Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Let's Discuss ... => Topic started by: Chase Adolphson on March 13, 2018, 10:00:39 pm
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This is one of my favorite cards. I think it should be five not three
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This is one of my favorite cards. I think it should be five not three
What?
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I can totally understand why you might think tunnel should cost 5. I remember back when I was discovering the game, and hinterlands was the 2nd set I ever got, I had a phase where I thought tunnel was AMAZING. It's so satisfying triggering the gold gaining effect kind of like activating a menagerie or forging away all the junk in your deck. You have this vision of activating a couple tunnels over and over again and just loading your deck up with gold after gold after gold. Hinterlands has some great enablers with cartographer, oasis, oracle etc. and it also gives you the last laugh if your opponent plays a militia or minion at the wrong time.
When I first looked online to see what other people thought were the best cards and first stumbled upon the annual rankings here, I was pretty surprised to see tunnel near the bottom. As you learn more and more about the game and how dramatically your strategy can change depending on what's present or not present in a kingdom, it will make sense. The sad truth, and I am a fan of tunnel, is that it's not the powerhouse you think it is. In fact, it's pretty rare that you want a tunnel.
First of all, you need an enabler. As I mentioned before, there's a fair amount of the out there (cartographer, minion, artificer, cellar, etc.). If there isn't one out there, you've got a dead victory card. If there is one, you'll probably want to spend an early buy on a potentially dead victory card when you could be buying other valuable engine pieces. If you do spend an early buy on it, you need to get it to collide with your enabler. If there isn't any great trashing available, you may feel compelled to buy multiple tunnels which, while it can certainly get you more gold, can clog up your deck and make it less reliable.
Another thing that kind of goes against what you might think- you don't always want to flood your deck with gold. A gold here and there is fine as a way of buying expensive action cards which will probably be the ultimate focus of your deck. In an engine, gold is a stop card, and so is the tunnel(s) that you've used to get it, which gets in the way of drawing your deck and leaves you prone to dud turns. In pure big money games with no +buy, sure it's great to have a bunch of gold. Of course the problem is that those kind of games aren't too common anymore with how the game has evolved. There are boards where the absolute best thing you can do in a turn is just buy one province, but usually you can be doing something even better while maintaining better end game control.
So yeah while tunnel seems like it can be uber powerful, it's usually a trap. Which is a shame because during the rare even that it IS an integral part of your plan, it's soooooo satisfying. I do think it's underrated because I think gold is a little underrated and underappreciated these days, but also 2VP for $3 is not bad at all. I'm pretty sure it's the only way you can get 2vp for less than $4. I don't see why it shouldn't cost $4 to be honest. That seems to be the sweet spot for alternate vp and nobody's opening double tunnel.
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"Nobody's opening double Tunnel" is an argument in favor of costing it at $3: it's not so good in the opening that opening with two would be overpowered, so it's not necessary to price it at $4 to prevent people from doing that.
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It can be compared to Market Square, which also can be discarded for Gold (triggered by different events though). Market Square is a cantrip which offers +Buy and may therefore be an invaluable engine component in many decks (considering how much Ruined Market can be held in appreciation). Therefore, it would be an opening cards even in some kingdoms with no trashers. Gold gaining is desirable in the first turns too; so we have two card traits that are useful at the same stage of the game. The 2VP of Tunnel, on the other side, do nothing in addition for you if you get them sooner. So there we have two card traits which are useful at different stages of the game. With no triggers in the deck, both cards would still be gained frequently, one for the +Buy needed in engines and one for a VP grab with a dud hand or an extra buy at the end of the game. With both in the kingdom and triggers available, Market Square would be preferred in the early game whereas in the late game, Tunnel would be preferred but its Gold gaining effect would be nigh irrelevant.
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"Nobody's opening double Tunnel" is an argument in favor of costing it at $3: it's not so good in the opening that opening with two would be overpowered, so it's not necessary to price it at $4 to prevent people from doing that.
Oh right my bad. Still though 2vp with a bonus would make sense at $4 I would think. Cemetery and island both cost $4 and they're 2vp with a bonus. A vanilla vp card that just gave 2vp would have to cost at least $3 to be between duchy and estate. Still, the difference between costing $3 and $4 is hardly significant unlike the difference between $4 and $5.
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A better metric is:
at what price does the card get used, but not overused?
tunnel, at least in my games, doesn't get heavy use at 3$. and no one is trying to win the split.
3$ seems fine.
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Tunnel at 5 also loses some functionality. At 5, people would only buy it for taking advantage of the gold gain. In the late game players would only buy it if the duchies had already run out. At 3, they can be cheap VP if you have less than 5 or multiple buys. In other words, pricing Tunnel at 5 makes it a much less interesting and versatile card.
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It can be compared to Market Square, which also can be discarded for Gold (triggered by different events though). Market Square is a cantrip which offers +Buy and may therefore be an invaluable engine component in many decks (considering how much Ruined Market can be held in appreciation). Therefore, it would be an opening cards even in some kingdoms with no trashers. Gold gaining is desirable in the first turns too; so we have two card traits that are useful at the same stage of the game. The 2VP of Tunnel, on the other side, do nothing in addition for you if you get them sooner. So there we have two card traits which are useful at different stages of the game. With no triggers in the deck, both cards would still be gained frequently, one for the +Buy needed in engines and one for a VP grab with a dud hand or an extra buy at the end of the game. With both in the kingdom and triggers available, Market Square would be preferred in the early game whereas in the late game, Tunnel would be preferred but its Gold gaining effect would be nigh irrelevant.
The events which trigger these cards are also different and you have to take that into account.
You usually trash cards because you want to get rid of your cards, and you specifically buy trashers for that purpose. Sometimes you want to trash cards because a card requires you to do so in order to get its benefit, and in many cases that benefit will depend on the cost of the trashed card. As a result, Market Square triggers off of something that you're doing anyway, and it triggers off of something that synergizes with the Gold gain.
On the other hand, you usually discard cards because it's the drawback of some card whose benefit is worth it. You don't normally go out your way to discard cards, unless you're doing it with something like NW or Cartographer. And Gold gain doesn't particularly synergize with most cards that make you discard cards (Embassy is one notable exception).
In other words, Market Square is way less clunky than Tunnel because it's easier to set up and it's easier to actually utilize the effect.
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So yeah while tunnel seems like it can be uber powerful, it's usually a trap.
I think a common mistake to "grow out of" is to mistake Tunnel activation for an end objective.
It's like you get tricked into thinking that the Gold is more valuable because it required a mini-combo to gain it.
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If there are no activators then its meh. But if there is activators then it is one of the best cards. Also golds do not clog up your deck. If you have four golds you can get a colony.
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If you have four golds you can get a colony.
With a being an important word here. It's not uncommon for engines to be able to purchase two Colonies on one turn, and you get up there mostly with virtual money on action cards.
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Is building an engine good on most boards? Yes.
Is tunnel good for building engines? No.
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This is one of my favorite cards. I think it should be five not three
You can debate whether Tunnel should cost 3 or 4 but it is obvious why Donald didn't price it at 5: to not make it weaker than Duchy in Kingdoms without discarding.
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If there are no activators then its meh. But if there is activators then it is one of the best cards slightly less meh.
Fixed.
Also golds do not clog up your deck. If you have four golds you can get a colony.
Yes they do... any card that doesn't give at least 1 card and 1 action when you play it clogs up your deck. No matter how good that card is, that's a true statement.
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You can debate whether Tunnel should cost 3 or 4 but it is obvious why Donald didn't price it at 5: to not make it weaker than Duchy in Kingdoms without discarding.
it's got other functionality, even if it isn't usable, so i'm not sure THAT would have been enough.
In a world where gold was great to stuff your deck full of it, it might well have been worth 5$.
Yes they do... any card that doesn't give at least 1 card and 1 action when you play it clogs up your deck. No matter how good that card is, that's a true statement.
Did you intend to say "OR"?
Is it your belief that festivals and counsel rooms clog up your deck? If so, your definition of a clogged up deck seems...too broad to be useful.
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In the latest rankings, Tunnel placed #50 out of 55 $3's.
So I mean. I don't think it should cost more.
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You can debate whether Tunnel should cost 3 or 4 but it is obvious why Donald didn't price it at 5: to not make it weaker than Duchy in Kingdoms without discarding.
it's got other functionality, even if it isn't usable, so i'm not sure THAT would have been enough.
In a world where gold was great to stuff your deck full of it, it might well have been worth 5$.
Yes they do... any card that doesn't give at least 1 card and 1 action when you play it clogs up your deck. No matter how good that card is, that's a true statement.
Did you intend to say "OR"?
Is it your belief that festivals and counsel rooms clog up your deck? If so, your definition of a clogged up deck seems...too broad to be useful.
No he meant and, and he actually has a good point. If its not a cantrip then it takes space in your hand. That's why I love cantrips so much. I almost always buy the actions that are cantrips more than any other action.
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You can debate whether Tunnel should cost 3 or 4 but it is obvious why Donald didn't price it at 5: to not make it weaker than Duchy in Kingdoms without discarding.
it's got other functionality, even if it isn't usable, so i'm not sure THAT would have been enough.
In a world where gold was great to stuff your deck full of it, it might well have been worth 5$.
Yes they do... any card that doesn't give at least 1 card and 1 action when you play it clogs up your deck. No matter how good that card is, that's a true statement.
Did you intend to say "OR"?
Is it your belief that festivals and counsel rooms clog up your deck? If so, your definition of a clogged up deck seems...too broad to be useful.
No he meant and, and he actually has a good point. If its not a cantrip then it takes space in your hand. That's why I love cantrips so much. I almost always buy the actions that are cantrips more than any other action.
Right. I may be mistaken about how others use the term “stop cards” but I was thinking of it as anything where if you started your turn with nothing but that card in your hand, then that turn would not let you draw your deck. This applies to terminals and disappearing +action, though in different ways (a hand of 5 Festivals is way better than a hand of 5 terminals).
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You can debate whether Tunnel should cost 3 or 4 but it is obvious why Donald didn't price it at 5: to not make it weaker than Duchy in Kingdoms without discarding.
it's got other functionality, even if it isn't usable, so i'm not sure THAT would have been enough.
In a world where gold was great to stuff your deck full of it, it might well have been worth 5$.
Yes they do... any card that doesn't give at least 1 card and 1 action when you play it clogs up your deck. No matter how good that card is, that's a true statement.
Did you intend to say "OR"?
Is it your belief that festivals and counsel rooms clog up your deck? If so, your definition of a clogged up deck seems...too broad to be useful.
No he meant and, and he actually has a good point. If its not a cantrip then it takes space in your hand. That's why I love cantrips so much. I almost always buy the actions that are cantrips more than any other action.
Right. I may be mistaken about how others use the term “stop cards” but I was thinking of it as anything where if you started your turn with nothing but that card in your hand, then that turn would not let you draw your deck. This applies to terminals and disappearing +action, though in different ways (a hand of 5 Festivals is way better than a hand of 5 terminals).
I believe when most people talk about stop cards people are just talking about cards that don't draw, it's useful to know how many stop cards are in your deck so you know how much draw you're going to need to do what you want.
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You can debate whether Tunnel should cost 3 or 4 but it is obvious why Donald didn't price it at 5: to not make it weaker than Duchy in Kingdoms without discarding.
it's got other functionality, even if it isn't usable, so i'm not sure THAT would have been enough.
In a world where gold was great to stuff your deck full of it, it might well have been worth 5$.
Yes they do... any card that doesn't give at least 1 card and 1 action when you play it clogs up your deck. No matter how good that card is, that's a true statement.
Did you intend to say "OR"?
Is it your belief that festivals and counsel rooms clog up your deck? If so, your definition of a clogged up deck seems...too broad to be useful.
No he meant and, and he actually has a good point. If its not a cantrip then it takes space in your hand. That's why I love cantrips so much. I almost always buy the actions that are cantrips more than any other action.
Right. I may be mistaken about how others use the term “stop cards” but I was thinking of it as anything where if you started your turn with nothing but that card in your hand, then that turn would not let you draw your deck. This applies to terminals and disappearing +action, though in different ways (a hand of 5 Festivals is way better than a hand of 5 terminals).
I believe when most people talk about stop cards people are just talking about cards that don't draw, it's useful to know how many stop cards are in your deck so you know how much draw you're going to need to do what you want.
That makes sense as well.
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I'm the same way here... I get sucked into the "mini-game", and want wrack up gold for "extra fun points".
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This is one of my favorite cards. I think it should be five not three
Tunnel might be a $5 card if it could self-discard.
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Next question: what card is the best enabler? Personally, I think it is Dungeon, but what do you guys think?
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Next question: what card is the best enabler? Personally, I think it is Dungeon, but what do you guys think?
Margrave as the only draw or +Buy.
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I also love Tunnel, but I think it's ludicrous to say it's too good, or under-priced.
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Next question: what card is the best enabler? Personally, I think it is Dungeon, but what do you guys think?
I think Embassy/Tunnel is one of the best synergies, enabling a strong strategy just by themselves.
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Storeroom is one of the better Tunnel enablers, in that you get to search up to 8 cards from a starting hand of 5 and discard any number of them
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I've never seen them turn up in the same game, but I'd have expected Storeroom to be the best Tunnel enabler. Especially as, unlike something like Embassy, you can afford it without having to build up any economy besides the Gold you get from discarding Tunnels.
[Drat - ninja!]
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Assuming normal starting hands and a net draw of x cards before the play of each respective card, Dungeon discards out of 12+x, Storeroom out of 8+2x and Embassy out of 9+x cards.
Neither Storeroom nor Dungeon can be used to increase handsize but Embassy can so you could argue that the number for Embassy could be higher.
I still think that Dungeon is the clear winner, especially as Dungeon+Tunnel is a feasible opening.
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Whereas I suspect that Storeroom is still the strongest enabler, even if you open double Storeroom and then get Tunnels after that. The +Buy is pretty important.
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Whereas I suspect that Storeroom is still the strongest enabler, even if you open double Storeroom and then get Tunnels after that. The +Buy is pretty important.
I don't know, Tunnel for Gold seems to be more of a money game thing and without net draw you can only hit $12 with Storeroom. But of course the Buy (and the quicker cycling, this might situationally be more important) could compensate for Dungeon's non-terminality and larger search depth.
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Storeroom is one of the better Tunnel enablers, in that you get to search up to 8 cards from a starting hand of 5 and discard any number of them
If we are going just by search space:
- Embassy searches 9
- Dungeon searches 13 (6 from current hand + 7 from next hand)
And on top of that, both are cards you'd actually want in a money deck.
In the opening, I'd argue that Young Witch/Tunnel is actually one of the strongest.
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Dungeon is the strongest Tunnel enabler (at least, it's fastest to 5-6 Provinces). Storeroom is also pretty great.
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Is that a conclusion based on simulator work?
I can quite believe Dungeon is best in a Tunnel+X+big_money strategy that includes no other cards because, as noted, Dungeon will continue to be useful as you green.
But there are lots of other cards which will spice up a Tunnel+Storeroom deck. My hunch is that in most kingdoms you'd be able to build something better based around Tunnel+Storeroom than Tunnel+Dungeon.
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But there are lots of other cards which will spice up a Tunnel+Storeroom deck. My hunch is that in most kingdoms you'd be able to build something better based around Tunnel+Storeroom than Tunnel+Dungeon.
I cannot think of any cards that would work with Tunnel/Storeroom that wouldn't also be at least as good with Dungeon.
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But there are lots of other cards which will spice up a Tunnel+Storeroom deck. My hunch is that in most kingdoms you'd be able to build something better based around Tunnel+Storeroom than Tunnel+Dungeon.
I cannot think of any cards that would work with Tunnel/Storeroom that wouldn't also be at least as good with Dungeon.
Storeroom is terminal and Dungeon is not. That already gives a huge edge to Dungeon in terms of working with other cards.
Another classic synergy is Tunnel + Young Witch. Less search space than Storeroom but you get a curser.
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Anyone got the simulator-fu to work out how soon, on average you first get a $5 hand when opening Tunnel/Dungeon compared with Tunnel/Storeroom?
Yes, I see the +1 Action on Dungeon. But what if, say, Storeroom lets you buy Laboratory one shuffle sooner?
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scouting party-tunnel is strongest. on a 3/4 you can get 2 golds turn 2
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I can see Tunnel + Scouting Party being impressively quick, but I'm not seeing quite how it's that quick!
Am I being dense; can you spell it out?
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Anyone got the simulator-fu to work out how soon, on average you first get a $5 hand when opening Tunnel/Dungeon compared with Tunnel/Storeroom?
I don't want to work on this really, but I doubt it makes much of a difference. Would be a different thing if Storeroom could give you a $5 hand on shuffle 2, but it can't. And there are not really many relevant $5s anyway. You mention Lab. But the Dungeon/Tunnel player doesn't even want Lab; another Dungeon or Tunnel will almost always be preferable. And neither is Lab great for Storeroom because it will be drawn dead 50% of the time.
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I can see Tunnel + Scouting Party being impressively quick, but I'm not seeing quite how it's that quick!
Am I being dense; can you spell it out?
T1: buy Tunnel
T2: buy Scouting Party (reshuffle your discard which is now 3C, 2E, Tunnel), hopefully draw Tunnel & discard. Buy another Scouting party, drawing the 2 cards you put on your deck, another card, and reshuffle again. Now you have 2 more shots to draw the Tunnel again and being able to discard it. The chances of that happening are 5/6*2/4 = 5/12, so not even too bad.
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Aha, gotcha. I thought you were talking about it being a dead cert!