Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Rules Questions => Topic started by: AJD on October 20, 2011, 04:15:08 pm
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So okay, how do Alchemist (or Treasury) and Scheme's top-decking ability interact?
Scheme: "...If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck."
Alchemist: "When you discard this from play, you may put this on top of your deck..."
Given that they're both "when discard" effects, and you can choose the order in which to discard your cards during cleanup, you should be able to put the card you Scheme above, below, or between your Alchemists, right? I'm pretty sure that's right; I just want to double-check.
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Yes, that's right. You choose the order you clean up cards. So you could clean up an alchemist and top deck it, then a scheme and top deck another action, then another alchemist. (This applies to other discard effects like herbalist as well)
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Yes, that's right. You choose the order you clean up cards. So you could clean up an alchemist and top deck it, then a scheme and top deck another action, then another alchemist.
It's not when you clean up the scheme that you top-deck the other action; it's when you clean up the other action itself. Right? (I think the reason I was confused about this was because the interface on Isotropic is confusing; I was clicking to clean-up Scheme when I should have been cleaning up the other action.)
(This applies to other discard effects like herbalist as well)
Except of course with Herbalist, if you're going to top-deck your only Potion, you have to put it on top of your Alchemists, not under or between them.
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Just remember that Scheme's effect is triggered at the start of clean-up, not when you clean up Scheme itself. You point to a card, and whenever you get around to cleaning up that card (assuming it will eventually be cleaned up) you put it on top of your deck. So you can use Scheme to place any action card in between your Alchemists wherever you want. Or you could use it on an Alchemist if you really want! (maybe you have an Herbalist and you want to put the Potion somewhere other than right on top for some reason).
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I'm pretty sure Isotropic is doing it wrong, then. On turn 17 of <a href="http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/22/game-20111022-121221-3ab199ca.html">this game</a> I'm pretty certain I clicked to clean up the Militia before the Alchemists, but the Militia ended up on top anyway.
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You ought to have noticed right away. Each time the log says "AJD returns an Alchemist to the top of the deck," it should have said that right after you clicked to clean up an Alchemist. At the beginning of cleanup (before dealing with the Alchemists) you would have clicked to identify Militia as the card to be Schemed, and then you would also have had to click to clean up Militia before the Alchemists.
If you're only "pretty sure", then I'm pretty sure you're mistaken somehow. If you think there's a bug with Scheme + Alchemist, it shouldn't be hard to reproduce it in a solo game and become totally sure one way or the other.
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I mean, I'm pretty sure what what happened was this—
a. I selected the Militia as the card to Scheme
b. I decided I wanted to put the Militia under the Alchemists on top of my deck
c. Keeping in mind this thread, I remembered that that meant I needed to clean up the Militia first
d. I clicked to clean up the Militia
e. I clicked to clean up each Alchemist one at a time, clicking "yes" to return it to the deck and receiving "you return an Alchemist to the top of the deck"
f. I receive "you return the Militia to the top of the deck"
g. I think "hmm, that's funny"
But I can't be totally sure that I forgot step (d). As you say, I should try and reproduce it in a solo game while paying closer attention and see what happens.
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I'm betting dollars to donuts you did forget step (d) ;)
Once you clean up the Militia (assuming the interface didn't completely ignore you and refuse to clean it up when you clicked it), it should have switched to asking "Do you want to put an Alchemist on top of your deck?" (or whatever the prompt is exactly, I forget), since there are no other meaningful decisions to be made about which card to clean up next.
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I will type exactly what happens as I do it:
a. Play Treasury
b. Play Treasury
c. Play Scheme
d. Play Chancellor; 'yes' to discard deck
e. Play two Coppers
f. Buy Treasury
g. "optionally return an action card to your deck" --> Chancellor
h. "clean up which card next" --> Chancellor
i. "clean up which card next" --> Treasury
j. "return the Treasury to the top of your deck?" --> yes --> "You return a Treasury to the top of your deck."
k. "clean up which card next" --> Treasury
l. "return the Treasury to the top of your deck?" --> yes --> "You return a Treasury to the top of your deck."
m. "You put a Chancellor back on your deck."
Bug confirmed.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/22/game-20111022-124925-dbb7df45.html
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Yuppers. Should prolly report it to Doug.
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Man, this bug was really annoying now. It probably didn't cost me the game, because I was doing badly anyway, but it really hurt, so who know if I could have won without it. With lots of Schemes and Alchemists in play, and the other player's Jester, I did not want to leave any Alchemists on top of my deck after drawing, since he could Jester them and there were still Alchemists in supply. But isotropic of course wouldn't let me put my Alchemists first so that I draw them all, which means I had to just forget about using my Schemes.
Yeah, I know, isotropic of course won't be updated anymore. Still, this is probably the worst bug I've seen, so strange that i survived this long.