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Messages - dondon151

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51
Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Favorite Cards
« on: April 18, 2015, 05:37:56 pm »
I love the art for the Peasant > Teacher series. I hope jsh will share this opinion.

52
For those discussing Wine Merchant, it's not great, but the trick is playing more than one Wine Merchant so that you only pay the $2 once for all of them.

I am aware of this, but terminal coin at $5 with a drawback still seems extraordinarily weak. Wine Merchant seems to be on the same or lower power level as Mandarin or Harvest.

53
Wine Merchant offers flexibility in springing for something high cost soon (say a King's Court, Prince, or Forge) and then buying some low cost engine part to go with it on your next turn.

This is super obvious, my point was that I don't see a context in which Wine Merchant is remotely strong.

54
Game Reports / Re: Dominion VP ....glitch?
« on: April 18, 2015, 05:29:29 am »
You have 4 Provinces, 2 Harems, and a Farmland, totaling 30 points. Your opponent has 3 Provinces, 6 Nobles, and 7 VP chips, totaling 37 points. He played 2 Nobles on his turn before you resigned. The log displays your opponent as incorrectly having 33 points because he played 2 Nobles.

55
I remember seeing Wine Merchant in playtesting and thinking that it was super weak. I'm pretty sure it's been unchanged and I'm wondering if I'm missing something about how the card is supposed to be played...

EDIT: Raze resembles a certain $2 card in playtesting, thank goodness that got changed.

56
Game Reports / Re: Dominion VP ....glitch?
« on: April 18, 2015, 02:00:19 am »
The log loses track of cards that enter play. If a game ends mid-turn, cards that are in play are not considered to be in the player's deck.

57
2015 / Re: discussion: tournament structure
« on: April 17, 2015, 05:11:07 pm »
There is nothing confusing about a double elim bracket. Smash does double elim as the default tournament structure and no one is confused by it.

58
#bringbackiso

59
2015 / Re: discussion: tournament structure
« on: April 16, 2015, 11:17:58 pm »
I'd contend that even more "crazy stuff" happens in double elim brackets.

60
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Discussion about the Dominion meta
« on: April 16, 2015, 04:59:22 pm »
No, we write articles and get +1s.

You mean, we repeat Dominion memes and get +1s.

61
I think in the grand scheme of Dominion, a duration attack that increases costs isn't similar at all to Cutpurse. It wouldn't reduce handsize (which could be bad or good), it would work more often, and it would reduce the value of +buy. I would say that in the majority of kingdoms, a cost increasing attack would not play at all like Cutpurse.

62
Isn't the phrase "Generous Benefactor" redundant?

63
2015 / Re: it giet oan
« on: April 16, 2015, 12:37:06 am »
I don't think that I'll plan on participating, but Titandrake brought up double elim bracket and I fully support that idea. There was also the suggestion of double elim into single elim, but I think single elim into double elim (for top 48 or so) is better.

64
Game Reports / Re: Scrying Pool vs. Minion.... huh?
« on: April 14, 2015, 02:55:55 pm »
Sorry this is completely random, but would it ever be good on this board to buy Scouts as Forager fodder because coppers will stop your Scrying Pools from working?

What's the point of buying Scout as Forager fodder when you need the +buy from Forager trashing a Scout to buy a Scout?

65
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Best Dominion Moments 2015
« on: April 13, 2015, 11:40:55 pm »
You don't think HT is sufficient +buy once you're chaining KCs?  You can get to overdrawing your deck pretty quickly and do things like triple-HT followed by triple-Lab to redraw everything you discarded.  I played a few test games and emptied colonies in ~20 turns without stopping for Princess.

1 play of Princess amounts to producing $2 times the number of buys that you use, which should be greater than the $9 produced by a KC'd Horse Traders. 1 play of Diadem after KC + Labs should also yield much more than $9. Trusty Steed is worth noting because it can quickly provide Silver fodder that produces $ and provides cards to discard with Horse Traders, and it can function as +2 cards, +$2 otherwise.

With Princess in play, Gardens is a super cheap source of points that you can potentially pile out on. In any case, I'm not sure if Tournament is any good in an engine mirror, because piles are something to watch out for and I'm not sure if the Tournament will be able to generate the right prizes in time. I think it's worth it, though.

66
Dominion Articles / Re: Most skilled card in Dominion?
« on: April 12, 2015, 05:17:17 pm »
I'm not even sure that you want SP at all in that kingdom. Apprentice/MS is super strong and it gets even stronger with Rats.

67
Dominion Articles / Re: Most skilled card in Dominion?
« on: April 12, 2015, 02:12:34 pm »
Based on the discussion in the other board, I am sure I am in the minority (at least of those speaking up), but I don't think the "combo" has to be so strong to be featured in a *short* article.  Maybe combo is just too strong of a word, but I think that pointing out things like Goons/Watchtower and Horse Traders/Duke are very useful for someone who is learning the game. Perhaps "interesting interaction" articles would sound more palatable.

In the case of interesting interactions, I think the best way to approach that is to not focus on a single interaction but rather a class of interactions. There are far too many possible synergies between cards in Dominion, and players don't improve at the game through memorizing every single possible interaction - they have to be able to quickly evaluate combinations that they've never before seen.

Another problem with rattling off "combos" that are weak on the spectrum of card interactions is that they lead novice players to misjudge their strength. HT/Duke is great in the absence of an engine, but decent engines will beat it.

Contrast this to a true combo like Hermit/MS, where if you don't know how to play the mirror, you will lose almost every time.

EDIT: I should point out that a substantial number of Combo of the Day articles are combos that I've never, ever used to my advantage, e.g., Golem/Counting House, Ambassador/Pirate Ship, Caravan/Vault, etc.

68
I'm not sure if you care about interactions with cost reducers, but consider changing the wording to "if it costs less than this, put it in your hand" for more elegance. It also lets the card draw $3 cost cards on the next turn, which I think is a necessary change because right now this just looks like a weak Caravan with minor interactions with trash for benefit cards.

69
Dominion Articles / Re: Most skilled card in Dominion?
« on: April 12, 2015, 01:10:29 am »
I know some people don't think Combo articles are worthwhile anymore, but that is one I hadn't seen before.  I think it is more worthy of a short combo article of anything I've seen mentioned in a while.  (Related also to the "Bring back the front page" discussion)

There aren't that many "true combos" in Dominion. There are a huge number of possible positive interactions between cards, but the ones that deserve a combo article are only the ones that can form a strategy all by themselves and are not substantially helped by the presence of another card.

So combos like Trader/Feodum, Hermit/MS, Ironworks/Gardens, etc. would qualify in my opinion, but positive interactions such as Goons/Watchtower or Horse Traders/Duke that used to get featured articles on the front page don't seem to be worth mentioning.

70
I feel like Council Room BM should not buy Duchy over Gold until it has at least 4 Provinces. I also don't think that it should buy Province before its first Gold (which Lord Bottington did in both games).

71
I guess that's true, but if it's a game where you really can't afford anything better than a $2, why would you need the extra buys? And if it's some leftover change after a Province or double Province, you probably don't want to go mucking up your deck with a terminal copper.

Didn't Stef famously buy an Herbalist for $11 or something? +buy is important for engines.

72
I stop buying cheap cards whenever I'd also stop buying expensive cards like Adventurer.

73
Dominion Articles / Re: The 10 words card summary challenge
« on: April 09, 2015, 05:08:42 pm »
Okay, so there are several things wrong here. Beating a BM strat doesn't mean that a rush combo is good. Most kingdoms will actually have substantial card interactions that will yield strategies superior to BM.

Simulating CSM + Gardens vs. Double Jack doesn't say much about the power of CSM + Gardens. Double Jack probably isn't optimized on this kingdom even with updated buy rules to include Gardens. I'm going to hazard a guess that CSMs + single or double Jack that prioritizes Province over Gardens but can compete for Gardens if necessary is better than CSM + Gardens rush.

The problem with Gardens rush strategies in general is that they're so easy to catch up to in points and they commit so hard to the strategy that it's impossible to recover. Deny some Gardens, get Provinces. A Gardens rush strategy has significant problems buying higher VP cards.

A lot of what's great about Ironworks is how its nonterminal when you want it to be and you gain one card for each Ironworks you have in hand - and those advantages in a way apply to CSM.

No they don't. IW guarantees you at least 1 Gardens and however many extra IWs you can get with collisions per play. CSM doesn't guarantee you anything except for a Copper per play. IW's advantage is that it empties piles super quickly; IW and Gardens are guaranteed and the third pile can just be another cheap Action card or Estate. CSM doesn't empty piles as quickly. If you load your deck with CSMs, you're on average producing less than $5 per turn, which isn't even enough to buy Gardens + CSM or Estate.

IW and Beggar are strong enough such that if you see either with Gardens in a kingdom, you can abandon all other thought and just go for the combo and still have a reasonable win rate. There's no way that CSM comes even close to that amount of power.

74
Dominion Articles / Re: The 10 words card summary challenge
« on: April 09, 2015, 03:55:41 pm »
I'd probably go with:

Gardens: Alt VP aids engine, but rush if Ironworks is present.

Seems to capture the essence of the card nicely. There are a handful of really strong interactions between Gardens and another card (Beggar comes to mind), but I think in the majority of kingdoms, Gardens is just standard alt VP. Most Gardens rushes in 2-player lose to halfway decent engines, and without specific combos, they're also nothing special.

75
Dominion General Discussion / Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #3: Moat
« on: April 09, 2015, 04:08:39 am »
I get it, it's there, but it's a small thing and I think the rule of awarding ties with unequal turns to player two does enough to mitigate it.
And bad draws, well, YMYOSL.

As for tourneys, any tourney worth playing in will have opponents play equal numbers of games as player one anyway.
Maybe first player matters more in some games than others but, hey, it's a card game, there's some randomness involved.
If you really want to make a tourney as fair as possible, you can play each kingdom twice taking turns as player one.

I personally don't believe it's that big a deal.
Usually the better player wins.

There are so many contentious points in this post that I don't know where to start.

First player advantage is not mitigated by player 2 winning on ties with uneven turns. First player advantage has been shown to exist in simulation, and every top player will agree that first player advantage exists in almost every sort of kingdom with player 1 having a win rate of 55% or greater assuming skill is controlled.

Your use of the YMYOSL meme is inappropriate in this context. Assuming that every deck strikes the proper balance between speed and consistency, there is usually a point at which consistency has to be sacrificed for speed in order to maximize win rate. YMYOSL also doesn't invalidate the fact that player 1 has more leniency than player 2 when it comes to not losing a split. This has been observed whether the split in question is a victory card or an important supply pile. Player 2 only has to have bad luck once in order to lose a split; player 1 must have bad luck twice.

A tournament with elimination is not designed to have both players play equal numbers of games as first player. You can't guarantee a set winner with an even number of games if all of the games end in a win and a loss.

The 2012 f.DS championship rules were that the higher seed was player 1 in game 1 and the winner of a game would be player 2 in the subsequent game. Therefore, it was important to win game 1 to maintain first player advantage through the entire set, and in order to claim first player advantage from a disadvantageous position, you had to win as player 2.

Requiring that players play a kingdom twice is not fairer. The second play of a kingdom is more informed and more optimized than the first play of a kingdom. Suppose that Mic Q and I play a kingdom twice, the first time with him being player 1. Since I'm probably now a substantially worse player, suppose that I pick a bad strategy and Mic Q picks a near-optimal one. Now in game 2 where I'm player 1, I can copy Mic Q's game 1 strategy (with appropriate modifications) and get a win in a kingdom where I was completely outplayed game 1. In this case, since I am very likely to lose game 1, I could just use that as an opportunity to sandbag, experiment, and note what a better player does so that I can use that information in game 2 when I'm player 1.

Finally, all of this is a dumb digression. In the game that I posted, the fact remains that by buying Moat, I took a match that would otherwise have ended in a draw or a loss and turned it into a win. This demonstrates an instance in which Moat was a good card.

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