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51

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Cards That Combo With Tunnel Reaction

« on: November 10, 2011, 05:59:05 pm »

YW/Tunnel is quite insane. Simulating this beats just about anything (but I noticed a little bug that excess terminal actions are discarded before the tunnel)

what play rules do you recommend for this?  single tunnel and single young witch?  i've only played one game with the combo (my first game with it, back during the week tunnel came out) but i ended up with a few of each and i think i made a mess of it.

You know, that would explain a lot. The first couple games I played with Tunnel both had YW, and I thought they were being dominated by the Tunnel, but then I found that many other combinations that *could* activate the Tunnel tend not to do so fast enough... yeah. Some decent Tunnel enablers I've seen are Cartographer, Oracle (one of its few notable points), and Warehouse, but it seems like all of them pale in comparison to YW. The YW's filter effect helps you dig to the golds you're gaining by discarding the Tunnels, and the cursing makes it much harder for your opponents to counterattack... It's a doozie alright.

52

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: November 03, 2011, 08:58:07 pm »

I'm inclined to say that Cache is underrated, although I haven't played all that many games where I wanted to buy it, the few times I did, I felt like it helped substantially. I'm pretty sure it's better than Counting House. It's definitely not better than IGG.

One thing I feel like hasn't been discussed is when to buy a card that costs less than you have. There are definitely times when, given $5, I'd rather take a $4 card. One of the nice things about Cache is that it's not a terrible buy at any given time. It helps your buying power pretty well, and it fuels things like Stables and Spice Merchant quite nicely. And yes, it's pretty slick in a Gardens deck.

I haven't yet figured out how to use Jack of All Trades properly, I guess. I've been able to do just fine without it in most boards. It's certainly pretty OK most of the time, but I feel like (as its name implies) it's not especially good at any of the things it does. Not being able to trash Coppers is a pretty big drawback.

I agree with most of the OP's sentiments, though. Tunnel is pretty nuts a lot of the time. (Incidentally, Oracle goes pretty well with Tunnel). Develop is awful almost every time. Tournament needs to be on the best list because it dominates games far too often -- even Colony games. Trader is AWESOME. The mere fear of Trader can stop Curse-givers in their tracks ("what if my Mountebank gives him double-Silver instead? Maybe I shouldn't play it at all!"), and that's not to talk about

Another thing that would be interesting to discuss would be cards' early-game / mid-game / late-game potential. Obviously Menagerie is terrible early game and amazing late-game. Less obviously, Swindler gets a lot less good late-game when it's as likely to swap your opponent's Province for another Province than it is to turn their Copper into a Curse. Saboteur is an obnoxious card because it's worse than zero-sum for the game as a whole and it's also very luck-based... but that's exactly why it gives you chance of staging a comeback when the relatively-similar Swindler is as likely to accelerate your demise.

53

Dominion Articles / Re: Why is Potion a bad card?

« on: October 03, 2011, 07:06:55 pm »

I tend to avoid buying potions in many games because in my experience they don't lead to victory points.

There are only two $P cards that make a direct, material difference in your victory points and the VP of your opponent(s): Vineyard, and Familiar. Both are situationally excellent cards, but not always good.

The problem is, Potion doesn't help you buy the cards that let you win. $6+P frustrates me, because I know I could've just bought a silver instead of that potion and have $8 instead. Potion also doesn't let you buy cards like Gold and Platinum that are crucial for getting those high-point VP cards. That's why getting Potions late is really bad: excepting Vineyard, potions just don't buy green cards when you really need them.

So if you're going to sacrifice some of your ability to buy the REALLY important cards, you better have a good reason. Getting a few $P cards early can make your deck stronger in the midgame, but it also makes your deck weaker when you need every bit of money you can get to buy those game-winning Provinces. It's not a bad idea to trash your Potions (especially to, say, Apprentice) after you've gotten enough engine cards off of them.

That said, Vineyard is one of my favorite Alchemy cards. I love the feeling of people walking into my trap when I spend my first few turns buying a bunch of actions that don't seem to build up buying power... and then all of a sudden, I start my death-run towards buying out the Vineyards.