Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion Articles => Topic started by: rinkworks on October 24, 2011, 01:03:57 pm
-
Crossroads is a very interesting, unique card. Multiples can serve as both halves of a +Actions/+Cards engine, a strange feat accomplished by no other card save Nobles. But Crossroads is dramatically cheaper than Nobles and therefore much easier to accumulate. It also has a much better upside: +3 Actions and unbounded drawing power! Compensating for these relative strengths, however, is the tricky coordination required to activate them.
To analyze this card properly, I think it's important to look at two different cases separately. These cases are (1) when victory cards in hand are always "dead" cards until the end of the game; and (2) when it helps to have victory cards in your hand. The reason I want to separate these cases is that the mechanics of the card are much easier to understand on an intuitive level if we consider the simple first case first.
When Victory Cards In Hand Are Dead
First, let's imagine a deck with no victory cards whatsoever. You've trashed your starting Estates and not gained any other victory cards. What does a Crossroads do for your deck? Obviously in this case, all you'll ever get from a Crossroads is +3 Actions. And if multiple Crossroads collide, you don't get anything from the duplicates. How good is a one-time +3 Actions? I would argue that it's not very good. In a 5-card hand, the +3 Actions are only fully useful if 3 of your other 4 cards are terminal actions, or if you have drawing terminals that will pull in other terminals.
Thing is, it's really tough to use this Village-type effect without also having drawing power. If you've ever tried to build a +Actions/+Cards engine with University, Nobles, Shanty Town, or Native Village, you know how much that +1 Card on the vanilla Village really helps. Sometimes the lack of draw on Fishing Village even hurts sometimes. If the draw component of a +Actions/+Cards engine is lacking, getting an extra extra action from Crossroads still leaves you with a draw problem.
Additionally, since Crossroads cards don't stack, you won't want to get too many, for fear they'll collide. And if you can't get too many, that means you shouldn't be buying lots of terminals, and if you're not buying lots of terminals, you're probably not going to use the +3 Actions you get. It's a vicious circle.
But everything I've said so far is probably obvious: the real power of Crossroads is when you get some drawing power out of it. So let's consider the effect of a single Crossroads card in a deck with some percentage of victory cards.
Let's say your deck consists of 50% victory cards. Given such a deck, a hand of Crossroads-X-X-Estate-Estate is probably quite likely. Now we play the Crossroads, which gives us +2 Cards and +3 Actions. That's pretty spectacular! It's basically the equivalent of a Laboratory and two Villages. Staggering. Now, what do we draw? Remember that our deck consists of 50% victory cards, so if we draw two cards, the average case is that we'll draw one Victory card and one X. Now our hand is this: X-X-X-Estate-Estate-Estate.
But hang on. Isn't this an even worse outcome than our earlier example of a deck with no victory cards? Remember, we're operating under the assumption that Victory cards in hand are always dead to us, so the useful part of our hand is now X-X-X. But in the earlier example, we had X-X-X-X after playing the Crossroads.
This is the Crossroads paradox: you need Victory cards to activate Crossroads, but having Victory cards in your deck weakens your deck more than a single Crossroads strengthens it. See, the thing is, even in the best case, a single Crossroads only gets you to the point you'd have been if you hadn't had any Victory cards in your deck at all. Say your perfect shuffle luck got you a hand consisting of Crossroads-Estate-Estate-Estate-Estate. You play the Crossroads, and let's say you draw four non-Victory cards. Now your hand consists of Estate-Estate-Estate-Estate-X-X-X-X. Since we're assuming all Victory cards are dead cards, the useful part of your hand is only X-X-X-X, which is exactly what it would have been if you hadn't had any Victory cards in your deck in the first place!
So maybe the solution to this paradox is to accrue multiple Crossroads. Let's say our hand is Crossroads-Crossroads-X-Estate-Estate, again from a deck of 50% Victory cards. Playing the first Crossroads gives us 2 cards, 1 Estate and 1 X. Now our hand is Crossroads-X-X-Estate-Estate-Estate. Now play the second Crossroads. Let's be charitable and assume we draw 2 X's and 1 Estate. Our hand now is X-X-X-X-Estate-Estate-Estate-Estate. Well, we drew a lot of cards, but we still only got up to 4 X's, no better than having a single Crossroads in hand from a deck with no Victory cards. Worse, we lost one of our +3 Actions playing the second Crossroads.
Obviously when you have such a deck, some hands will play out better than this, and some worse. But this is not a spectacular average case. Moreover, although increasing the number of Victory cards in your deck will further empower these Crossroads cards, that increase will also space out your Crossroads cards more, making them less likely to collide.
Ultimately, Crossroads doesn't seem very good, does it? Except as an end-game accelerator: buying a mid-late game Crossroads might allow us to start greening earlier without clogging as badly. But that's a pretty narrow application for a card that seems like it should have better potential.
But to understand the situations where it shines, let's take a brief second look at what it actually did for us in the above examples:
- The first Crossroads provides us the +Actions component of an engine, but it doesn't really provide +Cards so much as a pseudo-Cellar effect. As observed, even in the best case, the first Crossroads can't get us more useful cards in hand than we might have gotten with perfect shuffle luck. And having the Crossroads in hand still uses up a card slot. So, again, the first Crossroads is really more like a Cellar with extra actions than something like a Level 2 City, which provides both +Actions and +Cards free and clear.
- Successive Crossroads cards provide terminal drawing power, like Moat or Smithy. They use up an action to play, but now it's possible to accrue more useful cards in your hand than you started with. However, the drawing power of these extra Crossroads cards is somewhat determined by how diluted your deck is. So even if you get a staggering +4 Cards out of a Crossroads, the fact that you can get +4 Cards probably means the cards you draw won't all be useful ones.
Now, certainly there are combo possibilities. If you can play a Scout before playing Crossroads, not only will Scout increase the drawing power of your Crossroads, but it will increase the quality of the cards you draw with the Crossroads, which is pretty cool. But in the absence of synergy with other action cards, Crossroads is probably pretty bad most of the time.
Unless....
When Victory Cards In Hand Are Useful
First, when might Victory cards in hand be useful?
- When you have discard-for-benefit actions. These include Hamlet, Vault, Secret Chamber, Baron, and Tournament. Having Victory cards in hand means you can discard these for some benefit, rather than having to discard a more useful card for those benefits.
- When you have mandatory discard actions. These include Horse Traders, Young Witch, Warehouse, Embassy, and Inn. These cards require you to discard something as compensation for receiving their other benefits. If you have Victory cards in hand, you can discard those instead of more useful cards.
- When you have trash-for-benefit actions. These include the Remodel family, Apprentice, Bishop, Salvager, and Trader. Assuming you might want to feed any of your Victory cards to these, Crossroads can help you draw these with those Victory cards.
- When you have hybrid Victory cards. This is the obvious and strongest situation.
The first three cases here are very situational. They only apply when such cards are in your deck, and the benefit you get from comboing them with Crossroads may or may not actually be worth the trouble to try to do so.
But the last case can be overwhelmingly strong. Crossroads turn all your Great Halls into Laboratories, basically, because when you play Crossroads, you draw a card for each one, then draw another when you play each Great Hall itself. Having multiple Crossroads compounds that benefit even further.
With Nobles, Crossroads does better than drawing an extra card per Nobles: it also allows more of those Nobles to be played for +Cards rather than merely for +Actions, which is huge.
With Harem, Crossroads turns each one into an activated Conspirator, sort of, because you get +$2 from the Harem and also get an additional card in your hand for it.
It's less effective with Island, however, because the best way to use Island is to get it out of your deck as soon as possible, but it may still help you pair up your Islands with good Island targets.
The bottom line is that Crossroads with hybrid Victory cards is probably a no-brainer. Otherwise, Crossroads is probably a bad bet unless there is a specific combo possibility, OR you have a spare $2 buy after you've started greening but before you want to start buying Estates.
Works With:
- Hybrid Victory cards.
- Discard-for-benefit cards, including Baron and Tournament.
- Mandatory discard cards.
- Trash-for-benefit cards if your Victory cards are good targets for them.
- Scout.
- Silk Road (only insofar as it makes accumulating a density of Victory cards more attractive).
Conflicts With:
- Lack of the above.
- Availability of less finicky alternatives for +Actions, +Cards, and/or Cellar-like sifting.
-
Excellent article! The points being made explains exactly why this is a 2 cost card.
Without things to do with the vps in hand, it is just a cellar that only works on VPs. Lesson learned.
-
On the other hand, there is a point in the game where you usually have Victory cards in your deck, that's at the end. So if you can fetch some of them while you are greening, I think that should stabilze most engines towards the end of the game. And as they only costs $2, you more or less only need a free buy.
-
Great article. Very well written and organized. The fact that crossroad+estate is not really good is actually a really hard topic to explain. I was trying to explain it to someone IRL earlier and had quite a hard time. +1 to you, sir.
-
On the other hand, there is a point in the game where you usually have Victory cards in your deck, that's at the end. So if you can fetch some of them while you are greening, I think that should stabilze most engines towards the end of the game. And as they only costs $2, you more or less only need a free buy.
And by the same token, the presence of Crossroads means you can start greening a little earlier than usual. After all, it's true that "useful part of your hand is... exactly what it would have been if you hadn't had any Victory cards in your deck in the first place!", as Rinkworks puts it—but the difference is that if you didn't have any Victory cards in the first place, your score would be 0.
-
This article belongs on the front page.
Even with hybrid victory cards Crossroads can be a trap. I played this game about a week ago (and saved the log because I knew it was a powerful illustration of this point), where I basically went dumb Militia-Big Money (with some Cartographers to improve my own hands and a couple opportunistic Cities when it was clear they were getting to Level 2) against a big slow-developing Crossroads/Great Hall/Fool's Gold engine. Said engine eventually fired for MASSIVE points and buying power, but only after I had seven provinces and over half the available points.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/20/game-20111020-130600-76c9fc67.html
The presence of Crossroads definitely lets you green earlier, though- I agree with AJD on that.
-
And by the same token, the presence of Crossroads means you can start greening a little earlier than usual.
I intended to work this line, almost exactly as you've written it, into my article somewhere. Then I guess I forgot to make that point, although I touched on it obliquely. I totally agree that Crossroads lets you green a little earlier, somewhat like Scout lets you do too. The trick is finding the opportunity to obtain the card in the first place. There's a very narrow window between when you don't want the card in your deck at all, and when you do want it. And within that window, sometimes there just isn't the opportunity to get it.
But at half the cost of Scout, it should be easier to find the opportunity for Crossroads, especially if you have spare buys.
Edit: I found a spot to work that point in. Thanks, all who reminded me of that.
-
Crossroads is one heck of a trap. It looks like such a strong core engine could be built on it, but drawn in separate hands the Victory cards and Crossroads are all dead cards. Getting enough Crossroads & Victory cards to support a strong drawing engine usually ends up without any buying power.
I have seen that Crossroads is a good support card after you have the big hand. After the Council Room, Tactician, or Lab-chain, the Crossroads can shine. But at that point any card can shine. And as noted, a Cellar is often just as good or better.
-
It's not always as clear-cut as "my deck has 0 green cards" vs "my deck has 50% green cards": You always start with estates, yet you can't always trash them. Crossroads is always helping you skip your dead green cards when you can't otherwise get rid of them. Also, in a deck where you have enough drawing power to draw your deck, crossroads will provide you with some added consistency (getting you around the awkward hands where your green cards are in the top of your deck, for example, at least some of the time) and the additional actions.
It's probably not a great card when you don't have a ton of non-terminal or semi-terminal drawing power, and it can definitely be a card that doesn't work the way you'd like it to, but it's not extremely black and white. You've always got to build your deck, not just throw "good" cards into it.
-
It's not always as clear-cut as "my deck has 0 green cards" vs "my deck has 50% green cards":
Absolutely, yes. My point there was to look at two opposite extremes in order to establish what the progression is for the more realistic cases in between.
-
Just for fun http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/16/game-20111016-182210-24a991c8.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/16/game-20111016-182210-24a991c8.html).
-
It's not always as clear-cut as "my deck has 0 green cards" vs "my deck has 50% green cards":
Absolutely, yes. My point there was to look at two opposite extremes in order to establish what the progression is for the more realistic cases in between.
The problem is that the in-between case is not actually in between either of these cases. 50% green and crossroads should be compared to 50% green and no crossroads, not 0% green and crossroads, when evaluating what crossroads does for your deck.
-
You forgot Trade Route in your trash-for-benefit list, and Crossroads + Trade Route seems to have some serious combo potential (I wonder if the names are intentionally related). Use the trade route to trash your coppers, and use the +buy to grab multiple Crossroads, estates, etc. You can ramp up your buying power AND your draw power all while racking up points!
-
It's not always as clear-cut as "my deck has 0 green cards" vs "my deck has 50% green cards":
Absolutely, yes. My point there was to look at two opposite extremes in order to establish what the progression is for the more realistic cases in between.
The problem is that the in-between case is not actually in between either of these cases. 50% green and crossroads should be compared to 50% green and no crossroads, not 0% green and crossroads, when evaluating what crossroads does for your deck.
Ah, I see what you're saying. Yes, that argument says nothing about whether or not Crossroads is a net benefit to add to a deck that already has some percentage of Victory cards.
I was arguing from the other direction, though: given a deck with a Crossroads in it, how can one make that Crossroads more powerful? I think the kneejerk thought, before one is familiar with Crossroads, is "Well, I can activate it by buying green cards, and that will power up my Crossroads deck!" My point was that, no, this doesn't work.
Now, to be sure, at some point you need to buy green cards anyway, whether or not you've got a Crossroads already. And once you hit that point, adding a Crossroads to your deck is probably a good thing, provided you can spare the opportunity cost. I agree that I made this point clumsily in my original draft, but I made a couple of minor edits to try to improve it. But the excerpt you're talking about was really more about the early game.
-
Well and also, it's not totally invalid reasoning to say "at some point I'm going to be going green, and it'll useful to have Crossroads then; I've got a spare $2 buy now, and I may as well pick it up while I have a chance; and at any rate till then it might help keep my Torturer chain going." ...In other words, Crossroads isn't a great provider of +actions because its draw is contingent on green and the village effect doesn't stack, but the +actions can be a bit of a motivator to get Crossroads earlier than you ordinarily would in the same way that the presence of Crossroads can be a bit of a motivator to go green earlier than you ordinarily would.
-
Very nice article.
I will jump on the bandwagon here and say that Crossroads really shines when the game is nearly over and the deck has stalled. A lucky CR or two can be the difference in finishing that Province pile. This is a far cry from an active Crossroad strategy, more like a coping mechanism for a situation that has plagued us all at one point or another: greened too early and often and no real chance of getting $8 hands together again.
-
I love Crossroads, but probably reach for it too early.
-
I keep opening with Crossroads, and I keep regretting it :-[
-
Just for fun http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/16/game-20111016-182210-24a991c8.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/16/game-20111016-182210-24a991c8.html).
The Remodel isn't even really necessary here. Crossroads/Tactician/Vault is really strong already. I'm glad I looked at this log, as it put me in mind of that idea when it came up in a recent game.
-
I've actually built a treasureless deck using crossroad, plentiful estates, and Baron. Not sure if it's efficient at all though.
-
Crossroads can also shine when you already have a draw engine (say, from labs) and throw in a crossroads to play and draw even more cards after you have already increased your handsize. You are more likely to hit it with 3-4 green cards at a time. It can make your engine extremely resilient against slowing down while buying VP cards.
-
I posted this to the front page, since I thought the article was outstanding.
(I do still read the forum. I've been torn lately over whether I should try to keep up the blog if I can only write articles sporadically, now that I'm employed and not just in school.)
-
Wow, thank you!
-
I posted this to the front page, since I thought the article was outstanding.
(I do still read the forum. I've been torn lately over whether I should try to keep up the blog if I can only write articles sporadically, now that I'm employed and not just in school.)
I think people would be happy with the occasional post - and the occasional promoting of good posts from the forums. It doesn't need to be comprehensive to still be incredibly worthwhile.
-
I posted this to the front page, since I thought the article was outstanding.
(I do still read the forum. I've been torn lately over whether I should try to keep up the blog if I can only write articles sporadically, now that I'm employed and not just in school.)
The articles are invaluable: I've printed them out and have them in my Dominion case along with the FAQs. As Olneyce noted, even sporadic posts do a world of good. Quality over quantity!
ED: And, yeah, I guess that means my first post evar is just to say "please don't stop."
-
crossroads goes quite well with wharf, i think. ive seen this combo a few times already, and it makes for some real quick games. it gives you the actions you need to get off a few wharves, and you will usually start with a few green cards in hand to help with your draw. plus, they are easy to pick up with the plus buy from the wharf.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111017-185421-269ffb3f.html - i went for gardens, figuring i could end on piles without the green slowing me down
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111017-182444-84822225.html - i lost, and his masquerade and baron are the reason why
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111017-144625-6e098f99.html - i think the silver/silver open (instead of 5/2) actually helped me by getting me better buying power early.
-
Ditto Council Room. An earlier post noted that Crossroads is strong after the Council Room (or whatever) has hit, but of course lots of cards are strong in this position. The advantage of the Crossroads is that you can play both before and after the Council Room, first as source of +Actions and then as terminal +Cards. You may not need any additional source of +Actions. Since the combo has only two distinct cards, you always have a good chance of drawing everything you need.
-
crossroads goes quite well with wharf, i think. ive seen this combo a few times already, and it makes for some real quick games. it gives you the actions you need to get off a few wharves, and you will usually start with a few green cards in hand to help with your draw. plus, they are easy to pick up with the plus buy from the wharf.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111017-185421-269ffb3f.html - i went for gardens, figuring i could end on piles without the green slowing me down
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111017-182444-84822225.html - i lost, and his masquerade and baron are the reason why
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111017-144625-6e098f99.html - i think the silver/silver open (instead of 5/2) actually helped me by getting me better buying power early.
tactician, too. i've gotten crossroads to work pretty well with double tactician and baron. starting the turn with 10 cards, you can pretty easily draw your whole deck with a couple crossroads and then use the barons for money.
-
Original article is great, and I think a point that was made there and that I stand behind strongly but which was glossed over by a lot of replies is the potential of Crossroads when Harem is around. Some of the examples posted showed that it is weak when the extra green card was a Great Hall and yeah, I think it might be a weak card in that scenario. But when Harem or even Nobles are in the piles, Crossroads is a lot more than just a late game stocking stuffer. I've played some of my most obscene games with Harem-Crossroads. Baron makes it all the better. If you have some sort of +buy, because it takes a little while to get rolling, the engine is unbelievable.
-
I think Crossroads + Scout is a trap and somewhat convoluted: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/23/game-20120123-042130-858479e3.html (http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/23/game-20120123-042130-858479e3.html)
In this game my opponent would have been better off buying or Workshopping a Copper/Silver at some point. Somehow he didn't notice how, even with his 30+ card hand, he couldn't buy a Province. I kept it simple with Bureaucrat/Lab/Gold and bought an Expand hoping to trash a Lab at some point.
To be honest, my opponent played far from optimal, but even then I doubt whether it's that good; especially with 1 Buy and possibly horrible turns.
-
Yes, this is big-time thread necro. But I've recently come up with a big appreciation for this card, and while this article remains great, there are some extra points I would like to get in here.
First thing I want to point out is that those supposedly rare cases where it is good with the discard-for-benefit stuff aren't as rare as I think you think. Well, I don't know, maybe they are really rare, but any time you have a decent engine, +buy available, and need or want a BIG source of money, you can make secret chamber work. I have more than one time used this trick, which people will sometimes talk about with scrying pool decks, where you discard a bunch of cards and then draw them all back.
The card is, as you point out here, terrible for big money. It can really shine, though, if you have an engine that will need to buy a good number of green cards for decent stretches of the game. Think an engine that needs silk road or gardens or dukes to win, for example. This card can really make it happen. While it's very much a nombo for slog decks like this, engines that go for them are a different animal. It's particularly good in decks with low amounts of treasure, which get most of their oomph from cantrips.
It's really good with copper trashing. With strong trashing, you are probably trashing the estates. But if you've got moneylender or spice merchant, going engine, this can be a very potent card. Also, it swings more normal trashing toward preferrentially going after coppers - for instance, in a lot of cases you will actually want to upgrade copper before estate when you have crossroads in the deck.
It's similarly good with stables. They can make the backbone of a very powerful engine, just the two of them.
There are some tactical nuances to be aware of. There's the trashing issues mentioned above, but also certain cards, basically sifters. Warehouse is the poster child. If you warehouse up some coppers and estates with a crossroads in hand, you almost always are going to want to discard the coppers. You will draw better back with the crossroads, particularly in any kind of deck where you have these cards, which will be an engine. This is especially true if you have some other sifter (another warehouse or cellar or something) to follow it up.
Here's a couple of games to illustrate some of the broken things you can do, in the right circumstances.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201301/10/game-20130110-155734-f6b9e214.html
In this one, the presence of other villages is very important, there's copper trashing to help get it going, secret chamber gives the cash, and woodcutters give the buy. 4 colonies, 2 provinces, a duchy and four estates in 18 turns, which doesn't sound THAT great, but the cool thing is that it's actually GAINING steam at the end, so it has great longevity.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/22/game-20121222-162124-894c1630.html
Here, crossroads, stables, a worker's village for needed buy, and a couple golds, nets 5 provinces and 4 duchies in 14 turns. Pretty nifty!
-
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/22/game-20121222-162124-894c1630.html
Here, crossroads, stables, a worker's village for needed buy, and a couple golds, nets 5 provinces and 4 duchies in 14 turns. Pretty nifty!
I love the Turn 9 Duchy buy! Truly a sign of a master player knowing that even though a single Province hasn't been bought, the deck constructed will extremely good longevity due to the nature of its construction.
-
The turn 9 Duchy buy, as well as the early Worker's Village instead of a Silver, are both signs of a brilliant strategic mind. Well played!
-
If you go for Workshop/Gardens, Crossroads should make a nice addition to your deck. Esp. in a mirror, when you don't have time to build a proper engine when trying to win the WS and Garden-splits, the draw combined with the +3 actions should enable some of those all-important double-workshop turns. Also, it makes adding a terminal gaining attack like Thief much more viable.
Also, the "Conflicts With" maybe should mention handsize-attacks (esp. in the above setting the otherwise weak Bureaucrat is considerably stronger).
ignatius
-
I am surprised that no one has mentioned Bridge. Crossroads is no Native Village, but it can enable 3 Bridges to be played on one turn. Combined with the +cards if you get a lot of Estates in your hand, this can lead to a very quick three-pile ending on Crossroads/Bridge/Estate, reliably in 12 turns or so.
-
I am surprised that no one has mentioned Bridge. Crossroads is no Native Village, but it can enable 3 Bridges to be played on one turn. Combined with the +cards if you get a lot of Estates in your hand, this can lead to a very quick three-pile ending on Crossroads/Bridge/Estate, reliably in 12 turns or so.
I'm not convinced by this. Three piling XR/Bridge/Estate in 12 turns will reliably result in a loss. Just buy a Province and a Duchy and you beat 8 Estates.
-
The idea that crossroads can combo with your green cards to make a draw engine is fallacious - the higher density of green cards means that crossroads draws more cards, but also that more of the cards it draws are useless green cards.
-
The idea that crossroads can combo with your green cards to make a draw engine is fallacious - the higher density of green cards means that crossroads draws more cards, but also that more of the cards it draws are useless green cards.
Indeed. You may end up spending so much time to have a deck that can draw itself but which can barely afford Province. It might not be enough.
I'd say Harem and Tunnel, when you can discard it with something like Horse Traders or Secret Chamber, are exceptions. Also, the presence of Silk Road can make such a deck particularly appealing.
Overall, Crossroads is rather versatile and has the power to maintain an engine that would otherwise choke hard on green.
-
Crossroads is fun, because it falls in an underrated category: Non-VP cards that you buy in the end game.
When you are greening hard and only have $3 to spend, you could always nab a Silver or an Estate, but a Crossroads could be quite helpful for that final push.
Other cards in this category are the TfB ones like Salvager, Remodel, etc.., but also Death Cart, Warehouse and others.
I once played a deck with Crossroads and Great Hall. Now this sounds like a super combo, but it's so-so because oftentimes you don't draw your CR and then you're just a Village idiot or you draw it with 2 GH's and then it's just a glorified Lab.
Its strenght also comes from it costing $2, meaning a 5/2 can get one, like Torturer/CR or Witch/CR, just about anything with good draw and this can get started pretty decently.
-
I am surprised that no one has mentioned Bridge. Crossroads is no Native Village, but it can enable 3 Bridges to be played on one turn. Combined with the +cards if you get a lot of Estates in your hand, this can lead to a very quick three-pile ending on Crossroads/Bridge/Estate, reliably in 12 turns or so.
I'm not convinced by this. Three piling XR/Bridge/Estate in 12 turns will reliably result in a loss. Just buy a Province and a Duchy and you beat 8 Estates.
You might be right, but it has worked for me a couple of times as a "surprise" fast three-pile ending strategy, since you can probably pick up a Duchy or two if you can lay down 2-3 Bridges in one turn. But maybe it would not work against a high-level player...
-
The idea that crossroads can combo with your green cards to make a draw engine is fallacious - the higher density of green cards means that crossroads draws more cards, but also that more of the cards it draws are useless green cards.
You don't actually need a high density of green cards to draw with Crossroads, you just need to have a green card or 2 in your hand at the time you *play* Crossroads. So if you have some other sort of drawing, you can use Crossroads to aid in drawing more. Of course, you can't rely on Crossroads for your only source of draw.
-
During my last turn of the 2nd game (http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131207/log.505d732a51c359e6597efeb8.1386440953384.txt) of our Team World Cup match today, I drew 15 cards with 3 Crossroads (and could have played one more to draw my remaining deck):
SheCantSayNo plays Crossroads
SheCantSayNo reveals hand: Duchy, Province, Province, Fairgrounds, Silver
SheCantSayNo draws Bank, Crossroads, Spice Merchant, Province
SheCantSayNo plays Crossroads
SheCantSayNo reveals hand: Bank, Spice Merchant, Province, Duchy, Province, Province, Fairgrounds, Silver
SheCantSayNo draws Estate, Crossroads, Merchant Guild, Copper, Gold
SheCantSayNo plays Crossroads
SheCantSayNo reveals hand: Estate, Merchant Guild, Copper, Gold, Bank, Spice Merchant, Province, Duchy, Province, Province, Fairgrounds, Silver
SheCantSayNo draws Silver, Fairgrounds, Vagrant, Fairgrounds, Silver, Crossroads