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1

Game Reports / Team Rocket is blasting off again (Part 2) - Dominion Survival Round 2A

« on: June 12, 2016, 06:46:50 am »

Disclaimer: See my previous post.

==========

Preface: If you are not familiar with the format of Dominion Survival, here it is: There are two Swiss rounds each with four matches (Round 1A/B/C/D and Round 2A/B/C/D). In round 1, each win gives you 2 points, a tie 1 point and a loss 0 points. In the second round, those scores are doubled. After the first round, the bottom 14 participants were eliminated. After the second round, only 8 of the original 34 participants will be left and they will play single elimination rounds.

Last time, I reported about my games in round 1C, so technically we're missing round 1D, but my opponent never showed up, so I didn't get to play. I advanced to round 2 (I did get the free win for round 1D), and hopefully I'll have the full four matches to report on.

Today, I get to talk about a match-up I have been hoping for immediately after seeing the list of participants. I was paired with gkrieg13 who is playing in Division A right now. What a treat! But enough bootlicking, let's dive in.

==========

Video/Commentary:

The game was streamed via Infthitbox's Twitch channel, because Infthitbox provided commentary for our match.

Thank you, gkrieg, for the match and thank you, Infthitbox, for your commentary!

==========

Round 2A (vs. gkrieg)

Highlight of the Match (Game 2): Log

(Provinces/Shelters)

We did not get to play it out, unfortunately, but this might be the most messed up crazy board I have ever seen. Upgrade-Fortress is pretty crazy already (I learned that the hard way when Dan Brooks beat me up in Limetime's little tournament a while ago), but - won't you know it - Outpost and Mission are thrown in the mix. And Highway. Feast your eyes and imagine all the beautiful things you can do with this board in like 10 turns. I had completely amazing draws and my opponent didn't, so he resigned on turn 7 and we never got to see how I screwed up the endgame.

I have like a ton of questions, though.

- I opened Moneylender/Raze. Yes or no?
- Do you get all the Upgrades you can before buying Outpost? How much junk can be left in your deck, before you take the Outpost?
- Given the fact that your payload does not come from any treasures and you can upgrade your Fortress or maybe your Moneylender (once it's useless) into Outpost, how do you use Mission? Would you try to keep enough $ around to buy Mission and play Outpost on your Mission turn? Is that even allowed?
- I ignored Marauder. I think that's sensible. Is it?

Game 1: Log

(Provinces/Estates)

Not super-spectacular, but a pretty neat board. We both build an engine, he goes heavy on the Foragers, I don't. My Remodel/Forager opening might be terrible, I don't know. He opens Forager/Watchtower and has pretty good draws in the beginning I guess. I fall behind and I am actually not sure how I came back. With the abundance of Villages on the board (well I say abundance, but really, there's just two), Remodel with Watchtower in hand enables me to simulate a "no-benefit-Forager" and allows me to draw with Watchtower afterwards. That's neat, but this will never win a game for you. One mistake my opponent might have made is ignoring Caravan and using Tactician for draw. Sure, there are payload Cantrips and a lot of different treasures ended up in the trash, but Double-Tactician doesn't like beeing "spoiled". If you know what I mean. He sticks with one Tactician and has a pretty scary turn 12. After that, he has to sacrifice one turn again to play his single Tactician and a definite mistake he makes is taking the Province pile down to three on turn 13. Maybe he forgot about my Remodel, maybe he had to hope for a dud. What I still wonder about is Double-Tac with Death Cart and Forager. Once you clear out all of your junk and have a Tac in play, you can pretty safely purchase Death Carts and use the ruins as Forager food. Maybe this would have been better.

Game 3: Log

(Provinces/Shelters)

Kinda weird game. Royal Carriage and COTR make it interesting. Thanks, Adventures! My opponent has a pretty miserable 5/2 (I think he had pretty bad luck overall, actually) and I collide my opening buys (Urchin/Seahag) on turn 3. After that, I definitely go too hard for those Coins of the Realm and he outplays me. Knowing that this will secure the match, my deck - coughing and wheezing - scrambles for the tie.

==========

Please let me know how you would have approached these Kingdoms as I am not sure at all.

Also, I am playing dmet (another great opponent from the Dominion League) on Monday, I think. So there's going to be more game reports next week!

2

Game Reports / Team Rocket is blasting off again (Part 1) - Dominion Survival Round 1C

« on: June 05, 2016, 07:05:31 am »

Disclaimer: For a while now, I have been wanting to regularly report on the scarce competitive games of Dominion I am playing. This was mostly inspired by the infrequent game reports of Singletee he wrote in Season 13 which I found a very cool, non-streaming way to let other people in on the league matches. I will quickly try to answer your most urgent questions.

"So are you just going to rip off Singletee's idea?" Yes. I would like to do something similar on a (kind of) regular basis. I would like to report on a complete set of games, highlighting the most interesting kingdom and going into a little less detail on the other games.

"Snappy title, Team Rocket geek, but why are you bothering me with this?" I would like to inspire some discussion and I hope to get some feedback. Often times after playing a board I am still not sure at all what the best way of approaching it was. And I am usually too lazy to play it over and over or try to find my way around a simulator. Discussion with others however is not just what I am left with, but also my favorite way to learn.

"TL;DR already. But are you sure this doesn't belong in another section"? Not at all. I took a break from the league this season to get comfortable with Adventures, but I couldn't completely stop playing competitive Dominion, so I am playing in Adam Horton's Survival Tournament, hosted on reddit. This first match report stems from that tournament, so I can't possibly post it in the "Season 15 Game Reports" thread. I plan to eventually play in the league again, but I would prefer these posts be standalone mostly due to their length. I am also actively seeking advice pretty much every time I post something, so the "Help" section might also be the best place for this. Please feel free to point me towards the right section if you think this does not belong here. I haven't been around long enough to be sure on my own.

==========

Dominion Survival Round 1C (vs. Saaket)

Highlight of the match (Game 1): Log

(Provinces/Estates)

Not the most spectacular board, but I think the most interesting game we played. It does look to me like Minion is supported by the flexibilty and the discard-for-benefit Hamlet offers. Artificer seems to be okay with Minions giving you a four-card-hand again after discarding. Then again, Artificer does not really like small hand size. I am not sure how that would have played out. Most other cards can be mixed in in moderation without killing your strategy. If both players go for the Minion engine with Cantrips such as Artificer and Treasury mixed in and use Hamlets for +buy, Swamp Hag seems like a pretty mean counter. Also, the Minion engine requires some trashing, so I figure I want two Swamp Hags, a Trading Post and as many of the Minions as I can grab. I am not fond of Lost City here. Farming Village and Hamlet can give you +actions to play a Smithy and your Swamp Hag and I think cycling through your deck with Minions, getting to Swamp Hag every time is more important, so you should pick up Minions first. Duplicate offers the chance to sidestep some Swamp Hag curses, but I would rather get it later and play it regularly then get it early and delay other stuff.

My opponent opens Duplicate/Silver. I am not fond of that (I think Duplicate is a possible consolation price on turn 3 or 4 if you miss $5), but I might be wrong. I do expect him to go for Swamp Hag as well, so I open Silver/Smithy to hit $5. Since I plan to buy a Trading Post I try to buy as little yellow cards as possible. One Silver might have been too much already, but I prefer it over Hamlet/Smithy.

Contrary to what I expected, my opponent does not go for a multibuy engine and sticks to buying Smithies for a while, using his Duplicate on Lost City and eventually Gold. At some point, he hops on the Swamp Hag train, but gets just one of them. I would qualify what he does as some sort of "engine-BM-hybrid" (saying those words should summon Awaclus). It does not fare that poorly, and if my opponent had not ignored Hamlet and stuck to one Province a turn, it might have been competitive. On turn 14, for instance, he spends $14 on a single Province.

I eventually win the game 34-24, but I know I played this badly. Minion and Trading Post without a crazy surplus of villages in my deck meant I had to repeatedly discard Trading Post or I had to make uncomfortable decisions when Trading Post showed up in a four-card-hand.

• Should I have invested more in Villages/Smithies to draw more and trash more often?
• Should I have delayed Swamp Hag?
• What do you make of Artificer in this kingdom?

Game 2: Log

(Provinces/Estates)

Throughout the game, I get pretty awesome draws, but I lose nonetheless because of a bad screw-up. I decide to open Scavenger/Silver, get a Count immediately and use Alms on trashing-turns with Count to at least pick up a Silver. I do this on turn 5, on turn 7 my deck looks like this:

1   Count
1   Scavenger
5   Copper
3   Silver
2   Estate

I draw Count/Gold/Silver/Silver/Copper and can now put back a Gold and still have 8. I give in to the temptation thinking I am second player and a Province buy will put the pressure on my opponent. At the end of turn 11, we're down to two Provinces in the supply, but my opponent has three Golds to my lone one. On turn 14 I am two points down and can now either double-duchy with Count or buy a Province. I look through the log (I probably miss something) and I am pretty sure my opponent has played all his Golds this shuffle. Since my deck is worse than my opponent's, I decide to go for the throat and get the penultimate Province before the reshuffle rather than two Duchies. Unfortunately, I either miscounted or overlooked something and my opponent has $6 (including a Gold) in hand and his Oracle draws him the Silver he needs.

Saaket wins 36-32.

Game 3: Log

(Provinces/Estates)

This one I think we both played poorly. I decide I want just 1 Goons (a second early is probably better), lots of Storytellers to play Goons every turn and with Goons in play, buy out all the Mystics (I later put Pathfinding on them on a turn where I hit $8 without Goons in play). Since I open 5-2, I take a Wine Merchant to get Goons as soon as possible. This works out nicely, the Storyteller thing takes a long time to yield any results, though. What I can't figure out is why my opponent goes for the Masterpiece overpay at least twice. He plays Smithy-BM with Hoard against my "engine", but in that deck, you don't want the money density per se to go up, but rather the Gold density, if you are getting attacked by Goons each turn, right?

I win the game 47-36.

Game 4: Log

(Colonies/Estates)

This looks like a really good Minion engine. Bonfire and Remake both trash super-fast, after that, you grab as many Minions as you can (get a Quarry, if you have to) and if you're in the lead, start milling stuff with Expand. I feel like my opponent is a bit too impatient to grab the VP and lets me have 7 of the Minions. Once he had lost the Minion split, he grabbed Golds and Platina and soon his Minions were doing more damage than good, since he could never chain them, really. I also felt like he was getting bad draws.

I am not playing this very cleanly (I think I trash too litte), but I win 52-35.

==========

As I said, I am very keen on your opinions. These boards might not hold the coolest kingdoms ever, but there are so many little decisions all over the place that make even the blandest of boards interesting compared to a lot of other existing board games. So let's talk about Dominion!

Also, I embrace feedback concerning readability and formatting in general. Thanks!

3

Help! / What Prize to Pick?

« on: April 07, 2016, 06:03:44 am »

I played this game against Burning Skull last night as part of a "let's-get-severely-torched-by-someone-plain-better-in-a-league-match" theme night I had over at my place. There were refreshments, a pinata and of course the getting severely torched.

Kingdom:

Code: [Select]

Forager, Caravan, Coppersmith, Thief, Tournament, Duke, Hunting Party, Margrave, Venture, Peddler
Log: http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160406/log.0.1459969707999.txt

After the games, he was nice enough to answer my questions concerning our games, but I forgot to ask all of them. Here is one:

What Prize would you have picked in my place? I collide Tournament and Province first, but I have the weaker deck overall. At this point, Burning Skull has three HPs to my one, which - in at least one instance - is my own doing, because I deliberately choose double-Peddler (costing 2 at that point) for $6 over single HP before the reshuffle because I was worried I wouldn't have the economy to hit $8 afterwards. This was probably silly. When I collided Province+Tournament I knew I wouldn't be able to draw my Province up again and it was very likely that my opponent would pick whichever Prize I didn't. So do you get Followers or Trusty Steed in my position?

Here is another: As a result of picking Followers, my opponent got Trusty Steed. Which allowed him to grab Margraves (well, a Margrave). In the end he double-Provinced twice. Should I have gone for that as well? Is shooting for single Province a worse mistake than I think?

Last one: My overall questionable play aside, I found myself repeatedly and instinctively discarding Provinces to his Margrave which allowed my opponent to play Tournaments for +1 Card, + $1 afterwards. How do you balance the damage of keeping a dud Card in your hand vs the damage your opponent can do with that extra payload? And does HP influence your decision? Like, would you be more inclined to keep a Province in your hand with a HP there, because then your HP won't find more Provinces for you?

I might post more game reports from my theme night eventually. Until then, big thanks to my opponent for providing a great learning experience  .

4

Help! / Amazing comeback! Not by me, though.

« on: February 17, 2016, 04:53:24 am »

I don't want to take this away from wachsmuth, because it is technically his pretty amazing comeback win to report on, but I'm posting this, because I am looking for advice:

We played this game yesterday:

Code: [Select]

Squire, Scrying Pool, Ambassador, Masquerade, Menagerie, Oracle, Wishing Well, Cutpurse, Wandering Minstrel, Laboratory
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160216/log.0.1455651170783.txt


I opened double Amb and he opened Amb-Potion. He was a bit slower to thin consequently (he did get a second Amb after that) and I felt I was pulling ahead. Then, I make one fatal mistake (I'm sure I made a hell of a lot of mistakes here) which is to ignore Scrying Pool thinking "Well, there is Menagerie and Lab, so I guess I'll be fine". This returned to monumentally bite me in the ass. My Menageries do draw amazingly for a while though and I do some half-hearted stuff like buying Province-Menagerie for a couple of turns and actually a Curse to double-junk my opponent thinking that will prevent him from getting his Scrying Pool engine to work. He does start to draw his deck though, and - thanks to SP on the one hand and my Menagerie failing to do much after a couple of Provinces clumped together on my part - a lot more consistently than me. At this point, he is four Provinces down. He then realizes (what I hadn't even seen until I saw it in action, even though he said "there's a pin possible here" in the chat ) that he could pin me with enough villages, Masquerades and Cutpurses in hand. He starts threatening that pin and I realize I will be toast unless I can outrun it. So I start revealing Provinces with my Ambs in the vain hope to escape the inevitable loss by the hairs of my ass. I didn't get there.

It was a really thrilling game, though, and the combination of the huge momentum shift and some "unconventional" attempt at escaping made this a very cool comeback (even though we, or at least I, probably did not play this anywhere near optimally).


My questions:

1. I still do not regret opening double Amb. Should I?
2. On what turn should I have gotten Potion myself (provided the answer to 1. is "no")?
3. It is clear that I started to screw around with a lot of cards I should not have favored over SP. Ignoring these mistakes, should I have tried to Amb Provinces sooner once I recognized my lead (ignoring the knowlegde I could be pinned later)?
4. Should you aim for the pin here or is that situational depending on how you come out of the Amb war with your engine?

Thank you!

EDIT: Linked the prettified log.

5

Introductions / Intro and awkward request for skype games :)

« on: December 04, 2015, 10:36:00 am »

Hi!

I got Dominion Online a couple of months back, after owning some IRL expansions for like a year. Ever since I stumbled onto this forum, I read page after page of game reports and strategy articles whenever I had some time to kill. On my way to work, mostly. Finally, I decided to register and I wanted to introduce myself ("Hi") and immediately awkwardly request a skype buddy for some games of Dominion Online who is willing to play on a "sort-of-regular-basis". Here's why.

Short version:

I like Dominion. I like talking about the boards and strategies. I like people. Most people, anyway. I have a decent understanding of the cards (unrelated, I do own them all) but I'm always looking to better myself. I am from Germany, but I'm fairly fluent speaking English. And I am very self-aware about this request kinda sounding like online dating. PM me and we'll set something up.

Long Version:

Eventually - before getting into Dominion Online - I found some Dominion streams online. I watched a lot of the videos that Adam H. uploaded to youtube and I quite liked the idea of his and Qvist's Skype games since Dominion 2p seems perfect for skyping. Since then, I introduced a buddy who lives in Belgium to Dominion and we've been playing a bunch of Skype games since then and it's been way more fun than playing online with only the interaction that the chat interface (which - I think - is quite horrible) provides.

In my experience, talking about the game and turns during a match or afterwards greatly enhances not only the amount of fun you're having, but what you are learning about cards and combos. Also, analyzing games puts winning and losing games into perspective, because to me it's no longer people but strategies competing. Thirdly, I like to take a minute or so to look at the board. I'm a big fan of Adam H.'s "alright, three/four, estates, what's going on here?" brief overview (I watched some games of MicQsenoch and I found him saying "alright, looks like "XY" before my brain had even processed one card's title on the board quite insane), but in games vs. unknown opponents, I sometimes feel pressured to not take up too much time. Most of the people I've played online were nice and some were willing to chat a bit (like I said, though, the chat interface is not really capable of housing the exchange of strategic ideas), but I've also encountered people who didn't seem interested in any conversation whatsoever (or they didn't see me saying "hi, good luck") and I particularly recall the weird insult "fu, ninja turtle, I don't have all day" after typing "sorry, thinking.." and taking a minute to think about a somewhat complex governor turn. Being able to talk here also alleviates the problem of someone feeling he's being slowplayed. These might seem like minor incidents to experienced online players who've seen rage quits and the likes, but I'd rather find someone who shares my views then annoy people with my trying to say hello and exchange strategic ideas.

If you read all of this and didn't roll your eyes, I think I'd like to buy you a beer.

Cheers!