Which card did this replace?It's not really like that. Seven cards replaced six in each set, and only a few have direct connections.
Alright, cool. Thanks!Which card did this replace?It's not really like that. Seven cards replaced six in each set, and only a few have direct connections.
Which card did this replace?
Which card did this replace?
Scout. Every single 2nd edition card replaced Scout. Even the ones in the base set.
Buying it early is absolutely essential. Any later than the second shuffle and it's almost a waste of time. It won't consistently hit junk then.
You probably want two, if you can, but that is often hard to pull off.
This actually works a lot better with Cartographer, so I would get a Sentry than a Cartographer.
Junk Dealer is better in general. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't actually played with Sentry more than once. But Sentry is nice.
How does it counter Sea Hag? It will draw the curse.
Buying it early is absolutely essential. Any later than the second shuffle and it's almost a waste of time. It won't consistently hit junk then.
You probably want two, if you can, but that is often hard to pull off.
This actually works a lot better with Cartographer, so I would get a Sentry than a Cartographer.
Junk Dealer is better in general. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't actually played with Sentry more than once. But Sentry is nice.
Getting two is not hard. That's like saying it's hard to get two Junk Dealers or Upgrades. As for power level, it is comparable to JD and yes I have played with it more than once.
Scout cannot be replaced!Which card did this replace?
Scout. Every single 2nd edition card replaced Scout. Even the ones in the base set.
Junk Dealer is a much better trasher. Heck, even Doctor is a better trasher, because it trashes on buy, and it looks three cards deep when trashing on play instead of just two. And Doctor is known to be relatively weak on play. Both Doctor and Sentry suffer from "bad thinner" syndrome. They work ok until your deck starts getting thin, at which point you're much more likely to have your junk in hand, which is what makes trashers that work from your hand so much better.
That said, Sentry's topdeck control/prediction can be the most useful thing about it. On boards with a use for topdeck control, it's great. On boards with no other trasher, it's okay. On boards with another trasher and no use for topdeck control, it's skippable.
If we're comparing Junk Dealer and Sentry, I'd agree that purely as a trasher, Junk Dealer is stronger than Sentry. Unless you can get Sentry before your first shuffle, it becomes very difficult to line up your junk within just the two card range Sentry looks at. Additionally, Junk Dealer's ability to trash from your hand usually gives more flexibility and potential targets to trash than Sentry does. I've had multiple games where I play Sentry with a Copper or Estate in hand only to reveal two action cards (which I put back, hooray)--if I'd had a Junk Dealer instead, I could have at least trashed something from my hand and had +$1. Yes, when you do flip two junk cards with Sentry and trash them, it's amazing, but that's remarkably rare--if you don't buy Sentry until after your first shuffle, it might happen once in a game if you're lucky.I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards
As a trasher, I think I'd only choose Sentry over Junk Dealer on a 5-2 split, as the chances of trashing two cards with it are highest if you can get it right away. Otherwise, if I can't hit $5 until turn 3 or 4, I'd go with Junk Dealer for a more reliable trasher that can provide some economy.
That said, once you're into the mid to late game, I do think Sentry becomes much stronger than Junk Dealer as it doesn't force you to trash, which makes JD a liability sometimes. Instead, Sentry acts as a half-Cartographer, filtering your green cards from the top of your deck, while leaving the actions you want on top, and perhaps trashing the occasional Curse that pops up. True, Sentry won't be the star of the show late game, but it also won't be a dead card in a hand full of provinces and actions like JD can become.
If we're comparing Junk Dealer and Sentry, I'd agree that purely as a trasher, Junk Dealer is stronger than Sentry. Unless you can get Sentry before your first shuffle, it becomes very difficult to line up your junk within just the two card range Sentry looks at. Additionally, Junk Dealer's ability to trash from your hand usually gives more flexibility and potential targets to trash than Sentry does. I've had multiple games where I play Sentry with a Copper or Estate in hand only to reveal two action cards (which I put back, hooray)--if I'd had a Junk Dealer instead, I could have at least trashed something from my hand and had +$1. Yes, when you do flip two junk cards with Sentry and trash them, it's amazing, but that's remarkably rare--if you don't buy Sentry until after your first shuffle, it might happen once in a game if you're lucky.I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards
As a trasher, I think I'd only choose Sentry over Junk Dealer on a 5-2 split, as the chances of trashing two cards with it are highest if you can get it right away. Otherwise, if I can't hit $5 until turn 3 or 4, I'd go with Junk Dealer for a more reliable trasher that can provide some economy.
That said, once you're into the mid to late game, I do think Sentry becomes much stronger than Junk Dealer as it doesn't force you to trash, which makes JD a liability sometimes. Instead, Sentry acts as a half-Cartographer, filtering your green cards from the top of your deck, while leaving the actions you want on top, and perhaps trashing the occasional Curse that pops up. True, Sentry won't be the star of the show late game, but it also won't be a dead card in a hand full of provinces and actions like JD can become.
I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards
You'd be surprised just how rare hitting 2 good cards is in that scenario, when you include things like Sentry missing the shuffle, other card draw, etc. into the equation.
I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards
You'd be surprised just how rare hitting 2 good cards is in that scenario, when you include things like Sentry missing the shuffle, other card draw, etc. into the equation.
Neither Sentry missing the shuffle or other card draw (unless you draw all or all but 1-2 cards of your deck) impacts the average number of junk cards that Sentry hits in a deck of 10 junks and 4 non-junk. If you have 10 junks and 4 non-junk (not counting the Sentry that you are playing), you hit 0 junk 6.6% of the time, 1 junk 44.0% of the time, and 2 junk 49.5% of the time, for an average of 1.43 junk cards.
I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards
You'd be surprised just how rare hitting 2 good cards is in that scenario, when you include things like Sentry missing the shuffle, other card draw, etc. into the equation.
Neither Sentry missing the shuffle or other card draw (unless you draw all or all but 1-2 cards of your deck) impacts the average number of junk cards that Sentry hits in a deck of 10 junks and 4 non-junk. If you have 10 junks and 4 non-junk (not counting the Sentry that you are playing), you hit 0 junk 6.6% of the time, 1 junk 44.0% of the time, and 2 junk 49.5% of the time, for an average of 1.43 junk cards.
1. How many turns should I run per game? (Ten?)
2. How many Sentry to buy? (Two?)
3. Always topdeck Silver or always discard Silver? (Topdeck?)
So far early results seem to indicate it is rare to trash 2 cards with Sentry more than once.
So I've mostly written a simulator (by hand!) that just buys Silver or Sentry every turn and plays all the Sentry it can each turn. Before I run it 10,000 times or whatever to see how many cards it trashes per play, I just wanted a few opinions on constraints:
1. How many turns should I run per game? (Ten?)
2. How many Sentry to buy? (Two?)
3. Always topdeck Silver or always discard Silver? (Topdeck?)
So far early results seem to indicate it is rare to trash 2 cards with Sentry more than once.
Something that bothers me about Sentry is when you play it and draw a junk card. If I had played Junk Dealer instead, I could trash that recently drawn junk, but with Sentry, drawing junk just means that it's more likely that the 2 revealed cards won't be junk. I'm not sure how much this affects Sentry's effectiveness, but non-the-less, it's always a little sad to draw junk and then only trash one, or zero cards.That's purely emotional though; if the junk card was second or third in your deck, you would be very happy to play Sentry over Junk Dealer, but since you draw 5 cards at once afterwards, it's easier to miss this.
The average number of cards trashed per game, however, was just 5.019. I'll compare this to the number of trashes two JDs gets at some point.
Back of the envelope: If you buy Junk Dealer #1 on turn 3-4, play it once on turn 5-6 while buying a second, and play each twice on turns 7-10 (finding a junk card to trash each time), the two JD strategy will trash 5 cards through turn 10. That's a little slower to pick up JDs than you can expect on average, but assumes that the JDs don't miss the shuffle. So I'd guess that the 2 JD strategy will trash more than 5 but less than 6 cards on average through turn 10.