM eastern time (that's 1 AM Saturday GMT).
I'll be streaming live (well, I think like a 15 second up to a couple minute delay or something, but live-ish) here: http://www.livestream.com/wanderingwinder
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 27, 2012, 09:18:10 pm
http://www.livestream.com/wanderingwinder

Bronze matches are completed, you can going ahead and watch WW's commentary of these games... They were really fun matches at least on my part.  I'll be posting logs and such afterwards, but I don't want to spoil the result =)

Edit: There were a couple extra matches afterwards as well... I think just about every match is worth watching
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 27, 2012, 09:46:47 pm
Pay particular attention to games 3 and 4 where... I get devastatingly outplayed. I think the rest were decently close. Actually 3 was close too, but it didn't feel like it should have been.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Fabian on January 27, 2012, 09:58:19 pm
It was interesting to watch a match live, not knowing how it would end. It was basically like playing, except you don't make the decisions you want to make :)

I too think games 3 and 4 were cool and fun to watch. RJ played very well imo, I agree with WW that the result in game 3 was closer than it appeared like it would be.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: painted_cow on January 27, 2012, 10:46:03 pm
Haha funny games, I really laughed my ass of in G3 and G4 :D Those commentary before about Tactician and Pirate Ship and then get crushed by a decent engine. Well played RJ!
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: timchen on January 28, 2012, 12:03:52 am
Somehow I can't find G5...

Here are my two cents:
G2: I'll play the same as WW. An earlier Margrave for me though. Didn't really understand how come this would result in a loss...
G3: I never think FV+envoy+money is really of much good (better than a single envoy anyway) but judging from the result maybe I am mistaken. Ignoring ghost ship IMO is a huge mistake (even more than ignoring salvager openings)
G4: In my experience pirate ship is surprisingly good against Jacks. With enablers there is no question.
G6: Is remake+BM really of much good? With pure BM I can only thought of it as marginal, but maybe I am mistaken. With Hoard understandably it can be a bit better.

From my experience in my series WW is a lot more accomplished than what is shown here... maybe I didn't get to play those engine games?
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 28, 2012, 12:41:59 am
Game 5: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/27/game-20120127-174513-b5103d50.html

G2: I avoid all margrave attacks, SUPER LUCKY.  And yes i chose the wrong strat. 
G5: Fun game, I'll post the all of my thoughts later, but this was a close match.  My last turn is questionable. 
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: kn1tt3r on January 28, 2012, 05:46:24 am
Post-Bronze 1:
In situations like this I often wonder whether during end game you want the Border Village/Duchy at $6-$7 or just the Duchy. I always avoided the Village in straight money games like this one and just bought the Duchy, espcially with big drawers like Council Room. Now you both picked up the Village here, so I'm not sure any more.
Furthermore, I wonder how Apprentice would have worked against this strategy, which is actually great with Border Villages.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: DG on January 28, 2012, 06:30:08 am
Quote
From my experience in my series WW is a lot more accomplished than what is shown here... maybe I didn't get to play those engine games?

I'm guessing that with the commentary running he might be doing less pre-kingdom analysis than usual. I could be wrong ...

I'm also guessing that RJ was using mandarins to set up a tactician for the following turn in game 3. It's not often we get to see the mandarin as a genuinely good card.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: lespeutere on January 28, 2012, 07:37:58 am
So are you guys (olneyce, manzi) also planning to stream it 'live-ish'? Unfortunately I'm part of the Europe minority here but in case I can't sleep or am coming home about that time... ;-)
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 28, 2012, 11:33:12 am
My thoughts on each of the games and WW commentary.

Game 1: After listening to WW's talk about Spice Merchant/Embargo... I kinda wish I headed in that direction (I never considered it).  It sounds like a very plausible plan although the lack of serious $actions makes it tough.  I was set from the start that I would try to diverge from BM (especially mirror matches) from him because that is a serious advantage for him.  Unfortunately, I did not see that alternative method. Yet, IGG + first player should be good.  Me not hitting $5 was horrendous.  If I remember correctly, I got militia-ed out of $8 at least once (T15).  I had a turn 8 province ready, but I thought it was too early to go for provinces since I needed to gain a copper.  Correct move? i'm not sure.  After watching the video, nobody had ridiculous luck (my no $5 essentially counteracts first turn).  He takes it quite convincingly. 

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120127-171123-95c1268e.html

Game 2: Here I very much considered FG/margrave... envoy BM... margrave BM... I ended choosing Margrave BM because I was certain I needed the +buys (lighthouses for sure, FG if he went for them).  I was a little surprised he was not going for lighthouses, but after him talk about FG wanting sifting, I agree with his decision.  For my lighthouses... for two of those to stop EVERY attack... EVERY... has got to be great luck on my part.  I do end up grabbing 3 FG which luckily turn into gold at good times.  I do end up winning the game at the end, although I do think I should have.  My strategy was not as good as his.  At this point, I have played well... "I suppose" =)

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120127-171905-fe9aa96c.html

Game 3: Yes indeed it was my favourite game.  Upfront, I do not think he was outplayed as he says.  Unfortunately you cannot see my hands, but they were tough to mustard up any sort of dollars.  He battled the noble brigands (yes noble brigands) quite well by switching towards bazzars.  Double tactician is actually pretty bad here, but once I knew he was going BM (I assumed he would), a constant engine with noble brigands is actually pretty scary to be honest.  I've done this at least once before (having 1/2 brigands in a serious engine against BM) and it worked out nicely. 

So my thought process was this, there are clearly materials here to draw your whole deck out... envoy, fishing village, ghost ship but with no plus buy, this makes engine building tougher.  Also I chose to go double tactician route because there is an underrated money source here with mandarin.  The top decking ability is quite nice for this sort of engine building deck.  However buying my first mandarin was a challenge.  It would require me to 1. not use my tactician and 2. top deck my coppers.  So i needed to build "engine dollars" to get me mandarins ASAP.  Second problem I ran into was that ghost ship does not work well with Noble brigands so I needed to get around that as well.  It was VITAL that I knock a gold as that would limit his envoy's power vastly (T15).  Third minor problem, man copper/estates/provinces really get in the way.  My play order isn't anything interesting, quite simple.  I will say that if I did not have the dollars to get Province/duchy in last turn, i would have felt confident getting duchy/duchy and waiting next turn, there was no way he was getting $8 after snagging his second gold. 

Ways to improve my engine... 2nd envoy instead of ghost ship I think.  More Warehouses... just more... that was a mistake not getting any.  Also: was WW's defence (not buying gold) correct? That was my intention, but was he right?

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120127-173236-cfa32855.html

Game 4: After showing off the modest power of noble brigands, I try pirate ship after he goes for jack.  Normally he's right, there is no point in trying this, it would be way too slow, but I have a couple things on my side.
1. Trashing, and what better than chapel, it makes for quick trashing for me to build a reliable engine fast. 
2. +actions, Worker's village would allow to me to get + actions with ease, although at a higher price it may be tough.
3. +buys, This is key, if I do not have worker's village here, I do not choose this route.  Without the ability to catch up and multi-buy provinces, this plan becomes much harder. 
4. + cards, Not as vital as I could have easily just done worker's village/pirate ships... However, with alchemist being able to duplicate, I want that to be apart of my plan.  (WW said that I should've gone just WV/PS, and I agree they are relatively equal choices.  But I figured this way would be 'safer' as it could withstand things as I green.) 

WW comments that I get bad luck at the start, but I say I got near perfect luck.  Having chapel/PS collide is a bummer, but having $4 with that other is great.  Then on the next two chapel I eliminate all estates and go down to 6 cards.  I can now carefully plan my deck.  I'm not sure I played it perfectly, but I was happy with my buy orders.  I was very much concerned after he greened, it would be hard to fight.  So i chose to build towards a super turn and constantly attack.  Now that my engine is ready, Jack is a huge target nearly hitting on every turn.  Then I hit $9, 3 WV gets me to 4 buys and I clean up. 

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120127-173902-406d5900.html

This is all I could mustard up for now. As expected, I do well in engine games and he did well in BM games.  The BM games I win were based off first turn and probably shuffle luck. 
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 28, 2012, 12:58:23 pm
Some post-game commentary from me.
Game 1: The more I thought about it, the more Spice Merchant/Embargo into a pool engine seems really strong to me. The thing is, you've got to get that embargo up fast, and then you've got to have your engine stand up to Militia/BM anyway, which isn't going to be so so bad. But I think it's probably usually going to be enough, if you play the engine right. As it was, I think getting more militia earlier by me is the right play, though it didn't end up making such a difference. Him not hitting $5 first reshuffle is absolutely huge. Apparently this only happens 8.8% of the time, which is lower than I remember, though... the real percentage is going to be higher because of the presence of militia. The militia missing for him is also really big. Militia is probably a first-turn advantage card here because it blocks getting to $5 pretty well, and $5 is the key money-point throughout this IGG game. A little note, because after the game, Fabian mentioned that he thought that not hitting 5 was way bigger than first-turn advantage. Well, in general from the moment he misses $5, I think it's slightly bigger. But first-turn is HUGE here. And a turn or two later, it's really not. Here's why. Because my IGG doesn't hit his curse into discard pile until his second reshuffle (this wouldn't be the case if I hit IGG turn 3), any IGGs he grabs on that shuffle hit me with curses just as early as I hit him. So as long as by the end of that shuffle, he's equalized the count, the only advantage I have is that I had the IGG in my own deck for that reshuffle. But the militia or silver he could have instead is actually better than my IGG. So he actually still even has a slight advantage. I also think he should take that province, even at the cost of taking a copper. Coppers are not so bad at all for this deck.
More later, I'm being called away to play Quarriors.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: kn1tt3r on January 28, 2012, 01:01:17 pm
Some post-game commentary from me.
Game 1: The more I thought about it, the more Spice Merchant/Embargo into a pool engine seems really strong to me. The thing is, you've got to get that embargo up fast, and then you've got to have your engine stand up to Militia/BM anyway, which isn't going to be so so bad. But I think it's probably usually going to be enough, if you play the engine right.
There is a good counter to the Pool engine however, which is Embargo itself.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 28, 2012, 01:16:07 pm
So are you guys (olneyce, manzi) also planning to stream it 'live-ish'? Unfortunately I'm part of the Europe minority here but in case I can't sleep or am coming home about that time... ;-)
I don't know how to do live streaming.  If it's really easy to set it up I could probably do it.  Otherwise, it'll have to just be post facto videos.  I will make an effort to record audio commentary (though no promises it'll be particularly erudite) since I know that's really crucial to making a watchable video.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 28, 2012, 01:26:28 pm
So are you guys (olneyce, manzi) also planning to stream it 'live-ish'? Unfortunately I'm part of the Europe minority here but in case I can't sleep or am coming home about that time... ;-)
I don't know how to do live streaming.  If it's really easy to set it up I could probably do it.  Otherwise, it'll have to just be post facto videos.  I will make an effort to record audio commentary (though no promises it'll be particularly erudite) since I know that's really crucial to making a watchable video.
No pressure on the commentary here.  I think most people want to see (or at least I'm very curious) about watching you both go at these preselected kingdoms.  Just watching someone's hand is more fun than having game logs, especially in engine building.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: lespeutere on January 28, 2012, 01:33:40 pm
So are you guys (olneyce, manzi) also planning to stream it 'live-ish'? Unfortunately I'm part of the Europe minority here but in case I can't sleep or am coming home about that time... ;-)
I don't know how to do live streaming.  If it's really easy to set it up I could probably do it.  Otherwise, it'll have to just be post facto videos.  I will make an effort to record audio commentary (though no promises it'll be particularly erudite) since I know that's really crucial to making a watchable video.
No pressure on the commentary here.  I think most people want to see (or at least I'm very curious) about watching you both go at these preselected kingdoms.  Just watching someone's hand is more fun than having game logs, especially in engine building.

That's what I was aiming at. Although I enjoy WW's commentary a lot just watching you playing it is already much more fun than reading logs. If you can't: nevermind. Just focus on the match! :-)
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 28, 2012, 03:36:51 pm
More commentary on the bronze match.
Game 2: Pretty sure some variation of Margrave/Fool's Gold is the best here. I get really unsure of what to do in these kind of matches when the fool's gold are gone and I get something like $4. His strategy isn't horrible either, but I expect to win this game, somewhere like 65-75% of the time, given the strategies. Well, I'm pretty sure I did play the mid-section of the game wrong. There was a comment that 3 Margraves was too many. Well, maybe. Two definitely isn't, but the third might. And his margrave attacks actually don't hurt me THAT much. Mine should hurt him more. But he's lucky enough to block them all. Ah, oh well.

Game 3: The more I look at it, the more I think this game wasn't as lopsided as I first thought. First, it's a bit unlucky for me to get off to that slow of a start. And as much as he was stifling me through the mid, he did get I think very slightly lucky to get up to speed as fast as he did, and he was a bit slow-moving himself. Having said all that... his play was very impressive here. He needs all the cards, FV, Brigand, Tactician, Mandarin(!), Envoy, Ghost Ship... and Bazaar pretty nice too. And he recognized that these can be put together for this engine. I'm guessing he wins this like 2/3 of the time, too.

Game 4: Harem actually doesn't do me favours here. I am a touch unlucky, but I have to imagine it's bad to do what I did here, with PS+Chapel+village (particularly Worker's for the extra buy), all of which are totally necessary, I'm pretty sure. I expect 85% of the time I lose here.

Game 5: Uh, pretty well a mirror. FV+Watchtower+herbalist (very important for the buy)+Peddler is gonna be pretty killer. Uh, so I expect to win this maybe 60% of the time, mostly based on first player advantage. Also, I think he slightly overbought watchtowers. But nothing too major different.

Game 6: Hmm. Well, Maybe just skipping the remake is indeed better here. We're both a good bit unlucky to hit 7 so much at the end. And the remake luck at the beginning is huge. But pretty equal. So, probably it's going to be pretty equal strategy, though I do think he should have gotten that province over the first harem. Pretty hard. Anyway, probably he'll win this ~55-60% of the time on the strength of that first-turn mostly.

Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 28, 2012, 03:39:09 pm
Finals scheduled for 6 PM Pacific time this evening.  No livestreaming, but we'll be meeting in the Secret Chamber if people are interested in seeing the Kingdom sets rolled out.  I will be recording - and should be able to get those posted up within the hour after finishing.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: RisingJaguar on January 28, 2012, 05:57:01 pm
Game 5: Fun little mirror match.  I get an early upgrade which I thought would be a big deal but not really.  I was considering further developing (with a second upgrade) and forgoing all that green first but chose against it, because peddlers/herbalists aren't gonna provide a HUGE chunk of money.  My third watchtower was actually very helpful, I agree 3 was too much but as I had a watch tower in hand, I felt it was important to ensure I get another next turn.  Maybe I should've double duchied instead?

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120127-174513-b5103d50.html

Game 6: Again another mirror.  I do get lucky on T5/T6 buy essentially stealing an extra hoard.  I think early province was better than harem but oh wells, I thought it was important to get economy going at first.  After that, T14 was a crafty was of me to get back in the game.  I think its vital to have the lead after your turn, and that put me up 2 (which quickly became 3 when gardens became 2VP).  I probably shouldn't have gotten that penultimate province, should've waited to get my gardens up to 3VP.  I think it was a mistake of ours to get harem after this point.  If he maintained the lead, then he could win when he gets his $8.  Lets say I get $7 on that last turn, I would buy a duchy and he would be forced to buy a duchy with his $8.  It was something I realize on turn 15, and thought he knew too but decided to switch.  Very fun set, wish we played more games...

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120127-175344-fd1ed918.html

Bonus game thoughts!

Game 1: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120127-175904-18e29a63.html
His council room was smarter leading him to a nice turn of province/duchy.  He also had 3 more golds... He wins

Game 2: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120127-180440-16448a5a.html
T9 was a disaster buying wharf/venture instead of platinum.  That was a horrible choice, and shows that he is so much better on these games.  He wins 2 BM games on second turn.  Probably should've been 3.

Game 3: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120127-181442-217a6228.html
Here my idea was to use village/council rooms to vault, to minion to kill his bigger hand.  Instead I just chose overall Minion game.  I was confident that my strategy was better especially with the council rooms +buy to build my pieces quickly.  I probably should've gotten more villages to enable my council rooms but oh wells. 

Very fun set! I will cherish this virtual bronze medal!
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Lekkit on January 28, 2012, 06:30:39 pm
Finals scheduled for 6 PM Pacific time this evening.  No livestreaming, but we'll be meeting in the Secret Chamber if people are interested in seeing the Kingdom sets rolled out.  I will be recording - and should be able to get those posted up within the hour after finishing.

Will be there. I don't care if it's 3 am in Sweden (mainly because I'm working a night shift where I'm just supposed to be in front of a computer answering a few phone calls).
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 29, 2012, 12:24:19 am
olneyce wins 5-3

Full breakdown later, and I'll post videos as soon as I can (though I'm missing a video for game 4, and have no audio for the first three).  But here are the isotropic logs.

Game 1 (manzi wins)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-183753-8c08b737.html

Game 2 (olneyce)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-184943-6da00552.html

Game 3 (manzi)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-192212-7e72af6d.html

Game 4 (olneyce)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-194948-f07148ef.html

Game 5 (olneyce)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-200717-b7e3edb1.html

Game 6 (olneyce)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-203730-b4507b16.html

Game 7 (manzi)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-205618-45d04a82.html

Game 8 (olneyce)
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-211710-02ce2359.html
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Thisisnotasmile on January 29, 2012, 04:59:06 am
Lol at a KC/Goons/Masq set getting used.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Lekkit on January 29, 2012, 11:09:09 am
To be honest I think the KC/Goons/Masq is a trap. Ironworks/Workshop will probably beat it. And manzi proved that you can play, even while under the pin. It was actually one of my favourite kingdoms to be used.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 29, 2012, 03:06:38 pm
I have video for all the games except the fourth one, and audio commentary on games 5-8.  I’m really curious to hear comments on these, as I think there are quite a few clear mistakes – and plenty of room for very different strategies than the ones we pursued.

Game 1 olneyce 45 – 50 manzi
http://youtu.be/3ESroKEQhw0
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120128-183753-8c08b737.html
I think nerves may have got the best of both of us here.  My impulse was to think that the very simple Ironworks/Gardens rush couldn’t possibly be the right move.  But after getting a few turns in, it became clear that our more complex engines were a bit rubbish.  I also went after Young Witch in a game where he was clearly going to spam Hamlet, giving me a pretty wasted card.  I think his early Ironworks made a huge difference – it gave him a lot more flexibility over the course of things.

Game 2 olneyce 33 – 28 manzi
http://youtu.be/5rH6XNSGaxE
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120128-184943-6da00552.html
I like this board a lot. I really enjoy playing green-card games with Barons, far more than with some of the more traditional enablers.  I got a bit fortunate to put together a $9 hand to end the game, but I’m not sure it really mattered that much.  Even if I had only hit $5, I would still have had plenty of time to close out the game, I think.

Game 3 manzi 71 – 9 olneyce
http://youtu.be/H_F8W2hmsZA
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120128-192212-7e72af6d.html
I have never actually played the KC/Goons/Masq pin before, and only sort of understood how to put it into action.  At about turn 12 I felt pretty confident I knew how to make it happen.  Then on turn 16 I got there and was very excited.  Only to realize he was playing a double-Tactician deck at this point and thus was almost completely immune to the pin.  Ouch. 

Game 4 olneyce 18 – 3 manzi
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120128-194948-f07148ef.html
[no video, unfortunately]
I think this one was basically over by turn 5, when I was able to match up my Festival with a double-Masquerade play.  Oracle was tremendously important in increasingly the likelihood of drawing whatever engine component I needed on a given turn.  The game took a lot longer than it might otherwise have because of our mutual need to protect ourselves from Margrave/Masquerade plays.  We kept reducing to three and leaving a copper as one of the three, which stunted some turns. Some people commented in the lobby about Ghost Ships here, but I never really even considered them.  Maybe I should have.  Margrave is actually a lot less damaging in a game where you can just discard your non-engine components to it, and then draw them back up at the end.


Game 5 manzi 8 – 16 olneyce
http://youtu.be/Cb2bBrGLFQ0
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120128-200717-b7e3edb1.html
I really don’t like the Scrying Pool play here.  From turn 6 onwards I’m pretty much always playing with 7 or 9-card hands thanks to the Wharves.  Which makes matching up +action and +card components of the engine a lot easier than it would otherwise be.  Plus, in a game likely to end on piles, having those extra Universities made it a lot easier to kill off the Worker’s Villages for the victory.

Game 6 manzi 57 – 89 olneyce
http://youtu.be/xx4MJXJ60qo
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120128-203730-b4507b16.html
Speaking of ignoring Ghost Ships, I have no good explanation for why we both ignored them in this game.  In mid-game I went after a couple Grand Markets, which seemed like a bad idea over the course of the game.  The $ from them wasn’t that helpful and there were plenty of times I needed to discard down to three cards and sacrificed Grand Markets to hold onto Menageries.  I think the structure of this game was very weird – once he grabbed three relatively early Provinces I started to think it was the endgame and restructured my buys.  I think that was a pretty big mistake.  Another turn or two of engine-building would have made for a much quicker end-game.  As it was, we kept dancing back and forth and ruining our potential for mega-turns.

Game 7 manzi 50 – 29 olneyce
http://youtu.be/sbqFDHme5Hs
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120128-205618-45d04a82.html
I went back and forth for a while about whether to match his Scheme, and I think it was probably the wrong call. But frankly, in a kingdom with the massive engine potential of this one, drawing my Remake with 4 coppers was probably not going to be recoverable.  As it was, he exploited his early advantage with ruthless efficiency.  I didn’t get to play a Fishing Village until turn NINE – and at that point the game was completely over except for the mopping up.

Game 8 olneyce 0 – manzi resigned
http://youtu.be/n20YG1SRmJI
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120128-211710-02ce2359.html
I’ve been playing a lot of Ambassador games recently.  It used to be a card I had real trouble with, but I’m starting to really see how to use it well.  I wasn’t 100% sure about my Caravan strategy, but I knew that Ambassador is best in conjunction with money-giving cantrips, so getting to Grand Market was a huge priority.  At turn 8, I had 11 junk cards (8 coppers, 3 estates) and he only had 5 coppers and I was starting to doubt my strategy.  But then I managed to get a big Caravan turn, grab the +actions from Crossroads, and wipe out 4 coppers in one turn.  IF you watch the video, you’ll note that I initially say I want to get rid of an Estate, only to pause, reconsider, and realize just how devastating my deck has the potential to be if I devote myself solely to erasing the copper.  By turn 11 and 12, I realize that I am basically going to be able to draw my whole deck from here on out – and that he’s clogged himself up with Golds and Silvers – which means I’m almost certain to win.  Once I start dishing out Curses, he clearly comes to the same conclusion and concedes.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 29, 2012, 06:00:29 pm
A couple thoughts after watching a little bit of my videos:
1. Man, I play slowly. 
2. I have no idea what that clicking sound is.
3. The benefit of hindsight makes some of the things I say sound very very stupid.
4. It's possible to be very successful at this game while playing sub-optimally and making a lot of decisions on the seat of your pants.
5. Like, REALLY slowly.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Kirian on January 29, 2012, 08:46:43 pm
A couple thoughts after watching a little bit of my videos:
1. Man, I play slowly. 
5. Like, REALLY slowly.

You should have heard us complaining in the lobby chat.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Lekkit on January 29, 2012, 09:10:17 pm
I guess one of the reasons we were so impatient was that we wanted to know how you tackled the kingdom, since we mostly had some different ideas for some of the sets, and we thought that some of them ought to be super fast, and then you took like two minutes per turn, and we were all like "they are slow, we want results since we can't really spectate!".

Anyways, I don't think any of us really wanted any of you guys to make a hasty decision that you would regret right after making it.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: yuma on January 30, 2012, 08:34:18 pm
In game two I was little surprised neither player went for Bureaucrat. Was that a trap card? In the two games I played against a friend using the same deck I was able to use Bureaucrat pretty effectively. Gaining the silvers w/o having to buy them helped in having enough economy once greening starting getting intense and putting a green card hurt him quite a bit when he was attempting to use his crossroads. There were a couple of times he only had two victory cards in hand with a crossroad and a played Bureaucrat forcing him to put one back on top, so that he was only able to draw one card with it--the card he just put on top.

How would have both players countered it, or just ignored it, if the other picked it up?
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Redwoods on January 30, 2012, 10:29:32 pm
Congratulations Olneyce! As the first player to lose to you in the tournament, I'm happy you went on to win :)
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: olneyce on January 30, 2012, 11:40:37 pm
In game two I was little surprised neither player went for Bureaucrat. Was that a trap card? In the two games I played against a friend using the same deck I was able to use Bureaucrat pretty effectively. Gaining the silvers w/o having to buy them helped in having enough economy once greening starting getting intense and putting a green card hurt him quite a bit when he was attempting to use his crossroads. There were a couple of times he only had two victory cards in hand with a crossroad and a played Bureaucrat forcing him to put one back on top, so that he was only able to draw one card with it--the card he just put on top.

How would have both players countered it, or just ignored it, if the other picked it up?
I didn't go for it because I was super-committed to Barons or bust and didn't want to clog up my deck with any extra money.  I'm not sure I had a particularly good counter, other than the fact that my buying power was really only reliant on getting a Baron and Estate together, so cycling the deck was less important than in a lot of games.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Forge!!! on January 31, 2012, 01:16:19 am
Congratulations Olneyce! As the first player to lose to you in the tournament, I'm happy you went on to win :)

It's interesting to look at the start of the tournament and the seeds and everything. The guy I played was an 8 seed and is currently #2 on the leaderboards =P
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 31, 2012, 09:26:21 am
Congratulations Olneyce! As the first player to lose to you in the tournament, I'm happy you went on to win :)

It's interesting to look at the start of the tournament and the seeds and everything. The guy I played was an 8 seed and is currently #2 on the leaderboards =P
I played #1, #4, (I'm #5), #17, and #19 on today's board, among others.
Title: Re: 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships: Final Four
Post by: Fabian on March 21, 2012, 01:44:41 am
If I had beaten WW in the quarterfinals, the top 4 of this tournament would have been today's leaderboard's top 4 players, which I thought was cool.