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51

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 29, 2022, 12:13:19 pm »

I don’t see how KC and Monument could every lead to a stalemate. First of all, unless you trashed with Raze, there is a sixth card in your deck which prevents a flat 9VP per turn. Second, building an engine around that combo seems like the natural way to go.
It is highly unlikely that even in a mirror, players will arrive at the same deck situation symmetrically and then whoever was faster has an incentive to, well, yeah actually win the game.

Besides Raze, you can also get down to a 5-card, 9VP golden deck with either of the following: Banish, Donate, Death Cart*, Enhance*, Island, Way of the Butterfly*/Goat/Turtle*/Horse*, pre-Errata Bonfire, and possibly others (those with "*" require another general-purpose trasher in the kingdom, which they can then trash or otherwise remove from the deck).

But I agree that a 9 VP KC/Monument golden deck would come up less often than the other 2-card combos. However, when it does, the mirror should result in a stalemate at least on most boards with no +buy.

52

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 29, 2022, 11:38:06 am »

In general, stalemates come where one player cannot force an endgame. They will likely become more common as folks get better at Dominion.

I fail to see how the precise point total matters for the dynamics. Exactly which decks can best 30 VP/turn but not 50/turn? I mean, I could be wrong, but Ride/Collections beats the entire Colony pile in 3 turns while Stampede does it in 2. Even Supplies wins out in 4.

Sure, any golden deck gaining 20+ VP tokens per turn is usually unbeatable by a deck not gaining a similar amount of VP tokens. All the Collection/horse gainer golden decks mentioned will usually be dominant. Stampede is just the strongest of the group, as the higher VP gain means you need a much larger lede to be able to break the golden deck for a win, and the 5-card limit prevents you from incorporating it into an engine.
 

And I am not at all convinced that 2-card combos represent the majority of potential stalemates. After all, Kc/Monument is the only "2-card" combo (ignoring the whole, needs trashing thing), but Mastermind/Monument/Cantrip results in the same dynamic (high points/turn, potential game loss if you break the combo). As does Kc/Farmer's market/trash diver (6 VP/turn on average, unless you build out with Necromancer and then get 9 VP/turn). As do a lot of Bish/trash diver options.

I suppose with your method of choosing kingdoms, strong multi-card combos will come up much more often. But in pure random games, it's simple math that 2-card combos come up much more often than 3-card combos (by a factor of about 50 given the current size of the total card pool), let alone combos with even more cards.

Maybe I should clarify that by "n-card combo" I mean a combo requiring n exact cards, i.e. not counting common card types. So Mastermind/Monument/Cantrip would be a 2-card combo rather than a 3-card combo for me, as most random kingdoms contain a cantrip anyway.

Edit: Actually, Mastermind/Monument also gives a 9 VP/turn golden deck on its own, without needing any cantrip (only a "disappearing trasher" to get there, same as with KC):

You build a deck of 3 Monuments and 5 Masterminds. 3 Masterminds will be in play at the start of each of your turns: Two Masterminds are chained so that you can triple-play the 3 Monuments, plus a single Mastermind that triple-plays a new Mastermind from your hand. Then you play the last Mastermind from your hand with your free action to set up an identical next turn. The "completed" chain of 2 Masterminds/3 Monuments will be discarded during clean up, so you draw exactly those 5 cards for your next turn. 

This golden deck might even be easier to set up than KC/Monument, as MM is cheaper than KC (and can thus be bought with the $ from a single MM'ed Monument).

Stampede/Collections is quick and easy to spot, but it is categorically not all that different from Collections/Ride or even Collections/Supplies.

I tend to agree; it is somewhat "worse" than the other two in terms of VPs and its engine incompatibility, but not on a completely different level.

53

Dominion General Discussion / Re: 2022 Additional Errata

« on: June 29, 2022, 06:08:53 am »

Trashing arbitrary cards from play breaks the game. That's why I changed it; to not break the game. Going into play uses up a card for the turn; taking it out of play lets you reuse it and generate loops.

In this particular case I could fix this while having almost no effect on the card's gameplay; you were already trashing Coppers with it.

I assume it's this.

Probably, though there's still other cards that can trash "arbitrary" cards from play, e.g. Procession for all Action cards and Counterfeit for all Treasures. (But those two stay in play themselves, making infinite loops harder to do.)

However, I would be surprised if those infinite loops with Bonfire came up much in real (full random) games, as they require quite specific multi-card combos. I expect they would be less common than a Stampede/Collection stalemate.

But maybe there would have been a broken Bonfire combo with a card from the next expansion...

54

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hinterlands Second Edition "leaked"

« on: June 27, 2022, 01:23:44 pm »

Something that I feel would be balanced would a formula like (1 VP per 3 cards) - 1 VP; it scales better but takes time to get to Duchy level. But of course that is probably too awkward to word.

I think that formula would make SR even weaker as an occasional buy - it would only give more VPs than the original card if you have exactly 15, 18, 19 or ≥21 VP cards. Also, it reaches "Duchy level" at the same time as the original card, with ≥12 VP cards.

I think "1 VP per 3 VP cards that are not Estates" could work, essentially removing the SR/Estate rush strategy while making SR more interesting on boards with Estate trashing...

55

Dominion General Discussion / Re: start with Wishing Well?

« on: June 24, 2022, 11:39:12 am »

Actually, I was feeling like doing a programming task, so I did it again -- and it seems like we were all wrong. I'm getting 91.1% for hitting 5$ with silver/silver and 90.5% for hitting 5$ with silver/ww.

On the other hand, you could say the odds are basically the same, and wishing well is a much better card, so you'd rather open ww/silver. Still, your probability to hit 5$ is lower.

I have a Maths question. How do I calculate my expected money in turn3, if I start with silver/silver? I suppose this is easy probability, but I forgot all I have learn in high school! 🤬🤬

Expected money is easy: you have $11 among 12 cards, so the expected value for your money on T3 (or T4) is 5*11/12=55/12=$4.6.

56

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 24, 2022, 07:40:41 am »

I'm not very confident any of those will be present in a typical Collection/Stampede game, especially with Stampede (which is always present in a typical Collection/Stampede game, surprisingly enough) taking up half the landscape slots on its own.

The point is that we have many, many other combos that replicate all the major concerns of Collection/Stampede. Highest possible repeatable point total? Not even close. Unable to deplete piles without taking a knock on VP/turn? Not close again. Immune to a lot of attacks? There are far better. Each and every supposed flaw is present somewhere else with some combo of cards.

The fact that one some boards Fort/Bish is utterly dominant is not a sign that the combo is utterly broke.

The difference with Stampede/Collection is one of degree, not kind. There are many, many ways to setup recurring VP loops and many of those are both the most powerful source of points and fragile to buying more cards. What makes Stampede/Collections "unique" is that it is quick and simple.

But we see the exact same dynamics with Collection/Ride. Assuming a 5/5 collection split, your deck can support 7 non-Collections (provided you generate $12 and have no discards) and once you file those slots up you just endless loop or risk missing out on 30 VP/Turn. Supplies generate 25 VP/turn and eat up all your draw slots. They again will have a lot of boards where it cuts into the VP gain to move the game further towards an end state.

Stampede/Collection is not the highest VP/turn possible (that is the unbounded VP from Villa/Butterfly). It is not uniquely prone to seizing it. It is not the only 2 card combo that can degenerate.

AFAICS, Stampede/Collection gives by far the most VP/turn among all "stalemate-prone" 2-card combos, with 50 VP.

Collection/Supplies gives 25VP when both piles split 5/5 (otherwise you can get up to 100 VP/turn, but then there is no stalemate), and Collection/Ride also gives 25 VP in this case (or 30 in an almost golden deck with an extra Silver). Bishop/Fortress gives 12 VP, KC/Monument gives 9 VP, and the other examples given use more than 2 cards to achieve a golden deck.

This matters because a 2-card combo shows up orders of magnitude more often than a combo with 3 or more cards in full random games.

57

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 24, 2022, 07:29:35 am »

Both of these depend on the state of the board. E.g. a Bish/Fort deck is the maximum VP possible on a board without any net draw. And if the Bish/Fort player sees any tricksy engine building, they can just mill a Bish or three from the pile and still make more than any possible setup.

The Bish/Fort player can't just mill a Bish or three from the pile without temporarily breaking the golden deck. Which is not a huge problem, but it slows down that process since you have to spend a turn trashing a Bishop every time your golden deck gets broken, unless you have good draws.

Not at all. Golden deck is 5 Forts, 4 Bish. You can buy a 5th Bish and lose out only in the event that you bottom deck 2 Forts (i.e. 25% of the time). Unless the other guy is racing you to a golden deck, you still win out.

You can most certainly force endgame by sacrificing expected VP and depleting the Bish pile until they cannot gain enough VP/turn to matter.

Yes, and the sacrifice is extremely small. I've just calculated the odds and VP gains going through all possible cases of deck orderings, and the result is that a deck with 5 Fortresses and 5 Bishops makes an expected value of 11.65 VP, only 0.35 VP less than the golden deck. In 50% of cases, the 5th Bishop is the bottom-most card and even gives you a 13th VP (played with an empty hand). In the other 50% of cases, the bottom-most card is a Fortress and you get between 3 VP (extremely rare, about 0.4%) and 12 VP (>25%) by trashing one Bishop, returning you to the golden deck.
So on average you sacrifice ony 2*0.35 =0.7 VP per extra Bishop you buy and trash, for a golden deck with 5 Fortresses.

I haven't done the math for a deck containing only 4 Fortresses (the minimum number necessary for the 12 VP golden deck) - probably you'll lose a bit more than 0.7 VP for milling a Bishop. 

This means that the B/F golden deck can actually three-pile with only one non-Fortress cantrip costing at most $4 in the kingdom. I don't know the total number/percentage of such cantrips among the kingdom cards, but I'd expect that in the majority of B/F games, you'll have one in the kingdom. (The probability is about (1-(5/6)^8)=77% in a B/F game using only Base, Prosperity and Dark Ages.)

However, even then you can still get a stalemate whenever each player has more VPs than the opponent after their own turn: As the three-piling player wins in this case, neither player will want to buy the penultimate card from the cantrip pile.

58

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hinterlands Second Edition "leaked"

« on: June 21, 2022, 03:26:45 am »

It's extremely common to get Gardens to also be worth at least 3VP by the end of the game, even when trashing. It's no big deal.

That does not match my experience. If the board supports engine play, it is not as if those Gardens are somehow automatically worth 3VPs. You gotta work for that and adapt your play.

To me it seems like Silk Road is currently too bad, but would be too good if the ratio got changed.

If the board supports engine play, you'll usually trash your Estates ASAP, and you'll usually prefer Provinces over $4 Duchies.

The only problem with an improved SR might be a rush: Gaining all SRs and all Estates uncontested (and emptying a third pile) results in 19 VP cards, and 6 VP per SR (instead of 4 VP) would probably make this the dominant strategy on boards with good gainers, about as strong as Beggar/Gardens.

59

Dominion General Discussion / Re: start with Wishing Well?

« on: June 20, 2022, 12:37:34 pm »

Actually, I was feeling like doing a programming task, so I did it again -- and it seems like we were all wrong. I'm getting 91.1% for hitting 5$ with silver/silver and 90.5% for hitting 5$ with silver/ww.

On the other hand, you could say the odds are basically the same, and wishing well is a much better card, so you'd rather open ww/silver. Still, your probability to hit 5$ is lower.

I'm not surprised by this result, TBH. The only way playing a WW gives you more $ than playing a Silver does is in the rare case where you draw a Silver and a Copper with it. Usually it only gives $2 or less. Compared to Silver, WW has the advantage of better cycling, but also a substantial risk of being just a cantrip when you guess wrong.

60

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 14, 2022, 06:04:11 pm »

I thought you were referring to an engine that gets >12 VP at least partially from VP cards, which would have to be fast enough to compete against the golden deck.
However, if you manage to play more than 4 Bishops per turn forever at some point, you've just created an even better golden deck. If the opponent also mirrors that better deck, you get the same stalemate problem, only at a later point.

You haven't created a golden deck (the moment you add the fifth Bishop, there's a chance of drawing a hand of five Bishops, which means you don't get to play the functionally equivalent turn that turn), you've created an engine. You can play 5 Bishops per turn and buy Provinces.

No matter what we call such a "better than golden" deck, when both players build it, it will still produce a stalemate in many cases. Buying a province reduces the likelihood of drawing your deck, so you should only do it when your deck draws and plays your bishops very reliably. And buying the penultimate province is a losing move unless you have a lede of at least 21 VP, as the opponent can also play 5 bishops and buy the last province.

But if you have played a game where the Bishop/Fortress golden deck loses against an engine also based on Bishop and Fortress, I'd be very interested to see the log.

61

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 14, 2022, 08:24:40 am »

What makes Collection + Stampede different than Fortress+Bishop, for example? Even if Collection gives far more points-per-turn, that shouldn't matter, should it? All that matters is that you've build a deck which generates any number of points per turn where you don't want to buy any card to add to the deck.

The difference is that you can beat Fortress+Bishop by building an engine that uses Fortress and Bishop to score points faster than the golden deck can, whereas Stampede's 5-card limit prevents you from incorporating it in an engine, and nothing can beat 50 VP/turn.

I think most Bishop/Fortress kingdoms won't have an engine alternative that gets more than 12 VP per turn and can be set up as fast as the Golden deck.

It doesn't have to be set up as fast as the golden deck, you have infinite time as long as you can, at some point in the future, play more than 4 Bishops per turn on average.

I thought you were referring to an engine that gets >12 VP at least partially from VP cards, which would have to be fast enough to compete against the golden deck.
However, if you manage to play more than 4 Bishops per turn forever at some point, you've just created an even better golden deck. If the opponent also mirrors that better deck, you get the same stalemate problem, only at a later point.

62

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: The highest Plateau

« on: June 14, 2022, 08:11:25 am »

In multiplayer games, I get the highest number for challenge 1 with the following kingdom:

Card                   Number of $2 cards (including starting cards)
Imp gainer          13
Pixie                   11
Tracker               11
Bauble                10 (+any number of Favors)
6 other $2 cards: 60
Estates:              15
                         -------------
                         120 $2 cards, for 240 VP

63

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 13, 2022, 05:30:45 am »

I seem to remember reading this exact same conversation many years ago, when Prosperity first came out and people discovered KC+Goons+Masquerade.

KC+Goons+Masquerade was fine because as soon as someone was doing that, you had a clear winner and the other player could resign. Collection+Stampede results in both players starving to death, unless one of them failed to do it.

Yes, the Masquerade pins did not usually* lead to unending games (only to very unfun ones). But still Donald later changed Masquerade to a much more complicated wording just to get rid of those pins...

*Except in combination with VP tokens, when the pinned player has an unsurmountable lead...

64

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 13, 2022, 05:08:13 am »

What makes Collection + Stampede different than Fortress+Bishop, for example? Even if Collection gives far more points-per-turn, that shouldn't matter, should it? All that matters is that you've build a deck which generates any number of points per turn where you don't want to buy any card to add to the deck.

The difference is that you can beat Fortress+Bishop by building an engine that uses Fortress and Bishop to score points faster than the golden deck can, whereas Stampede's 5-card limit prevents you from incorporating it in an engine, and nothing can beat 50 VP/turn.

I think most Bishop/Fortress kingdoms won't have an engine alternative that gets more than 12 VP per turn and can be set up as fast as the Golden deck.

IMO, the best solution is to just add an official rule to resolve games in which neither player can force a win - which can happen not just with golden decks, but also with Possession, Smugglers and others.
 
Such games should either be declared a tie, or the game should end after a certain number of turns in which the game does not make any progress - say, when the total number of cards in the supply has not decreased over 20 consecutive turns, and the VP difference between the players has not changed either.

Either solution would mirror chess rules (the stalemate rule / the 50-turns rule), a game which has been known for centuries to produce lots of "un-endable" games by design.

65

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hinterlands Second Edition "leaked"

« on: June 08, 2022, 12:30:24 pm »

I wonder how far these second editions will go? Will Dark Ages get one? It'd be nice to finally see Rebuild and Cultist go, but I'm not sure there are enough other cards to be replaced. Adventures? I hope not, I'd hate to see Miser replaced. Or is Hinterlands it?

I assume that Dark Ages 2E is ready and waiting to be announced.  In past musing about second editions, DXV has listed a number of things that he would like to see changed.  So I am sure that it will be part of this binge of releases. Beyond that:
[...]

I don't think so, since the recommended Seaside 2E/Dark Ages kingdoms in the rulebook only contain 10 existing DA cards. If DA 2E was about to be released, chances are that the recommended kingdoms would include some replaced DA cards, like they do for Base, Intrigue, Prosperity and Hinterlands. (I suppose Donald could intentionally have only used remaining DA cards in order to not spoil a DA 2E. But as I understand his post in this thread, he intentionally included lots of Hinterlands 2E cards in the rulebook as a "hidden" spoiler for careful readers to discover.  )

Also, Donald X. is only human - I wouldn't expect him to have two full expansions and three 2nd editions ready to publish in just one year.

66

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside 2E and Prosperity 2E Update Packs

« on: June 07, 2022, 09:26:12 am »

Does someone know when/whether RGG will publish the update packs in German? With Base and Intrigue, they combined all new cards into an extra 14-card "expansion" in Germany, but didn't sell either update pack separately AFAIK.

BTW, doesn't RGG have a German-language website? I couldn't find it with a web search, and RGG's English website doesn't have a button to switch languages/countries either...

RGG publishes games in English, and has foreign partners for other languages. The current foreign partner for German is Altenburger. It's up to Altenburger as to whether or not update packs come out in German. I don't know what their plans are there.

Thanks for the information! I had thought that RGG publishes the German games itself (after having terminated the Hans im Glück cooperation years ago), as the German boxes only show RGG's logo, not Altenburger's. (see e.g. https://kartenspiel-dominion.de/dominion-das-spiel/,  https://kartenspiel-dominion.de/erweiterungen/dominion-empires-erweiterung/ ).

67

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hinterlands Second Edition "leaked"

« on: June 05, 2022, 06:31:04 am »

9 new cards will likely mean that 9 existing cards will be removed, as Hinterlands 1E only has 8 blanks.

In principle two VP cards could be replaced by Actions/Treasures to make room for a 27th card. But with Farmland staying this seems very unlikely - I don't expect Tunnel and Silk Road to both leave.
Or Cache could become an Event, but that would mean "retroactively" introducing an extra mechanics just for one "card".

68

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Interview with Donald X.

« on: June 05, 2022, 05:33:16 am »

I’m guessing 450 cards plus metal tokens and mats is a no-go.

You don't really need mats for Coffers... just put the coin tokens on the table next to your deck. As all other uses of coin tokens do have mats (Villagers, Favors, the removed Pirate Ship), there's no risk of confusion.

I suppose 450 cards plus coin tokens would still be more expensive to produce than most other expansions, though. FWIW, in Germany there was (is?) a mixed box with Alchemy and Cornucopia.

69

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside 2E and Prosperity 2E Update Packs

« on: June 05, 2022, 05:20:52 am »

Does someone know when/whether RGG will publish the update packs in German? With Base and Intrigue, they combined all new cards into an extra 14-card "expansion" in Germany, but didn't sell either update pack separately AFAIK.

BTW, doesn't RGG have a German-language website? I couldn't find it with a web search, and RGG's English website doesn't have a button to switch languages/countries either...

70

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Seaside and Prospeirity 2nd Editions

« on: June 03, 2022, 10:29:27 am »

I expect many casual players don't even get the idea to open double Ambassador to aggressively get rid of your starting cards, because they tend to underestimate deck-thinning.

And not making any progress can easily happen with remaining cursers like Witch - I hate to remember my base-only 4 player games where everyone bought a Witch or two early. A friend of mine accidentally played 2 player games with all 30 curses in the pile (!), and didn't mind it much.

From my own casual plays with friends, Contraband was quite popular with them, even though they unintentionally made it even weaker by playing it after their other treasures...
The replacement sounds better for "good" players, but for casual players the original might be more fun IMO. It feels more interactive than many attacks to be able to prevent an opponent from buying a Province (or a Gold or a cheaper card), without knowing which card they want or can afford..

71

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #153: Prosperity Revised

« on: June 01, 2022, 12:27:58 pm »

Update 1:

Risky Bet
Action - 3$
You may play a treasure costing up to $5 from your hand twice. For each $1 it would give you, instead get $1, +1 card, +1 action. You cannot play any more copies of it this turn.

A storyteller variant that can turn coppers into a lost city of sorts, and similar for other treasures, but you are barred from playing more copies of the card. limited it to 6$ treasures cause platinums are so expensive and good that the drawback doesn't matter there.

Unsure about the power level of this card: On some boards, it seems super strong, and its drawback doesn't matter really (like if you just got one gold or plunder anyway). On others, especially ones you can't thin and get rid of coppers, it seems weak as you can't play the other coppers you draw. But i like the core concept a lot.

Treasures/combos its busted with potentially:
Capital (12 Cards and actions!!! and gold wtf); Stockpile(?); Some heirlooms like goat; Counterfeit; philosophers stone, but that seems fine tbh cause that card sucks; and of course, capitalism.

Potential ideas to fix it: Remove the money gain, similar to storyteller; Change the "$6" treasure limitation to "treasure that gives $2"

i await feedback.[/size]

Updated to V2

It's still far too strong IMO: whenever you play it with Silver, RB effectively becomes a card giving +4 cards, +4 actions and +$2, i.e. three Labs, three Villages and two Peddlers put together in one $3 card.  The drawback hardly mitigates this, since you don't have to buy many Silvers to reliably draw one in an engine.

Compare with Merchant, which only becomes a single Peddler when colliding with silver.

72

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 1

« on: June 01, 2022, 07:17:10 am »

It's part of a standard recommendation: don't put cards with setup instructions in the Black Market deck unless that setup instruction is already included in the kingdom.

That sounds reasonable, but has this ever been stated as an "official" recommendation by Donald/RGG? The original card's FAQ didn't mention anything like this, as there were no other cards with setup instructions back then.

Also, Charlatan does not really have a "setup instruction" as it doesn't add any extra piles/tokens/mats to the game. It only changes the playing rules for Curses, which are in every kingdom anyway.

73

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 3

« on: June 01, 2022, 07:03:48 am »

I'm not going to miss either Royal Seal or Talisman. I'm pretty surprised at Goons being removed but the replacement card is quite a good substitute especially as I was never really fond of the attack part of Goons. I quite like the other replacement cards too.

Glad that Hoard stayed, and approve of the tweaks to it and Quarry.

One thing that puzzles me is that although Prosperity started with the same number of cards as Base Game, Intrigue and Seaside, it has not increased the number of cards in the set by one, remaining at 25 rather than 26. Hence I thought there would only be two more cards removed from this collection, rather than three.

Prosperity has two extra piles (Colony and Platinum) which take up space. All expansions have a total number of cards (including blanks) divisible by 50, and most have a total number of cards divisible by 100 (presumably due to printing issues). So a single extra kingdom card was possible for Base, Intrigue and Seaside (since those sets each had 11+ blank cards or unnecessary "base card randomizers"), but not for the already "full" 300-card Prosperity set.

I would have liked the set to be increased to 350 (or even 400) cards by keeping some of the removed cards, though. I'd have liked to keep Venture and Loan at least, and Contraband is a fun interactive card for casual players...

74

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Prosperity 2E Preview 1

« on: May 30, 2022, 03:34:25 pm »

"DXV confirmed it on discord: if you put Charlatan in the Black Market deck, Curses will be Treasures (and of course the recommendation is to not put it in the deck)."

The ruling makes sense, but why is that not recommended? It could make for an interesting change in a game with other cursers, where they give out better junk but don't have to compete with Charlatan as a kingdom card.

75

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Builder / Conqueror

« on: May 30, 2022, 01:42:46 pm »

One thought about original Rebuild is that you may have a deck with few Victory cards (i.e. strong deck, all other things being equal) and it still works.
With a card that expands Victory cards from your hand, you want to green earlier than you normally would to make the card powerful enough, making your deck more sluggish. Wouldn’t that tone down the power of a cantrip Victory card "expander"?

It depends on the board. On a BM board Rebuild-from-hand (Rfh) would indeed be weaker than original Rebuild since it's harder to line it up with a VP card unless you green very early. But on an engine board where you draw (most of) your deck, you can still reliably play Rfh six times (on the starting Estates) before you need new fodder for it, at which time your engine can probably support the extra VP cards; or you can just mill the Provinces instead to rush for an 18 VP win.