Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

1

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside 2E Preview 2

« on: May 17, 2022, 01:45:53 pm »

Tide Pool would be pretty bad in a game with discard attacks. Unless Guide was in the kingdom, I'd probably skip this card completely if a discard attack was also in the game. Imagine getting hit with Militia then having to discard another two cards at the start of your turn - you'd have to start your turn with just one card! It would also be bad in multiples

Should be an interesting card to figure out strategy for!

While guide or desert guides is obviously the best combo allowing you to play any number of tide pools with no downside I think one is good with a lot of things. Draw to X, enemy junkers, discard for benefit cards and possible mega turns such as inventor are all good uses.

It is kind of sad that discard reactions is only three cards. Hopefully another one will be added soon.

2

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best Uninteresting Moments in Dominion

« on: March 28, 2022, 05:35:17 pm »

Raze a Miller

Is this near the end of a game with Tomb or you just wanted to troll yourself?

3

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion: Allies First Impressions

« on: March 28, 2022, 04:22:24 pm »

I know it's bad to rip people on their first-impression votes, but this is quite frankly embarrassing. Do you really think that Donald X would've greenlighted this card if this was really 0-worthy? Especially considering this has no expansion-specific mechanics and Donald is now extremely experienced with designing Dominion cards?

As I said, I don't think it's completely worthless. I also made a writing mistake in that post: I meant to say I was doing an intra-set comparison, not an inter-set comparison. That is, I was comparing the Allies cards relative to each other with no regard to any other expansions. But either way, if giving a card a 0 is "embarrassing", then I'm wondering why we were given that option in the first place.

Well the issue is it was never established if this is a relative or absolute power scale. If 0-10 is just ranking cards where 0 is worst and 10 is best then of course something has to be 0. (And it’s explorer) Other people are thinking of it as 0 meaning the card has zero power or no use, which is of course a wrong way of thinking caused by a poor understanding of the game. I got the impression you meant 0 simply as the worst card in the set.

I would still say that’s wrong for Swap and I personally would label Courier as the worst in set. Couriers position is arguable but I don’t think a good case can be made for swap as the worst even intra-set.

Some things you may be missing about Swap intra-set:

• Swap can let you buy sycophants for favors and turn them straight into 5s. (As big a coin upgrade as expand but on a cantrip)
• Swap helps Tent a lot as you can use Tent to more easily hit 5 early and then swap it out for a 5.
• Swap returns an obsolete card like Broker after you finished trashing but is never itself a dead card.
• Swap can somewhat undo Barbarian trashing as a cantrip.
• Swap can allow you to quickly take from a split pile after rotating it, for example if you reveal Warlord you can then Swap something into a warlord and then rotate the pile or potentially swap many things into warlord to gain a majority of them.

There’s probably more I’m missing but it is certainly not without uses and that is before we get into increasing the reliability of your deck. You will sometimes want to swap down if you have 3 terminals in hand and need actions from another card on board but that can generate enough value in one turn to justify it and you can also swap back up whenever is convenient.
[/list]

4

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion: Allies First Impressions

« on: March 26, 2022, 11:56:54 pm »

Not sure what could justify Townsfolk as a 9 because the best case of colliding blacksmith and elder is like colliding festival and library but without the buy. Townsfolk is pretty low power and works on boards that don’t have any particularly good combos and that’s about it.

Galleria is sometimes good but it takes a lot of things going right for me to want it. The fact that is only procs when you buy a 3-4 and you need multiple to be able to buy multiple of any other type means it’s usually worse than 3 coins and a buy which shows you it’s generally worse than sacred grove. Horse combos of course can make it a lot better but again most games don’t have horses. I had a lot of fun with it and forts on a populate board where it was insanely powerful but every card has its place to shine and that’s not happening a lot.

5

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss - Forts

« on: March 23, 2022, 11:52:21 pm »

Got 3 Garrisons on a populate board, and then chained populates. It had Page so once I got the Champion the Garrisons and large number of terminals on boards was fine and in 2 Populate turns I had gotten most of the VP cards in the game. The thing about Garrison is it's really just a combo piece though and while some cases show insane payoffs it is pretty bad on a lot of boards. If you're only drawing one coin of it it is super mediocre.

6

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: March 23, 2022, 02:30:07 am »

Villa + Fellowship of Scribes is handy, provided you have a good source of Favors, netting +1 Card +2 Actions +$1 +1 Buy

While you're not wrong at all that is the point of Fellowship of Scribes. Any none-terminal that doesn't draw is good with it.

7

Dominion General Discussion / Re: merchant camp

« on: March 22, 2022, 06:19:51 pm »

I’m actually kind of curious if DXV considered trying it in one of the new split piles. Just having 4 copies seems great here. Plus it could have guaranteed some interesting synergy, so you’re happier to grab it.

Yeah, why does Tent exist? Doesn't play well with anything else in the pile, and is nearly useless by itself.

Replacing Tent with Merchant Camp would've freed up a kingdom card to print something interesting on.

Tent is more reliably good than Garrison. If you think tent is bad is probably because you’re not considering that a lot of the time the 4 or other 3 card cost you get is non-terminal. It’s as good as getting 2 silver early since it too decks and shows up more often. A decent amount of the time you end up trashing or just discarding it later in game but that really isn’t a big downside.

All Treasure starters such as Quarry and Talisman as well as almost any one with an action such as Bounty Hunter, Church, or Goatherd make a tent absolutely worth considering. Tent helps you hit off not only more 5s but makes it easier to hit 4 on turns when you’re trashing with Goatherd or other similar cases.

8

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: March 22, 2022, 04:20:06 am »

Mountebank becomes extra dangerous with Wall in play. Cursing and Coppering an opponent for -3 VP is insane and it still gives -1VP from the copper even after curses run out.

9

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion: Allies First Impressions

« on: March 22, 2022, 03:40:06 am »

Rating Allies could probably be done in terms of how strong they are with Importer and Underling. All the other Liaisons are arguably cards you'd buy sometimes even if the Ally sucked, but Underling doesn't really have any other purpose, and you don't need to buy an Importer for 21 of the 23 Allies.

Gang of Pickpockets can be compared to the other Allies in terms of how badly you want Favors when it's on the board.

While it may be tempting to evaluate Allies with respect to Underling as it is the most spammable card it doesn't provide an accurate picture of how useful some allies are. For instance Fellowship of Scribes isn't inherently useful with underling and you probably need a non-terminal card that will drop you to 4 in hand to make use of it at all. However with Student it allows you to draw the Student after playing letting you trash any amount of coppers in your hand plus one other card!


Similarly Plateau Shepherds is best when seen With Bauble and Decent with Sycophant but not great with other liaisons.

10

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion: Allies First Impressions

« on: March 22, 2022, 02:22:56 am »

I gave two cards a 10

My criteria for giving something a 10/10 goes like this:

The card warps the strategic and/or tactical landscape, causing most games to revolve around it. Ignoring or misusing the card will almost always result in a clear loss

Of course your definition may be different but that's what I use. I gave lots of 9/10 ratings (including Specialist at least, which I think is an extremely strong card, whatever that means) but I didn't see anything that fit that description. But hey I could be wrong...

By that definition I'd argue Clash is 10/10. While the individual pieces wouldn't be universally good there isn't a realistic situation I can think of where you don't want cards from clash. This is because Archer excels on any board where Warlord doesn't and battle plan is worth taking if you're going to use either of them. Warlord hoses engines incredibly well to the point where it completely warps any would be engine board it's seen on. At its base it is essentially Den of Sin but with the slight downside of being a non-terminal action instead of a night, but then you strap on an attack that can stop even Governor from being desirable in large numbers. The only case where that might not be worth getting is on a very low power board, such as a treasure board where a player would never want to play more than 2 of an action in a turn, but in that situation Archer is extremely powerful. Targeted discard with +2 is more effective than Militia against a treasure deck as you will be able to take a gold almost any time the opponent could buy a province.

Of course there are counters the most glaring of which is knights as knights may simply trash anything in clash but that's probably the only single card that beats Warlord and you will likely want Battle Plans for your Knights deck.

There are of course possible situations where even Donate is not worth taking. For example if you have Importer with Peaceful Cult and Bounty Hunter you'd be able to trash a 3 coin starting hand and buy a Bounty Hunter leaving you with just 1 estate to exile for coins and 4 copper to exile one of which also pays out. Now obviously that is insanely unlikely but it just shows it's possible to find a board where anything isn't a guaranteed take.

The other things that have this kind of power are Ally + Liaison combinations which can be hard to evaluate but it's worth noting no Liaison on its own is a card without an ally. An ally is part of a Liaison in the same way Ruins are a part of Cultist. The difference is Allies are designed to be swapped out leading to a possible 207 effects for the 9 Liaisons. Island Folk and Underling certainly meets the criteria for 10/10 power as does Peaceful Cult with several Liaisons. Usually though they're thought of as individual pieces even though they are each essentially half a card since looking at it as 207 cards is far to exhausting.
 

11

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion: Allies First Impressions

« on: March 21, 2022, 06:37:46 pm »

I was struck by the lack of power cards in the expansion. There's a lot of cards that are quite situational, although the built-in combos mean that you will wind up going for them more if you play with more cards from this expansion.

When I did my screamin' hott takes on the podcast I noticed that I didn't have any 10/10 ratings -- several well-deserved 9/10 cards but no tens. You could make an argument that some of the Allies could be 10/10 but like, what does that even mean?

My opinion is that power level isn't something that's super important in terms of design, but there are some things you need to be careful of when it comes to very powerful cards, especially powerful payload cards.

I would argue that Peaceful Cult with the right Liaison is better than Donate so there's that. There are a fair amount of times when Underling is simply not something you can pass on and still win. Also Warlord in Clash is basically a universal engine killer so that's power/

12

Dominion General Discussion / Re: merchant camp

« on: March 21, 2022, 05:32:19 pm »

A single merchant camp is almost always worth buying. Having one Merchant camp can prevent you from ever drawing terminal draw without an action which is a huge deal.

Also a few ways can make it really OP. For example with mouse it can be any 2 or 3 cost that top decks itself.

13

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: March 19, 2022, 02:29:25 am »

Gang of pickpockets lets you discard duplicates to trigger menagerie much more reliably.

14

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss - Sycophant

« on: March 18, 2022, 02:46:16 am »

Way of the Chameleon would turn Sycophant into a non-terminal sifter, like a less flexible Cellar

It's also nice with cards like Village Green and Tunnel, and of course, draw-to-X or Minion

Good points but minion only draws to 4 so you would have to discard everything else to play it after minion. Could be quite good if you played it from an opening hand of 5 I suppose but it’s probably unreliable.

15

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: March 18, 2022, 01:06:05 am »

I just played a game with Black Market and Way of the Horse. I don't know if this has been pointed out before, but with Way of the Horse, everything you buy from Black Market can be a Lab - you get the +2 Cards, +1 Action but it doesn't have a pile to return to, so it stays in play.

On the other hand, the game also had Gatekeeper. As it turns out, that is a VERY nasty Black Market counter.

To be fair Black Market may be more balanced and less random with everything being a lab instead of randomly giving only one person labs.

16

Let's Discuss ... / Let's Discuss - Sycophant

« on: March 18, 2022, 12:48:16 am »

Let's discuss Sycophant, with 23 possible allies it's 23 cards in one! Which one will it be this time? A trasher that trashes itself? A way to get coins awarded on every buy phase? Or is it a Victory point card?

• Which Allies make you want to pick this card?
• Do any Allies make you run this without trashing?
• What situations make it worth buying for its effect when played?

One Ally that makes me run a copy of this without trashing is Circle of Witches.

Buying a single copy of Sycophant will allow you to curse the opponent once which is certainly worse than having a Sycophant in their deck. This is one ally where I might be more inclined to take a Sycophant without trashing on the board.

17

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Lets discuss: Barbarian

« on: March 15, 2022, 09:20:13 pm »

I've played many games where it made sense to play 3+ Cardinals, or Saboteurs, or Rogues per turn. I assume Barbarian is no different.

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense to do. What it doesn't make is progress towards destroying your opponent's deck and all of their VP.

I played yet another game yesterday where the opponents deck and VP were destroyed with barbarian. They went from 18 vp down to 3 in a few turns.

You don’t have to turn every card into a curse or trash if you downgrade everything once chances are their deck is not going to work well. You don’t have to play 3 barbarians to kill a province like you suggest if you hit it twice it’s an estate and that is not helping the opponent win. Same thing goes for 5 drops if you turn it into a 4 or 3 it doesn’t have to be a curse to be bad and to make an engine break and not work.

18

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss - Forts

« on: March 14, 2022, 07:04:24 pm »

You could build the golden deck with 3 tents + 2 merchant camps, or 4 tents + Capitalism.  But, this relies on specific combos and over half the tents, so I'm thinking this is rarely viable.

This may be less powerful than you think. If you are playing 2 tents and 2 merchant camps and top decking them all you are likely only drawing one other card. This means if you have a bottom decked tent it could take 10 rounds to get the full 5 cards in hand. An even worse possibility is that a merchant camp is bottom decked as you won't be able to top deck all three tents without the actions and will then have to shuffle again and look for the tent. This makes it highly random as you may start getting a province a turn starting at turn 6 with perfect luck but with the worst luck you might not get one this way until turn 20.

Not to say this is never reliable because something like Forest Dwellers + Importer can easily help you find the cards but it is definitely rare for this to be as good as it seems at a glance.

Oh, another thing you could do with Tent is Ways.  I'm not sure which way you would want to do every turn though.  Way of the Mouse with a good action, I suppose.  Way of the Owl?  Goat or Ox for a discount student/merchant camp.

I hadn't considered this but something as simple as a village on way of the mouse makes tents something you want to buy as many as you can. A topdecking village for 3 is mostly as good as barracks for 3 and if you have nothing else to play its a top decking silver. Way of the Butterfly seems good to me as well as you could use the tent as long as it helps you and then lose it as soon as it doesn't. Way of the Pig also helps negate the downside.

19

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion: Allies First Impressions

« on: March 14, 2022, 05:50:50 pm »

Rate each Dominion card (or card-shaped-object) on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being the most powerful. The cost of the card, not just the effect, should be taken into account for your score. (...) You may use whatever criteria you like for your ratings.

While Tier lists are always somewhat arbitrary the thing about this is that both a 0-10 scale and the word "powerful" are entirely subjective. What is a cards power? Does it refer to its use in an ideal situation? The floor when it is least useful? An average situation for the card? I would guess people filling these out have disagreed substantially on what power was or some didn't understand the cards because many have scores covering a full 1-10 range.

Sleigh was previously rated as one of the lowest but I've definitely won games off slay including a recent Soothsayer + Sleigh opening where I was able to put the gold gained from Soothe into my hand using sleighs reaction. No other 2 cost could have performed anywhere near as well as sleigh did in that game.

I would say if we wanted to define a relevant power metric I think the best definition would be that "the more often a player will buy a card in optimal play the more powerful it is." If you only look at ideal situations cards like Inventor and Groom are going to be the best in the game while good cards like Bauble will rate lower even though I probably buy a similar amount of Bauble and Groom since I usually use Groom as a 1 of in most boards and Bauble as a 2 of. The fact that boards such as groom + island exist raises the average times I buy groom though as I will attempt to take as many as I can get on that kind of board. This measure would average those situations out though and probably provide the most useful indication of "power" in my opinion.

As for a 1 to 10 scale I suppose you could conclude that 1 is the least powerful card and 10 the most in all of Dominion. If 1 indicated no use it would of course not describe any card.

20

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Lets Discuss - Townsfolk

« on: March 14, 2022, 03:20:27 pm »

I suppose the main things with Town Crier are:

• you have to get one (or hope your opponent does) if you want any of the other cards in the pile.

(...)
[/list]
Also, it's "crier" as in announcer, proclaimer, not about being upset. Or was that bit a joke?

The issue I have with buying just for the sake of rotation is you are also usually leaving that pile open for the other player to buy from. It's hard to see rotating as an advantage in a lot of cases since your opponent can also gain them.

The crying bit was in fact, a joke. Probably not a great one if you have to ask.

I default buy Town Crier over Silver. Silver colliding with your other opening buy is usually bad, and Town Crier doing the same is not really much worse, but the fact that you don't have to keep it around as a stop card later is important.

Can you elaborate on that? I'm confused as to why you assume colliding silver with your other starting buy is bad?

21

Let's Discuss ... / Lets Discuss - Townsfolk

« on: March 14, 2022, 03:28:27 am »

The Townsfolk is certainly an interesting pile, I'm mostly unsure its worth picking up the first card Town Crier which may be the worst pile topper in the expansion.

Town Crier? Why is he crying? Is it because he knows his modes are pretty bad and he is basically a cantrip that does nothing when he doesn't have an Elder around to hold his hand?
-- Is there ever a reason to buy this card when you have more than 2 coins? I tend to think of it as something you get with spare change simply because it won't hurt you and not really because it is particularly useful.

Blacksmith
-- Works like a watchtower mainly but can cantrip or play as a +2 when that isn't desirable.
-- Can draw to 7 and give an action or get +3 cards and an action when combined with elder. (Draws to 8 with elder if you don't want the action)

Miller, Border Guards big brother
-- When is this worth the more sizeable investment? Is it worth taking just to line up Elder and Blacksmith?

Elder
-- Works with Pawn, Scrap, Steward, Courtier, Native Village, Spice Merchant, Squire, Amulet, Miser, Wild Hunt, Specialist, Modify, Count, Innkeeper, Broker, Hill Fort, Governor, Town Crier, and Blacksmith.
-- Elder really loves Capitalism, there's a joke there somewhere.

22

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Let's Discuss - Forts

« on: March 14, 2022, 02:35:35 am »

This pile is very strong with the +Action token or Capitalism, but Tent seems incredibly niche otherwise. I'd buy it in Duke games and a few slogs, but hardly ever else. And if it never gets bought, the other cards won't either.

Besides, it's not a good idea to buy Tent just to rotate the pile. First off, doing so gives your opponent access to those cards. Second, the other cards in the pile often anti-synergize with Tent.

Honestly, I'm wondering if this pile is a dud.

Personally I wouldn't label any card as a dud. (Except probably Explorer) With the addition of Swap I finally found myself on a board where I got good usage out of Duchess! (possible before with trashing, way of the horse, or other things but I hadn't seen it be worth it.) I don't think it's a question of if a card is useful just how often and when a card should be played. Some are definitely useful in more situations than others of course but there aren't really bad cards. (Though Duchess is insanely niche.)

I think Tent is definitely worth considering for the high early game potential especially when there is a good non-terminal 3-4 cost to use with it. Having a silver in hand every turn is great early game. Bounty Hunter, Iron Works, Quarry, Potion, Mill and many more will get you off to a strong start when combined with Tent though Tent can certainly be a burden later on. (Bounty Hunter just exiles it.)

What I'm having trouble understanding with Tent is when its worth going with Tent over another terminal option since obviously you don't want to combine any other terminal with tent early since they will collide.

You're definitely right about it being a bad idea to take a card just to rotate though! Usually that ends up giving equal good cards to the opponent while you ate a bad one so it's definitely better to leave it out in almost all cases over buying just to rotate. (If the opponent is invested in another strategy that benefits less from the good cards maybe its worth buying to rotate but that is still super dangerous.)

23

Let's Discuss ... / Let's Discuss - Forts

« on: March 14, 2022, 12:05:20 am »

Forts?

Forts is a bit odd to me because it is a rotate pile that doesn't have much synergy between the cards. (Only Hill Fort and Garrison working together). The whole group is also a big action suck.

First there's Tent!

-- Obviously Tent is a good card for your first two buys if there aren't any other terminal 3-4 cost you want
-- When would you pick it over other 3-4 cost terminal cards in your opening buys? When is it not worth it?
-- Is there ever a case when you want Tent past early game? What about multiple Tents?

Then there is Garrison!

-- This card ends up pretty underwhelming if you aren't gaining multiple cards in a turn.
-- When is this a worthwhile investment besides obvious shenanigans with Paddock?

Hill Fort!

-- Putting it into your hand is the same as playing Falconer.
-- The other option adds some flexibility in exchange for the lack of reaction ability.
-- Tent can rotate faster than most, is this a good early game goal?

Stronghold!

-- How does it compare to Nobles?
-- Is it worth it?

24

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Lets discuss: Barbarian

« on: March 13, 2022, 10:17:19 pm »

Goons, Inventor, and Bridge Troll are just a few examples of terminal cards you want to play multiple of it a turn in an engine. None of these things are cards that only work because you are already ahead and neither is Barbarian. Playing three of a terminal card is not that hard on a lot of boards and you don't actually need to play 3 to have an effect. Every Barbarian is downgrading the opponents deck. if you're playing 2 barbarians and turning a gold into a copper and not a curse you're still hitting the opponent back, and a single hit on a province is -3 VP.

If you can play three Bridge Trolls every turn, you are not very many turns away from winning the game. Same with Inventor and Goons. If you can play three Barbarians every turn, you are not even making progress towards destroying your opponent's deck and all of their VP, assuming the opponent at least hits $5 every turn.

If your opponent is buying a 5 and you're playing 3 barbarians then they are losing as fast as they're gaining but you are hitting 6 just on those barbarians you can use to build your deck bigger and then if you hit 4 per turn they will be losing cards...

25

Let's Discuss ... / Re: Lets discuss: Barbarian

« on: March 13, 2022, 09:44:52 pm »

I'd be interested  to know what could have lead you to that conclusion?

Well you have to play three Barbarians for every Province or Gold your opponent buys to turn it into a Curse, and probably about three or four for every $5 Action they buy, assuming you never hit Curses (and actually it's worse because you do in fact sometimes hit Curses). Playing three Barbarians is way harder than buying a $5 Action, and if you're so far ahead that you can play three Barbarians reliably while your opponent can't buy $5 Actions reliably, you aren't winning because Barbarian is destroying their deck, you're winning because you got ridiculously ahead and Barbarian is destroying their deck also because you got ridiculously ahead.

Knights is a better analog for Barbarian than Swindler as Swindler is often just switching a 3-4 cost action for a less optimal one and usually can't actually break an opponents deck. It also has a large problem caused by trashing provinces with it in which you effectively trash a province from supply like salt the earth. This means if you invest in many Swindlers and your opponent rushes off a few provinces you can actually end the game for them.

The reason why Swindler can't usually break the opponent's deck is mostly the same as Barbarian's reason: you have to play so many Swindlers to do it that you're never going to play that many Swindlers, although Swindler is a bit more likely to spin its wheels than Barbarian.

Knights, on the other hand, are way faster at trashing the opponent's deck and can therefore sometimes result in a situation where you can play Knights faster than your opponent can buy more cards.

Goons, Inventor, and Bridge Troll are just a few examples of terminal cards you want to play multiple of it a turn in an engine. None of these things are cards that only work because you are already ahead and neither is Barbarian. Playing three of a terminal card is not that hard on a lot of boards and you don't actually need to play 3 to have an effect. Every Barbarian is downgrading the opponents deck. if you're playing 2 barbarians and turning a gold into a copper and not a curse you're still hitting the opponent back, and a single hit on a province is -3 VP.