Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: philosophyguy on August 26, 2011, 09:26:16 pm
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Earlier today I played a game with the following set:
Alchemist, City, Contraband, Coppersmith, Goons, Great Hall, Herbalist, Laboratory, Menagerie, Native Village, and Potion
The endgame is clear: I want Goons and supercharged Cities. What is the best way to get there?
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Ok, initial thoughts. On the one hand, you want to get to six fast - Contraband might actually be worth it, since if your opponent bans Goons you can grab Cities. On the other hand, you want the City advantage once they activate. Goons will make sure some piles run out, probably Great Halls, cause who doesn't want VP, but maybe Herbalist or NV since they're cheaper. I'd worry about a three-pile ending before you can get your engine going.
Question - are there Colonies/ Platinums?
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No Colonies/Platinums.
In the actual game, I got an early Lab and then Goons, but then had trouble cycling the deck (I think because I got a City instead of a Lab). My opponent went heavier for Labs and Alchemists, got great cycling/draw, and at some point got Cities, Goons, and a Coppersmith (which actually worked out really well for him on this board). But, I'm not sure if the Alchemist detour was really a good choice or not.
If I were to do it again, I would probably prioritize Lab/2 Goons and only get a single city until I was consistently drawing the deck. But, I'm curious if others have better ideas…
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Since you point out the coppersmith as working pretty well late on this board, I have an interesting(not necessarily good) idea. My idea is open coppersmith/silver. use this to rush a goons, a city, and then start spamming labs. The idea is that the quick coinage provided by the coppersmith and the silver will probably give you no trouble hitting 5 early(twice if you're lucky) and you shouldn't have much trouble only buying engine cards (menagerie is probably best with 3). The hope is that this starts off your engine quicker and that when you build your drawing a bit with labs you may be able to get turns where you're buying 2 important cards for your deck if you end up getting a large hand with coppersmith city and goons. This is all my opinion of course and it would be surprising if it wasn't very wrong, I'm mostly posting because it seemed like an interesting approach
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My idea is open coppersmith/silver. use this to rush a goons, a city, and then start spamming labs. The idea is that the quick coinage provided by the coppersmith and the silver will probably give you no trouble hitting 5 early(twice if you're lucky) and you shouldn't have much trouble only buying engine cards (menagerie is probably best with 3).
Coppersmith does not help at getting to $5 at all. When you play coppersmith, you always get even $ amounts. It has an increased chance of $6, but a decreased chance of hitting $5 as compared to silver/silver. Now I still think it might be a good opening here, because it helps to get that goons asap so you can start attacking, and there aren't really any other stand-out looking openings.
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This is necessarily a great city deck. Three piles might deplete at the same speed as one or two.
Edit- yes isn't necessarily.
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You mean... this *isn't* necessarily a great city deck.
I agree if that's what you mean to say. I think it's more important to get the deck cycling power up. I think alchemist is a good strategy for him - he can buy them fairly freely without risking powering up your cities, and pick up just 1 or two cities for the goon attack.
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You aren't going to get a crazy goons deck on this board, because there's no trashing, but even a decent goons deck may be good enough here. Anytime I play goons I look for two things, in order of importance: Villages and Trashing. There's no trashing, but there are two options for villages: City and Native Village. Everyone has talked about cities so far, but I think that's the 2nd best option here.
If you are going for a goons engine, you are probably better off going with native villages than Cities.
I think you could probably open Coppersmith/Silver here, get a quick goons. Use that goons to get tons of native villages. Use the first few native village turns to get more goons.
If native villages go, then I'd pick up cities. If your opponent is head-diving into cities, then I'd leave at least two NV on the board and deplete Great Halls. Then 3-pile with NV/GH/City with your goons VP advantage.
Basically I'd spam Native villages here. They work good with both goons AND coppersmith.
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I'm surprised no one has pointed out the power of Menagerie here. Unless you're holding an otherwise incredible hand (*Village/Goons/Goons/X/X), Menagerie gets you back to 5 cards any time you're hit by Goons. Menagerie doesn't really power up until midgame, though; I'd save it for extra buys unless you hit a $3 hand. I also agree with Superdad; Cities won't be awesome or amazing until NV or GH run out, which may take a few shuffles; meanwhile, you can build up a stack on your NV mat and unleash it all on one turn near the fifth shuffle for a quick, quick boost.
Early Contraband is really tempting here, and I say that as someone who avoids Contraband. Goons are blocked? Buy a Gold, or a City, or two Menageries (or Menagerie/Silver), or two NVs (or NV/Silver). Contraband might not work well with the NV-heavy strategy though.