Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion Articles => Topic started by: ragingduckd on June 11, 2013, 07:21:59 am
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This article isn't an introduction to Rebuild or a comprehensive treatment of the card. It focuses on two player games with Provinces and Estates where both players pursue a Rebuild strategy.
This should really be considered a coauthored article with SheCantSayNo. The ideas presented here are the product of extensive testing and discussion we did together over several weeks.
Rebuild Mirror Matches
When Rebuild is on the board, you usually just have to buy it. Other engines have a reasonable shot in games with Colonies or Shelters, but Rebuild is always a force to be reckoned with. When Rebuild has the home-court advantage of a Province game with Estates, there are very few decks that can outrun it.
This means that many of your Rebuild games -- particularly your Province/Estates games -- will be mirrors matches. Most of those Rebuild mirrors will follow a fairly consistent script. Playing them well requires first understanding that script and then deciding how and to what extent any particular kingdom demands that you deviate from it.
We assume that you're playing against one opponent, with no Shelters, no Colonies, and no game-breaking combos, and that you and your opponent are both going for Rebuild. I briefly discuss some the major deviations from this setup at the end.
Act I: The Duchy Race
Your main goal in the early game is to win the Duchy split. An empty Duchy pile is a Rebuild roadblock for your Estates, so the Duchies you buy during this phase are the only cards you can productively Rebuild for the rest of the game. Getting more than your share of those Duchies is a huge win.
Your other early-game goal is to clear out those pesky starting Estates. If you manage to win the Duchy split 5-3 while emptying your deck of Estates, you're in an absolutely dominating position. Every Rebuild you play will turn a Duchy into a Province, so playing Rebuild five times gets you five Provinces and a virtual lock.
Buying a Rebuild with your first $5 hand is a good start on both goals. With your subsequent $5 hands, keep buying either Rebuilds or Duchies. With each $5 hand, ask "if I buy another Rebuild, will I get to use it on an Estate before the Duchies run out?" When the answer is no, it's time to start buying Duchies instead.
Edit: SCSN has done a wide range of simulations that suggest a simpler approach: buy 2 Rebuilds and then all Duchies. Situations where anything else is better appear to be extremely rare.
Common mistakes to avoid:
- Rebuilding Duchies into Provinces -- Deliberately rebuilding a Duchy instead of an Estate is the biggest early-game mistake you can make. Your opponent will snap up five or six Duchies, leaving you with deck full of small treasures, VP cards, and nearly-useless Rebuilds, and then rebuild his Duchies into Provinces while you scramble to find an $8 hand.
- Buying Gold or any $5 action besides Rebuild -- Unless you plan to skip Rebuild entirely, your early-game focus should be on Duchies (and Rebuilds that can gain Duchies). Even the game-breaking $5 terminals (see Combos below) should only be purchased after the Duchies are gone.
- Buying surplus Estates -- If your opponent is also rushing Duchies, you probably won't have time to rebuild four Estates. A fourth Estate can be valuable if in you're well ahead or in danger of running out of Rebuild targets, but it should be approached with caution. If that extra Estate wins the Duchy split, it's a hero; if it's the one Estate you get stuck with in a 4-4 split, it's a goat. A fifth or sixth Estate is wildly overoptimistic and almost always a mistake at this point.
Act II: Post-Duchy Strategies
With the Duchy pile empty, the remaining sources of VP are limited. Unless there are alt-VP cards or VP tokens, it's down to the Provinces and the Estates. Each player wants to Rebuild his Duchies, but he also has extra production to use along the way. He can use that production for of any of of three major post-Duchy strategies:
1. Turbo Rebuild: Add Rebuilds and sifters to rebuild your Duchies quickly
There are 8 Duchies in play and 8 Provinces to be gained. Every time a Province gets bought or trashed by Rebuild, another Duchy's dreams die. With Turbo Rebuild, your goal is to make it the other guy's Duchies that don't get turned into Provinces.
2. Rebuild-BM: Add treasures and productive actions to buy Provinces
It's not easy to start buying Provinces when you have a deck full of Duchies and Rebuilds, but it pays off big. Rebuilding a Duchy into a Province is only +3 VP, but buying one is +6 VP. Buying one Province can be enough for the win after a 4-4 split, and buying two will more than make up for losing the split 3-5.
3. The Estate Blitz: Buy estates and end the game early by rebuilding your Provinces into other Provinces
With Duchies gone and rebuilt Provinces worth only +3, Estates constitute a respectable form of VP. In a Blitz, you piledrive Estates and play Rebuild naming Estate to run out the Province pile. If all goes well, your opponent won't have time to buy or rebuild into those last couple Provinces, and your pile of Estates will carry the game.
Some general considerations that should inform your decision:
- The Duchy split -- When you've won the split, Turbo Rebuild is usually the best continuation (assuming you don't also have 2 or 3 surplus Estates for you Rebuilds to trip over). Five Provinces is a near-lock, if you can get there. If you can't, then your Rebuilds will at least be productive right up to the end of the game. If you've lost the split, Turbo Rebuild isn't going to close the VP gap, so go Rebuild-BM or Estate Blitz instead.
- The kingdom -- Cantrip sifters accelerate your rebuilding, which strengthens Turbo Rebuild and the Estate Blitz. Strong drawing cards strengthen Rebuild BM. Baron allows for a hybrid Estate-BM strategy. A complete list of combos would be difficult to write and painful to read, but you can usually just look at a kingdom and figure out which strategies have good support.
- Your deck -- If you have some extra Silver because you didn't get to $5 on T3 or T4, you're probably in a reasonable position to go Rebuild BM. If you managed to clear out all of your Estates, then Turbo is very attractive. If you got caught with 2 or more Estates, they're going to seriously get in the way of your Rebuilding, so you might avoid Turbo even if you won the Duchy split. On the other hand, you probably have a VP lead already and the opportunity cost of an Estate Blitz is relatively low.
- Your opponent's strategy -- If the first thing your opponent does after Duchies run out is spend $6 on a Rebuild, he's telling you that he's going either Turbo Rebuild or Estate Blitz. Your time is limited, so responding with Rebuild BM is questionable unless you already have a good start. If he buys a Gold or an Estate instead, that reveals his intentions too. It's hard to give concrete rules here, but try to anticipate how your strategies will interact and choose accordingly. If you respond to Turbo with Turbo, for example, the game will be high-variance and lightning fast.
You only get a few turns to choose your post-Duchy strategy once and for all. Once you start filling up on extra Rebuilds and Warehouses, you'll have a miserable time changing gears to buy Provinces. Similarly, once you start adding Estates, it's awfully hard to use your Rebuilds productively. This why Estates should be approached with caution during the Duchies race -- a deck that gets caught with 2 or more Estates is essentially pre-committed to a Blitz.
Act III: End-Game Tactics
Once the players have committed to their post-Duchy strategies, the game is mostly tactical. But these aren't the usual "do I buy a Duchy or a Gold?" end-game tactics, and they require skills that don't normally get a lot of practice.
Tracking your VP cards throughout your shuffle is key. Rebuilding a Duchy is always best, and it's often possible to engineer that. It's also rather embarrassing to name the wrong card and have Rebuild skip your whole deck. If this happens to you, check the log to see exactly what was in the deck that you just discarded; this will get you back on track. The VP counter won't do your job for you, but the counter plus the trash will often let you catch up if you've gotten just a little lost.
Resist the temptation to purchase haphazardly. If you're running an Estate Blitz and some freak shuffle gives you a $7 hand, buy another Rebuild or Estate anyway. Despite this aberrant hand, you're in no position to buy Provinces and adding a Gold isn't going to change that. Stick to the cards that are compatible with your strategy, even if you have to grossly overpay.
Assess your long-term prospects and Rebuild accordingly. Often you have to risk either hitting an Estate or a Province. Hitting an Estate is pretty much a wash, but hitting a Province brings the game closer to its end. Before you play your Rebuild, consider whether shortening the game is good or bad for you.
As a general rule, the player with the better deck wants a longer game. If you have extra Duchies or loads of treasure, you want time to turn that advantage into Provinces. If your deck is full of Estates or you've already rebuilt all your Duchies, you probably want to end the game ASAP. An ordinary end-game is usually a race to gain Provinces (or sometimes to 3-pile), but a Rebuild end-game is often a race between a player who wants to gain Provinces and an opponent who wants to destroy them.
Game-Breaking Combos
Most Rebuild combos simply strengthen or weaken the various post-Duchy strategies, but there are a few that are simply so powerful that you have to scrap most of the script.
Rogue and Graverobber can regain your trashed Duchies. Turbo Rebuild is the only serious strategy on such a board, since you'll have a continuous flow of Duchies to rebuild. For the same reason, Estates become a huge liability. These guys are mid-to-late game buys, but with Duchies going to the trash constantly and with little else to do with your $5 hands, you'll want to acquire two or more.
Duke is the only $5 VP in the game besides Duchy, so it provides Rebuild with the only alternate road from Estate to Province. With Duke on the board, you can flood your deck with Estates and your Rebuilds and they'll continue being productive right up to the end. You'll have some Dukes in your deck at the end of the game, so name Duchy when you play Rebuild and let your Provinces fend for themselves.
Tunnel, as werothegreat has already noted, turns Rebuild into a Gold machine. In a Rebuild game with Tunnel, there's no actual rebuilding into Provinces. Just name Tunnel every time and flood your deck with Gold.
Feodum isn't game-breaking per se, but deserves a mention here, as it's rather strong and it doesn't play like a normal Rebuild mirror. Edit: Rebuilding Feoda into more Feoda and then buying Provinces with the Silver seems to work rather well and usually beats a Duchy-oriented Rebuild strategy. Ignore Duchies until late in the game and be more inclined to buy Gold, draw, and other actions that help you get to $8.
Other Notable Situations
Colonies weaken Rebuild. It takes several extra turns to go from 4-5 Provinces to 4-5 Colonies, and it's a whole lot easier for an engine to grab 4 Colonies in 19 turns than 4 Provinces in 14 turns. With 4 VP cards instead of 3, you also have a lot less control over what your Rebuilds hit.
Shelters weaken Rebuild because you no longer get a free Duchy with every early-game Rebuild you play. I'd estimate that Rebuild with Shelters is effectively 2-3 turns behind Rebuild with Estates. In the mirror, you should buy fewer early-game Rebuilds and buy more of your Duchies directly. Edit: SCSN's simulations suggest that Shelters don't particularly hurt Rebuild. When Rebuild is matched against non-Rebuild strategies, its win rate with Estates is almost exactly the same as with Shelters.
Nobles, Harem, and Farmland can all be rebuilt into Provinces. Buying these is usually at least as good as buying Duchies, so the Duchy race becomes less important and finding $6 to buy these with becomes more important.
Smaller Alt-VP cards should be added with caution. They can play the same role as Estates in a Blitz, but you can't name both Estate and Great Hall. Every time your Rebuild trips over a Great Hall, your opponent gains time to grab the Province you otherwise would have trashed. Still, Rebuild games are usually close, so all three strategies are happy to grab some extra VP as the game draws to a close.
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This article is excellent. There are two points that I feel would be helpful to either clarify in this article or should be considered for future articles:
1. You give the 3 main post-Duchy strategies, and say that Turbo Rebuild is good if you win the split and the other two are best if you lose it. What if you tie? Also, I didn't find it obvious what card is usually best to name in each strategy.
2. How do attacks affect Rebuild? I haven't played enough Rebuild games to have a good feel on this.
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Very nice article! I enjoyed reading it, but I would like to comment that as someone who plays most of my games offline, it really tripped me up when you said:
If this happens to you, check the log to see exactly what was in the deck that you just discarded; this will get you back on track.
I imagine that this is referencing the log in Goko's online implementation. I know others disagree with me, but I feel like the default assumption for these articles ought to be the physical sets, with references to other implementations being made explicitly when appropriate. But again, it's your article.
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Very good and clear written article indeed.
You're saying always go Rebuild on a board with estates and without colonies. I'm a bit scared you're mostly correct. At least I remember failing rather miserably at a couple of engines that tried to fight Rebuild. But how about the really powerful ones? Any ideas on the following matchups?:
- Rebuild vs bishop-chapel?
- Rebuild vs some powerful goons engine?
- Rebuild vs Native Village-Bridge?
- Rebuild vs Some Forager-Market Square-draw-thingy
Another question: there are some cards that look pretty strong in a Rebuild Mirror that aren't green or cyclers:
- Tournament. Just has to be great with 'free' provinces, resulting in free duchies or estates (followers)
- Marauder. More $5 for you and less $5 for your opponent has to be good, right?
- ... ?
And one more question: what happens if we play with Jack and Rebuild...
Player A: open Jack/Silver, buy Rebuilds, keep estates, basically go with what you describe here.
Player B: open Jack/Silver, buy 2nd Jack, trash Estates, immediately start Duchies for $5+, buy a Rebuild after Duchies are gone.
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2. How do attacks affect Rebuild? I haven't played enough Rebuild games to have a good feel on this.
I haven't either, but my guess would be that the best counters would be trashing attacks. Having your Rebuilds swindled into Mines or Counting Houses or whatever probably disrupts the strategy a bit.
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Very well written article!
I would also have to agree with Jack Rudd that as far as attacks go, trashers are the only real danger.
In a non-mirror you can add your own cursers/discarders to your Rebuild deck, since Rebuild is non-terminal.
However in a Rebuild mirror I really have no idea if it's worthwhile to sacrifice the Duchy split and throw in a Militia or Witch. Discarders probably not, cursers likely yes if you can get them on T1 or T2. Early cursers should be able to hit enough before the Duchies are gone.
EDIT: Discarders could be a worthwhile addition after the Duchies are gone though.
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2. How do attacks affect Rebuild? I haven't played enough Rebuild games to have a good feel on this.
I haven't either, but my guess would be that the best counters would be trashing attacks. Having your Rebuilds swindled into Mines or Counting Houses or whatever probably disrupts the strategy a bit.
Agreed, though it might hurt even more to have your Duchies trashed, especially after the Duchy pile is empty.
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Great article! Rebuild is my favorite card. It turns Witch into the worst card in the game, makes Mountebank look like your silly little sister, and promotes the usually horrible Rogue to a stunning monster in the post-Duchy landscape. What's not to love?
This article is excellent. There are two points that I feel would be helpful to either clarify in this article or should be considered for future articles:
1. You give the 3 main post-Duchy strategies, and say that Turbo Rebuild is good if you win the split and the other two are best if you lose it. What if you tie? Also, I didn't find it obvious what card is usually best to name in each strategy.
If you tie the Duchies, it depends highly on how many Estates you have left relative to your opponent. If he has zero and you have one or more, go Estate Blitz (always naming Estate when Rebuilding). If you have less, go Turbo Rebuild (keep track of your deck on whether you can name Province or should name Estate). If you have zero Estates you should always name Province.
2. How do attacks affect Rebuild? I haven't played enough Rebuild games to have a good feel on this.
You should completely ignore pretty much all attacks. The exceptions being Swindler and Militia, as you can get one of those on T1/2 over a Silver. Avoid Fortune Teller, as it tells your opponent which victory card is on top of his deck, which is of great help when rebuilding. Maybe Cultist is an exception too, as it junks so phenomenally fast, but I have insufficient experience with Cultist in Rebuild games to make a final verdict.
Here (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130610/log.505d732a51c359e6597efeb8.1370892522287.txt)'s a funny Rebuild game I played yesterday where I get attacked by Young Witch, Familiar and Knights. I swallow all 10 Curses while 2 of my 3 Rebuilds get trashed, yet my victory is never in danger. I diverge a bit from Andrew's script because 1) it's not a mirror 2) Tournament is present (which I don't get to connect until very late in the game).
- Marauder. More $5 for you and less $5 for your opponent has to be good, right?
Marauder is way too slow. It hurts you in the early game by being a dead card whereas it could have been a Silver. Once it starts benefiting you and hurting your opponent, he has had enough opportunity to build up an insurmountable lead.
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Here (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130610/log.505d732a51c359e6597efeb8.1370892522287.txt)'s a funny Rebuild game I played yesterday where I get attacked by Young Witch, Familiar and Knights. I swallow all 10 Curses while 2 of my 3 Rebuilds get trashed, yet my victory is never in danger.
That's scary really. Four provinces in ten turns against cursing attacks from something close to a one card strategy. Is rebuild now the strongest card in Dominion?
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Here (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130610/log.505d732a51c359e6597efeb8.1370892522287.txt)'s a funny Rebuild game I played yesterday where I get attacked by Young Witch, Familiar and Knights. I swallow all 10 Curses while 2 of my 3 Rebuilds get trashed, yet my victory is never in danger.
That's scary really. Four provinces in ten turns against cursing attacks from something close to a one card strategy. Is rebuild now the strongest card in Dominion?
Given that it's self-sufficient (in contrast with King's Court and Goons) and makes Witch/Mountebank look like complete jokes, I'm inclined to say yes!
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Very well written article, thank you!
2. How do attacks affect Rebuild? I haven't played enough Rebuild games to have a good feel on this.
I haven't either, but my guess would be that the best counters would be trashing attacks. Having your Rebuilds swindled into Mines or Counting Houses or whatever probably disrupts the strategy a bit.
Saboteur is the attack that is strongest against the Rebuild approach, I believe. You have relatively few Silvers, perhaps, no Gold, and a bunch of Rebuilds, Provinces, and/or Duchies (depending on the game state). Hitting any of those is a distinct advantage. Unfortunately for Sabotteur, it costs $5, so I don't know how best to integrate it into your deck. Perhaps as an early purchase after the Duchy race?
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Terrific article. Oh, Rebuild. So comically overpowered.
I just want to bring up Count, which is not, in my view, a very good card, but gains Duchies directly and probably has a place in most Rebuild decks. I think you would spend your first $5 on a Count rather than a Rebuild.
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Feodum isn't game-breaking per se, but deserves a mention here, as it's rather strong and it doesn't play like a normal Rebuild mirror. [Unfortunately, I don't understand it all that well. Does anyone want to write a brief section for it?]
I feel like that should be me, since I beat you with this strat last night (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8395.0) :) But really I don't have a better handle on it than you do. I'm not sure of how the tactical play of that strat should work. I'm also not sure how important Remodel was in the game I posted, it's obviously very good for the combo (you can Remodel Estates to Feoda to get free Silvers out of your early Rebuild plays, you can Remodel Feoda to Duchies for free Silvers, you can buy Duchies and Feoda with all those Silvers, and notably you can also Remodel those free Silvers into Duchies) but it's not clear to me how well the combo would work without Remodel to open with.
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I think you would spend your first $5 on a Count rather than a Rebuild.
Especially in a Shelter game.
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Great article Andrew!
You have helped me get a better grasp of Rebuild. I have been playing on Goko since September, and I am finding it funny that now the consensus is becoming this is the best $5 card in Dominion. I remember mentioning that I had that feeling many months ago. Although, I had more experience playing it.
Anyway, Rebuild has always been a bit of a mystery to me, and I do feel you did a good job covering a lot of bases, and have given me a better appreciation for the card and also a better strategic understanding. I do think some exceptions should be noted. Count like said by RobZ should be the ideal first $5 buy if it is on the board. In Shelter games, Rebuild really isn't slowed down that much and should still be the dominant strategy. In Colony games, I tend to agree, it is much slower, and you might not want it, especially if an engine is viable. In Tournament games, I think trying to get the first Province might be more important than buying Rebuild, although, you can Rebuild a Duchy into a Province, but is that quicker than buying a Province itself? Then, what do you do on a crazy engine board where you have KC, HoP, Goons, etc.
Overall, though, I feel that you did a great job on this article!
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First of all, I want to say I don't think this is a bad article by any stretch. I want to point this out, because I am about to poke at basically every single hole I could find in it. Some of these are things I would just say differently, some of these are things I want to see elaborated, some are places I think you missed (though hey, you may be right; but I want a second look at them, anyway), and some are just places I am surprised. But overall, a nice article, and mostly I am just saying so much because I feel like there is a lot for me to learn here, and I am probably coming from a different starting perspective. Anyway, here goes:
Your main goal in the early game is to win the Duchy split.
This by far seems to be the main point of your article. However, I don't see all that much on *how* to do it.
Your other early-game goal is to clear out those pesky starting Estates. If you manage to win the Duchy split 5-3 while emptying your deck of Estates, you're in an absolutely dominating position.
Is emptying out your estates important? Really? Isn't that more about getting duchies? Why are estates so bad?
five Rebuilds is all you need for five Provinces and a virtual lock.
I read this three times before I understood you meant five plays of Rebuild - it looks to me like you are advocating buying five copies of the card Rebuild.
With each $5 hand, ask "if I buy another Rebuild, will I get to use it on an Estate before the Duchies run out?" When the answer is no, it's time to start buying Duchies instead.
This is by far the best line in the article. Still, I want to know a little more on how to answer this question. Also, what do I do on $5 if there aren't any more duchies around?
Rebuilding Duchies into Provinces -- Deliberately rebuilding a Duchy instead of an Estate is the biggest early-game mistake you can make.
Okay, cool. But what about if I have all my remaining estates in hand? Do I not rebuild duchy->province in this case even? Is it THAT important? I would think no, go ahead and turn the duchy into a province. But from what you are saying, it feels like you would say, this will hurt you in winning the duchy split (because you either name province and might have to duchy->province again, or you name estate and might hit your province). Or maybe you should rebuild duchy->duchy? What do I do here?
Buying surplus Estates -- If your opponent is also rushing Duchies, you probably won't have time to rebuild four Estates.
See, my feeling is that the well-timed fourth estate (cue French Revolution joke) is probably a big key in milking some skill out of these things. Sure, it's a bit risky, and you do need to time it right, or it might blow up in your face, but... well, I dunno. Maybe you're right.
Act II: Post-Duchy Strategies
My main issue with this part is it doesn't really tell me which way to go. I assume that most of the time, one of these is just better than the others, and it takes something rather extraordinary to upset this balance. In particular, I would guess that Rebuild-BM is most likely terrible in virtually every case. I mean, you are rushing duchies so hard, you have a decent number of green cards and rebuilds, and no golds, which is going to make it quite difficult to get 8 with any kind of reliability before the game is just over. Most importantly, I have almost no idea whether I should go 'turbo rebuild' or 'estate blitz'. There are just very few recommendations here, but well, you say to go Estate Blitz>Rebuild BM if you lost the split, but
Also, should I ever seek to hold on to some of my duchies?
Act III: End-Game Tactics
This section is good. I don't know how tactical it really is, because it seems like it should probably play itself (from my perspective - again, I'll mostly defer to you here). I also don't really understand how it is different from Act II, more like Act II is choosing, and this is implementing. But whatever, this part is fine.
Tunnel
Is this strategy really faster/stronger than the straight-up Rebuild? Also, wouldn't this make it... not a mirror?
Feodum
I would guess this isn't very good at all, much like the other alt VP you mention below
Colonies
This is good. The only issue is, well this doesn't seem much mirror-driven. In the mirror, things probably mostly get a lot mroe tactical, duchies are less important and more rebuilds is more important. In the not mirror, youra nalysis is right, but then yo would need to use not-mirror strategy, which is (currently) beyond the scope of the article.
Shelters
Surely you buy more estates here as well. Also, I would think you wouldn't really want that fewer rebuilds, really. Again, you might be right there.
Other stuff I want to know:
Apart from what has been covered by some other people, what early support cards are good? Jack and Masquerade, the usual suspect, are probably not so hot here. What about swindler? Other 2-4 cost stuff that's particularly good/bad? I assume there is some. At least I think you should mention sifting. Warehouse has to be best, cellar ought ot be good too. Sifting is strong here. Trashing, I find to be significantly weaker than normal. Junkng attacks are worth very little - they hurt, sure, but not nearly as much as other decks.
And then, there is a lot of other stuff about rebuild, too, but this doesn't really fit in something focused just on mirrors.
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1. You give the 3 main post-Duchy strategies, and say that Turbo Rebuild is good if you win the split and the other two are best if you lose it. What if you tie? Also, I didn't find it obvious what card is usually best to name in each strategy.
See SCSN's answer (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8398.msg253924#msg253924). I'll edit to clarify and expand on this.
If this happens to you, check the log to see exactly what was in the deck that you just discarded; this will get you back on track.
I imagine that this is referencing the log in Goko's online implementation. I know others disagree with me, but I feel like the default assumption for these articles ought to be the physical sets, with references to other implementations being made explicitly when appropriate.
Ok. IRL, I suggest looking at the cards as you flip through them. ;)
Any ideas on the following matchups?:
- Rebuild vs bishop-chapel?
- Rebuild vs some powerful goons engine?
- Rebuild vs Native Village-Bridge?
- Rebuild vs Some Forager-Market Square-draw-thingy
I'd take NV-Bridge, Hermit-Bridge, Hermit-Market Square, or Apprentice-Market Square over Rebuild. While Rebuild may have a slight edge in hitting 4 Provinces first, these decks can often pick up the remaining Duchies and some Estates/alt-VP if they're running behind. I feel less qualified to assess Bishop and Goons engines, and I'm sure there are some other zippy combos I've forgotten..
@Jack Rudd and PitzerMike re attacks:
Again I agree with SCSN's answer (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8398.msg253924#msg253924). I also think Saboteur can be a strong mid-game response to Rebuild. It can devastate Turbo Rebuild or Estate Blitz in the late game. Those strategies have few Saboteur targets other than Provines, Rebuilds, and Duchies; losing any of these is huge; and replacing a Province with a Gold/Rebuild or Duchy with a Silver isn't much compensation. SCSN and I have both lost some Rebuild games to Saboteurs.
@Robz888 re Count:
I've lost (or deserved to lose) a few Province games trying Count with Rebuild. In a mirror with Estates, I'd rather pick Rebuilds early (which gain Duchies and clear Estates too) and buy Duchies directly later. I think it's great in a non-Mirror, where I'm not going to get stuck with useless Estates and where I can keep using its Duchy ability through the whole game. I think AJD is right that Count a good first $5 buy with Shelters.
@jaybeez re Feodum:
Yes, that game definitely piqued my interest in Feodum. It wasn't a great test of Rebuild-Feodum vs straight Rebuild because of how dramatically I had to diverge from the script (and how poorly I played): T3-$4 -> Silver, T4-$3 -> Silver, T5-$8 missing the shuffle -> Forge(??). Still, the Feodums were powerful and I could be convinced that this is another combo that calls for diverging from the script.
@Beyond Awesome and WW:
My Rebuild decks have done a whole lot better with Estates than with Shelters. On the other hand, I'm not confident that I'm playing them all that well. This is definitely a major topic that could use a fuller treatment.
@WW:
Many good points and suggestions. I will edit to address them. If we end up with yet another Rebuild article (see my post below), I'll also try to make this one more purely about mirrors.
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[Note: I posted specific responses immediately above this]
Thank you all for the comments and suggestions. Special thanks to SheCantSayNo, who revised an early draft, played a bunch of trial games with me, and from whom I stole most of these ideas in the first place. ;D
I kept having to cut this article down as I was writing, lest it get completely out of hand. For the sake of clarity, I think the (very important) card-specific questions asked here should be addressed in a separate article. I'd be happy to write that one too, but I think that SCSN is better-qualified and we should all bully him into doing it.
In addition those card-specific questions, I think we could use a fuller treatment of the following general issues that I skipped or glossed:
- Rebuild w/ Colonies or Shelters
- Rebuild vs attacks, especially Saboteur
- Rebuild vs VP tokens (or supported by them)
Edit: fixed typos, changed list slightly
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I think an important thing to remember since Rebuild is non-terminal, you can (and probably should?) add at least one important / good terminal action. What would you say are the good ones? My guess is Monument / Swindler / Navigator are among the best, but maybe not. Thoughts?
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Terrific article. Oh, Rebuild. So comically overpowered.
I just want to bring up Count, which is not, in my view, a very good card, but gains Duchies directly and probably has a place in most Rebuild decks. I think you would spend your first $5 on a Count rather than a Rebuild.
Count is probably good in games with Shelters, but in normal Rebuild mirrors with starting Estates, getting a Count over a Rebuild or Duchy at any point in the game is one of the biggest errors you can make.
In Tournament games, I think trying to get the first Province might be more important than buying Rebuild, although, you can Rebuild a Duchy into a Province, but is that quicker than buying a Province itself?
Yes, at least in games with Estates. If you want, you're guaranteed a Province after playing Rebuild twice (name a non-Estate card the first time, take a Duchy, name Estate the second time).
Your other early-game goal is to clear out those pesky starting Estates. If you manage to win the Duchy split 5-3 while emptying your deck of Estates, you're in an absolutely dominating position.
Is emptying out your estates important? Really? Isn't that more about getting duchies? Why are estates so bad?
Say you split Duchies 4-4, but you have one Estate left whereas your opponent has none. Now each time your opponent plays Rebuild, he's guaranteed to Rebuild a Duchy into a Province, whereas you risk Rebuilding an Estate into an Estate or a Province into a Province, depending on what you name. This means that you need on average more Rebuild plays than your opponent to Rebuild all your Duchies into Provinces, for which you may not get the opportunity since he'll start Rebuilding Province->Province once he's done with his Duchies, or you might have done that yourself already by naming Estate.
Also, what do I do on $5 if there aren't any more duchies around?
This very much depends on the board and on the post-duchy strategy you're picking. Independent of your strategy, if there is Rogue, Graverobber, Saboteur, and maaaybe Mountebank or IGG, you should pick those (definitely don't buy Witch, though). If there aren't any such cards and you are going for Turbo Rebuild, get another Rebuild with each $5 until very late in the game when you might want to pick Estate. If you go Estate-Blitz you might want another Rebuild with your first post-Duchy $5, and probably an Estate with every >$1 hand after that (unless of course you get a miraculous $8).
Rebuilding Duchies into Provinces -- Deliberately rebuilding a Duchy instead of an Estate is the biggest early-game mistake you can make.
Okay, cool. But what about if I have all my remaining estates in hand? Do I not rebuild duchy->province in this case even? Is it THAT important? I would think no, go ahead and turn the duchy into a province.
Sure.
Apart from what has been covered by some other people, what early support cards are good? Jack and Masquerade, the usual suspect, are probably not so hot here. What about swindler? Other 2-4 cost stuff that's particularly good/bad? I assume there is some. At least I think you should mention sifting. Warehouse has to be best, cellar ought ot be good too. Sifting is strong here. Trashing, I find to be significantly weaker than normal. Junkng attacks are worth very little - they hurt, sure, but not nearly as much as other decks.
Warehouse, Scheme, Quarry and Baron are all amazing. Tournament is great. I don't think I've actually tried Cellar, but it's probably good too.
Andrew has repeatedly requested me to write a follow-up piece about more advanced Rebuild play (combo's, alt-VP, non-mirrors, etc.). I was reluctant mostly because I'm very often puzzled by the card myself, which I thought disqualified me from giving advice, but seeing that even you seem more uncertain than I am, I might actually do it.
[Note: I posted specific responses immediately above this]
Thank you all for the comments and suggestions. Special thanks to SheCantSayNo, who revised an early draft, played a bunch of trial games with me, and from whom I stole most of these ideas in the first place. ;D
You're welcome!
I kept having to cut this article down as I was writing, lest it get completely out of hand. For the sake of clarity, I think the (very important) card-specific questions asked here should be addressed in a separate article. I'd be happy to write that one too, but I think that SCSN is better-qualified and we should all bully him into doing it.
If you agree to assist me and play-test a bunch, perhaps I will ;)
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Thanks Andrew for this great article, one of the most insighting articles I read in the last months - and it's about my probably least favourite card of all Dominion. :P
I'm not sure about the correctness as I haven't played that many Rebuild games, but all you say seems reasonable, I'll try it out and comment my thoughts later.
One minor thing I noticed:
There are 8 Duchies in play and 8 Provinces to be gained.
I would change that line because "in play" is a reserved term and Duchies are never technically "in play". I think you mean "gone" or something like that. It got me confused what you mean exactly here.
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Your other early-game goal is to clear out those pesky starting Estates. If you manage to win the Duchy split 5-3 while emptying your deck of Estates, you're in an absolutely dominating position.
Is emptying out your estates important? Really? Isn't that more about getting duchies? Why are estates so bad?
Say you split Duchies 4-4, but you have one Estate left whereas your opponent has none. Now each time your opponent plays Rebuild, he's guaranteed to Rebuild a Duchy into a Province, whereas you risk Rebuilding an Estate into an Estate or a Province into a Province, depending on what you name. This means that you need on average more Rebuild plays than your opponent to Rebuild all your Duchies into Provinces, for which you may not get the opportunity since he'll start Rebuilding Province->Province once he's done with his Duchies, or you might have done that yourself already by naming Estate.
I have a few problems with this. First, is this really that bad? I mean, I just go for more estates, name estate every time, and probably eat a province->province at some point. But the province->province only costs me three points, and if I get three estates.... Or I can just deck track and probably know which thing to name most of the time, and ride my estate to victory? But moreover, how did I possibly get to this state? How is it that we both have 4 duchies AND I have another estate? Did I BUY it as a fifth victory card? Why would I do that, unless I wanted to pound estates anyway? Did I buy lots of duchies? Probably at least some of these should have been rebuilds. And then I don't have the problem.
Also, what do I do on $5 if there aren't any more duchies around?
This very much depends on the board and on the post-duchy strategy you're picking. Independent of your strategy, if there is Rogue, Graverobber, Saboteur, and maaaybe Mountebank or IGG, you should pick those (definitely don't buy Witch, though). If there aren't any such cards and you are going for Turbo Rebuild, get another Rebuild with each $5 until very late in the game when you might want to pick Estate. If you go Estate-Blitz you might want another Rebuild with your first post-Duchy $5, and probably an Estate with every >$1 hand after that (unless of course you get a miraculous $8).
Okay, you keep knocking witch, and I get that it's not a great card for these kinds of games, but really, it can't be THAT much worse than IGG, at least early on. You will give probably as many curses, on average (at least), and the money from IGG isn't going to be *that* helpful, will it? Furthermore, I want to know what to do on a null board. Most of the time, none of these handful of cards will be there - what do I do then?
Rebuilding Duchies into Provinces -- Deliberately rebuilding a Duchy instead of an Estate is the biggest early-game mistake you can make.
Okay, cool. But what about if I have all my remaining estates in hand? Do I not rebuild duchy->province in this case even? Is it THAT important? I would think no, go ahead and turn the duchy into a province.
Sure.
Sure to which thing?
Apart from what has been covered by some other people, what early support cards are good? Jack and Masquerade, the usual suspect, are probably not so hot here. What about swindler? Other 2-4 cost stuff that's particularly good/bad? I assume there is some. At least I think you should mention sifting. Warehouse has to be best, cellar ought ot be good too. Sifting is strong here. Trashing, I find to be significantly weaker than normal. Junkng attacks are worth very little - they hurt, sure, but not nearly as much as other decks.
Warehouse, Scheme, Quarry and Baron are all amazing. Tournament is great. I don't think I've actually tried Cellar, but it's probably good too.
Wait, what? Why is Baron any good - you are unlikely to have estates for most of the game - is it just to help you pound estates late? Because I would think that, in the midgame, it's going to be a drag, as it's almost NEVER paired up.
Also, I don't understand why tournament is good at all. Sure, you will probably have provinces fairly quickly. But which prize do you want? Furthermore, your opponent is ALSO going to have provinces early, and they're going to block you more than you are going to connect.
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That's scary really. Four provinces in ten turns against cursing attacks from something close to a one card strategy. Is rebuild now the strongest card in Dominion?
Rebuild is fine. Why do people even complain about Rebuild. They can't all be the worst $5 ever.
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Also, I don't understand why tournament is good at all. Sure, you will probably have provinces fairly quickly. But which prize do you want?
Duchy? Or will you empty that pile too quick?
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I have a few problems with this. First, is this really that bad? I mean, I just go for more estates, name estate every time, and probably eat a province->province at some point. But the province->province only costs me three points, and if I get three estates.... Or I can just deck track and probably know which thing to name most of the time, and ride my estate to victory?
Yes, the Estate Blitz is a strong strategy and that's exactly how you play it. If you can anticipate that you want to go for it -- and if you don't mind giving that information away -- then early Estates are great. But if shuffle luck makes you change your mind, or if there's good support for Turbo or BM, then hitting even one or two Estates with your Rebuilds is rather costly. Margins are small in Rebuild games, and an extra 3-6 VP can easily carry the game.
But moreover, how did I possibly get to this state? How is it that we both have 4 duchies AND I have another estate?
By correctly buying the last Duchy even though you have an Estate left. It's much better to leave yourself with that Estate than to risk losing the split on your opponent's next turn.
Furthermore, I want to know what to do on a null board. Most of the time, none of these handful of cards will be there - what do I do then?
I haven't played that many boards where there was really nothing else worth considering, but they certainly can happen (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130609/log.5101a6c4e4b02b7235c3860f.1370788474736.txt). I think the Estate Blitz is is best on a really dry board, in which case those $5 hands should be either Rebuilds or Estates. Same goes for $7 hands, as mad as that may seem. Rebuild BM is reasonable if you've been unlucky enough to acquire a bunch of early Silvers.
Okay, cool. But what about if I have all my remaining estates in hand? Do I not rebuild duchy->province in this case even? Is it THAT important? I would think no, go ahead and turn the duchy into a province.
Sure.
Sure to which thing?
Sure, you should turn the Duchy into a Province. 4 Duchies + 1 rebuilt Province vs 3 Duchies is still "winning the Duchy split."
Also, I don't understand why tournament is good at all. Sure, you will probably have provinces fairly quickly. But which prize do you want? Furthermore, your opponent is ALSO going to have provinces early, and they're going to block you more than you are going to connect.
I agree. Rebuild can win without any prizes at all, and I don't think adding Tourney to Rebuild is such a big deal. Followers is still rather nice, (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130608/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1370713321877.txt) but in a non-mirror, I think it's more important to keep the prizes away from your non-Rebuilding opponent than to win them for yourself.
Also, I don't understand why tournament is good at all. Sure, you will probably have provinces fairly quickly. But which prize do you want?
Duchy? Or will you empty that pile too quick?
Duchies will be (or probably should be) long gone by the time you pair a Tourney with a Province.
Andrew has repeatedly requested me to write a follow-up piece about more advanced Rebuild play (combo's, alt-VP, non-mirrors, etc.). I was reluctant mostly because I'm very often puzzled by the card myself, which I thought disqualified me from giving advice, but seeing that even you seem more uncertain than I am, I might actually do it.
Player Rebuild Games
Andrew I. 231
SCSN 177
Other top 10 combined 183
It's certainly a puzzling card, but if you're not qualified, I'm not sure who is. ;)
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So, I was thinking, how would I play Rebuild against NV/Bridge? At first I thought three pile threat, but I'm not so sure about that. But then I had the next thought.
Super straightforward lalalalala Rebuild strategy:
Basically get as many rebuilds as possible as absolutely fast as you possibly can. Probably this means buying exclusively silvers and rebuilds, 1 terminal silver of choice on <5, maybe some sifters also on <5. Rebuild your estates first, if possible, then your 3 duchies into provinces. Then just keep doing the same thing, and when you have no non-province green in your deck (including if you have some non-provinces in your hand), just let province-> province happen. Oh, and obviously buy a province if you luck into the money and already have, I dunno, 3-ish Rebuilds.
That's it. Okay, maybe when you get to the point where you are pretty likely not to play any rebuild you buy, before game end, buy duchy. And possibly some time around when you get to your 3rd province up (maybe a little later), start buying estates on <5, only it's important here to always name estate.
Seriously, that's it. Basically, you ust trash the province pile up, and end the game fast, before your opponent can do anything.
I almost wonder if this works in the mirror. Let's check it out. Basically, you will end up with 3 provinces. The other guy, if they are playing as suggested in the article, will get 5 duchies, and try to turn them into provinces. If you trash 3 provinces, you need 3 estates to keep up with him. Probably, that's about where you will be. So that is the magic number. Which means you need to play rebuild, let's see, 9 times, before he plays it 6. Which... well, they BOUGHT 2 green cards, and you bought 2 rebuilds instead. Does this translate into you playing rebuild 4 more times than him? Hmm, I would guess no, usually not, but it would actually be reasonably close.
So this actually shows you something really important here, though. There is a point where going too much for the duchies might actually be overdoing it, if you end up with too few Rebuilds. I would guess the magic number is somewhere around 3. This also shows the potential of buying estate as green card #4. Now that will largely depend on how things fall, what money you have at what time, but there will be, I expect, this point where you hit 2 or 3 or 4, and there are maybe 2-4 duchies left, and you want to buy that estate, so that the $5 hands you do get, you can go for a rebuild. Because if you have more rebuilds than him and an even duchy split, I would think that you are in very good position.
Anyway, none of this is really tested, but it seems to make sense. Also, I do think that something like this is probably how you would want to play against mega-turn strategies. It's not about maximizing your points, it's about getting the game over as fast as you can, with a lead.
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Terrific article. Oh, Rebuild. So comically overpowered.
I just want to bring up Count, which is not, in my view, a very good card, but gains Duchies directly and probably has a place in most Rebuild decks. I think you would spend your first $5 on a Count rather than a Rebuild.
I tried this and it definitely worked. Count is great, because it gives Duchies and the eventual +3$ to get more rebuilds or even Provinces in lucky hands, but also the penalties are not too bad or Rebuild and can actually help you. Gaining a Copper does not hurt at all if all you aim at is $5 and helps the Estate blitz by helping avoid those horrible $1 or $0 hands. Also, discarding or top-decking can be used to great benefit if you track your deck correctly.
EDIT: Here is the log for a Count/Rebuild game. I'm not claiming I played it perfectly AT ALL. I'm playing for fun these days.
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130610/log.50ef0200e4b01a13905ce13e.1370888929184.txt
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WW's post (above) brings up a very important point that I think merits deeper discussion in this article -- If you name Estate (and have a Duchy or Province and no other cheap alt VPs in your deck), a Province is going to go away. Now if it came from a Duchy, it also get you +3 VPs, but if not, you still shrunk the Province pile. There was kind of a one sentence mention of it, but it seems like this has a big enough impact on end-game tactics (in addition to potentially affecting the early- and mid-game as suggested by WW) that there is more to say. For instance, the parity of remaining Provinces might matter. If your opponent were likely to be the last one to get a Province, then you're denying him 3 (or 6 if he would have got it via something other than Rebuild) points, but if you were more likely the be the one to get the last Province, you're removing a Province you would have got anyway, so you're actually losing points on the deal.
The other thing I'd like to see is some discussion of how to rank/value the cheap terminals you could potentially put into your deck. I assume Feast and Horse Traders are good since they help you hit $5, and Cutpurse/Militia are good at stopping your opponent from hitting $5. Swindler is good for the trashing attack, it's been mentioned that Baron is good, and I'm sure Chapel can't be that terrible, since it can quickly up your Rebuild density (although it hits your money density pretty hard if you have no way of gaining treasures). Then there's also +cards and junk attack which are probably weaker than usual, but might still be worth it in some cases (what are they?). And there's non-terminal sifters, which may be good enough that you want to skip terminals altogether? So how do you (roughly) value each of these types of additions? I understand that a list of every card that can be useful would be too much, and that in practice the combinations of cheap cards may matter, but do at least have some sense of how much each type of benefit helps and/or how it affects your overall strategy (i.e. favoring Blitz vs Turbo vs BM)?
The other big point has been mentioned already: there should be some discussion of actual tactics in Colony or Shelter games.
But even as is, I think this is the most informative article I've read here in a while. Nice job!
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I'm not sure that Chapel is any good because it's not all that unlikely that you draw all of your Victory cards in hand with your Rebuild (in addition to not hitting $5 for awhile).
Maybe a slower Copper trasher like Moneylender would suffice.
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The goal is not really to trash, but to cycle. Now, many trashers do improve your cycling, because you end up with fewer cards. So I think Moneylender and Spice Merchant ought to be decent. Not Remodel, because you just replace the card you trash, and not Salvager, because you don't really want to lose Estates, so you just get nothing for your Coppers. But I would just prefer Warehouse and even Cellar to these things.
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As far as terminals to add, you'd mainly want to stick with cards costing less than $5. You want to play Rebuild and buy more Rebuilds and Duchies. Thus terminals I would consider include:
Scavenger
Horse Traders
Monument
Smugglers
Navigator
Swindler
Baron
Militia
Militia is mostly only good as an opener probably, as it will slow your opponent down in the Duchy race, but once past the Duchy race the discard is fairly useless.
I don't think I've seen anyone mention Scavenger, but it is a nice terminal Silver that guarantees you a Rebuild in your next hand.
Smugglers is another nice card, as usual in mirror matches.
I'm not so sure about Sea Hag, Moneylender, Spice Merchant, or Feast. Feast for the usual reasons. I suppose Moneylender helps you with early $5s, but I'd be worried about hitting your money density too hard. Sea Hag doesn't help you hit $5, although once you use it your opponent has a Curse which won't help her hit $5. I guess the Curses give tie breaker points, but the game is unlikely enough to feed your opponent all that many Curses.
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Feast might be somewhat strong with a Graverobber on the board. Now, the question is, do you get a Graverobber first, or a Rebuild...
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So, I was thinking, how would I play Rebuild against NV/Bridge? At first I thought three pile threat, but I'm not so sure about that. But then I had the next thought.
Super straightforward lalalalala Rebuild strategy:
Basically get as many rebuilds as possible as absolutely fast as you possibly can. Probably this means buying exclusively silvers and rebuilds, 1 terminal silver of choice on <5, maybe some sifters also on <5. Rebuild your estates first, if possible, then your 3 duchies into provinces. Then just keep doing the same thing, and when you have no non-province green in your deck (including if you have some non-provinces in your hand), just let province-> province happen. Oh, and obviously buy a province if you luck into the money and already have, I dunno, 3-ish Rebuilds.
That's it. Okay, maybe when you get to the point where you are pretty likely not to play any rebuild you buy, before game end, buy duchy. And possibly some time around when you get to your 3rd province up (maybe a little later), start buying estates on <5, only it's important here to always name estate.
Seriously, that's it. Basically, you ust trash the province pile up, and end the game fast, before your opponent can do anything.
I almost wonder if this works in the mirror. Let's check it out. Basically, you will end up with 3 provinces. The other guy, if they are playing as suggested in the article, will get 5 duchies, and try to turn them into provinces. If you trash 3 provinces, you need 3 estates to keep up with him. Probably, that's about where you will be. So that is the magic number. Which means you need to play rebuild, let's see, 9 times, before he plays it 6. Which... well, they BOUGHT 2 green cards, and you bought 2 rebuilds instead. Does this translate into you playing rebuild 4 more times than him? Hmm, I would guess no, usually not, but it would actually be reasonably close.
So this actually shows you something really important here, though. There is a point where going too much for the duchies might actually be overdoing it, if you end up with too few Rebuilds. I would guess the magic number is somewhere around 3. This also shows the potential of buying estate as green card #4. Now that will largely depend on how things fall, what money you have at what time, but there will be, I expect, this point where you hit 2 or 3 or 4, and there are maybe 2-4 duchies left, and you want to buy that estate, so that the $5 hands you do get, you can go for a rebuild. Because if you have more rebuilds than him and an even duchy split, I would think that you are in very good position.
Anyway, none of this is really tested, but it seems to make sense. Also, I do think that something like this is probably how you would want to play against mega-turn strategies. It's not about maximizing your points, it's about getting the game over as fast as you can, with a lead.
I really like this post. Can someone just some solitare seeing how many turns does this strategy ($5 for rebuild only) take to get 3 Provinces in deck and 3 Provinces trashed? This will probably tell how a rebuild deck is unbeatable by engines.
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Feast might be somewhat strong with a Graverobber on the board. Now, the question is, do you get a Graverobber first, or a Rebuild...
Rebuild obviously? What would you do with a Graverobber so early? Or do you mean Rogue? An early Rogue at least means you'll probably get to attack with it.
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Feast might be somewhat strong with a Graverobber on the board. Now, the question is, do you get a Graverobber first, or a Rebuild...
Rebuild obviously? What would you do with a Graverobber so early? Or do you mean Rogue? An early Rogue at least means you'll probably get to attack with it.
His point was that you could get the trashed Feast back with the Graverobber.
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Feast might be somewhat strong with a Graverobber on the board. Now, the question is, do you get a Graverobber first, or a Rebuild...
Rebuild obviously? What would you do with a Graverobber so early? Or do you mean Rogue? An early Rogue at least means you'll probably get to attack with it.
His point was that you could get the trashed Feast back with the Graverobber.
But with a Rebuild you can get a Duchy, which is what you'd be getting with the Feast anyway, right?
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Okay, cool. But what about if I have all my remaining estates in hand? Do I not rebuild duchy->province in this case even? Is it THAT important? I would think no, go ahead and turn the duchy into a province.
Sure.
Sure to which thing?
Sure, you should turn the Duchy into a Province. 4 Duchies + 1 rebuilt Province vs 3 Duchies is still "winning the Duchy split."
I think this is not always the case.
Turning a Duchy into Province does actually hurt you for winning the Duchy split a bit, because it might happen that your fourth play of rebuild will hit a Duchy or a Province instead of the Estate as you cant name duchy and Province and so this might cause you to lose the Duchy split.
But most of the time i would agree in doing this:
If you feel a bit behind in the game you may be forced to take that risk and that one extra rebuild play can make the difference in the end as rebuild mirrors tend to be close.
And the risk is not very high as the chance of not hitting the estate is smaller than the chance of hitting it(50% if Estate, Province and Duchy are in draw pile while rebuild in hand and if Estate is in the discard analogous) but deck tracking helps a lot here on the decision if you have to name Province or Duchy the next play.(Province in Hand->name Duchy, Province or Duchy in the discard but not Estate ->doesnt matter etc.)
But if i feel to be ahead and e.g. already bought an extra Estate and already turned 3 Estates into Duchies and my opponent only has two duches at the moment i wouldnt take the risk that now he may not only have a chance to catch up but maybe even win the duchy split with buying a duchy or two on lucky $5s and you being unlucky not hitting the last Estate with your next rebuild turn.
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If you are clearly ahead, you can always go Duchy->Duchy, in a similar fashion as Remodeling or Salvaging Province->Province. I still think I would do Duchy->Province most of the time in any case, because even if the Duchy split ends up even, you are still ahead on the Rebuilding.
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ok yes duchy->duchy is a good thing to do there and it usually leads to a 4-3 duchy split in your favor but there are still cases when i wouldnt do it: e.g. if you can be sure to have another rebuild next hand and would skip over it by doing duchy->duchy or duchy->province rebuilding
But yes those cases are quite rare.
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Here's a more taxing question. What is rebuild like in 3 player games and how does strategy change?
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Here's a more taxing question. What is rebuild like in 3 player games and how does strategy change?
That is a taxing question. I would imagine that would be one hell of a fast game where one player really gets left behind and screwed.
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Here's a more taxing question. What is rebuild like in 3 player games and how does strategy change?
That is a taxing question. I would imagine that would be one hell of a fast game where one player really gets left behind and screwed.
I would imagine I'm not playing the mirror if I think both of my opponents will do so and there is a decent engine on the board. I feel 2 people playing Rebuild won't clear everything so fast with the extra green cards giving me more time to finish what I'm doing engine wise (or heck even BM wise)
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Here's a more taxing question. What is rebuild like in 3 player games and how does strategy change?
That is a taxing question. I would imagine that would be one hell of a fast game where one player really gets left behind and screwed.
I would imagine I'm not playing the mirror if I think both of my opponents will do so and there is a decent engine on the board. I feel 2 people playing Rebuild won't clear everything so fast with the extra green cards giving me more time to finish what I'm doing engine wise (or heck even BM wise)
If there's some alt VP or VP tokens, you have less time to set up. The rebuild players will need 6 provinces each, while in a 2p game, the rebuild player would need 8 provinces. Also, since the rebuilders are burning through duchies, the engine player has fewer alternatives to make up for a potential loss in the province split if he's going that way.
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This article was the single most informative thing I have read on this site since the Penultimate Province Rule.
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Has there been any further discussion of how Feodum fits (or doesn't) in a Rebuild mirror?
I played this game (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130718/log.50cb6ca6e4b05eb23e363ec8.1374139279178.txt) suboptimally, although I did end up winning, where I bought Feodum (turns 5 and 9) for the express purpose of turning them into Duchies, before then adding them to work on a 3-pile (Duchy, Estate, Feodum), which is how the game ends with 3 Duchies still in my deck. It was kind of ugly, as we both bought unneccesary Estates early, which became Feodum when Duchies were gone.
Was it better to ignore Feodum's existence here? The 3-pile worked out, but it was close. You may notice I opted NOT to play a Rebuild at the end when I was able to go Feodum -> Feodum on my first one and buy the last Estate to win.
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I had the following situation occur to me some times recently:
In a Rebuild Mirror, you find yourself with a hand that includes rebuild and all your estates. There are still Duchys left. What do you do?
I usually go with rebuilding a duchy into a province, but i keep asking myself wether Duchy->Duchy or just cycling through your deck would be better.
What do the Rebuild experts think on this matter?
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I had the following situation occur to me some times recently:
In a Rebuild Mirror, you find yourself with a hand that includes rebuild and all your estates. There are still Duchys left. What do you do?
I usually go with rebuilding a duchy into a province, but i keep asking myself wether Duchy->Duchy or just cycling through your deck would be better.
What do the Rebuild experts think on this matter?
I don't think you'd go far wrong by just always taking the Province. Rebuild mirrors are such fast, close, low-scoring games that it's really hard to pass on 3 VP.
I've never just cycled (on purpose anyway). I'd only go Duchy -> Duchy in very unusual situations. The virtue of that play is in giving yourself extra control over your future Rebuild targets by limiting your unique VP cards, or in depriving your opponent of that same control by leaving him with unrebuildable Estates.
For that to be worth 3 VP, two things need to happen:
First, getting stuck with Estates has to do real harm. That can happen on a board with Rogue/Graverobber gaining Duchies from the trash, since you'll always have a Duchy to rebuild if you can just avoid your Estates. It might also happen with Scheme/Scavenger/Warehouse or a similar turbo-Rebuild enabler, though that game will be so fast that you probably prefer the 3 VP now.
Second, you have to know that Duchy->Duchy will leave your opponent with Estates but not you. That can happen if there's just one Duchy left and you've trashed all of yours. It can also happen if your opponent has just reshuffled with all his Rebuilds in the discard. But unless you're really certain that it won't be you who gets stuck with the extra Estate, then just take the 3 VP.
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Very nice article! I enjoyed reading it, but I would like to comment that as someone who plays most of my games offline, it really tripped me up when you said:
If this happens to you, check the log to see exactly what was in the deck that you just discarded; this will get you back on track.
I imagine that this is referencing the log in Goko's online implementation. I know others disagree with me, but I feel like the default assumption for these articles ought to be the physical sets, with references to other implementations being made explicitly when appropriate. But again, it's your article.
Goko technically isn't Dominion, it's just a variant.
To my knowledge, I've played more Rebuild games than the top 10 goko players combined, because I could look at the top cards of discard piles, and I didn't get to use a log or point track, and on-buy on-gain was implemented correctly. That is, one game.
The lack of standardization in Dominion has kind of made me give up on it as a whole at this point, so write the articles for whatever you want. Personally, since there is not a majority-use set of conditions the way the game is played (like there was with isotropic), I think you should specify at the beginning of the article what kind of Dominion you're writing about. It matters for more than just the log thing, it's also important to note because number of players will impact your treatment of rushes, etc, Intrigue-heavy ownership common in some groups would affect the treatment of alt-green, and promo ownership also probably tilts things in one direction or another (and I hear promo ownership is not well standardized on Goko).
"Let's talk about this ten card kingdom in 2 player" is probably a better format for articles at this point, because it removes tendencies and preferences that are based in the frequency of appearance of certain kinds of cards and the frequency of appearance of a certain number of players. Even if you want to focus on a specific card.
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I agree with the many others who already mentioned this is a very good article!
Unfortunately I can't really test Rebuild stuff and thus appreciate it fully right now, I don't play on Goko so far (still mourning Isotropic and Dr. Held's excellent deck counter).
Anyway, here is a little addendum:
Nobles, Harem, and Farmland can all be rebuilt into Provinces. Buying these is usually at least as good as buying Duchies, so the Duchy race becomes less important and finding $6 to buy these with becomes more important.
Fairgrounds should be added to this list, it wasn't mentioned in this thread at all so far.
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I 'd like to display my opinion about Rebuild here. I've practiced a lot on Rebuild and i'm rather aknowledged on how a Rebuild deck should work.
First of all, a Rebuild Deck is a Slog. Since the key cards are Rebuild and VP cards, you have to keep track of your Treasure density in your Deck. So, as in any other slog, Coppers are good. And they are actually very important to buy if you want to keep hitting $5.
Second of all, you have to keep track of the "level" of Victory cards in your Deck (whether they are Estates, Duchies, or Provinces). If you want to bump up your Deck with Rebuilds early on, just keep in mind that "level". It would be stupid to buy another Rebuild when all of your Estates have been turned into Provinces.
As far as i know, there are little things you can do when you have devoted your Deck into Rebuild. So, before the Duchies run out, you have to make sure you grab enough, in order to have fuel for your Rebuilds, and after the Duchies are gone, if there are still Estates in your Deck, the best thing you can do, is name "Estate", so that you make sure your Rebuilds make progress.
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Interesting point about copper. The main difficulty is of course that copper spreads out your rebuild plays, and after the duchies go they're kinda useless. That may be cancelled out by getting more duchies, but I'm not sure.
So, before the Duchies run out, you have to make sure you grab enough, in order to have fuel for your Rebuilds, and after the Duchies are gone, if there are still Estates in your Deck, the best thing you can do, is name "Estate", so that you make sure your Rebuilds make progress.
This is basically true only if you have more estates than provinces and you're in the lead, right? Hitting province -> province isn't progress unless you want the game to end sooner (it hurts you if you're behind).
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First of all, a Rebuild Deck is a Slog.
I'd say that Rebuild is more like a rush, since it's a fast scoring strategy that aims to grab some points and end the game as soon as possible.
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First of all, a Rebuild Deck is a Slog.
I'd say that Rebuild is more like a rush, since it's a fast scoring strategy that aims to grab some points and end the game as soon as possible.
I agree with this. The Rebuild rush is the thing you have to watch out for. Not only can Rebuild end the game quickly by trashing Province for Province, it eats away at the Duchies in the process. Because it's non-terminal, you can possibly add the best terminals to your deck in the process. The presence of Alt-VP cards like Fairgrounds and Farmland just give more ways for the Rebuild player a chance to pass the Duchy hurtle.
Of course, the Rebuild rush may not be the optimal strategy, but Rebuild can supplement an already decent strategy that doesn't involve Estate trashing. I recently played a game where I was able to get a bunch of Fool's gold really quickly with Taxman, and adding a couple of Rebuilds when I hit $5 seemed to make that deck even faster.
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Sorry, but some of this advice is badly wrong. Copper doesn't hurt so much, ok, but you don't want more copper, that will just make your deck bigger, meaning you play your rebuilds less frequently. Rebuild games are better characterised as rushes, rather than slogs, speed is the most important - a slog is a strategy which wants to prolong the game to score higher, eg gardens or vineyards. If you only have provinces left, more rebuilds will allow you to end the game quicker.
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Also, what do I do on $5 if there aren't any more duchies around?
This very much depends on the board and on the post-duchy strategy you're picking. Independent of your strategy, if there is Rogue, Graverobber, Saboteur, and maaaybe Mountebank or IGG, you should pick those (definitely don't buy Witch, though). If there aren't any such cards and you are going for Turbo Rebuild, get another Rebuild with each $5 until very late in the game when you might want to pick Estate. If you go Estate-Blitz you might want another Rebuild with your first post-Duchy $5, and probably an Estate with every >$1 hand after that (unless of course you get a miraculous $8).
I really have to ping this thread. I've had a Rebuild game these days (unfortunately: No log because Goko is stupid :/) with Rebuild and Soothsayer (no Colonies, no Shelters).
I had a hard time judging if I wanted the Soothsayer or not. I went for it (with my very first 5$) while my opponent didn't. At the end I won smoothly, I could even buy a province with my Soothsayer Golds (although I probably played it only like two or three times). As the log is missing, I also can't reconstruct if that win was lucky or my opponent played just bad. I do remember that he at least chancellored once due to naming the wrong card with his Rebuild.
I just would like to know if you think it's worth it on a generic board with not much going on besides Rebuild to go for the Soothsayer or if it was a mistake from my side.
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Also, what do I do on $5 if there aren't any more duchies around?
This very much depends on the board and on the post-duchy strategy you're picking. Independent of your strategy, if there is Rogue, Graverobber, Saboteur, and maaaybe Mountebank or IGG, you should pick those (definitely don't buy Witch, though). If there aren't any such cards and you are going for Turbo Rebuild, get another Rebuild with each $5 until very late in the game when you might want to pick Estate. If you go Estate-Blitz you might want another Rebuild with your first post-Duchy $5, and probably an Estate with every >$1 hand after that (unless of course you get a miraculous $8).
I really have to ping this thread. I've had a Rebuild game these days (unfortunately: No log because Goko is stupid :/) with Rebuild and Soothsayer (no Colonies, no Shelters).
I had a hard time judging if I wanted the Soothsayer or not. I went for it (with my very first 5$) while my opponent didn't. At the end I won smoothly, I could even buy a province with my Soothsayer Golds (although I probably played it only like two or three times). As the log is missing, I also can't reconstruct if that win was lucky or my opponent played just bad. I do remember that he at least chancellored once due to naming the wrong card with his Rebuild.
I just would like to know if you think it's worth it on a generic board with not much going on besides Rebuild to go for the Soothsayer or if it was a mistake from my side.
I think you should go for it. In a Rebuild game, the extra card for your opponent isn't huge, and well, neither is the Curse, but it still significantly hurts him, and the Golds are extremely helpful.
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I think you should go for it. In a Rebuild game, the extra card for your opponent isn't huge, and well, neither is the Curse, but it still significantly hurts him, and the Golds are extremely helpful.
agreed
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Also, what do I do on $5 if there aren't any more duchies around?
This very much depends on the board and on the post-duchy strategy you're picking. Independent of your strategy, if there is Rogue, Graverobber, Saboteur, and maaaybe Mountebank or IGG, you should pick those (definitely don't buy Witch, though). If there aren't any such cards and you are going for Turbo Rebuild, get another Rebuild with each $5 until very late in the game when you might want to pick Estate. If you go Estate-Blitz you might want another Rebuild with your first post-Duchy $5, and probably an Estate with every >$1 hand after that (unless of course you get a miraculous $8).
I really have to ping this thread. I've had a Rebuild game these days (unfortunately: No log because Goko is stupid :/) with Rebuild and Soothsayer (no Colonies, no Shelters).
I had a hard time judging if I wanted the Soothsayer or not. I went for it (with my very first 5$) while my opponent didn't. At the end I won smoothly, I could even buy a province with my Soothsayer Golds (although I probably played it only like two or three times). As the log is missing, I also can't reconstruct if that win was lucky or my opponent played just bad. I do remember that he at least chancellored once due to naming the wrong card with his Rebuild.
I just would like to know if you think it's worth it on a generic board with not much going on besides Rebuild to go for the Soothsayer or if it was a mistake from my side.
I'm not a fan. The extra card is huge because it can often be the difference between a $4 hand (almost irrelevant past T4) and a $5+ one (great), whereas the bonus for you/penalty for your opponent are delayed, meaning that the Soothsayer purchase makes it less likely that you get to $5 again in the short run. I'd have to look at the actual log to say anything more, but if your opponent made a play as bad as naming the wrong card he probably made a lot of other mistakes too, plus that Rebuild is a high-variance card so that the results of a single game don't tell you all that much.
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In a Rebuild game, the extra card for your opponent isn't huge, and well, neither is the Curse, but it still significantly hurts him, and the Golds are extremely helpful.
I'm gonna have to disagree with this (and actually agree with SCSN! ;D well, sorta)
Every time I've played junking attacks against Rebuild (or had them played against my Rebuilds) they have been much more effective than statements like this tend to indicate. Hitting $5 in a Rebuild deck is really important and since you're usually spending your $5 buys on cards that don't help you continue to hit $5, I'd say it would be worth it if you spent one $5 buy on a card that denied that possibility to your opponent just once, which is likely. Especially if that card helps you hit $5 (or even $8!)
On another note, discard attacks hurt too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mva598zov_c), for basically the same reasons as SCSN said.
Sure, "just Rebuild" beats "just the attack" in most of these cases, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth going for. We were saying the same thing about Jack because Just Jack beats Just Mountebank (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXfSM_cFnUI) for the longest time, but now it's clear you want to go for them both.
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Every time I've played junking attacks against Rebuild (or had them played against my Rebuilds) they have been much more effective than statements like this tend to indicate. Hitting $5 in a Rebuild deck is really important and since you're usually spending your $5 buys on cards that don't help you continue to hit $5, I'd say it would be worth it if you spent one $5 buy on a card that denied that possibility to your opponent just once, which is likely. Especially if that card helps you hit $5 (or even $8!)
Yes, you definitely want to get a junking attack in a Rebuild game pretty often. It's just not as effective as it is against an engine without trashing, for example.
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necroing this, I just played an interesting rebuild game with awaclus:
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140820/log.510d7890e4b0ac7a7a0be611.1408553724148.txt
Important cards where feodum, rebuild, altar, and scavenger. There were shelters and no colonies. He got 5/2, I 4/3. He opened estate-rebuild trashing hovel, which I thought was an advantage over my scavenger/silver, but he made a good point that I had much better economy for hitting 5.
T3/4 I get feodum/altar, while he rebuilds OE-->feodum and gets silver/scavenger. Right now the only difference between our decks is that he has estate instead of OE and hovel, and I have altar instead of rebuild. I think altar was the right call there.
He continues the traditional rebuild path with a bit of feodum, while I focus more on feoda, because I think I am losing and this gives me the best chance to catch up. On turns 6 and 7 I buy an estate, I think this was probably a mistake on at least one of those turns because I still have OE and a feodum.
By the end of turn 11 both the duchy and feodum piles are empty, he won the duchy split 6-2, I won the feodum split 5-3, and have already trashed two of them. I am certainly losing, but I spike a province because of all my silvers, and I'm back in it. After turn 14 my feoda are worth 3 points, (exactly 9 silver), but I make the mistake of buying an estate, again. Before I bought that estate, there were 5 estates left in the supply, and I was down 3 points. I should have gotten a silver instead and tried to boost up my feoda again while hopefully rebuilding my last duchy into a province. Unfortunately now awaclus can pile out the estate in the span of two turns and I don't have the time to catch up. Had I gotten a silver instead then I think I still would have had a decent shot.
So, I think the main mistakes I made were the 3 estates I bought, I probably should have gotten just 1, if any. I was a bit surprised that my feodum strategy was competitive. I thought I was farther behind than I actually was when I committed more to feoda, so probably would have had a chance to get lucky if I had gone for duchies.
As it is, I'm still not sure whether you should go straight for provinces with rebuild, focus on provinces but pick up a few silvers with feodum early as awaclus did, or try to get a lot of points out of feoda like I did. Anyone else have thoughts?
I would have tried an engine thing if there was any sort of draw... but without draw I don't think it can compete with rebuild.
EDIT: we played another game: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140820/log.510d7890e4b0ac7a7a0be611.1408559400799.txt, this one was pretty boring though, just a pure mirror. I'm not sure either of us made any mistakes... I won the coinflip.
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As it is, I'm still not sure whether you should go straight for provinces with rebuild, focus on provinces but pick up a few silvers with feodum early as awaclus did, or try to get a lot of points out of feoda like I did. Anyone else have thoughts?
Well, you certainly want to Rebuild the OE into a Feodum, there is basically no reason to not do it. Then I bought more Feoda later partially because I wanted to deny them from you, I don't think it would be a good idea against someone going for just Provinces.
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/6/69/Necropolis.jpg)
So this Estate Blitz. When is this ever good? Like, I've tried it a few times and deeply, deeply regretted it. If it wasn't for this article I would conclude positively that Estate Blitz is never, ever, ever ever good. I would conclude that it's probably the worst possible thing you can do, no matter what, aside from emptying the Curse pile. Why am I wrong?
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I'm somewhat skeptical of its strength, too. No reasonable amount of estates would beat a 5-3 duchy split; I suppose it may have a favorable matchup to turbo rebuild in a 4-4 split when there's some quick way to amass estates?
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I sometimes do it when there's alt-VP, especially duke.