Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Let's Discuss ... => Topic started by: Iridium on July 28, 2019, 03:02:09 pm
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?title=Special%3AFilePath&file=Develop.jpg)
I have no idea how to use this card effectively.
How often is it useful?
Is it worth trashing Estates with it?
Is it more of a remodeler or a gainer, or both?
What's the craziest setup you've pulled off with this card?
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Making Luck podcast gave some useful advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-c11_w1HBI
In general, I agree that at a cost of only 3, you can be satisfied with buying 1 develop just to trash your estates and convert them to silver. It's not nearly its best use, but it's decent at it.
It's probably at its best if you can keep getting expensive cards and can gain and play 2 engine components on top. I.e., one situation I just thought of is a kingdom with Bandit, King's Court, and Market--you play Bandit to keep gaining gold, and then you develop gold into King's Court and Market, placing them both on top, hopefully drawing both and playing both together this turn.
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My favorite Develop combo is using it with Fortress and a 5 cost that gives 2 cards and 2 actions to empty Develop and the 5-cost at once (if they have the same number of cards left). Develop Fortress into Lost City and Develop, play a Lost City to draw them, repeat. You can empty piles very suddenly and if you have extra Lost Cities already you can pick up some Duchies for points.
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One fun game I had a while ago I managed to hit KcDev$5$4Gold (I think I had Watchman or something to set it up). This allowed me to go Kc-> Dev (gain a Kc/$5, G/$4, Dev/D), leaving the Duchy on bottom. We had either Tower or Tomb out so I was rolling a decent number of points in a golden deck.
And this is the real crazy strength of Dev. You can double the total value of cards in your deck in a single turn while having exquisite opportunities to down piles or hit points. The only Remodel-esque card that comes even close to the potential value gain is Displace. Yeah not every board is setup for Dev, lacking a $4 or a $7 makes it a lot harder to get great value out. Yeah the value gain is finicky, but provided you can draw deck and run two Devs, you can often gain huge amounts of options in the late game (e.g. threaten to gain Devs to snap up 8 cards to pile out, churn a $4 to two $3s & a Gold which can later become a Duchy).
The real question I typically face is the second Dev. Do you get one on T3 so you can pop a second estate on T4? Do you wait until you can draw through?
Absent stronger trashing and more powerful gaining, Dev is a very rarely a bad opening or late addition to an engine.