Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Awaclus on July 02, 2017, 07:17:46 pm

Title: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Awaclus on July 02, 2017, 07:17:46 pm
Man, trash for benefit. It's such a crappy term. It's even worse than "village". Here are all the problems with it:

1) It means different things to different people. Apprentice is clearly TfB according to everyone, but some might say that Forager is TfB because the benefit is dependent on trashing something and some would say that it's not because it doesn't depend on the cost of the trashed card.

2) It's not an overwhelmingly useful term, partially because of its ambiguity too, but mostly because regardless of its meaning, it doesn't ever encompass all of the things that have everything relevant in common with the things that it does encompass. If the point is to care about cost, the part about trashing isn't really relevant and stuff like Chariot Race should be included in the same category. If the point is that you're trashing something while you also maintain tempo, then cards like Masquerade and Loan should be included in the group. If the point is that you need to keep replacing the cards you trash in order to keep benefiting, then stuff like Pillage should be included. All three of these categories have reasons why they are useful for strategy discussion, but it might be the huge overlap with "TfB" that's preventing these categories from entering the picture.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Deadlock39 on July 02, 2017, 07:23:39 pm
One of these definitions can just be replaced with "Cards that make Rats work". Is it a useful thing to talk about? Probably not(or only with relation to Rats), but it fits that particular definition better than TfB.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: sudgy on July 02, 2017, 09:41:15 pm
One of these definitions can just be replaced with "Cards that make Rats work". Is it a useful thing to talk about? Probably not(or only with relation to Rats), but it fits that particular definition better than TfB.

I once made Rats work with Market Square and Embassy.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Titandrake on July 02, 2017, 11:39:30 pm
I don't think I've ever had an issue with this?

To me, a trash-for-benefit card is a card that trashes other cards and does something based on the trashed card's cost.

The other concepts are important too, but it's not like that definition of trash-for-benefit is preventing you from talking about the other cards that don't meet that definition.

I've never seen anybody run into a strategical mental block because they had a slightly different definition of trash-for-benefit.

If you think people do have a mental block on this, think about what name you'd give to the other examples and write something about it. If you have good things to say, it'll catch on.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: schadd on July 02, 2017, 11:41:40 pm
"thing cruncher"
"expensofriend"
"lower-left value theft"
"recycle for utility"
"put it in the pile, something makes you smile"
"destructive money uppers"
"current american politics" (read: pursuit of economic value resulting in casualty; great for walls)
"elizabeth"
"figurative cheese shredders"
"fortress? rats? i'll take thats!"
"cards that aim to increase the potential utility of your deck (either directly or indirectly) that also necessarily trash one or more cards in doing so (but the aforementioned increase in utility is separate from the trashing event itself); a meaningful grouping of these cards would likely stipulate that the improvement in potential utility is discriminatory of the card(s) trashed (for example, causing a greater increase in utility with greater cost of the card trashed, or having different effects based on the type of card trashed) but potentially discourse would lead to the conclusion that any effect of trashing a card and subsequently separately increasing utility ought to fit under this grouping"
"meat grinders, in general, not just butcher"
"card reeducation"
"a use for gold, finally"

hope this helps
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: O on July 02, 2017, 11:42:28 pm
I don't think I've ever had an issue with this?

To me, a trash-for-benefit card is a card that trashes other cards and does something based on the trashed card's cost.

The other concepts are important too, but it's not like that definition of trash-for-benefit is preventing you from talking about the other cards that don't meet that definition.

I've never seen anybody run into a strategical mental block because they had a slightly different definition of trash-for-benefit.

If you think people do have a mental block on this, think about what name you'd give to the other examples and write something about it. If you have good things to say, it'll catch on.

I personally do ask the question "would I use the trashing portion on a fortress in hand for free if I could"

this covers things such as Mercenary and Forager as also being TfB
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Jack Rudd on July 03, 2017, 05:41:52 am
It doesn't have to be the trashed card's cost, but it does have to be some feature of the trashed card that is different for different targets. (Transmute and Counterfeit are trash for benefit, but do not care about their targets' cost.)
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Awaclus on July 03, 2017, 01:03:05 pm
The other concepts are important too, but it's not like that definition of trash-for-benefit is preventing you from talking about the other cards that don't meet that definition.

The other concepts are important. The concept of "trash a card and get a benefit based on its cost" is not, because it's just an arbitrary intersection of those other concepts.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: jsh357 on July 04, 2017, 04:07:36 am
My favorite card that aims to increase the potential utility of your deck (either directly or indirectly) that also necessarily trashes one or more cards in doing so (but the aforementioned increase in utility is separate from the trashing event itself); a meaningful grouping of these cards would likely stipulate that the improvement in potential utility is discriminatory of the card(s) trashed (for example, causing a greater increase in utility with greater cost of the card trashed, or having different effects based on the type of card trashed) but potentially discourse would lead to the conclusion that any effect of trashing a card and subsequently separately increasing utility ought to fit under this grouping is Trade Route. It trashes, it gives buy, it gives coin, and it has a mental game to it. You open estate and all bets are off for your poor opponent. Can any other card that aims to increase the potential utility of your deck (either directly or indirectly) that also necessarily trashes one or more cards in doing so (but the aforementioned increase in utility is separate from the trashing event itself); a meaningful grouping of these cards would likely stipulate that the improvement in potential utility is discriminatory of the card(s) trashed (for example, causing a greater increase in utility with greater cost of the card trashed, or having different effects based on the type of card trashed) but potentially discourse would lead to the conclusion that any effect of trashing a card and subsequently separately increasing utility ought to fit under this grouping do that? I don't think so!
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: jomini on July 08, 2017, 12:14:36 pm
The simple thing is to use the terminology I have used for years:
1. TfB: anything that requires another card to be trashed to give its benefit. This is important because TfB plays extremely differently with no source of +gain. Take something like Moneylender, with +buy I can set up something like Tac/Mlender/Wv and churn a province every turn off drawing 7 stop cards, 3 cantrips and a few dead VP cards. It only costs me $34 worth of setup costs. Likewise with Apprentice, any sort of +gain drastically changes the number and amount of Apprentices I want (e.g. give me two Hoards and  I will slap every extra $5 to Apprentice, give me no +gain and I will still get one or two just to thin down).

In contrast, straight trashers play basically the same with or without gains. Chapel is exceedingly rarely going to want additional copies and need +gain for anything. Once I have thinned the (last) trasher becomes a dead card (at least in terms of trashing) and I treat it as a curse.

This also contrasts against straight benefit cards. Perhaps the best contrast here is between Altar and Artisan. Both gain $5s, but the former eventually runs out of dross and more quickly builds up value density of your deck. The latter can bulk out the deck (e.g. Gardens, Silk roads, Keep) on net.

TfB cares about +gains, straight trashers do not. Other benefit cards do not care about (junk) card count, TfB does.

2. Net trashers: your deck ends up having fewer cards than before you trashed usually. This is important for things like Remodel, Rats, Transmute, Upgrade (on Poorhouse boards), and the like which cannot be used against garbage to thin back down normally and are hence excluded. Boards with only non-net trashers play very differently than those with net trashers.

3. Limited trashers: these are the trash cards that can only work with some sort of restriction on what they trash - Mlender, Hermit, Procession. Again, these play differently than unrestricted trashers particularly in response to various attacks.

4. Scaling TfB: These care about the cost of the card. Sometimes the play the same as a regular TfB (e.g. Upgrade vs Altar with the only +gain being Workshop on a potion board), but other times they care a bunch about cost.

As always there are a few edge cases (e.g. Masq), but most often cards play differently depending on the class they are in with Scaling TfB playing very differently from non-scaling TfB a lot of the time. Something that is a net trasher plays differently than a non-net trasher.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Awaclus on July 08, 2017, 12:32:36 pm
1. TfB: anything that requires another card to be trashed to give its benefit.

So your definition includes Market Square (as it should) but it leaves out Pillage for no reason. Just like all the other cards in this category, Pillage needs you to keep replacing itself in order to get the benefit every time, which means you need more gains.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: DG on July 08, 2017, 12:53:40 pm
Man, trash for benefit. It's such a crappy term. It's even worse than "village". Here are all the problems with it:

Am I the only person who remembers the discussion about what we should call cantrips, as cantrip was a crappy mtg terms that means nothing to anyone who wasn't a mtg player? Serial card would have been so much more logical.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Dylan32 on July 08, 2017, 01:34:39 pm
Man, trash for benefit. It's such a crappy term. It's even worse than "village". Here are all the problems with it:

Am I the only person who remembers the discussion about what we should call cantrips, as cantrip was a crappy mtg terms that means nothing to anyone who wasn't a mtg player? Serial card would have been so much more logical.

I wasn't here for that, but even if cantrip isn't the most intuitive name for it outside of that context, it has one very specific definition (+1 card +1 action).  That is where this conversation diverges, in that Awaclus seems to be saying we need to clarify the exact meaning of TfB or replace it with names for the different classes of TfB rather than just changing the name of 1 very specific and well-defined type of thing.

Edit: "is" -> "isn't" in first sentence.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Awaclus on July 08, 2017, 01:44:16 pm
Man, trash for benefit. It's such a crappy term. It's even worse than "village". Here are all the problems with it:

Am I the only person who remembers the discussion about what we should call cantrips, as cantrip was a crappy mtg terms that means nothing to anyone who wasn't a mtg player? Serial card would have been so much more logical.

It doesn't matter what word is being used, really. Cantrip is much less problematic than village and TfB, because at least the category of cards it describes is a useful thing to talk about, and although some people have different definitions for the word, those are rare (I think) and they don't diverge from the usual definition too much to affect how anyone plays the game as a result of thinking of the cantrip category very slightly differently.


PPE:

I wasn't here for that, but even if cantrip isn't the most intuitive name for it outside of that context, it has one very specific definition (+1 card +1 action).

Well, not quite. Cards like Laboratory and Village, which give more than 1 of those resources, and cards like Oasis and Junk Dealer, which give you those exact numbers but require you to lose other stuff from your hand, are some cases where people disagree on whether or not they count as cantrips. Also I think we all agree that Sage is a cantrip even though it doesn't explicitly say +1 card.

But in the grand Scheme of things, I don't think anyone who's aware of the problems of buying too many cantrips will buy too many Oases even if they think Oasis doesn't count as a cantrip, so it's not as bad as people going for big money because there are no "villages" on the board when there's KC.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: O on July 08, 2017, 08:32:16 pm
Man, trash for benefit. It's such a crappy term. It's even worse than "village". Here are all the problems with it:

Am I the only person who remembers the discussion about what we should call cantrips, as cantrip was a crappy mtg terms that means nothing to anyone who wasn't a mtg player? Serial card would have been so much more logical.

It doesn't matter what word is being used, really. Cantrip is much less problematic than village and TfB, because at least the category of cards it describes is a useful thing to talk about, and although some people have different definitions for the word, those are rare (I think) and they don't diverge from the usual definition too much to affect how anyone plays the game as a result of thinking of the cantrip category very slightly differently.


PPE:

I wasn't here for that, but even if cantrip isn't the most intuitive name for it outside of that context, it has one very specific definition (+1 card +1 action).

Well, not quite. Cards like Laboratory and Village, which give more than 1 of those resources, and cards like Oasis and Junk Dealer, which give you those exact numbers but require you to lose other stuff from your hand, are some cases where people disagree on whether or not they count as cantrips. Also I think we all agree that Sage is a cantrip even though it doesn't explicitly say +1 card.

But in the grand Scheme of things, I don't think anyone who's aware of the problems of buying too many cantrips will buy too many Oases even if they think Oasis doesn't count as a cantrip, so it's not as bad as people going for big money because there are no "villages" on the board when there's KC.

Villages aren't a complete concept but calling them not useful is interesting. Maybe it's obfuscating the core concept of "+action, pseudo or actual" but it makes sense from the direction of describing things in terms of simplistic base cards that are more accessible.

I'm kind of curious if Oasis spam is actually more of a problem then ignoring KC. Even new players seem to understand that KC is a strong card in my experience.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: pacovf on July 09, 2017, 01:51:22 am
1. TfB: anything that requires another card to be trashed to give its benefit.

So your definition includes Market Square (as it should) but it leaves out Pillage for no reason. Just like all the other cards in this category, Pillage needs you to keep replacing itself in order to get the benefit every time, which means you need more gains.

You don't like the term one-shot?
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Awaclus on July 09, 2017, 02:55:11 am
1. TfB: anything that requires another card to be trashed to give its benefit.

So your definition includes Market Square (as it should) but it leaves out Pillage for no reason. Just like all the other cards in this category, Pillage needs you to keep replacing itself in order to get the benefit every time, which means you need more gains.

You don't like the term one-shot?

Do you think Apprentice is a one-shot? I don't have anything in particular against the term one-shot, but the category that describes cards that require you to gain more cards to trash needs to encompass all of Pillage, Apprentice, Squire and Market Square at the same time. At least one-shot actually has the upside of being a very clearly defined term right now, so let's not start calling Market Square a one-shot.

Villages aren't a complete concept but calling them not useful is interesting. Maybe it's obfuscating the core concept of "+action, pseudo or actual" but it makes sense from the direction of describing things in terms of simplistic base cards that are more accessible.

Well, I wouldn't say that they are not useful at all, because some do people use the term village as though it was interchangeable with the term splitter. In that case, it is describing the useful thing, and the word itself doesn't really matter as I already said — the definition does. The only problem is the distinction between villages and pseudo-villages that some people make, because that distinction is counterproductive.

I'm kind of curious if Oasis spam is actually more of a problem then ignoring KC. Even new players seem to understand that KC is a strong card in my experience.

I'm not talking about new players, I'm talking about intermediate players who already learn from f.ds and think in our vocabulary. Those people know that you should generally go for the engine most of the time if you can, and that you shouldn't buy too many cantrips because of terminal draw and discard attacks. I have literally seen those kinds of players not wanting to go for the engine on an obvious engine board just because the only splitter was a "pseudo-village", but I haven't heard of anyone justifying a bad play with "it's a pseudo-cantrip" or something.

As far as people who overbuy Oases are concerned, I don't think that us calling or not calling them cantrips makes any difference in their play.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: aku_chi on July 09, 2017, 06:17:50 am
Do you think Apprentice is a one-shot? I don't have anything in particular against the term one-shot, but the category that describes cards that require you to gain more cards to trash needs to encompass all of Pillage, Apprentice, Squire and Market Square at the same time. At least one-shot actually has the upside of being a very clearly defined term right now, so let's not start calling Market Square a one-shot.

Why is Market Square in this category?  Market Square is a gainer.  So long as you have multiple Market Squares, you can trash a Gold to get more Gold.  Like, Market Square is the kind of card that makes Apprentice decks never run out of good fuel, so putting them in the same category is strange.  IMO, Market Square's reaction is a pretty unique, and I don't think it's very helpful to try to categorize it with other cards.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Awaclus on July 09, 2017, 07:09:53 am
Why is Market Square in this category?  Market Square is a gainer.  So long as you have multiple Market Squares, you can trash a Gold to get more Gold.  Like, Market Square is the kind of card that makes Apprentice decks never run out of good fuel, so putting them in the same category is strange.  IMO, Market Square's reaction is a pretty unique, and I don't think it's very helpful to try to categorize it with other cards.

It requires you to trash a card in order to get its benefit. The fact that it's also a gainer just means that it has self-synergy, not that it's not in the same category as all the other cards that require you to trash a card in order to get their benefits.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Jack Rudd on July 09, 2017, 08:25:09 am
I have a three-way categorization for trashers. There are:
Trade Route and Forager fall into category 2.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Donald X. on July 09, 2017, 04:20:00 pm
Do you think Apprentice is a one-shot? I don't have anything in particular against the term one-shot, but the category that describes cards that require you to gain more cards to trash needs to encompass all of Pillage, Apprentice, Squire and Market Square at the same time. At least one-shot actually has the upside of being a very clearly defined term right now, so let's not start calling Market Square a one-shot.
Speaking as someone who has communicated about Dominion, like, a lot, I have never felt the need for a term that specifically includes Pillage, Apprentice, Squire, and Market Square.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: schadd on July 09, 2017, 04:43:40 pm
someone who has communicated about Dominion, like, a lot
hey same
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: markusin on July 09, 2017, 05:52:38 pm
1. TfB: anything that requires another card to be trashed to give its benefit.

So your definition includes Market Square (as it should) but it leaves out Pillage for no reason. Just like all the other cards in this category, Pillage needs you to keep replacing itself in order to get the benefit every time, which means you need more gains.

Funny, I kind of do think about Pillage as "trash-for-benefit" that happens to trash itself, even if only subconsciously. I mean, the way Pillage influences my strategy is often similar to the way other "trash-for-benefit" cards like Remodel influence it. I mean, I want an extra source of gains if I want to use Pillage in order to sustain my momentum. I guess Procession fits this idea of "trash-for-benefit" too then?
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: werothegreat on July 09, 2017, 07:36:04 pm
Isn't every trasher a trash-for-benefit card?  Even if it's the indirect benefit of getting rid of crappy cards?

If it's specifically for Salvager-style cards, why not something like "cost converter" - it turns the cost of a card into something else.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: scone on July 11, 2017, 01:18:52 am
If the point is to care about cost, the part about trashing isn't really relevant and stuff like Chariot Race should be included in the same category.
To my mind, scaling with cost is the most salient part. And it happens to be the case that, until the last expansion, the only cards that liked high costs were trashers. So people talk about 'trash for benefit' instead of 'cards that are better when you have high cost cards'.

The only non-trashing example I can think of other than Chariot Race is Patrician. Even that one is a bit of a stretch. Unlike Salvager/Bishop/Apprentice and the many Remodel variants that have been printed, it doesn't scale monotonically with cost. Neither Chariot Race nor Patrician is going to make me super-excited to go for overcosted cards like Peddler/Border Village/Rats, compared to most TfB cards.

Am I forgetting any others?
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Awaclus on July 11, 2017, 05:47:05 am
If the point is to care about cost, the part about trashing isn't really relevant and stuff like Chariot Race should be included in the same category.
To my mind, scaling with cost is the most salient part. And it happens to be the case that, until the last expansion, the only cards that liked high costs were trashers. So people talk about 'trash for benefit' instead of 'cards that are better when you have high cost cards'.

The only non-trashing example I can think of other than Chariot Race is Patrician. Even that one is a bit of a stretch. Unlike Salvager/Bishop/Apprentice and the many Remodel variants that have been printed, it doesn't scale monotonically with cost. Neither Chariot Race nor Patrician is going to make me super-excited to go for overcosted cards like Peddler/Border Village/Rats, compared to most TfB cards.

Am I forgetting any others?

Chariot Race should make you super-excited to go for Peddler and Border Village, and Rats if there's no better way to get rid of your low-cost junk.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Gherald on July 11, 2017, 10:32:42 pm
Cards like Remodel play fundamentally differently from cards like Forager.

If you define TfB to be just anything that gives some kind of benefit from trashing out of some misguided sophomoric attempt at literalism, the term is useless.

There are more precise ways to define what cards like Remodel do, however none of them roll of the tongue or make intuitive sense like TfB, so people say TfB.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: werothegreat on July 11, 2017, 10:46:32 pm
There are more precise ways to define what cards like Remodel do, however none of them roll of the tongue or make intuitive sense like TfB, so people say TfB.

Uhhhhh I just call them Remodels.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Awaclus on July 12, 2017, 04:16:44 am
If you define TfB to be just anything that gives some kind of benefit from trashing out of some misguided sophomoric attempt at literalism, the term is useless.

The definition of "anything that gives some kind of benefit from trashing" is inherently one of the useful things to categorize, independently of the fact that it's what the term TfB literally means.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Q on July 12, 2017, 07:26:02 am
Cards like Remodel play fundamentally differently from cards like Forager.

If you define TfB to be just anything that gives some kind of benefit from trashing out of some misguided sophomoric attempt at literalism, the term is useless.

There are more precise ways to define what cards like Remodel do, however none of them roll of the tongue or make intuitive sense like TfB, so people say TfB.
This.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: ashersky on July 12, 2017, 08:36:58 am
If it's specifically cards that trash and gain (or gain and trash), you could go with a portmanteau:

Gasher or Trainer both work.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: Q on July 12, 2017, 04:17:53 pm
Waht about Replace then? Junking, trashing and gaining; juasher, trunker or gunksher?
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: jomini on July 12, 2017, 09:21:03 pm
A discussion about useful terminology gets weighed down by useless edge casing because no Dominion taxonomy can be both complete and useful.

Shocking.

The real benefit of "TfB" is that TfB's play differently than general trashers, outside of edge cases that I am sure someone will waste time delineating.

TfB's are cards you might consider playing for the rest of the game and get better with things like +buy/cheap gain (e.g. Beggar). Would you gain a card just to feed this trasher outside of edge-case-land? Then it is a TfB. Would I gain a copper to keep a Moneylender running? Yes, though rarely. That makes him TfB. Relatedly, would you gain multiple copies of this trasher? Yes, then it is very likely this is a TfB. TfB cares a bunch more about action balance, draw space, gains, etc. Are there edge cases (e.g. Pillage)? Yes. Does that actually matter? No.

Scaling TfB, like all TfB can care a lot about the stuff above - gains, action balance, duplicate copies. However it also cares about an additional constraint - card cost. This, again, plays differently. Sacrifice does not care if you are burning Estates (say from Baron) or Duchies (say from Duke). You can make Sacrifice work equally well (to a first order approximation) with any gain of green. Bishop can also work with gain of green, but Bishop does care about price. Using an action on Baron to fuel Bishop is 33% weaker than using Count. On the other hand, Bishop provides a much higher ceiling for VP gain. Scaling TfB cares almost as much about what you can gain as the fact that you can gain extra cards at all.

Isn't every trasher a trash-for-benefit card?  Even if it's the indirect benefit of getting rid of crappy cards?

If it's specifically for Salvager-style cards, why not something like "cost converter" - it turns the cost of a card into something else.
No.

For instance Mute is a trasher - it will trigger Tomb and leave stuff in the trash. By and large it does not get rid of crappy coppers even though it trashes them. Upgrade on a Poorhouse, Bandit Fort, Silver-only-$3, and Potion-only-$4 board likewise does not get rid of junk. Upgrade or Remake would still trash, but they would not get rid of junk they will instead just leave you with other things.

TfB is something that provides you with a benefit above and beyond deck thinning. That is why it is a useful way of looking at the board.
If the point is to care about cost, the part about trashing isn't really relevant and stuff like Chariot Race should be included in the same category.
To my mind, scaling with cost is the most salient part.
...

Am I forgetting any others?



Quarry  & Ferry are obvious choices for stuff that likes high cost more than low cost, but pretty much all the cost reducers scale geometrically with the cost of useful cards on the board. I am much more likely to build out to $7. Hop was also a big winning on expensive boards.

Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: GendoIkari on July 12, 2017, 10:27:37 pm
Quarry  & Ferry are obvious choices for stuff that likes high cost more than low cost, but pretty much all the cost reducers scale geometrically with the cost of useful cards on the board. I am much more likely to build out to $7. Hop was also a big winning on expensive boards.

I would have thought the exact opposite. If a card is so expensive that you can only afford 1 of them, then Quarry is just a Gold (a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) Gold is pretty good, but still just a Gold). Whereas if there's cheap cards that you want a lot of, then Quarry makes it much easier to but a bunch of them, quite possibly even 1 for every buy you have. Basically, with all cost reducers, they get better the more cards you buy per turn. Expensive cards are harder to buy multiples of, even with cost reducers.
Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: jomini on July 13, 2017, 12:14:41 am
Quarry  & Ferry are obvious choices for stuff that likes high cost more than low cost, but pretty much all the cost reducers scale geometrically with the cost of useful cards on the board. I am much more likely to build out to $7. Hop was also a big winning on expensive boards.

I would have thought the exact opposite. If a card is so expensive that you can only afford 1 of them, then Quarry is just a Gold (a (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png) Gold is pretty good, but still just a Gold). Whereas if there's cheap cards that you want a lot of, then Quarry makes it much easier to but a bunch of them, quite possibly even 1 for every buy you have. Basically, with all cost reducers, they get better the more cards you buy per turn. Expensive cards are harder to buy multiples of, even with cost reducers.

Timing. Ferry on a $5 means you can open a power card. Ferry/Quarry on a $6 (e.g. Altar, Artisan) or $7 (e.g. Forge) can knock whole shuffles off your build out time. Using a $4 to get a card on T3/T4 that you normally would not see until T7/T8 is often a 12 VP swing.

Additionally, playing around with things like Ferry and Quarry come in direct conflict with just buying the cheap thing you want anyways. Say the clutch card is $3. I drop a Ferry on it. If it does not come with a +buy itself I need a +buy to use my Ferry at all. This means that on T3/4 at best I end up with 3 copies of the card in my deck. My opponent most likely gets four just buying them every turn. At best then, I get my fourth and fifth copies while my opponent gains his fifth. I come out whatever the +buy is ahead at the risk of increased risk of losing the split very badly (e.g. my second shot of +buy comes later in the shuffle). $4 cards are even more dicey as I need to line up +buy and enough cash to use it.

We have another card that is phenomenal at getting many copies of cheap things. It is called Talisman and while I think it is undervalued in the main, it is nowhere near as versatile as say Quarry.

Ferry is not as good on lost cost boards as it only hits one pile at a go, typically low cost bulk is going to be a mix of draw, village, payload, attacks, thinning, etc. This means you burn several buys on moving the Ferry or only using the cost discount something like 5 times.

Quarry is better at the game you propose, but it is yet much better doing the same thing on a high cost board. Quarries stack and suddenly Quarry/Quarry/Market/Copper gains a Kc/Market turn 1, then 2 Kc & 1 Market and then you can pile all the markets the next turn.

So basically I look at it like this:
Cost reduction for "singleton" power cards (e.g. Altar, Forge, Expand) make Ferry/Quarry that much better because getting the big guns out on T3/T4 is so huge.

Cost reduction for "massed" power cards (e.g. Minion, GMarket, Kc, Nobles, Hparties, Possession) means that you can either hit them every turn with Ferry or stack them with +buy for mass gain with Quarry.

Obviously, you are completely correct that these cards let you bulk up on cheap stuff easy (e.g Ferry/Steward is an excellent opening for massing something like Caravan), but it is fairly rare that big cards both time insensitive AND not getting massed (often being the the key split to win). Of the times when that rarity occurs the big cards are most likely something you are ignoring ... and quite likely would ignore Ferry/Quarry as well for gaining cheap stuff (e.g. Silver flooding can make all cost reduction suck).

So no, I would totally stand by Quarry and Ferry working better on high priced things. Shaving off a shuffle is huge while being able to buy $5 on average starting hands/stacking +buy & cost reduction is way too powerful. Quarry's power grows linearly with each +buy you utilize (which is awesome on cheap boards), but grows grows mildly exponentially on high cost boards with +buy.



Title: Re: If there were alternative terms for TfB, I'd switch over immediately
Post by: ackmondual on July 13, 2017, 12:38:06 am
Remember... it's +2 cards, NOT draw 2 cards! :p