Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: tdellaringa on May 23, 2017, 05:25:21 pm
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Hi there, new to this forum. I'm an average player who just picked up the game again, trying to learn and get better.
I think I see the value of Vassal when you have built up a deck that gives you a decent chance of an action draw. Lately I have seen players buy the card very early, even on first draw. This is usually in a core set game.
I'm just curious if I am missing something here. It seems like an odd choice for a first buy.
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You're not far off.. but there's a couple reasons I can think of that you might want Vassal early:
1. If there are not other terminal actions that you plan to buy early on, then might as well take Vassal (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Vassal) over Silver (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Silver), because it will end up being better in the long run.
2. Discarding the card from your deck helps your cycling, which is important early on. It will almost always discard a Copper or an Estate, both which are cards that you'd be happy to see discarded.
Welcome to the forum!
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I'm not very excited about Vassal. At first glance, it might seem similar to Conspirator and Herald, but in practice I'd usually rather have 1 Peddler than a Vassal added to my deck.
It's only worth it, if there are good trashing possibilities, and then you'd rather pick up a trasher in the beginning. It also needs other cards that provide +Draw, +Buy, and +Action, so basically it's a board with a good engine and you add Vassal to it. Having one Vassal doesn't hurt much, but spamming them becomes tricky, because you either need a Village in your opening hand, or pray that Vassal doesn't hit a terminal.
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Vassal is just okay. It's not really consistent enough most of the time to rely on, and when it is, you probably don't need it? But it does have some value.
You need the terminal space for it to miss, you need to value cycling, and you need to be eventually building to a deck of mostly Actions. If you can meet all these criteria, a Vassal or two early on isn't bad, it seems better than Silver.
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I more or less concur with everything said so far. You only really want it in very action-dense engines, which requires good trashing, which means you should get a trasher early. Opening Vassal seems a little odd.
In those engines, it adds "+$2" to the next card on your deck (assuming it's an action). It has very nice synergy with deck inspection, but building a Sentry/Vassal/maybe-also-Harbinger engine sounds a bit slow and very wonky. In a more vanilla Village/Smithy engine it probably has a place; it's nice but not super-OMG-awesome. It's a payload silver that most often will (effectively) give back the card and action you spent to play it; sort of like Conspirator. If the engine draws deck, you'll want Vassal early in your turn (so you're not playing the top of an empty deck) where you normally want Silver late (because you want Village/Smithy early so you can continue drawing cards). Although: if you have 5 Vassals in hand and 4 cards left in your deck, discard 4 vassals to Cellar, then play Vassal to make a big Vassal chain, woop! ;-)
1. If there are not other terminal actions that you plan to buy early on, then might as well take Vassal over Silver
Edge case: you want to play Hunting Grounds/BM, or BM with some other expensive terminal draw: you probably won't buy it until late in the opening or in the early mid-game (which for some value of ... is not "early on"), but once you do you definitely want to have silver over vassal. More clearly stated: whether you want Vassal early depends in part on which terminals you want late(r).
Opening Vassal doesn't seems appropriate when there's an engine but no trashing, because then you don't want Vassal at all. It also doesn't seem good in expensive terminal draw/BM, where you want a Silver. It doesn't go into a Workshop/Gardens rush; so it only really seems good in something that smells a lot like BMU. And in that case, you don't probably want Vassal at all, definitely at most one, because the risk of collision vastly outstrips the chance of having one vassal in hand plus one on top of your deck, and the infrequent upside seems like it shouldn't outweigh the frequent upside; just buy silver and gold, man. (Okay, maybe the increased cycling of a single Vassal helps enough in the beginning to outweigh the badness of cycling late, while greening, but that margin is probably very slim; it's probably positive, because you cycle a larger fraction of your deck early, maybe?)
The strongest case for opening Vassal is probably the wonky Sentry/Vassal/cantrip-heavy engine thing; open Silver/Vassal, then get two or maybe even three Sentries ASAP to get thin; the +$2 helps you get to $5 and you also want it later on; also, you won't ever draw the one Vassal dead when all other actions are cantrips. Once you get thin, add more Vassals. Until then, add other cantrips, e.g. some of Harbinger, Merchant, Poacher, Market. Maybe. I think it has to be a weird board for that kind of strategy to be dominant, but hey, weird board sometimes come up, especially in base set only. I remember a game where I played a Sentry/Market/Merchant deck and it worked decently; one or two Vassals probably would've been a fine addition to that deck.
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Vassal is just okay. It's not really consistent enough most of the time to rely on, and when it is, you probably don't need it? But it does have some value.
You need the terminal space for it to miss, you need to value cycling, and you need to be eventually building to a deck of mostly Actions. If you can meet all these criteria, a Vassal or two early on isn't bad, it seems better than Silver.
i mostly agree with this. i will say, however, that vassal is clearly a better opening with chapel than silver is. both are equally dead if drawn with the chapel, for the most part.
also, to jonaskoelker, hunting grounds-BM is barely any better than BMU according to simulator data. not the best example =P
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Vassal is just okay. It's not really consistent enough most of the time to rely on, and when it is, you probably don't need it? But it does have some value.
You need the terminal space for it to miss, you need to value cycling, and you need to be eventually building to a deck of mostly Actions. If you can meet all these criteria, a Vassal or two early on isn't bad, it seems better than Silver.
i mostly agree with this. i will say, however, that vassal is clearly a better opening with chapel than silver is. both are equally dead if drawn with the chapel, for the most part.
also, to jonaskoelker, hunting grounds-BM is barely any better than BMU according to simulator data. not the best example =P
Disagree. There are many times that that with say Chapel E E Si C, you'd just chapel the 2 estates and buy another silver, or Chapel C C C Si and you buy a useful 5 cost and take the hit on the chapel. And the use cases of vassal > silver are only for if chapels the 11th card. since vassal drawing a 6th card chapel is just as often a detriment as it is an advantage
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Disagree. There are many times that that with say Chapel E E Si C, you'd just chapel the 2 estates and buy another silver, or Chapel C C C Si and you buy a useful 5 cost and take the hit on the chapel. And the use cases of vassal > silver are only for if chapels the 11th card. since vassal drawing a 6th card chapel is just as often a detriment as it is an advantage
If you aren't trashing as many coppers and estates 2nd shuffle, you are probably doing something wrong.
Vassal chapel opening mostly depends on the availability of villages.
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Disagree. There are many times that that with say Chapel E E Si C, you'd just chapel the 2 estates and buy another silver, or Chapel C C C Si and you buy a useful 5 cost and take the hit on the chapel. And the use cases of vassal > silver are only for if chapels the 11th card. since vassal drawing a 6th card chapel is just as often a detriment as it is an advantage
If you aren't trashing as many coppers and estates 2nd shuffle, you are probably doing something wrong.
Vassal chapel opening mostly depends on the availability of villages.
strong 5s easily outweigh chapelling 3 coppers
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Disagree. There are many times that that with say Chapel E E Si C, you'd just chapel the 2 estates and buy another silver, or Chapel C C C Si and you buy a useful 5 cost and take the hit on the chapel. And the use cases of vassal > silver are only for if chapels the 11th card. since vassal drawing a 6th card chapel is just as often a detriment as it is an advantage
If you aren't trashing as many coppers and estates 2nd shuffle, you are probably doing something wrong.
Vassal chapel opening mostly depends on the availability of villages.
strong 5s easily outweigh chapelling 3 coppers
wrong. trashing those coppers gets you way more $5s later, since you get to line up estates with chapel much more quickly
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Disagree. There are many times that that with say Chapel E E Si C, you'd just chapel the 2 estates and buy another silver, or Chapel C C C Si and you buy a useful 5 cost and take the hit on the chapel. And the use cases of vassal > silver are only for if chapels the 11th card. since vassal drawing a 6th card chapel is just as often a detriment as it is an advantage
If you aren't trashing as many coppers and estates 2nd shuffle, you are probably doing something wrong.
Vassal chapel opening mostly depends on the availability of villages.
strong 5s easily outweigh chapelling 3 coppers
Chapeling 3 coppers is roughly as good as getting 3 Labs.
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Disagree. There are many times that that with say Chapel E E Si C, you'd just chapel the 2 estates and buy another silver, or Chapel C C C Si and you buy a useful 5 cost and take the hit on the chapel. And the use cases of vassal > silver are only for if chapels the 11th card. since vassal drawing a 6th card chapel is just as often a detriment as it is an advantage
If you aren't trashing as many coppers and estates 2nd shuffle, you are probably doing something wrong.
Vassal chapel opening mostly depends on the availability of villages.
strong 5s easily outweigh chapelling 3 coppers
Chapeling 3 coppers is roughly as good as getting 3 Labs.
And trashing three Peddlers. And getting -$3 that turn. So, not roughly as good at all, really. Not even close.
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Disagree. There are many times that that with say Chapel E E Si C, you'd just chapel the 2 estates and buy another silver, or Chapel C C C Si and you buy a useful 5 cost and take the hit on the chapel. And the use cases of vassal > silver are only for if chapels the 11th card. since vassal drawing a 6th card chapel is just as often a detriment as it is an advantage
If you aren't trashing as many coppers and estates 2nd shuffle, you are probably doing something wrong.
Vassal chapel opening mostly depends on the availability of villages.
strong 5s easily outweigh chapelling 3 coppers
Chapeling 3 coppers is roughly as good as getting 3 Labs.
And trashing three Peddlers. And getting -$3 that turn. So, not roughly as good at all, really. Not even close.
OK, interesting thought though:
Would you pay $3 to trash three Peddlers and gain three Labs? Ignore the variable cost on Peddler and consider the "basic" "$4" Peddler. If my deck is currently thicker than I would like, three Peddlers is worse than three Labs. So sure, it's not as good as gaining three Labs, but it's definitely better than gaining one Lab.
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Coppers aren't Peddlers.
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Coppers aren't Peddlers.
Coppers are just Peddlers without +Action and +Card. Also, they're not Actions. They also always cost $0, instead of just costing potentially $0 during the buy phase.
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Coppers aren't Peddlers.
No, but a Copper + a Lab is a Peddler. So trashing a Copper is like gaining a Lab but losing a Peddler.
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Vassal and Tactician: Ever okay, or always a mistake?
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Vassal and Tactician: Ever okay, or always a mistake?
Playing the card you draw with Vassal is optional, not forced. Vassal + Tactician seems fine.
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Vassal and Tactician: Ever okay, or always a mistake?
Playing the card you draw with Vassal is optional, not forced. Vassal + Tactician seems fine.
I mean, using Vassal as a ghetto +2 Coin to make a double Tac engine work.
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Vassal and Tactician: Ever okay, or always a mistake?
Playing the card you draw with Vassal is optional, not forced. Vassal + Tactician seems fine.
I mean, using Vassal as a ghetto +2 Coin to make a double Tac engine work.
I'm not seeing how it's interacting with Tactician... at least, not moreso than any non-treasure coin. So if Tactician is not good on a board, it's not going to become good because Vassal is around, and vice-versa.
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trashing copper is much closer to adding a lab to your deck than it is to losing a peddler. peddler has the advantage that it doesn't take up space whereas copper does.
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trashing copper is much closer to adding a lab to your deck than it is to losing a peddler. peddler has the advantage that it doesn't take up space whereas copper does.
He wasn't saying it is more like losing a Peddler than it is like adding a Lab. He was saying that it is like adding a Lab AND losing a Peddler, which is completely correct.
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Disagree. There are many times that that with say Chapel E E Si C, you'd just chapel the 2 estates and buy another silver, or Chapel C C C Si and you buy a useful 5 cost and take the hit on the chapel. And the use cases of vassal > silver are only for if chapels the 11th card. since vassal drawing a 6th card chapel is just as often a detriment as it is an advantage
If you aren't trashing as many coppers and estates 2nd shuffle, you are probably doing something wrong.
Vassal chapel opening mostly depends on the availability of villages.
strong 5s easily outweigh chapelling 3 coppers
Chapeling 3 coppers is roughly as good as getting 3 Labs.
And trashing three Peddlers. And getting -$3 that turn. So, not roughly as good at all, really. Not even close.
In the early game, cycling is so much more important than economy that they are practically the same and treating them as the same will surely increase your win rate.
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Are we really at a point in Dominion "discussion" where we can't talk about Copper, the most simple of Dominion cards without bringing up meaningless and obfuscating comparisons to other, totally unrelated, cards? Comparing Copper to Peddler in no way improves my understanding of Dominion.
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Are we really at a point in Dominion "discussion" where we can't talk about Copper, the most simple of Dominion cards without bringing up meaningless and obfuscating comparisons to other, totally unrelated, cards? Comparing Copper to Peddler in no way improves my understanding of Dominion.
Hey, don't blame me. Awaclus started these asinine analogies. And I guess only GendoIkari actually understands what I meant. It's grossly misleading to say that I was "comparing Copper to Peddler".
Here's a tip: trashing an Estate from your deck (in the early game) actually is like gaining a Lab because any hand that would have had that Estate has an "extra" card. Hence, trashing Estates is incredibly important. A Trading Post that trashes two Estates is basically "+$2, gain a Silver and 2 Laboratories". Eventually you run out of junk to trash, which is why trashers aren't the only thing you buy every game. THAT's a useful thing to remember, but if you want to call it a meaningless and obfuscating comparison, that's your prerogative.
Trashing a Copper from your hand is not so hot; not nearly as much as trashing Estates and Curses. You're increasing your deck's reliability, but also reducing its total buying power and also your buying power that turn, which may or may not matter depending on what your buying power that turn was. This is why cards that only trash Treasures are so generous with their resources. A Moneylender or Spice Merchant that could trash Estates and other junk would be easily $5 cards; perhaps more.
Yes, often the reliability you gain from trashing Coppers from your hand is worth it, even with e.g. Trade Route. But not always. It's better when you can do a lot of it at once with e.g. Chapel, since then you're basically just giving up one buy to trash four Coppers, rather than making four buys on four later turns worse by trashing them one at a time with Trade Route.
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In the early game, cycling is so much more important than economy that they are practically the same and treating them as the same will surely increase your win rate.
I have (barely) broken the top 100 on Shuffle iT. I'm not really interested in increasing my win rate further.
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Can we talk about Vassal? If someone wants a conversation about Labs and Copper removal being the same thing, just make another thread pls
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Welcome to the forum! This thread is a great encapsulation of the quality, focused discussion about topics that we often have here. Hope you enjoy your stay!
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hunting grounds-BM is barely any better than BMU according to simulator data. not the best example =P
That just makes my edge case even edgier :P
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In the early game, cycling is so much more important than economy that they are practically the same and treating them as the same will surely increase your win rate.
I have (barely) broken the top 100 on Shuffle iT. I'm not really interested in increasing my win rate further.
But other people might be, so you shouldn't be giving them advice that decreases it.
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In the early game, cycling is so much more important than economy that they are practically the same and treating them as the same will surely increase your win rate.
I have (barely) broken the top 100 on Shuffle iT. I'm not really interested in increasing my win rate further.
But other people might be, so you shouldn't be giving them advice that decreases it.
Sorry, I forgot to add the part where I don't believe following your oversimplified, hyperbolic advice will actually help me at this stage.
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If i'm unlucky enough to hit C C C CH Si, I'm buying Upgrade, Junk Dealer, Wharf, Hunting Party consistently over chapelling 3 and situationally doing other cards such as Tactician, Storyteller, Archive, Cursers/Ruiners, Counterfeit.
Many of those will enable me to chapel away my estates more efficiently later on than chapeling the 3 coppers will. Some will hamper my opponent from doing so.
It's completely reductive and terrible strategy to pretend you must always empty your coppers if you hit a bad shuffle, and no amount of peddler-lab comparisons will change that.
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If i'm unlucky enough to hit C C C CH Si, I'm buying Upgrade, Junk Dealer, Wharf, Hunting Party consistently over chapelling 3 and situationally doing other cards such as Tactician, Storyteller, Archive, Cursers/Ruiners, Counterfeit.
Many of those will enable me to chapel away my estates more efficiently later on than chapeling the 3 coppers will.
You shouldn't be doing that and the second statement isn't true.
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I'll actually defend $5 cost > trashing 3 Copper, but only if you're hoping you get lucky. In the absolute best case you get a dream draw and buying the $5 cost early makes up for not trashing 3 Copper. (For example, on turn 5 you draw Hunting Party, discard your entire deck, and Chapel your hand.) The problem is that outside of the lucky cases I think you're worse off than just trashing the 3 Coppers.
When you trash 3 Coppers, sometimes you get bad shuffles and are forced to buy a bunch of Silvers, then lose because you keep drawing your Chapel with your Silvers. But I think most of the time you're not that behind - you hit the 2nd Silver, draw 2 Silvers + Copper at some point to buy the $5, and then you're only a bit behind.
Awaclus, you really need to learn to argue better. Nobody cares when you say the same thing with slightly different wording, even if you think it's true.
If I draw Steward + 4 Copper, I'm almost always trashing 2 Copper instead of buying a $5 cost or Gold. And this feels like a more extreme version of the same scenario.
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Back to vassal its much better if you don't play base-only games, sentry is about worst of deck inspectors there. Also action only decks become relatively common with expansions. With wandering minstrel and apothecary its better than conspirator as you could trigger it as second card and you have reliably topdecked action. With wishing well it works relatively well too. With cartographer it plays like cartographer/mystic main problem is buying cartographers.
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Back to vassal its much better if you don't play base-only games
Artisan is in base now, and it's amazing for setting up Vassal. Rather than depending on luck of what's on (or near) the top of your deck, you just put any action you want right on top! Requires a village first, of course.
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How has no one mentioned Secret Passage with Vassal yet
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How has no one mentioned Secret Passage with Vassal yet
Or Harbinger
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I mean, using Vassal as a ghetto +2 Coin to make a double Tac engine work.
Trouble is, Vassal wants actions in your deck, not in your hand. Seems like an anti-synergy unless there's a ton of +actions, and even then, a hand of 10 cards, half of which need to be +actions to make the other half work seems less effective than a hand of 5 cards where Vassals can just play more Vassals off the top of the deck without +actions.
My favorite Vassal engine so far has been Herald/Vassal: The Forrest Gump deck.
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My favourite Vassal enabler is Pearl Diver, just because it's great so see something that actually combos with Pearl Diver.
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One neat side bonus of a double Vassal opening - unless one of them is the last card of the deck, you guarantee neither miss the shuffle.
Vassal is great for those decks where you could have supported all Terminal Silver payload, but you want to save a few turns of buying all those Villages to enable those Terminal Silvers in the first place. It's also dope with Sentry.
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My favourite Vassal enabler is Pearl Diver, just because it's great so see something that actually combos with Pearl Diver.
Or Vagrant
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Usually, I'm not a huge fan of Vassal. If there are cards in the kingdom that work well with it like pearl diver, herald, secret passage, cartographer, etc, then I think it is really fun and great, but usually that isn't the case (At least when I've played with it). To me it has a little bit too much of a luck factor, like smugglers or tournament. Of course, you can use strategy to make any of these cards a smart buy, but it seems to me like it is based on luck too often.
Some people like that stuff, I just don't.
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Usually, I'm not a huge fan of Vassal. If there are cards in the kingdom that work well with it like pearl diver, herald, secret passage, cartographer, etc, then I think it is really fun and great, but usually that isn't the case (At least when I've played with it). To me it has a little bit too much of a luck factor, like smugglers or tournament. Of course, you can use strategy to make any of these cards a smart buy, but it seems to me like it is based on luck too often.
Some people like that stuff, I just don't.
Fundamentally, Dominion is a probability management game. Vassal's luck component is very much in the control of the user, moreso than Tournament often is.
Smugglers has no luck whatsoever to it, not sure what you're talking about here.
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Smugglers has no luck whatsoever to it, not sure what you're talking about here.
You can draw it after your opponent's E/E/E/C/C hand or you can draw it after their $5 hand.
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Smugglers has no luck whatsoever to it, not sure what you're talking about here.
You can draw it after your opponent's E/E/E/C/C hand or you can draw it after their $5 hand.
Every single card in Dominion has luck when you consider the luck of drawing it at the wrong vs right time. Smugglers probably feels different because wrong or right time is dependent upon what your opponent did last turn rather than what other cards you draw with it. But still, cards like Vassal, Wishing Well, Mystic, Herald, Lookout, etc; have luck in regards to what happens when you play them, which is different.
*Edit* It's not fundamentally different, really. Vassal's luck is also just "when did you draw it"... did you draw it when you had an action on top or not? But it matters that you don't find out if you're lucky under after you play the card, since playing the card is expensive (costs an action). With Smugglers, if you draw it at a bad time (when your opponent didn't buy anything you want), you can just choose to not play it and play a better terminal instead. But with Vassal, you have to make a decision without all the information. So it's not so much about luck vs not, but about how much information you have/need before making a decision.
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In fact, it occurs to me that Vassal breaks a common rule of Dominion that we learned about with Tournament.... with Tournament, Donald said that the +1 action wasn't conditional because you shouldn't spend time deciding if you really want to play it or not. Mystic, Wishing Well, and Herald all follow this idea. The exceptions seem to be Tribute (removed in second edition), Golem, and Vassal. These are the cards that when you play, you have to rely on luck to determine if the card was terminal or not. Are there others I'm forgetting?
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Are there others I'm forgetting?
It doesn't really count, but I can only think of double throne +terminal draw.
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In fact, it occurs to me that Vassal breaks a common rule of Dominion that we learned about with Tournament.... with Tournament, Donald said that the +1 action wasn't conditional because you shouldn't spend time deciding if you really want to play it or not. Mystic, Wishing Well, and Herald all follow this idea. The exceptions seem to be Tribute (removed in second edition), Golem, and Vassal. These are the cards that when you play, you have to rely on luck to determine if the card was terminal or not. Are there others I'm forgetting?
Well, there's only Avanto that I can think of now.
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In fact, it occurs to me that Vassal breaks a common rule of Dominion that we learned about with Tournament.... with Tournament, Donald said that the +1 action wasn't conditional because you shouldn't spend time deciding if you really want to play it or not. Mystic, Wishing Well, and Herald all follow this idea. The exceptions seem to be Tribute (removed in second edition), Golem, and Vassal. These are the cards that when you play, you have to rely on luck to determine if the card was terminal or not. Are there others I'm forgetting?
Well, there's only Avanto that I can think of now.
Sacrifice with +card token.
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Smugglers has no luck whatsoever to it, not sure what you're talking about here.
You can draw it after your opponent's E/E/E/C/C hand or you can draw it after their $5 hand.
Every single card in Dominion has luck when you consider the luck of drawing it at the wrong vs right time. Smugglers probably feels different because wrong or right time is dependent upon what your opponent did last turn rather than what other cards you draw with it. But still, cards like Vassal, Wishing Well, Mystic, Herald, Lookout, etc; have luck in regards to what happens when you play them, which is different.
*Edit* It's not fundamentally different, really. Vassal's luck is also just "when did you draw it"... did you draw it when you had an action on top or not? But it matters that you don't find out if you're lucky under after you play the card, since playing the card is expensive (costs an action). With Smugglers, if you draw it at a bad time (when your opponent didn't buy anything you want), you can just choose to not play it and play a better terminal instead. But with Vassal, you have to make a decision without all the information. So it's not so much about luck vs not, but about how much information you have/need before making a decision.
I'm not saying that the other cards don't have luck, it just seems like more of a blind kind of luck with tournament and, admittedly to a lesser degree, with vassal and smugglers too. Obviously you can get horrible shuffle luck on any board, no matter how good you are, but with Vassal, there just seems to be more of an element that is out of our control.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I just don't love how vassal works
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In fact, it occurs to me that Vassal breaks a common rule of Dominion that we learned about with Tournament.... with Tournament, Donald said that the +1 action wasn't conditional because you shouldn't spend time deciding if you really want to play it or not. Mystic, Wishing Well, and Herald all follow this idea. The exceptions seem to be Tribute (removed in second edition), Golem, and Vassal. These are the cards that when you play, you have to rely on luck to determine if the card was terminal or not. Are there others I'm forgetting?
Well, there's only Avanto that I can think of now.
Sacrifice with +card token.
Well if we're going there.... Stables and Spice Merchant with + card token can do the same.
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How has no one mentioned Golem, the OG "hold my beer" card on whether you get another action.