Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion Articles => Topic started by: Titandrake on April 01, 2019, 03:07:43 pm

Title: Fool
Post by: Titandrake on April 01, 2019, 03:07:43 pm
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/d/d2/Fool.jpg/373px-Fool.jpg)(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3e/Lost_in_the_Woods.jpg/800px-Lost_in_the_Woods.jpg)

Fool is my greatest creation, and my worst mistake.

Fool is one of the strongest $3 costs in recent memory, and has a tendency to take over games, especially if multiple players decide to pick it up.

Most of its power comes from the passive effect of the Lost in the Woods state. Getting to discard a card for a Boon every turn is powerful enough to deserve contesting it heavily - the 3 Boons you get when playing Fool the first time are simply a rounding error.

Due to the power of Lost in the Woods, it's important to pick up as many Fools as possible. Not only does this protect you from other players taking the Lost in the Woods effect, it also gives you plenty of fodder to feed to Lost in the Woods. A Fool's a Fool, but you could discard that Fool to to Lost in the Woods and get The Sea's Gift to get +1 Card. You could draw anything! It could even be another Fool. This was strong enough that Donald X ended up pairing Fool with Lucky Coin to slow down the game.

In the end though I decided maybe I could pair it with Lucky Coin and the Silvers you gained would slow down how often you played Fool enough to avoid problems.

As everyone knows, Silvers are the same as Curses. It's only thanks to this Lucky Coin balancing that Fool doesn't take over games quite as strongly as Ambassador or Masquerade do. Strategy-wise, there isn't much more to say, besides

1) You should open Fool (Fool/Silver is a common choice).
2) You should try to pick up a 2nd Fool before your 2nd shuffle.
3) It's important to check the date of all strategy articles, as many old articles are no longer relevant in the current age.
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: GendoIkari on April 01, 2019, 04:55:01 pm
Fool is super underrated. It really makes me pity it.
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: crj on April 01, 2019, 08:05:11 pm
Fool is super underrated. It really makes me pity it.
I already did that one (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18075.0). :-p
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: hhelibebcnofnena on April 01, 2019, 09:14:22 pm
Fool gets contested because it's too strong. This is fine with two players, but with three or four, Lost in the Woods will change ownership almost every turn, which slows the game down way too much because of the 3 Boons effect. I play IRL with my family more often than I play online, so that has kind of soured the Foolish experience for me.

It's great with two players though, or if some players skip Fool. And most people here play two player (I think).

Edit: I think part of the problem is also that we don't play as often as people who play online, which means we aren't as familiar with the Boons.
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: Commodore Chuckles on April 01, 2019, 09:56:06 pm
I think you're seriously underselling the 3 Boons you get from playing it the first time. If you get River, Field and Forest, that's a friggin Grand Market!
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: Titandrake on April 01, 2019, 10:04:42 pm
Fool is super underrated. It really makes me pity it.
I already did that one (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18075.0). :-p

Please check the source of the first Donald X quote, then report back to me. I take pride in doing due diligence in my joke articles.

I think you're seriously underselling the 3 Boons you get from playing it the first time. If you get River, Field and Forest, that's a friggin Grand Market!

Don't you mean Sea's Gift instead of River's Gift?
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: hhelibebcnofnena on April 01, 2019, 10:43:01 pm
Fool gets contested because it's too strong. This is fine with two players, but with three or four, Lost in the Woods will change ownership almost every turn, which slows the game down way too much because of the 3 Boons effect. I play IRL with my family more often than I play online, so that has kind of soured the Foolish experience for me.

It's great with two players though, or if some players skip Fool. And most people here play two player (I think).

Edit: I think part of the problem is also that we don't play as often as people who play online, which means we aren't as familiar with the Boons.


Oh my gosh, I didn't check the date... It was so obvious, too, in retrospect. It's literally about Fool, of all things. That whole post looks really stupid now, but I'll keep it for authenticity's sake. Well, I suppose I had to fall for something today. And if it wasn't clear, the portion which is now struck out was just me trying to come up with an explanation for why maybe other people had better experiences than me with Fool. Which makes me look like one.
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: LittleFish on April 02, 2019, 07:41:18 am

Due to the power of Lost in the Woods, it's important to pick up as many Fools as possible. Not only does this protect you from other players taking the Lost in the Woods effect, it also gives you plenty of fodder to feed to Lost in the Woods. A Fool's a Fool, but you could discard that Fool to to Lost in the Woods and get The Sea's Gift to get +1 Card. You could draw anything! It could even be another Fool. This was strong enough that Donald X ended up pairing Fool with Lucky Coin to slow down the game.

If it is another fool that you draw with sea's gift, won't it just be useless then?
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: crj on April 02, 2019, 12:19:51 pm
Fool is super underrated. It really makes me pity it.
I already did that one (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18075.0). :-p
Please check the source of the first Donald X quote, then report back to me. I take pride in doing due diligence in my joke articles.
I know you've seen that posting; I'm just not sure Gendolkari has.

(And the pun in my posting's subject line was unobtrusive enough some people may not have spotted it.)
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: GendoIkari on April 02, 2019, 02:03:15 pm
Fool is super underrated. It really makes me pity it.
I already did that one (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18075.0). :-p

I saw this right after my post actually. I had even read the thread just before it, from the OP's link, but didn't notice the title until after.
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: LastFootnote on April 11, 2019, 01:24:55 pm
Donald X. has said that if he were to make Nocturne again, it would only have about 5 Fate cards, and I think it's a pretty safe guess that Fool would be cut. Which is too bad, since it's maybe my favorite card in the set.

If I were remaking Fool today, I would make it a one-shot.

Fool: Action, $3
+1 Action
Trash this. Take three Boons and receive them in any order.

Get rid of Lost in the Woods. Slap Lucky Coin onto Bard instead.

For me, the most joy I get out of Fool is opening with it and using it to jump-start my deck in a fun, random way. I don't need to be playing it every shuffle to get that fun. Maybe I'd pick up another one later, but it's still not going to slow down the game as much as published Fool. It could still be an issue in Necromancer games, but if that really ended up being a problem, there are other solutions.
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: Donald X. on April 11, 2019, 03:47:20 pm
If I were remaking Fool today, I would make it a one-shot.
Which I did try, and which you couldn't live with at the time, let the record show.

There's also a Blessed-Village-style when-gain one-shot; still reusable but it's harder. But yes I would not risk it today.
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: crj on April 11, 2019, 07:13:38 pm
If Fool was three Boons as a one-shot, wouldn't that be a little too similar to Pixie's one Boon twice as a one-shot?
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: Chris is me on April 11, 2019, 07:22:42 pm
If Fool was three Boons as a one-shot, wouldn't that be a little too similar to Pixie's one Boon twice as a one-shot?

nah, Pixie is a cantrip you can optionally blow up; the described card is a terminal you blow up to get a random variety of effects. They'd play totally differently.
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: LastFootnote on April 15, 2019, 10:11:26 am
If I were remaking Fool today, I would make it a one-shot.
Which I did try, and which you couldn't live with at the time, let the record show.

There's also a Blessed-Village-style when-gain one-shot; still reusable but it's harder. But yes I would not risk it today.

Oh yeah, for sure. I don't specifically recall the one-shot we tried, but I believe you. My position on the card has definitely changed.
Title: Re: Fool
Post by: LastFootnote on April 15, 2019, 10:12:33 am
If Fool was three Boons as a one-shot, wouldn't that be a little too similar to Pixie's one Boon twice as a one-shot?

nah, Pixie is a cantrip you can optionally blow up; the described card is a terminal you blow up to get a random variety of effects. They'd play totally differently.

Well the sample Fool I posted isn't actually a terminal; it has +1 Action. But yeah, I don't think it would play very similarly to Pixie.