Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: HiveMindEmulator on October 17, 2011, 04:59:55 pm
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For those of your interested, Donald just posted this on the spoiler thread on bgg (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/712339/spoiler-german-rules-online/page/3)
So that there are no misunderstandings, here is the full text spoiler in English.
* * * 10 copies with the normal back, 1 with the randomizer back:
Border Village: Action, $6
+1 Card
+2 Actions
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When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
Cache: Treasure, $5, worth $3
$3 [large coin]
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When you gain this, gain two Coppers.
Cartographer: Action, $5
+1 Card
+1 Action
Look at the top 4 cards of your deck. Discard any number of them. Put the rest back on top in any order.
Crossroads: Action, $2
Reveal your hand. +1 Card per Victory card revealed.
If this is the first time you played a Crossroads this turn, +3 Actions.
Develop: Action, $3
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it and a card costing exactly $1 less than it, in either order, putting them on top of your deck.
Duchess: Action, $2
+$2
Each player (including you) looks at the top card of his deck, and discards it or puts it back.
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In games using this, when you gain a Duchy, you may gain a Duchess.
Embassy: Action, $5
+5 Cards
Discard 3 cards.
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When you gain this, each other player gains a Silver.
Fool's Gold: Treasure - Reaction, $2, worth $?
If this is the first time you played a Fool's Gold this turn, this is worth $1, otherwise it's worth $4.
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When another player gains a Province, you may trash this from your hand. If you do, gain a Gold, putting it on your deck.
Haggler: Action, $5
+$2
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While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a card costing less than it that is not a Victory card.
Highway: Action, $5
+1 Card
+1 Action
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While this is in play, cards cost $1 less, but not less than $0.
Ill-Gotten Gains: Treasure, $5, worth $1
$1 [large coin]
When you play this, you may gain a Copper, putting it into your hand.
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When you gain this, each other player gains a Curse.
Inn: Action, $5
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
Discard 2 cards.
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When you gain this, look through your discard pile (including this), reveal any number of Action cards from it, and shuffle them into your deck.
Jack of all Trades: Action, $4
Gain a Silver.
Look at the top card of your deck; discard it or put it back.
Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.
You may trash a card from your hand that is not a Treasure.
Mandarin: Action, $5
+$3
Put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
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When you gain this, put all Treasures you have in play on top of your deck in any order.
Margrave: Action - Attack, $5
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Each other player draws a card, then discards down to 3 cards in hand.
Noble Brigand: Action - Attack, $4
+$1
When you buy this or play it, each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes a revealed Silver or Gold you choose, and discards the rest. If he didn't reveal a Treasure, he gains a Copper. You gain the trashed cards.
Nomad Camp: Action, $4
+1 Buy
+$2
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When you gain this, put it on top of your deck.
Oasis: Action, $3
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Discard a card.
Oracle: Action - Attack, $3
Each player (including you) reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, and you choose one: either he discards them, or he puts them back on top in an order he chooses.
+2 Cards
Scheme: Action, $3
+1 Card
+1 Action
At the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose an Action card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck.
Spice Merchant: Action, $4
You may trash a Treasure from your hand. If you do, choose one:
+2 Cards and +1 Action;
or +$2 and +1 Buy.
Stables: Action, $5
You may discard a Treasure. If you do, +3 Cards and +1 Action.
Trader: Action - Reaction, $4
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a number of Silvers equal to its cost in coins.
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When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a Silver.
* * * 12 copies with the normal back, 1 with the randomizer back:
Farmland: Victory, $6
2 VP [large shield]
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When you buy this, trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $2 more than the trashed card.
Silk Road: Victory, $4
Worth 1 VP for every 4 Victory cards in your deck (round down).
Tunnel: Victory - Reaction, $3
2 VP [large shield]
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When you discard this other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal it. If you do, gain a Gold.
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Doug Z cannot possibly get online soon enough. Even if he released these to Isotropic 5 minutes ago while I was reading these over at BGG, it would not be soon enough. YAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAAYAYAYYAAYYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAAYY!!!!!!!!
Edit: I checked. He didn't :(
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Stables: the new best Lab?
Spice Merchant: the new best Lab?
Both of those make Cache and Ill Gotten Gains look better in combo.
Scheme seems amazing for making a sustainable multi-card engine work.
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Stables: the new best Lab?
Spice Merchant: the new best Lab?
Stables does sound really good, but spice merchant has the problem that it doesn't actually increase hand-size. It just clears out copper without decreasing hand-size, and can be used for a +buy when needed. It seems like a good opener, since you can use it to trash coppers without sacrificing much buying power or wasting a terminal, and then eventually use it for the buy; but a pure spice merchant deck is probably not all that great.
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There are some weird, weird cards in here. Snap thoughts:
- Many of these dynamics are going to make for tedious games. Oh well.
- Cartographer seems like it's going to be a very nice utility card.
- Haggler and Highway both seem like they will be burly cards. Haggler seems quite potent for building KC engines.
- Margrave also seems very strong, combining strong draw and +buy into a single card without the Council Room drawback (in fact with a slightly weakened Militia attack).
- Noble Brigand seems extremely close to Thief++; you can't use it on oddball treasures, but you're not going to clean up your opponent's deck with it either. Probably still not a very good card, but with the +$1 it at least seems plausible to look at.
- Scheme seems super-powerful for engine decks, or if there's an attack you're looking to play as often as possible. Doesn't work on durations, but I expect this is going to be a significant card.
- I like the idea of Stables making Copper useful - I guess this harmonizes with the other treasure gaining mechanisms in this set.
- A Tunnel/Warehouse or Cellar rush seems whoa, if I'm understanding it correctly.
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Sheme seems like a superb Conspirator enabler. It is also nice for Peddlers.
Also Highway + Markets + some trashing might be really good.
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Oh, yeah, I wanted to talk about Noble Brigand. It very much feels like, "We really, really want Thief to work! Here's an attempt at a fix!"
EDIT: Nice theming, too. He robs from the rich (Gold & Silver), and gives to the poor (if you only have Copper, here, have some more Copper!). Of course, in Dominion, as perhaps in real life, you don't get effectively richer by getting more Copper.
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gives to the poor (if you only have Copper, here, have some more Copper!).
Actually, that's not quite right. You gain a copper if you revealed no treasure. (If you reveal a silver or gold, it gets stolen; if you reveal copper or other treasures, nothing happens; if you reveal only actions or victory cards, THEN you gain a copper).
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Actually, that's not quite right. You gain a copper if you revealed no treasure. (If you reveal a silver or gold, it gets stolen; if you reveal copper or other treasures, nothing happens; if you reveal only actions or victory cards, THEN you gain a copper).
You're right; I misread. Still the same theme, though: if you're so poor you don't have any treasure, here, have some Copper! I don't know, I chuckled.
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Man, I wouldn't have expected a 2 VP card to be one of my leading contenders for most important card in the expansion. Tunnel seems really good.
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Man, I wouldn't have expected a 2 VP card to be one of my leading contenders for most important card in the expansion. Tunnel seems really good.
...Well, it seems really good if you're doing a lot of discarding. Which... I mean, in lots of boards, you aren't, right?
Seems likely to be absurdly good with Warehouse, though. Like, really absurdly good. Cellar, too, maybe.
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...Well, it seems really good if you're doing a lot of discarding. Which... I mean, in lots of boards, you aren't, right?
It's going to happen often. Warehouse/Cellar is most obvious. But as a reaction to Goons, Militia, Margrave, etc. Can Farming Village trigger it? I'm assuming that your opponent playing Spy or Pool cannot. Here are cards you can play in the new set alone that can trigger it: Cartographer, Duchess (weakly), Embassy, Inn, Jack of all trades, Oasis, Oracle (weakly). I think it's going to come into play surprisingly often, and the 2 VP for $3 is pretty good value in itself.
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You've also got to buy Tunnel early for it to be of much use and you don't often want green cards early... Although Crossroads has something to say about that.
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You've also got to buy Tunnel early for it to be of much use and you don't often want green cards early... Although Crossroads has something to say about that.
Historically you didn't want greens early, but if you're chewing through them for golds then you'd love to take them early. Tunnel seems like VP you want to open with in at least several scenarios (the aforementioned Tunnel/Warehouse, Tunnel/Cellar, also Tunnel/Horse Traders). And even later on, it's substantially better price performance than Estate in terms of money spent to VP gained. It beats Duchy in that regard, although that's obviously not the only metric that matters.
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It's going to happen often. Warehouse/Cellar is most obvious. But as a reaction to Goons, Militia, Margrave, etc.
Sure, though you have the "Moat problem" for those -- if you're discarding only relatively rarely, you've got an otherwise-not-very-valuable card that only gets good if it happens to coincide with your opponent hitting you with an attack just then. Tunnel seems better to me than Moat, in the present of Militia/Goons/other discard attacks, but not game-changeingly awesome.
Can Farming Village trigger it?
It says "discard," so I assume so.
I'm assuming that your opponent playing Spy or Pool cannot.
I think it could: Spy says "discard" as well. But, uh, why would it? Your opponent doesn't need to make you discard it, and obviously shouldn't.
You could use those cards on yourself, of course.
Long story short on Tunnel: it's still a dead card if you draw it into your hand yourself. If you can really consistently gain Gold from it (Tunnel/Warehouse), that's probably okay. If you get it in response to your opponent opening Militia, then you've caused half the Militia effect to yourself once every shuffle, in return for a chance at getting some Golds.
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Tunnel is really exciting- even though its reaction is similar to Fool's Gold (gain a Gold if something bad happens), it's still somehow a lot more interesting. But there will be games where it's impossible to trigger the reaction, so I'm not going to be buying it all the time.
Oracle! I was totally going to post a fan card that was like a Spy but looked at more than one card. I'm really glad this exists.
Noble Brigand- man. It's basically an admission that "you know what, you're right: Thief is well and truly useless all the time". So, hey, vindication for all the times I've ragged on Thief- but I bet I'm going to really hate games with this around. Probably closer to "strictly better" than the Hunting Party/Lab duo.
Another interesting thing: Ill-Gotten Gains appears to be the only way to give out Curses in the entire set. And it's a one-shot deal. This is the least Cursy we've seen a set ever. I almost have to wonder if we're running out of balanced and interesting ways to give out Curses.
I have every confidence that these cards are going to kick me around for a good long while- they're much harder to figure (and further from my comfort zone) than Cornucopia.
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I think it could: Spy says "discard" as well. But, uh, why would it? Your opponent doesn't need to make you discard it, and obviously shouldn't.
It says when you discard it, not when it is discarded. That's why I'm pretty sure your opponents can toss it happily. You playing Spy on yourself to toss it should trigger it, I agree.
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^But "you" do discard it. At least that's how I read the spy card ("Each player reveals..."). The person who plays the spy doesn't reveal and discard other people's cards. He simply causes other players to do it.
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I think it could: Spy says "discard" as well. But, uh, why would it? Your opponent doesn't need to make you discard it, and obviously shouldn't.
It says when you discard it, not when it is discarded. That's why I'm pretty sure your opponents can toss it happily. You playing Spy on yourself to toss it should trigger it, I agree.
Interesting parsing. I hadn't thought of that distinction, but I'm not sure I agree with you. The text of Spy:
+1 Card; +1 Action
Each player (including you) reveals the top card of his deck and either discards it or puts it back, your choice.
So, a close and technical reading of that sentence indicates that "Each player ... discards [the top card of his deck]." Grammatically speaking, the subject of the sentence is the player who owns the card, not the player who plays the Spy (obviously, excepting the case where they're one and the same).
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Yeah, after that post I went to look at some councilroom logs and I think you guys are right. Even better for Tunnel!
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Yeah, after that post I went to look at some councilroom logs and I think you guys are right. Even better for Tunnel!
...But still on the gripping hand, the correct play of someone playing a Spy is not to have an opponent discard Tunnel. So it seems moot.
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Heck, 2 VP on a 3 cost card isn't that bad for any reason. Really. It will totally change like every endgame.
You know, thief really isn't that bad. It's not. Like, given the choice, in a 2 player game, between big money and big money thief, take the thief and you'll win very often. With more players, it's quite strong. So I'm expecting Noble Brigand to be really good. You just need to know when to buy it.
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Listen. $3 for 2 VP is good, period. The reaction effect elevates Tunnel to stupidly good status.
edit: Beaten by WW. I was already clicking through from the "hay look new posts screen" so I didn't notice :-[
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Yeah, after that post I went to look at some councilroom logs and I think you guys are right. Even better for Tunnel!
...But still on the gripping hand, the correct play of someone playing a Spy is not to have an opponent discard Tunnel. So it seems moot.
...unless possession is involved.
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Does Chancellor trigger Tunnel? It doesn't say to discard your deck, instead it states to place the deck in the discard pile, which would cause Tunnel to be discarded. It's a semantic distinction but still good to know.
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Heck, 2 VP on a 3 cost card isn't that bad for any reason. Really. It will totally change like every endgame.
Yeah, I think the $/VP ratio is definitely an interesting thing about it. Compare with Farmland, where the entire justification of the card has to be endgame gimmicks. Well, okay, with Hinterlands cards I'm sure we can find instances where spending $6 on 2 VP and a Remodel to gain some goofy card pays off. But it seems to me the main purpose of that card is to allow (or cutoff) endgame catchup tricks.
added: And yeah, I think keeping Tunnel on top of the deck is going to be situational in Spy/Pool games. If you have the capacity to force discards, often they will too. Is it worth making them have a dead card this hand to risk giving them an extra Gold? In the late game the answer is clearly yes, but earlier I think that's far from obvious.
Definitely this set adds a lot of depth and different dimensions, but man am I fearing the slow games.
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Does Chancellor trigger Tunnel?
According to the BGG thread, no. It must be in the card FAQ (so far only in the German rulebook) since the German folks who translated it are pretty sure about that.
edit: Also, a-ha, Chancellor doesn't tell you to "discard" anything. So it makes sense.
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Does Chancellor trigger Tunnel? It doesn't say to discard your deck, instead it states to place the deck in the discard pile, which would cause Tunnel to be discarded. It's a semantic distinction but still good to know.
Chancellor, Trusty Steed, and Tunnel having been trashed during a Possession turn do not trigger Tunnel.
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added: And yeah, I think keeping Tunnel on top of the deck is going to be situational in Spy/Pool games. If you have the capacity to force discards, often they will too.
...But so what? You're saying that they might be able to discard Tunnel for Gold, so to prevent that possibility, you should definitely discard Tunnel for Gold? What?
I'm sure that we can come up with some convoluted scenario (in addition to Possession) where it makes sense to Spy away a Tunnel. I'm equally sure that 99% (at least!) of the time, the correct play when your opponent has a Tunnel on the top of your deck and you've played Spy is "don't let them discard."
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...But so what? You're saying that they might be able to discard Tunnel for Gold, so to prevent that possibility, you should definitely discard Tunnel for Gold? What?
Yeah, I think my brain was still stuck on my previous interpretation. I agree that makes no sense. added: I guess when I said it's better for Tunnel, what I still think is true is being left with a Tunnel on top of your deck is not a very bad outcome.
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You know, thief really isn't that bad. It's not. Like, given the choice, in a 2 player game, between big money and big money thief, take the thief and you'll win very often. With more players, it's quite strong. So I'm expecting Noble Brigand to be really good. You just need to know when to buy it.
I second the comment about thief. The reason thief if one of the "four pillars of altering the base game" (http://boardgamegeek.com/article/6108150#6108150) is that it makes you leery of going for a money-heavy strat, since your opponent(s) can react by getting thief and messing you up. I think pirate ship did a much better job of this in seaside, and I think noble brigand will potentially do it even better now. It's less risky since even if you "miss", you still at least get +$1 out of it. Plus it does the attack an extra time right when you buy it, so you don't even have to shuffle it in before it starts to work.
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You know, one thing I want to say about hinterlands... many of the cards that were previously 'must-buys' are well-countered.
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I guess as I think about Tunnel it becomes a little more reasonable: the more you use its reaction, the harder it is to keep doing so (because those Golds will start to hamper whatever discard-engine you've got going). But at 2 VP I still have a very hard time seeing why it doesn't cost $4, given all the times in an endgame when I've spent that much on just an Estate. Surely the Secret History will enlighten me, but for now it just seems crazy wrong.
Scheme + King's Court + Your Favorite Card = best buddies for the rest of the game. The best part is that you don't even need to be lucky to get them all at once, since Scheme does the coördinating for you.
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How do we feel about Minion/Tunnel? Maybe even better ability to discard your deck than Warehouse, but obviously $5 buy, and arguably if you've got a good Minion deck going, you don't want Gold, you just want to buy Provinces and win.
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But at 2 VP I still have a very hard time seeing why it doesn't cost $4, given all the times in an endgame when I've spent that much on just an Estate. Surely the Secret History will enlighten me, but for now it just seems crazy wrong.
Cards are generally as cheap as they can be without breaking anything. The reasons that make things cost $4 rather than $3 are:
1. Breaks stuff if you can open with two of them (sea hag, militia, etc.)
2. Too strong if you can just buy one literally every turn (caravan, tournament, etc.)
Tunnel does not satisfy either of these conditions, so it's ok at $3.
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I'm willing to bet that the best part of Noble Brigand is that it not just steals Silver and Gold, dinging money strategies, but that it *also* gives Copper to players going super-action-heavy. So basically it works against every kind of deck (save perhaps strategies based around pyrite or Prosperity, or...uh... Coppersmith?). I bet it's still not overpowering, but it is going to be annoying.
You know, one thing I want to say about hinterlands... many of the cards that were previously 'must-buys' are well-countered.
Yeah, this.
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How do we feel about Minion/Tunnel? Maybe even better ability to discard your deck than Warehouse, but obviously $5 buy, and arguably if you've got a good Minion deck going, you don't want Gold, you just want to buy Provinces and win.
The thing with minion is you end up giving your opponent gold when they discard their hand (presuming they have tunnels as well), and they don't even have to buy a minion to benefit from it.
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Huh, a couple of things about Noble Brigand:
You can buy it on turn 2 (if you're player 1) or turn 1 (if you're player 2) to alter your opponent's shuffle pattern. After playing around with this a bit, I think that I've mostly decided that this is not to your advantage, though if you think you have less than a 33% chance of winning (say, me vs. WanderingWinder), and your opponent opened Silver it has a 33% chance of being "screw you, you lose your turn 1 buy and I get a free Silver."
If you're being careful on turn 3 (if you're player 2) or turn 4 (if you're player 1), you can say, "I know that my opponent does/does not have a Silver in their 2 card Draw deck, and guarantee a steal if my opponent does have it there."
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The thing with minion is you end up giving your opponent gold when they discard their hand (presuming they have tunnels as well), and they don't even have to buy a minion to benefit from it.
Yes, but I feel like you guys are not giving enough credence to the pain involved in buying Tunnels early. I mean, if you're going to get Minioned, and thus end up with a 4 card hand, you really want to increase the odds that your 4 card hand has a green card in it and thus you're effectively at a 3 card hand?
Well, maybe if you're Minion too, but... yeah. I suspect that the actual answer with Minion/Tunnel is that it's very high-variance.
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Cards are generally as cheap as they can be without breaking anything. The reasons that make things cost $4 rather than $3 are:
1. Breaks stuff if you can open with two of them (sea hag, militia, etc.)
2. Too strong if you can just buy one literally every turn (caravan, tournament, etc.)
Tunnel does not satisfy either of these conditions, so it's ok at $3.
Huh! That's a pretty good answer. I'm not entirely convinced that all the current $4 cards break one of those rules, but the exceptions are mostly the ones that are already considered underpowered (e.g. Navigator). I think I'm satisfied.
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Horse Traders + Tunnel should be pretty effective, though maybe not against Minion.
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Horse Traders + Tunnel should be pretty effective, though maybe not against Minion.
Why not? Horse Traders is good at defending against Minion by itself; I don't see why adding Tunnel changes that.
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Horse Traders + Tunnel should be pretty effective, though maybe not against Minion.
Why not? Horse Traders is good at defending against Minion by itself; I don't see why adding Tunnel changes that.
I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic.
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Hmm, actually after a second thought it should do pretty well against Minion. I was thinking that with HT you wouldn't get to discard Tunnel, but you could just execute the combo on your own turn.
edit: haha, not being sarcastic, just didn't think it through completely
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You know, one thing I want to say about hinterlands... many of the cards that were previously 'must-buys' are well-countered.
Care to elaborate?
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Ambassador/Cache=fast catch-up in buying power and nigh-Mountebank level of attack.
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Doug Z cannot possibly get online soon enough. Even if he released these to Isotropic 5 minutes ago while I was reading these over at BGG, it would not be soon enough. YAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAAYAYAYYAAYYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAAYY!!!!!!!!
Edit: I checked. He didn't :(
I'm currently playing a game with spice merchant!
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Must say that my first game with stables was a real disappointment. The card was at least as powerful as expected - I drew my deck every turn after I got past the first two of them, except for the one time i whiffed and drew 5 non-treasures and got gooned. Game went pretty long, being a colony game with no +actions, goons and new cards, but the turns went even longer... "oh look as i draw and discard X,Y,Z,A,B,C,X again, X a third time, and ok i finally have all of my money" Hopefully it was just the board's fault.
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Strange that it's not been mentioned - my first thought upon seeing Tunnel is "Hunting Party"
Edit: then again maybe Hunting Party is too fast for Tunnel? 2VP for $3 it may be, but it's not going to overturn a 3-5 Province split if you're distracted by Tunnels and opponent isn't.
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Strange that it's not been mentioned - my first thought upon seeing Tunnel is "Hunting Party"
Well, unlike a lot of the other cards, for Hunting Party you need to have bought at least two, and both have it in your hand and be revealed on the draw. That's not quite as good as simply discarding it with Warehouse or Cellar.
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Strange that it's not been mentioned - my first thought upon seeing Tunnel is "Hunting Party"
Well, unlike a lot of the other cards, for Hunting Party you need to have bought at least two, and both have it in your hand and be revealed on the draw. That's not quite as good as simply discarding it with Warehouse or Cellar.
Nope, that's not it. Start Silver/Silver, then go with 5+ = HP, 3/4 = Tunnel, until you find you have enough HPs, then go full-on Province. The key? You don't need to buy Golds. You're not planning on having a Tunnel in hand, you're planning to draw one with an HP and then discard the rest with your other HPs (until you're unlucky enough to draw it as the HP's first card).
Disclaimer: haven't played, haven't simulated. Keeping away from Isotropic for a while because every game has like 4 Hinterlands cards, which skews the boards towards Hinterlands x Hinterlands interactions instead of Hinterlands x (rest of expansions) interactions.
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Nope, that's not it. Start Silver/Silver, then go with 5+ = HP, 3/4 = Tunnel, until you find you have enough HPs, then go full-on Province. The key? You don't need to buy Golds. You're not planning on having a Tunnel in hand, you're planning to draw one with an HP and then discard the rest with your other HPs (until you're unlucky enough to draw it as the HP's first card).
Disclaimer: haven't played, haven't simulated. Keeping away from Isotropic for a while because every game has like 4 Hinterlands cards, which skews the boards towards Hinterlands x Hinterlands interactions instead of Hinterlands x (rest of expansions) interactions.
Oh, that is actually really good at gaining Gold, such that you'd need a source of +Buy to use the tons of Gold you're getting, even with only 2 Tunnels in your deck. With more than 2, you're quite capable of emptying the Gold pile within 20 Turns.
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Having played a few games with the new cards, my main comment is that they make games take FOREVER. I like the concepts of a lot of them, but any game that's got more than one or two of them drags on for like an hour.
They're great at producing complex interactions, but do so in a way that doesn't tend to produce killer hands.
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HP/Tunnel is clever, but without trashing it's taking me awhile to reliably 'hunt out tunnels' to generate enough golds.
Adding a trashing card makes it a lot more viable, it seems like. I only played 6 solo games, so a simulation would be better.
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You really need something else going on in your deck for tunnel+hunting party to do you good. Another treasure type on the board for the HP to fish out, an attack to play or something else.
Tunnel + Hunting Party + Crossroads + A buy source is crazy sauce - http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/17/game-20111017-224149-e50c8a97.html - 4 provinces (+ some tunnels) by turn 11 - should be better than that as I should've opened silver/bridge.
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Just played a game with throne room + scheme on the board, which is pretty nice - the doubled scheme lets you put both the scheme and throne room back so you can do that forever for +2 actions and a full hand at the start of every turn until you hit another action worth throning instead.
Double Kings Court + Scheme would be pretty awesome too - the scheme would let you put both kings courts and the scheme back on deck, so you can be king's courting something else every turn and that something else will be chosen from 5 non scheme/KC cards in hand. So you'd be able to put a double kings-court deck together without trashing.
Edit: Kings Court + Scheme + Masq leads to a fairly fast pin - you don't even necessarily need a discarder. The extra actions from the KC'd scheme let you keep some money actions in your deck so you can have an intact economy after you've finished trashing his deck. So even if he manages to struggle along towards a 3-pile ending with a two-card hand, you'll have the cash in hand to ramp back up your VP's.
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HP/Tunnel is clever, but without trashing it's taking me awhile to reliably 'hunt out tunnels' to generate enough golds.
Adding a trashing card makes it a lot more viable, it seems like. I only played 6 solo games, so a simulation would be better.
You don't want too many different unique cards in your deck. Even without trashing, as long as you buy only Tunnel and Hunting Party after your opening two silvers, you can get an inordinate amount of gold in your deck. Of course, this is assuming there aren't attacks at play.
Tunnel Hunting (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/17/game-20111017-233528-a7698d1c.html) done right, 4 Provinces and 8 Gold by Turn 15. Although I had the odd hand after greening, where I drew no Hunting Parties and so couldn't buy much, 8 Gold is probably better than any BM Variant will have acquired by that point.
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I think it's kind of interesting that Governor isn't actually a Hinterlands card... That leaked pretty damn early now that we consider that it has to come from one of the remaining two expansions.
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Not able to open biopower's game, but 4 Prov + 8 Gold @ Turn 15 doesn't seem significantly better than HP+BM. Still, it's close enough that HP/Tunnels vs. HP+BM may end up "Duchy/Tunnel dancing" for a while, which I guess the HP/Tunnels deck has an advantage at.
Sweet, thanks.
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I think it's kind of interesting that Governor isn't actually a Hinterlands card.
Margrave is presumably the replacement name. Wonderfully exotic it is too.
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My thoughts:
Border Village: We already know it. It's great if there are 5$-cards that you would buy either way (especially attack cards or other terminals) so you get a "normal" village for free. Beware: Don't forget to buy gold too.
Cache: Do I want to buy this with a 5/2 start. I think most of the time there will be better $5-cards in the supply. Great if you can trash the coppers immediately with watchtower or turn them into silver with Trader. Great in a Gardens deck too: 3 cards for $5 is great.
Cartographer: I think it's a great card which is kinda useful on all boards. If you have many curses or victory cards you can discard them. Also great in the beginning where the recently buyed cards get into your hand earlier. It also stacks well because another Cartographer draws one of the "prepared" cards. Maybe you only don't want to buy it if you have already a good running engine
Crossroads: One of my favourite cards. +3 Actions is already great even without the drawing effect. So buy one with $2 left is rarely bad. But on boards with at least one additional victory card a nearly must-buy and very over-powered. You can start going green after the first turns. Imagine the combo-potential with Harem, Nobles and Gardens of course. Yesterday had my first game with Crossroads and luckily there was Gardens and Workshop on the table. Great. Hoard is also great for going green earlier.
Develop: It's very board-dependant. But I think it can be very useful in mid-/end-game to develop one card into a victory card and the other in another useful card, mostly a treasure card. Developing a $7-card like Bank into Province and a Gold in end-game or developing a Moneylender into a Duchy and a Silver in mid-game. But I still have to test it.
Duchess: Doesn't seem very useful. A silver for $2 is great of course. You can buy one with a 5/2 start. But in the later game it's only useful if you have a good running engine with enough actions and at least +Buy. The obvious good case is when Duke is on board.
Embassy: Drawing 2 cards for $5 doesn't seem very good. But imagine you play it immediately at the start of your turn. So you can choose 6 cards out of 9 cards which is great. If there wasn't the silver gain for the other players it were a good buy for a 5/2 start. But gaining a silver isn't that good in mid-game in colony games so maybe that would be a good buy in such games.
Fool's Gold: As already pointed out, mostly it's no good card. You have to buy many of them, so it needs it's own strategy. It's great if there are good trashers in the supply, especially Chapel, but Steward too. And of course it's great if there a heavy cyclers on the board. So Embassy for example seem to be great with Fool's Gold. Or apprentice a card and play another card for +Buy to get 5 Fools' Gold => 2 Provinces (5 Golds won't work!).
Haggler: I will look forward to test this out. Buy a Platinum, gain a Border Village, gain another Haggler ... or something like that. That could easily end the game on emptying 3 piles. Great is also that Haggler itself gives $2. Haggler would be a good buy in a 5/2 start.
Highway: Not very new effect. It's effect can not be throned, but it's a cantrip, so you can multiples of them. I'm missing the +Buy of Bridge. It reminds me more of Quarry instead of Bridge. So $5 seems a little bit expensive. Great with engines with enough buys I think. Wharf+Highway or Salvager+Highway could be great.
Ill-Gotten Gains: I don't like it. It's the only curse-giver in the set and only a one shot. And $5 is definitely overpriced. So you need trash-for-benefit cards and then you have a feast-like card with a one-shot cursing attack. Or you buy a new one for every trashed one.
Inn: Yes, more shuffling :D ! First that came to my mind was: Scrying Pool. I think those two can combo very well. So with this card you want a action-heavy deck, because you get the +Actions. Peddler could also be great with enough extra buys. If you have too many terminal action cards, you can also discard 2 terminal action cards with Inn, then buy a Inn and shuffle them back.
Jack of all Trades: A little bit too complicated for my taste. It combines Bureacrat, Spy, drawing and trashing. I think one buy at the start is good, but I don't think it's a very good card.
Mandarin: A cheap gold. As already pointed out, combos well with Black Market.
Margrave: Maybe my favourite attack in this set. It seems very overpowered. It nearly a Council Room for the drawing ability and then nearly a Militia. So: Council Room and Mititia already was a great combo. Now we have it in one card! I think playing 2 Margraves is mostly better than Council Room+Militia. I'm looking forward to see it in action.
Noble Brigand: A mostly better Thief. It gives +1$, it attacks when you buy it, steals only Silver and Gold and gives Copper. So it's much better. Only in colony games it can't steal Platinum and of course other treasures but you can buy them yourself if you have already the treasures from your opponents :D
Nomad Camp: Instant Woodcutter, nothing special. I don't like that it adds luck to the start distribution.
Oasis: I don't get it yet. It's an expensive copper. It only removes a little bit of drawing luck. But I think for $3 I would rather buy a silver. Or can anybody tell me in which cases you would buy this?
Oracle: A better spy-variant. Instead of one card, it works with 2 cards and you look and discard before you draw: great. I'm only missing the +1 Action, but I think that would be overpowered for that price. I think that can bring up hard decisions for discarding. Should I let you discard your estate and gold or not?!
Scheme: Great, especially for that cost. It's a cantrip and it let you prepare your next turn. Play Scheme, play Witch, put Witch back on your deck. If you had no action cards in play, put itself back. I think this is nearly never bad.
Spice Merchant: Also a great card. Trash for Laboratory effect is great. It stacks not as well as Laboratory because you have to trash. And if you don't need the Laboratory effect you can also choose $2 and +Buy. So it's very flexible, I like it.
Stables: Looks also great. +3 Cards and +1 Action is very powerful. I think with that card you don't want to trash you coppers, so you can you use it multiple times. So in a Province game you buy 3 Stables and 3 Gold and you're ready to go green. Can anybody simulate that?
Trader: As already pointed out, a very interesting card that can be great in Gardens or Duke games. It can empty the silver pile very quickly. It's also great againt Curse-givers, especially Mountebank.
Farmland: Very interesting. But I don't know in what situations it would work. Maybe in end-game if you have 9$ and only one buy in a Province game. So you buy a Farmland with only $6 and trash the remaining Gold to a Province. Or in mid-game you buy with $6 a Farmland and trash your Moneylander and get a Gold. Any other ideas?
Silk Road: Another card for Gardens. Imagine Crossroads, Gardens and Silk Road on the board! But I think for $4 you need at least 12 victory cards to make it worth. I correct: Imagine a board with Crossroads, Nobles, Great Hall and Silk Road!
Tunnel: Wow! What an idea! I think early buys can be worth it. Of course it's board dependant. I didn't count the amount of cards that would enable the ability of Tunnel, but I think in nearly every game there is at least one card that would fit. One question: It doesn't say "discard from hand", so cards like Adventurer and Library would trigger the effect right? So Adventurer would combo great! Buy one card that trashes your copper, for example Moneylender. Buy a Province if possible, else buy an Adventurer if possible, else buy a Tunnel. Can anybody simulate that?
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theory / CaptainFrisk / (whoever is doing the main blog nowadays): we need a "initial thoughts" article right about now, so that we can all look back and laugh at our ignorance when the Hinterland cards first came out! Quick, before all of us log too many plays...
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Just a couple of things.
I played a game with Oasis + Tunnel + Chapel. I bought a Tunnel and a couple of Oases and got rid of the rest of my deck without needing to worry about replaced my money. I then started bringing in the Gold. At least once I Oasised my Tunnel for a Gold, then drew it with my other Oasis and got another Gold from it. Okay, so I ended up losing, just, but the idea was there.
Also, discarding seems to be a mini-theme. I counted seven cards with discarding that could combo with Tunnel.
Scheme is cool. Just a thing about Isotropic: it seems to think you can put duration cards that you played that turn back on deck, and then it doesn't happen if you try to. For example, when asking if you want to topdeck an action in play, it will say "Wharf (new)" for the Wharf you played this turn and "Wharf (old)" for the one you played last turn. But if you click on the new one, it stays where it is. I think it's clear from the wording that you can't Scheme durations played this turn, but it's odd that it gives you the option.
Scheme kind of works like Walled Village, in that even if you don't have many action cards, it can sit on top of your deck to no effect, just waiting until it finds another action card to use. Except you can do this with as many as you like. I think this could extremely powerful if you have enough in your deck and you're putting (for example) two King's Courts and a Torturer back on deck EVERY TURN!
Also, Isotropic picture for the win!
(http://dominion.isotropic.org/static/cards/full/scheme.bd6ffdec.jpg)
INCONTHEIVABLE!
Highway is interesting. The obvious comparison is, of course, Bridge. I think it's worth noting that unless you use more than one buy in a turn, Bridge is almost exactly just a terminal Silver, no different to Woodcutter. Similarly for Highway, unless you buy more than one card, it's almost exactly a Peddler/Market without buy/Treasury you can't topdeck. (The only difference in both cases is a change in the differences between the costs of cheap cards. Play one, and you can Remodel a Copper into a Silver. Play two and you can Swindle an opponent's Estate into a Curse.) So in a game without +Buys or such trash-and-gain cards, Highway is equivalent to a cantrip $1, which is still useful. You often see many buys gained from Markets that are never used. But when this is added with +Buys, each Highway is worth $1 per buy used. Buy three things, and these are essentially cantrip Golds. How much would a +1 Card, +1 Action, +$3 go for? A lot, that's how much. So I think at worst these are a weak $5, probably more reasonable $4, but still worthwhile. But at best, they can be amazing.
Also, just a quick note on Noble Brigand vs Thief. NB can't mess up a Venture deck or a Fool's Gold deck, or hand out curses by taking Ill-Gotten Gains, or cause a 4 VP swing by running off with a Harem, or kill your opponents chances of getting the key $5+ action cards quickly by taking their quarry, or take their Stash or Royal Seal or Loan or Platinum or Potion or...
Also, I'm sure there are times when you want to trash your opponents Silvers without taking them for yourself. Also, Gardens/Copper strategies.
But of course, in general Noble Brigand is a much better card than Thief. But it's certainly not strictly better, and there are certainly times when Thief would outshine it.
Anyway, I like what I've seen of the Hinterlands cards so far. A few I don't really get yet, a few seem totally overpowered or underpowered for the cost, but what do I know, I've barely played with any of them yet.
One last thing: I was really enjoying the whole 2-a-day thing. I was resisting the urge to look at the whole list until I found out they were all now on Isotropic, which I actually found a bit disappointing. So Donald, if you read this, or anyone else it may concern, if you're after feedback for next time, revealing 2 per day was really good, and I think much more exciting than finding out about a bunch at once. I would have happily continued this for the whole set.
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Re: Scheme
Read the card:
Scheme: Action, $3
+1 Card
+1 Action
At the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose an Action card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck.
"You may choose an Action card you have in play" means just that. A Duration played this turn is an Action card in play. It won't be discarded from play this turn, so it won't go on top of your deck, but you can choose it.
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If there is a theme to expansion I say it is that the whole thing is fraught with traps.
There is some subtle jujitsu going on here. There are <i>so many</i> ways to play these cards badly. There has been a trend in the last couple of months of a general upswing of average player skill on isotropic; I am only speaking from my own experience but it seems that more people have gotten better at spotting the overall stronger strategies and using mirror play to force more luck into my games. This is about to change.
Yes, there are some very strong and simple combos in Hinterlands but there is also less margin for error. Every expansion has sped up the game, and I think for the most part Hinterlands is not at all a weak expansion. Compare the new thief with the old and I think you'll see that these cards are not nerfed. <i>However</i>, There is a greater nuance to playing them and a better chance to get stuck building or misplaying an engine too long and lose the ability to win against a simple fast deck. This expac is riddled with these pitfalls.
On a side note, it is a shame that Isotropic is going away all too soon. I would gladly pay a subscription fee. I do intend to buy the commercial version when it appears, but I doubt it will have the simplistic beauty of this format. Cheers.
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This expansion is clobbering me. Either, I go back to old standbys on the board and don't integrate the new cards enough, or I lean too heavily into them and lose out. I lose a lot with this expansion, in games where neither I nor the opponent is playing really well. It's clobbering me right now. My board assessment skills are weak to begin with, this just added more dimension to something I was already novice at.
I like a lot of the design of the cards, but the problem with isotropic is that its a lousy place to learn the game. It's unforgiving, not particularly friendly and full of people with over 300+ games under their belt.
The game is much more fun with real people and friends. I'll continue to play a few games online each day, and I will eventually buy Hinterlands, but I feel like I am even further behind than I already was to reach even just the median of the bell curve on isotropic.
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If there is a theme to expansion I say it is that the whole thing is fraught with traps.
This. But also, there's a lot of options, a lot more tactics than before (as opposed to strategy), and a LOT of analysis paralysis.
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...but I feel like I am even further behind than I already was to reach even just the median of the bell curve on isotropic.
With 28.944 ± 14.240, you should be above it...
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Well, just because people keep playing with Hinterlands cards, I stumbled on the Hunting Tunnels in a real game...
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/18/game-20111018-085614-100cad94.html
Initial thoughts? It's very clunky until you get your first Gold. The clashing of Feasts nearly killed me, but perhaps I should have bought Tunnels sooner.
More thoughts: Hunting Party games (with no attacks) set very high bars, I think along the line of 4 Provinces by Turn 13 or something like that, because all you need is one Gold, one Silver, and one terminal Silver (say Steward). Hunting Tunnels seems infeasible with any of these around... however, due to the sheer number of Golds generated, perhaps this is actually workable in a Colony game, where HP + Terminal Silver doesn't do well?
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With 28.944 ± 14.240, you should be above it...
It's tough, I'll tell you. Most games I win, I win by just a point or two I think, (at least it feels I win by a nose on the last draw, I also have several ties), if I lose I get clobbered it seems while I'm mired with a borked deck. Hinterlands produced some terrible decks for me last night. Big engines destroy me, I reach too early for Provinces, seem to have the lead, then slow down and then get steamrolled by a big engine.
This expansion has a learning curve, most especially with other stalwarts on the board. Looking at cards like Rabble and Masquerade, with Hinterland cards mixed in, really messes with my decision making. If I play unregistered, is this the same as essentially practicing? That might be the solution.
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Well, just because people keep playing with Hinterlands cards, I stumbled on the Hunting Tunnels in a real game...
I just tried several practice games with Tunnel/Warehouse, and it was... fine. I tended to get 4 Provinces on turn 15 or so -- but I also had 3 Tunnels, so racing against BM, I would come out ahead.
But it's not magic holy-god-4-Provinces-turn-11 stuff.
My methodology: Open Tunnel/Warehouse, then buy up to 3 Tunnels & 3 Warehouses, then you start getting Province buys and Gold buys.
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This expansion has a learning curve, most especially with other stalwarts on the board. Looking at cards like Rabble and Masquerade, with Hinterland cards mixed in, really messes with my decision making. If I play unregistered, is this the same as essentially practicing? That might be the solution.
The main thing this expansion does is require looking 1 or 2 turns ahead. Previously in Dominion, a player could reasonably do well by concentrating on this turn. The extent of planning for the future was figuring out how much money or special actions were left in the deck and deciding when to go green.
Now, the decision on what to buy will also directly impact the next turn. It's fun, but it leads to people freezing up as they have to think over two turns constantly.
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On a side note, it is a shame that Isotropic is going away all too soon. I would gladly pay a subscription fee. I do intend to buy the commercial version when it appears, but I doubt it will have the simplistic beauty of this format. Cheers.
Sorry to be out of the loop, but I hadn't heard anything about this. Can I get a link to the relevant discussion?
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I think a survey of the standard literature to the topic can be found here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=175.msg2083#msg2083)
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Mandarin: A cheap gold. As already pointed out, combos well with Black Market.
Mandarin is nowhere near a cheap gold, imo. Mandarin seems like it's often worse than silver, since you have to put a card back on your deck. If it's a victory card, you bureaucrat'd yourself and are going to have a worse next turn. If it's a treasure, you're losing money, so you're not really getting $3. And if it's an action, you would have been able to play the action instead had you just had silver instead of mandarin, and the result would probably have been better. I think it's only better than silver if you want to save specific cards for later (like province in a tournament game, or a fool's gold) or if you're doing the black market thing.
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If there is a theme to expansion I say it is that the whole thing is fraught with traps.
There is some subtle jujitsu going on here. There are <i>so many</i> ways to play these cards badly. There has been a trend in the last couple of months of a general upswing of average player skill on isotropic; I am only speaking from my own experience but it seems that more people have gotten better at spotting the overall stronger strategies and using mirror play to force more luck into my games. This is about to change.
Yes, there are some very strong and simple combos in Hinterlands but there is also less margin for error. Every expansion has sped up the game, and I think for the most part Hinterlands is not at all a weak expansion. Compare the new thief with the old and I think you'll see that these cards are not nerfed. <i>However</i>, There is a greater nuance to playing them and a better chance to get stuck building or misplaying an engine too long and lose the ability to win against a simple fast deck. This expac is riddled with these pitfalls.
On a side note, it is a shame that Isotropic is going away all too soon. I would gladly pay a subscription fee. I do intend to buy the commercial version when it appears, but I doubt it will have the simplistic beauty of this format. Cheers.
I don't think this is restricted to Hinterlands, but merely a general theme with every new expansion. It just takes time for players to figure out how to use the new cards properly.
Whenever a new card is presented, I always think back to my own days of discovering Dominion for the first time. I rarely ever bought Chapel, because: Why could such a cheap card be so good? And why would you want to trash your own points? I was new to deck-building at the time, so most of the cards and the governing aspects of deck building had me confused.
I've swung and missed severely with these new cards in the last few days, but also had some moderate success. Sometimes when I'm too confused I revert back to my proven strategies only to be beaten by someone who was willing to go out on a limb. And when I try to do it myself, I get bludgeoned by someone who just BMUs or does it better. Finetuning is the hardest part.
I also have to reprogram my quick playstyle. I used to just pick the card I needed the most, but now with all those "on gain" options, I may have to spend a little more time thinking about my buys.
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Mandarin is nowhere near a cheap gold, imo. Mandarin seems like it's often worse than silver, since you have to put a card back on your deck. If it's a victory card, you bureaucrat'd yourself and are going to have a worse next turn. If it's a treasure, you're losing money, so you're not really getting $3. And if it's an action, you would have been able to play the action instead had you just had silver instead of mandarin, and the result would probably have been better. I think it's only better than silver if you want to save specific cards for later (like province in a tournament game, or a fool's gold) or if you're doing the black market thing.
I think the on-buy effect is the more important one, as it lets you save your Golds/Silvers in case you just barely make Province but not quite (e.g. if you have $7 this turn in Golds and Silver, topdecking them might let you hit $8 the next). The action effect simply prevents Mandarin collision from causing dead cards.
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Mandarin is nowhere near a cheap gold, imo. Mandarin seems like it's often worse than silver, since you have to put a card back on your deck. If it's a victory card, you bureaucrat'd yourself and are going to have a worse next turn. If it's a treasure, you're losing money, so you're not really getting $3. And if it's an action, you would have been able to play the action instead had you just had silver instead of mandarin, and the result would probably have been better. I think it's only better than silver if you want to save specific cards for later (like province in a tournament game, or a fool's gold) or if you're doing the black market thing.
I think the on-buy effect is the more important one, as it lets you save your Golds/Silvers in case you just barely make Province but not quite (e.g. if you have $7 this turn in Golds and Silver, topdecking them might let you hit $8 the next). The action effect simply prevents Mandarin collision from causing dead cards.
I agree the on buy effect is the most interesting and probably most useful part of mandarin, because in your deck it is for the most part pretty useless.
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Mandarin/Minion seemed quite nice when I played it yesterday, especially if you have actions to burn. In general, I think it's like other sources of action $ - it's good when that's specifically what you need.
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Silk Roads is the new Gardens? (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/18/game-20111018-130047-5fb5cbc5.html)
Tried it out and it seemed to somewhat work, though I can imagine it's possibly easily countered by more experienced players.
Too bad buying Coppers doesn't help; I just bought them to increase my buying power, go figure...
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^I think workshop+silk road should be basically equivalent to workshop+gardens in most cases. Fast 3-pile with cheap cards worth 3VP a pop.
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I had an interesting game earlier with Silk Road, Workshop, Crossroads (!) and Vault (!!). What made it interesting was my opponent was Bishoping. I think I would have lost against alert players who grabbed a couple of roads, but that is some pretty great synergy.
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Re: Scheme
Read the card
Touché.
Still seems a bit odd to give you an option that does nothing. I suppose it's the best way of wording it, and not odd when playing IRL, which is what the cards are designed for.
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Mandarin/Minion seemed quite nice when I played it yesterday, especially if you have actions to burn. In general, I think it's like other sources of action $ - it's good when that's specifically what you need.
Hm, I can definitely see Mandarin playing well with Minion. I was super down on Mandarin when it was first leaked (yay, who doesn't want to Ghost Ship themselves for terminal treasure!) but I can see it working as an extra source of money in Minion/Scrying Pool treasureless decks where the on-gain penalty (and yes it's usually a huge penalty) is moot. I can also see it being used as a one-shot buy in the late game to push your stranded Platinum into a hand that can buy that last Colony.
So, yeah, not Explorer-level horrible like I first thought. Probably more like Harvest-level mediocre.
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theory / CaptainFrisk / (whoever is doing the main blog nowadays): we need a "initial thoughts" article right about now, so that we can all look back and laugh at our ignorance when the Hinterland cards first came out! Quick, before all of us log too many plays...
I was thinking the same thing. If a new expansion isn't enough to draw Theory out of retirement, then I don't know what will. I keep checking out the Dominion Strategy main site each day, but nothing new. I would love to see that blog get going again.
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One last thing: I was really enjoying the whole 2-a-day thing. I was resisting the urge to look at the whole list until I found out they were all now on Isotropic, which I actually found a bit disappointing. So Donald, if you read this, or anyone else it may concern, if you're after feedback for next time, revealing 2 per day was really good, and I think much more exciting than finding out about a bunch at once. I would have happily continued this for the whole set.
I totally agree with you. I would have been very happy to have had all of the cards previewed that way. It was really building up my excitement for the game. It was a little deflating to have everything revealed at once like that. On the BGG thread, Donald mentioned that he is not planning to do previews for the small expansion next spring, but will do so again for the large expansion next fall. Personally, I would love to see him do it for the small expansion also if he can fit it in his schedule.
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One last thing: I was really enjoying the whole 2-a-day thing. I was resisting the urge to look at the whole list until I found out they were all now on Isotropic, which I actually found a bit disappointing. So Donald, if you read this, or anyone else it may concern, if you're after feedback for next time, revealing 2 per day was really good, and I think much more exciting than finding out about a bunch at once. I would have happily continued this for the whole set.
I'll echo this as well. One nice thing about two-a-day is it gave you time to mull over the cards and learn the expansion gradually. Not to mention it kept the anticipation factor high. Still, it's a great expansion, can't complain.
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One last thing: I was really enjoying the whole 2-a-day thing. I was resisting the urge to look at the whole list until I found out they were all now on Isotropic, which I actually found a bit disappointing. So Donald, if you read this, or anyone else it may concern, if you're after feedback for next time, revealing 2 per day was really good, and I think much more exciting than finding out about a bunch at once. I would have happily continued this for the whole set.
I'll echo this as well. One nice thing about two-a-day is it gave you time to mull over the cards and learn the expansion gradually. Not to mention it kept the anticipation factor high. Still, it's a great expansion, can't complain.
I think he felt they forced his hand with releasing the German spoilers. He might have thought: "Might as well release them all now with their correct texts instead of having to correct every card as they are being (mis)translated from German."
I enjoyed it too, it gave us some time to think about each one separately.
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Mandarin is nowhere near a cheap gold, imo. Mandarin seems like it's often worse than silver, since you have to put a card back on your deck. If it's a victory card, you bureaucrat'd yourself and are going to have a worse next turn. If it's a treasure, you're losing money, so you're not really getting $3. And if it's an action, you would have been able to play the action instead had you just had silver instead of mandarin, and the result would probably have been better. I think it's only better than silver if you want to save specific cards for later (like province in a tournament game, or a fool's gold) or if you're doing the black market thing.
I think the on-buy effect is the more important one, as it lets you save your Golds/Silvers in case you just barely make Province but not quite (e.g. if you have $7 this turn in Golds and Silver, topdecking them might let you hit $8 the next). The action effect simply prevents Mandarin collision from causing dead cards.
I agree the on buy effect is the most interesting and probably most useful part of mandarin, because in your deck it is for the most part pretty useless.
Ok, still not played with it. I have to see it in action but your arguments seem plausible.
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I read somewhere that the on-gain effect of Mandarin is a bonus, and the action effect is a penalty. I don't think this is good way of thinking of it. They are both just things that happen when you gain or play the card.
As has been pointed out, like many Hinterlands cards, Mandarin can both help you and hurt you. This is clearly true for both effects. If you play some Markets and then two Coppers, you certainly don't want to put those two Coppers back on deck. If you have five Coppers, maybe you do want those back on deck to give you a guaranteed second $5. Obviously if you only use Golds and Silver, usually top-decking these is a good idea.
Again, the action effect can be either good or bad for you. Often putting a gold back can really help your next turn, and you still get the $3. If you happen to be doing well enough to have $8 without the Mandarin, you get a Province this turn, and a Gold in your hand next turn. Of course, sometimes you'd rather not put something back, but sometimes it really helps.
So I think it will take some skill (possibly more than I have at this point) to both buy and play this card well. But both effects can certainly help you if you do it well, and hurt you if you don't.
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I can't really grok Silk road at all. I usually have no idea when it's worth buying. It seems a lot weaker than Gardens... right?
Duchess seems to be a bad card generally.
Margrave seems to be (usually) a weaker torturer. That is very very much countered by menagerie and watchtower/library combos.
I've never seen anyone buy cache. It feels like a pretty bad card, unless I guess you have apothecary/spice merchant/stables.
I keep underestimating Haggler.
Inn seems to be an overpriced hamlet. I suppose it might work in some late game combos, but that probably requires better card counting skills than I have.
Farmland probably isn't worth it except in the late game.
Scheme is a lot of fun.
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I've made use of the mandarin effect positively, previously. If you don't need it (i.e. no +buys), pushing back a non-terminal drawing cards is very nice for keeping an engine going.
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Cache could be an okay opener if there's both trashing and a vital $6+ that you need ASAP. You're going to have some bad hands, but hopefully your Cache gets you a good early turn or two. Usually though, it doesn't seem like a very good card. Of course, if you have a Watchtower in your hand:
free cheap Gold. A trader instead: free cheap Gold + 2 Silvers. But I think this will end up being bought about the same amount as Contraband.
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Cache could be an okay opener if there's both trashing and a vital $6+ that you need ASAP. You're going to have some bad hands, but hopefully your Cache gets you a good early turn or two. Usually though, it doesn't seem like a very good card. Of course, if you have a Watchtower in your hand: free cheap Gold. A trader instead: free cheap Gold + 2 Silvers. But I think this will end up being bought about the same amount as Contraband.
I like contraband a lot actually. The +buy really matters in gaining lots of good but cheap cards. Cache... less so.
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I can't really grok Silk road at all. I usually have no idea when it's worth buying. It seems a lot weaker than Gardens... right?
I don't think I'd say that, it's just different. Both seem comparable as a pure rush. Gardens is probably more flexible - you can use it to counter things like Mountebank, and there are generally more methods for inflating size than inflating VP cards. But there will also be spots where Silk Road is stronger than Gardens would have been.
Margrave seems to be (usually) a weaker torturer. That is very very much countered by menagerie and watchtower/library combos.
I think this is the wrong way to look at Margrave. Instead, it's almost as good as Council Room and it also attacks your opponent. It will be very good in big engines, and I'd be surprised if it isn't now the premier draw card for a Big Money + 1 action type approach. (It may still be slower than something like Envoy, but in terms of giving you the best chance to win the game I suspect this is a fair bit better.)
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Inn seems to be an overpriced hamlet. I suppose it might work in some late game combos, but that probably requires better card counting skills than I have.
Inn is incredibly powerful with cards like grand market, conspirator, minion ...
You can "lock your deck" while making a province a turn if you have enough action money to get 13. It also seems like a great university target.
Assuming for example you get a 6-4 GM split and some lonely market, just wait until you are *just about* to trigger a reschuffle (and hence have a nearly empty deck). Buy a first Inn to reschuffle all your money actions into your deck. Then buy Inn+province every turn.
The inn reshuffles all your actions, and if you are careful never to trigger a reshuffle, you will never see your treasures/green cards for the rest of the game (or at least until the Inn pile runs out).
It might even work for duke/duchy, because getting 10$ in actions really doesn't seem hard. Not to mention Ironworks/garden, though you will actually probably get the gardens before the lock (wasting time on conspi seems horrible before the garden split has been decided). But once you have the (hopefully 4-4) garden split, rather than empty piles, go for 3 conspi and lock down your deck to play all your actions every turn. If you are casting 4+ironworks a turn, your deck should make more points (especially if some of those are again conspis).
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I won a game pretty easily yesterday with the Cache / Counting House combo, throwing in a couple Havens to move the Caches and Counting Houses themselves to the hands where they were most needed.
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Okay, I'd like to hear some opinions about <a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/19/game-20111019-054507-b2d928ed.html> this game</a>.
Is Oasis/JoAT a subtle supercombo? It may have been perfect shuffle luck but damn, this simple deck produced 4 P's by turn 11, and 6 by 14.
Edit: Apparently it is. I replicated it <a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/19/game-20111019-061345-81e05a34.html>in solitaire</a> rather quickly.
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Inn seems to be an overpriced hamlet. I suppose it might work in some late game combos, but that probably requires better card counting skills than I have.
Inn is incredibly powerful with cards like grand market, conspirator, minion ...
You can "lock your deck" while making a province a turn if you have enough action money to get 13. It also seems like a great university target.
Assuming for example you get a 6-4 GM split and some lonely market, just wait until you are *just about* to trigger a reschuffle (and hence have a nearly empty deck). Buy a first Inn to reschuffle all your money actions into your deck. Then buy Inn+province every turn.
I think you may have mis-read the card. It doesn't shuffle in cards you've played this turn; only cards already in your discard. So if you toss 4 GMs into your draw pile with an Inn, buying an Inn this turn won't put those GMs on your deck.
Nonetheless, strategically the general idea is right. If you have, say, KCs and Bridges in your discard and are just at the end of your deck, buy an Inn and, voila, win next turn.
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On a side note, it is a shame that Isotropic is going away all too soon. I would gladly pay a subscription fee. I do intend to buy the commercial version when it appears, but I doubt it will have the simplistic beauty of this format. Cheers.
I think I'll miss the Council Room stats and ladder most myself. I can't imagine they'll be included early; they may never get included at all. Discussion on this board will suffer without the ability to link games; no competitive ladder means... well, no competition. Ah well.
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On a side note, it is a shame that Isotropic is going away all too soon. I would gladly pay a subscription fee. I do intend to buy the commercial version when it appears, but I doubt it will have the simplistic beauty of this format. Cheers.
I think I'll miss the Council Room stats and ladder most myself. I can't imagine they'll be included early; they may never get included at all. Discussion on this board will suffer without the ability to link games; no competitive ladder means... well, no competition. Ah well.
Donald is an active member of this forum and I'm pretty sure he's having a lot of input into this project. He'll make sure all of the right features are present.
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Is Oasis/JoAT a subtle supercombo? It may have been perfect shuffle luck but damn, this simple deck produced 4 P's by turn 11, and 6 by 14.
Jack of All Trades is actually a surprisingly strong card. It counters discard and curse attacks, it creates money, and it trashes the first three estates quickly. It's probably the newsness still talking, but I think I would buy one over every other $4 except Remake.
Like any "draw up to" card, it combos well with discarders (Inn, Oasis, Hamlet, Warehouse).
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No one has mentioned Tunnel+Golem synergy yet. Buy 1 or 2 Golems but no other actions. There you go, every time you play Golem it goes trough your deck and you get Gold for every Tunnel in your deck. Don't know if it's a good strategy but sounds fun :).
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Is Oasis/JoAT a subtle supercombo? It may have been perfect shuffle luck but damn, this simple deck produced 4 P's by turn 11, and 6 by 14.
Jack of All Trades is actually a surprisingly strong card. It counters discard and curse attacks, it creates money, and it trashes the first three estates quickly. It's probably the newsness still talking, but I think I would buy one over every other $4 except Remake.
Like any "draw up to" card, it combos well with discarders (Inn, Oasis, Hamlet, Warehouse).
Jack of All Trades seems like a card that's great to have one of but absolute death to get two or more. It's a nice early game enabler, but by the mid or end-game it's a pretty big drag. It adds silver to the deck which can disrupt your ability to draw the whole deck, once it's wiped out the estates it doesn't trash anything else, and drawing back to five is often not that helpful.
It's a good and useful card - but I think you need to be in a game where all the various talents have some utility for it to be a strong purchase. If you're getting it just for the trashing, the other trashers are better. If you really want silver, you can just buy silver. If you want to draw cards, any card that just lets you draw two is usually going to be better. It's only when the talents synergize that it becomes great.
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No one has mentioned Tunnel+Golem synergy yet. Buy 1 or 2 Golems but no other actions. There you go, every time you play Golem it goes trough your deck and you get Gold for every Tunnel in your deck. Don't know if it's a good strategy but sounds fun :).
This may be akin to the Golem/Counting House deck, which is another really fun idea that I suspect is basically impossible to win with in practice (against a skilled opponent). The problem I see is that you probably need at least 2-3 Golems, and that takes a long time, and then you're limited to 1 Province per turn with still-mediocre coin density and no way to draw cards.
I agree it sounds fun though! If you manage to pull it off with good results I'd love to see a log.
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Noble Brigand is a weird opener. Is it worth buying something which is likely to be nothing more than a terminal $1 for many turns in order to disrupt the opponent's open?
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Inn seems to be an overpriced hamlet. I suppose it might work in some late game combos, but that probably requires better card counting skills than I have.
Inn is incredibly powerful with cards like grand market, conspirator, minion ...
You can "lock your deck" while making a province a turn if you have enough action money to get 13. It also seems like a great university target.
Assuming for example you get a 6-4 GM split and some lonely market, just wait until you are *just about* to trigger a reschuffle (and hence have a nearly empty deck). Buy a first Inn to reschuffle all your money actions into your deck. Then buy Inn+province every turn.
I think you may have mis-read the card. It doesn't shuffle in cards you've played this turn; only cards already in your discard. So if you toss 4 GMs into your draw pile with an Inn, buying an Inn this turn won't put those GMs on your deck.
Nonetheless, strategically the general idea is right. If you have, say, KCs and Bridges in your discard and are just at the end of your deck, buy an Inn and, voila, win next turn.
Hm, so you need more actions than expected. That starts making the lock unreliable. Although I guess just having a load of conspi and wishing wells (play half of them during the turn, return the other half with Inn) could work as a setup. It won,t give you enough for inn+province though. Add a university and it does, but that starts looking like a very specific board.
The one shot kill also works very well, though again, the crucial point is to buy the inn just before a reshuffle.
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Inn is still great in the presence of cursing attacks; if you can recover the attack before the reshuffle, then you're going to be better off in the Cursing race. The best example is probably familiar, as buying inn can let you get that extra few curses next turn, if you've played your familiars before this turn.
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No one has mentioned Tunnel+Golem synergy yet. Buy 1 or 2 Golems but no other actions. There you go, every time you play Golem it goes trough your deck and you get Gold for every Tunnel in your deck. Don't know if it's a good strategy but sounds fun :).
The combo still works with one non golem action. The golem still has to hunt to find the other action to play and will discard the deck every turn. So it might work well with something like a councilroom (or wharf) to get big draw and a +buy.
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No one has mentioned Tunnel+Golem synergy yet. Buy 1 or 2 Golems but no other actions. There you go, every time you play Golem it goes trough your deck and you get Gold for every Tunnel in your deck. Don't know if it's a good strategy but sounds fun :).
The combo still works with one non golem action. The golem still has to hunt to find the other action to play and will discard the deck every turn. So it might work well with something like a councilroom (or wharf) to get big draw and a +buy.
This is a fair point. I'm going to go test this right... now! ;D
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No one has mentioned Tunnel+Golem synergy yet. Buy 1 or 2 Golems but no other actions. There you go, every time you play Golem it goes trough your deck and you get Gold for every Tunnel in your deck. Don't know if it's a good strategy but sounds fun :).
The combo still works with one non golem action. The golem still has to hunt to find the other action to play and will discard the deck every turn. So it might work well with something like a councilroom (or wharf) to get big draw and a +buy.
The entire issue with Golem is the difficulty in getting 4+P early, especially if you're gonna dilute your buying power with Tunnels.
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After some testing I am still thoroughly underwhelmed by Tunnel/Golem/Council Room. This (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/19/game-20111019-084845-70cd317e.html) is probably the best case scenario, with excellent shuffle luck (Silver/Silver/Potion/Council Room/Golem bought in 5 turns, good midgame draw luck), and even then its speed is only on par with single-Smithy.
More typically you don't get the key cards fast enough, and when you get them you see bad collisions between Golem and Council Room/Tunnels that routinely kill you. But: I will say if your goal is to deplete the Gold pile this strategy can do that for you, even if you don't win ;)
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After some testing I am still thoroughly underwhelmed by Tunnel/Golem/Council Room. This (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/19/game-20111019-084845-70cd317e.html) is probably the best case scenario, with excellent shuffle luck (Silver/Silver/Potion/Council Room/Golem bought in 5 turns, good midgame draw luck), and even then its speed is only on par with single-Smithy.
Actually, it's [-]faster[/-] better, because you have 2 Duchies and 3? Tunnels to go with 4 Provinces. BM-Smithy doesn't.
Then again, I thought BM-Smithy was 4 Provinces @ 14? And BM-Smithy helped by opponent playing a Council Room every turn... ;)
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After some testing I am still thoroughly underwhelmed by Tunnel/Golem/Council Room. This (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/19/game-20111019-084845-70cd317e.html) is probably the best case scenario, with excellent shuffle luck (Silver/Silver/Potion/Council Room/Golem bought in 5 turns, good midgame draw luck), and even then its speed is only on par with single-Smithy.
More typically you don't get the key cards fast enough, and when you get them you see bad collisions between Golem and Council Room/Tunnels that routinely kill you. But: I will say if your goal is to deplete the Gold pile this strategy can do that for you, even if you don't win ;)
The Council rooms doesn't sound like the best card for such a big deck. Maybe Salvager, Bishop or Remodel would do better.
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After some testing I am still thoroughly underwhelmed by Tunnel/Golem/Council Room. This (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/19/game-20111019-084845-70cd317e.html) is probably the best case scenario, with excellent shuffle luck (Silver/Silver/Potion/Council Room/Golem bought in 5 turns, good midgame draw luck), and even then its speed is only on par with single-Smithy.
Actually, it's [-]faster[/-] better, because you have 2 Duchies and 3? Tunnels to go with 4 Provinces. BM-Smithy doesn't.
I mean, I did say it was "on par" :P single-Smithy gets Duchies too, you know. Anyway, like I said, that game is an unlikely best case scenario, so you really have to compare it to single-Smithy's unlikely best case scenario rather than its average performance.
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The Council rooms doesn't sound like the best card for such a big deck. Maybe Salvager, Bishop or Remodel would do better.
I'm highly doubtful that any of these would be an improvement. Council Room's ability to draw a bunch of cards and add +Buy after Golem's discard fest is absolutely critical. If you would like to test your ideas, go right ahead.
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The Council rooms doesn't sound like the best card for such a big deck. Maybe Salvager, Bishop or Remodel would do better.
I'm highly doubtful that any of these would be an improvement. Council Room's ability to draw a bunch of cards and add +Buy after Golem's discard fest is absolutely critical. If you would like to test your ideas, go right ahead.
The problem is that CR (or any draw) will trigger a reshuffle, which is not what you want, as then you're locked out of golem for another reshuffle. OTOH, I don't know that the other stuff will be great shakes either.
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The Council rooms doesn't sound like the best card for such a big deck. Maybe Salvager, Bishop or Remodel would do better.
I'm highly doubtful that any of these would be an improvement. Council Room's ability to draw a bunch of cards and add +Buy after Golem's discard fest is absolutely critical. If you would like to test your ideas, go right ahead.
What probably might be a good idea is adding a Remodel when the Tunnels have produced enough Gold, but that's of course now a 2.5 card combo already.
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The problem is that CR (or any draw) will trigger a reshuffle, which is not what you want, as then you're locked out of golem for another reshuffle. OTOH, I don't know that the other stuff will be great shakes either.
You're not locked out, since you have multiple Golems (if you're doing it right). Also you should have enough Gold that it's not the end of the world to draw nothing but Treasure for a turn or two. Getting the big draw with an extra buy is much more important than avoiding a reshuffle.
edit: To be sure, specific 3-card combos are not very useful to think about, but off the top of my head I'm figuring Council Room is arguably the best support for this particular strategy, so if even that doesn't work then it's simply not a good strategy. Anybody who has a better idea is welcome to test it.
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Margrave is probably even better.
added: I suspect Golem is not worth the trouble of doing this with. If you have Golems for some other reason, then throwing a Tunnel or two in the deck seems like a nice idea. I've yet to play with Tunnel, it sounds a bit slower in the best case than I would have guessed. My feeling is that even when it's merely decent speed, though, the extra VPs it packs really add a lot.
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edit: To be sure, specific 3-card combos are not very useful to think about, but off the top of my head I'm figuring Council Room is arguably the best support for this particular strategy, so if even that doesn't work then it's simply not a good strategy. Anybody who has a better idea is welcome to test it.
One might think about doubleWharf. Should be a little riskier, as it important that (at least as long as you want to discard the Tunnels) that one of the Wharfs is either in your hand or in play (as duration) when you play the Golem. But you start with 7 cards to find the Golems, and have 3 buys. And don't help your opponent.
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So my quick testing of Jack of All Trades was kind of interesting.
It felt like it was fast for getting four Provinces. Most of the time it was turn 12 or 13. Once it was turn 14, and a few times it was by turn 11. I'm wondering what the average turn is now, but I don't have access to a simulator at the moment.
However, after getting four Provinces, like a lot of Silver spam strategies, it slowed down a lot. It usually took me 2-3 more turns before getting Province #5 and even more to get others after that.
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My preliminary thinking is that Margrave is probably the strongest card in Hinterlands (besides perhaps Border Village). It's the Council Room + Militia combo all in one card- obviously not with quite the card draw of CR, but do you really mind for only a $5? And yet I don't think it belongs any higher than honorable mention as a $5 Attack (certainly displaces Rabble/Jester though)- chained Torturer is more disruptive to your opponent, and Minion counters it perfectly.
I have yet to buy Jack of All Trades, and have so far been of the mind it's really, really weak. The problem is that its various functions trip over each other and conflict. Gaining a Silver is not something I'm usually excited about (and doesn't do anything for this turn); the trashing really only works on Estates and you have to do it after you draw, so again it doesn't help your current hand; the "draw up to 5" bit looks like it could combo with stuff like Festival/Hamlet/Oasis, like Library or Watchtower, except that: a) the draw power is less than Watchtower, probably weak enough to doom consistent combos, and b) if you're getting all this Silver you're not going to be able to chain your Jacks, because they'll just draw you Silver and Copper that you can't get rid of. I've avoided it every time, and have so far done well against opponents that went for JoaT. Perhaps I'll be proven wrong?
One exception to the "I don't like getting Silver" general rule was a cute Trader/Stables game I played yesterday: Trader your Estates into two Silvers, buy lots and lots of Stables and leave your Coppers around for discarding. No Gold necessary, five Provinces (and maybe a Duchy, I forget) by turn 15. Hi-yo Silver!
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edit: To be sure, specific 3-card combos are not very useful to think about, but off the top of my head I'm figuring Council Room is arguably the best support for this particular strategy, so if even that doesn't work then it's simply not a good strategy. Anybody who has a better idea is welcome to test it.
What about vault? Gives you the ability to discard Tunnels in hand, synergises well with Golds (one Gold + vault = Province), etc etc. You won't manage multiple province buys, but I imagine this can be pretty damn fast. Of course vault+tunnel alone is probably very strong.
My preliminary thinking is that Margrave is probably the strongest card in Hinterlands (besides perhaps Border Village). It's the Council Room + Militia combo all in one card- obviously not with quite the card draw of CR, but do you really mind for only a $5? And yet I don't think it belongs any higher than honorable mention as a $5 Attack (certainly displaces Rabble/Jester though)- chained Torturer is more disruptive to your opponent, and Minion counters it perfectly.
I really don't like comparing Margrave to Council room - that +4 cards instead of +3 cards is hardly nothing. If we consider council room as 'sacrifice 1 action to end up with a hand with 3 cards more than if you never played it', council room is a full 50% better in draw power than Margrave. And the +buy is generally not useful anyway. And the Margrave attack has a good claim to be one of the weakest attacks in the game.
In terms of the strongest cards in Hinterlands, well... It's hard to say, most of them can be mediocre or can be dazzling, depending on the board. In terms of broad usefulness, I'd say probably Develop or Oasis. Both have a good claim to #4 or #5 on the '5 best $3 cards' listing, IMHO. Haggle is also great, but only on boards with lots of good cards.
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After some testing I am still thoroughly underwhelmed by Tunnel/Golem/Council Room. This (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/19/game-20111019-084845-70cd317e.html) is probably the best case scenario, with excellent shuffle luck (Silver/Silver/Potion/Council Room/Golem bought in 5 turns, good midgame draw luck), and even then its speed is only on par with single-Smithy.
More typically you don't get the key cards fast enough, and when you get them you see bad collisions between Golem and Council Room/Tunnels that routinely kill you. But: I will say if your goal is to deplete the Gold pile this strategy can do that for you, even if you don't win ;)
If you add Scheme, the combo fires every turn. Play Golem, Play Scheme, Play Council Room, Buy stuff, Scheme Golem back to the top of your deck.
Rinse, later, repeat.
mypetrock
Edit for grammar
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Well, scheme is a combo unto itself. Golem/Scheme/Counting house is probably more efficient.
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Scheme is a great card. It combos with a lot of things. I used it with a Minion deck, fairly well yesterday. It also has a great name and theme to it. It's cards like these that really make the game a pleasure to behold.
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Scheme/Minion is nice if you get lucky, but if both sides are going Minions the problem is that all of the Scheming is for naught as soon as they discard the top. I had a Throne Room/Minion/Scheme game earlier where I managed to get 4 cards worth of Scheme, but 6 seems really hard and if you can't get that far it's probably not going to pay off.
I haven't had a ton of Scheme games yet, but I think my initial guess is probably right. It's fantastic in engines that have key pieces you want to get you started each turn (e.g. if you can scheme KC/KC/Smithy on a regular basis) or for trying to win attack races. And it's useful on itself to pass it from hand to hand until it connects with something important.
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What about vault? Gives you the ability to discard Tunnels in hand, synergises well with Golds (one Gold + vault = Province), etc etc. You won't manage multiple province buys, but I imagine this can be pretty damn fast. Of course vault+tunnel alone is probably very strong.
Vault/Tunnel should be much better all on its own without any Golems involved.
You (or anyone else who has ideas) should test them!
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I can't really get Tunnel to fire consistently. I've tried things that get it to 4 Provinces in 18 Turns, but one key problem is you really don't acquire Gold very fast early on, then you wind up acquiring too much later. Similarly, you really need Copper and other trash out of your deck, so the chance of milling and discarding a Tunnel increases.
I'll keep soloing, but I think Tunnel is a nice 2VP with a cute ability, but I am not yet convinced it builds a superior engine. I've tried Vault and Venture and Fishing Village, even Warehouse...it works, but so far I can't get to "wow".
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Oracle seems like a real dog of a card, like serious contender for worst $3 bad. You get the drawing power of Moat (but not the defense!) coupled with a terminal Spy-type attack that is arguably not even better than Spy. Because your opponent can order the cards, it's not even really useful for setting up other types of attacks that care about the top card like Jester, Saboteur or Swindler. Any other candidates for worst card in the expansion?
edit: Okay, you get slightly better drawing power than Moat as you have the option of pitching total garbage. Still seems like this isn't going to be worth it very often.
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I can't really get Tunnel to fire consistently. I've tried things that get it to 4 Provinces in 18 Turns, but one key problem is you really don't acquire Gold very fast early on, then you wind up acquiring too much later. Similarly, you really need Copper and other trash out of your deck, so the chance of milling and discarding a Tunnel increases.
I'll keep soloing, but I think Tunnel is a nice 2VP with a cute ability, but I am not yet convinced it builds a superior engine. I've tried Vault and Venture and Fishing Village, even Warehouse...it works, but so far I can't get to "wow".
Maybe it works better in Colony games?
For oracle, I guess the point is that the fact you get to discard before you draw matters. It's a counter, therefore, to things like Rabble.
Worst card of the expansion for me is either Trader, or Ill Gotten Gains.
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Trader kinda works for a Gardens strategy, or one early in a game with no trashers, but not much other utility that I've found yet, although I love the card. Ill-Gotten Gains just doesn't seem worth it to me, I think it might have narrow utility with certain other cards, but mostly seems too intricate to use effectively.
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The Council rooms doesn't sound like the best card for such a big deck. Maybe Salvager, Bishop or Remodel would do better.
Ironworks, to add tunnels?
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Played a solo game with Lookout, Hunting Party, Tunnel, Farming Village and Inn and it rocked. So if you have two or more non-terminal discard cards, Tunnel works nicely, but I am not sure Farming Village is enough. Lookout really helps trim the deck early, to keep the Tunnel discard more likely, when you really need the gold. I bought no currency at all, and still thrived.
Inn+Tunnel have obvious synergy.
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I like how Tunnel works subtly with non-obvious discarders, such as the deck-crawlers.
The obvious attacks:
- Militia
- Goons
- Torturer
- Ghost Ship
- Followers
- Margrave
Less obvious, but still attacks (could be self-helping attacks):
- Spy
- Thief
- Minion
- Pirate Ship
- Sea Hag
- Scrying Pool
- Jester
- Oracle
- Noble Brigand
Self-discarders:
- Cellar
- Secret Chamber
- Lookout
- Warehouse
- Navigator
- Tactician
- Vault
- Hamlet
- Horse Traders
- Young Witch
- Harvest
- Duchess
- Cartographer
- Embassy
- Inn
Deck-crawlers:
- Adventurer
- Golem
- Loan
- Venture
- Farming Village
- Hunting Party
Misc
- Tribute
- Envoy
Now that's quite a list, and I may have even forgotten something. Point is, Tunnel can be a quite nifty card in lots of setups, but you always have to ask yourself if you're willing to sacrifice some early tempo hoping that you can activate some Tunnels.
I think the general strategy is comparable with a Hoards-strategy. You willingly clutter your deck with green to grab some cheap Golds. Only thing is, if you overdo it, it's hard to get those Golds together. But 1 or 2 Tunnels may be enough to get a few Golds, with Hoard you have to keep buying VP cards.
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I think Ghost Ship will not trigger Tunnel, because cards are not discarded but go back to the deck.
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You're right about Ghost Ship. In one of my first games with Tunnel, I went for Tunnel + Farming Village. It didn't work very well and was kind of frustrating. I imagine something like Hunting Party with not too many unique cards or Golem without too many actions could work quite well.
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Jack of all Trades is a lot better than you might think. It does a lot of very mediocre things, but don't let that fool you. As long as you're not building some elaborate treasureless engine, this is an elite opener (it beats Envoy for instance and is almost a coin flip against double Mountebank)
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Just played a game in which Tunnel was the bane card, that was funny.
Now there were two reasons to grab them, one to use with Young Witch and one to use against Young Witch. Only 3 Curses were dealt out during the entire game.
Oh, and Hunting Party was also present.
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Jack of all Trades is a lot better than you might think. It does a lot of very mediocre things, but don't let that fool you. As long as you're not building some elaborate treasureless engine, this is an elite opener (it beats Envoy for instance and is almost a coin flip against double Mountebank)
Based on the limited play I've seen with JoaT, this blows my mind. I'd have been inclined to agree with chwhite on this, for sure. Guess I'll need to give it a few more chances :)
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The new standard is 4 Provinces by turn twelve and 6 by 15 on many Hinterlands boards. You have been warned.
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Uh, how? I can't see anything that powerful.
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Come play some games with me and see. Or you could sift my logs, and there are plenty of stinkers to sift through.
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Just realised an awesome combo: Chancellor + Inn. Like, if you ever wanted a reason to buy a Chancellor, Stash is nice, Counting House can be cute, but Inn could be game-changingly powerful.
So you want to start doing this in the mid to late game, once you've got some nice action cards happening. Then, every time you get Chancellor + $3, flip your deck, buy an Inn, and set yourself up with your selection of action cards. Put two King's Courts on top with your best actions. Or put up a stack of Villages and Goons. Though you may need to be careful about the number of terminals you stack up, as you don't get to choose the order. If you're clever, you might throw up another Chancellor as well, although this will only work if you only use half your action cards at a time, or you have a Courtyard or Mandarin to make sure you can save your Chancellor for when all your action cards are gone from your play area.
Of course, most of the power here is in Inn's gaining effect. But this is by far best done when you're as close as possible to reshuffling, and Chancellor not only gives you more "chances" (I made a pun!) to get there, but it makes sure there aren't a stray card or two left on your deck when you buy the Inn.
Another nice thing about this is once you have some Inns in your deck, you can use it to discard anything you don't want this turn but want for your next megaturn.
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Jack of all Trades is a lot better than you might think. It does a lot of very mediocre things, but don't let that fool you. As long as you're not building some elaborate treasureless engine, this is an elite opener (it beats Envoy for instance and is almost a coin flip against double Mountebank)
Yeah, I haven't figured out why it's good but it's very good.
What is the average turn for 4-Province you are getting in simulations?
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Jack of all Trades needs 13.7 turns to get 4 Provinces (Envoy needs 14.4). The bot buys 2 Jacks (1 is slightly slower).
Btw I hope to get all the programming done by tonight so you can all simulate the new cards yourself.
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Just took Jack (BMU + 2 Jacks) for a test-run (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/20/game-20111020-070117-cce2bb18.html). Fourth Province on turn 12. Sixth on turn 16, followed by 2 Duchies, a Province and 5 more Duchies.
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it beats Envoy
Pardon my French, but holy shit.
I've only played with it a couple times and it struck me as quite good. But I didn't realize it could be THAT good :o
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Yeah, I've been quite surprised by how good Jack of all Trades is. It's also even more resistant to cursing attacks than most other BMU + action strategies. I recently played a game where my opponent opened sea hag, I opened Jack and completely ignored the hag. And I think my strategy was the right choice.
I imagine it will also be more resistant to discard attacks, too.
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The jack of all trades certainly lives up to his name. He appears to provide a staggering amount of defence to most attacks; swindler, saboteur, minion, militia, sea hag, fortune teller, spy, maybe even ambassador. He probably needs to since a silver/copper based deck is more vulnerable than most.
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Hm, I can see the Jack working really well against discard attacks and Sea Hag. Better than Lookout for the latter purpose, sure.
What I really don't get is how the Jack gets you to provinces so quickly in a five-card hand when you still have all seven coppers to deal with.
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Hinterlands is really giving a big boost to Silver-based strategies. Gotta say I'm surprised the inevitable "1 VP for every X Treasures in your deck" card wasn't in this set, perhaps instead of Silk Road. Maybe that card isn't so inevitable after all.
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What I really don't get is how the Jack gets you to provinces so quickly in a five-card hand when you still have all seven coppers to deal with.
Let's do a little math. If we assume we've trashed all the estates, we've got seven coppers plus the jacks in our deck, but the jacks are virtual cards if they don't collide, so just the seven coppers plus whatever silvers we have. We need average money density of 1.6 to expect enough money to get a province. So (7+2x)/(7+x) = 1.6. Solve for x and it's 10.5. We need 10.5 silvers, if there's no gold. And we're buying a silver basically every turn except the two we buy jacks and any we buy provinces in, plus gaining one every time we play a jack. So we should hit this 10.5 number... I don't know, turn 9? And it's a little better because we're getting golds, a little worse because we could have jacks collide, a little better because of the filtering. So 13-14 for 4 provinces doesn't seem that unreasonable.
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Jacks are nice. If you get over the fact that Silver isn't that bad a card (in fact, it is often an underrated card), the Jacks are nice. What works well is, you clean your deck of Estates, while gaining Silver so you can build a small engine, leaving the Jack to develop money.
You also get to filter out Copper, and have a better chance of drawing what you need.
I tried a few solo games and can often get to 4 Provinces quite quickly.
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Okay, if Jack is a better accelerator of Big Money than Envoy, and is so resilient to attacks, what does beat it?
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<a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/20/game-20111020-200211-85a710fd.html>Six Provinces by turn 13</a>.
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Assuming Golem/Scheme/powerful attack (Goons, Mountebank, Witch, etc)...
Is it a good plan to go for the combo, and if so is it worth it to try to double up on the attacks with two Schemes or just go for one of each with Golem/Scheme/attack?
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Oracle seems like a real dog of a card, like serious contender for worst $3 bad. You get the drawing power of Moat (but not the defense!) coupled with a terminal Spy-type attack that is arguably not even better than Spy. Because your opponent can order the cards, it's not even really useful for setting up other types of attacks that care about the top card like Jester, Saboteur or Swindler. Any other candidates for worst card in the expansion?
edit: Okay, you get slightly better drawing power than Moat as you have the option of pitching total garbage. Still seems like this isn't going to be worth it very often.
Oracle ain't that bad. Looking at what you draw beforehand makes a big difference. I could see it being at least as disruptive to your opponent and as helpful to you as, say, Fortune Teller, which is pretty weak but not worst $3 weak.
At first blush, I was tempted to call Jack of All Trades pretty bad, but now that people have brought out convincing evidence that it's a great BM enabler, I will upgrade it to annoying instead. (Part of why I really dislike Envoy is that its presence often forces fast and boring BM matches, and if Jack is as good as people say it is, I'll end up disliking it just as much for the same reason.)
I stand by my assessment of Mandarin as pretty bad, its treasure-giving powers compare to the mediocre Harvest and Merchant Ship, its "return cards to deck" powers will be situationally useful but usually a drag- I can't imagine them being useful more often, or more useful, than something like Outpost. I could see Mandarin and possibly Cache too being considered for Worst $5 lists. Cache is probably better than Contraband in general, but those Coppers have to be a pretty big downside in many games.
Duchess kinda sucks, and alas there's not much more to say about her. My sense is that Fool's Gold is also a lot weaker than most people think, there are occasional situations where it can be good but not that often.
You know what card I bet is actually real bad? Develop. If you use it on a Copper, congrats that's a terminal action to trash one card. Use it on an Estate, okay top-decking a Silver is nice but that's the Bureaucrat problem all over. It's just so slow as an early trasher, and so so easy to screw up when you try to develop bigger cards, that after a couple aborted attempts at using it I've just let it set there the part few games and not regretted that decision one bit. I would seriously consider Develop for a spot on the Worst $3s list.
A few of the $4s look not so hot either: Silk Road feels like a worse Gardens most of the time, and for all that it's supposed to be a strictly better Thief, I can't imagine Noble Brigand actually being that good. Nomad Camp seems like it's unexciting and a worse-than-expected opener, but I think it's actually a great late-game buy if you've got an engine that can inconsistently kick off to lots of cash- buy the Camp on one of your off turns after you've built the deck, and have it when you need that second buy with your $16.
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Man, that's a lot of cards I don't like all that much. They're not all like that (though there are a few others that I bet are being way overbought right now)- Border Village, Margrave, and Cartographer all make me very happy, and Stables seems good enough to get even me to start buying Silver again.
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You know what card I bet is actually real bad? Develop. If you use it on a Copper, congrats that's a terminal action to trash one card. Use it on an Estate, okay top-decking a Silver is nice but that's the Bureaucrat problem all over. It's just so slow as an early trasher, and so so easy to screw up when you try to develop bigger cards, that after a couple aborted attempts at using it I've just let it set there the part few games and not regretted that decision one bit. I would seriously consider Develop for a spot on the Worst $3s list.
I had the same impression of Develop, but I sat down and thought about it some.
If I'm trying to use it like a Remake, of course it's bad, it's slow. It also doesn't act much like a Remodel, which is useful in the endgame to turn Golds into Provinces. But what if I compare it to say, Trade Route? So now, instead of trashing one card to get +$x and +buy, I trash a $4 or a $6 card, pick up a Duchy, and play the rest of my treasure for $. So it's better than Trade Route in the early game (top-decking Silvers), and worse than (but still sort-of comparable to) Trade Route in the endgame.
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You know what card I bet is actually real bad? Develop. If you use it on a Copper, congrats that's a terminal action to trash one card. Use it on an Estate, okay top-decking a Silver is nice but that's the Bureaucrat problem all over. It's just so slow as an early trasher, and so so easy to screw up when you try to develop bigger cards, that after a couple aborted attempts at using it I've just let it set there the part few games and not regretted that decision one bit. I would seriously consider Develop for a spot on the Worst $3s list.
I had the same impression of Develop, but I sat down and thought about it some.
If I'm trying to use it like a Remake, of course it's bad, it's slow. It also doesn't act much like a Remodel, which is useful in the endgame to turn Golds into Provinces. But what if I compare it to say, Trade Route? So now, instead of trashing one card to get +$x and +buy, I trash a $4 or a $6 card, pick up a Duchy, and play the rest of my treasure for $. So it's better than Trade Route in the early game (top-decking Silvers), and worse than (but still sort-of comparable to) Trade Route in the endgame.
You know all those puzzles that involve Ironworks/Watchtower to topdeck, draw and immediately play various cards? That's what Develop is for. Yes it requires the perfect set of well-priced, useful non-terminals, but in that exact pinch Develop works wonders.
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Prediction: Cache will soon be shown to be an elite opener.
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Develop is a terrible opener, but it's a pretty useful midgame card in a fair number of circumstances. I think $3 is about the right price for it; it's not a game-warping power card or anything.
Cache I don't have a good handle on yet. The one really good use I've found for it so far was re-fueling a Spice Merchant (that I was usually Throning, too). It could do the same for a Moneylender I guess.
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It is just a big of a mistake to consider Cache a fuel for Moneylender or Spice Merchant as it is to make a trader/apprentice deck for the purpose of cycling by eating silvers. Cache is a strong card by and of itself.
It is time to rethink all of our old prejudices against decks bloated with coppers and silvers. Trimmed decks are by no means dead, but now there has been made a strong strategic space for the opposite. And make no mistake, many other "rules" of Dominion are no longer set in stone: I have been winning by <i>opening Silk Road</i>.
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I'm not convinced that develop is terrible. Maybe if you just think of it as an estate trasher, sure, but its powers are much more than that. Consider opening Develop/Terminal $4. Then if they don't collide, you play them separately, as normal, which is pretty good. If however they do collide, you aren't bad off at all - develop the $4 for a $5 and a silver or $3 village, and top deck. That's very fast starting development.
I don't see cache as being so awesome, so long as you don't have super rapid trash/cycle. Quarry and Contraband seem superior in most cases.
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It is just a big of a mistake to consider Cache a fuel for Moneylender or Spice Merchant as it is to make a trader/apprentice deck for the purpose of cycling by eating silvers. Cache is a strong card by and of itself.
It is time to rethink all of our old prejudices against decks bloated with coppers and silvers. Trimmed decks are by no means dead, but now there has been made a strong strategic space for the opposite. And make no mistake, many other "rules" of Dominion are no longer set in stone: I have been winning by <i>opening Silk Road</i>.
That's definitely messed up (not that I don't believe you). I mean, silk road rushes from the start can be strong, but man, you've got to have a little bit of ammo to make sure you can get enough of them.
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It is just a big of a mistake to consider Cache a fuel for Moneylender or Spice Merchant as it is to make a trader/apprentice deck for the purpose of cycling by eating silvers. Cache is a strong card by and of itself.
It was definitely not a mistake when I did it. Cache cost $1 at the time (thanks to Highway), and playing TR/Spice Merchant for 2 Buys every turn was a key part of my strategy. I didn't look at the board and say "Hey, Cache is going to rule here!", I took advantage of a late-game opportunity to buy Cache for 2 Coppers that I was going to need the very next turn, along of course with the nice little bonus of $3 from the Cache itself.
This is not to say Cache can't be a strong card in a bloated deck. That seems plausible to me, too. I just said I don't have a good handle on it yet.
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You know what card I bet is actually real bad? Develop. If you use it on a Copper, congrats that's a terminal action to trash one card. Use it on an Estate, okay top-decking a Silver is nice but that's the Bureaucrat problem all over. It's just so slow as an early trasher, and so so easy to screw up when you try to develop bigger cards, that after a couple aborted attempts at using it I've just let it set there the part few games and not regretted that decision one bit. I would seriously consider Develop for a spot on the Worst $3s list.
I had the same impression of Develop, but I sat down and thought about it some.
If I'm trying to use it like a Remake, of course it's bad, it's slow. It also doesn't act much like a Remodel, which is useful in the endgame to turn Golds into Provinces. But what if I compare it to say, Trade Route? So now, instead of trashing one card to get +$x and +buy, I trash a $4 or a $6 card, pick up a Duchy, and play the rest of my treasure for $. So it's better than Trade Route in the early game (top-decking Silvers), and worse than (but still sort-of comparable to) Trade Route in the endgame.
But top-decking a Duchy could very easily ruin your next turn- say you turn some spare $4 into a Duchy and a Silver with Develop and also buy a Province- good luck buying one again!
Cache I don't have a good handle on yet. The one really good use I've found for it so far was re-fueling a Spice Merchant (that I was usually Throning, too). It could do the same for a Moneylender I guess.
This is what I've used Cache for so far, as well. I think in the absence of cards that specifically can deal with copper bloat well (Spice Merchant, Stables), Cache would probably end up comparable to (but somewhat better than) Contraband.
And make no mistake, many other "rules" of Dominion are no longer set in stone: I have been winning by <i>opening Silk Road</i>.
Uh, wow. I'd sure like to see the log on that one. :o
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I took advantage of a late-game opportunity to buy Cache for 2 Coppers that I was going to need the very next turn, along of course with the nice little bonus of $3 from the Cache itself.
And I think that is really the key to mastering Hinterlands: taking advantage of the opportunities presented to the maximum advantage. An example of this is of course the timing of an Inn purchase, but there are countless others.
I opened 4/3 in first position earlier, and decided I would try a different approach, and bought a Noble Brigand. I had no way of knowing that my opponent opened 2/5 and that my first buy would absolutely murder him by forcing him to open 2/3 instead. A few games later I opened 4/3 Brigand in second seat against a guy who bought a Silver on turn 1 and stole his silver. In both cases the fact that I got lucky really doesn't mean that much to me because the benefit of striking a extremely fast crippling blow outweighed the cost of whiffing. Brigand is actually an extremely tactical card. I have found it can disrupt a deck that is just starting to green just by the act of purchasing it at the right moment.
Or take Spice Merchant. I think he is really an opium dealer. If you open with it you had better be damn certain to start building an economy right away because the card basically eats up starting treasures without contributing to building the economy. But it is very strong in the late game within a reliable engine if you haven't squandered the coppers by buying one early. It provides a +buy while removing a weak and no longer needed card that is then replaced with a VP card. This ensures deck integrity by keeping the size of the deck neutral.
I will post some logs when they become available.
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I'm not convinced that develop is terrible. Maybe if you just think of it as an estate trasher, sure, but its powers are much more than that. Consider opening Develop/Terminal $4. Then if they don't collide, you play them separately, as normal, which is pretty good. If however they do collide, you aren't bad off at all - develop the $4 for a $5 and a silver or $3 village, and top deck. That's very fast starting development.
I had a situation the other day where I opened Develop/Navigator with just this plan in mind. Worked well for me, too - the extra $5 and Silver I got out of them when they collided not long into the game (5?) caught me up to my opponent who'd opened with a 5/2, if I remember right.
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Develop is a nice card when there's an even distribution of costed cards. Trashing Silver to pick up a complimentary 4 and 2 is nice, and trashing a 5 to get a Farmlands and a 3 (while also upgrading another card in your hand), is not a bad move. Develop is terrible in the early rounds, but if the board is nicely spread, it can do some nice things in the mid-round.
Cache, I just can't figure its usefulness. I get that its essentially a gold at the price of two clunky cards, but Copper always annoys me. Unless I'm playing Gardens, I am always looking to get rid of Copper. 7 is bad enough having to deal with, dealing with 9 and 11 drives me nuts. But as others have said, one thing Hinterlands does is to force you into wider decks and provides all kinds of engines to deal with them. The amount of filtering you can do in Hinterlands is impressive. The new vibe in Hinterlands is essentially, "why trash when you can discard?" There's so many ways to filter out and upgrade your junk, you don't mind collecting the junk.
It's a very interesting set.
And take my comments with a grain of salt as always, I am not in the same league as most of the posters on this thread.
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Let me say that I totally agree with MMM about Hinterlands being the "bloated deck" expansion. I left a comment to that effect on BGG earlier this week. It almost seems like a sub-theme of this expansion to make sure the trimmed deck is no longer the platonic ideal it once was.
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Sorry for being posty mcposterson this morning, but I feel like I am getting a good grasp on Hinterlands now. It is starting to really gel.
The reason that I think Cache is a superb opener is that the two coppers actually help! The starting Estates control a smaller share of the deck and it becomes very easy indeed to buy early Gold. Yes, the two coppers also bring down the value of the Cache itself and the early Gold purchases but that is mitigated by having a live "Gold" available starting on turn 3.
I have found that having the extra coppers in a treasure heavy deck can actually contribute to a decks longevity. I know this seems counter intuitive but who here hasn't trashed down to three gold and got completely hosed by buying VP cards? The key is to have a good supply of Silver and Golds mixed in the deck, something that early Caches contribute heavily to.
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You know what's awesome? Haggling Platinums. Probably one of the more obvious Hinterlands interactions, though.
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Sorry for being posty mcposterson this morning, but I feel like I am getting a good grasp on Hinterlands now. It is starting to really gel.
The reason that I think Cache is a superb opener is that the two coppers actually help! The starting Estates control a smaller share of the deck and it becomes very easy indeed to buy early Gold. Yes, the two coppers also bring down the value of the Cache itself and the early Gold purchases but that is mitigated by having a live "Gold" available starting on turn 3.
That's only true if the average value of your deck is less than a copper though. I mean, what cache is up against is the rest of the $5s, and given how great they are, I can't see the value of cache being so great. If the extra coppers really help so much, you'd be seeing a lot more merchant ship/copper openings, instead of it being generally thought better to open $5 card/nothing at all.
I think you are getting caught up too much on a few rare games where cache just happened to be effective. I tried the haven/jack of all trades strategy, and yeah, while it is indeed strong, the 12 turn 6 province is *far* from an usual case. You gotta realise that when people run from isotropic to post about a great new combo, regression from the mean kinda says it's not going to be as impressive in the long term.
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I think what MMM is saying is Cache is just so good in the early rounds and because Hinterlands deals effectively with junk in the mid-to-late rounds, the card's value is underrated. Going to solo some games right now and see how I do with it.
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Sorry for being posty mcposterson this morning, but I feel like I am getting a good grasp on Hinterlands now. It is starting to really gel.
The reason that I think Cache is a superb opener is that the two coppers actually help! The starting Estates control a smaller share of the deck and it becomes very easy indeed to buy early Gold. Yes, the two coppers also bring down the value of the Cache itself and the early Gold purchases but that is mitigated by having a live "Gold" available starting on turn 3.
That's only true if the average value of your deck is less than a copper though. I mean, what cache is up against is the rest of the $5s, and given how great they are, I can't see the value of cache being so great. If the extra coppers really help so much, you'd be seeing a lot more merchant ship/copper openings, instead of it being generally thought better to open $5 card/nothing at all.
(boldings mine)
Yeah, and at the opening, the average value of your deck is less than a copper.
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I tried the haven/jack of all trades strategy, and yeah, while it is indeed strong, the 12 turn 6 province is *far* from an usual case. You gotta realise that when people run from isotropic to post about a great new combo, regression from the mean kinda says it's not going to be as impressive in the long term.
Yeah, that six provinces in 13 turns game wasn't a two-card combo with Haven and JoaT. It was a three-card combo- the contribution of getting Mint to clear out 5 coppers at once (coppers that Jack usually can't deal with) cannot be overstated.
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Right, so Cache helps early a lot (when the average value is less than Copper), and then middle-to-late the Copper in your hand is less of a hassle than you think, because usually HL provides ways of dealing with junk. I just solo'd a board with Cache, Hamlet and Ambassador and it worked fairly well. Perhaps it seemed to work well because Ambassador is just so strong, regardless. I wish I could contribute more to the discussion, but at my skill level, I really can't, so I need to defer to your opinion and others.
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The reason that I think Cache is a superb opener is that the two coppers actually help!
Similator says:
- woodcutter + treasure + 0 copper wins 37%
- woodcutter + treasure + 1 copper wins 30%
- woodcutter + treasure + 2 copper wins 24%
There is something else going that is making the cache+copper work for you, probably more than just a change in green card purchasing.
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Sorry for being posty mcposterson this morning, but I feel like I am getting a good grasp on Hinterlands now. It is starting to really gel.
The reason that I think Cache is a superb opener is that the two coppers actually help! The starting Estates control a smaller share of the deck and it becomes very easy indeed to buy early Gold. Yes, the two coppers also bring down the value of the Cache itself and the early Gold purchases but that is mitigated by having a live "Gold" available starting on turn 3.
That's only true if the average value of your deck is less than a copper though. I mean, what cache is up against is the rest of the $5s, and given how great they are, I can't see the value of cache being so great. If the extra coppers really help so much, you'd be seeing a lot more merchant ship/copper openings, instead of it being generally thought better to open $5 card/nothing at all.
(boldings mine)
Yeah, and at the opening, the average value of your deck is less than a copper.
Not after you buy your opening cards, though. Compare the copper openings to the /- openings on councilroom. Even something crappy like royal seal does better than royal seal/copper.
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I think it's not that the extra coppers are helping, it's that taking them is not that bad a price to pay for an early "gold". You wouldn't buy a copper by itself, but the average treasure value of the 3 cards you're getting with cache is $1.67 which is greater than the $1.6 you need for provinces. Of course, the coppers will make it really hard to build an engine, but if you're going for an action-light big money deck it doesn't seem that bad. I would hesitate to call it "superb" because there are a lot of really good 5s, but I guess in some situations it's probably at least "good".
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I think it's not that the extra coppers are helping, it's that taking them is not that bad a price to pay for an early "gold".
Yeah this is my take on it. Because Hinterlands is chalk full of discarding for draw/ability and full of upgrades, the average value of your deck is harder to measure, we've already established that broad decks have a lot of mitigation techniques in Hinterlands. And because Cache leap-frogs you in the early rounds (reducing the hits of Estate cards), the longer-term damage of the Copper is mitigated. Mostly because, they really aren't that big a deal when other cards are on the board.
Look, its Gold for 5, all for the price of having to smelt a few Copper later in the game, and they really do help in the first few turns.
Still, I think the argument (and the small amount of data I could mine with solo games) for the Jack was stronger. Jack really works on a lot of boards, especially any board where there isn't a strong, viable action-engine.
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Not after you buy your opening cards, though. Compare the copper openings to the /- openings on councilroom. Even something crappy like royal seal does better than royal seal/copper.
I think there are a couple problems with this argument:
- The copper openings are quite rare and thus somewhat noisy compared to the other openings;
- While the openings are supposed to be corrections to your level, I would also guess that people opening copper are, on average, overrated for their level. Thus I think there's some serious negative selection bias going on in terms of assessing this.
Cache seems like yet another case of early deck thinning vs. early buying power where the value of early buying power is being underrated. I don't know how good I think it is as an opener but I wouldn't be surprised if it is indeed quite good.
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Average treasure worth of cards...
starting 10 = $.7
open Silver/Silver = $.78
open Cache/- = $.82
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On a related note, for those who think Ill-Gotten Gains is a crummy card, try to think of the opportunity to gain a Copper in hand as a huge plus. Because it kind of is :)
Not that IGG is an overwhelming power card (I don't think it is), but it's quite good.
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Played with some of the cards, but not all yet...
IGG: Still torn on this one, had one game with poor trashing and no other curse givers where I bought IGG every time I got $5 and won a drawn out affair after giving my opponent 8 of the curses. Would think that in a game with better deck drawing, trashing or other curse givers such a strategy would fail miserably. In that game I rarely used it to gain coppers due to lack of good trashing.
Develop: Seems to be very deck situational. Needs cards worth grabbing at different costs to be any good. A kingdom full of 5's, which has alchemy cards or is full or terminals isn't very helpful. Would seem to be better as a mid game pickup in Colony games where KC is in play.
Haggler is great in Plat/Colony games, Buy the Platinum, gain a KC.
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Average treasure worth of cards...
starting 10 = $.7
open Silver/Silver = $.78
open Cache/- = $.82
To be fair though, there are plenty of openings that are better than silver/silver...
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I opened 4/3 in first position earlier, and decided I would try a different approach, and bought a Noble Brigand. I had no way of knowing that my opponent opened 2/5 and that my first buy would absolutely murder him by forcing him to open 2/3 instead. A few games later I opened 4/3 Brigand in second seat against a guy who bought a Silver on turn 1 and stole his silver. In both cases the fact that I got lucky really doesn't mean that much to me because the benefit of striking a extremely fast crippling blow outweighed the cost of whiffing. Brigand is actually an extremely tactical card. I have found it can disrupt a deck that is just starting to green just by the act of purchasing it at the right moment.
This really worries me. The problem is, altering the starting pattern randomly has such a huge effect on the game. If I am playing someone who beats me 70% of the time, sure I will open it every time. Otherwise, I just think the opportunity cost does not worth it. While the card can be useful in the early game, it helps the opponent when it misfires and does not help yourself all that much. And it is certainly more likely to misfire in the early game.
That being said, I think this card is actually somewhat balanced, the problem is just that it is balanced in a very swingy way.
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That being said, I think this card is actually somewhat balanced, the problem is just that it is balanced in a very swingy way.
Maybe I'm having a run of bad luck but I feel like this is a pretty swingy expansion in general.
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Cache as a strongish opener makes some sense to me. I've considered the card to be basically crap until now, but I haven't thought much about it in a turn 1/2 context. Will try it out if given the opportunity, but I feel like a lot of other $5 cards are stronger still to open with on turns 1 and 2.
IGG is kinda neat, but not spectacular by any means. Having the option of gaining a Copper is indeed a huge plus; games don't go long enough for that Copper to be a super huge liability, compared to what benefits it gives you on the turn you need it.
Haven't considered Develop much as a mid/late game card, but I suppose it could be pretty good on occasion. As an opener, it seems to be terrible in my opinion.
Really liking Crossroads still. Not for every board obviously, but I've done some tremendeously powerful things with that card.
The FPS player in me can't resist a good Highway every now and then, but it's probably not the best choice a lot of the time. Who doesn't like powerful engines though? :)
Kinda really liking most (all?) of the $5 card drawers so far. Also Spice Merchant has felt like a great opener to me so far.
Just some quick thoughts after having played some games. I've done reasonably well, and quite like this set overall even though there are more than a few super boring cards, for sure.
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On a related note, for those who think Ill-Gotten Gains is a crummy card, try to think of the opportunity to gain a Copper in hand as a huge plus. Because it kind of is :)
Not that IGG is an overwhelming power card (I don't think it is), but it's quite good.
The way I've been looking at it, IGG is worth it if I can get a much bigger benefit out of trashing it than my opponent can get out of trashing his Curse. The extra Copper in hand is like a Mine effect without spending the action, except it hurts your deck instead of helping it. Obviously it's great if your hand otherwise has $7, but no better for your current hand than if it was a Silver, and much worse for your deck. Also, if you're getting more Coppers out of your IGG, unless it's late enough in the game that it doesn't matter, surely you're messing up your own deck nearly as much as your opponent's?
Excepting cases such as Gardens or Copper strategies, surely IGG is strictly worse than Silver to have in your deck?
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Excepting cases such as Gardens or Copper strategies, surely IGG is strictly worse than Silver to have in your deck?
There are a lot of exceptions, all situational but they will crop up in play.
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Of course, but in most situations you'd rather just have the Silver. I'm not saying it's a "crummy" card, I'm just yet to be convinced that it's worth it in the absence of a good trash for benefit card.
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Of course, but in most situations you'd rather just have the Silver. I'm not saying it's a "crummy" card, I'm just yet to be convinced that it's worth it in the absence of a good trash for benefit card.
You get a card that's (frankly) much better than Copper, while your opponent gets a Curse. That's really good! The downside is that $5 is a pretty high price tag.
Yes, you would usually rather have a Silver in your deck than an IGG. But Silver doesn't give away Curses. I would argue if you take away the on-gain effect IGG is a totally solid $2-value card.
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I would argue if you take away the on-gain effect IGG is a totally solid $2-value card.
Hmm, really? The obvious point of comparison is Fool's Gold, and seems a lot better: IGG is $1 with a possibility of $1 more if you accept a penalty, while Fool's Gold is $1 with a possibility of $3 more if you have good deck management, and no penalty.
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I would argue if you take away the on-gain effect IGG is a totally solid $2-value card.
Hmm, really? The obvious point of comparison is Fool's Gold, and seems a lot better: IGG is $1 with a possibility of $1 more if you accept a penalty, while Fool's Gold is $1 with a possibility of $3 more if you have good deck management, and no penalty.
But it's much easier to get a deck where the IGG is useful than where the fool's gold is. Fool's gold you really need to build around. IGG you don't. I'm pretty much in agreement with guided on this.
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Regarding Highway, obviously without a +buy it doesnt do that much, but you can go to town with a drawer with a +buy. Workers Village and Market work welll, even better if you have good trashing. A timely Inn buy (or two) doesn't hurt either if its on the board. Had someone use Smugglers against me well using Highway as an enabler so he could smuggle Provinces from me..grrr.. The non-termimal aspect of Highway makes this more viable than trying it with Bridge.
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If IGG cost $2 and had no on-gain curse, I can't really see me ever buying it outside of Gardens decks. Clearly guided and WW are very smart cookies though, so I'm not sure what I'm missing. I mean, I think Fool's Gold kinda sucks, but at least it has some sort of engine potential; I just don't see the $2 cost IGG (basically) ever doing anything good. Kind of an uninteresting discussion though, I guess :)
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Consider it to be a cheap, gimped Silver. If Silver is worth $3, then a non-cursing IGG should logically be worth less.
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Consider the timing of the ill gotten gains. If you buy it early then your opponent gets very quick deterioration of the deck, perhaps before they've even taken a turn. If you buy it late then perhaps the game will end before you shuffle the gained copper into the deck. As with many hinterlands cards, the value of the card depends upon how and when you get it.
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Scheme has to be contender for one of my favorite $3 cards. Playing that Moneylender two turns in a row early comes in handy. Had a game where I used 2 schemes to Ghost Ship a guy 4 turns in a row in the mid-game
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I would argue if you take away the on-gain effect IGG is a totally solid $2-value card.
I would totally agree. But I would also argue that the difference between a $0 card and a $2 is much less than the difference (on average) between a $2 and a $5 card.
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I am having some trouble justifying the opportunity lost through the purchase of Scheme. This card has a few problems. First of all, if used with a non-draw card it is an anticycler. It adds nothing to an economy, can cockblock blind draws and will not allow a player to maintain a combo over several turns without several instances of the card in the deck, all of which could be considered a loss of a Silver.
Cartographer, Tunnel and Scheme all impressed me when I first read the new card list, but all of them have been a bit disappointing. I do not need to be convinced that these cards are useful, I am sure that they are in some cases. They just don't perform as well as I had imagined. OTOH, I was not at all impressed when I first saw IGG, Cache, Develop and was very confused about JoAT and they have all exceeded my expectations.
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Consider it to be a cheap, gimped Silver. If Silver is worth $3, then a non-cursing IGG should logically be worth less.
Right.
If you need the $1, boom, gain the Copper. If you don't, don't. Gaining a Copper that you can immediately cash in for a buck is pretty good, really not that much worse than just playing a Silver.
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I would totally agree. But I would also argue that the difference between a $0 card and a $2 is much less than the difference (on average) between a $2 and a $5 card.
IGG gives away Curses when you gain it, is the reason it doesn't cost $2 :P
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Right. So given you have $5 (and there are other reasonable 5s), you can either give your opponent a $0 card and yourself a $2 card, or give yourself a $5 card. And I would say a $5 card is generally better than the difference between a $0 and a $2 card. (Think how bad Remodel usually is at getting rid of your Coppers.)
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Right. So given you have $5 (and there are other reasonable 5s), you can either give your opponent a $0 card and yourself a $2 card, or give yourself a $5 card. And I would say a $5 card is generally better than the difference between a $0 and a $2 card. (Think how bad Remodel usually is at getting rid of your Coppers.)
You call a Curse "a $0 card" as if it were no worse than a Copper. Tip: Curse is much worse than Copper.
Certainly there will be many situations where you would prefer to gain a different $5 card than IGG.
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Tip: Curse is much worse than Copper.
Well, obviously. But generally speaking, you want as few as possible of both in your deck. That's why Mountebank is such a good card.
More explicitly: I would say that the average $5 card is better than the difference between a Curse and a Copper which can be a Silver at the cost of producing more Coppers.
I would say that IGG is good when you can either turn it into something else or get cards/$/VP chips for it, not so good compared to other $5s when you can't, and terrible when the only trasher is the Jack (Referring to a game I just played when I was happy for my opponent to keep buying IGGs).
Other than Gardens/Copper strategies that I've already mentioned, in what situations would you say IGG is good when you expect to keep it for the rest of the game?
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Oasis is a fun little soft-counter to sea hag.
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I think I played the most pleasant and fast sea hag game I've ever had just a bit ago.
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OTOH, I was not at all impressed when I first saw IGG, Cache, Develop and was very confused about JoAT and they have all exceeded my expectations.
We've had some discussion on IGG and Cache already. Care to share your findings with the rest of us re: Develop?
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I am having some trouble justifying the opportunity lost through the purchase of Scheme. This card has a few problems.
It's good, don't worry. I think its uses will be contrary to some people's expectations though. The only problems I see are the opportunity cost vs silver and people playing it badly.
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My best experience with Scheme is alongside Ghost Ship. I bought up on some Schemes (mostly because they were new) and the three of them seemed to group together and stay on top of my deck for a while. Then when my Ghost Ship came along, I was guaranteed to be able to play it at least four times in a row, which can be really painful to be on the receiving end of. Obviously there are plenty of cards you want to play as often as possible, but GS seems to fit the bill here more than most.
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Scheme is great! All it does is let you play your favorite Action card more often. Probably not twice as often, probably not even quite as often as if you had another copy of that card instead of the Scheme (although it'll never collide with itself, which can be nice!). But still quite a little bit. And of course multiple Schemes stack, until you're basically playing that card every turn and you finally hit diminishing returns. (Of course, you don't HAVE to Scheme the same card every time; it's just the simplest example.)
Of course the utility of Scheme depends on how powerful the best Action card in your deck is, and how difficult it would be to simply buy more copies of that card instead of Scheming it. I'd say it's worthwhile with good $5 actions in play, but with good $6 or $7 Actions it's awesome.
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To echo what others have said, scheme is mostly useful for pairing with a very strong action card. Early game, you might buy one on turn 3 if you get $5 on turn one or two. Later on, you pair it with a strong action you might not be able to buy/reliably draw every turn. Golem is an obvious choice. King's Court/Throne Room (along with the card you want to KC) is another good one, even if the paired cards aren't that expensive. Scheme also combos decently with minion (the more you get in your hand at the same time, the better), with possession (because it is absurdly powerful), with counting house (counting house still has problems, but scheme + counting house is better than a single counting house, in cases where you want one). I'd also imagine it can slightly speed up a bridge/native village combo or an ironworks/gardens deck.
Other uses are less obvious. Scheme worked pretty well for me in this game (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/18/game-20111018-063536-1232a16a.html) by letting me reliably get my cartographer to sift through green cards, then use my torturer to fetch enough silvers to buy a province.
It's not a "must have" card in every game, but it has a good variety of uses.
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Okay I will write a bit about Develop.
When I first saw the card it seemed like a weaker cousin of Remake, an in a lot of ways it is. Remake is a card that can enable a fast ramp up of deck quality by rapidly disposing of the weak starting cards, and Develop can be played that way, but not to much effect. It is decent at converting Estates into Silvers, but for destroying Coppers it is strictly worse than Trade Route in lieu of some Highway/Bridge scheme.
And then of course it dawned on me that the real strength of Develop was the ability to set up a combo and place it on top of the deck. For this to be a viable strategy I like to see a good synergy between the $3 and $5 cards and, just as importantly, there must be a good $4 card that either pairs well with a $6 card of that you wouldn't mind seeing often. The board must be able to support Develop in another way as well: it must not be fast enough to make Develop obsolete, because this is not an ultra-fast strategy. I am thinking with anything as fast as BM/Masq may be too quick for most variations of this deck.
The key is the $4 card, for that is the card that wants to be developed first, gaining a $5 and $3 card that hopefully can do something strong together on the next turn. The $4 card should also be good enough to help progress the deck, because chances are that it may not collide with Develop right away.
The first $4 developed may be trashed for any $5 card and another develop, so a Gold can be gained the next turn. I really like to see IGG on a Develop board because it is a great target and immediately effects the opponents buildup. Or it can be developed into a nice $5 keeper card and a silver or a good cantrip. If there are $7 cards on the board, it may be a really good time to play Develop; I think it surely must be but I actually haven't played out that scenario yet so I cannot say for sure.
It is important to know that at some point this Develop chain must break in order to move into the VP buying stage; it is sometimes tempting to keep up the immediate gratification at a fatal cost to victory. With very few exceptions (like the KC/Masq pin), every Dominion deck should have as the main goal to progress the deck as quickly as possible to be able to gain as much VP as it can in the least amount of turns. Develop is no different. So if there are powerful $5 cards on the board, than perhaps using Develop to gain $5/Develop may not be the best strategy.
Develop is not easily put into a cubby hole, and I think that it is one of the cards in this set that will be creating new and interesting effects for quite a while. I really could not possible write a definitive piece on it because I have in no way mastered all the subtle interactions that Develop can facilitate. So to keep it simple: Use it on fours just about as often as possibles, and on fives if the deck needs a jolt of treasure or some other tricks can be seen. Absolutely ignore this card in very fast situations as it will not compete, at least as far as I have been able to discern. If there are very fast Develop strategies they are completely dependent on the cards available. Playing Develop on a board without $4 or $5 cards is complete lunacy, as far as I can tell. It is just asking for a beat down. Using it to trash Coppers should be viewed as a failure in most cases. And remember, the goal is to push the deck towards a winning end game, and other distractions may be fun and interesting but are ultimately kind of stupid.
Final edit
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I would say that the average $5 card is better than the difference between a Curse and a Copper which can be a Silver at the cost of producing more Coppers.
If this is true it's only technically and barely so, with the word "average" doing all the heavy lifting. If the opportunity cost of taking IGG instead of some other $5 card is too high in some particular instance (and this will often be true), by all means take some other $5 card.
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I would say that the average $5 card is better than the difference between a Curse and a Copper which can be a Silver at the cost of producing more Coppers.
If this is true it's only technically and barely so, with the word "average" doing all the heavy lifting. If the opportunity cost of taking IGG instead of some other $5 card is too high in some particular instance (and this will often be true), by all means take some other $5 card.
Actually it's entirely true: I would say it. :P
Obviously it depends on other cards.
Regardless, I'd still like to know: other than what's already been mentioned, what kind of board/situation makes IGG worthwhile?
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My very first develop game had throne room, ill-gotten gains, and nobles, and I was of the opinion that develop must be a power-card.
a lot of folks have said that develop is a horrible opening, but i have to disagree (at least a little). it's more like trade route: something i'll strongly consider opening if there's no other trashing and no 5s that I can't afford to miss on the second shuffle, and something that i'll also consider opening if it's likely to be very useful later (which is board-dependent). on the other hand, i open trade route too much...
i also think we're underrating oracle.
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soft counter to ghost ship?
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I think IGG is much better than it looks on the surface. Sure buying ONE doesn't sound all that appealing. But ignoring them can be quite perilous, because while one curse is no big deal, ten is. In a kingdom with no (or weak) trashing, the curses will be able to slow you down enough that you can't get an insurmountable lead before you end up taking all 10 curses. Then with 2 piles down, the treasure-filled IGG deck can probably do well enough in a duchy race to end up winning. So while it may not be your #1 priority to buy IGGs, you probably can't just ignore them.
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Thanks MMM! from what I'm hearing, it sounds like Develop creates tactical openings and opportunities, like ensuring that a particular pair of $4 and $6 are drawn together. Kinda forgot that this expansion introduces quite a few "tactical" cards.
On another note, I think Donald is trolling the simulators here with Jack of all Trades.
A: "Let's make a non-reaction card that does extremely well with big money, is resilient to attacks, but doesn't obviously combo with anything else. This will make the simulators think it's elite, but hopefully catch them all out in other ways."
B: "Okay, firstly it must support big money. Hopefully also makes the card strong if it comes to Duchy dancing."
A: "Gain a silver."
B: "Be resilient to deck inspection attacks."
A: "You get to mill your own deck when you play this."
B: "Be resilient to handsize attacks."
A: "Draw to 5."
B: "Be resilient to cursing attacks."
A: "After drawing, trash a card from hand."
B: "How will that play out, will people buy many of these and trash too many coppers? You wanted this to be the king of Duchy dancing."
A: "Fine, trash a non-treasure card. This should also make it strongest if you purchase only 1 or 2, ideal for those simulators."
B: "I think you got a winner."
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I don't think Donald cares about the simulators. They probably make up less than 0,1% of the Dominion player population.
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I don't think Donald cares about the simulators. They probably make up less than 0,1% of the Dominion player population.
And I think most of the cards were designed before the first game was out, thus before people started simulating.
Besides, simulating is a real narrow experience and the conclusions that can be drawn from it are not always meaningful. This is because a kingdom has 10 (or 11 with Young Witch, or even more with Black Market) cards, while a simulator takes into account only a few.
Simulating is certainly useful, because it gives us some baselines from which we can try to optimize. Big Money has become quite famous and it tells us: If you can't get at least 4 Provinces/Colonies by Turn X, you're probably doing something wrong. But the more complex a game becomes (Cursers, Ambassadoring, saving up for double Province buys, switching to a different strategy halfway because you got unlucky in the beginning), the less useful the simulation is.
Simulations are good at showing the standalone power of some of the cards vs. the standalone power of some other cards, but very bad at coming up with powerful combo's (which aren't part of the input), that's what good players do.
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I stand by my assessment of Mandarin as pretty bad, its treasure-giving powers compare to the mediocre Harvest and Merchant Ship, its "return cards to deck" powers will be situationally useful but usually a drag- I can't imagine them being useful more often,
I don't think Mandarin is great, but whether in your hand or in the supply, it gives you choices. Rather than purely the 'can you over-afford / not-quite-afford a Province scenario, since most good players have a plan as to what they need to buy, why not apply that logic to other situations where you would over-buy or under-buy any other card you need?
Does this Highway help you now or if you Mandarin it to the top of your deck, will you increase its likelihood to draw with a +buy card? That sort of play requires some canny deck management and restraint; most people would play the Highway to see if they luck into that card.
In one game with action heavy madness, after chaining many actions and having little draw deck left, I'd buy a Mandarin to throw $5 in treasures back on top so that I could next turn buy an Inn and put all the good stuff back in now that it had discarded.
I'm not campaigning that Mandarin is any better than a mid-value $5, but I am saying that there's a lot of potential for fun in it.
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An interesting thing to do is to buy a mandarin in a tactician turn. You can usually arrange to get two province buys out of that, assume you have some silvers and golds.
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I've come to hate IGG on boards with no other cursers and no great trashing. If no player goes for it, of course it's fine. But if my opponent starts grabbing them, I have to, because I don't want to end up with say 8 curses. And then if we split 5/5 on them, we both have bad decks with 5 extra copper and 5 extra curses, and 2 piles are out, so we have to start rushing for VP. It makes the game not that interesting in the end.
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I have been reading this thread with interest, but had to chime in on the discussion of IGG. The last few games I have played with it have been to great effect.
I feel playing IGG is better as a rush strategy similar to gardens.
My algorithm is to buy as many IGGs as possible (open silver/silver, or IGG/esate). Take exactly the amount of copper you need to get to 5 to buy the next IGG. If you can get to 8 by taking the coppers, do so and buy a province. When all the IGGs are gone rush estates/duchies for the 3-pile. I find games like this usually end in about 18 turns, and I can usually pick up around 2 provinces on the way.
This might only be working right now because people are getting blindsided by the rush (players have been not happy after the game with this strategy), but I feel it effectively destroys development of the opponents deck. Giving out a curse almost every turn is pretty hard to counter (even with moderate trashing) and all the extra coppers don't really hurt my own deck since I have no interest in development beyond buying duchies.
I would like to know if others have used any similar strategies to good effect (unfortunately none of my games are available due to councilroom not being updated with hinterlands yet).
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The IGG rush seems pretty good, but I wouldn't open with Estate in case of $5/$2. And I wouldn't try it if Jack of all Trades was on the board either.
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I think IGG rush is good as long as there is no (good) trashing and no other cursing cards. As far as opening goes, you don't need to restrict to silver/silver. Since the IGGs are treasure, terminal draw cards are good, and it's actually reasonably easy to get to $8 with courtyard or smithy and IGGs. You can also open with an attack to slow your opponent down. Even something like navigator can be used and will be better than silver/silver.
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True that there will usually be a better $4 card on the table than silver, but the silver/silver opening was just to illustrate a generic case (coppersmith is an intriguing opener here) . The idea is to get to $5 ASAP.
Even in the presence of good trashing, I think this rush is viable. Assuming you get to $5 at somewhere from turns 3-5 you start giving the opponent a curse almost every turn (maybe every other turn worst case, but once this gets going it seems to get to $5 pretty consistently). This compares favorably to ambassador, which can overwhelm chapel as a trasher.
Also, for the 5/2 case (with no good $2 available) I think it is better to open IGG/copper than IGG/-. Counting IGG as $2, you get $10/12 cards for a treasure density of .833. For IGG/- you get $9/11 cards for a treasure density of .818. Treating IGG as $1 + 1 copper also gives similar numbers at 11/13 = .846 vs 10/12 = .833. Though these don't really take effect until the reshuffle. I think it is just easier to treat IGG like a silver early on in terms of getting to $5 consistently.
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True that there will usually be a better $4 card on the table than silver, but the silver/silver opening was just to illustrate a generic case (coppersmith is an intriguing opener here) . The idea is to get to $5 ASAP.
I don't think coppersmith is a good opener here because it doesn't help you get to $5. You're probably better off opening silver/silver and then adding the coppersmith later.
Even in the presence of good trashing, I think this rush is viable. Assuming you get to $5 at somewhere from turns 3-5 you start giving the opponent a curse almost every turn (maybe every other turn worst case, but once this gets going it seems to get to $5 pretty consistently). This compares favorably to ambassador, which can overwhelm chapel as a trasher.
The point about trashing is not just that they can get rid of the curses in a timely manner, but that they can use the trashing to get into a really strong deck that might be able to produce enough provinces in time to beat your rush. With ambassador, you're constantly giving junk, but can at the same time buy stuff for yourself. With IGG you can't buy anything other than IGGs. Meanwhile, they can be buying engine cards.
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I think the general assessment is correct, that IGG in a board with no trashing can be a superb attack/rush. The best counter to it, is to simply rush it yourself and really this is my problem with IGG. It's one of those cards that once your opponent dips into the cesspool, that's where you need to swim as well.
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I think the general assessment is correct, that IGG in a board with no trashing can be a superb attack/rush. The best counter to it, is to simply rush it yourself and really this is my problem with IGG. It's one of those cards that once your opponent dips into the cesspool, that's where you need to swim as well.
Isn't that true of any cursing card on a board with no trashing, though?
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Isn't that true of any cursing card on a board with no trashing, though?
It is, but I think the difference though is that if Chapel is on the board I'm still buying Witch, I am not sure however if I am buying IGG.
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It is, but I think the difference though is that if Chapel is on the board I'm still buying Witch, I am not sure however if I am buying IGG.
But that's not what you were saying was the problem. You said that the best counter to it was simply to rush it yourself, and that you had to swim in the "cesspool" yourself. Which, as ftl correctly points out, is almost always true of all the consistent cursers.
Now you seem to be saying that the problem is that IGG is sufficiently weak, compared to other cursers, that you DON'T always get it. Which one is the problem? Is the problem that you always have to get it, or that it's not good enough to always get?
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I'm saying both.
I am saying that with IGG, you get into this race of a card that's slow and expensive, but a necessary arms war in a board with no trashing. In a board with Witch, I'll take the Witch.
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I think in a board with no (or light) trashing, IGG can give out curses significantly faster than witches, and is the better curser (solo games show all the curses to the opponent in 13-16 turns, this is almost a curse per turn, every turn, after turn 3!). The downside of course, is that your deck is now geared towards $5 a hand, rather than $8.
With decent trashing the witch becomes much better because, +2 cards is good even after the curses are gone.
The endgames of both these scenarios play out very differently, I think. After an IGG rush you pretty much have to rush a thrid pile (assuming both IGG and curses are gone), where with witches you probably still have 2-piles left to deplete and have to aim for provinces.
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I'm saying both.
They're mutually contradictory. The problem can not be that the card is so good that it's a must-buy and at the same time so bad that you don't know whether or not to buy it.
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They are absolutely NOT contradictory, they are just separate, distinct points.
I am saying Witch is a stronger card.
I am also saying that IGG forces you to buy a 5$ over and over again, while the Witch war is a faster game, because while the curses slow you down, the IGG war is played by constantly spending 5$ on a Curse attack. IGG games force your purchasing on IGG - almost exclusively - for the first 12-14 turns.
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If I'm understanding correctly, I think the complaint is not about the overall strength or weakness of the card, but about the fact that it may lead to games one might consider boring, where players just buy all the IGGs then all the duchies. When witch is around, everyone buys 1-2 of them, but then they move on to buy other stuff, which potentially leads to a more interesting game.
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If I'm understanding correctly, I think the complaint is not about the overall strength or weakness of the card, but about the fact that it may lead to games one might consider boring, where players just buy all the IGGs then all the duchies. When witch is around, everyone buys 1-2 of them, but then they move on to buy other stuff, which potentially leads to a more interesting game.
Yeah, exactly, that's part of what I'm saying.
I'm also saying that in a game with Witch and IGG, I think I'll go Witch, I think I'll lose the Curse war (probably 6-4 or 7-3, but my deck is probably ahead in Provinces by the time you turn your attention to Dutchies. I could be dead-wrong on this, and solo games don't really help to decide. IGG is a painful, slow Curse war. Witch games are a less painful game, because you are not channeled into a single pathway, you get your Witch and you move on to dealing with the rest of the board.
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IGG is a painful, slow Curse war.
I would argue that it's not slow at all. Sea hag leads to painful slow games since sea hag provides no buying power. IGG is basically $2. IGG+3x copper buys an IGG or duchy. 2xIGG+1 copper buys an IGG or duchy. Haven't really played any IGG races (since other people seem to ignore them too often), but I think 2 player IGG races shouldn't go more than typical games (15-16 turn range, depending on what cards are available for the opening buys).
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IGG is a painful, slow Curse war.
I would argue that it's not slow at all. Sea hag leads to painful slow games since sea hag provides no buying power. IGG is basically $2. IGG+3x copper buys an IGG or duchy. 2xIGG+1 copper buys an IGG or duchy. Haven't really played any IGG races (since other people seem to ignore them too often), but I think 2 player IGG races shouldn't go more than typical games (15-16 turn range).
Remember you will have Curses in your hand too. But if you can 3-pile in 16 turns, its faster than I thought. It would be fun to stage a Witch vs. IGG game. IGG forces you to buy one card for the first 5 or 6 turns, then get stuck with Copper (which you probably needed to keep up the war). Your next focus is Dutchies, some turns you get them, some turns you don't (the curses/coppers in your hand will prevent you). If your opponent get a Province or two in those turns, you're dead.
It's a slow painful game, perhaps "slow" isn't correct, it's a painful game, because not only are you forced to attack (like almost all Curse games) you are forced to do with a wide-deck and a singular card purchase, rather than a one-time purchase and then an engine.
It's a "dumber" game perhaps, and certainly less exciting, but perhaps its faster than I thought if you can 3-pile by turn 16 consistently.
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Witch will just crush Ill-Gotten Gains rush.
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Witch will just crush Ill-Gotten Gains rush.
Cool, I thought so, so I am not a total idiot, just a "partial-idiot". :)
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I think any curse-giver (besides torturer) should really mess up any sort of IGG rush, because the curse pile will run out before the IGGs. Then, when the curses are all gone, a 3-pile ending is not imminent, so you can't just buy duchies to close it out, and you actually probably have to get to $8.
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In general, I think I agree with that... but I had to try it out today anyway.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/24/game-20111024-121537-039d4178.html
(Not optimal play on either side, I'm sure... but IGG is fast.)
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One of the things I'm noticing about Highway is that the lack of +Buy (compared to Bridge) is actually a pretty significant deal. If you only have 1 Buy, dropping the cost of an item isn't as powerful. There are obvious exceptions: Grand Markets become much easier to buy, it avoids the pain of $7 hands, etc. But get a couple of +Buys, and Highway really shines, especially in multiples.
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With a single buy and no gaining cards (ironworks et al.), Highway is functionally identical to peddler. Not the worst, but pretty bad at $5. That said, even without +buys, highway combos much better than bridge with cards like workshop and ironworks, because of the cantrip effect.
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It's one of the many "+1 action +1 card +1 coin +1 gimmick" cards; for this one, the gimmick that differentiates it is that instead of the explicit +1 coin, it's "everything costs 1 less", which is equivalent unless you have +buys but becomes progressively more powerful as you add buys. If you DON'T have +buys, it's the same as a tournament before anyone's got any provinces, or a market without enough cash to use the +buy, or a peddler without any trash-for-benefit around, or a bazaar with no terminals, and so on and so forth. Usable but not spectacular.
All those really shine when you can use their special ability. For Highway, that means having +buy or gainers.
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I've been thinking a lot about Highway lately and realizing what a smartly designed card it is. Generally I'm down on cards that only activate in the presence of resources that very well might not be present elsewhere in the kingdom, like +Buy. But Highway is beautifully designed in that, yeah, it does need +Buy to fully activate, but it's often worth it even without it. In other words, Highway is balanced at $5 whether or not you're able to unlock its true power, which is no mean feat of game design.
Here's my reasoning. Without +Buy, Highway is roughly a Peddler. At a more standard cost, I'm convinced Peddler would cost $4, just because of how all the Peddler-with-a-bonus cards (Treasury, Market, and Bazaar) cost $5. Some of these bonuses, though, go unused: Market is sometimes worthwhile even if you don't use the +Buy. Treasury is sometimes worthwhile even in the greening stage. Bazaar is sometimes worthwhile even if you don't draw it with two terminals. Admittedly, you usually want to make use of the bonuses on all three of these cards, and they're relatively weak uses of $5 if you don't. But in any given actual game, they might still be worth buying.
Thus, Highway, the rough equivalent of a Peddler with no bonuses, is situationally worthwhile at $5. And actually there is a small situational bonus anyhow, in the way that Highway allows you to do funky Remodel tricks on the low end and expand the reach of Smugglers, Talisman, Feast, University, etc, on the high end.
So I'm going to go ahead and assert that Highway is weak and situational but perfectly balanced at $5 in the absence of +Buys. When there ARE +Buys, however, then it really pops. But does it really pop in a way that Bridge doesn't? Bridge is a $4 card, and it can still be spammed (with Villages or TR/KC) to dramatic effect. So why would Highway be underpriced at $5 if it can do the same thing? As a non-terminal, it's easier to spam, but it doesn't provide $, and you need to collide your Highway stack with your +Buy source to activate it. $5 still seems like the right price.
As I say, an amazing feat of game design.
Edit: Ninja'ed on many points. That's what I get for being longwinded.
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If you compare Bridge and Highway, Bridge wants extra actions, Highway wants extra buys. If each is missing what they want, the mega-turns they are both itching to do are not going to happen. Of course, even then they are both reasonable for their price. As has been said, Highway is comparable to Peddler. Bridge, if you use its extra buy, is essentially a terminal gold. I think where Highway really shines (edit for clarity: in comparison with Bridge) is with Workshop/Remodel/Swindler etc, as it can be much easier to get everything significantly cheaper, and you still have an action to burn after doing so.
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Scheme+Ghost Ship sure makes for some tedious games. Just played this game http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/24/game-20111024-175140-d1bf4e9d.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/24/game-20111024-175140-d1bf4e9d.html)with the following cards: Border Village, Chapel, Colony, Familiar, Farmland, Gardens, Ghost Ship, Hamlet, Platinum, Potion, Saboteur, Scheme, and Vault
At one point I played Ghost Ship 8 turns in a row on my opponent. Even with Chapel, that combo combined with Familar and Saboteur made for a rather unfun game.
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Scheme fits strongly into four different decks-
* Attack! A good $5 or $6 attack that is worth playing every turn. Use multiple schemes and moneys and just keep it rolling. I haven't looked at density requirements, but I think three schemes are slightly overkill for getting that card every turn, but two might not be enough. Probably the most basic use for Scheme. Can be used with other strong actions, it's just there aren't that many out there that compare with attacks.
* King's Court combo. Use multiples of each to set up a constant five to six card hand.
* Golem. Scheme *2 + Golem + 2 good actions is enough to play at least one and maybe two of those actions every turn.
* Scrying Pool. Seems like a natural fit for an average to good Pool deck. Really useful if the deck only has 2-3 Scrying Pools.
I haven't tried Scheme/Tactician yet. I think it would also be strong, as it allows for a Tactician every other turn.
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I have been getting my ass kicked with Hinterland all day. Literally losing 5 in a row.
Scheme/King's Court was right there, I just never trust KC or TR, but I guess with Scheme, you can set it up nicely, and I lost really badly, not recognizing that obvious fact (I kept scheming my Highways, and by the way Highway might be an overrated card, I NEVER win with it).
Went for a Silk Road play with Working Village in another game and got my lungs handed to me.
I am, quite possibly, the worst Hinterlands player on iso right now, I specifically bias the games towards it to learn the set and promptly get THRASHED. Ugly. Terrible.
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Well, just a few posts up a few of us made comments about Highways :)
If you didn't have extra buys, then scheming a highway is no different than playing a treasury. Did you have extra buys or gainers to go with the highways?
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It's interesting that, with the exception of cards that give +1 Buy, none of the Hinterlands cards really combo well with Highway. As I see it, the main advantage of Highway over Bridge is that you can chain a few before playing Feast/Workshop/Ironworks/Saboteur/Smugglers/University/Horn of Plenty without having to buy and activate a big +Actions/+Cards engine first.
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I am, quite possibly, the worst Hinterlands player on iso right now, I specifically bias the games towards it to learn the set and promptly get THRASHED. Ugly. Terrible.
You might find it easier to learn the new cards in small amounts, rather than all at once. If you don't bias towards hinterlands, there will still be at least 1 hinterlands card in 90% of games, and an average of 2 (probably more because other people are biasing toward hinterlands...). Maybe learning that way is more manageable. There are a lot of complicated cards, and it may be too much to try to digest 5 of them per game.
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<a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/24/game-20111024-204023-3dfd97f2.html>Mean Mr Mustard plays a Workshop.
... gaining a Province.</a>
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<a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/24/game-20111024-204023-3dfd97f2.html>Mean Mr Mustard plays a Workshop.
... gaining a Province.</a>
lol--very nice.
With enough highways you could also do things like remodel/develop/remake your coppers into provinces.
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Scheme seems to work fairly well with Forge, especially if your deck is quite clogged up when you buy it. Playing it multiple turns in a row can really fix your deck up.
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It's interesting that, with the exception of cards that give +1 Buy, none of the Hinterlands cards really combo well with Highway. As I see it, the main advantage of Highway over Bridge is that you can chain a few before playing Feast/Workshop/Ironworks/Saboteur/Smugglers/University/Horn of Plenty without having to buy and activate a big +Actions/+Cards engine first.
It's definitely a card that would feel more at home in prosperity.
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A couple very minor thoughts on scheme:
1. Scheme is without a doubt the most effective bane card of all time. Why yes, I think I will return the scheme to the top of my deck.
2. Scheme is completely ineffectual against a minion deck (Though it might help get one kickstarted). I find this to be thematically amusing. I'll send out my minions to thwart my opponents schemes.
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Scheme fits strongly into four different decks-
* Attack! A good $5 or $6 attack that is worth playing every turn. Use multiple schemes and moneys and just keep it rolling. I haven't looked at density requirements, but I think three schemes are slightly overkill for getting that card every turn, but two might not be enough. Probably the most basic use for Scheme. Can be used with other strong actions, it's just there aren't that many out there that compare with attacks.
* King's Court combo. Use multiples of each to set up a constant five to six card hand.
* Golem. Scheme *2 + Golem + 2 good actions is enough to play at least one and maybe two of those actions every turn.
* Scrying Pool. Seems like a natural fit for an average to good Pool deck. Really useful if the deck only has 2-3 Scrying Pools.
I haven't tried Scheme/Tactician yet. I think it would also be strong, as it allows for a Tactician every other turn.
Failed to set it up yesterday, basically because I trashed to late, but I guess Scheme should be one of the better activators for Conspirator.
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Failed to set it up yesterday, basically because I trashed to late, but I guess Scheme should be one of the better activators for Conspirator.
That sounds perfect. Start each turn by playing two Schemes and then returning them to the top of the deck - presto, every Conspirator for the rest of the game is activated!
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And then of course it dawned on me that the real strength of Develop was the ability to set up a combo and place it on top of the deck.
Here's a Develop combo I'm proud of: I developed an Ill-Gotten Gains into a Gold and a Remodel. They go on top of the deck, and next turn I Remodel my Gold into a Province.
In another game, I suffered mightily as my opponent purchased an IGG, then Developed the IGG into a Border Village and another Develop, and gained another IGG from the Border Village. He repeated this over and over until I had most of the curses and the game ended on piles (BV, Curses, IGGs).
I've also had some success Developing 4's that have overstayed their welcome into Duchies and Silvers late in the game.
Edit: Oops! My first post and I am already a liar. Thanks for pointing out that you couldn't get a Develop from an IGG. My opponent had so many Develops, though... must have been buying them.
FLAG-23160
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Develop is a $3 card, IGG is a $5 card, how was he able to Develop IGG into Develop?
He must have gotten a $4 cost from Developing an IGG.
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Yes, Border Village is the exact reason I suggested a while ago that Develop might be an even stronger card at $4 cost in certain situations.
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You might find it easier to learn the new cards in small amounts, rather than all at once. If you don't bias towards hinterlands, there will still be at least 1 hinterlands card in 90% of games, and an average of 2 (probably more because other people are biasing toward hinterlands...). Maybe learning that way is more manageable. There are a lot of complicated cards, and it may be too much to try to digest 5 of them per game.
Thanks for this, I regret to admit though there were only 2 or 3 HL cards on the board. I think I need to confront the reality that I am not a good player. Many of the games were not even close.
Well, just a few posts up a few of us made comments about Highways :)
If you didn't have extra buys, then scheming a highway is no different than playing a treasury. Did you have extra buys or gainers to go with the highways?
Yeah Margrave was there, which I used, but I only bought one. Again, I think I'm just a poor player. At several times yesterday I made poor decisions, which cost me a Province, not just in purchasing either, but in actually executing the hand in front of me.
Farmland purchasing for example, I was an idiot.
I need basic practice, but you can't get in isotropic, it's not friendly to new players. I was getting my lungs handed to me in 15 turns, very discouraging.
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You might find it easier to learn the new cards in small amounts, rather than all at once. If you don't bias towards hinterlands, there will still be at least 1 hinterlands card in 90% of games, and an average of 2 (probably more because other people are biasing toward hinterlands...). Maybe learning that way is more manageable. There are a lot of complicated cards, and it may be too much to try to digest 5 of them per game.
Thanks for this, I regret to admit though there were only 2 or 3 HL cards on the board. I think I need to confront the reality that I am not a good player. Many of the games were not even close.
Well, just a few posts up a few of us made comments about Highways :)
If you didn't have extra buys, then scheming a highway is no different than playing a treasury. Did you have extra buys or gainers to go with the highways?
Good advice, thanks, yeah Margrave was there, which I used, but I only bought one. Again, I think I'm just a poor player. At several times yesterday I made poor decisions, which cost me a Province, not just in purchasing either, but in actually executing the hand in front of me.
Farmland purchasing for example, I was an idiot.
I need basic practice, but you can't get in isotropic, it's not friendly to new players. I was getting my lungs handed to me in 15 turns, very discouraging.
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I need basic practice, but you can't get in isotropic, it's not friendly to new players. I was getting my lungs handed to me in 15 turns, very discouraging.
I'm not sure. If you go somewhere else, and win there in 25 turns, and then come back here, you will be beaten in 15 turns again. Against which level do you play at the moment? Perhaps you should try to play some lower level by manual selecting them. I have the impression that I play more against higher levels at the moment than lower levels when auto-matching +-10levels, despite the fact that on the leaderboard there are a lot mot players on 22-32 than on 42-32. But the first ones are more active now.
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Council Room would say you're an above-average player. :P I think when I had played about 100 games I had a few more losses than wins. Now I'm level 26 down from 28 (not an expert by any stretch, but intermediate I suppose). Just keep improving and pay attention to the game. :)
Edit: Also, double-post if you haven't noticed.
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You have the right attitude realizing you're a poor player. This will encourage you to try to play better. Once you think you're good, you stop learning. I still think of myself as a lousy player. Especially when it comes to building engines I have a lot to learn (I do know my Big Money :) )
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(I do know my Big Money :) )
Come on, this is only because your simulator tells you how to play it ;)
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Thank you all for the encouragement and advice. I particularly like the advice of maintaining the attitude that I am lousy, as motivation to improve. I have a similar mantra when I play soccer, and I find it works.
Jim, CR hasn't updated in a while, I've gone on a big losing streak since. I guess that's the new cards, but its also playing better players. Level 15 is a barrier for me, I reach it, then I seem to lose a lot, crashing down to 12 and 13. I guess that's about where I'm at.
And DStu, you are probably right that isotropic is a school of hard knocks, but it is still a school and you will eventually learn.
And Geronimoo, sometimes I think I have been losing a lot lately, forgetting some of the tenets that BM teaches you, which is you can't forget basic currency. In other words, that Border Village is a temptress, don't forget just how valuable a Gold is in your deck, for almost every engine out there, Gold is a boon.
Thanks again, everyone, I'll keep at it. I just won my first match today, using the IGG rush. It was close as Bishop was on the board, but I still got it.
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I finally got to play a game with Highway, Workshop, and Smugglers. Gaining three Provinces in one turn with Workshops and Smugglers is a rather satisfying experience.
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It's interesting that, with the exception of cards that give +1 Buy, none of the Hinterlands cards really combo well with Highway. As I see it, the main advantage of Highway over Bridge is that you can chain a few before playing Feast/Workshop/Ironworks/Saboteur/Smugglers/University/Horn of Plenty without having to buy and activate a big +Actions/+Cards engine first.
It's definitely a card that would feel more at home in prosperity.
Well, Prosperity has a lot of extra Buys available, but Highway really hurts cards like Bishop and Forge.
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Well, Prosperity has a lot of extra Buys available, but Highway really hurts cards like Bishop and Forge.
Bishop certainly, but it doesn't quite hurt Forge as much if you play sufficiently many Highways that there are good cards at $0, as then you can forge coppers into much better cards.
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I need basic practice, but you can't get in isotropic, it's not friendly to new players. I was getting my lungs handed to me in 15 turns, very discouraging.
While I agree that this can be discouraging, it doesn't mean you can't learn from the experience. I find that the games where I get smoked are the games where I learn the most -- if I got crushed it's either because there's a combination I didn't spot, a tweak I didn't incorporate, a strategy I chose not to pursue, or (sometimes) just plain dumb luck. I try to find the former and avoid chalking up losses to the latter.
About half the time I also find that people like discussing their moves after the game. If you know you're going to lose, maybe try chatting with your opponent to see if s/he's willing to talk about what s/he did right and you did wrong? My experience is that roughly a third or half of the players I play enjoy post-game chatter. Often these will reveal valuable strategy nuggets (just the other day someone scolded me for not picking up a watchtower on a torturer/village board) or confirm your own analysis (I will often admit that I won via luck, on say an early gold or $5 buy).
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About half the time I also find that people like discussing their moves after the game. If you know you're going to lose, maybe try chatting with your opponent to see if s/he's willing to talk about what s/he did right and you did wrong?
This. I rarely initiate conversations on iso but I am more than willing to talk about strategy, and I'm sure a great many other people are too.
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About half the time I also find that people like discussing their moves after the game.
I think this is excellent advice, I do tend to engage the other opponent when I play. I find, (ironically perhaps), the very high-rated players are the most open to discussing strategy as the game winds down.
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About half the time I also find that people like discussing their moves after the game.
I think this is excellent advice, I do tend to engage the other opponent when I play. I find, (ironically perhaps), the very high-rated players are the most open to discussing strategy as the game winds down.
I don't see this as ironic at all. If you don't think about the game, you'll never understand why you won/lost, and if you dont understand, you can't improve. What would be ironic is if the worst players were the most likely to talk about their play, and think that they did everything right.
Typical exchange:
Me: "You know, you don't have to buy something every turn (after opponent buys a copper for no apparent reason)
Them: "I have my reasons"
(Yes, i know there are reasons to buy coppers. I've done it myself many times. I'm talking about boards where those reasons don't exist)
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Talking as the game winds down is great. I'm often very impressed with how productive and fun that can be. For a random game, played with people that you'll never meet and may never even play again on Isotropic, it's a pretty friendly community.
The worst was today when I was playing someone who a) started out buying a bunch of villages, b) waited until turn 6 or something to buy a chapel, and c) was consistently using his pawns as simple cantrips even though he had tons of extra actions from all his villages. I tried to helpfully point out that this was suboptimal strategy. And then promptly lost. Doh!
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Typical exchange:
Me: "You know, you don't have to buy something every turn (after opponent buys a copper for no apparent reason)
Them: "I have my reasons"
(Yes, i know there are reasons to buy coppers. I've done it myself many times. I'm talking about boards where those reasons don't exist)
This is the reason I rarely talk about strategy with lower ranked players unless the opponent initiates conversation. I've had too many a game where village idiots got offended when I pointed out that there was no point buying so many villages without a terminal.
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Well speaking as a noob, I appreciate all the advice I can get. I tend to foil myself the most thinking there's a cool victory condition up there. Like Silk Road...it just seems to lure me into a death trap every time its on the board.
"I'll Workshop my way to Silk Road victory!" - ChaosRed creating the seeds of his own destruction
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Workshopping to a silk road victory might be a great strat.
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Workshop/silk road should work exactly like workshop gardens. Uncontested the silk roads should wind up at about 4 points each by game end. Maybe more than gardens. Contested, the silk roads will be worth less, but your opponent won't be getting any big point VP cards either.
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I've always been a fan of the ironworks + great hall/island trick, but getting highways to let you pull it with nobles is pretty sweet, especially once you start drawing nobles with it to play even more highways and ironworks your way through the provinces (well... only two before the game three-piled on nobles/highways/ironworks, but that'll do).
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ChaosRed: of course you're not a good player yet, you only have 125 logged games. None of us were good players at 125 games. Just keep playing more and learning each game!
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This is from a ways back in the thread, but I remember someone saying Margrave might become the new default Smithy component of a +Actions/+Cards engine. Certainly it's good in that role, but it just occurred to me that Margrave helps your opponent if you play it additional times after that first time. This makes it almost the exact opposite of Torturer, which is only an irritant the first time but really hurts in multiples.
I'm sure Margrave still gets the job done, but this makes me think Margrave is maybe better on its own than in an engine. Better still, if there is the option, build a Village/Torturer engine with a single Margrave: play the Margrave first, then Torturers thereafter. That maximizes your attack power AND gives you a +Buy. Interested to try that out now.
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I'm sure Margrave still gets the job done, but this makes me think Margrave is maybe better on its own than in an engine. Better still, if there is the option, build a Village/Torturer engine with a single Margrave: play the Margrave first, then Torturers thereafter. That maximizes your attack power AND gives you a +Buy. Interested to try that out now.
Good luck always having your Margrave in hand to play first if you only have one in your deck ;)
Margrave is among the weakest of the discard attacks. Its main strength as an engine card is the +Buy (combined with a halfway-decent attack).
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I've played a couple of games with Village/Margrave engines now. My sense is: don't fret the help that additional Margraves give your opponent. If you've got a functioning cards/actions engine up with extra buys and your opponent has a 3 card hand, yeah, sure, they may be three pretty damn good cards, but you're doing pretty well.
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The attack function of Margrave is exactly the same as if you played a Council Room, then Militia. A stack of Margraves is the same as a stack of Council Rooms, then a Militia at the end, except that it's marginally better because your opponent has to draw and discard each time and may not be able to tailor the best three-card hand.
So, sure, the attack function of Margrave doesn't measure up to, say, Torturer. But it's plenty strong enough to be the backbone of a +Actions/+Cards engine- it attacks, draws, *and* gives +Buy all at once, something no other card does. It may not be quite as powerful a card-drawer as the Council Room/Militia duo, but the fact that it only takes one card to do what would normally require two more than makes up for it.
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edit: this isn't a response to chwhite but was posted simultaneously. now i will read his post.
Margrave is like council room + militia that you don't have to set up but that doesn't give you two dollars. Council room + militia has always been a pretty weak combo; militia mitigates the damage from council room, but "the best 3 out of the top 6 cards in my deck" is often not much worse than, and occasionally better than, "the top 5 cards of my deck," as you quickly learn when someone plays this combo against you. Since the combo requires setting up, it's rarely worth going for (except with fishing village - I've also had some luck with golem + exactly one CR + exactly one militia + no other actions).
Margrave solves the latter problem, but not the former. I'd think of it less as an attack and more of a smithy + buy + (weirdness that's typically a little good for you but may help your opponent).
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So CR data on all the Hinterlands cards is now up.
Looking at the global stats, there are a grand total of only six cards with a better than even Win Rate With: Border Village, Margrave, Cartographer, Embassy, Stables, and IGG. Jack of All Trades is even at 1.00/1.00 and the rest are in negative territory.
Yep, sure seems like a pack of underpowered trap cards to me.
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Yep, sure seems like a pack of underpowered trap cards to me.
And/or they take more skill to play well and/or people haven't figured out how to use them properly yet and/or people are buying them more than they otherwise would because they're still new.
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Yep, sure seems like a pack of underpowered trap cards to me.
And/or they take more skill to play well and/or people haven't figured out how to use them properly yet and/or people are buying them more than they otherwise would because they're still new.
These two explanations are not mutually exclusive. :P
For example, Inn can be really strong when you have a specific plan for the when-gain effect and can perfectly set up your next hand, but is going to be a seductive waste of a $5 buy most of the time. It's great when you can use it well, but maybe it's even better when you don't need to use it at all.
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To be sure, I think Margrave is now clearly the 2nd strongest Smithy variant (after Torturer) for building an engine with multiple copies.
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Is there a way to see Council Room stats on a week-by-week basis? It would be interesting to see the development of Hinterlands as it gets incorporated into the game.
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I can't believe Jack of All Trades is even. I think it's probably the best 4 in dominion.
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Also, Mint/Fool's Gold is now THE BEST opening if you take the median instead of the low within its range.
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To be sure, I think Margrave is now clearly the 2nd strongest Smithy variant (after Torturer) for building an engine with multiple copies.
Don't see why. After the first played Margrave every new one actually helps your opponent by letting him filter his 3 card hand.
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I can't believe Jack of All Trades is even. I think it's probably the best 4 in dominion.
I think the Jack is being inflated a bit in our estimations because it plays best with BM, and simulation data is biased towards BM variants because they're easy to play. At a minimum, I can't imagine it actually being better than Remake and Tournament.
Remember that it's fast in Big Money in the same way Envoy is fast in Big Money, and that's their main strength. It's better against attacks, so it perhaps deserves to be a couple slots higher. But both of those cards have problems in many setups IMO (granted I dislike Envoy more than most people).
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I forgot tournament. Although JoaT does seem to smoke followers...
edit: but that's a good point and makes sense that simulation data is biased toward big money. Still, it's not just that JoaT naturally lends itself to big money, as does envoy, but it's also that JoaT makes big money very viable against even the meanest attacks, which envoy doesn't. Incidentally, envoy and remake are two of my least favorites. JoaT I'm still in puppy love with but may grow to dislike it if it's as powerful as I think.
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To be sure, I think Margrave is now clearly the 2nd strongest Smithy variant (after Torturer) for building an engine with multiple copies.
Don't see why. After the first played Margrave every new one actually helps your opponent by letting him filter his 3 card hand.
+Buy.
+Buy.
+Buy.
Say it to yourself a few times!
Also, the attack is 100 trillion times better than Smithy's attack.
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To be sure, I think Margrave is now clearly the 2nd strongest Smithy variant (after Torturer) for building an engine with multiple copies.
Don't see why. After the first played Margrave every new one actually helps your opponent by letting him filter his 3 card hand.
+Buy.
+Buy.
+Buy.
Say it to yourself a few times!
Also, the attack is 100 trillion times better than Smithy's attack.
If you consider Wharf to be a Smithy variant (as one ought to) then it is also better than Margrave, pushing it down to third. I might consider Nobles as well, but Margrave is almost certainly a notch better, because, yeah, +Buy.
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If you consider Wharf to be a Smithy variant (as one ought to) then it is also better than Margrave, pushing it down to third. I might consider Nobles as well, but Margrave is almost certainly a notch better, because, yeah, +Buy.
I wasn't considering Wharf, but it's certainly in the running. I actually wouldn't be totally surprised if Margrave is on par with Wharf.
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To be sure, I think Margrave is now clearly the 2nd strongest Smithy variant (after Torturer) for building an engine with multiple copies.
Don't see why. After the first played Margrave every new one actually helps your opponent by letting him filter his 3 card hand.
+Buy.
+Buy.
+Buy.
Say it to yourself a few times!
Also, the attack is 100 trillion times better than Smithy's attack.
And why would you want 5 buys?
Sure, Margrave is good, but not specifically when played as an engine with multiple copies of it. That's what I was referring to.
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And why would you want 5 buys?
Oh, most of the time, you don't. But building a two-card-engine is enough of a pain in the neck as-is. Getting it and also finding some source of +buy is another hurdle.
And while you don't want 5 buys, you absolutely do want 2 buys. Not having to detour, having those buys even if you don't draw up your entire deck, etc. is pretty crucial.
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Also, the attack is 100 trillion times better than Smithy's attack.
You owe me a new monitor, sir.
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Sure, Margrave is good, but not specifically when played as an engine with multiple copies of it. That's what I was referring to.
If you have multiple copies, you're likely to have one of them in hand! And on those crappy turns where you only draw your Smithy variant and don't draw your Village variant with it, Margrave provides a good attack (and a sometimes-critical +Buy) on your blind draw.
If you want to talk about 3-card combos, sure, a Village/Smithy engine with one or two Margraves is roughly as good and cheaper. But I had no intention of talking about 3-card combos. If you think a 2-card Village/Smithy engine is better than Village/Margrave, you're wrong. If you think Worker's Village/Smithy is better than Village/Margrave, well, you're almost certainly wrong there too.
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The problem is that village/margrave will probably lose to margrave big money most of the time, which makes it's hard to call it a "good" combo.
The thing that makes torturer special is that it's attack is so strong that you can actually beat torturer big money in a province game by going torturer+village without even having any trashing or +buy. None of the other smithy variants can do that. Margrave has an attack, but it's not even close to being in the same league as torturer (because it's (1) weak, and (2) even weaker when stacked)
So while it may be the "2nd strongest Smithy variant (after Torturer) for building an engine with multiple copies", that statement should not be confused with meaning it's even close to as good as torturer. I haven't tested it out, but my feeling is that you probably need fishing village and/or really good trashing and/or alternative green cards to make it actually beat margrave big money in a province game.
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What I tried to say is that a Village engine with 1-2 Margraves and 2-3 Smithies is stronger than with just spammed Margraves.
One consistently played Margrave every Turn is almost certainly the strongest Carddraw in the game, while several played Margraves are a far cry from that. It's somewhat similar to Council Room - it's really great, but in most games you just don't want too many of them, regardless of the fact that the chance of having one in hand is bigger with a ton of them in your deck.
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I lost a game yesterday where my opponent went single Margrave + money and I went for the Margrave engine hoping to catch up with the +buys and alternative green cards (Island, Harem). Most of the time this would work because the big money deck stalls on the greens, but my chained Margraves allowed him to sculpt his hand so he kept buying a Province each turn making it impossible for me to ever catch up. So be very careful with those Margraves!
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I can't believe Jack of All Trades is even. I think it's probably the best 4 in dominion.
I think the Jack is being inflated a bit in our estimations because it plays best with BM, and simulation data is biased towards BM variants because they're easy to play. At a minimum, I can't imagine it actually being better than Remake and Tournament.
Remember that it's fast in Big Money in the same way Envoy is fast in Big Money, and that's their main strength. It's better against attacks, so it perhaps deserves to be a couple slots higher. But both of those cards have problems in many setups IMO (granted I dislike Envoy more than most people).
While missing the original context of the sentence, I agreed entirely with "I can't believe Jack of All Trades is even". Seriously. How did this card get here? Why does it even... be?
Jack can make the setup irrelevant, and in most province games it seems to do that. Playing like a simulator is in fact an option that people have, and if it wins, why not do it? (Besides that it's less fun.)
Envoy can at least be stopped by attacks. Jack shrugs off most attacks. It beats most chapel strategies because it tends to end the game while the chapel deck is ramping up. It loses to a pair of mountebanks in my simulator, but only by about 49-51, unless I've optimized my mountebank player badly. The only thing I've seen that solidly beats it is the "Banks and Wharves" strategy (which is golden if it's not being attacked).
I don't know what you propose to do with the Tournament to beat Jack. In Dominiate, you can choose the pre-defined strategies "DoubleJack" and "TournamentPlayer", and DoubleJack wins by at least a 2-1 margin. I don't see any tweaks to its tactics that help. There's a fairly simple reason why Jack beats Tournament: Tournament is pretty terrible when your opponent tends to buy provinces before you do!
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With just a little bit of tweaking I can get double Jack to beat double Mountebank 2-to-1 in my simulator. I think if Donald would have had access to a simulator in play testing he wouldn't have made it so powerful.
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I've actually lost of ton of jack of all trades games. The draws have been poor in most of them, whether it was from drawing three estates and two coppers on turn three, getting stuck with 4 to spend with festivals in the supply, or getting 7 every turn when buying provinces. Really not fun after a while. Enough excuses, I've also tried to push the boundaries of what I could do with the card and it has just been fitting like a square peg in a round hole.
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What I tried to say is that a Village engine with 1-2 Margraves and 2-3 Smithies is stronger than with just spammed Margraves.
I 100% agree with this but I wasn't talking about engines with hybrid card draw ;)
HME: A Village/Margrave engine is going to want to have something else going on rather than just basic treasures, if it wants to outrace say single- or double-Margrave with no Villages. Same concept as Village/Wharf, which is also totally inferior to Wharf with no Villages in the absence of "something else". You're right to say Torturer is the only card that can make a strong Village/Smithy-variant engine with no other payload.
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Jack can make the setup irrelevant, and in most province games it seems to do that. Playing like a simulator is in fact an option that people have, and if it wins, why not do it? (Besides that it's less fun.)
Envoy can at least be stopped by attacks. Jack shrugs off most attacks. It beats most chapel strategies because it tends to end the game while the chapel deck is ramping up. It loses to a pair of mountebanks in my simulator, but only by about 49-51, unless I've optimized my mountebank player badly. The only thing I've seen that solidly beats it is the "Banks and Wharves" strategy (which is golden if it's not being attacked).
Another difference: Envoy is good at racing to 4 Provinces, but is pretty poor at finishing off the game if opponent is going for alternative Victory cards like Fairgrounds, or at Duchy dancing. Jack just keeps going.
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Yeah, after a few games with the Jack it is insanely good at fast Big Money rushes (way better than Envoy, which is annoying but at least much more avoidable) and horrible when you try to graft any sort of other engine on top of it (which I've tried to do several times as well). You basically have to play like a simulator in order to use it well.
JoaT is the only card that, by itself, actively hurts the value of Dominion gameplay, as far as I'm concerned. I will be vetoing it every single time (unless I have to kill a KC-Masq pin or something).
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Yeah, after a few games with the Jack it is insanely good at fast Big Money rushes (way better than Envoy, which is annoying but at least much more avoidable) and horrible when you try to graft any sort of other engine on top of it (which I've tried to do several times as well). You basically have to play like a simulator in order to use it well.
JoaT is the only card that, by itself, actively hurts the value of Dominion gameplay, as far as I'm concerned. I will be vetoing it every single time (unless I have to kill a KC-Masq pin or something).
I agree with the general spirit of this, but I think that there are some cases where Jack can be useful as a supplement to something else. I imagine it would be a great bootstrap into an Apprentice heavy deck, for example. I had some success with it earlier with Wharf and Crossroads, though it might have been even better as pure Jack.
This expansion has a lot of distinctive cards, but after playing with them for a couple dozen games I'm not finding myself liking many of them much. JoaT is a good example of that.
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With just a little bit of tweaking I can get double Jack to beat double Mountebank 2-to-1 in my simulator. I think if Donald would have had access to a simulator in play testing he wouldn't have made it so powerful.
Can you post those strategies? The variants of double Jack and double Mountebank I've tried have all either been obviously suboptimal, or have split the wins about 50-50.
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I was sure I had plenty of examples of JoaT games where I played it like a straight sim and got wrecked, but thanks to councilroom I find that's completely not true (either I didn't play it correctly, or I got beat by a Witch who opened 5/2, or, heh heh, I forgot it was a colony game).
However, I did find one game where I went double-Jack BM and got wrecked, by Hunting Party/Baron: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111024-084214-231561c1.html. Wow, is HP/Baron fast. (And more flexible in the end-game than straight HP-BM, which tends to slow down badly once you get duchies.)
Also, I haven't looked at this one closely enough to analyze it, but I went double-jack BM and almost lost to Spy/HP/Develop (he drew $6 and bought Duchy on turn 15, then drew $9; I bought the last province on turn 16): http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111026-202034-ca859ca6.html. Might Spy actually be an effective counter to Jack, or was there just a lot of luck in this game?
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With just a little bit of tweaking I can get double Jack to beat double Mountebank 2-to-1 in my simulator. I think if Donald would have had access to a simulator in play testing he wouldn't have made it so powerful.
Can you post those strategies? The variants of double Jack and double Mountebank I've tried have all either been obviously suboptimal, or have split the wins about 50-50.
I just released a new version of the simulator (which plays Jack even better against attacks). I've included the double Jack strategy as a default bot (just the name of the card). You'll see it now dominates double Mountebank.
You should upgrade automatically.
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I'm finally starting to grok the basic uses of some of the Hinterlands cards that had baffled me previously. I absolutely ran away with a game against another high-ranked player today buying nothing but Traders and Ill-Gotten Gains. This is despite drawing Trader + 4 Coppers the first 2 times it came up in my hand (declining to trash anything and taking another Trader instead). Man alive, I've got to say trashing IGG for 5 Silvers feels good :D It was pretty sweet too when he bought an IGG and I revealed Trader for a net result of "You waste $5 on a POS $2-value card and give me a Silver for free when it's not even my turn."
His comment early on was "Trader is very mediocre trashing I find," or something like that.. to which I later responded: I never bought it for the trashing, just the Silvers :)
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I have done a 360 on Trader. Thought it was strong first, than I didn't, and now I kinda think it is again. I mean, just the act of converting an Estate into two Silvers before the second shuffle by itself is pretty effing strong.
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You've turned that estate into 2 silvers - and a trader. In short, all you've done is obtained a second silver buy, and that turn where you drew a trader instead of just a silver to do that was probably ruined in the process.
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I have done a 360 on Trader. Thought it was strong first, than I didn't, and now I kinda think it is again. I mean, just the act of converting an Estate into two Silvers before the second shuffle by itself is pretty effing strong.
I'm just grateful to see a proper use of "do a 360."
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You've turned that estate into 2 silvers - and a trader. In short, all you've done is obtained a second silver buy, and that turn where you drew a trader instead of just a silver to do that was probably ruined in the process.
That's not all though, you've also got rid of two estates in the process, which is pretty significant in my opinion.
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You've turned that estate into 2 silvers - and a trader. In short, all you've done is obtained a second silver buy, and that turn where you drew a trader instead of just a silver to do that was probably ruined in the process.
That's not all though, you've also got rid of two estates in the process, which is pretty significant in my opinion.
One Estate.
Your deck sans Trader Buy: 7 Copper, 3 Estates, whatever else you bought.
Your deck with Trader and one use on an Estate: 7 Copper, 2 Estates, 1 Trader, 2 Silvers, whatever else you bought.
His point is that you still have 3 cards with no buying power (2 Estates, 1 Trader). You have 2 Silvers, but if you'd bought a Silver instead of the Trader, you'd have 1 Silver. And on the turn that you exploded the Estate, you had an effectively 3 card hand at best (since you had two cards -- Trader and Estate) with no buying power.
Or, here, look at it this way. Compare a pure Big Money strategy to BM + 1 Trader.
Opening buys: Silver/Silver vs. Silver Trader.
Okay, after the first reshuffle, BM has 7xC,2xS,3xE while Trader has 7xC,1xS,3xE,1xT. We agree, I hope, that on the first reshuffle, the BM has a strictly superior deck in terms of buying power? One of its hands will be worth $2 more than the equivalent Trader hand.
Assume that the Trader deck successfully explodes an Estate after the first reshuffle. Now, what did it buy that turn? Its remaining three cards could have been worth anywhere from $1 (C,E,E) to $4 (C,C,S). So it buys either a Silver ($3 or $4) or nothing ($1 or $2).
We assume that the two decks had identical shuffle-luck. So on that same hand, the BM deck had $3->$6 in money. It is guaranteed a Silver, and may have a Gold.
Let's assume that both decks buy a Silver with their "other" hand before the second reshuffle.
So after the second reshuffle, if both decks bought a Silver on the "Trader" hand (which is the best result for the Trader deck), then the BM deck has 7xC,4xS,3xE, while the Trader deck has 7xC,5xS,2xE,1xT. In which case it has the same number of no-buying-power cards, but one more Silver than the BMU deck. It is slightly superior.
However, that's the best case for the Trader deck. It's possible that this is the matchup:
BM: 7xC,3xS,1xG,3xE
Trader: 7xC,5xS,2xE,1xT
In which case the BM deck is probably better.
And it's possible that this is the matchup:
BM: 7xC,4xS,3xE
Trader: 7xC,4xS,2xE,1xT
In which case the decks (through the next reshuffle) are exactly the same (same Treasures, both have 3 cards with no buying power).
And it is ALSO possible that you drew the Trader with 4xC, meaning you still have 3 Estates.
And in the next shuffle, it is quite possible, and indeed getting fairly likely, that the Trader won't hit your second Estate.
Long story short: there are a lot of failure modes for Trader, and the success mode is pretty mild. It might beat straight Big Money, but Single Trader is not one of the better -- or even one of the kind of okay -- single-card Big Money decks. Single Thief beats Big Money too, but we don't think Thief is a good card.
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Ah yeah, it's only one Estate that's been got rid of, my mistake.
Thanks for the analysis by the way. Dominion is a very interesting game and I find there's many surprising strategic discoveries upon really close analysis or from putting them through a simulator that force me to re-asses my approach. This was again one of those times. :)
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I suppose the moral of the story is that Trader is usually a poor buy unless you're planning on making use of its reaction ability. However, I'd say that's true of Reaction cards in general, perhaps even all cards. If you're paying full price for a card, but only using part of its utility, you're probably better off buying something else.
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I suppose the moral of the story is that Trader is usually a poor buy unless you're planning on making use of its reaction ability. However, I'd say that's true of Reaction cards in general, perhaps even all cards. If you're paying full price for a card, but only using part of its utility, you're probably better off buying something else.
The two cases where Trader seems to be good are, yes:
1. Your opponent is Cursing you or otherwise adding chaff to your deck.
Trader is so, so much stronger than Moat in response to Cursing attacks. Your opponent does NOT want to be actually helping you with his attacks.
2. You're buying some kind of limited use $4+ card, or playing games with prices.
Where it makes sense to explode valuable-ish cards early and often. Maybe the canonical example is something guided mentioned (and this combines with #1), where he and his opponent IGG-rushed and he bought Traders: buy IGG, curse your opponent. Your opponent curses you, they've given you Silver. Then explode your IGG into 5 Silvers. Game over.
Other scenarios might be: you've got Horde up and running, and are buying chaff VP cards in order to get Gold. Maybe some kind of Peddler shenanigans? But I'm a little dubious. Trader/Border Village/Duchy rush? Trader should be very good at getting you to $6, so you could buy BV/Duchy, explode the BV and your deck shouldn't appreciably slow. Haven't tried it. Kind of interesting, though it lacks a third pile ending. Maybe Talisman?
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Does Trader make a case for itself with a Gardens deck? Seems like it would.
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I suppose the moral of the story is that Trader is usually a poor buy unless you're planning on making use of its reaction ability. However, I'd say that's true of Reaction cards in general, perhaps even all cards. If you're paying full price for a card, but only using part of its utility, you're probably better off buying something else.
The two cases where Trader seems to be good are, yes:
1. Your opponent is Cursing you or otherwise adding chaff to your deck.
Trader is so, so much stronger than Moat in response to Cursing attacks. Your opponent does NOT want to be actually helping you with his attacks.
2. You're buying some kind of limited use $4+ card, or playing games with prices.
Where it makes sense to explode valuable-ish cards early and often. Maybe the canonical example is something guided mentioned (and this combines with #1), where he and his opponent IGG-rushed and he bought Traders: buy IGG, curse your opponent. Your opponent curses you, they've given you Silver. Then explode your IGG into 5 Silvers. Game over.
Other scenarios might be: you've got Horde up and running, and are buying chaff VP cards in order to get Gold. Maybe some kind of Peddler shenanigans? But I'm a little dubious. Trader/Border Village/Duchy rush? Trader should be very good at getting you to $6, so you could buy BV/Duchy, explode the BV and your deck shouldn't appreciably slow. Haven't tried it. Kind of interesting, though it lacks a third pile ending. Maybe Talisman?
#3: Stables. Turning Estates into 2 Silvers (or possibly even turning one Silver into three), even one at a time and if the Reaction effect doesn't matter, is *fantastic* in a Stables deck. A deck full of Stables and Silver doesn't even need Gold to hit $8 consistently.
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Does Trader make a case for itself with a Gardens deck? Seems like it would.
We discussed it way back when it was previewed. As I recall, my experimentation at the time indicated "slower to get to 4 or 8 Gardens than Workshop is, but much more robust deck in the late game, leading to things like Duchy buys."
I suspect it loses to straight up Workshop/Gardens (or Ironworks), but beats a Province strategy when Traders/Gardens is on the board. But it's not terribly well explored at this point, and you play it differently than the existing Gardens scripts. It has considerably more trouble ending the game very quickly with three piles, since unlike Workshop/Ironworks/Woodcutter, it doesn't help you rush down the Estates pile. But you can actually have a deck that buys Duchies and Provinces even if you've gobbled up all 8 Gardens.
Give it a try solo on Isotropic: it's a lot more fun to play, with many more decision points, than the trad Gardens rushes.
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Some very minimal testing suggests to me that Cache/Trader is pretty okay. Not great, but solid for Province play.
Basic concept: buy a couple of Traders with early $4 buys. Play Big Money otherwise. Use Traders on Estates.
If you have a $5-$7 hand that also includes a Trader, buy a Cache. Use the Trader on the two Coppers -- so you get, essentially a Gold and two Silvers. This is Pretty Good.
I was getting 4 Provinces on turn 13 ish. Nobody's idea of the Fastest Deck Ever, but there are plenty of boards where 4 Provinces on turn 13 ish is the winning deck.
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I've won a few games recently by opening with Trader, and flooding my deck with Silver. Obviously this doesn't work in Colony games, but if you trader a couple of reasonable cards you have a lot of silver very quickly. The best was IGG, but I've won with two traders as well, a couple of times trashing one with the other after awhile. You can also trash Silvers for three more if the $ left in your hand afterwards makes sense. The amount of Silver this seems to leave me with often means I can start buying Duchies early and still grab some Provinces (4 Silvers + x = Prov), and I've won this way despite losing the Provs split 3/5. If I start to seize up, I can sacrifice a good card to Trader just before the reshuffle so that next time through I have a bunch more Silvers.
I'm not a big one for going deep into the maths -- I tend to prefer to play by feel -- but this kind of gameplan has worked for me a number of times in practice.
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I've won a few games recently by opening with Trader, and flooding my deck with Silver.
Ditto. I've found this to be a reasonably strong baseline strategy. In the most boring version (where I don't really have anything else going on) I'll try to keep about 3 Traders in my deck most of the game, being totally happy to trash Trader with Trader if they collide. You can actually start buying Estates a little early too.
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Well, Prosperity has a lot of extra Buys available, but Highway really hurts cards like Bishop and Forge.
Bishop certainly, but it doesn't quite hurt Forge as much if you play sufficiently many Highways that there are good cards at $0, as then you can forge coppers into much better cards.
I had an interesting Highway/Forge game today:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/21/game-20111221-185323-e9ffe9b5.html
A couple of times the Highways did hurt my Forging: ordinarily if you Forge away three Estates, or a Duchess and a Moneylender, you want a Gold in exchange, and because of all my Highways I was only able to get Silvers for them. But that didn't hurt me too much, since I was mainly just using the Forge as a Chapel-with-a-bonus; assembling a deck consisting mostly of cantrips (namely, Highways) let me use the Forge to trash whatever cards were getting in the way of my engine. Eventually I got my deck down to six Highways, the Forge, and two Platinums; and from there on every turn I was able to buy a Colony, while Forging Colonies into each other to run down the pile and end the game before my deck got too clogged.
This deck probably would have worked just as well, or slightly better, with Treasuries or Peddlers instead of Highways; I would have been able to get Gold instead of Silver for my $6 Forge trashing, but on the other hand using Highways might have given me a little more flexibility.
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Going back to read this thread was an enjoyable experience. :)
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Going back to read this thread was an enjoyable experience. :)
I have done that in the last couple of months twice. Yes, that was very interesting.
Ill-Gotten Gains: I don't like it. It's the only curse-giver in the set and only a one shot. And $5 is definitely overpriced. So you need trash-for-benefit cards and then you have a feast-like card with a one-shot cursing attack. Or you buy a new one for every trashed one.
Jack of all Trades: A little bit too complicated for my taste. It combines Bureacrat, Spy, drawing and trashing. I think one buy at the start is good, but I don't think it's a very good card.
Oasis: I don't get it yet. It's an expensive copper. It only removes a little bit of drawing luck. But I think for $3 I would rather buy a silver. Or can anybody tell me in which cases you would buy this?
;)