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1

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards

« on: August 01, 2012, 08:32:03 am »

I'm just gonna chime in and agree that (with the exception of outpost and maybe Mint), these all deserve to be in the below #36, but I would heavily change the ordering.  I'd probably go (Bad Cards)Harvest->Sab->Counting House->Tribute->Stash->Cache->Explorer->Royal Seal->(Good Cards)Mine->Mandarin->Outpost->Mint from worst to best of these cards.  I'd be a bit tempted to throw in Venture and Horn of Plenty somewhere into the pile around Mandarin as well.  Jester, Treasury, Bazaar, Market, Highway and Inn would probably come right after, though I'm not sure of the ordering. And I might even put Jester below Mint.

(Though the strongest few I think are much harder to decide. Probably #1 Hunting Party, #2 Governor, #3 Wharf? I mean, attack cards are nice and all, but a lighthouse can shut them down.  It's very hard to ignore HP/Gov/Wharf and win.)

2

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Fun 2/5 combo: Embargo/Haggler

« on: July 25, 2012, 03:24:32 pm »

It's certainly a nice opening, but it can really be generalized as $5/Embargo. Any time where you lock your opponent out of buying a card is nice. (and while one curse may not seem much, in my experience it usually is quite a bit).

3

Dominion General Discussion / Re: chapel strategy question/conservative play

« on: July 24, 2012, 09:11:57 pm »

Looking at http://councilroom.com/openings?card=Chapel, the only $5> cantrips that beat out silver are tournament and caravan.

HOWEVER, it is worth noting that many other openings follow closely behind. Wishing well, Hamlet, Spice Merchant, and Worker's Village, and Scheme are all level +3 openings, and many of them have higher base values (but higher deviation), so they may be better as well.  Still, I'd say it's very situation what you want, and often times, almost any card can be a great opening with chapel depending on the kingdom.  Depending on the game, I might open oasis or even pawn (not pearl diver though).  To me, the most important thing is being able to rebuild my economy after I trash everything.  Silver does that, as does spice merchant.  Hamlet or WV would work great in a peddler game too.  But also, many of the terminal openings are still better than cantrips (from experience as well as councilroom.)

4

Dominion Articles / Re: Mountebank

« on: July 24, 2012, 04:02:56 pm »

From my experience, HP/Mountebank works best when I get 1 hunting party first, then mountebanke, then all the other HPs.

Also. Jack is another counter to mountebanke, due to the trashing, the +draw, and the lack of reliance on actions.

5

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $3 cards

« on: July 19, 2012, 04:23:43 pm »

Workshop lets you pick exactly what you gain. Smugglers leaves you at the whim of your opponent (and if he's really bright, he can often tell when you have it in hand - which is why it is imperative when you have it to NOT play it if it gets you nothing), for being able to get stuff a little more expensive. Of course, you sometimes get nothing at all. Advantage, workshop, by a pretty wide margin. And it's not the paragon of a great card anyway, much as I like it and know how to use it.

The problem with workshop is that most decks aren't based around 4$ cards though.  If you play smugglers properly, you will be playing it often enough that if your opponent changes his buy-strategy to avoid giving you good cards, he'll have to seriously hamper himself.  I'm not saying smugglers is always useful, but given the choice between smugglers and workshop, I'll take smugglers 95 times out of a hundred.  I'd say smugglers is probably around the midpoint on my personal $3 cards list.

6

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $3 cards

« on: July 19, 2012, 01:24:42 pm »

(Or cartographer, mining village, nobles, bazaar, etc.  )

Okay, possibly Nobles.  Not those other things.  The big thing with Smugglers actually is, what are you not able to buy because you bought Smugglers instead of Silver, and end up with hands that are often worth $2 less (or more if it leads to terminal clashes)?

I mean, if there's a mirror match engine (or alt-VP) to be built, then sure I'll consider Smugglers.   More commonly as second player, of course.  However:

* if my opponent is pursuing a different strategy (pretty common)
* or I need to save my terminal slots for attacks that will hopefully hit my opponent and force them to not buy nice things (also pretty common)
* or if I'm going for most BM strategies, especially those like Masq and Jack where the key cards are bought on Turns 1 and 2 (again, pretty common)
* or if the engine is mostly built on Potion and/or Black Market cards (not too uncommon)

...then Smugglers is just not going to do that much for me!

I would say that instead of Mine and Remodel, Smugglers is like Workshop and Tribute.  It's a terminal gainer with uncontrollable benefits that rely on your opponent doing the right thing.  It has better range than Workshop, but at the price of control- and that's a high price to pay.

I think you're arguing completely different angle than I am.  Of course smugglers sucks in Masq/BM.  Of course I'm most often buying it as second player (I play like 3/4 of games as second player these days).  Of course I won't buy it if my opponent is spamming alchemists (Having smugglers collide with an alchemy engine is actually pretty rare).  Of course I won't buy it if I have no spare actions and I really need to play my single swindler or whatever. 

And sure, it may be more like a workshop than a mine (but those follow the same rule of you needing to play it every turn that I was talking about), but in the same way, wouldn't you use a workshop to gain mining villages, or bazaars, cartographers, cities, or even hunting parties or markets?  I know I would do that in most kingdoms.  These all either give you more actions (so you can still use your attacks), give you money (so you can still build your deck if your opponent doesn't buy exactly what you want), or let you cycle through your deck more quickly so you can get at your smugglers again. If there's at least one or two decent cards like this, and you know your opponent is going to buy them, it's worth a shot, as long as you can access smugglers often enough.

And tribute, I'm just gonna laugh at.  Because tribute is probably my least favorite card in the game due to how luck dependent it is (barring severe help).  I swear even if I do it in a BM game, I either hit their two coppers, while they hit my gold/silver every time.  Smugglers, if they don't want to give me the card I want, they can't have it either.

7

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $2 cards

« on: July 18, 2012, 09:34:47 pm »

Embargo is also great in alchemy decks.  If you slap it on alchemist, familiar, university, or sometimes even golem, you can ruin an opponent.  (It is still situational, since with decent trashing, an alchemist deck can ignore a few curses. And it is only good only familiar if you have another cursing option, and you can slap it down before they get at least their second. Like 5-2 Mountebanke embargo vs their silver potion type stuff)

8

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $3 cards

« on: July 18, 2012, 08:31:44 pm »

That's another thing. Why are people hating on Smugglers all the time. I get great stuff from them. Almost always get at least one, even two if the board is full of nice things.

Cause it sucks.  I get great wins all the time from my opponents falling into the Smugglers trap.

Well, I want to believe you, because I hate Smugglers.

I'd say that Smugglers is good with Minion, Grand Market, cheap alt-VPs like Gardens, SR, Duke, and Vineyards... and just about nothing else.  This is not a hard and fast rule, but it's pretty close to the truth.

Smugglers is not nearly as bad as the worst $4s, or the worst $5s, or 'Mute/PStone, or Adventurer.  But I do think it's likely the worst $3 (though you could make good arguments for Develop, Workshop, and Chancellor- they're all pretty close).

Or cartographer, mining village, nobles, bazaar, etc.  The big thing about smugglers is that it is like mine and remodel.  You need to be able to play it just about every turn.  On a board with spice merchant or warehouse, you call pull smugglers out pretty quick and keep slapping them down.  The only problem is, you need to be sure that there's *something* your opponent is gonna buy that will let you get more money.

(For reference, I'm 0.65 effect with, -0.56 effect without, and I buy the damn thing 79.7% of the time, compared to the average of 55.8%).

9

Dominion Articles / Re: Snowballing

« on: July 14, 2012, 09:37:30 am »

From my experience, tournament performs very well with trashing and cycling, even if it is weak trashing like lookout.  Actually, especially with cards like lookout that let you trash an estate and then set up your next card to be a tournament or province or whatever you need.

10

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $3 cards

« on: July 14, 2012, 12:10:06 am »

And O comes in to paraphrase what I said in a more eloquent way. 

11

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $3 cards

« on: July 13, 2012, 11:45:23 pm »

I'm gonna be agreeing with the fabulous Fabian on this one. BM/BM is just plain silly.  I actually like having the card in my deck, as I tend to perform better at building 20 card engines than doing a simple FV/Torturer chain (I mean I can execute it properly, but so can anyone else.  Therefore it's just a question of shuffle luck.)  However, if there is an engine on the board, opening BM/BM hoping for that lucky turn 3/4 ambassador will put you waaay to far behind in building the engine.  By the time you start handing them estates and coppers, they will have that engine up and running.  And that's not the only problem. You got the ambassador? Great.  Now you have no +draw, no +actions, and a card that's going to hurt your economy rather than help it.  Turn 5 you end up drawing BM/BM/Amb/copper/copper.  Well you could give him copper, but at that point your opponent is likely already hitting 5 and 6 for those strong actions the chain relies on.  And if he isn't, that means he already has a trasher that will make ambassador irrelevant.  Well, there's also the option that he's running a strategy where it won't matter (like HT/Gardens).  Oh, and your turns 6 and 7 will suck now.  And in almost any situation you really need something from the BM deck, it's better to grab a support card than another BM.  A young witch that will cycle your deck and add curses slowing your opponent down (which helps if your opponent wants the BM card too).  A wishing well or a courtyard that will get your BM faster as well as the BMed card.  A swindler that turns his BM cards into something useless.  Something like that.  Sure, there may be a board where BM/BM is a good opening.  But certainly not in a situation where ambassador is good.


(Either way I'd much rather take something like masquerade, tournament, tactician, tunnel, vault, watchtower, menagerie, scheme, mountebanke, or goons from the BM deck.  These cards are all something that you can add to the deck midgame and immediately make your deck better.  If you are using BM, you need quick cards to make up for the time you lost.)

12

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Mediocre player seeks bubble-bursting advice

« on: July 11, 2012, 08:53:33 am »

I consider myself a mediocre to near-bad player and I'm ranked 19 and have even seen 21.

My opinion is I can't even call myself good until I hit 30 and over 40 is what I might call excellent.

Maybe that burst your bubble?

Now if you want to feel good about yourself...
Isotropic has a total of 8055 players.
Only 5337 of them are level 1 or above (and most of these 0s have dozens of games).  That means a level 1 is better than 33% of players.
4034 are level 6 or above.  That means if you are level 6, you are technically average.
2024 are level 15 or above. That means they are in the top 25% of dominion players.
1232 are at 20 or above. That's the top 15% or so.
682 at 25 or above. They're in the top 10%
331 at 30. That's the top 5%
155 at 35. That's the top 2%
44 at 40. That's the top 0.5%

Now there's no reason to quit improving, but I wouldn't consider 20 to be bad by any means.

13

Game Reports / Should I have won this game?

« on: July 11, 2012, 08:41:34 am »

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120710-091048-492e9c14.html

Topic title says it all.  I did win, but should I have?  From what I could tell, we both had valid strategies based on the board, but I've got the feeling that I made the right choice and didn't just win by luck.  Anyone care to weight in?

14

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Mediocre player seeks bubble-bursting advice

« on: July 10, 2012, 11:36:43 pm »

I'd say overall you played the game pretty well.  I'm going to echo the others and say that a steward/silver opening would probably be stronger, and that a 5/2 opening wasn't optimal for your opponent.

I can't really comment on how well you did with watching for reshuffles and pearl diver plays, as that's hard enough for me in game, let alone looking at it from an outsider perspective.

But I'm gonna disagree with ftl on the 3 goons thing (I may be wrong here, but that's my gut reaction from looking at the aftermath).  In most cases, getting a third goons is better, but you already had the lead, and in that case you usually just want to end the game whenever you can.  And you did that.  And it worked.

I don't know about the rest of your games, but this one at least makes you look like you play in the 15-25 range.  You knew your strategy and played it properly, but you just haven't seen quite enough games to know to do stuff like go for the steward.

15

Dominion General Discussion / Re: When to Masq pin?

« on: July 10, 2012, 04:00:27 pm »

Whatever.  I just got sick when I logged into the forums and I see three threads on what I consider to be the most overrated strategy in all of Dominion, and I wanted to help people improve.

I'm out of this thread, but I'll leave you with two sample games where KC/Masq fails:
The first game, someone tries the pin on me, and I counter by using caravans to give me a failsafe in case he actually managed to use goons first, and by using my own masquerades to ruin his pin and leave him with nothing worthwhile.  Did I go for the pin? No.  Did I need to? No. Did I win? Yes.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120709-154558-b0a9da57.html
The second game is just an example that shows that Masq/BM beats KC/Masq if you know what you're doing.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/07/game-20120707-075635-d392e215.html

Have fun playing it against newbies, then have fun getting crushed when you try it against someone level 30+.

16

Dominion General Discussion / Re: When to Masq pin?

« on: July 09, 2012, 07:36:37 pm »

I never fully got used to searching council room honestly.  Don't know what the proper search string would be.

17

Dominion Isotropic / Re: Attention-whoring thread.... I did it!!

« on: July 09, 2012, 02:25:14 pm »

But I still say Smugglers and Mandarin are terribly underrated.

Quite true.  People get angry and say I got lucky when I play 3 smugglers against them, top decking the laboratories with watchtower, and then use schemes to put back my develop, farming village, and border villages.

18

Dominion General Discussion / Re: When to Masq pin?

« on: July 09, 2012, 01:51:49 pm »

I'm going to guess that there have been around 10-20 games with KC and Masq, and 2 or three that had a goons, militia, or Margrave in them.


And if playing by the rules doesn't make you a jerk, then how do they win?  I'm being given conflicting definitions here.

(Also, the Saboteur thing was a response to "jerks win".  I was pointing out that relying on attacks that harm your opponent but don't benefit you isn't always a good way to win.)

And since I've never had a true pin happen to me, I can't say I'd know for sure, but I'd think the KC-Masq pin without goons would be more akin to the leading player spending 15 minutes hitting +$1->undo->+$1, than a Torturer spam.

19

Dominion General Discussion / Re: When to Masq pin?

« on: July 09, 2012, 01:02:21 pm »

Eh, tell that to the last few players that tried to Saboteur spam me.  The game took a few turns longer, but I still won.

On a relevant note, getting one or two masquerades of your own is enough screw up your opponent's masq pin.

The situations where a masq pin is relevant are so low that in over 1000 games, I've never had it successfully done against me.

20

Dominion General Discussion / Re: When to Masq pin?

« on: July 09, 2012, 12:38:44 pm »

When you're feeling like a jerk?  Most of the time there's a soft masq pin (no margrave/militia/Goons) on the board, I can beat it with plain Masq/BM.  And if there's KC and Goons on the board, it depends on the other cards out there. Quarry, watchtower, farming village, fishing village, hamlet, pawn?  The straight goons strategy will probably win.  Slower boards the pin will work, but will result in some pretty boring games.

21

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Phil Stone at 2p?

« on: July 07, 2012, 01:04:55 pm »

2p would probably be fine.  I want to say it would make Philo Stone overpowered, in that it would become an incredibly strong buy in any non-engine deck, since it very quickly becomes equivalent to a gold.  However, we already have other cards that are incredibly strong in alchemy (familiar, alchemist, university), and I think it would be more fun to see Philo Stone as a strong card that gets even stronger against mountebanks and curses than the way it is now.

22

Dominion Isotropic / Re: make resign button not appearing

« on: July 02, 2012, 10:26:22 am »

Not to necro a thread. But the same guy is doing it in a game against me right now.  His turns are lasting 20+ minutes...  Can someone ban him or something?

23

Game Reports / Re: When to ignore Sea Hag (?)

« on: March 06, 2012, 11:50:36 pm »

As soon as you start drawing your whole deck you can start to discard curses with hamlet for actions and buys and THEN play lookout to trash them which makes wharf / lookout much less of a nombo..

True story. Stuff like this is hard to master, but knowing how to manipulate your deck is what separates level 40+ people from other experienced players.

24

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Bringing Pearl Diver up from the bottom (see what I did there?)

« on: January 03, 2012, 11:26:43 pm »

I'm a fan of pearl diver+farming village.  If you dredge up an estate or a a curse, you  can just use farming village to skip over it.  Now this doesn't make a full strategy, but it doesn't hurt if you happen to get $2 in a hand or two.

Also, in this vein, it synergizes with cards like lookout and native village.

25

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board

« on: December 18, 2011, 12:22:06 pm »

Top 10:
1)Saboteur
2)Navigator
3)Shanty Town
4)Royal Seal
5)Possession
6)Black MarketPearl Diver
7)Quarry
8)Lookout
9)Jack of All Trades
10)Workshop

I'm ignoring Black Market, since I don't know what is in it...  Overall this is a boring board, and most of these cards like Saboteur I'm something like 1.6 Win Rate without and 1.0 win rate with (royal seal notable exception, I have a 1.89 WR with).  I'd probably open JoAT+Shanty Town, then play doublejack from there.  Pick up a royal seal at $5, I suppose, but play it straight other than that.

Worst 10:
1)Hoard
2)Nobles
3)Duchess
4)Stables
5)Embassy
6)Trader
7)Rabble
8)Hunting Party
9)Oracle
10)Tournament

Boards like this are why I have such a bad win rate with tournament.  When I get a board with warehouse, chapel, or remake, I can pull off tournaments like everyone else. On boards like this, I end up with 3 provinces to my opponents 1, and he ends up with all the prizes, then proceeds to kick my ass somehow. My first thought is to open trader/silver Province>Hoard>1 Embassy>silver, to buy victory cards when I have a hoard and trash them with trader when necessary.  My other thought is to ignore Hoard and go for a HP strategy with 2 gold, HP at $5, tournament at $4 and a few silver, hoping my opponent doesn't get lucky and pull the same thing off but one turn faster and with better shuffle luck.