1
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Improving my game
« on: October 07, 2016, 01:31:57 pm »Aye, I was planning to avoid Moneylender and focus on winning the Curse split and keeping him tied down with Militia. I picked up Witch on Turn 5 (after second reshuffle), and didn't draw it until Turn 8...with Militia. By trashing early Coppers, grabbing early Golds, and then using Cellar to bypass his curses, he never really seemed bother by the attacks.QuoteAlthough even in occasional straight base games, my strategies are hampered by poor shuffle luck, and I don't know how to recover. The last game I played was a pretty simple board with Militia, Moneylender, and Witch as the key cards. Anyway, I thought the strategy would be to open Militia/Silver, grab a Witch if I hit $5 and a Gold if I hit $6. Except I hit $4 on my first four draws while my opponent went Moneylender/Silver, jumped to $6, grabbed a Gold turn 3, and that was all she wrote.
Hmm. I'm guessing some better players will jump in here, but let me see if I'm guessing right; it's hard to know without knowing what the rest of the kingdom is, but my guess is that you both made mistakes. What did you do after your first shuffle? (Stef reminds everyone to think of Dominion in terms of what happens after each shuffle, not after each turn. Your deck only improves after shuffles.) Missing $5 after your first shuffle can certainly happen, but it's not unrecoverable. On a Witch board, buying Witch on $6 is probably the right play because winning the curse split is everything, so I'm reasonably sure that was a mistake on your opponent's part, which potentially let you back in the game. Surely you bought Witch after your second shuffle?
And if you were planning on using Militia and Witch as your key terminal attacks, I'm not sure that you also want Moneylender. Even if there are Villages or other +actions, you don't want too many terminals unless it's an engine board.
Also, don't think about what you'll buy with each amount of money you could have. Instead, think about what you want your deck to have in it, and buy the pieces that you can afford as you can afford them, in the order that makes the most sense for deck development. Don't buy Silver just because you have $3, don't buy more Militias than you need just because you have $4, etc.
The exact board was just about every card removed from the 1st edition and a few others. Cellar, Chancellor, Workshop, Woodcutter, Feast, Moneylender, Militia, Witch, Mine, Adventurer. No source for an engine, no source for +buy.
Anyway, I think some of it is confirmation bias. I definitely remember the games where I get hosed more than the ones where everything goes according to plan.
Edit: I can't find this exact game, but here's one where my opponent gets a 5/2 split, opens with Mine instead of Witch, and still whips my ass.