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Messages - Derg17

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1
I'm curious if sentry should typically be bought over junk dealer. I don't think I'd describe sentry as better but as having a high variance (it can be better or worse). Maybe I've had unusually bad luck with it, but I've had quite a few games of a "sad sentry" (where it hardly trashes anything at all) and I'm curious if that's not that unusual. The difference of a search space of 2 compared to 5 is a big deal. When sentry trashes 4 cards on it's first 2 plays that's awesome, and it cycles you like crazy, which is awesome. When it only trashes 2-3 was it actually better than the junk dealer? Probably not. Given junk dealer's economy, junk dealer is better at helping you get to your second junk dealer. IMO junk dealer and sentry are pretty equal, it just depends if you want to take the higher risk of the variance with sentry. (I'd probably rate both of them over upgrade). I could totally be wrong here, maybe most of the time sentry hits big and it propels your deck faster and the way you state it in the article is right on. I'd be interested in other's thoughts.

Small item that might be too much of a detail to fit in: One downside to sentry I'm not sure you mention is its propensity to miss the shuffle. It is a very sad day when your opening 5 misses the shuffle and because it turns over two extra cards of your deck this will happen to it much more often.

2
Thanks Titandrake! Very fascinating! What if the history of Dominion also represented the stages that every new player must progress through? In the same way the community needed to learn all these things a new player needs to go through the same learning process. I personally came on the Dominion scene the day Isotropic died. I would describe my Dominion play as progressing through stages:

Stage 0) Learn the basic card mechanics
Stage 1) Learn cards in isolation (for example card articles)
Stage 2) Learn about card power rankings
Stage 3) Learn about the 5 decks types
Stage 4) "Depends on the kingdom" Learn how to read a kingdom as a whole
Stage 5) See the whole game from the beginning

When I found the Wiki I only knew a couple of expansions. [Edit: when I say "Wiki" here and later I actually more so am talking about the strategy blog.] So all I could do for fun was read Dominion articles on the cards I knew. It opened up a HUGE world to me. As a "stage 1" player I didn't know much about the cards or the game, so learning details about individual cards were all I could understand and gave me the fuel to beat players who didn't know this.

One important step for me is not mentioned in your history, learning card rankings. This was a game changer. I needed to learn that Mountebank is far stronger than Saboteur. I learned some of this from card articles, but here I could compare cards side by side.

After learning the 5 deck types, I remember a game that was a turning point in my Dominion life. A kingdom popped up that had a combo on it I recognized from an article I had read, I think maybe it was Scavenger/stash. I literally pulled up the article for reference during the game. I was thinking to myself - "this other guy is going to get schooled by my advanced play." I played the combo according to the set rules in the article. My opponent considered the board as a whole and played the same combo better but used other pieces in the kingdom that made it better. My article didn't mention these pieces... The lesson of course is obvious: it depends on the kingdom. Or to steal a phrase from another part of my life: context is king.

This game propelled me to be a stage 4 player. I realized I needed to read every card on the board and consider them together. A strategy that works for 9 of the cards on the board might be totally changed by the 10th card. This is where I personally see the golden age of Dominion coming alive. Because this work of seeing the whole board happens best by making and watching videos (or live streaming and spectating). I stopped reading articles and started to watch every WW video, when I ran out of his I moved on to Mic's. By watching these guys I learned about stage 5. Mic would say something crazy like "Grand Market isn't good here" and then the next game "Grand Market is amazing here." And I learned that Mic not only saw the whole board, but he also saw the whole game. He had in mind what his deck would look like and could make his opening judgements with that in mind. Don't get me wrong here, this concept of your deck needs to be updated regularly throughout the game!

So here is my point. I get sad when stage 5 players talk about the uselessness of the wiki, because stage 1 players need the Wiki! But it's totally true, once you reach stage 4 or 5 even when new cards come out you don't really need the article on them, you are able to learn them in the context of whole kingdoms and whole games. But the sad thing is that new players are stage 1-3 players. So if us stage 4 and 5 players talk the way we do we will confuse them when we say the articles are garbage, and we aren't interested in writing material for them because we see it as useless or hurtful to consider a card in isolation.

But furthermore this is why I see us as still in the golden age. Stage 4-5 is perfect for videos! And there are people making them! In a video and live streaming you can see and discuss a whole board, you can see the whole game and how to make decisions that way, and you can update your concept of the whole board and game regularly as the game progresses.

I would fight for more content for all stages! We need to make more stage 0-1 content, and stop talking about it like it's garbage. But we can also celebrate stage 4-5 content and enjoy that live steaming, spectating, and videos are the best place for that be discussed. Also I would argue that articles can be written at every level. A stage 0-1 player needs to learn that chapel trashing is good! Who saw that coming???? And a stage 2-3 player needs to learn that extra gaining in the game is a game changer. And we can know that "context is king/it depends on the kingdom" and live in the golden age of spectating and videos.

....or maybe this is all just an overly complicated way of saying I agree we need content for all skill levels :)

3
Game Reports / Re: Dear My Opponent: I am Sorry
« on: August 22, 2017, 02:49:08 pm »
I'm sorry that I found fortune in the black market and could afford it. I'm sorry that on turn 13 I could counterfeit my fortune and buy 6 provinces and 3 duchies.

How does Counterfeiting Fortune help? Just for the single extra buy?

Hmm good point, I was thinking it doubled my money twice, but obviously fortune doesn't double twice

4
Game Reports / Re: Dear My Opponent: I am Sorry
« on: August 22, 2017, 12:26:16 am »
I'm sorry that I found fortune in the black market and could afford it. I'm sorry that on turn 13 I could counterfeit my fortune and buy 6 provinces and 3 duchies.

5
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Help with Watchtower?
« on: May 12, 2017, 09:03:54 am »
Is Cache a reason to go for watchtower? I think your idea here is to trash the incoming coppers and get a "gold" for 5? But if the watchtower was just a copper you would have been able to just buy gold. I guess then you wouldn't be able to top deck it. But even so, watchtower/cache is worse than royal seal/gold. And I don't think Royal Seal/Gold is a power combo. So I suppose to answer your question I would suggest skipping watchtower on cache boards.

I would mostly suggest skipping Cache on Watchtower boards...  :P

Haha. Well said!

6
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Help with Watchtower?
« on: May 12, 2017, 12:16:29 am »
Is Cache a reason to go for watchtower? I think your idea here is to trash the incoming coppers and get a "gold" for 5? But if the watchtower was just a copper you would have been able to just buy gold. I guess then you wouldn't be able to top deck it. But even so, watchtower/cache is worse than royal seal/gold. And I don't think Royal Seal/Gold is a power combo. So I suppose to answer your question I would suggest skipping watchtower on cache boards.

7
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Most brutal possible game?
« on: May 03, 2017, 07:33:33 pm »
I once played a black market - museum game. It was the first game in a league match. That one game lasted one hour and 50 minutes. I recorded it if you have any desire to see the torture:

8
City Quarter - Rats

There was no other trashing. It's always fun to find a strong rats board.

9
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Beyond Awesome's Dominion Blog
« on: April 29, 2017, 09:51:12 am »
I've found conquest BM to be pretty strong. It won't beat a decent engine I don't think, but on a semi weak board I think it should be the standard play. You want to open silver silver (or equvilant) and just buy conquest every turn you can. If you spike 6 on turn three or four I think this becomes VERY strong. But even with normal shuffles you should be able to conquest almost every turn by turn 5 or 6. That's two silvers and two points every turn. By the time you opponent wants to green your deck has so many silvers it can reliably hit 8 and you have a bunch of points. Anyone else ever do this? I think conquest BM is a thing and should be the stand play on many boards. (Or maybe I've gotten lucky the 4-5 times I've done it?)

10
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Results
« on: February 11, 2017, 05:42:03 pm »
Unfortunately my schedule will not allow me to return next season. Hopefully I'll be back soon!

11
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Announcing Matches
« on: February 11, 2017, 10:45:55 am »
I will be playing schadd in 15 minutes.

12
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Announcing Matches
« on: January 24, 2017, 05:12:20 pm »
I'm playing against singletee in 3 hours and 20 minutes. 8:30 Eastern time. 1:30 UTC

13
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Player Ranking Poll
« on: January 24, 2017, 05:07:56 pm »
This is an interesting idea. It seems likely they got the first two right :)

14
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Game Reports & Discussion
« on: January 19, 2017, 01:53:12 pm »
Finally uploaded my match with drsteelhammer. He played very well. I learned some stuff!

First 5 games:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrCqt3y5fKU

Last game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQwDlIWev-A&t=275s

I need to figure out how to embed the video here.
I also need to figure out how to record from the browser rather than use display capture.

15
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Results
« on: January 17, 2017, 11:53:28 pm »
B1
Derg17 - vsiewnar 4-2

16
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Results
« on: January 12, 2017, 05:36:42 pm »
B1
drsteelhammer - Derg17 4-2

17
Dominion Online at Shuffle iT / Re: f.ds on ShuffleIT
« on: January 06, 2017, 10:06:51 pm »
Derg17.   See you guys around!

18
Dominion League / Re: Season 18 - Results
« on: December 11, 2016, 11:56:09 pm »
I will return

19
I'd be happy to play test. And I could recruit a good number of friends with low experience with Dominion.

20
Dominion General Discussion / Re: How many games have you played?
« on: November 23, 2016, 11:31:37 pm »
IRL: ~200?
Iso: 1, which I resigned because I didn't understand how to play
Goko/MF: 3061
Total: 3262

I blame my poor play in my league match today on my inexperience  :P
 

21
Dominion League / Re: Season 18 - Announcing Livestreams
« on: November 23, 2016, 02:13:49 pm »
Going live now! twitch.tv/derg17

22
Dominion League / Re: Season 18 - Results
« on: November 22, 2016, 05:52:06 pm »
Derg17 - gamesou 3-3

23
Dominion League / Re: Season 18 - Announcing Livestreams
« on: November 22, 2016, 03:30:03 pm »
Going live now! Link in signature. See you there!

24
Dominion League / Re: Season 18 - Announcing Livestreams
« on: November 21, 2016, 05:40:13 pm »
I will be streaming my match against gamesou tomorrow (Tuesday) at 20:30 UTC and my match against DG Wednesday at 19:15 UTC.

25
Dominion League / Re: Season 18 - Announcing Livestreams
« on: November 15, 2016, 06:07:05 pm »
I will be streaming my match against Dingan tonight. About 12 hours from now. 8 PM central (02:00 UTC)
Edit: we pushed this up 3 hours. 23:00 UTC now

Going live now

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