Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Game Reports => Topic started by: jimjam on February 10, 2012, 03:40:59 am
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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/10/game-20120210-003736-bdd33615.html
Trashing down to just 2 Silvers in the supply. I think my opponent's Saboteur opening was incorrect, though the game was very luck-based, to say the least.
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I understand your hate of that card, as it can be very annoying to play against, and creates a lot of dependence on luck (barring brilliant highway-sab combos, and the like)
Having said that, I think almost always the best reaction to saboteur is to ignore it, and in this game buying saboteurs when they were embargoed was just madness.
With your 2/5 opening, embargo was a good call, but either apprentice or embassy would have been a lot stronger than saboteur.
Lets look at Turn 3. On that, you had the bad luck of clashing your two terminals. However, if you had embassy instead of saboteur it would have been a case of playing that, then getting a gold straight off. Turn 3 gold is hard to beat!
As it was, both of you were determined towards building King's Court-Saboteur, which while satisfying was probably not the way to go. The inevitable result, as you saw, is a three pile ending with a load of Kings Courts and Saboteurs in the trash, with one player cursing their luck.
The simulators will show you it better, but generally speaking, Saboteur is one of the weakest $5 cards out there, and certainly nowhere near as good as Apprentice or Embassy. Why? Basically because when you get Saboteured, you get to replace the card with something else if you want to. So if you lose a Province, sure that sucks, but that new gold and slightly trimmed deck will net you your next Province. And mostly you won't lose Provinces, mostly you'll lose Silver...
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Really? You will go Embassy-BM against Apprentice-enabled KC-Saboteur?
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There's no + buy, so I think big money strategies fall to kc sab. Funny game - glad I wasn't playing it!
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I think this is one of the boards where Saboteur is the dominant strategy. Openning Saboteur was probably mistake, but I think you buing embargoed Saboteur was a good play.
That the mirror with KC-Sab is luck depending? Sure. Every mirror is. But I am pretty sure that if you build an BMX against it you got much less than 50% to win...
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Yes, even with King's Court there, I wouldn't go for Saboteur. Not to say King's Court Saboteur isn't nasty, but then King's Court ANYTHING is nasty. In the time the opponent builds King's Court Saboteur you can be starting on Provinces. And if those Provinces trash to gold, well its not as if it breaks on that. Or even better, if the Saboteur hits a Province then trash to Border Village...
I personally don't think Saboteur really ever plays that strongly. Its frightening, but its not that effective, even with King's Court there. Hell, failing all else, a suitable counter would have been to gain Silk Roads and Estates when sabotaged, and to end the game on a three pile.
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Border Village is a nice disrupter to Saboteur, since you don't mind when they get hit. And a Province can become a Border Village and a Duchy, which isn't so bad and gives you a potential buffer for future Saboteurs.
One of the only cards I've seen as a good engine for Saboteur is Hunting Party. Of course, Hunting Party is so fast, and Saboteur is taking up a valuable place in your engine for some better unique card. But Hunting Party + Saboteur can really hurt the other person if they are going Hunting Party (which is likely since it's so strong). Losing Hunting Parties to Saboteur makes it really hard to eek out the last few Provinces.
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Man I love Saboteur: Game in which Saboteur saved my ass (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/14/game-20120214-025427-9cf127a4.html).
Important kingdom cards: Hunting Party, Familiar, Saboteur, Bridge
My opponent skips Potion and decides to buy a Bridge with his $4 going for a huge Hunting Party stack. I manage to snag 3 of the Hunting Parties, but his stack of 7 is just brutal and launches him to 3 Provinces quickly. At this point, I decide that my only chance to win is to throw a wrench into his machine via Saboteur. My Saboteur luckily hits 2 of his HPs and finally, his engine starts to sputter.
He gets a 5-1 Province lead, but my Saboteur hits one Province. I can't buy the penultimate Province, so I start hammering Duchies.
At last, I can buy the last Duchy to complete a nice comeback. This was a very tense game and I wonder what our VP graphs would look like. :)
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Yes, Saboteur is overrated by beginners, but quite underrated by more advanced players.
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Man I love Saboteur: Game in which Saboteur saved my ass (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/14/game-20120214-025427-9cf127a4.html).
Important kingdom cards: Hunting Party, Familiar, Saboteur, Bridge
My opponent skips Potion and decides to buy a Bridge with his $4 going for a huge Hunting Party stack. I manage to snag 3 of the Hunting Parties, but his stack of 7 is just brutal and launches him to 3 Provinces quickly. At this point, I decide that my only chance to win is to throw a wrench into his machine via Saboteur. My Saboteur luckily hits 2 of his HPs and finally, his engine starts to sputter.
He gets a 5-1 Province lead, but my Saboteur hits one Province. I can't buy the penultimate Province, so I start hammering Duchies.
At last, I can buy the last Duchy to complete a nice comeback. This was a very tense game and I wonder what our VP graphs would look like. :)
An excellent game! You were pretty lucky to hit that province, I think, though I can't deny the disruption to the Hunting Party engine that your Saboteur inflicted
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I don't mind Sabatour, except when it is used against me......
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The simulators will show you it better, but generally speaking, Saboteur is one of the weakest $5 cards out there, and certainly nowhere near as good as Apprentice or Embassy. Why? Basically because when you get Saboteured, you get to replace the card with something else if you want to. So if you lose a Province, sure that sucks, but that new gold and slightly trimmed deck will net you your next Province. And mostly you won't lose Provinces, mostly you'll lose Silver...
Saboteur is one of the weaker card when played once, but if you can play 3 or 6 each turn it gets devastating. In this game only the lack of +buy prevents the setup from absolutely crying King's Court+Saboteur, because it's harder to built up the engine, and harder to grab many VPs in the end to come from behind if you need to.
But anyway, Silk Road give you time, Saboteur lowers the amount of VPs you have to overcome, Embassy gives you great draws, especially to enable King's Courts, Border Village doesn't hurt also, Apprentice as trasher also doesn't hurt.
I think you have no chance to win this as Embassy-BM against these attacks and get any card survived, you only have to care for 3-pile, especially if your opponent has the opportunity to gains that many cards when you saboteur him.
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I was actually blue, as could possibly be inferred from my post (not too clear, sorry). Anyways, the problem with the board was that it was just so weak. The one thing I feel weird about was using apprentice to trash other $5s to try to get a KC-saboteur off. A $5 represents two saboteur hits, but I think it probably is the correct move because of the importance of hitting the opponent's KC.
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Man I love Saboteur: Game in which Saboteur saved my ass (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/14/game-20120214-025427-9cf127a4.html).
Important kingdom cards: Hunting Party, Familiar, Saboteur, Bridge
My opponent skips Potion and decides to buy a Bridge with his $4 going for a huge Hunting Party stack. I manage to snag 3 of the Hunting Parties, but his stack of 7 is just brutal and launches him to 3 Provinces quickly. At this point, I decide that my only chance to win is to throw a wrench into his machine via Saboteur. My Saboteur luckily hits 2 of his HPs and finally, his engine starts to sputter.
He gets a 5-1 Province lead, but my Saboteur hits one Province. I can't buy the penultimate Province, so I start hammering Duchies.
At last, I can buy the last Duchy to complete a nice comeback. This was a very tense game and I wonder what our VP graphs would look like. :)
This is pretty much the only way I'll buy a saboteur - if the strategy I came in with has failed and there's nothing for it but to try to ruin his deck. And it doesn't usually work.
Although, with KC, Hunting Party, or even Scheme I guess I can see going for it from the get-go (though I don't mind saying I feel like a jerk doing it). Looking at this board, I really don't see a non-Sab strategy that beats KC-Sab. I could see stocking up on Coppers and going Counting House, but that just makes your Counting House and your Provinces really vulnerable. BUT if you buy multiple CHs and always Sab them into Silvers and your Provinces into BV-Duchy, you might have a chance of ending it ahead on a three-pile.