This is really good with Gardens and Silk Roads, right?
I think it works well with Coin token cards, particularly Candlestick Maker and Merchant Guild, since Coin tokens don't count as Treasures.
Here is why I think [Alms is] one of the cards with the highest impact:
- Alms dramatically changes opening buy/gains.
- Alms makes heavy trashing less costly.
- Alms makes early gainers more valuable.
- Alms makes early coin less valuable.
- Alms makes virtual money decks with +buy more viable.
- Alms reduces the effectiveness of early attacks like Militia and Cutpurse by providing a floor on the worst possible hand.
- Alms smooths out bad hands early due to shuffle luck.
- If you use Alms, you don't play any of your treasures, so you deny information to your opponent(s).
But yeah, totally opening alms/alms whenever I get a 3/4 (because I can), and getting a 5/2 with alms when your opponent gets a 3/4 (depending on the board) can be a "might as well resign now" type of thing. (Obviously you never actually resign in that situation though)Getting a 5/2 means you really open 5/4, you silly goose!
A lot of things about Alms have been mentioned, but here are a few more people haven't mentioned:
Playing Storeroom gives you optional sifting and two $4 cards.
It hard counters Swamp Hag, especially in a non-engine deck.
If you have a hand of like 2 Platinum or something amazing with no +buy, Alms can sort of counter Haunted Woods. Free topdecking!
A lot of things about Alms have been mentioned, but here are a few more people haven't mentioned:
Playing Storeroom gives you optional sifting and two $4 cards.
It hard counters Swamp Hag, especially in a non-engine deck.
If you have a hand of like 2 Platinum or something amazing with no +buy, Alms can sort of counter Haunted Woods. Free topdecking!
It hard counters Swamp Hag, especially in a non-engine deck.
The only card I want to add to my deck happens to cost exactly $4.It hard counters Swamp Hag, especially in a non-engine deck.
Not if you want to buy a card that costs more than $4.
Alms is super strong with any trashing that trashes from your hand, not just Chapel (except for stuff like Moneylender and Masquerade). You rarely hit $4 on those turns. It's also strong with $4 splitters because it really sets you back when you don't hit $4 in those games, which might happen a couple of times in the early game. It's also extremely strong with a 5/2 opening. At its worst, it's still going to be moderately useful.This. I also kinda like that you can bluff well with the card. Not that it often influences your opponent but e.g. on 2/5 with you going first and junkers on the board the opponent might make a different decision during turn 1 if he knew that you could buy that $5 junker on turn 2.
Luckily enough, it's almost trivial to realize when you should be buying Alms and when you shouldn't, so being wrong about its overall strength doesn't actually hurt at all.
well, it's technically possible to always hit $5 but that requires extremely rare shuffle luck in an extremely rare kingdom