Dominion Strategy Forum

Archive => Archive => Dominion: Nocturne Previews => Topic started by: Seprix on November 16, 2017, 11:41:30 am

Title: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Seprix on November 16, 2017, 11:41:30 am
Okay. Now all of the cards are out. What stands out? What seems bad? Any sleepers? Any duds?

edit: I have given my full Initial Impressions here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17894.msg733631#msg733631).
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on November 16, 2017, 12:24:13 pm
Okay. Now all of the cards are out. What stands out? What seems bad? Any sleepers? Any duds?

You’re just trying to lure us into making statements we will all laugh at in two years.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Awaclus on November 16, 2017, 12:46:33 pm
Okay. Now all of the cards are out. What stands out? What seems bad? Any sleepers? Any duds?

You’re just trying to lure us into making statements we will all laugh at in two years.

But he's also making them himself (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17877.msg733001#msg733001).
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on November 16, 2017, 12:47:59 pm
In all seriousness, I'm eager to see what people think, both about the non-previewed cards and how our perceptions of previewed cards may have changed in the context of the rest of the set.

Of the non-previewed cards, I really like the idea of Monastery as a new twist on a Remodeler.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 16, 2017, 01:27:52 pm
Did anyone else notice that they changed the wording on Leprechaun? (I think I'm looking at it right) The new wording makes it a little bit more usable. I liked the card a lot initially, but when I tried it online, it seemed really hard to do anything useful with it. What do you all think?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 16, 2017, 01:28:25 pm
Oh, also, Magic Lamp seems like a lot of fun, but I don't know if it's any good.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: dedicateddan on November 16, 2017, 01:28:38 pm
Den of sin is great. The gaining to hand is a big tempo boost.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 16, 2017, 01:30:21 pm
Okay. Now all of the cards are out. What stands out? What seems bad? Any sleepers? Any duds?

You’re just trying to lure us into making statements we will all laugh at in two years.

LOL so true!
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 16, 2017, 01:35:19 pm
I think Conclave seems really weak and not interesting at all, but maybe I'm missing something.

Monastery will obviously be really strong. It only costs 2; It is essentially non-terminal, and it can trash coppers that are IN PLAY. Obviously, this is not quite as good as chapel, but it can really do some work I think,
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: crj on November 16, 2017, 02:22:24 pm
My biggest problem with Conclave is that (at least at the resolution in the rulebook) the art appears to depict just one person, who's not in a private place.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: JThorne on November 16, 2017, 02:30:34 pm
I suggested that Empires was the "eat your vegetables" expansion, providing many, many more ways to get points, including green cards that weren't even in your deck, and often damaging decks for the careless. On theme, Nocturne is the "patience is a virtue" expansion.

It seems to disproportionately dole out cards that do nothing on the current hand but set up for later. The night cards are obvious, giving no immediate benefit and mostly being used to set up the following turn or turns. But it's also gainer-heavy, and gainers generally give no benefit until after the next shuffle. And it has super-powered cards that are difficult to acquire, which are only going to be worth the trouble if they combine with the right pieces.

Because of this, my guess is that it will particularly reward players who have a well-thought-out detailed plan for their deck-building process, and severely punish those who don't. While that's generally the case in Dominion, it's been significantly amplified.

It's the kind of expansion that should make anyone who was thinking about building an adaptive Domonion bot algorithm throw up their hands and give up completely.

I predict having to repeatedly ask members of my IRL playgroup, "What were you thinking? What exactly was your plan?" after a Nocturne-card-related muddle of a deck goes utterly nowhere.

I love it! More skill-testers!

P.S. There will be many kingdoms where I ridicule players mercilessly if they use their wishes for Gold. I can already see it happening when it would be desperately foolish. I'm going to go write some canned insults to have on hand for the occasion right now...
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: MattTV on November 16, 2017, 02:30:37 pm
I think Conclave seems really weak and not interesting at all, but maybe I'm missing something.

Monastery will obviously be really strong. It only costs 2; It is essentially non-terminal, and it can trash coppers that are IN PLAY. Obviously, this is not quite as good as chapel, but it can really do some work I think,

Yeah... i think for 4, Conclave is ridiculously OP. It basically turns any terminal draw into a mega laboratory with +2 coin and turns every other terminal action into a mega village. I mean you won't get to repeat it with the same actions and maybe have a drawback on durations but that's still a little better than labs.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Witherweaver on November 16, 2017, 02:31:16 pm
Okay. Now all of the cards are out. What stands out? What seems bad? Any sleepers? Any duds?

Dominion is more ruined than ever before!
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 16, 2017, 02:41:01 pm
I think Conclave seems really weak and not interesting at all, but maybe I'm missing something.
I think Conclave:Festival::Imp:Laboratory (except for missing +1 buy), approximately. Among the 96 $5'ers in the Qvist rankings, Laboratory is 23 and Festival is 58, so maybe this'll be a middling $4-coster?

To serve as the sole village of an engine, it needs multiple different cards that draw. The fact that it doesn't draw a card by itself restricts its use quite a bit. On the other hand, it provides economy while you build up; maybe that compensates for it being a... shall we say wonky village?

Monastery will obviously be really strong. It only costs 2; It is essentially non-terminal, and it can trash coppers that are IN PLAY. Obviously, this is not quite as good as chapel, but it can really do some work I think.
This is not obvious to me.

Trashing is most valuable early. Number of cards gained per turn is low early and high mid-to-late game. The effect of getting to play the copper you trash is roughly comparable to the +$1 from Forager, another non-terminal trasher—unless you can play and then trash multiple Coppers.

I think the best case is something like "play Ironworks to gain a card, buy a card for $3 and trash two Coppers". That's a pretty strong turn 12 to 15 3 or 4 turn, but it's also somewhat unlikely. More likely is something like Monastery, Estate, 3xCopper. Here you buy a card for $3 and trash an Estate; a Salvager or Moneylender would've let you hit $5 (but they also cost more).

I think it'll be a pretty decent trasher; probably somewhere between the better single-card trashers and the weaker multi-card trashers, which is... just exactly among the top ~25% of trashers? Maybe?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Violet CLM on November 16, 2017, 03:01:19 pm
I don't know how powerful Conclave is, but it looks like it'll be so much fun to use correctly that it'll be easy to buy too many by mistake. It also reminds me a lot of Intrigue for some reason.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: trivialknot on November 16, 2017, 03:13:59 pm
I think Monastery is most similar Forager.  In the early game, Forager gives you $0 when you trash Estate, and $1 when you trash copper, and Monastery is the same.  Of course, it behaves differently later in the game.  And there is that Beggar/Monastery combo...
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on November 16, 2017, 03:16:46 pm
I think the best case is something like "play Ironworks to gain a card, buy a card for $3 and trash two Coppers".

Transmogrify + Monastery seems like a good case.

TM an estate into a Monastery, buy a card, trash 2 things.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: tastor on November 16, 2017, 03:18:02 pm
Monastery will obviously be really strong. It only costs 2; It is essentially non-terminal, and it can trash coppers that are IN PLAY. Obviously, this is not quite as good as chapel, but it can really do some work I think.
This is not obvious to me.

Trashing is most valuable early. Number of cards gained per turn is low early and high mid-to-late game. The effect of getting to play the copper you trash is roughly comparable to the +$1 from Forager, another non-terminal trasher—unless you can play and then trash multiple Coppers.

I think the best case is something like "play Ironworks to gain a card, buy a card for $3 and trash two Coppers". That's a pretty strong turn 12 to 15 3 or 4 turn, but it's also somewhat unlikely. More likely is something like Monastery, Estate, 3xCopper. Here you buy a card for $3 and trash an Estate; a Salvager or Moneylender would've let you hit $5 (but they also cost more).

I think it'll be a pretty decent trasher; probably somewhere between the better single-card trashers and the weaker multi-card trashers, which is... just exactly among the top ~25% of trashers? Maybe?

I think with most Night cards the non-terminal nature is a big plus. You can open Monastery/terminal and not have to worry about collisions. And the fact that you can trash a copper in play means you aren't forced into those awkward decisions of buying a better card earlier or trashing a copper or two. These two properties also keep it relevant into the mid-game where you can play GSSC and buy a Province and trash the copper you played, or do a big terminal draw and still trash stuff.

I'd mostly agree with your placement, although I think it could easily be on par or better than the weaker multi-trashers, depending on the kingdom of course.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 16, 2017, 03:18:52 pm
I think Changeling has the potential to be pretty strong—King's Court for $3, <8>-cost or potion-cost cards for $3, seems pretty nice. I'm very unsure about how costly gain-via-Changeling is—it's $3 (and a buy), but it's also a card you have to draw in order to play with your other card (which takes luck), and it takes time before you draw the copy you gained. Probably it's something you aim to do when your engine is just about up and running and it's time to add payload?

The strength of Changeling will obviously be highly kingdom-dependent, more so than your average card. I think it'll synergize well with Silver gainers—Lucky Coin and Masterpiece spring to mind.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: tastor on November 16, 2017, 03:25:35 pm
The strength of Changeling will obviously be highly kingdom-dependent, more so than your average card. I think it'll synergize well with Silver gainers—Lucky Coin and Masterpiece spring to mind.

Yeah I was curious what the use cases for this aspect was. Noticed right away the Lucky Coin synergy (mostly cause I quickly get sick of LC gaining me silvers) but wondering if there is some other fancy stuff you can do with it. Trader is another interesting one: turn the junk card you're getting into a silver into a Changeling.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 16, 2017, 03:36:41 pm
I think with most Night cards the non-terminal nature is a big plus. [...] Do a big terminal draw and still trash stuff.
Oh hey, I still haven't quite internalized that Night cards are extra-super-special-non-terminal, in that you can't draw them dead.

I would get a Monastery in ~100% of my Smithy/BM games for this reason.

I'd mostly agree with your placement, although I think it could easily be on par or better than the weaker multi-trashers, depending on the kingdom of course.
So something like Chapel > Steward, Remake > Monastery > Temple, Trading Post?

Compared to Sentry, I think Monastery is... very different.

And the fact that you can trash a copper in play means you aren't forced into those awkward decisions of buying a better card earlier or trashing a copper or two.
True; something it has in common with Forager and trash-from-deck cards (Sentry, Lookout, Loan, Doctor). Of these, it's probably most similar to Forager.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on November 16, 2017, 03:54:44 pm
I think the best case is something like "play Ironworks to gain a card, buy a card for $3 and trash two Coppers".

Transmogrify + Monastery seems like a good case.

TM an estate into a Monastery, buy a card, trash 2 things.

Or, staying in Nocturne: substitute Cobbler for Transmogrify.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: chipperMDW on November 16, 2017, 04:10:29 pm
The strength of Changeling will obviously be highly kingdom-dependent, more so than your average card. I think it'll synergize well with Silver gainers—Lucky Coin and Masterpiece spring to mind.

Yeah I was curious what the use cases for this aspect was. Noticed right away the Lucky Coin synergy (mostly cause I quickly get sick of LC gaining me silvers) but wondering if there is some other fancy stuff you can do with it. Trader is another interesting one: turn the junk card you're getting into a silver into a Changeling.

I think it's neat with cards where you want the on-buy or on-gain effect, but don't necessarily want the card itself.

Like Mint. Buy it for the trashing effect, then get a Changeling instead and use that to gain something useful.

Or Border Village; yeah, a spending $6 and getting a $5-card and a village is nice, but getting two $5-cards (one delayed a bit) might be nicer. Or, for recursive fun: grab one Border Village for real so you can gain others with Changeling; turn the new Border Villages into Changelings while grabbing $5-cards, and use the Changelings to get more Border Villages so you can get more $5-cards...
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Skumpy on November 16, 2017, 04:34:05 pm
After one League Match with them:

Bard seems really bad. I'm not even sure it passes the Silver test.


On the other hand, Silver/terminalSilver + Night Watchman on a 4/3 guarantees a $6 on turn 3, which is really nice (I still lost that game).
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: tastor on November 16, 2017, 05:13:58 pm
Oh hey, I still haven't quite internalized that Night cards are extra-super-special-non-terminal, in that you can't draw them dead.

I would get a Monastery in ~100% of my Smithy/BM games for this reason.

Oh absolutely. I feel like my entire morning was looking at cards and thinking: "Den of Sin...why is this worth $5 when it's just half of a Wharf?...ohhhh because it can't be drawn dead!"

It's kind of amusing having the same revelation repeatedly.

Quote
So something like Chapel > Steward, Remake > Monastery > Temple, Trading Post?

Hrmmm yeah that seems a good initial estimate.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 16, 2017, 05:27:34 pm
Secret Cave looks interesting—obvious comparisons are Mill (cantrip DfB) and the next-turn effect of Swamp Hag, i.e. +$3. Where Mill is good at hitting $5 early, Secret Cave looks good at spiking to $6 or sometimes $7. It probably plays well in a Minion stack that's either lightly trashed down, or trashed back up with green, or that just doesn't do enough with an even Minion split; there it probably plays about the same as Mill.

Obvious Nocturne synergy is Faithful Hound. I was waiting for doggie's other shoe to drop. In general, DfB and other action-phase payload plays well with draw-to-x, such as Cursed Village.

Den of Sin is a non-terminal Enchantress without the attack. Cards (and actions) are at their most precious at the start of your turn; I probably want it whenever I'm building an engine, 4 is good and 6 is better, but I probably don't want it to be my only draw.

Tragic Hero seems the... hardest to use for great effect. In BM it's a Smithy for $5, which is slower than a Smithy for $4. In an engine... meh, you'll want action phase payload because it'll play somewhat like a draw-to-x because you don't want more than x; gaining a treasure anti-(self-)synergizes with that kind of deck.

I'm notsureif Guardian passes the Lighthouse test or vice versa; I guess with good deck tracking, a tactically timed Guardian can help you hit $n+1.

Sacred Grove is a bigger and better Woodcutter. When that's your +buy you take it.

I have no idea about Tormentor.

Leprechaun: A Gold gainer for $3—eh, if only I knew how bad Hexes are on average. Opening double Gold gainer seems pretty okay if you're playing a money game.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: MattTV on November 16, 2017, 05:28:07 pm
After one League Match with them:

Bard seems really bad. I'm not even sure it passes the Silver test.

Yeah I'm not really too thrilled with the fate cards. Like there are maybe 2 or 3 boons that are actually decent but the rest are just okay.  It's not really something I'd want to revolve my strategy around cycling through the boon deck hoping to get one of the decent effects.

I actually really like the Doom cards though. I feel like the hexes are like polar opposites of boons where there are 8 good attacks and of those like 2 or 3 game-changing attacks. So at least with the hexes they're actually worth cycling through to see how badly you can damage your opponent.     
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: RTT on November 16, 2017, 06:20:21 pm
if you enjoy 3 hours of Nocturne Impression talk i got something for you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H-qgBBqFoo&feature=youtu.be
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: ConMan on November 16, 2017, 06:44:22 pm
I find Changeling's wording interesting since you actually finish gaining the card, then you exchange it for the Changeling, unlike Trader which operates in the mysterious "would gain" space. Speaking of which, it has a very minor synergy (sorry) with Trader, since you can "would gain" a cheap card like Curse or Copper, reveal Trader to instead gain Silver, then exchange the Silver for a Changeling.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: MattTV on November 16, 2017, 07:23:19 pm
I like pretty much like all the night cards except maybe cobbler but even that one is pretty decent.

Of all the newer cards that stand out the most, I would say Night Watchman, Secret Cave/Magic Lamp, and  Tormentor. 

Night watchman: I've always liked cards that help you customize your hand like haven. This one I feel is a much faster version of cartographer where you can filter out the cards immediately and then continue to cycle for a better deck pretty quickly. Definitely nice.

Secret Cave/Magic Lamp: It's funny to see that these 2 are polar opposites as far as working against each other mechanically. I think the Secret Cave has some potential to combo off with cursed village, watch tower, etc. and even in the late game when your cycling through the greens to get that last province. But I'm more interested in the Magic lamp. I like how it's a reasonable challenge with a game changing reward that I think feels little nicer than treasure maps.

Tormentor: Tormentor I can see being my new favorite attack. I like how you kinda have the option to easily dish in some imps which in effect will help cycle through the Tormentors and attack. Then just buy some more tormentors to attack some more. But it's almost like the card has a built in combo which is really cool and I happen to really like hexing..so yeah definitely one of my favorites.

Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Seprix on November 16, 2017, 07:51:52 pm
Okay. Now all of the cards are out. What stands out? What seems bad? Any sleepers? Any duds?

You’re just trying to lure us into making statements we will all laugh at in two years.

Where's the bravery? I want some hot takes!
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: ehunt on November 16, 2017, 08:26:34 pm
shepherd makes estates like real good

shepherd inheritance has to be crazy
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: ehunt on November 16, 2017, 08:29:16 pm
i mean remember when xroads was crazy??? then we realized it wasnt so crazy? shepherd is crazy, PS estates give you points now too
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: octelium on November 16, 2017, 08:31:59 pm
Changeling + Humble Castle......
Changeling + Knights ......

Probably not amazing.... but could be interesting....
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: J Reggie on November 16, 2017, 08:59:52 pm
Changeling + Humble Castle......
Changeling + Knights ......

Probably not amazing.... but could be interesting....

So that you can trash the changeling without gaining anything?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: trivialknot on November 16, 2017, 09:08:25 pm
Okay, some hot takes based on zero playing with the cards:

Bard is good, and will rank near other power cards like Navigator and Nomad Camp.
Blessed Village is really strong, although still below Worker's Village.
Trashing 2 estates to Cemetery is good.
Crypt and Exorcist are two of the strongest cards in the set.
Den of Sin will prove once and for all that the hypothetical fully-delayed-Caravan is better than Caravan.
Druid is bad but you will reluctantly buy them anyway.
Ghost Town is not that good, but you will reluctantly buy out the pile anyway.
Monastery/Banquet will be a thing.
A Necromancer combo deck will eventually be found.
Pooka is fine, but people will underrate it because they will play it poorly.
Shepherd needs support to be good.
Skulk/Apprentice will be a thing.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Seprix on November 16, 2017, 09:18:20 pm
Okay, some hot takes based on zero playing with the cards:

Bard is good, and will rank near other power cards like Navigator and Nomad Camp.


I see what you did there
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 16, 2017, 10:39:05 pm
I think Conclave seems really weak and not interesting at all, but maybe I'm missing something.

Monastery will obviously be really strong. It only costs 2; It is essentially non-terminal, and it can trash coppers that are IN PLAY. Obviously, this is not quite as good as chapel, but it can really do some work I think,

Yeah... i think for 4, Conclave is ridiculously OP. It basically turns any terminal draw into a mega laboratory with +2 coin and turns every other terminal action into a mega village. I mean you won't get to repeat it with the same actions and maybe have a drawback on durations but that's still a little better than labs.

I don't think it's OP at all. It's just a village variant. It has the added bonus that you get money and the disadvantage that you are limited in how many you can play it and it also does not draw you a card like some villages do. I would not by any means call that OP. It's an appropriately powered village variant.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on November 17, 2017, 12:14:20 am
Okay. Now all of the cards are out. What stands out? What seems bad? Any sleepers? Any duds?

You’re just trying to lure us into making statements we will all laugh at in two years.

Where's the bravery? I want some hot takes!


……(\_/)
……( ‘_’)   Monastery <<< Chapel
…./”"”"”"”"”"”"\======░ ▒▓▓█D
/”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”\
\_@_@_@_@_@_/
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 17, 2017, 12:17:08 am
Hot take, Tracker is a sleeper card. Like, A tier.

The topdecking ability on a $2 cost terminal Copper (sometimes Silver) is interesting enough, but Wisps from Swamp's Gift and the $4 from Earth's Gift can get topdecked too, as well as the Silver and Gold from Mountain's Gift and Sky's Gift respectively. Many of the other Boons help you buy better cards to topdeck that turn, and you always have Pouch as a source of +Buy to topdeck two cheaper components.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Accatitippi on November 17, 2017, 02:23:51 am
Yeah, it's like one of those games where you get a window of opportunity to get an early royal seal. I always get surprised at how well it performs.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 06:36:34 am
Hot take, Tracker is a sleeper card. Like, A tier.

The topdecking ability on a $2 cost terminal Copper (sometimes Silver) is interesting enough, but Wisps from Swamp's Gift and the $4 from Earth's Gift can get topdecked too, as well as the Silver and Gold from Mountain's Gift and Sky's Gift respectively. Many of the other Boons help you buy better cards to topdeck that turn, and you always have Pouch as a source of +Buy to topdeck two cheaper components.
I don't think the fact that you get a boon is quite strong enough to make up for the fact that it's terminal (unless you get the +1 action boon, but of course you can't count on that).
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 06:48:47 am
Bard is the new Scout.
HOT TAKE!!!!      HOT TAKE!!!!      HOT TAKE!!!!    HOT TAKE!!!!
                                     #RealBad #Navigatorisbetter #NeverBuy #ShouldCost3.          #StillWouldntBuyAt3
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 17, 2017, 07:37:05 am
Hot take, Tracker is a sleeper card. Like, A tier.

The topdecking ability on a $2 cost terminal Copper (sometimes Silver) is interesting enough, but Wisps from Swamp's Gift and the $4 from Earth's Gift can get topdecked too, as well as the Silver and Gold from Mountain's Gift and Sky's Gift respectively. Many of the other Boons help you buy better cards to topdeck that turn, and you always have Pouch as a source of +Buy to topdeck two cheaper components.
I don't think the fact that you get a boon is quite strong enough to make up for the fact that it's terminal (unless you get the +1 action boon, but of course you can't count on that).

I was about to say, if you think this about Tracker, then Bard must be pathetic in your eyes.

Bard is the new Scout.
HOT TAKE!!!!      HOT TAKE!!!!      HOT TAKE!!!!    HOT TAKE!!!!
                                     #RealBad #Navigatorisbetter #NeverBuy #ShouldCost3.          #StillWouldntBuyAt3

Ah.

I haven't played with Bard enough to get a gauge for it, but it's arguable if Navigator is better I think. It really depends on the order of the Boons.

I mean, if you were going to open with Silver anyway, you can maybe look for marginal benefits off Navigator or Bard.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 07:50:11 am
Hot take, Tracker is a sleeper card. Like, A tier.

The topdecking ability on a $2 cost terminal Copper (sometimes Silver) is interesting enough, but Wisps from Swamp's Gift and the $4 from Earth's Gift can get topdecked too, as well as the Silver and Gold from Mountain's Gift and Sky's Gift respectively. Many of the other Boons help you buy better cards to topdeck that turn, and you always have Pouch as a source of +Buy to topdeck two cheaper components.
I don't think the fact that you get a boon is quite strong enough to make up for the fact that it's terminal (unless you get the +1 action boon, but of course you can't count on that).

I was about to say, if you think this about Tracker, then Bard must be pathetic in your eyes.

Bard is the new Scout.
HOT TAKE!!!!      HOT TAKE!!!!      HOT TAKE!!!!    HOT TAKE!!!!
                                     #RealBad #Navigatorisbetter #NeverBuy #ShouldCost3.          #StillWouldntBuyAt3

Ah.

I haven't played with Bard enough to get a gauge for it, but it's arguable if Navigator is better I think. It really depends on the order of the Boons.

I mean, if you were going to open with Silver anyway, you can maybe look for marginal benefits off Navigator or Bard.
Yeah, I get that. I would just almost always prefer a silver over any of those cards - especially on the opening. The fact that it could be a dead card sometimes makes it pretty horrible. I guess the +buy and topdeck ability make tracker okay, but the fact it's terminal keeps it out of the A tier for me. I would probably only get one or two if it was the only +buy on the board.
However, this is all my opinion without having played with either bard or tracker, of course. So I'm certain my opinion will be somehow different with more experience with these cards
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: smuggler on November 17, 2017, 08:00:18 am
why Guardian?
its too similar too Light house. So why?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 17, 2017, 08:21:38 am
Hot take, Tracker is a sleeper card. Like, A tier.

The topdecking ability on a $2 cost terminal Copper (sometimes Silver) is interesting enough, but Wisps from Swamp's Gift and the $4 from Earth's Gift can get topdecked too, as well as the Silver and Gold from Mountain's Gift and Sky's Gift respectively. Many of the other Boons help you buy better cards to topdeck that turn, and you always have Pouch as a source of +Buy to topdeck two cheaper components.
I don't think the fact that you get a boon is quite strong enough to make up for the fact that it's terminal (unless you get the +1 action boon, but of course you can't count on that).

I was about to say, if you think this about Tracker, then Bard must be pathetic in your eyes.

Bard is the new Scout.
HOT TAKE!!!!      HOT TAKE!!!!      HOT TAKE!!!!    HOT TAKE!!!!
                                     #RealBad #Navigatorisbetter #NeverBuy #ShouldCost3.          #StillWouldntBuyAt3

Ah.

I haven't played with Bard enough to get a gauge for it, but it's arguable if Navigator is better I think. It really depends on the order of the Boons.

I mean, if you were going to open with Silver anyway, you can maybe look for marginal benefits off Navigator or Bard.
Yeah, I get that. I would just almost always prefer a silver over any of those cards - especially on the opening. The fact that it could be a dead card sometimes makes it pretty horrible. I guess the +buy and topdeck ability make tracker okay, but the fact it's terminal keeps it out of the A tier for me. I would probably only get one or two if it was the only +buy on the board.
However, this is all my opinion without having played with either bard or tracker, of course. So I'm certain my opinion will be somehow different with more experience with these cards

Heh, Tracker doesn't even produce +buy. It's Heirloom does. But it's fine to get one or two, because the top deck ability is what you really want rather than the boon.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 08:33:41 am
hahaha, woops, I was confused about the +buy. I kind of like that heirloom better than the card itself.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: JThorne on November 17, 2017, 09:13:38 am
Quote
why Guardian? its too similar too Light house. So why?

Because there aren't enough reactions or other protection mechanisms in the previous sets to account for Hexes. It adds some balance. If a set adds attacks, it has to add defenses or the whole game tilts. No directed defense works for Hexes, so a universal attack neutralizer was the only option.

Plus, you can't draw a Night card dead, so it could be better when playing money or a slog that relies on a few big terminal draw cards, particularly if they're attacks. I'd think about throwing it in with Margrave or Torturer, especially if the engine was weak.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 09:19:58 am
Quote
why Guardian? its too similar too Light house. So why?

Because there aren't enough reactions or other protection mechanisms in the previous sets to account for Hexes. It adds some balance. If a set adds attacks, it has to add defenses or the whole game tilts. No directed defense works for Hexes, so a universal attack neutralizer was the only option.

Plus, you can't draw a Night card dead, so it could be better when playing money or a slog that relies on a few big terminal draw cards, particularly if they're attacks. I'd think about throwing it in with Margrave or Torturer, especially if the engine was weak.
Right, but I think he's saying that it is functionally identical (almost) to lighthouse and if there is going to be an additional protection card, then he'd like to see one that is a little more unique than something that feels almost the same as lighthouse. I agree with him;I do think Donald could have differentiated it a little bit more beyond the mere fact that it is a night card.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: LastFootnote on November 17, 2017, 09:29:09 am
Quote
why Guardian? its too similar too Light house. So why?

Because there aren't enough reactions or other protection mechanisms in the previous sets to account for Hexes. It adds some balance. If a set adds attacks, it has to add defenses or the whole game tilts. No directed defense works for Hexes, so a universal attack neutralizer was the only option.

Plus, you can't draw a Night card dead, so it could be better when playing money or a slog that relies on a few big terminal draw cards, particularly if they're attacks. I'd think about throwing it in with Margrave or Torturer, especially if the engine was weak.
Right, but I think he's saying that it is functionally identical (almost) to lighthouse and if there is going to be an additional protection card, then he'd like to see one that is a little more unique than something that feels almost the same as lighthouse. I agree with him;I do think Donald could have differentiated it a little bit more beyond the mere fact that it is a night card.

And it's gained to your hand! Don't forget that.

I don't want to spoil the secret history, but Guardian used to be more distinct from Lighthouse. Very near the end of testing it was becoming more clear that it was problematic, and there were only so many options for changing it. I too wish it were more unique, but I'm not super sad with how it turned out.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 17, 2017, 09:32:13 am
Quote
why Guardian? its too similar too Light house. So why?

Because there aren't enough reactions or other protection mechanisms in the previous sets to account for Hexes. It adds some balance. If a set adds attacks, it has to add defenses or the whole game tilts. No directed defense works for Hexes, so a universal attack neutralizer was the only option.

Plus, you can't draw a Night card dead, so it could be better when playing money or a slog that relies on a few big terminal draw cards, particularly if they're attacks. I'd think about throwing it in with Margrave or Torturer, especially if the engine was weak.
Right, but I think he's saying that it is functionally identical (almost) to lighthouse and if there is going to be an additional protection card, then he'd like to see one that is a little more unique than something that feels almost the same as lighthouse. I agree with him;I do think Donald could have differentiated it a little bit more beyond the mere fact that it is a night card.

Let's be fair, the lighthouse effect is something that actually does what it is supposed to do in a practical way, compared to say Moat that has to be in your starting hand. With hexes being so diverse in effect and slapped onto I think four cards that deal them to an opponent, an extra defense card is appreciated. Nocturne is a big set too, so there is space for a few questionable cards.

Guardian does the gain to hand thing as a night card to fit the theme. I mean, Engineer is just a debt-cost Workshop with a one-shot ability, and Royal Carriage is a Reserve Throne Room.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: benedettosoxfan on November 17, 2017, 09:33:30 am
Guardian's gain to hand clause is pretty big I think. Especially in the early going if you can tell that your opponent is due to draw their mountebank or if you know you're about to face a cultist chain, you can spend a $2 buy as insurance to make sure you're protected for your next turn. Likewise, it's good if you know you're going to want an extra boost in cash for the next turn. It's almost like villa where you probably don't want to buy it until the actual turn you need it. Also, I've always found it strange that there have only been 2 cards that just straight up nullify attacks. I don't think it hurts to have a 3rd one just to increase the odds of one showing up in a random kingdom.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 09:51:38 am
Guardian's gain to hand clause is pretty big I think. Especially in the early going if you can tell that your opponent is due to draw their mountebank or if you know you're about to face a cultist chain, you can spend a $2 buy as insurance to make sure you're protected for your next turn. Likewise, it's good if you know you're going to want an extra boost in cash for the next turn. It's almost like villa where you probably don't want to buy it until the actual turn you need it. Also, I've always found it strange that there have only been 2 cards that just straight up nullify attacks. I don't think it hurts to have a 3rd one just to increase the odds of one showing up in a random kingdom.
Oh yeah, I forgot that Guardian is gained to hand. That does make it different.

I'm having a hard time conceptualizing the cards in this set for some reason. The night cards are especially hard to evaluate for me since they work only slightly differently from actions.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: JThorne on November 17, 2017, 10:13:37 am
Quote
I've always found it strange that there have only been 2 cards that just straight up nullify attacks.

Three. Moat, Lighthouse and Champion.

Two supply cards, though. So Champion has an asterisk. Also literally.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SuperHans on November 17, 2017, 10:24:42 am
Dominion is full of cards with subtle differences. Guardian is just another example. How many different villages do we have again?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 10:29:19 am
Quote
I've always found it strange that there have only been 2 cards that just straight up nullify attacks.

Three. Moat, Lighthouse and Champion.

Two supply cards, though. So Champion has an asterisk. Also literally.
Champion has always bothered me; by the time you get it, the game is usually over and basically decided anyway. It's a deceptively boring card.
But anyway, we're talking about Guardian. Now that I am realizing you can always play it the turn you get it, I see now that it is really strong and definitely different from lighthouse. I would say this makes it for sure better than lighthouse in most cases.
The thing that we also need to take into account when evaluating night cards is that they are NOT action cards. This makes a difference for things like scrying pool and ironmonger, where it matters whether or not "action" is in its type. That part slightly diminishes Guardian, but not by much.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: J Reggie on November 17, 2017, 10:46:17 am
I'm very disappointed with the Guardian artwork. I was expecting this: (https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/media/minecraft.gamepedia.com/f/fd/Guardian.png?version=27a1d7f6160134073367258b711d593f)
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 10:52:08 am
I'm very disappointed with the Guardian artwork. I was expecting this: (https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/media/minecraft.gamepedia.com/f/fd/Guardian.png?version=27a1d7f6160134073367258b711d593f)

I was expecting this for haunted mirror:
(https://media.giphy.com/media/pjkngLDANouLm/giphy.gif)
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Awaclus on November 17, 2017, 11:09:08 am
I'm very disappointed with the Guardian artwork. I was expecting this: (https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/media/minecraft.gamepedia.com/f/fd/Guardian.png?version=27a1d7f6160134073367258b711d593f)

I was expecting this for haunted mirror:
(https://media.giphy.com/media/pjkngLDANouLm/giphy.gif)

Yeah man, I'm super disappointed that none of the cards have animated gif arts.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 11:11:35 am
Yeah man, I'm super disappointed that none of the cards have animated gif arts.
I mean, it's two thousand and friggin seventeen fer cripes-sakes. You would think they could do that by now.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 17, 2017, 11:30:40 am
Quote
I've always found it strange that there have only been 2 cards that just straight up nullify attacks.

Three. Moat, Lighthouse and Champion.

Two supply cards, though. So Champion has an asterisk. Also literally.
Champion has always bothered me; by the time you get it, the game is usually over and basically decided anyway. It's a deceptively boring card.
But anyway, we're talking about Guardian. Now that I am realizing you can always play it the turn you get it, I see now that it is really strong and definitely different from lighthouse. I would say this makes it for sure better than lighthouse in most cases.
The thing that we also need to take into account when evaluating night cards is that they are NOT action cards. This makes a difference for things like scrying pool and ironmonger, where it matters whether or not "action" is in its type. That part slightly diminishes Guardian, but not by much.

Lighthouse gives +coin the turn you play it, unlike Guardian. Like all the gain-to-hand night cards, Guardian is better than other compatible cards at its price point when you gain it, but drops off in power as the game goes on. This is often fine considering the snowball-y nature of Dominion.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SuperHans on November 17, 2017, 12:15:58 pm
Quote
I've always found it strange that there have only been 2 cards that just straight up nullify attacks.

Three. Moat, Lighthouse and Champion.

Two supply cards, though. So Champion has an asterisk. Also literally.
Champion has always bothered me; by the time you get it, the game is usually over and basically decided anyway. It's a deceptively boring card.
But anyway, we're talking about Guardian. Now that I am realizing you can always play it the turn you get it, I see now that it is really strong and definitely different from lighthouse. I would say this makes it for sure better than lighthouse in most cases.
The thing that we also need to take into account when evaluating night cards is that they are NOT action cards. This makes a difference for things like scrying pool and ironmonger, where it matters whether or not "action" is in its type. That part slightly diminishes Guardian, but not by much.

Lighthouse gives +coin the turn you play it, unlike Guardian. Like all the gain-to-hand night cards, Guardian is better than other compatible cards at its price point when you gain it, but drops off in power as the game goes on. This is often fine considering the snowball-y nature of Dominion.
Guardian does have its benefits toward the end of the game as well. Not only can you immediately set up your defense again if it gets trashed, but if you're expecting that you're going to end the game on the next turn, you can buy it and ensure that your hand is protected (while giving you plus $1). It could be a very useful late game strategy on certain boards.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: crj on November 17, 2017, 12:57:44 pm
I mean, it's two thousand and friggin seventeen fer cripes-sakes. You would think they could do that by now.
Well, you can buy a keyboard (https://store.artlebedev.com/electronics/devices/optimus-popularis/) where the legend on each key is dynamically reprogrammable, even animated. Trouble is, it costs $1,500.

I have idly wondered how soon we'll be able to buy a deck of cards where each card is a colour e-ink panel with some kind of mesh networking and cordless charging. I'll stick my neck out and say there will be a prototype nobody can afford within a decade...
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Witherweaver on November 17, 2017, 01:07:50 pm
Yeah man, I'm super disappointed that none of the cards have animated gif arts.
I mean, it's two thousand and friggin seventeen fer cripes-sakes. You would think they could do that by now.

Donaldpls
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: crj on November 17, 2017, 01:09:05 pm
Champion has always bothered me; by the time you get it, the game is usually over and basically decided anyway.
Going for Champion just because it looks cool is a mistake. But you can build some powerful strategies around it.

For example, I scored a convincing victory on a kingdom with Page, Bridge Troll, Guide, Ratcatcher by opening Page/Guide and prioritising upgrading my first Page over all other considerations. Pretty soon, I had a Champion in play and an unstoppable Bridge Troll + Warrior engine that pummelled the other players mercilessly while I collected enough Bridge Trolls for the megaturn. There's a lot of mileage in designing your deck around powerful cards that would otherwise be terminals and making sure to reach Champion before it seizes up.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: JThorne on November 17, 2017, 01:11:13 pm
It's going to be a while before I stop snickering at the game log message:

"[player X] plays a Fool."

Boy, is Nocturne tricky. Love Pooka. Changeling is amazing with Lucky Coin, but really hard to play correctly. If you get it too early, you'll draw it dead by virtue of having nothing in play worth chucking it for. Just played a lovely Pooka/Changeling/Idol money deck, using free Changelings to get more Pooka's and Idols. The importance of Night cards being impossible to draw dead is hard to overstate.

The Boons keep being a little bit better than I expect them to be.

Also Goat. The only thing bad about Goat is that there can be only one. Possibly my favorite card in the set. One day I will get to crown my Goat, and he will be the king of Goats. Even the Prince of Stewards will be impressed.

I was a little sad when one of my Pookas ate my Goat, but there was no Goat food left, so it had to be done.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on November 17, 2017, 01:12:34 pm
Also Goat. The only thing bad about Goat is that there can be only one.

By definition there can only be one GOAT.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 17, 2017, 01:39:25 pm
Okay, some hot takes based on zero playing with the cards: [...] Monastery/Banquet will be a thing.
With Banquet on the board and three Coppers in hand, Monastery is approximately like an Altar with +1 action and -1 buy: on net it trashes one copper and gains a $5'er.

Altar is good*. Altar for $2 is real good. Spending basically your whole turn doing it, meh, maybe? But compared to most early turns, yay.

(* 15th out of 32 $6+'ers in Qvist's rankings. It's middling in a field of really strong cards.)
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 02:12:46 pm
Yeah, goat is a neat little card. Obviously not as good as some other trashers, but still pretty good since it's a treasure and you don't even have to buy it.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Beyond Awesome on November 17, 2017, 04:55:44 pm
I think having Guardian is fine. As Dominion grows bigger, you are going to see cards less and less. When Seaside came out, if you played with all expansions you would see Lighthouse one out of eight kingdoms, plus there was Moat. We got Champion, but that takes setting up.The whole completely stop an Attack is a pretty rare effect.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Chappy7 on November 17, 2017, 05:03:16 pm
I haven't actually had a game with tragic hero yet, but just by reading it, it seems almost always worse than margrave.  Is that true? I mean, if fortune or platinum or maybe bank are on the board it seems like TH would be really good, but other than that, don't you usually just try to avoid trashing him?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: brokoli on November 17, 2017, 05:12:55 pm
The funny thing with tragic hero is, with a little trick, you can gain that treasure and draw it just after by another action, so it can enable nice megaturns.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Commodore Chuckles on November 17, 2017, 06:18:54 pm
Tragic Hero seems even worse than Library for drawing. I had to go back and look at it again to make sure I read it right. A freaking Smithy is almost always going to be better. Why is this $5?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SuperHans on November 17, 2017, 06:24:38 pm
Tragic Hero seems even worse than Library for drawing. I had to go back and look at it again to make sure I read it right. A freaking Smithy is almost always going to be better. Why is this $5?
+Buy
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 17, 2017, 06:31:36 pm
Tragic Hero seems even worse than Library for drawing. I had to go back and look at it again to make sure I read it right. A freaking Smithy is almost always going to be better. Why is this $5?
+Buy

It's also cheaper than several treasures such as Gold, Bank, and Platinum. Bonus points if you draw Market Square when you trash it. It seems fine enough in money-ish decks.

The sad part it that it doesn't survive if played immediately after Cursed Village (provided you don't run out of cards to draw, yes).
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 17, 2017, 06:36:57 pm
Tragic Hero seems even worse than Library for drawing. I had to go back and look at it again to make sure I read it right. A freaking Smithy is almost always going to be better. Why is this $5?
Yeah, it doesn't seem very strong. Although the somewhat complex nature of it makes it hard to evaluate for me. But my assessment based on my general experience of Dominion (without having used this crad) is this. You do get the +buy as SuperHans pointed out. So it has that over Smithy, but that drawback is rough, and I think some people may be underestimating how much that will hurt. It won't be very good in engines because any strategy where you want to be drawing your deck every turn will require more than 8 cards in hand for the most part. I guess one might be okay in that deck if it is drawn at the top of the shuffle. However, the fact that you gain a treasure when you lose it could be good sometimes. For instance, a free Fortune would be amazing. Usually, though, when gold is the best treasure, this only helps a money-ish deck since an engine doesn't want too many treasures in the deck getting in the way of the draw cards.
I really don't see tragic hero being a strong card.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Gazbag on November 17, 2017, 07:33:28 pm
Tragic Hero is a complex card, you can't use it as draw in a conventional engine unless there are ways to lower your handsize so it plays similarly to draw-to-X in these situations, it needs a lot of support and the reward is still just smithy with +buy so I only see that happening when it's the only draw. It's fine as terminal draw in a money deck if that matters, the +buy can be useful there.

Tragic Hero wants to be a draw card, but really it's a payload card in disguise. The key is making the treasure gain a benefit, one way to do this is to end the game the turn you play it- it can be a strong megaturn facilitator because of this. The most common use I see for it is as a way to add payload to an engine, $5 for a one-shot Smithy and a Gold is a great deal and it delays the Gold so it won't be there clogging you up while you draw your deck. That's just the baseline though- it gets better with kingdom treasures, Horn of Plenty being the standout one as that is a megaturn enabler itself.

I'm not saying it's a power card or anything but you need to look at it as a Gold with a benefit, not a draw card with a downside. But that's the average case, it's obviously way more complex than that and very board dependant. I also have probably just rolled a favourable batch of games for it- I've already had a Horn megaturn and a game with Champion and Lurker where it was insane so I'm probably a little high on it because of that, but it shows that the power is there in the right circumstances.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 17, 2017, 07:55:12 pm
Here's me talking out my ass a hot take: big money with Sheperd and Crypt is a thing, even more so with support from Monastery and/or Goat.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: gloures on November 17, 2017, 08:10:05 pm
Here's me talking out my ass a hot take: big money with Sheperd and Crypt is a thing, even more so with support from Monastery and/or Goat.

I've done that during the previews, it's pretty strong...
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Beyond Awesome on November 18, 2017, 03:41:03 am
So, here are some of my initial thoughts. I've been at work mostly since the set was released online, so most cards I have not played against any human opponents or the rat much for that matter. So, I might be off.

Bard: This is the true puzzler for me. DA being a super large set had a few niche cards like Graverobber, Rogue, Poor House, Beggar, and Feodum. So, it's understandable that Nocturne would have a higher proportion of niche cards. Bard just seems bad to me. Honestly, I think Navigator is better, and that's not all that great of a card. But, who knows maybe I'm wrong and these Boons are actually super amazing.

Changeling: I've played with this a couple of times. My guess is it's very strong. Obviously, it won't work on every board, but get something like Trader or even Jack, and this card is pretty amazing. On boards with KC or City Quarter, Changeling is nuts. My guess is Changeling will end up being a very strong engine card. Also, the anime art, and the entire concept of the card is cool. This may end up becoming my favorite Dominion card.

Cobbler: An Ironworks variant. The fact you gain to your hand your next turn is a very, very nice way to start off an engine turn. I haven't played with it much, but I'm guessing it's quite strong.  This may end up being a top-tier or close to a top-tier $5 card. I would not be surprised at all if this were the case with Cobbler.

Conclave: It's a village that gives money. It's not the greatest Village because it doesn't draw, but sometimes this will be your only Village. I'm guessing it's okay, slightly below average for a Village, but not awful like some people believe. A Village is a Village.

Den of Sin: This has to be better than Lab. Seems solid and super strong.

Guardian: Reasonable. You can sort of predict when your opponent will have an attack and buy at the opportune moment. Also, this card can lead to interesting openings. My guess is it's slightly better than Lighthouse because it has more flexibility.

Monastery: Non-terminal trashing is good. It may not be the best trasher ever, but I'm pretty sure it's good.

Night Watchman: Don't overbuy this. Otherwise, the sifting is really nice. Seems solid to me if you can't draw your entire deck.

Sacred Grove: Seems okay. On a similar power level to Courtier and Wine Merchant.

Secret Cave: This could really help you Spike high price points. The Magic Lamp seems amazing. I've only played it against Rat, but getting three Wishes is really nice. The Heirloom is the real selling point. But, Secret Cave is a reasonable card as well.

Tormentor: Probably weak.

Tracker: Likely weak, but at least it costs $2, and hey you get to start the game with Pouch. +Buy is always nice to have around.

Tragic Hero: I've read people talk about the mega turn potential. I think that's hard to set up. This seems likely a niche card to me. I guess it's good in money decks. Most engines will likely have a hard time making this card work.

Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 18, 2017, 05:55:36 am
Night Watchman: Don't overbuy this. Otherwise, the sifting is really nice. Seems solid to me if you can't draw your entire deck.
I have a hard time being confident about anything to do with Night Watchman.

Obvious comparisons are Scouting Party and Cartographer.  Cartographer Qvist-ranks 74th out of 96 $5'ers, and Scouting Party ranks 25th out of 39 $2-costers. Note that both are below the middle in their respective brackets. Don't read too much into this, but do read more than nothing into it.

Unlike Cartographer, Night Watchman doesn't give +1 card. In your Night phase that's probably not a big issue, since it's all about setting up your next turn; in addition to improving your next turn, Cartographer (but not Scouting Party) can also set up your top-of-deck for later in the same action phase. Unlike Scouting Party and like Cartographer, Night Watchman can discard any set of cards, not some fixed amount.

So how big is the effect of Night Watchman being a card you need to draw (and the opportunity cost of not drawing some other card)? How big is it compared to the cost of $2 and on net not costing a buy only if you have at least one buy left?

Uh, if you drew a Silver instead of Night Watchman, you could buy Scouting Party where you would otherwise be able to play Night Watchman; but a Silver also helps you hit high(-ish) price points, which Night Watchman doesn't. But playing Night Watchman is always at least as good as and sometimes better than getting Scouting Party if the cost is the same (it can do all the same things and then some).

The effect of gaining Night Watchman to hand is similar to "Event: Do what Night Watchman does. Gain a Night Watchman." which makes the first half similar to a better Scouting Party.

There's this other card that clears at least some bad cards off the top of your deck. It's non-terminal and it doesn't draw; it doesn't let you discard coppers, curses or ruins, though, and it doesn't do any Party+ing.

Is Night Watchman the new Scout? I guess no, but it does have some features in common with the butt of everyone's favorite jokes. What would make it better than Scout, in decks where you don't draw deck, is that it can skip any card, not just green (and that your terminal draw can't draw it dead). What's the value of having one dead card now and lowering the risk of having dead cards next turn?

Vagrant can peel all the bad* cards off the top. Is Night Watchman comparable to playing a Navigator, always keeping, followed by a few Vagrants? (Ignore the $2 from Navigator.)

One last thing. Here's a move: get a good card on turn 1, get Night Watchman on turn 2, play the good card on turn 3. It's probably great with Chapel, but if trashing is slow and you want to hit $5, picking a Silver rather than a Night Watchman to go with your Moneylender might be better. Maybe? I dunno, but it's something to think about.

Quote
Tracker: Likely weak, but at least it costs $2, and hey you get to start the game with Pouch. +Buy is always nice to have around.
I haven't really tried out the effect, but while building an engine, getting to topdeck the Village and Smithy you just bought has to be great for reliability. Is it worth having a terminal copper around? Is that terminal copper only worth it if you have $2 and a spare buy, or would you ever get it on $3+ with 1 buy? Err derr merr hurr... *shrug*
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: smuggler on November 18, 2017, 09:22:28 am
okay, i thought a bit about guardian and your thoughts...
i think, starting 3/4, buying guardian guarantees you 5 right away. which may be pretty strong
esp. if the (5) is an attack and so you already have your "moat"

anyway - thanks for your thoughts
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Beyond Awesome on November 18, 2017, 09:55:56 am
Night Watchman: Don't overbuy this. Otherwise, the sifting is really nice. Seems solid to me if you can't draw your entire deck.
I have a hard time being confident about anything to do with Night Watchman.

Obvious comparisons are Scouting Party and Cartographer.  Cartographer Qvist-ranks 74th out of 96 $5'ers, and Scouting Party ranks 25th out of 39 $2-costers. Note that both are below the middle in their respective brackets. Don't read too much into this, but do read more than nothing into it.

Unlike Cartographer, Night Watchman doesn't give +1 card. In your Night phase that's probably not a big issue, since it's all about setting up your next turn; in addition to improving your next turn, Cartographer (but not Scouting Party) can also set up your top-of-deck for later in the same action phase. Unlike Scouting Party and like Cartographer, Night Watchman can discard any set of cards, not some fixed amount.

So how big is the effect of Night Watchman being a card you need to draw (and the opportunity cost of not drawing some other card)? How big is it compared to the cost of $2 and on net not costing a buy only if you have at least one buy left?

Uh, if you drew a Silver instead of Night Watchman, you could buy Scouting Party where you would otherwise be able to play Night Watchman; but a Silver also helps you hit high(-ish) price points, which Night Watchman doesn't. But playing Night Watchman is always at least as good as and sometimes better than getting Scouting Party if the cost is the same (it can do all the same things and then some).

The effect of gaining Night Watchman to hand is similar to "Event: Do what Night Watchman does. Gain a Night Watchman." which makes the first half similar to a better Scouting Party.

There's this other card that clears at least some bad cards off the top of your deck. It's non-terminal and it doesn't draw; it doesn't let you discard coppers, curses or ruins, though, and it doesn't do any Party+ing.

Is Night Watchman the new Scout? I guess no, but it does have some features in common with the butt of everyone's favorite jokes. What would make it better than Scout, in decks where you don't draw deck, is that it can skip any card, not just green (and that your terminal draw can't draw it dead). What's the value of having one dead card now and lowering the risk of having dead cards next turn?

Vagrant can peel all the bad* cards off the top. Is Night Watchman comparable to playing a Navigator, always keeping, followed by a few Vagrants? (Ignore the $2 from Navigator.)

One last thing. Here's a move: get a good card on turn 1, get Night Watchman on turn 2, play the good card on turn 3. It's probably great with Chapel, but if trashing is slow and you want to hit $5, picking a Silver rather than a Night Watchman to go with your Moneylender might be better. Maybe? I dunno, but it's something to think about.

Quote
Tracker: Likely weak, but at least it costs $2, and hey you get to start the game with Pouch. +Buy is always nice to have around.
I haven't really tried out the effect, but while building an engine, getting to topdeck the Village and Smithy you just bought has to be great for reliability. Is it worth having a terminal copper around? Is that terminal copper only worth it if you have $2 and a spare buy, or would you ever get it on $3+ with 1 buy? Err derr merr hurr... *shrug*

Another thing about Nightwatchman, if you  know you're  having a bad shuffle, you   can  stop that from happening . Also, despite Cartographer s low Qvist rating, it doesn't  hurt to have it in your deck. It's  just that  most $5 it competes with are stronger.

Edit: Oops, this why we don't type on the phone.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: MattTV on November 18, 2017, 10:20:38 am
Night Watchman would being amazing with page. Of course there's always scavenger, but at least with Night Watchman you have that immediate effect to shift through your deck and level up multiple pages. And I like how how it's an upgraded version of scouting party that you can continue to use afterwards. I mean yeah you probably don't want clog up your deck with too many, but that's kinda the point you don't have to. You probably only need like 1 or 2 to really start cycling. Maybe 3 for bigger decks.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 18, 2017, 10:34:20 am
Night Watchman is basically a Cartographer that does not stack, similar to how Shanty Town is like a Lab that does not stack. The first Night Watchman has the same search space as Cartographer, and it does the sifting for your starting hand. That's great for reliability. Playing 2 Night Watchmans on the same turn will likely suck (and eat up handspace). Try avoiding this is favour of playing one Night Watchman each night.

If the first night Watchman is comparable to Cartographer, then costing $3 instead of $5 is a big deal. It's just that you only want to take the deal 2-3 times per game.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Awaclus on November 18, 2017, 11:12:53 am
Silver/Night Watchman guarantees $5 on turn 3. Potion/Night Watchman guarantees $3P on turn 3.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: SinisterHologram on November 18, 2017, 11:59:13 am
Silver/Night Watchman guarantees $5 on turn 3. Potion/Night Watchman guarantees $3P on turn 3.
You just blew my mind. Night Watchman just went up in value for me.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: tastor on November 18, 2017, 01:14:15 pm
All this talk of Tragic Hero and nobody pointed out that Necromancers love Tragic Heroes: they trash themselves and then when played from the grave they still create their own payload (since there's no "if you did" clause on the trash -> treasure gain).

I agree though that they are harder to use than just a Smithy, but there's some potentially interesting tricks up its sleeve. And the plus buy means you can typically replenish them (especially since the first Village -> TH chain won't trigger the reaction, so you'll usually retain one and only lose them after a megaturn)

Silver/Night Watchman guarantees $5 on turn 3. Potion/Night Watchman guarantees $3P on turn 3.
You just blew my mind. Night Watchman just went up in value for me.

Yesterday I discarded a Tunnel at the end of turn 2 using Night Watchman.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: AJD on November 18, 2017, 01:37:49 pm
There's an interesting subtheme of "can't play the same card twice", isn't there? Imp, Necromancer, and now Conclave.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: chipperMDW on November 18, 2017, 02:09:24 pm
There's an interesting subtheme of "can't play the same card twice", isn't there? Imp, Necromancer, and now Conclave.

Well, Necromancer isn't really like the other two; it doesn't stop you from playing a copy of a card you've already played this turn.  Necromancer is just the same "can't play an individual card more than once per turn" that's been in the game all along. Like, playing an individual Village and moving it into play "uses it up" and, barring the exceptions I don't need to list, you don't get to play it a second time this turn. Necromancer turning cards face down is just its version of "using up" the cards so you can't play them a second time, but it accomplishes it without moving the card into play.

EDIT: Or were you just saying that Necromancer plays nicely with Imp and Conclave because playing a card with Necromancer doesn't stop you from playing a copy of that card with one of those two?

EDIT2: Actually, I'd say the subtheme is more like "cards in play matter." A lot of Night cards either care about or affect cards in play (e.g. Changeling, Raider, Crypt). Then there are Imp and Conclave. And Tormentor. Idol. Leprechaun and Magic Lamp.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: crj on November 18, 2017, 07:46:59 pm
I have a hard time being confident about anything to do with Night Watchman.

Obvious comparisons are Scouting Party and Cartographer.
What about Guide?

Guide and Night Watchman cost the same.

Advantages for Guide:Advantages for Night Watchman:I like Guide a lot. I think Guide is pretty strong. Is Night Watch maybe a smidgen weaker? It'd still be worth having if so.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on November 18, 2017, 07:58:56 pm
There's an interesting subtheme of "can't play the same card twice", isn't there? Imp, Necromancer, and now Conclave.

Don't forget Magic Lamp.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: brokoli on November 18, 2017, 08:03:36 pm
Here are some thoughts about card-design and power level, after very few plays (not all cards) :

Druid - Some of the Nocturne cards has a very well thought flavor. Actually Druid and Faithful hound might be the most flavorful cards of this expansion. I think Druid is a very cool cards for the same reasons as pawn : each effect taken aside is really weak, but versatility makes the whole difference. Druid is probably weaker than pawn, because only 1 boon give +action.
Overall I love Druid, I think it's my favorite from the set, design-wise.

Faithful hound - Cute tricks to do with it, never awesome, more versatile than moat but obviously weaker at defending against attack. Below average.

Guardian - Some people there seems to hate the fact it's similar to lighthouse. I actually think this card is a very good addition to the game (we needed more defenses) and its existence is legitimate. Playing it right after buying it makes the whole difference, really. It's more subtle, more tactical. The fact it provides $1 like copper (while lighthouse is more similar to silver), makes you don't want to have too much of them. I think lighthouse is stronger, because the +$1 the turn you play it makes lighthouse more stackable, but I love guardian.

Pixie - This is another card I really love. The choice between receiving boon and playing pixie mitigates the luck element of boons (which I dislike) a lot. Very elegant card. Quite solid, too. You surely don't want to rush for it but for $2 it's nearly always a nice addition to your deck. I think you don't want to keep pixie too much, and I usually (after, as I said, very few plays) trash it right after the first useful boon.
About Goat : makes 4/3 slightly better than usual. It's fun to play around it. I dislike the fact that some cards always play with their assigned heirloom, in the case of pixie/goat, I think pixie would work fine alone.

Tracker - I don't know yet what to think about that one, but I guess it depends on the top-deck tricks you could do mid-turn. I have to play more with that one, but I guess I could like it a lot.

Fool - What an appropriate name for a card that does litteraly only random things. I don't see any reason to go for fool other than denying Lost in the wood to your opponent. Because, playing Lost in the wood several turn in a row is very powerful. But otherwise, there is nothing predictable about fool and you never take a fool in your deck for another particular reason. Randomness in all its glory. I don't like this card very much, but I have to admit it's a very unique one. (Someone compared fate cards to tribute, I think the comparison is very relevant, at least for fool).

Ghost Town - I think it's same power level as village. I know it's not exactly the same, but I can't find situations where the difference really matter (except about that on-buy in hand thing). It's not as obvious as shanty town / village. If both Ghost town and Village are in the kingdom, I will have a hard time to decide which one of those I would buy more.

Leprechaun - Funny card, also very flavorful. The 7-card challenge is menagerie-style, so it's a ton of fun to play. Really like it. Pretty solid card.

Blessed village - I said it, boons are just luck, most of the time you can't predict what will come, so it's hard to play with them with a long-term perspective. This is my main complain about the nocturne expansion, but I know it's already discussed here. So Blessed village, well, it's village+. I would rank it among the best $4 village but still weaker than plaza, wandering minstrel, and port.

Cemetary - It's very similar to the simplest victory cards. I find it particularly effective to trash curses late in the game for end-game points. The haunted mirror / ghost thing is a sub-game in the game, not very interesting strategically but fun to play. I like victory cards, I like cemetary. It's as simple as that.

Will continue tomorrow.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: JThorne on November 18, 2017, 08:26:58 pm
Conclave is better than I expected.

It doesn't seem like much at first, but to review: We all know that opening with any sort of Village is bad because they do literally nothing in the first shuffle, but that eventually you'll need a bunch of them to get a terminal-based engine to kick off at all. Now we have a Village-variant that is absolutely worth opening. With one card, it gives you enough economy to hit $5, eliminates the possibility of colliding opening terminals, and provides you with extra terminal space you won't have to buy later. It's accelerates engine building by a full shuffle. It's very close to a $4 Festival.

It does like other villages, though. If you have to start an engine with Conclave/Draw, you'll want to be able to play Conclave/Village later for a unique, and the 3 actions you'll have as a result should be sufficient to play enough draw to dig for the rest of your payload.

I don't normally like non-drawing Villages, but so far this one's pretty sweet.

Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Seprix on November 18, 2017, 10:19:31 pm
I have changed my ratings. You all have provided your insight. I have stirred up controversy by saying many hot takes. This time, I will give my rational thoughts in detail. This is where you can point later and say "aha you were wrong" two years down the road. I won't be releasing a tier list for this because my thoughts are still subject to change but here it is. The complete Nocturne Listing.

Nocturne Itself
The set is... not Donald's finest work. The cards play fantastically enough on their own, but play the entire set as a whole and it becomes a giant sloggy mess. Don't believe me? (https://youtu.be/dk_FqxG9ABw) If you care about building engines like me, you're going to be disappointed. There are engine cards in Nocturne, but the best way to put it is this: Nocturne is the Medic Class of Dominion. Most of the cards are nice complements, supports. There is not too much that just straight up wins you the game, but a lot of subtle moves. Now is this subtlety because of fantastic design or because of the cards being weaker? Is there really a difference? Anyways, your full random boards on average will be a lot more interesting with Nocturne around. Just don't go playing all-Nocturne unless you love playing variations of money most of the time.

Druid
The best of the +buy $2 cost series (if that is even a thing) which includes such hits as Candlestick maker and Pawn. Candlestick Maker is more consistent so you can easily make the case that it is better, but Druid contains so much potential upside and flexibility. The Workshop, Will-O-Wisp and Trash Boon are all worth pursuing; the odds of one or more of them showing up is 62%. Not that statistics with Druid even matter in the context of the particular instead of the abstract. Druid is heavily board dependent.

Grade: C

Faithful Hound
Tons upon tons of cute tricks with Faithful Hound make this card have more utility than Moat, but at the end of the day it's still a Moat draw. Try Faithful Hound with cyclers like Dungeon and Forum! You will not be upset.

Grade: C+

Guardian
It's Lighthouse, except you can't draw it dead, you get only one turn of economy from it, and you can tactically buy it to use on the same turn. Eh.

Grade: C+

Monastery
Absurdly strong trashing card. It's straight up delayed Bonfire at worst, and it can trash other stuff from your hand too. It can't trash midturn for the rare cases where that matters but man do you even care.

Grade: A

Pixie
This is an underrated card from the cantrip do something $2 cost series (if that is even a thing) with cards like Pearl Diver and Haven. Haven might be better, but popping a relatively cheap card to get twice the amount of Boons is awesome. And if not, you go Boon fishing. Pixie is the best way to get buys from Boons since it can cycle through them with relative ease, being a cantrip.

Grade: C+

Tracker
This card has been so surprisingly good that it has made me reconsider Royal Seal's strength. Obviously don't open with it, but Pouch makes picking this guy up on a spare buy so easy, and the rewards are immense. Royal Seal is weak because it competes with $5 costs. Obviously Tracker doesn't do that. And the potential Boon bonuses are just icing on the cake. But this is for sure an engine card. It's also weaker than Watchtower, duh do I even need to say that.

Grade: C+

Changeling
I love Changeling, and it continues the Nocturne theme of support. The exchange is nice and basically ensures you never have to waste a buy on Changeling. The Night effect is also a delayed Duplicate, but for anything in play instead of a cost limit. So really it's nothing like Duplicate at all.

Grade: B

Fool
Fool is not a bad card. You heard me. It's not bad in the sense that it's the worst card in Dominion. But don't take that as an invitation to call it a good card. It's a fine opening. Fool really shines in Big Money. Lost in the Woods really bolsters hands with dead cards, like for example that single Province you bought in your Smithy/Delve deck. Fool is a mighty fine opener on most all-Nocturne sets. Is it a mighty fine opener on a random board? Well...

Grade: C-

Ghost Town
You get this when you want Fishing Village minus opening scenarios. Pretty much the same card.

Grade: A

Leprechaun
If you want evidence that Hexes are usually weak, look no further than Leprechaun. You'll occasionally get fucked when playing it for the Hex, but by and far money doesn't mind the Leprechaun opening at all. The Gold gain is nice. And for engines, Leprechaun is awesome. It gains a Gold for TfB and it also gets Wishes for you! Alas it is terminal, but stronger than I was expecting.

Grade: C+

Night Watchman
Bold prediction: A lot of people are currently underrating this card for the same reason Cartographer is underrated. Hell, Tracer called it a Scout when he first saw it. It's a consistency machine. You can buy it and gain to hand, playing it instantly. You can trigger bad shuffles. You can save bad shuffle triggers. You can set up your next turn. This will be a high skill card. I'm calling it now.

Grade: B+

Secret Cave
Eh. It's a worse Mill and the money is delayed. You can get lucky and spike Inheritance and piss people off, or you can draw it with your hand full of economy. Either way, it's a nice complement to Magic Lamp, which will be the likely reason you ever pick this card up. That being said, it could be a thing with Double Tactician. All it takes is a bit of draw (a Moat's worth) and three discard attempts make a Province.

Grade: D+

Bard
Don't let Awaclus's post (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17906.0) fool you into thinking that Bard is anything but weak. Sure, it's a fine card to have in the first shuffle, but the lack of consistency with Boons and its terminalness really kill it afterward.

Grade: D-

Blessed Village
One of the best Village variants. It isn't a world beater like Port or Border Village, but the on-gain effect and the choice of activating now or next turn is fantastic! There's not much else to say.

Grade: A

Cemetery
People say this card is awkward to trash with. Is it though? You can gain it with anything, the on-trash activates. Boom. Done. Just because it isn't Chapel doesn't mean it isn't a great Trashing card.

Grade: A-

Conclave
Okay. It's not S. That was overblowing it. But man it's A. It's Conspirator on crack. It forces you to play diverse engines which is usually the way to go in 2017 anyways so it makes you a better player just for using it. You can't say that about Pawn.

Grade: A+

Devil's Workshop
Okay. It's not an S. That was overblowing it. But man it's A. It's Conspirator on crack. It forces you to play diverse engines which is usually the way to go in... wait, we're not talking about Imp? Eh. If you're getting this you're getting it for Imp. It's an Imp machine. If you're not getting Imps, it's a lot lot weaker.

Grade: A

Exorcist
A nice Remodel variant, if you can squint to see the analogy. Trash an Estate, get a lab in Will-O-Wisp. Pretty sweet deal to me. No more of this "trashing one Estate equals a Lab" nonsense, now you can do both and really complicate the argument entirely. You're welcome. Ghost is worth sacking a $5 for. Please don't hesitate. But be smart about it too. Which means hesitate. So don't hesitate, unless you should hesitate. For example, don't trash your only draw card to get Ghost. And wow it can both get rid of Silver and give you an Imp? I just found Phillip's favorite card.

Grade: A-

Necromancer
If you've been dying to see a great Necromancer game in action, look no further (https://youtu.be/gVzlrVWd540?t=17m5s). By the way, if you're not subscribed to Mic Qsenoch you should be. So Necromancer is the really puzzling card people don't know about so people call it weak. I'm willing to bet that doesn't change too much. If there's a board where there's an engine but terrible draw or you need some cycling, Necromancer has you covered with the Zombie Apprentice. The Zombie Mason is terrible, but not as terrible as the Zombie Spy. You can scout with the Zombie Spy to make sure you trash a good card with Zombie Mason, but man does that feel like a giant waste of potential or what? Anyways I am willing to bet Necromancer is terrible minus some niche boards with things like Knights, Lurkers and Death Carts/Ruins stuff.

Grade: D+

Shepherd
The card nobody knows how to spell. Including me. Man remember the hype around Shephard Shepherd and how OP it was at $4? Oh wait that was just me saying that. Anyways, despite being Crossroads on crack it's not busted at all. It's a great draw card, a great cycler, and you even don't mind triggering bad shuffles with all those discarded Victory cards if you have enough Shepherds.

Grade: A-

Skulk
Do you hear that? People are becoming Skulk apologists. They whisper in the streets, saying that you get a free Gold with it, Skulk is also a +buy card and hey it also attacks. People were down on Skulk, now they're up with Skulk which really means they just grasp what the card can do better than they did before. It's still awful.

Grade: D+

Cobbler
Lots of varying opinions on this one. Some say it's slow and not good. Others say it's very strong. All of this points to "it depends on the board" talk and varying experiences. I'm willing to bet that gaining a $4 to your hand is pretty nice. I'm also willing to bet that it's incredibly slow, getting effectively .5 gains a Turn. The gaining to hand should win out here.

Grade: B+

Crypt
A spooky mysterious card, and by that I mean it's mysterious to me. People like Dan Brooks swear on getting 4 of them. People like Tracer swear on getting 0 of them. I don't know about you but I'm going to side with the guy who won the ShuffleIT Championship (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxJOdsIpGHA). But since I don't see it personally, I can't give it a super super high score. How does B- sound?

Grade: B-

Cursed Village
I heard rumors that this card was immensely strong. Man how slightly wrong they turned out to be. Which isn't to say Cursed Village is bad. Man it is not. Really it's Library+ because of the taco/anti-terminal/please-call-it-anything-but-village-because-reasons effect, but it draws a bit less and there's none of that cycling action you get with Library. (Aren't stupid comparisons awesome?) Again, getting Hexed means a whole lot of heck of nothing most of the time. Oh man, I have to discard down to three when I played all my Treasures already. Oh man, I have to gain a Copper that I'll just trash next turn to my Spice Merchant. You get the picture.

Grade: A-

Den Of Sin
It essentially draws +3 cards on the following turn. Or it's pretty much a Wharf. Whatever comparison you like best man, I don't judge. It's a dead card in hand, which makes people question how good that dead card is versus the next turn benefit. Is there a cutoff point? That might hold true with Ghost Town, but probably not with Den Of Sin. I can get 4 of these guys down a turn and I don't miss a beat.

Grade: A

Idol
The Cursing is good. Very good. Because it's Cursing. That's still good, even in a world with Donate and mega engines that end on T12. Okay, maybe Idol won't be your ideal Curser on the T12 ending board, but it's a relatively painless cost with Donate. You don't spend an Action. Oh and sometimes you get a nice Boon. How about that. But the main thing is it's a non-terminal Curser.

Grade: B-

Pooka
You all have probably all been waiting for this. I have called it the worst card in Nocturne. I absolutely hate Pooka because I want it to be good. It's such a disappointment. It trashes and draws +4 Cards? Man that's good! But what it comes packaged with really is the killer: Cursed Gold. Picking up a Pooka with Cursed Gold is asking for trouble without major support. Having a deck with 1 Curse, 3 Estates, 1 Cursed Gold (which pretty much becomes an Estate since you don't want to play it to get Cursed again) and 5 Copper with your Pooka after one single use. That's 5 junk cards with 5 economy cards. Horrible. And oh, you want to trash those Curses? Well have I got a deal for you, Cursed Gold can let you buy that Sentry already. Who needs ol' Pooka? Nobody, that's who. But who cares about Pooka, because Cursed Gold adds so much to your game plan that you don't even miss having a 9 card Kingdom most of the time.

(Pooka's best friend is Monastery though. Keep that in mind. Cursed Gold lets you trash twice if you have Monastery in hand.)

Grade: F

Sacred Grove
Good money card, you'll get this when you need +Buy anyways, so stop pouting and pick it up. Also the Boons suck a lot more now because your opponents can get benefits potentially. Next.

Grade: C+

Tormentor
Tormentor is Bard, but with Hexes which are worse than Boons despite the insistence of people with negativity bias. Ew. Oh and it costs more. But wait it gains Imps. So yeah, you'll probably be sacrificing turns to use a glorified Workshop if you happen to land it in hand at the start of your turn. But Imps are worth that for sure, right? I have no idea. But forget about your Wharf engine and this thing.

Grade: F

Tragic Hero
Pretty decent card but of course since Nocturne hates Engines they put this guy in there. You're not allowed to build engines in Nocturne. It's official now. Tragic Hero is tragic because you could have built a sweet sweet engine. Nah, I'm just joking, it's not that bad. Just play with Festivals and Fishing Villages and other disappearing Actions.

Grade: B

Vampire
Pretty good card. I think most people can agree on that. But man is it slow at trashing. Overall pretty good though.

Grade: A-

Werewolf
Pretty good card. I think most people can agree on that. Hexes get more annoying when you can chain them a ton for sure, so there's no reason to not pick up a trillion Werewolves. It denies them and you still get to use them!

Grade: A-

Raider
LastFootnote has told me this guy has untapped potential. We're all using it wrong. So I have some experiments to run in the future. For now though, it will retain it's status as slightly better/worse than Gold based on the situation.

Grade: C+

And there you have it.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 19, 2017, 06:50:57 am
Pixie revealing Flame's Gift, trashing itself and 0-2 cards from your hand, is strictly better than Bomb.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: brokoli on November 19, 2017, 07:58:05 am
Devil's workshop : For the moment I simply dislike that card, it's just so weird, and I don't think it leads to interesting decisions. Imps are too easy to play, and rarely going to be bad anyway. I agree that you want to get it mainly for the imp, but a nonterminal workshop is a pretty good consolation prize. A strong card.

Necromancer : It's weird how if one key card get trashed by accident, suddenly necromancer become very strong. It once happened for me in a minion game. I think most of the time you should skip necromancer early, but mid-game it can be an interesting investment, trash your key $5/$6 card with zombie apprentice, then with +buy it become more profitable to get a few necromancers than that card. Not too much because you can't play the same trashed card more than once, but the zombies add flexibility options. I think this scenario could happen reasonnably often in weak engine games, where the key card I'm talking about is draw maybe.
All zombies are obviously weak but surprinsingly I find myself using often (again, in the very few games I played) the mason. I remember it hit my estates quite often but this is pure luck I guess. An interesting card design.

Shepherd : That's a strong card, because of pasture. I think without pasture it would have been way weaker. But shepherd can draw a lot, really, and pasture makes the starting victory points more important than usual. I mean more often than not I would keep my starting estates because of shepherd/pasture. But I see people on shuffleit overbuying shepherd, and drawing shepherd with no victory cards is very sad so be careful. It's a kind of sifter but paradoxically in games where the number of cards in hands is more important than the quality of the cards themselve, shepherd is awesome.
Very flavorful card, it works with victory cards, it makes estates better : I'm always wishing for more card like this. One of my favorite from the set.

Skulk : I read somewhere that Donald X didn't like saboteur because it's purely destructive. When you play it, you gain no benefit yourself. I'm surprised to see skulk (and, to a lesser extent, werewolf) because they are quite similar. Of course getting the gold is very good. I guess later in the game skulk can become a dead card but I had game where I was completely destroyed by multiple hexes. I don't get hexes completely yet.

Cobbler : I love in hand gains. Nice.

Crypt : One of the most puzzling cards for me. I like it.

Cursed village : Hexing yourself is not scary especially during the buy phase, and getting to draw (usually) 2 cards the first time you play it makes cursed village a very solid village that only suffer the bazaar syndrome. Hexes are a purely random thing especially on this card, because the majority of these are not going to affect you during the buy phase (or slightly) but a few (locust, war, plague) really hurt. I like self-hurting things but why are hexes/boon so random ?

Den of sin : Lab variant, variants are good, and as I already said, the few in-hand night gains (ghost town, guardian, and this) are really interesting for the tactical dimension of the game. Probably slightly weaker than lab.

Idol : One of the best $5 treasures. Still not awesome. I think this rank close to relic, but idol is way funnier to play with. And here I don't mind so much the luck dimension of boons, because unlike fool/bard, Idol is nonterminal so you know you are going to play it anyway. It's not like hesitating between playing fool and monument and getting useless boons, then lose lost in the wood right the turn after. And all boons are usually useful in the buy phase, even the one that give +action also give coins, so the boon is nearly always going to be good. The fact cursing doesn't stack is good. A well designed card.

Pooka : When discovering this card I didn't realize how often that card miss the shuffle. Drawing 4 cards seems to make shuffle miss significantly more likely than drawing 3. Of course it's a good starting card, and as expected it gets weird when the number of treasures in your deck decrease.
And Cursed gold is diabolic. Very interesting to play it, though it makes the opening buys sometimes very disappointing. In any case, you have to be very careful in pooka / cursed gold games.

Tragic hero : Me and other people have talked about the potential of mega-turn. I agree, though, that this is rarely going to happen, so overall it's a weak card. If it's the only +buy in the kingdom, it's might be hard to play around it. I like Tragic hero for the same reasons I like Rogue : you know, from the begining of the game, that at some point it can turn into real crap, but sometimes it's still worth it.

Vampire : A very powerful opening card. Probably a bit weaker at turn $3 or $4, because that $5 you gain come a bit too late. But gaining a $5 + hexing is as strong as it sounds. Bat is very good at trashing estates / curses especially considering that if you play bat by turn $6/$7 you are likely to draw them with another terminal draw card, say a $5 you gained via vampire. You may want to skip vampire/bat if you have quicker trash or economy building options, or if trashing copper quickly is particularly important. Otherwise a deck with Vampire/Bat can be very potent, especially at turn 8-9 right after you exchange bat for vampire again.

Werewolf : A self-synergic draw, I think it's weaker than wild hunt but I'm not sure. Giving 1 hex doesn't seem that good to me, but as said about skulk I already got destroyed by hexes. I was expecting something more exciting for werewolf so I'm slightly disappointed.

Raider : The attack part never did anything in the games I played with raider, but I really want to see that someday.

I will talk about the rest when they will appear in my future games. I remember the last card I discovered in Adventures was peasant, and in Empires it was legionnary. I'm curious to see which one it'll be now.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 19, 2017, 08:33:25 am
Vampire : [...] at turn $3 or $4 [...] by turn $6/$7
As they say, time is money.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: JThorne on November 19, 2017, 05:13:02 pm
Shepherd kingdom: Rabble engine actually had a significant chance of improving other players' next turn. Mind blown.

That said, it's a little easy to get carried away. Playing a Shepherd and discarding one estate is equivalent to a do-nothing +1 card +1 action Pawn. Playing Shepherd and discarding two estates is equivalent to playing one Lab. Fine if you can't trash your starters, but if you're actually gaining additional Estates on purpose, there better be another good reason (Wild Hunt, Battlefield, Inheritance, Labyrinth, Alt+VP rush...)

Conclave isn't Conspirator on steroids because it doesn't draw cards. I always put a big, fat red flag on any card that doesn't draw, no matter how good it is. But jamming a couple of $4 Festivals in an engine deck sure has its uses. If you can buy one less Silver for your draw engine, then that's one less card you need to draw deck, so it mitigates its own drawback to some degree. Big fan.

I agree that Nocturne isn't super-enginey, but boy, does it ever make other engines explodey. So many gainers, economy accelerators and interesting payload cards. The accelerators really are tempting for money-leaning players, though. Had a Druid game with the trashing gift and the gold-gaining gift. One player went almost exclusively gain, the other almost exclusively trash. Classic money vs. engine. Money got a big lead, engine won in the end. Classic.

Also, Changeling loves gaining duration cards. Wharves for days.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 19, 2017, 07:17:35 pm
Playing a Shepherd and discarding one estate [= a blank cantrip]
It looks a lot like a Laboratory to me. Assume you won't shuffle before your clean-up phase; then Estate does the same for (and/or to) you whether it's in your hand or your discard pile. In this case, Shepherd say "+1 action, +2 cards, perform a distinction-without-a-difference". That's a Lab right there. The fact it doesn't change your hand size doesn't make it any less of a Lab. Let me say that more clearly, it does the same good thing for your hand that a Lab would, at the same cost: no loss of actions, no loss of useful cards.

The reason Spice Merchant and Sacrifice-an-action are not labs is that they trash a card you could have otherwise used; there, the distinction does make a difference.

Shepherding a single victory card is unlike Lab in two ways: one, if you shuffle mid-turn, then you shuffle in green cards. Two, Shepherding one victory card doesn't let you use that same card with your next Shepherd, i.e. it increases the odds of drawing your next Shepherd dead, something that can't happen to Lab.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: FemurLemur on November 21, 2017, 11:51:43 am
Pixie revealing Flame's Gift, trashing itself and 0-2 cards from your hand, is strictly better than Bomb.

The influence that Dominion Gunpowder has had on Donald's work is unmistakable. That expansion also had a Moat-like Reactions subtheme. And what do we have here!? Faithful Hound- a Reaction with similarities to Moat!

The fact that Pixie+Flame's Gift is so remarkably similar to the premise of Bomb is not meant to make Bomb obsolete so much as it is to celebrate Bomb: to make it an official part of Dominion cannon- as it were.

Gunpowder was also doing Reserves before Adventures made it cool. It's just really cool to see Donald giving subtle nods to Gunpowder over the years.

Still waiting on some kind of official implementation of Sulfur Pit though.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 21, 2017, 05:33:42 pm
[Pixie+Flame's Gift is meant] to celebrate Bomb: to make it an official part of Dominion cannon.
First of all, notsureif spelling.

Second of all, I think canonizing fan cards is something Donald avoids as a General principle.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: ConMan on November 21, 2017, 06:15:46 pm
[Pixie+Flame's Gift is meant] to celebrate Bomb: to make it an official part of Dominion cannon.
First of all, notsureif spelling.

Second of all, I think canonizing fan cards is something Donald avoids as a General principle.
I think you may not be aware of the legend that is Bomb. Which I guess is ok, but 90-93% of the people here get the reference.

(So that you're in on the joke, the Gunpowder expansion, and particularly Bomb, were not well-regarded fan cards, made worse by the fact that the person who came up with them was not particularly open to the constructive criticism that people offered to the point where they were banned. And IIRC came back under multiple other accounts that became similarly belligerent, and were likewise banned. Also, I'm pretty sure the spelling thing is a deliberate pun.)
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: JacquesTheBard on November 21, 2017, 06:20:52 pm
A few players find engines far less explosive in Nocturne. This isn't the only reason that comes to mind, but does anyone think weaker payload has something to do with it? The most powerful engines will usually have something better than Gold. Bridge, Horn of Plenty, a LOT of Prosperity cards, Highways, Hagglers, Merchant Guilds, Market Square tricks (technically gold but obscene amounts all at once) Bridge Trolls, Fortune. There are plenty of expansions where the deck has stronger payloads available than treasure. In Nocturne, the best thing available is still Gold, though (once you're drawing the deck, obviously). Seaside is an exception to this, but given the raw power of cards like Ambassador and Wharf, the engines are still memorable even if they only go up to double province.

Payload is probably the least important part of an engine. Trashing, draw, buys, and usually actions are all more important for making one work. But it IS the factor that turns "my deck is coming together" into "I can pick up 8 provinces this turn."
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: ThetaSigma12 on November 21, 2017, 06:58:53 pm
A few players find engines far less explosive in Nocturne.

They would be a lot more explosive if they had Bomb rather than just Pixie.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on November 21, 2017, 07:12:38 pm
Got my copy today and after a few games, I am loving this expansion.  The cards have this, how do I say it, this ambiguous synergy with one another that's just, well, it's special. Can't wait to play more.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Accatitippi on November 21, 2017, 07:27:25 pm
Got my copy today and after a few games, I am loving this expansion.  The cards have this, how do I say it, this ambiguous synergy with one another that's just, well, it's special. Can't wait to play more.

Uh, what do you mean exactly by "ambiguous"?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on November 21, 2017, 07:36:27 pm
this ambiguous synergy

If this was on purpose I'll buy you a beer.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: JW on November 21, 2017, 07:48:07 pm
A few players find engines far less explosive in Nocturne. This isn't the only reason that comes to mind, but does anyone think weaker payload has something to do with it? The most powerful engines will usually have something better than Gold. Bridge, Horn of Plenty, a LOT of Prosperity cards, Highways, Hagglers, Merchant Guilds, Market Square tricks (technically gold but obscene amounts all at once) Bridge Trolls, Fortune. There are plenty of expansions where the deck has stronger payloads available than treasure. In Nocturne, the best thing available is still Gold, though (once you're drawing the deck, obviously). Seaside is an exception to this, but given the raw power of cards like Ambassador and Wharf, the engines are still memorable even if they only go up to double province.

Payload is probably the least important part of an engine. Trashing, draw, buys, and usually actions are all more important for making one work. But it IS the factor that turns "my deck is coming together" into "I can pick up 8 provinces this turn."

The main reason why engines in Nocturne are weaker seems to be the difficulty of reliably drawing the deck. The villages are fewer and weaker in combination with the rest of the set than in recent sets: Cursed Village is weaker when you want the 12 of 33 Nocturne cards that are (non-Werewolf) Night cards, because you can't get them out of your hand mid turn by playing them. Conclave doesn’t let you play any one terminal many times unless you have a lot of different actions with +1 Action (and such actions are rare in Nocturne).

The draw cards can also be tricky to use. For example, Shepherd needs to be lined up with Victory cards, while Tragic Hero often trashes itself. Fool makes it harder to draw your deck because Lucky Coin gains stop cards, and it also strengthens money strategies (I think it's well-designed, but it leads to different kinds of games).
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: werothegreat on November 21, 2017, 08:59:30 pm
A few players find engines far less explosive in Nocturne. This isn't the only reason that comes to mind, but does anyone think weaker payload has something to do with it? The most powerful engines will usually have something better than Gold. Bridge, Horn of Plenty, a LOT of Prosperity cards, Highways, Hagglers, Merchant Guilds, Market Square tricks (technically gold but obscene amounts all at once) Bridge Trolls, Fortune. There are plenty of expansions where the deck has stronger payloads available than treasure. In Nocturne, the best thing available is still Gold, though (once you're drawing the deck, obviously). Seaside is an exception to this, but given the raw power of cards like Ambassador and Wharf, the engines are still memorable even if they only go up to double province.

Payload is probably the least important part of an engine. Trashing, draw, buys, and usually actions are all more important for making one work. But it IS the factor that turns "my deck is coming together" into "I can pick up 8 provinces this turn."

I think the perceived lack of good payload in the set is a consistent undervaluing of Boons, Hexes, and Raider.  But granted, there isn't really a game-warping build-around payload in the same vein as Goons.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on November 22, 2017, 12:08:31 am
this ambiguous synergy

If this was on purpose I'll buy you a beer.

I like stouts.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: josh56 on November 22, 2017, 04:36:52 am
All the Night-Duration cards that are hand-gained have one thing in common, they are variants of familiar, often basic cards: Laboratory, Village and Lighthouse.

Their advantage is that they can be played immediately after they are gained. Guardian thus becomes a form of Coin token like coin transfer into the next turn and Den of Sin is like an Expedition for free.
Their disadvantage is that they all cost as much as their Action card brethrens but are weaker beyond the first play: unlike Lighthouse Guardian doesn't provide a coin on the turn it is played, Den of Sin is worse than Caravan which is again worse than Laboratory, Ghost Town is worse than a hypothetical 'cantrip on play' duration village (+1 Card +1 Action / At the start of your next turn: +1 Action) which is again worse than Village.
But this is partly compensated by the fact that unlike Action cards Night cards can never be drawn dead which makes them less risky / more reliable.

I think that it would be quite interesting to do what has probably happened during playtesting: set up a Kingdom in which the respective pairs, i.e. for example Den of Sin and Laboratory, are both present in order to see in which situations the Night card is better than the Action card and vice versa.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 22, 2017, 08:17:33 am
Is Den of Sin really worse than Caravan once it's in your deck? That's a really close call.

It's worse than Laboratory once in your deck, sure.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Awaclus on November 22, 2017, 09:00:08 am
Is Den of Sin really worse than Caravan once it's in your deck? That's a really close call.

It's worse than Laboratory once in your deck, sure.

I don't think it's weaker than Caravan and it's not even clear whether it's worse than Lab. The consistency is a big factor.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 22, 2017, 09:22:56 am
Is Den of Sin really worse than Caravan once it's in your deck? That's a really close call.

It's worse than Laboratory once in your deck, sure.

I don't think it's weaker than Caravan and it's not even clear whether it's worse than Lab. The consistency is a big factor.

Yeah it's still a tough call. Den of Sin helps with consistency and is not drawn dead, but it is a duration so it only gives the effect every other turn (assume the Den of Sin has already been emptied or whatever), plus the times that missing the shuffle counts for something.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: josh56 on November 22, 2017, 10:45:54 am
Is Den of Sin really worse than Caravan once it's in your deck? That's a really close call.

It's worse than Laboratory once in your deck, sure.

I don't think it's weaker than Caravan and it's not even clear whether it's worse than Lab. The consistency is a big factor.
If that were the case Den of Sin would be better than Lab in 3 ways: great first play effect, cannot be drawn as it is a Night card and same/similiar beyond-first-play effect.
I think it is fair to say that DXV doesn't make such obvious blunders.

All of this just boils down to Durations 101: you want the good stuff now instead of later, you don't want cards to miss reshuffles and you don't wanna play a card just every second turn when you draw your entire deck. I cannot imagine any situation in which I would prefer Caravan over Lab or +1 Action | At the start of your next turn +2 Cards over Caravan.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Awaclus on November 22, 2017, 10:55:14 am
If that were the case Den of Sin would be better than Lab in 3 ways: great first play effect, cannot be drawn as it is a Night card and same/similiar beyond-first-play effect.
I think it is fair to say that DXV doesn't make such obvious blunders.

But not strictly better. There are situations where you want Lab over DoS and vice versa.

What's noteworthy is that DXV already made Hunting Party, which is sort of just better than Lab, and so far it doesn't look like it has ruined the game or anything.

I cannot imagine any situation in which I would prefer Caravan over Lab or +1 Action | At the start of your next turn +2 Cards over Caravan.

I can: you're playing an engine and you already have (almost) enough draw to draw your deck but can't do so consistently.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: trivialknot on November 22, 2017, 11:46:53 am
We already had this argument about Caravan vs. Den of Sin.  It's here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17789.0) and here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17757.msg727983#msg727983).

Oh wait, josh56 is actually the one who started the argument in the first place.  You seem to be repeating the exact same arguments despite knowing that people disagreed with them the first time.  Stop it, you're being tiresome.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: josh56 on November 22, 2017, 01:40:49 pm
If that were the case Den of Sin would be better than Lab in 3 ways: great first play effect, cannot be drawn as it is a Night card and same/similiar beyond-first-play effect.
I think it is fair to say that DXV doesn't make such obvious blunders.

But not strictly better. There are situations where you want Lab over DoS and vice versa.

What's noteworthy is that DXV already made Hunting Party, which is sort of just better than Lab, and so far it doesn't look like it has ruined the game or anything.
You are right. A Treasure that says At the start of the turn after the next one: +$3 would not be technically strictly weaker than Gold as there could be weird situations in which it is better. But common sense suffices to realize that such a card would be a sucker compared to Gold.

If you open 5-2 you would definitely prefer a Lab over Hunting Party.
I don't see how you can compare a Lab variant like Stables or Hunting Party that are situationally stronger or weaker than Lab with a definitely weaker duration Lab variant like Caravan or the hypothetical Action version of Den of Sin.


I can: you're playing an engine and you already have (almost) enough draw to draw your deck but can't do so consistently.
If you nearly draw your deck you play those durations a little more frequently than every 2nd turn whereas a Lab could be played every turn.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 22, 2017, 01:44:58 pm
notsureif spelling [of cannon/canon].

[I think Donald avoids canonizing fan cards as a General principle].
I think you may not be aware of the legend that is Bomb. Which I guess is ok, but 90-93% of the people here get the reference.
I started the Pixie/Flame's > Bomb subthread.

Me capitalizing the 'g' in 'General' turns it from an adjective into a proper noun, the name of a card from Dominion: Gunpowder.

It's a pun, similar to the canon/cannon pun. My "notsureif" was ironic, an allusion to that meme picture of Fry.

</making-the-joke-better-by-explaining-it>

[he] was not particularly open to the constructive criticism that people offered to the point where they were banned. And IIRC came back under multiple other accounts that became similarly belligerent, and were likewise banned.
IINM he was banned for massive incivility towards Theory (maybe others too), not for being impervious to suggestions, and he came back only once under a single account.

EDIT: currently my signature is this:
Quote from: My signature
I just bluntly state the facts.
That quote is from the Dominion: Gunpowder thread, from a sub-discussion about how to give constructive criticism.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: josh56 on November 22, 2017, 02:49:41 pm
We already had this argument about Caravan vs. Den of Sin.  It's here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17789.0) and here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17757.msg727983#msg727983).

Oh wait, josh56 is actually the one who started the argument in the first place.  You seem to be repeating the exact same arguments despite knowing that people disagreed with them the first time.  Stop it, you're being tiresome.
What people? You mean guys like LFN? Oh no, looks like he disagreed with you.  ::)
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: trivialknot on November 22, 2017, 02:56:32 pm
We already had this argument about Caravan vs. Den of Sin.  It's here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17789.0) and here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17757.msg727983#msg727983).

Oh wait, josh56 is actually the one who started the argument in the first place.  You seem to be repeating the exact same arguments despite knowing that people disagreed with them the first time.  Stop it, you're being tiresome.
What people? You mean guys like LFN? Oh no, looks like he disagreed with you.  ::)
The fact that LFN disagreed with me has also already been stated--by LFN when he disagreed with me--and now you are stating it again.  Look, I already linked the threads, people can read it on their own.  You're not adding anything new.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: trivialknot on November 22, 2017, 03:07:22 pm
I mean, you were obviously unconvinced by the arguments, and you are welcome to hold the same views until such a time that you are convinced otherwise.  But this kind of stuff is nonsense:

All of this just boils down to Durations 101: you want the good stuff now instead of later
You're acting like this is all obvious stuff that everyone agrees on when you recently participated in an argument where at least some people were disagreeing with you.  I may think Den of Sin's on-play effect is better than Caravan, but I'm not so condescending to act like this is obvious and everyone agrees with me.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: pacovf on November 22, 2017, 03:20:46 pm
I find it amusing to have people say that Den of Sin has a delayed effect compared to Lab. You get to play Den of Sin the very same turn you buy it, while you have to wait a full shuffle to play Lab.

Den of Sin is worse than Lab in the sense that you can't chain them, and that if you draw your deck you can only play them one turn out of two, but it's definitely "faster" than Lab.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: LastFootnote on November 22, 2017, 03:23:13 pm
I don't know why my name is being invoked here. I mean I have opinions, but I'm not a top player. I haven't run any sims. I'd be interested to see how the sims play out.

I do think Caravan is probably stronger than a Den of Sin that isn't gained to hand. But I'm not 100% sure. And I'm less sure than ever now that people have been making such good points about Ghost Town's reliability boost.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: josh56 on November 22, 2017, 03:28:34 pm
You're acting like this is all obvious stuff that everyone agrees on when you recently participated in an argument where at least some people were disagreeing with you.  I may think Den of Sin's on-play effect is better than Caravan, but I'm not so condescending to act like this is obvious and everyone agrees with me.
Talking about nonsense, you wrote stuff like: "With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action."

This isn't an argument I can agree with or not, it is merely factually false. So if you are confused about the order of play, what happens on the first and second turn, going over the basics of Durations might be helpful.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: trivialknot on November 22, 2017, 03:30:02 pm
You're acting like this is all obvious stuff that everyone agrees on when you recently participated in an argument where at least some people were disagreeing with you.  I may think Den of Sin's on-play effect is better than Caravan, but I'm not so condescending to act like this is obvious and everyone agrees with me.
Talking about nonsense, you wrote stuff like: "With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action."

This isn't an argument I can agree with or not, it is merely factually false. So if you are confused about the order of play, what happens on the first and second turn, going over the basics of Durations might be helpful.
I'm not going to reply to this I'm just going to highlight it as evidence that you are being condescending, and also believe you are correct to be condescending.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: josh56 on November 22, 2017, 03:31:34 pm
You're acting like this is all obvious stuff that everyone agrees on when you recently participated in an argument where at least some people were disagreeing with you.  I may think Den of Sin's on-play effect is better than Caravan, but I'm not so condescending to act like this is obvious and everyone agrees with me.
Talking about nonsense, you wrote stuff like: "With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action."

This isn't an argument I can agree with or not, it is merely factually false. So if you are confused about the order of play, what happens on the first and second turn, going over the basics of Durations might be helpful.
I'm not going to reply to this I'm just going to highlight it evidence that you are being condescending, and also believe you are correct to be condescending.
Pot calling the kettle back. If you think that calling obvious falsehoods nonsense is condescending you might not wanna use that very word yourself.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: josh56 on November 22, 2017, 03:37:06 pm
I find it amusing to have people say that Den of Sin has a delayed effect compared to Lab. You get to play Den of Sin the very same turn you buy it, while you have to wait a full shuffle to play Lab.

Den of Sin is worse than Lab in the sense that you can't chain them, and that if you draw your deck you can only play them one turn out of two, but it's definitely "faster" than Lab.
It provides an early kick but is then a bit weaker whereas Lab is just an ordinary, linear "snowball" card.
One cool aspect of Nocturne are these changes to the early parts of the game. The Heirlooms, especially Goat and Cursed Gold are probably even more radical than these Night-Durations in terms of changing the opening.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: chipperMDW on November 22, 2017, 06:22:14 pm
Talking about nonsense, you wrote stuff like: "With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action."

I remember, when he said that, I thought it was really insightful and highlighted the distinction between Smithy and (the relevant parts of) Haunted Woods.

Having two Haunted Woodses and playing them on alternating turns is a lot like having one Smithy and playing it every turn. Either way, you pay -1 Card and -1 Action each turn, and you get +3 Cards per turn. But with the Smithy, you have to pay the cost before you get the benefit, and with the Haunted Woodses, you get the benefit upfront and get to pay the cost later on. You get to use the benefit to make sure you're able to pay the cost.

Sure, the cost on a turn is not actually connected to the benefit you got earlier that turn. And if you ever fail to play a Haunted Woods on a turn, the analogy falls apart. So it's not literally true. But it's a great way to describe what's happening, and I certainly wouldn't call it nonsense.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Awaclus on November 22, 2017, 10:49:23 pm
You are right. A Treasure that says At the start of the turn after the next one: +$3 would not be technically strictly weaker than Gold as there could be weird situations in which it is better. But common sense suffices to realize that such a card would be a sucker compared to Gold.

Cards are not coins. It doesn't matter whether you receive coins at the start of your turn or in your buy phase because you can't use them before your buy phase anyway.

I don't see how you can compare a Lab variant like Stables or Hunting Party that are situationally stronger or weaker than Lab with a definitely weaker duration Lab variant like Caravan or the hypothetical Action version of Den of Sin.

Because Den of Sin is not "definitely weaker". Caravan isn't comparable because it only gives you one card at the start of your next turn, making it only half as strong.

If you nearly draw your deck you play those durations a little more frequently than every 2nd turn whereas a Lab could be played every turn.

You can't play Durations more frequently than every 2nd turn, but that's not the point. The point is that you are guaranteed to get the cards at the start of your turn, which probably means you are drawing your entire deck for sure, whereas a Lab could be the bottom card of your deck and do nothing at all.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: aku_chi on November 22, 2017, 11:27:08 pm
Caravan isn't comparable because it only gives you one card at the start of your next turn, making it only half as strong.

Caravan is directly comparable to Den of Sin's on-play.  Caravan provides a non-terminal one card now (replacing itself) and one card next turn.  Den of Sin is a non-terminal stop card that provides two cards next turn.  Den of Sin is a Caravan variant.  If Den of Sin cost $4 and didn't have its on-gain ability, I think it would have a similar power level as Caravan.  Of course, Den of Sin's on-gain ability makes it very attractive, even at $5.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Awaclus on November 22, 2017, 11:32:34 pm
Caravan isn't comparable because it only gives you one card at the start of your next turn, making it only half as strong.

Caravan is directly comparable to Den of Sin's on-play.  Caravan provides a non-terminal one card now (replacing itself) and one card next turn.  Den of Sin is a non-terminal stop card that provides two cards next turn.  Den of Sin is a Caravan variant.  If Den of Sin cost $4 and didn't have its on-gain ability, I think it would have a similar power level as Caravan.  Of course, Den of Sin's on-gain ability makes it very attractive, even at $5.

Den of Sin is as good as two Caravans for your next turn.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Seprix on November 23, 2017, 09:18:21 am
You're acting like this is all obvious stuff that everyone agrees on when you recently participated in an argument where at least some people were disagreeing with you.  I may think Den of Sin's on-play effect is better than Caravan, but I'm not so condescending to act like this is obvious and everyone agrees with me.
Talking about nonsense, you wrote stuff like: "With Haunted Woods, you get +3 cards at the beginning of the turn, and then you later pay the cost of -1 card -1 action."

This isn't an argument I can agree with or not, it is merely factually false. So if you are confused about the order of play, what happens on the first and second turn, going over the basics of Durations might be helpful.
I'm not going to reply to this I'm just going to highlight it evidence that you are being condescending, and also believe you are correct to be condescending.
Pot calling the kettle back. If you think that calling obvious falsehoods nonsense is condescending you might not wanna use that very word yourself.

Welcome back, Tristan! Can we all please keep it civil down here? I really don't want this thread to be locked.  :'( Ignore insults and rude behavior if you have to man, don't even engage. Don't give it the time of day.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: aku_chi on November 23, 2017, 10:14:00 am
Caravan isn't comparable because it only gives you one card at the start of your next turn, making it only half as strong.

Caravan is directly comparable to Den of Sin's on-play.  Caravan provides a non-terminal one card now (replacing itself) and one card next turn.  Den of Sin is a non-terminal stop card that provides two cards next turn.  Den of Sin is a Caravan variant.  If Den of Sin cost $4 and didn't have its on-gain ability, I think it would have a similar power level as Caravan.  Of course, Den of Sin's on-gain ability makes it very attractive, even at $5.

Den of Sin is as good as two Caravans for your next turn.

Oh.  Are we taking turns saying obvious things?  If you play N copies of Caravan or Den of Sin each turn, you increase your hand size by N.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: theory on November 23, 2017, 10:45:03 am
tristan 4.0 is banned.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Jeebus on November 23, 2017, 12:02:43 pm
Ok, people are saying Bard is bad, and that might be true, but it costs $4, so it might be that it could be useful sometimes when you don't mind a terminal.

But I don't see how Sacred Grove isn't the worst card of the set. Unless it's the only +Buy and you really need a +Buy, why would you pick it up over other $5 cost cards? It's a terminal Gold that has no other benefit (apart from the +Buy), because the Boon can be optionally received by the other players 10 out of 12 times. That might even be a boon (pun) for them, because they can actually refuse that Silver from the Mountain.

I agree that Tragic Hero seems pretty weak. Compare it to Margrave for instance. I you want it for building an engine, it will pretty soon trash itself for a Treasure you often don't want. In a big money terminal deck, where you could use the Treasure, it never trashes itself.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Jeebus on November 23, 2017, 12:13:24 pm
Not about strategy, but still one of my initial impressions:

Tormentor should be called Demon. First of all, Tormentor is too similar to Torturer, there is no card called Demon and it fits the theme. Second, it gives you imps, which are little devils. Why would a tormentor give you imps?

It also deals out hexes, which is something magical. Skulk is also a bad name in that regard. All other Doom cards work very well in terms of their name. (I know, curses are also magical and not all Curse givers fit with that.)
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: aku_chi on November 23, 2017, 12:39:14 pm
But I don't see how Sacred Grove isn't the worst card of the set. Unless it's the only +Buy and you really need a +Buy, why would you pick it up over other $5 cost cards? It's a terminal Gold that has no other benefit (apart from the +Buy), because the Boon can be optionally received by the other players 10 out of 12 times. That might even be a boon (pun) for them, because they can actually refuse that Silver from the Mountain.

Sacred Grove is non-attack payload.  It's usually going to be stronger than Wine Merchant and Merchant Ship.  It's probably a little weaker than Courtier and Merchant Guild.  It's not the most exciting card in the world, but it seems like a fine card to me...
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Jeebus on November 23, 2017, 01:34:22 pm
Sacred Grove is non-attack payload.  It's usually going to be stronger than Wine Merchant and Merchant Ship.  It's probably a little weaker than Courtier and Merchant Guild.  It's not the most exciting card in the world, but it seems like a fine card to me...

I don't know what you're trying to say with "non-attack payload". So is Mandarin, but so what? I think Merchant Ship is usually pretty weak, but it does give +$4 (more than Sacred Grove) and it let's you start a turn with $, so yeah, better than Sacred Grove. Wine Merchant is good when you can play several, which is often what you try going for. I don't see any use for Sacred Grove except if it's the only +1 Buy.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: FemurLemur on November 23, 2017, 01:41:52 pm
tristan 4.0 is banned.

I'm like 99% sure you're joking, but, you are joking, right? That would be the quickest witch hunt ever if not.

More on topic: I don't know that I think Josh was being condescending until after he was first accused of being condescending, although I should admit I haven't read those other two threads Trivialknot linked to. I agree with Seprix though, deescalation would be good, because this has been a very enjoyable thread so far, and it'd be cool to keep it like that
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 23, 2017, 02:00:30 pm
Sacred Grove is non-attack payload.  It's usually going to be stronger than Wine Merchant and Merchant Ship.  It's probably a little weaker than Courtier and Merchant Guild.  It's not the most exciting card in the world, but it seems like a fine card to me...

I don't know what you're trying to say with "non-attack payload". So is Mandarin, but so what? I think Merchant Ship is usually pretty weak, but it does give +$4 (more than Sacred Grove) and it let's you start a turn with $, so yeah, better than Sacred Grove. Wine Merchant is good when you can play several, which is often what you try going for. I don't see any use for Sacred Grove except if it's the only +1 Buy.

Merchant Ship is $4 over two turns, so is less spiky than Sacred Grove. You know you are in dire straights when you start getting compared to Merchant Ship.

Sacred Grove is terminal Gold with a buy, which is okay, but has some other benefits with the Boons, and some Boons are easier to make use of in the middle of your turn than at the start (for example the trashing Boon, the discard treasure for a $4 Boon, and the discard 3 for Gold boon). And then you can get the +$1 Boons sometimes to get a non-symmetrical bonus.

The +card and Wisp Boons probably help your opponent more than they help you though.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: gloures on November 23, 2017, 05:15:21 pm
tristan 4.0 is banned.

I'm like 99% sure you're joking, but, you are joking, right? That would be the quickest witch hunt ever if not.

More on topic: I don't know that I think Josh was being condescending until after he was first accused of being condescending, although I should admit I haven't read those other two threads Trivialknot linked to. I agree with Seprix though, deescalation would be good, because this has been a very enjoyable thread so far, and it'd be cool to keep it like that

While I don't think he really did anything too bad here, he definitely showed behavior similar enough to Tristan's to get me to suspect him. If he was really banned I'm pretty sure it would be due to his past accounts behavior than whatever he did now. And while there's no way for me to be sure he's actually tristan, I guess Theory might have some way to find out.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 23, 2017, 05:53:24 pm
Sacred Grove is non-attack payload.
Synergies, conditional on village support:

Where virtual money is valued, only a few cards can compete with Sacred Grove's $3—Courtier has been mentioned. Miser can provide a big payload but is slow and lacks +buy. 2xGiant provides $6, or $3 each on average, same as 2xWine Merchant when subtracting the release cost (and with attack and +buy, respectively). Count, man, you really have to want to topdeck a card; Mandarin likewise. Mass Soldier has the quadratic mass-Bank thing going on, but does anyone actually do that? Death cart, Vault, eh?

As a virtual money payload, Sacred Grove doesn't look half bad to me. Virtual money just isn't the awesomest thing ever on a lot of boards, where you're happy to take Gold over Sacred Grove once you have enough +buy.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: crj on November 23, 2017, 10:42:24 pm
some Boons are easier to make use of in the middle of your turn than at the start (for example the trashing Boon, the discard treasure for a $4 Boon, and the discard 3 for Gold boon). And then you can get the +$1 Boons sometimes to get a non-symmetrical bonus.
I'm not convinced many of the Boons are especially worse to play between your turns than in the middle of your turn. It feels to me that could go either way, depending on how you're playing your turn. Maybe once you have an engine running you go out of your way to try to have lots of cards in hand when you play Sacred Grove, but that won't always be possible.

Set against that, it's already been pointed out that you gaining a mandatory Silver while your opponents have the option of gaining one is asymmetric against you.

Then again, does the Boon stuff need to be a net benefit to the current player? I'm staring at Contraband, Courtier, Mandarin, Count, Legionary, Swamp Hag, all priced at $5, all giving you the potential for +$3. Are any actually as good as a flat +$3,+1Buy? Maybe Sacred Grove would have to cost more without the Boons?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: FemurLemur on November 24, 2017, 10:41:25 am
some Boons are easier to make use of in the middle of your turn than at the start (for example the trashing Boon, the discard treasure for a $4 Boon, and the discard 3 for Gold boon). And then you can get the +$1 Boons sometimes to get a non-symmetrical bonus.
Then again, does the Boon stuff need to be a net benefit to the current player? I'm staring at Contraband, Courtier, Mandarin, Count, Legionary, Swamp Hag, all priced at $5, all giving you the potential for +$3. Are any actually as good as a flat +$3,+1Buy? Maybe Sacred Grove would have to cost more without the Boons?

I think sometimes I'd rather have Count than a flat +$3 +1 Buy. But I think I agree with your reasoning that Sacred Grove may have to cost more if it didn't give other players the Boons.

Set against that, it's already been pointed out that you gaining a mandatory Silver while your opponents have the option of gaining one is asymmetric against you.

It's a good point, though hopefully people realize that if they're running a deck that absolutely doesn't want Silvers, then Fates are probably not a good choice.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Jeebus on November 24, 2017, 10:52:35 am
some Boons are easier to make use of in the middle of your turn than at the start (for example the trashing Boon, the discard treasure for a $4 Boon, and the discard 3 for Gold boon). And then you can get the +$1 Boons sometimes to get a non-symmetrical bonus.
I'm not convinced many of the Boons are especially worse to play between your turns than in the middle of your turn. It feels to me that could go either way, depending on how you're playing your turn. Maybe once you have an engine running you go out of your way to try to have lots of cards in hand when you play Sacred Grove, but that won't always be possible.

Set against that, it's already been pointed out that you gaining a mandatory Silver while your opponents have the option of gaining one is asymmetric against you.

You write "set against that", but aren't both of your points saying the same thing, that Sacred Grove is not good? Markusin was making an argument for Sacred Grove, saying that some Boons are not such a benefit to the other players since they get them between turns, and you're saying that's not necessarily true.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 24, 2017, 11:45:01 am
some Boons are easier to make use of in the middle of your turn than at the start (for example the trashing Boon, the discard treasure for a $4 Boon, and the discard 3 for Gold boon). And then you can get the +$1 Boons sometimes to get a non-symmetrical bonus.
I'm not convinced many of the Boons are especially worse to play between your turns than in the middle of your turn. It feels to me that could go either way, depending on how you're playing your turn. Maybe once you have an engine running you go out of your way to try to have lots of cards in hand when you play Sacred Grove, but that won't always be possible.

Set against that, it's already been pointed out that you gaining a mandatory Silver while your opponents have the option of gaining one is asymmetric against you.

You write "set against that", but aren't both of your points saying the same thing, that Sacred Grove is not good? Markusin was making an argument for Sacred Grove, saying that some Boons are not such a benefit to the other players since they get them between turns, and you're saying that's not necessarily true.

I actually don't know how "set against that" is supposed to be used in conversation. It's not something I hear very often, and I interpreted it as a generic framing device rather than implying a contradiction like "on the other hand" does.

Now, it won't always be possible to play Sacred Grove with a big hand, but maybe Sacred Grove doesn't always have to be a good card. I'd say specifically look for the cases where you can play several with larger hand, and it could do good work for you.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: FemurLemur on November 25, 2017, 12:44:38 pm
some Boons are easier to make use of in the middle of your turn than at the start (for example the trashing Boon, the discard treasure for a $4 Boon, and the discard 3 for Gold boon). And then you can get the +$1 Boons sometimes to get a non-symmetrical bonus.
I'm not convinced many of the Boons are especially worse to play between your turns than in the middle of your turn. It feels to me that could go either way, depending on how you're playing your turn. Maybe once you have an engine running you go out of your way to try to have lots of cards in hand when you play Sacred Grove, but that won't always be possible.

Set against that, it's already been pointed out that you gaining a mandatory Silver while your opponents have the option of gaining one is asymmetric against you.

You write "set against that", but aren't both of your points saying the same thing, that Sacred Grove is not good? Markusin was making an argument for Sacred Grove, saying that some Boons are not such a benefit to the other players since they get them between turns, and you're saying that's not necessarily true.

I actually don't know how "set against that" is supposed to be used in conversation. It's not something I hear very often, and I interpreted it as a generic framing device rather than implying a contradiction like "on the other hand" does.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't imply contradiction or agreement, just a comparison of some sort.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 25, 2017, 02:20:20 pm
(However, the phrase "I'm set against that" means firm opposition, as far as I'm aware. Maybe someone has that at the back of their mind.)
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: dghunter79 on November 25, 2017, 05:42:01 pm
(However, the phrase "I'm set against that" means firm opposition, as far as I'm aware. Maybe someone has that at the back of their mind.)

https://www.thespruce.com/which-word-has-the-most-definitions-4077796 (https://www.thespruce.com/which-word-has-the-most-definitions-4077796)
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 25, 2017, 06:30:05 pm
Speculation: on non-engine boards that's aren't just terminal draw big money, Conclave is a village worth buying.

Certainly a {Mountebank, Mountebank, Conclave, Copper, Curse} hand beats {Mountebank, Mountebank, Silver, Copper, Curse}, and likewise with Goons, Sea Hag and Marauder as your terminal payload. Obviously Silver is better if you draw Conclave dead, but it probably still plays nicely with Witch and Young Witch. I'm not so sure about Cultist, but hey, maybe it helps you play your ruins and make them merely very weak rather than dead cards. Cultist points towards getting Conclave later than those other payload terminals, maybe.

Like most disappearing villages it plays well with draw-to-x; it's probably particularly good with Jack of all Trades: the money bonus from Conclave is highly appreciated, drawing a second copy of your draw-to-x is just fine, your draw-to-x doesn't draw Conclave dead, and you won't ever draw an unplayable third copy of your draw-to-x if you're playing DoubleJack. It's probably fine with Library too, but Library isn't exactly a power card.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 25, 2017, 07:09:50 pm
The first couple of Conclaves are very hard to refuse.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: theory on November 26, 2017, 09:39:20 pm
tristan 4.0 is banned.

I'm like 99% sure you're joking, but, you are joking, right? That would be the quickest witch hunt ever if not.

More on topic: I don't know that I think Josh was being condescending until after he was first accused of being condescending, although I should admit I haven't read those other two threads Trivialknot linked to. I agree with Seprix though, deescalation would be good, because this has been a very enjoyable thread so far, and it'd be cool to keep it like that
I wasn't joking.  And I was confident in my analysis, which I would be happy to share with you over PM.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: ipofanes on November 28, 2017, 03:35:54 am
I agree that Tragic Hero seems pretty weak. Compare it to Margrave for instance. I you want it for building an engine, it will pretty soon trash itself for a Treasure you often don't want. In a big money terminal deck, where you could use the Treasure, it never trashes itself.

Sometimes there's no other +card. Tragic Hero is, as pointed out, (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17894.msg733519;topicseen#msg733519) very powerful with Necromancer ... but as Trash is commons, this is more an argument against TH, as I would expect everyone piling up on Necromancers and waiting to everyone else to make their first move with TH. A bit like activating Cities.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 28, 2017, 08:04:10 am
I agree that Tragic Hero seems pretty weak. Compare it to Margrave for instance. I you want it for building an engine, it will pretty soon trash itself for a Treasure you often don't want. In a big money terminal deck, where you could use the Treasure, it never trashes itself.

Sometimes there's no other +card. Tragic Hero is, as pointed out, (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17894.msg733519;topicseen#msg733519) very powerful with Necromancer ... but as Trash is commons, this is more an argument against TH, as I would expect everyone piling up on Necromancers and waiting to everyone else to make their first move with TH. A bit like activating Cities.

Well, Necromancer can only play the same Tragic Hero in the trash once per turn. Only the person who plays Tragic Hero from hand could play it twice in a turn (once from hand, once from the trash).
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 28, 2017, 03:14:15 pm
Necromancer can only play the same Tragic Hero in the trash once per turn.
If you Necro the TH and it trashes itself, isn't it turned face up?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: enfynet on November 28, 2017, 03:19:04 pm
I thought it would fail to trash itself as it cannot find itself in play.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: markusin on November 28, 2017, 03:31:17 pm
I thought it would fail to trash itself as it cannot find itself in play.

Yeah Necromancer never moves the cards into play, and they fail to trash themselves. For example, you can't get Pixie's Boons when playing it with Necromancer. Tragic Hero still gives you the treasure because the treasure gain is not conditional on Tragic Hero trashing itself. Same thing with Pillage and Embargo.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: LastFootnote on November 28, 2017, 03:33:06 pm
Necromancer can only play the same Tragic Hero in the trash once per turn.
If you Necro the TH and it trashes itself, isn't it turned face up?

Nope! You didn't trash it because it was already in the trash. So it's still face-down.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 28, 2017, 06:20:14 pm
I stand corrected. You all agree that if I Necro an Encampment and don't reveal, it gets set aside (and if it's face down, everyone gets to look at it) and later gets returned to the supply (face up)?
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: LastFootnote on November 28, 2017, 06:29:46 pm
I stand corrected. You all agree that if I Necro an Encampment and don't reveal, it gets set aside (and if it's face down, everyone gets to look at it) and later gets returned to the supply (face up)?

No, for the same reason Reserve cards you Necro don’t go to your Tavern mat.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on November 28, 2017, 06:44:56 pm
No, for the same reason Reserve cards you Necro don’t go to your Tavern mat.
Huh, dangit. I could'a sworn I remember DXV saying that Necro playing an action merely failed to put the action in play but didn't impact its movement in any other way. The Nocturne rulebook states something different. Huh.

Maybe I'm just getting old and brainfarty or something :o
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Jeebus on November 28, 2017, 07:29:02 pm
Huh, dangit. I could'a sworn I remember DXV saying that Necro playing an action merely failed to put the action in play but didn't impact its movement in any other way. The Nocturne rulebook states something different. Huh.

That's true, that's all Necro does. But since it's not in play, no ability that expects it to be in play will move it. That includes all cards that move themselves when they get played. They all expect to be in play when that happens. So also Madman, Wish, Island...

What Donald mentioned was cards like Graverobber that can gain a card from trash. There's nothing stopping a Graverobber in the trash (played with Necro) from gaining itself from the trash. It expects to gain a card from the trash. It could be any card, but it happened to be a Graverobber (itself).
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Seprix on December 01, 2017, 08:33:48 pm
tristan 4.0 is banned.

I'm like 99% sure you're joking, but, you are joking, right? That would be the quickest witch hunt ever if not.

More on topic: I don't know that I think Josh was being condescending until after he was first accused of being condescending, although I should admit I haven't read those other two threads Trivialknot linked to. I agree with Seprix though, deescalation would be good, because this has been a very enjoyable thread so far, and it'd be cool to keep it like that

While I don't think he really did anything too bad here, he definitely showed behavior similar enough to Tristan's to get me to suspect him. If he was really banned I'm pretty sure it would be due to his past accounts behavior than whatever he did now. And while there's no way for me to be sure he's actually tristan, I guess Theory might have some way to find out.

There's always tells with Tristan, and those involve his writing style, recognition of the past in ways that Tristan was interested in, and eagerness to argue pointlessly and with great fervor. All that and a Theory-style background check pretty much makes it 100%.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: greybirdofprey on December 06, 2017, 11:05:19 am
With thief and pixie in the kingdom you can steal someone's goat and make a goat eat another goat. Goat cannibalism confirmed canon.

Not that you should buy a thief to begin with.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: faust on December 06, 2017, 11:14:15 am
With thief and pixie in the kingdom you can steal someone's goat and make a goat eat another goat. Goat cannibalism confirmed canon.

Not that you should buy a thief to begin with.
Or just use Masquerade.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jsh357 on December 06, 2017, 12:06:56 pm
My impression so far is that nocturne is really fun.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: trivialknot on December 06, 2017, 02:09:51 pm
So, I've finally gotten my hands on an IRL copy of the Nocturne, and have played about 30 games with 5 Nocturne cards each.  Here are my initial impressions.

Overall - Overall, games seem to be sloggier.  Which I like.  Now, I said the same thing about Empires when Empires came out, the reason being trashing was weak (relative to Adventures and Dark Ages) and there were so many ways to get points by ruining your own deck (which I probably overvalued initially).  For Nocturne, it seems to be sloggier because the draw is often limited, awkward, or inconsistent.  And I really want to try all those Night cards, which are stop cards in the action phase.  It may be that I am initially playing it incorrectly, but that's how it stands now.

Boons/Hexes - These are a lot of fun.  There are definitely some boons/hexes that you are happier to see, but it never feels like someone gets way ahead just because of a single boon/hex.  There are too many revealed in a game and it tends to average out.  I think the most powerful boons are Sun's gift, Wind's Gift, and Earth's Gift; the most powerful hexes are Envy, Delusion, and Poverty.

Heirlooms - While the concept of Heirlooms is great, I think it's the cards themselves that make it amazing.  Lucky Coin and Cursed Gold offer an interesting choice about how many silvers/curses you want.  Pouch and Goat are great to have but maybe you don't want to rely on them because there's only one of each.  The minigames for Magic Lamp and Haunted Mirror are fun, but not overpowered, so there's an interesting choice of whether to go for them.  Pasture has me questioning whether an Estate rush can be good.

Bard - Bard isn't that bad. If you have space for terminal money it's great.  Also, I wouldn't say it was too simple or boring.  If all the boon text were on Bard itself we would complain that it was too complicated.

Blessed Village - This makes the village idiot strategy feel good, even though it probably isn't.  I think you pick these up a bit earlier than you would normally pick up village, because the boons help even when the village effect won't help until later.

Cemetery/Haunted Mirror - From what I've seen of people streaming games online, I think people are way undervaluing Cemetery.  I buy this card way more often, and I still think I'm undervaluing it.  Thinning is winning.

I feel like I have been overvaluing Ghost.  Sometimes it feels like it was a mistake to get it, because the opportunity cost was too high and it was too slow.  In an engine, I don't want to rely on Ghost because it's only every other turn, so I end up building a deck where Ghost only gives me overdraw.

Changeling - It's a fun card, but I haven't played any games where it felt outstanding.  I tried to gain a Prince once, but my opponent pointed out that I couldn't unless I played Prince without Princing anything.  I regret not doing that.

Cobbler - A strong card.  The player that goes for this seems to win every time, although that could be coincidence.

Conclave - Although strictly weaker than Festival, it's really strong at $4, because it lets you get them early on, when you need the economy.  Then later when you need villages, you already have them.

Crypt - I thought Crypt seemed really strong, but I am reconsidering that view.  Or maybe I just need to buy more until they self-synergize!  The problem is that if you're drawing your deck, you don't really want to pseudotrash your treasure, and if you're not drawing your deck, Crypt is so unreliable.  I think it's better than Treasury.

Cursed Village - I feel like this could create engines all on its own, but I haven't gotten a kingdom with the right support yet.  It's good even without support.

Den of Sin - It feels great to draw those cards, but man, it's basically Caravan + Expedition.  It can't possibly be as good as it feels.  I don't think you should try to draw your deck with just these.

Devil's Workshop - It's a bit awkward that you don't get a choice of what to gain, but I still think this is one of the strongest cards in the set, because Imps are just so good.  It's bad whenever Imps are bad.

Druid - The only time this seemed good was when it was the only trasher, and then the other boons were nice options.  Otherwise I haven't gotten good use out of it.

Exorcist - Another card I thought would be strong, but I might reconsider.  It seems like it should be at least as good as Raze, but it's slowed down because it costs $4, and you don't get Will'o'wisp until the next shuffle.  I think you'd rather have a trasher that gave you economy instead of spirits.

Faithful Hound - One time I went for a Storeroom/Faithful Hound deck, not really expecting it to be good.  The deck exceeded my expectations.  Luckily I never dudded, although my opponent put up a good fight with Raiders.

Fool/Lucky Coin - Fool is good when sifting at the beginning of the turn is good.  Which is often.  Unfortunately my opponent seems to think so too, and then Fool turns into a terminal +3 boons, which isn't as good.

Ghost Town - I haven't gotten much mileage out of this yet.

Guardian - It's so bad, but I still buy them.  I played a torturer game where I fell behind, but I ended up with 4 guardians instead of 9 curses so that was nice.  Still lost though.

Idol - It might not be the fastest Curser in the game, but nonterminal cursing is still so good.  And to pull it off, you need lots of them.  It's ironic that the weakness of Idol (only even Idols curse) means that you want more of them.  Boons are good too but the buy phase isn't the best time for them.

Leprechaun - I like how this card is useful in both engines (where you try to get wishes) and in big money (because of gold).  Although, I think it's better for big money.  Hexes seem marginal, and wishes often come too late in the game.

Monastery - Although on paper this is as good as forager, it feels weaker for some reason.  I think it's a psychological effect of playing it during the night phase or something.  Also it doesn't work with draw-to-X so much.

Necromancer - I'm always happy to have more of these, because then I could trash good actions and take greater advantage of them than my opponent.  And if I have extras, zombie spy followed by zombie mason is fine.  The only issue is the opportunity cost of picking them up.

Night Watchman - This is a great sifter, much better than Guide.  Although it's not great when you're drawing deck.  Either there are no cards to sift, or you cause a bad shuffle.

Pixie/Goat - Pixie is a star $2-cost card, and makes so that I'm never sad to hit only $2.

Pooka - I've seen online streamers buy this, and then crash and burn.  My opponent, not having seen those, did the same.  But I think it's actually a decent card, with the right support.  Just don't open with it.

Raider - So, Raider is pretty much Gold, but if you're buying Gold you'd really rather it not skip shuffles.  The attack part has its moments, like when my opponent stacked them vs my Faithful Hound deck, but in general it is very marginal.

Sacred Grove - I know that terminal money cards tend to be the lowest ranked ones, but as far as terminal money goes this is really good.  The +Buy just helps it so much relative to other cards like Harvest, Mandarin, Counting House, Merchant Ship, Giant.

Secret Cave/Magic Lamp - Secret Cave isn't that strong, but one time I got a bunch of them as part of a Double-Tactician deck.  I bailed on that deck when I realized my only trashers were Goat and Bat, but I wish I had given it a chance.

Shepherd/Pasture - I get mixed results when I play with this, and I'm not yet sure why.  It seems like there are some situations where you want to pick up a few Shepherds and green really hard, but I'm not sure of the correct timing.

Skulk - Haven't used this too much.  Mostly I get it for the gold, and then I exchange Skulk for Changeling or trash it.

Tormentor - I've bought this a few times in order to get Imps.  I've only ever gotten 2 or 3 Imps.  Well, Imps are good, so I'm satisfied with it.

Tracker/Pouch - I think it's stronger than it looks, because boons are powerful and topdecking is particularly good early on.  But let's not get carried away, it's a terminal $2-cost, it can only be so good.

Tragic Hero - I love this card!  Not that it's particularly strong, I just like it a lot.  Once I tried deliberately trashing them (with Ghost Town) on the theory that I wanted Gold in my deck.  It turns out that no, I'd rather keep the Tragic Heroes if possible.

Vampire - It's weaker than it looks at first, because it's just so slow.  If you buy Vampire instead of some other $5-cost, it delays that $5-cost by a shuffle, and you don't get additional $5-costs for another two shuffles.  It's still really good though.

Werewolf - This really feels like a smithy-minus to me.  Drawing cards is way better than hexing is, so it seems like you only end up hexing a lot if you are building your deck poorly.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on December 06, 2017, 03:18:34 pm
With thief and pixie in the kingdom you can steal someone's goat and make a goat eat another goat. Goat cannibalism confirmed canon.

Not that you should buy a thief to begin with.
Or just use Masquerade.

Well, I certainly wouldn't just give my goat to someone, especially if I suspected them of goat cannibalism.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: crj on December 06, 2017, 08:03:28 pm
Now, I said the same thing about Empires when Empires came out, the reason being trashing was weak (relative to Adventures and Dark Ages)
I'm not sure the set that includes Donate can fairly be accused of having weak trashing!
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: trivialknot on December 06, 2017, 08:38:20 pm
Now, I said the same thing about Empires when Empires came out, the reason being trashing was weak (relative to Adventures and Dark Ages)
I'm not sure the set that includes Donate can fairly be accused of having weak trashing!
Someone said the exact same thing when Empires came out, and my response is still the same: Donate is just one card.  Or zero, depending on how you count them.  In Empires-heavy games, specific landmarks and events don't come out very often relative to kingdom cards.  At the time that I shared my initial impressions of Empires, I think I had played literally one game with Donate, whereas I had played several with all the kingdom card trashers (Catapult, Temple, Sacrifice).
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Awaclus on December 07, 2017, 01:15:51 am
Catapult and Temple are also some of the most powerful trashers in the game and Sacrifice is fine.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: faust on December 07, 2017, 01:26:19 am
Catapult and Temple are also some of the most powerful trashers in the game and Sacrifice is fine.
Well, Catapult is powerful, but it certainly doesn't make for quick games, and games with it would feel sloggier compared to other trashers.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Jeebus on December 07, 2017, 10:19:12 am
Exorcist - Another card I thought would be strong, but I might reconsider.  It seems like it should be at least as good as Raze, but it's slowed down because it costs $4, and you don't get Will'o'wisp until the next shuffle.  I think you'd rather have a trasher that gave you economy instead of spirits.

Exorcist is turning into one of my favorite cards. So far I've won every game with it by opening with it, even in the face of other trashers. Too early to tell if it's a coincidence though. One Exorcist has gotta be better than one Raze though.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: werothegreat on December 07, 2017, 10:49:37 am
I think Raider is being heavily underrated.  If you can trash away your Coppers, the Attack is quite powerful.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: jonaskoelker on December 07, 2017, 12:40:10 pm
If you can trash away your Coppers, the Attack is quite powerful.

Obvious statement is obvious: playing your Coppers is optional—as anyone who has played at least one Grand Market game probably knows.

Of course, if you can't trash your Coppers your ways of playing Raider reliably are twofold: either draw your deck and give up $7 worth of payload, or play something money-ish and have lots of Raiders (and abstain from playing your Copper). Neither of those seem particularly attractive.

The worthwhile point I can make, based purely on speculation, is that when you're drawing your deck but still have a few Coppers left (thanks to the trasher being slow, say), you should consider the trade-off between playing them vs. hitting harder with Raider.

though... if you're playing an engine mirror with a reasonably high payload-to-wheel card ratio, given that Raider is a Night card, I would think its most likely effect would be to make your opponent discard a payload card, which essentially means you make them build where they can overdraw their deck by one card.

More guessing time: in engine vs. money, if you can limit your payload to Gold and Raider, and have at least one Gold, the most likely effect of Raider is to make them discard either a Gold or their Smithy variant. Both of those effects seem like they should slow your opponent down quite a bit.

If anyone's experience confirms or refutes this, please share :)
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: gloures on December 10, 2017, 02:01:24 am
I was initially a little skeptical about Nocturne, a good few cards seemed a bit like duds and Boons/Hexes seem to introduce to big of a random element. After the last few weeks of actually playing with Nocturne I can safely say that my skepticism is gone. Some Nocturne cards offer great tactical choices, and while there are some random elements, they are not as prominent as I initially suspected and ,also, even though, I believe there might be duds, a few of the cards I thought lowly of have grown on me over the last days, and most important of all I'm having a lot of fun playing in kingdoms with these cards!
So... After these few weeks playing I'll give my initial insights on these cards, do keep in mind that they might still be terribly wrong. I got carried away and decided to go a little more in depth here, sorry for the wall of text!

Druid- A combination of many cards in one, but it always has a buy so at the very least it can work like a Ruined Market...
I would divide the Boons in three categories, there's a few of them which make Druid an actual desirable card, a few of them that provide great support, they won't be the reason that you buy Druid, but are great boons to have as an option either to potentially save you from a dud, or to do something useful when you don't really want to do anything else and there's also a few boons that just make you sad to have as an option:
Makes you buy Druid Boons: Earth, Flame, Swamp
Support Boons: River, Sun, Wind, Field, Forest
Makes you Sad Boons: Moon, Sea, Sky, Mountain

Faithful Hound- You will either be very sad by having to use this as your draw, or you will use this in combos. Luckily there are quite a few nice combos for this doggy. Sifting cards stand out since you can make a nice increased iniatial handsize which these cards love. Forum stands out even more since  buys might otherwise cause some trouble. There are other tricks like Quest and Fool, but it's still not a great card.

Guardian - This actually plays somewhat different from Lighthouse, the timing on the buys is pretty crucial and not something I can claim to have really gotten the hang of yet. It's good to remember that it can't be drawn dead and that even without attacks the gain to hand can be useful in a late game dud.

Monastery- This is a very strong trasher, there are some nice tricks to do with it and in the right deck it can probably deal even with the most oppressive junkers. Do remember to trash the coppers from play tough...   

Pixie- The fact that you can wait till you find something you want makes Pixie a very nice card. Definitely one of the best 2-cost cantrips. Goat is nuts, but do keep in mind that it very often can help the Money strategy more than the Engine! One popular misconception is that money does not need trashing, but the actual problem is that money has a big tempo problem if going for trashing, since buys and terminal space is very limited, and good money is all about pressing really hard to keep an early lead. This is the reason that X/Trade is pretty much the best money variant for almost any X, with Trade money does not lose tempo by trashing.

Tracker- Topdecking is really nice, only reason Royal Seal gets so much hate is because the competition at 5 is so stiff, (and when it isn't then topdecking probably also isn't as nice), the boon can also be a nice bonus. If you aren't to pressed for terminal space having a Tracker will frequently be nice, better yet that since it comes with Pouch you will always have +buy available which can really reduce the opportunity cost of buying a Tracker. Pouch is a copper with a buy, when there's trashing available you will have to get a good reading on the kingdom to know if it's important to keep this or not.

Changeling- Really fun card, it's very good somewhat often, tough you'll probably won't end up buying it so much. Always keep an eyes on piles! When Changeling is good, there's a nice chance that it's pile will go down really fast, which in turn also causes the piles of it's most likely targets to go down fast, I have seen quite a few games where Changeling pileouts came out somewhat unexpectedly.

Fool- I think this might be a dud. Mostly because I don't think Lost in the Woods is really worth it, quite a few of the boons don't really love a 4 card hand. Most of the times I ended up getting this is because I felt like Lucky Coin had already given all the Silvers I needed and there was simply nothing better at 3. The on play effect is quite strong though and Lost in Woods grows in valor in slogs, but definitely one of the weaker cards here. Lucky Coin changes quite a bit how you approach openings, since it generally can provide all the early eco you need. It also really speeds up the game, specially Money based ones.

Ghost Town- A cool village, the +1 card at next turn definitely helps reliability a lot and the gain to hand makes it so sometimes you buy this even though you don't really need a village (specially in the endgame). The fact that it only gives +Actions every other turn can make it a bit wonky to build engines with this as your only village , specially if the pile is contested (even more so in multiplayer I guess). In general tough if a pile needs to be contested to make a strategy not work that's a testament to the strength of said card.

Leprechaun- this is a card that has grown on me, the Hexes don't hit as hard as I thought and Gold gaining can be quite nice. in a good engine this is very strong , but it can be good Gold gainer in slogs/money.

Night Watchman- A stronger card than I thought it would be, like Tracker does to Royal Seal, this shows that the biggest problem with Cartographer is the opportunity cost involved with the $5 price tag. Can set up future hands really nicely and speeds up cycling, the gain to hand is big since it has late game uses and can set up some really good early hands. Do keep in mind that it;s a stop card though so be careful to not go overboard with them.

Secret Cave- Secret cave can be a very good card if spiking an early 6 or 7 is really important, otherwise you will probably just get this as a $3 cantrip if you want to avoid Silver or to make it easier to activate your Magic Lamp. Magic Lamp is an awesome really fun card! And it's very very strong, you should probably aim to activate this every game and do not hesitate to do so even if it means not playing some good cards. I think that this might be even stronger than Goat.

Bard- Weak. The weakest card here., no matter what Awaclus says. You're only geeting this if you really want money from actions or if you have a lot of extra terminal space and the alternative is Silver.

Blessed Village- The fact that you can choose to gain the boon in the next turn makes almost all boons useful. And a Village will be pretty much always a good card. Among the $4 villages I think it would fall somewhat in the middle. One thing, try to remember to not play extra Coppers and such if you're planning to buy of these, quite a feel boons would benefit from that copper in hand.

Cemetery- This is a really strong thrasher if there ae any gainers. Otherwise it's a cool nice thrasher, but a bit wonky. It's still very strong tough. Haunted Mirror is nice and Ghost is quite strong, but I have seem people (myself included) go to great lenght to activate this and it just seemed not worth it.

Conclave- A village that let's you skip Silver, that's the main job Conclave does. It's quite nice early and you can probably activate one or two without much trouble later on. It will have a tough time making engines work by itself, but most engines can benefit from having one.

Devil's Workshop- A strong card, but really lacks flexibility. Imps are great, but there is a point where you have too many Imps in your deck, the Gold is a nice option to have and the regular gaining is good, but not something that will make you aim to gain less cards in a turn.

Exorcist- A cool card. As a thrasher it's somewhat slow, so I wouldn't put it with the best thrashers, but, all the cards it can gain are quite strong, Estate to Wisp and Silver to Imp are both really strong effects.

Necromancer- A weird card, I'm getting more and more convinced that it actually is a really strong card. The main reason is Zombie Apprentice, since you can pretty much trash an action for a really strong effect and then have the Necromancer act as a sort of stand in for said action, with multiple Necromancers and multiple action in the trash, they can even gain a lot of flexibility. I'm still kinda of getting the hang for the timing with this tough, quite a feel times I just skipped it because it just didn't seem right, but sometimes I just went for it anyway and I still have not regretted doing so. The shared pool of actions in the trash can count against it, but like I said with Ghost Town if something has to be mirrored to be countered than it shows that it's actually a really strong in the first place. Zombie Mason can get some early trashing if you need it and Zombie Spy is just sad.

Shepherd- I'll make one hot take here. Shepherd is strong, very strong, possibly the strongest card in Nocturne. It can work both in conventional engines, being a nice early sifter/draw, and making it harder to stall in the late game, and it also works very well in it's own crazy strategy we're you just have a deck full of green and lots of Shepherds, and just draw huge amount of cards with each play of Shepherd. You will need a few other cards though... By itself Shepherd/Money is pretty bad, you might even have a game where draws works perfectly and it seems good, but you'll more often be faced with hands of Shepherd with a bunch of Coppers or just Coppers and green. Luckily though a lot of things can help this Shepherd engine, anything that can trash coppers is really good, +Buy allows picking up estates together with other components, duration draw is nuts with Shepherd, cantrip money can also really help. Now I'd say that this deck usually tends  to neither end games incredibly fast or be very reliable, but it just scores so much points... It can easily overcome a 3-5 province split, and if it's down to duchy dancing there's a big chance it will prevail, a big factor for this is Pasture. Now Pasture isn't worth much without Shepherd, Estates are worth a little more, but you will still want to trash them ASAP,  now with Shepherd there's a very good chance that this will end up worth more than a Province since green cards become actually desirable in those decks. And best of all, there a few things that match the feeling of discarding 10+ cards to Shepherd...

Skulk- Like with other Hexers I still need to figure out just how valuable is Hexing. The Gold can be quite valuable and might even make this a good opener. The +buy makes it so there will frequently want this even if it's not very good.

Cobbler- It's expensive and not very fast, but on the right board it can be really good! The extra reliability it provides is great, but there's a good chance that it will not be able to compete with the other 5's on the board. On a side note I think that Shepherd/Cobbler might be the strongest two card combo in Nocturne.

Crypt- A very unique card. It's kinda of combination of pseudo-trashing and smoothing out money between turns. It works best when you have multiple copies, and you keep one copy of Crypt in your deck while the others are set aside. I've seen quite a few decks where this card really shows it's strength...

Cursed Village- A good comparison for Cursed Village is Minion, but work as non terminal draw that leave you with a fixed number of cards, it doesn't have an attack and self-synergy like Minion, but in compensation it works a lot better with terminal cards. I think this very strong and one of the very best villages in the game. I also really love playing with this card even tough the Hex gaining can be somewhat annoying since a few Hexes hit hard and so many do absolutely nothing when you're in the buy phase.

Den of Sin- On first sight of this card, I was immediately reminded of Wharf and felt underwhelmed, well, in a way I was right, this is much weaker than Wharf I think. But most things also are... This is an pretty awesome card, the gain to hand makes this have a lot of tactical use, and all like all duration draw it's amazing for reliability, being non terminal makes it a lot easier for your deck to handle quite a few of these, and you want to do so frequently.

Idol- If you can use the cursing somewhat reliably then this will be a good card, otherwise the Boon in the buy phase is just not very strong, it's frequently useless or even harmful. It's still an non terminal curser though... Always remember to play this before your other treasures (except in some very weird edge case that I'm sure somebody can find...). This matters for a lot of the Boons you can receive.

Pooka- There are many cases in Dominion where a card is much more than the sums of it's parts, Lab is Moat + Ruined Village, but it's far better than any of these two will ever be. Pooka is a very rare (and weird) case where it kinda seems that a card is less than the sum of it's parts. +4 cards?, that's Hunting Grounds at $5, crazy right? trash a treasure? trashing always rocks! But Pooka, I guess Pooka is an ok card, far from strong. Thing is, in an engine depending on connecting Pooka + treasure  for your draw is just incredibly wonky, since you won't have much treasure at all after a little while. The fact that it comes with a Cursed Gold that it can't trash doesn't help it at all also. Still not a bad card though. As for Cursed Gold, knowing when to play and when (not) to trash it will be a big factor in pretty much any game with it.

Sacred Grove- Turns out $3 and +buy is pretty good, far from awesome though, but it's very nice payload. It's good to keep in mind that a lot of the boons (maybe even most of them) are better to receive from a 5-card starting hand then from a terminal in the middle of your turn.

Tormentor- A weakish card, gaining Imps is good, but you're not happy if that means a dud. Which mostly means you want this early.  Hexing is just not strong enough to justify buying this card unless the other options are quite weak.

Tragic Hero- This is the draw card you won't be very happy to see, but you will buy it anyway. Thing is, draw is really good, and if there's no draw probably there won't be much of an engine and Gold becomes a good card. So this is kinda of a draw card that latter becomes money, if it's the only draw, your engine will soon crumble into something moneyish, but you'll do so anyway, if there's other draw gaining one of these early is a great way to build the early stages of your engine and when you have to trash it, there's a chance that the money payload is actually quite good. A weird card, but I have really enjoyed playing with it.

Vampire- The true jack of all trades, it's a gainer, it trashes and it attacks, but doesn't excel at any of those. I would say that the gaining is the main attractive of the card, gaining 5s is just really really strong. The trashing is really good also, but does feels like it ends up arriving to late to be really strong. With other thrashers present I have felt that more often than not the trashing in bats is a cost to get back to Vampire. Hexing is (almost) always nice, but will pretty much never be the reason you get this.

Werewolf- I don't think this is one of the stronger +3 cards option.  Thing is +3 cards is already really good. The Hexing is a nice option if you draw this dead, but you won't want to not draw just to hex your opponent. Best thing I feel is that you can get a few more Werewolves than other draw cards since they still do something even after you draw your deck.

Raider- Still don't have a good feeling for this,  it's not very strong, but Ii realize how sometimes the attack can be pretty brutal, tough I still don't really know when to look for those situations very well. it has a really high cost and can be quite underwhelming most of the times

Hexes/Boons- I like Boons, they're nice little extras that can influence the game, but will not really swing the game to one side too much. Hexes also aren't that strong, one big thing about attacks in general is that you generally want to to somewhat spam them. with junkers you aim to make their deck so full of junk as to be nearly unplayable, knights try to reduce your opponents deck to just those cards that do not from 3-6 and with hand size attacks you should aim to play them every turn. Since Hexes are all over the place they end failing in reaching any of those goals, and while they can hurt, they end up being much easier to deal with than their non hexing counterparts. One thing to note is that while Boons generally do not decide games, Hexes can, specially Deluded/Envious, that while cool new attacks, if they end up properly timed, can singlehandedly turn a losing game into a winning one.

Probably no one will read this, but since I took the time to write I might as well post... If you got this far congratulations (and I hope I did not waste your time)! :p

And I also do hope I kept spelling and gramatical errors to a minimun, I wrote this a bit on a whim and I was sure that if I ended up proofreading it to much that I would never really end up posting it...
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Jeebus on December 11, 2017, 11:21:37 am
Pooka- There are many cases in Dominion where a card is much more than the sums of it's parts, Lab is Moat + Ruined Village, but it's far better than any of these two will ever be.

Just a note that this is wrong.

Moat + Ruined Village takes up two card slots in your hand and takes two Actions to play, while Lab takes up one slot and takes one Action. You have to look at the net effect: Lab is +1 Card, Moat is -1 Action and +1 Card, and Ruined Village is -1 Card. The net effect of Moat + Ruined Village is -1 Action. (If you play both, you will have the same number of cards as you started with, but one Action less.)

So an activated Menagerie = 2 Labs = Village + Smithy = (+2 Cards)

In Dominion a card is the sum of its parts, except for the different circumstances under which you get those parts. In the above equation, the Labs are more reliable.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: gloures on December 11, 2017, 02:23:23 pm
Pooka- There are many cases in Dominion where a card is much more than the sums of it's parts, Lab is Moat + Ruined Village, but it's far better than any of these two will ever be.

Just a note that this is wrong.

Moat + Ruined Village takes up two card slots in your hand and takes two Actions to play, while Lab takes up one slot and takes one Action. You have to look at the net effect: Lab is +1 Card, Moat is -1 Action and +1 Card, and Ruined Village is -1 Card. The net effect of Moat + Ruined Village is -1 Action. (If you play both, you will have the same number of cards as you started with, but one Action less.)

So an activated Menagerie = 2 Labs = Village + Smithy = (+2 Cards)

In Dominion a card is the sum of its parts, except for the different circumstances under which you get those parts. In the above equation, the Labs are more reliable.

Yeah, you're right of course, I worded what I meant really poorly. I wanted to say that sometimes an effect goes better together with an specific different effect than another. For example, even though Ruined Village is widely considered the worst ruined, if you add the +2 card effect to any other ruin the resulting card would be much weaker than Lab, just like adding an Action, to, for example, Pearl Diver, would result in an Village+ which i would also consider weaker than Lab. For different effects, it's also clear you could add the discard for coins effect from Vault to any other 2-cost other than Moat (or Faithful Hound) and you would have a weaker card than Vault. That's what i wanted to mean by being better than the sum of its parts.

Now in the Pooka case, you have an reasonably strong $6 card (Hunting Grounds) which gets added an generally desirable effect which is trash a treasure (I would say that I would take Moneylender over a terminal Gold in most boards) and the resulting effect is actually weaker than the original card, thus that's why I said it was weaker than the sum of it's parts...
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: ipofanes on December 13, 2017, 04:34:12 am
Thing is that with heavy draws you need reliable villages. I would welcome Pooka with Coin of the Realm, Villa, or maybe even Walled Village in the Kingdom. Otherwise, you need a slot for a village along with a slot for a trashable treasure in your current hand. In the case of vanilla Village in the Kingdom, I'd take Stables over Pooka mainly for the +Action.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: enfynet on December 13, 2017, 04:18:45 pm
I'm really enjoying the Spirit cards.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: Aleimon Thimble on December 15, 2017, 05:27:43 am
Whew. So I'm back from almost a full year of hiatus, and the first thing I notice is that there's a new expansion again. My initial impression: 'Isn't that a bit too much too soon?' But I guess it makes sense if you never had that hiatus and Empires is beginning to feel pretty standard.

So I checked the cards in Nocturne, and the second thing I notice is that there are a TON of new concepts. I guess that also makes sense, since all the basic things have been done before, but that too seems a bit over the top. Dominion is getting exponentially more complicated with every expansion, even though there are still a lot of things to learn about the older expansions, at least for me.

So honestly, I'm actually sort of glad that the Dutch translation probably won't be here for another year.
Title: Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
Post by: greybirdofprey on December 15, 2017, 08:10:42 am
So honestly, I'm actually sort of glad that the Dutch translation probably won't be here for another year.

The 999 games customer service told me they would print errata cards in spring, so maybe Nocturne will also happen then.

And then we'll have to wait another half year for Nocturne errata.