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Dominion Articles / Re: Canal
« on: February 20, 2019, 09:59:36 pm »All in all I think this is pretty solid. There are a couple of things I'd question though:
Edit: as crj points out, Canal actually makes remodel variants slightly better. The above should only be taken to apply to cards like Apprentice or Recruiter.
I don't understand how it makes Remodel variants better. The only time cost reduction and Remodel effects care about each other is at the $0 price point. Yes, you can turn coppers into other stuff, but that doesn't seem to come up very often, especially not with a restricted cost reducer like Canal. I recommend just cutting this.
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Canal is also weak on boards with other cost reducers. The problem with Canal on such boards is that, because of the other cost-reducers, you can often buy several important components for the $7 you spend on Canal. For this reason, it is usually better to build a deck which can play more copies of the other cost reducer than to buy Canal. This isn't to say that Canal is unplayable on such boards: if you happen to end up with $7 and only 1 buy, you often will buy Canal. That said, cost reduction tends to both increase the opportunity cost of Canal and compete with Canal's niche.
This just hasn't been the case in my experience, and the reason is something you reference early in the article-- cost reduction effects love to stack so they can make expensive cards like province cheap or free. Don't get me wrong, the point you make about the opportunity cost is valid, but the effect of Canal is often good enough with the other cost reducers (especially because you don't have to draw it) that you take it anyway.