Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Game Reports => Topic started by: Powerman on June 06, 2013, 12:58:58 am
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http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130605/log.51395b45e4b0cd4b5a40dd77.1370493023755.txt (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130605/log.51395b45e4b0cd4b5a40dd77.1370493023755.txt)
This game goes much slower than I expect it to... Not hitting 5 early hurts me, but I'm wondering if there is a place to A) Pick up Apprentice or B) Pick up Horn of Plenty. Also, what are the thoughts on getting a second Lookout? It helped speed up my trashing, but it might have cost me getting >5 Minions. Not sure.
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With how many posts you have... You're a minion...
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I would have preferred opening Warehouse over Lookout.
Winning the Minion split is pretty important and Warehouse helps this more than Lookout.
You can always get a Lookout later if you happen upon a bad hand, but even than, Warehouse is still going to help a bit better.
This is because Minion decks generally don't like greening and Warehouse keeps on helping out during this phase. Playing Warehouse from a 3- or 4-card hand isn't too bad as you can just play Minion to draw back to 4.
Let's examine T3. You play Lookout from a hand of L-4C and reveal Silver, Estate, Copper.
If you would have played a Warehouse, you would have drawn that Silver, discarded E+2C and have S+3C or $5 remaining, getting your first Minion.
Apprenticing Coppers and Estates isn't going to help much, nor is getting a HoP which you can't play because you got Minioned or Minioned yourself.
Warehouse, Pawn, Minion seems to be the way to go here, with Pawn providing +1 Buy/+1 Action or +1 Action/+$1.
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While I don't disagree with Davio, I think your real mistake was less subtle than lookout vs warehouse.
I think you mostly just ignored building up your economy, which kept you from reaching 5, which is critically important.
You got 1 silver, a lookout, a warehouse and a pawn in the first 4 turns. IF you are going to get a lookout, you definitely want a second silver to reach 5 more often. Your pawn buy is probably early (as you aren't reaching 5 consistently yet, and silver is better at helping you do that). Your second lookout is definitely a mistake for the same reason.
I actually really like 1 lookout here, perhaps after the 1st reshuffle, because minions help you play it so often, and a tight minion deck is awesome. But definitely not two, and you definitely need to prioritize economy.
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While I don't disagree with Davio, I think your real mistake was less subtle than lookout vs warehouse.
Your mistake was lookout vs warehouse and Davio was too subtle about it.
If you add the lookout a bit later, after the first couple of minions, you can immediately start playing it frequently. The reduced hand size will not matter very often, because Minion can give you a new hand afterwards. Opening lookout does horrible things to your chances of hitting $5 early.
Your opening buys need to bring you to $5. That implies Silver/Silver, Warehouse/Silver or Pawn/Silver.
Silver/Silver isn't that hot because Silvers will be less useful in the rest of the game.
Warehouse/Silver can work out great if you draw the warehouse turn 3, but is a bit awkward on reshuffles if you draw it t4. And if you draw a lot of coppers without Silver, you're in bad shape. I would be totally ok with it, but I don't like committing myself to a risky plan early.
So... my plan would be to open Silver/Pawn. The first miss on $5 I get a warehouse, the second miss I get a lookout. $5+ is minion always.
I might add Apprentice, but only after the minions are gone.
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I'm guessing that a mediocre player using fool's gold will beat a mediocre player using minions here. Maybe that would hold true for good players too.
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I'd definitely go Workshop->Fool's Gold here, I think.
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I'd definitely go Workshop->Fool's Gold here, I think.
Especially if I see my opponents go for Minions, Fool's Gold should be a really good idea, since contesting FGs is not really great for a Minion deck. With Workshop and later maybe Warehouse there's also good support for it, so there you go.
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Hmm, an FG strategy needs to connect 3 to get a Province. Even if you're Minioned and play 1 Warehouse you can reach that goal, but how reliably? You really need a good amount of FG's to get the density and/or a good amount of trashing/sifting (or both) to keep up.
The problem is though that the Minion-engine is going to kick in gear fast, helped by Warehouses, Pawns and a possible Lookout and later an Apprentice to just trash Provinces or something. With the FG-strategy you're not really launching fast, gaining at most 2 cards per turn, so it's the tortoise vs the hare and I think the hare has this one, also because of better end game control.
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Don't try to get HoPs with a Minion deck unless your deck has less than 4 non-Action cards. It just doesn't work.
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What about a HoP megaturn fueled by Apprentice. In terms of relevant actions, you have Warehouse, Lookout, Minion, Pawn and Apprentice. Throw in HoP, Gold, Silver and Copper and you are at 9 unique cards. Don't go overkill with the HoP, you don't need all 8 Provinces, you just need enough to win. With Pawn for +Buy, you want to be able to have 3-4 HoP with enough cash to buy another Province/Duchy.
This would be a tough one to play out correctly as there is a lot of competition at the $5 cost price point. Obviously you want a little bit of Minion denial, Apprentice for last turn draw and HoP for gaining cards quickly. It'd be tough to do, but I think played properly could be a competitive strategy on this board.