Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

26

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2017 Edition: Events

« on: January 23, 2018, 03:14:26 pm »

True. "Better than a ruin" is not a huge endorsement. But the ruins list is pretty clear that sometimes you want to buy ruined market. Seaway is RM + Lost City + $4 card. So anytime you want RM (~30% of the time), Seaway is incredible, superb, a must. I think that puts it above most events, as that's far from its only functionality.

Sorry for this, I tried to be a bit tongue in cheek, but I can see how it might have come off a bit as saying that Ruined Market is an actually good card. That's not true at all. There are situations where it shines and you even end up buying it, which is enough to easily make it the top ruin, but it's mostly an awful card in your deck that you should mostly try to thrash ASAP just like other ruins. In most games it works very much like the other Ruins, where it can give a very minor benefit that can occasionally matter. It's just that in heavy engine games, you should really watch out for Ruined Market, specially if it's the only source of +buy.

27

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards 2017 Edition: Hexes

« on: January 23, 2018, 02:43:15 pm »

I find Misery made me appreciate more the importance of free tiebreaker points. I don't think it's a top Hex by any means, but I found it more effective than I had supposed.

28

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards 2017 Edition: Boons

« on: January 23, 2018, 02:25:19 pm »

Boons are very hard to rank, because their strength varies greatly depending on what is their source. Like the only two fate cards that would have a similar looking Boons rank are Bard and Tracker, for all the other ones the list would be greatly different one from the other.

So I kind of feel like there might have been wildly different ratings criteria from different voters. I, for example, tried to use Bard and Tracker as my guides when evaluating, but now I think that doing some sort of mental average between the lists to be a more reasonable approach. 


Hexes are less problematic, because, I feel that considering them as attacks is somewhat of a natural approach (which means, that for example, I don't think the militia hex should get a worse position because it will almost always miss if you get it from Cursed Village).

29

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2017 Edition: Potion cost cards

« on: January 21, 2018, 10:03:34 am »

It's suggested here that Philosopher's Stone is at its best in slogs, so maybe it would be a good idea to reference Familiar. If one of the reasons given for the low ranking of Philosopher's Stone is that it's hard to justify the potion buy in slogs, then maybe Familiar, which it is suggested here almost mandates a potion buy, is worth mentioning in that context. Not the greatest combo in the world, sure, but the way these two cards were discussed seemed to suggest synergy that wasn't mentioned directly. Just a thought!

Yeah! That might be good to mention... I'll make a quick edit! Thanks!

30

Dominion League / Re: Season 25 - Results

« on: January 21, 2018, 09:36:10 am »

B2

gloures 4 - 2 gamesou

And I'll be returning next season!

31

Dominion General Discussion / The Dominion Cards Lists 2017 Edition: Potion cost cards

« on: January 20, 2018, 06:28:12 pm »

The Best Potion Cost Cards

And now we get to see the ranking of Potion cards! For these cards you always have to factor how and when you will get the Potion that's necessary to buy them. This is a big factor that affects the strength of all cards with this cost


We had 39 votes for this list, though some cards received 38 and Possession 36.

	#10 =0 Transmute (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 3.8%▲1.0pp / Unweighted Average: 4.5% / Median: 0% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 8.4% Transmute is a clear last place, it had 26 last place votes and 11 votes for second to last. So why is Transmute so bad? Turning Estates into Gold should be great right? The problem is that it's just sooo slow... Going for it requires you buying a Potion, then buying a Transmute with that Potion and lastly lining up the Transmute with Estate. In the best case scenario, this will happen in the third shuffle, by then the odds that you actually manage to get a hand with both Transmute and Estate are no longer very good, and even if you do, is that Gold worth two dead (or almost dead) cards in your deck? But that's not all that Transmute does, right? It can do other stuff too, it can transform your treasures into Transmutes, which could be a decent option, if Transmutes were actually any good. But that's a big if, I'd rather have the Copper most of the time. The other option of transforming actions into Duchies could be a good late game option, if you didn't have to have a Transmute already in your deck by then. Now when is Transmute actually worth it? The main case, should be when you already wanted to get another Potion cost card and didn't manage to reach the price point, Transmute can sometimes be better than nothing, specially with Familiar, it's good to remember it can still trash Curses. I have also already seen Transmute being effectively used against Cultist, where trashing a Ruin for a Duchy can be a good way to earn points in a game that will probably three pile.  I'd say Transmute makes a good case for being the worst kingdom card in Dominion
	#9 =0 Philosopher's Stone (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 9.6% ▼3.2pp / Unweighted Average: 9.6% / Median: 11.1% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 8.0% As a clear second to last place, Philosopher's Stone received 10 votes for last place and 25 for second to last. Now, I just spoke wonders about Transmute, yet for ten voters this card actually manages to be even worse than it... How can that be? Well, while I agree with the general community consesus that this is the better card, I can't say I do not understand those voters. Philosopher's Stone simply cannot work in any kind of engine, if you draw your deck this ends up worthless, and it doesn't help that pretty much every other potion cost card is an engine card (except Familiar, Philosopher's Stone can actually work pretty well if you happen to reach 3P after the early game in a Familiar slog). Phil Stone will only work well in a thick deck that doesn't draw itself, which mainly means slogs, it would be a great card to have in those terrible junking slogs, except that even in those games it's very hard to justify buying a Potion, since the chance that you get 3P with a junked deck is somewhat low. The main cases for getting a Philosopher's Stone would be when you can artificially bloat your deck with somewhat decent cards, silver flooding comes to mind, and Phil Stone can work somewhat fine in a deck that goes heavy on Delve or Trader for example. Specially if Colonies are present, since it both makes use of spikier turns PS provides and extends game duration which make PS worth more. There are also somewhat decent decent combos (though far from great) with both Herbalist and Storeroom which should be mentioned.
	#8 ▼2 Golem (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 28.9% ▼14.7pp / Unweighted Average: 36.9% / Median: 22.2% ▼22.2pp / Standard Deviation: 22.2% Now with a big jump of almost 20pp we have Golem, even though it was a big loser this year dropping two positions and almost 15pp. It received two first place votes and none for last. Now even though Golem's position is low in this list, being above two of the weakest Dominion cards, I wouldn't call Golem a bad card, it's just that, as you will see, competition is quite tough. Golem's effect when played is really strong, it's comparable (and probably better) to Lost City, which even with a on buy drawback got to #19 in the $5 list. However there a two major problems with Golem, the first is that it's one of the few cards in Dominion where you play without knowing if it's a terminal or not, this can lead to a few awkward situations in decks that have a good number of terminals. The other, and biggest issue is it's cost. 4P is an incredibly awkward cost, specially for such a clear engine card. It's a cost where you can't really count on reaching unless you end up playing something moneyish or you already have a somewhat decent engine running. Now, in the first case Golem is simply not that great and in the second it might be hard justifying taking such a big detour to get Golem. That said, it's easy to see why one of the biggest friends of Golem is other Potion cards that you actually want (pretty much all the ones above). In other cases, if Golem is necessary to run an engine, you will still frequently go for it, and at least you get to buy something useful if you end up with 3P... (I'll get to talk more about that when we reach Familiar)
	#7 ▼3 Apothecary (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 48.9% ▼13.1pp / Unweighted Average: 46.0% / Median: 44.4% ▼18.1pp / Standard Deviation: 19.9% Another jump of 20pp and another big loser. Apothecary drops three positions and close to 13pp since last year. Even with this low placement I'd say Apothecary is a strong card, it's just that it's understandable that Potion cards have to be strong to justify investing in the Potion (when they aren't you end up with Phil Stone and Transmute). An early Apothecary is a great early game accelerator since it both draws a lot and helps reach higher price points and even if you end up trashing your Coppers afterwards Apothecary's ability to reorder the top of your deck while still being a cantrip should not be ignored. All in all a very solid card. A few things that might make me avoid Apothecary are strong thrashers that will get rid of copper too quick for Apothecary to be useful, and other strong competing lines of play which might get hurt by having to get a Potion on the opening.
	#6 ▲1University (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 54.0% ▲11.8pp / Unweighted Average: 52.8% / Median: 55.6% ▲11.2pp / Standard Deviation: 18.6% One of the winners of this year, University rises one position and almost 12pp. It's a village and it gains 5 cost actions, the most important price point in Dominion! What's there more to say?? This should be a great card! And it is, just not without some very noticeable drawbacks. Being a stop card means that there are only so many Universities you can get before they actively start to hurt your deck, this can be specially annoying if you are relying on them as your only source of +Actions. Also a big thing is how it's one of the only gainers that cannot (usually) gain Victory cards, so unlike other gainers, this cannot be used to catch up on points and it frequently makes it so that this becomes nothing more than an expensive Necropolis in the endgame. That said I would like to highlight that this is a really good card, being one of the best cards for building an engine in the game and that I feel like it's rise in the rankings is fully deserved.
	#5 ▲3 Possession (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 59.7% ▲21.4pp / Unweighted Average: 58.0% / Median: 55.6% ▲22.3pp / Standard Deviation: 24.3% This holds the dubious honor of being by far the most hated card in Dominion, yet this has nothing to do with this list (though one last place vote might disagree), and Possession finally gets some much deserved recognition for it's power by rising three positions and over 20pp (I'd add that I feel like this could rise even more in the future). Possession is kinda the ultimate engine payload. At the very high price of 6P it get's you another full turn, without having to have a smaller starting handsize or having restrictions in what you can buy, smaller starting hands and in how many extra turns you can get (I'm curious if the people over at the at the Puzzles Forum have already managed to find a way to play Possession an arbitrary amount of times). The only caveat is that you do it with your opponent's deck and not yours. This rise in the ranking, I fell that is very much influenced by how we saw a big rise in how strong engines are perceived over the last year (rise which was caused either by having more engine cards in recent expansions or by the community getting better at playing, although I'd say both factors are very present). Playing better engines leads to getting Possession earlier and playing it more frequently, making it a real powerhouse in many boards. This rise in Possession also ends up aggravating just how much people hate it, which is something completely understandable as it warps the game in a way where you often end up wanting to destroy your own deck. It can also lead to stalemates (with Donate reaching the stalemate is almost a given) and it works somewhat poorly with Ambassador, Masquerade and debt cards. A noteworthy fact is how it can warp trash for benefit cards, since your opponent can safely trash your expensive cards without worrying about any consequenses.
	#4 ▲1 Alchemist (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 61.5% ▲3.2pp / Unweighted Average: 62.0% / Median: 66.7% ▲11.1pp / Standard Deviation: 18.1% Also rising one rank and 3pp is Alchemist. This lab variant is really strong, being great draw and also providing amazing consistency for an engine, you should go for this much more often than not. This card poses an interesting conundrum, of whether you should risk opening Potion for this and not getting 3P on the second shuffle, or wait a bit to get the Potion after you can do that more reliably, I have seen success and failure with both approaches
	#3 =0 Vineyard (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 62.9% ▼8.1pp / Unweighted Average: 62.2% / Median: 66.7% ▼11.1pp / Standard Deviation: 23.9% Vineyard keeps it's rank, but loses over 8pp. it also has the second highest deviation on this list after Possession. Of all the alternative Victory cards (or pretty much all Victory cards, alternative or not) in Dominion, Vineyard is by far the one who is easiest to get crazy amount of points. all it needs is a decent source of plus buy and some cheap cards, or some decent gainer. But even in any common engine, Vineyards are a great way to green as long as there is some +buy, since it allows you to score points while still building continuously. When to get Potions and how many will you get, are some of the questions that will almost always arise when playing with this card.
	#2 =0 Familiar (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 74.0% ▼0.6pp / Unweighted Average: 73.3% / Median: 77.8% =77.8pp / Standard Deviation: 21.5% Familiar stays pretty much the same as last year. It's the only unconditional nonterminal junker in the game, and this is enough to make it one of the strongest cards in the game. Being a cantrip curser makes it so it's very easy to chain Familiars together to quickly bury your opponent in curses, with the drawback that it's Potion cost makes it so it's not as easy to quickly get a good number of Familiars in your deck. Familiar also ends up getting a lot of (deserved) hate due to it's cost. It's a card that really pushes for a Potion opening, and opening Potion/Silver you have a roughly 35% chance of missing 3P on turns 3/4, and when players end up on opposing sides of that odds, it frequently leads to very one sided games, as 2P hands often mean a dead turn and the cursing effect of Familiars makes it so it's even harder for the opponent to reach 3P in the future, which can lead to a very uneven Curses split. One extra positive point about Familiar, is that unlike most other cursers, it also rarely hurts your deck after the Curses are gone.
	#1 =0 Scrying Pool (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 97.9% ▲4.3pp / Unweighted Average: 95.1% / Median: 88.9% =100pp / Standard Deviation: 9.9% What's there to say about Scrying pool? It's a clear winner in this list again and it even manages to get over 4pp more getting to an overwhelming 97.9pp score, having been voted first 28 times, and all that with some pretty amazing competition. Scrying Pool is just bonkers. Possibly the best draw card in the game, and it's nonterminal! The only potential drawback this card has, it's that a bit slow to get going, but still, it's simply amazing and one of the very top Dominion cards. One common complain about Scrying Pool is how it frequently makes games take a very long time, it not only enables gigantic engines which naturally take long to play out, but it also is a card that involves a lot of decisions (though usually simple ones), one of the culprits of this, is the attack that this card possesses, that, while sometimes it can be somewhat useful, it's pretty much never a thing that influences your decision to go for Pools.

I'd like to end this, by thanking Qvist for all the work he has put throughout the years in making these very cool lists for the community!

32

Dominion General Discussion / The Dominion Cards Lists 2017 Edition: Ruins

« on: January 20, 2018, 12:50:48 am »

The time you were all waiting for is finally here, you all don't need to wait anymore, the ranking everyone was waiting for is finally ready: Ruins!!

We had 27 votes for this list.

The Ruins

	#5 =0 Ruined Village (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 1.8% ▲1.0pp / Unweighted Average: 0.9% / Median: 0% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 4.7% In almost unanimous agreement the community decides that this is the worst ruin. Only one person did not vote it last (it is noteworthy, though, that this one person managed to make the weighted score be double the amount of the unweighted score). Outside of some edge cases (Conspirator and Peddler being the main ones) this is simply a dead card in your deck, the action it gives is no more than the action you had just spent playing it. This is a pretty deserved position for this card.
	#4 ▼1 Survivors (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 37.4% ▼12.4pp / Unweighted Average: 38.0% / Median: 25% ▼25pp / Standard Deviation: 17.2% The biggest loser of this year's ranking. Survivors drops one place and over 12 pp. At the cost of one action, Survivors provides a very marginal benefit, but also never hurts you when played. It can be good whenever you want topdeck inspection, but I feel like it's fall is deserved.
	#3 ▲1 Ruined Library (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 46.3% ▼1.2pp / Unweighted Average: 48.2% / Median: 50% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 20.3% Ruined Library goes up a place since last year, but doesn't really improve it's overall score. It also gets the one last place vote that Ruined Village did not get. One might think that Ruined Library should be above Abandoned Mine, since +cards is generally more valuable than +coins, but +1 card in a terminal is just kinda very awkward to play. Unless you have extra actions there is a good chance that this simply ends up drawing dead an action you actually wanted to play, which is usually a really bad result.
	#2 =0 Abandoned Mine (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 67.9% ▲1.7pp / Unweighted Average: 67.6% / Median: 75% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 21.3% Almost 30 pp below Ruined Market and more than 20pp above Ruined Library, Abandoned Mine is a pretty clear second place. It's weighted score remains pretty much the same as last year and it gets four first place votes. Abandoned Mine is the ruin where you most often is happy to play, if you have the extra action the coin it provides can be crucial for reaching an specific price point you need, I have already seen lots of games where an Abandoned Mine managed to transform an $7 hand in $8 for a crucial Province buy.
	#1 =0 Ruined Market (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 96.6% ▲10.7pp / Unweighted Average: 95.4% / Median: 100% =0 / Standard Deviation: 11.9% To not much surprise at all Ruined Market gets the first place again and it even had a pretty nice boost of 10.7 pp in it's weighted average. It had a really high agreement between voters as only four voters did not put it in first, being three votes for second and one for third. The reason for this is quite simple, while in a majority of boards I would say that Abandoned Mine is the less bad ruin to have, all ruins except Ruined Market are really bad in 100% of boards. Ruined market is the only ruin where there are quite a few scenarios where it shines, making you actually want to buy it (there can even be a case for opening Ruined Market if it's possible), some games even have players trying to fish for it by digging through the ruins pile just to get to have a chance at buying Ruined Market (hopefully not having to actually buy those ruins). This shows just how powerful +buy can be. On clear engine boards where Ruined Market is the only +buy, a player who manages to snipe a Ruined Market might get a game winning advantage... Weren't ruins supposed to be bad?

Edit: I'll make a disclaimer here, which I think it's important, specially if some more inexperienced player ends up seeing this list. It's just that I tried to be a bit tongue in cheek, and I can see as how it might come off a bit as saying that Ruined Market is an actually good card. That's not true at all. There are situations where it shines and you even end up buying it, which is enough to easily make it the top ruin, but it's mostly an awful card in your deck that you should mostly try to thrash ASAP just like other ruins. In most games it works very much like the other Ruins, where it can give a very minor benefit that can occasionally matter, it's just that in heavy engine games, you should really watch out for Ruined Market, specially if it's the only source of +buy.

33

Dominion League / Re: Season 25 - Results

« on: January 11, 2018, 07:22:45 pm »

B2

gloures 5 - 1 amoffett11

34

Dominion General Discussion / Re: $3 Cost Card Rankings Bottom Half

« on: January 10, 2018, 05:01:41 pm »

The one card that I have never understood in these rankings is Watchtower, it's always rated way waaaay too high... I mean, it's a very cool card and it's still a good card that has has some flexibility, but it's far from being amazing like these rankings always suggest. It was one of the only two cards that I had in my bottom half that does not show up here (the other being Chariot Race at the precise cutoff point), and even if I may be underrating it, I would fully expect to see it here if I did not know the position it had reached on past lists...

35

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Meld

« on: January 10, 2018, 02:38:24 pm »

Wow! This is a really cool idea! Loved it... Nimble Chimera and Raging Chimera are both great cards! Only problem is that i feel that Majestic Chimera is way too weak, I think i would take Nimble over Majestic in most cases when given the choice. Of the top of my head one idea that seems worth testing is adding something like "if there were no matches, +1 Card'' it would push the card a little more towards wishing to what you actually want to draw, instead of what is more probable to have in the top of your deck and it would avoid the times where you play this as a sad Ruined Village.

36

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: December 11, 2017, 02:23:23 pm »

Pooka- There are many cases in Dominion where a card is much more than the sums of it's parts, Lab is Moat + Ruined Village, but it's far better than any of these two will ever be.

Just a note that this is wrong.

Moat + Ruined Village takes up two card slots in your hand and takes two Actions to play, while Lab takes up one slot and takes one Action. You have to look at the net effect: Lab is +1 Card, Moat is -1 Action and +1 Card, and Ruined Village is -1 Card. The net effect of Moat + Ruined Village is -1 Action. (If you play both, you will have the same number of cards as you started with, but one Action less.)

So an activated Menagerie = 2 Labs = Village + Smithy = (+2 Cards)

In Dominion a card is the sum of its parts, except for the different circumstances under which you get those parts. In the above equation, the Labs are more reliable.

Yeah, you're right of course, I worded what I meant really poorly. I wanted to say that sometimes an effect goes better together with an specific different effect than another. For example, even though Ruined Village is widely considered the worst ruined, if you add the +2 card effect to any other ruin the resulting card would be much weaker than Lab, just like adding an Action, to, for example, Pearl Diver, would result in an Village+ which i would also consider weaker than Lab. For different effects, it's also clear you could add the discard for coins effect from Vault to any other 2-cost other than Moat (or Faithful Hound) and you would have a weaker card than Vault. That's what i wanted to mean by being better than the sum of its parts.

Now in the Pooka case, you have an reasonably strong $6 card (Hunting Grounds) which gets added an generally desirable effect which is trash a treasure (I would say that I would take Moneylender over a terminal Gold in most boards) and the resulting effect is actually weaker than the original card, thus that's why I said it was weaker than the sum of it's parts...

37

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: December 10, 2017, 02:01:24 am »

I was initially a little skeptical about Nocturne, a good few cards seemed a bit like duds and Boons/Hexes seem to introduce to big of a random element. After the last few weeks of actually playing with Nocturne I can safely say that my skepticism is gone. Some Nocturne cards offer great tactical choices, and while there are some random elements, they are not as prominent as I initially suspected and ,also, even though, I believe there might be duds, a few of the cards I thought lowly of have grown on me over the last days, and most important of all I'm having a lot of fun playing in kingdoms with these cards!
So... After these few weeks playing I'll give my initial insights on these cards, do keep in mind that they might still be terribly wrong. I got carried away and decided to go a little more in depth here, sorry for the wall of text!

Druid- A combination of many cards in one, but it always has a buy so at the very least it can work like a Ruined Market...
I would divide the Boons in three categories, there's a few of them which make Druid an actual desirable card, a few of them that provide great support, they won't be the reason that you buy Druid, but are great boons to have as an option either to potentially save you from a dud, or to do something useful when you don't really want to do anything else and there's also a few boons that just make you sad to have as an option:
Makes you buy Druid Boons: Earth, Flame, Swamp
Support Boons: River, Sun, Wind, Field, Forest
Makes you Sad Boons: Moon, Sea, Sky, Mountain

Faithful Hound- You will either be very sad by having to use this as your draw, or you will use this in combos. Luckily there are quite a few nice combos for this doggy. Sifting cards stand out since you can make a nice increased iniatial handsize which these cards love. Forum stands out even more since  buys might otherwise cause some trouble. There are other tricks like Quest and Fool, but it's still not a great card.

Guardian - This actually plays somewhat different from Lighthouse, the timing on the buys is pretty crucial and not something I can claim to have really gotten the hang of yet. It's good to remember that it can't be drawn dead and that even without attacks the gain to hand can be useful in a late game dud.

Monastery- This is a very strong trasher, there are some nice tricks to do with it and in the right deck it can probably deal even with the most oppressive junkers. Do remember to trash the coppers from play tough...   

Pixie- The fact that you can wait till you find something you want makes Pixie a very nice card. Definitely one of the best 2-cost cantrips. Goat is nuts, but do keep in mind that it very often can help the Money strategy more than the Engine! One popular misconception is that money does not need trashing, but the actual problem is that money has a big tempo problem if going for trashing, since buys and terminal space is very limited, and good money is all about pressing really hard to keep an early lead. This is the reason that X/Trade is pretty much the best money variant for almost any X, with Trade money does not lose tempo by trashing.

Tracker- Topdecking is really nice, only reason Royal Seal gets so much hate is because the competition at 5 is so stiff, (and when it isn't then topdecking probably also isn't as nice), the boon can also be a nice bonus. If you aren't to pressed for terminal space having a Tracker will frequently be nice, better yet that since it comes with Pouch you will always have +buy available which can really reduce the opportunity cost of buying a Tracker. Pouch is a copper with a buy, when there's trashing available you will have to get a good reading on the kingdom to know if it's important to keep this or not.

Changeling- Really fun card, it's very good somewhat often, tough you'll probably won't end up buying it so much. Always keep an eyes on piles! When Changeling is good, there's a nice chance that it's pile will go down really fast, which in turn also causes the piles of it's most likely targets to go down fast, I have seen quite a few games where Changeling pileouts came out somewhat unexpectedly.

Fool- I think this might be a dud. Mostly because I don't think Lost in the Woods is really worth it, quite a few of the boons don't really love a 4 card hand. Most of the times I ended up getting this is because I felt like Lucky Coin had already given all the Silvers I needed and there was simply nothing better at 3. The on play effect is quite strong though and Lost in Woods grows in valor in slogs, but definitely one of the weaker cards here. Lucky Coin changes quite a bit how you approach openings, since it generally can provide all the early eco you need. It also really speeds up the game, specially Money based ones.

Ghost Town- A cool village, the +1 card at next turn definitely helps reliability a lot and the gain to hand makes it so sometimes you buy this even though you don't really need a village (specially in the endgame). The fact that it only gives +Actions every other turn can make it a bit wonky to build engines with this as your only village , specially if the pile is contested (even more so in multiplayer I guess). In general tough if a pile needs to be contested to make a strategy not work that's a testament to the strength of said card.

Leprechaun- this is a card that has grown on me, the Hexes don't hit as hard as I thought and Gold gaining can be quite nice. in a good engine this is very strong , but it can be good Gold gainer in slogs/money.

Night Watchman- A stronger card than I thought it would be, like Tracker does to Royal Seal, this shows that the biggest problem with Cartographer is the opportunity cost involved with the $5 price tag. Can set up future hands really nicely and speeds up cycling, the gain to hand is big since it has late game uses and can set up some really good early hands. Do keep in mind that it;s a stop card though so be careful to not go overboard with them.

Secret Cave- Secret cave can be a very good card if spiking an early 6 or 7 is really important, otherwise you will probably just get this as a $3 cantrip if you want to avoid Silver or to make it easier to activate your Magic Lamp. Magic Lamp is an awesome really fun card! And it's very very strong, you should probably aim to activate this every game and do not hesitate to do so even if it means not playing some good cards. I think that this might be even stronger than Goat.

Bard- Weak. The weakest card here., no matter what Awaclus says. You're only geeting this if you really want money from actions or if you have a lot of extra terminal space and the alternative is Silver.

Blessed Village- The fact that you can choose to gain the boon in the next turn makes almost all boons useful. And a Village will be pretty much always a good card. Among the $4 villages I think it would fall somewhat in the middle. One thing, try to remember to not play extra Coppers and such if you're planning to buy of these, quite a feel boons would benefit from that copper in hand.

Cemetery- This is a really strong thrasher if there ae any gainers. Otherwise it's a cool nice thrasher, but a bit wonky. It's still very strong tough. Haunted Mirror is nice and Ghost is quite strong, but I have seem people (myself included) go to great lenght to activate this and it just seemed not worth it.

Conclave- A village that let's you skip Silver, that's the main job Conclave does. It's quite nice early and you can probably activate one or two without much trouble later on. It will have a tough time making engines work by itself, but most engines can benefit from having one.

Devil's Workshop- A strong card, but really lacks flexibility. Imps are great, but there is a point where you have too many Imps in your deck, the Gold is a nice option to have and the regular gaining is good, but not something that will make you aim to gain less cards in a turn.

Exorcist- A cool card. As a thrasher it's somewhat slow, so I wouldn't put it with the best thrashers, but, all the cards it can gain are quite strong, Estate to Wisp and Silver to Imp are both really strong effects.

Necromancer- A weird card, I'm getting more and more convinced that it actually is a really strong card. The main reason is Zombie Apprentice, since you can pretty much trash an action for a really strong effect and then have the Necromancer act as a sort of stand in for said action, with multiple Necromancers and multiple action in the trash, they can even gain a lot of flexibility. I'm still kinda of getting the hang for the timing with this tough, quite a feel times I just skipped it because it just didn't seem right, but sometimes I just went for it anyway and I still have not regretted doing so. The shared pool of actions in the trash can count against it, but like I said with Ghost Town if something has to be mirrored to be countered than it shows that it's actually a really strong in the first place. Zombie Mason can get some early trashing if you need it and Zombie Spy is just sad.

Shepherd- I'll make one hot take here. Shepherd is strong, very strong, possibly the strongest card in Nocturne. It can work both in conventional engines, being a nice early sifter/draw, and making it harder to stall in the late game, and it also works very well in it's own crazy strategy we're you just have a deck full of green and lots of Shepherds, and just draw huge amount of cards with each play of Shepherd. You will need a few other cards though... By itself Shepherd/Money is pretty bad, you might even have a game where draws works perfectly and it seems good, but you'll more often be faced with hands of Shepherd with a bunch of Coppers or just Coppers and green. Luckily though a lot of things can help this Shepherd engine, anything that can trash coppers is really good, +Buy allows picking up estates together with other components, duration draw is nuts with Shepherd, cantrip money can also really help. Now I'd say that this deck usually tends  to neither end games incredibly fast or be very reliable, but it just scores so much points... It can easily overcome a 3-5 province split, and if it's down to duchy dancing there's a big chance it will prevail, a big factor for this is Pasture. Now Pasture isn't worth much without Shepherd, Estates are worth a little more, but you will still want to trash them ASAP,  now with Shepherd there's a very good chance that this will end up worth more than a Province since green cards become actually desirable in those decks. And best of all, there a few things that match the feeling of discarding 10+ cards to Shepherd...

Skulk- Like with other Hexers I still need to figure out just how valuable is Hexing. The Gold can be quite valuable and might even make this a good opener. The +buy makes it so there will frequently want this even if it's not very good.

Cobbler- It's expensive and not very fast, but on the right board it can be really good! The extra reliability it provides is great, but there's a good chance that it will not be able to compete with the other 5's on the board. On a side note I think that Shepherd/Cobbler might be the strongest two card combo in Nocturne.

Crypt- A very unique card. It's kinda of combination of pseudo-trashing and smoothing out money between turns. It works best when you have multiple copies, and you keep one copy of Crypt in your deck while the others are set aside. I've seen quite a few decks where this card really shows it's strength...

Cursed Village- A good comparison for Cursed Village is Minion, but work as non terminal draw that leave you with a fixed number of cards, it doesn't have an attack and self-synergy like Minion, but in compensation it works a lot better with terminal cards. I think this very strong and one of the very best villages in the game. I also really love playing with this card even tough the Hex gaining can be somewhat annoying since a few Hexes hit hard and so many do absolutely nothing when you're in the buy phase.

Den of Sin- On first sight of this card, I was immediately reminded of Wharf and felt underwhelmed, well, in a way I was right, this is much weaker than Wharf I think. But most things also are... This is an pretty awesome card, the gain to hand makes this have a lot of tactical use, and all like all duration draw it's amazing for reliability, being non terminal makes it a lot easier for your deck to handle quite a few of these, and you want to do so frequently.

Idol- If you can use the cursing somewhat reliably then this will be a good card, otherwise the Boon in the buy phase is just not very strong, it's frequently useless or even harmful. It's still an non terminal curser though... Always remember to play this before your other treasures (except in some very weird edge case that I'm sure somebody can find...). This matters for a lot of the Boons you can receive.

Pooka- There are many cases in Dominion where a card is much more than the sums of it's parts, Lab is Moat + Ruined Village, but it's far better than any of these two will ever be. Pooka is a very rare (and weird) case where it kinda seems that a card is less than the sum of it's parts. +4 cards?, that's Hunting Grounds at $5, crazy right? trash a treasure? trashing always rocks! But Pooka, I guess Pooka is an ok card, far from strong. Thing is, in an engine depending on connecting Pooka + treasure  for your draw is just incredibly wonky, since you won't have much treasure at all after a little while. The fact that it comes with a Cursed Gold that it can't trash doesn't help it at all also. Still not a bad card though. As for Cursed Gold, knowing when to play and when (not) to trash it will be a big factor in pretty much any game with it.

Sacred Grove- Turns out $3 and +buy is pretty good, far from awesome though, but it's very nice payload. It's good to keep in mind that a lot of the boons (maybe even most of them) are better to receive from a 5-card starting hand then from a terminal in the middle of your turn.

Tormentor- A weakish card, gaining Imps is good, but you're not happy if that means a dud. Which mostly means you want this early.  Hexing is just not strong enough to justify buying this card unless the other options are quite weak.

Tragic Hero- This is the draw card you won't be very happy to see, but you will buy it anyway. Thing is, draw is really good, and if there's no draw probably there won't be much of an engine and Gold becomes a good card. So this is kinda of a draw card that latter becomes money, if it's the only draw, your engine will soon crumble into something moneyish, but you'll do so anyway, if there's other draw gaining one of these early is a great way to build the early stages of your engine and when you have to trash it, there's a chance that the money payload is actually quite good. A weird card, but I have really enjoyed playing with it.

Vampire- The true jack of all trades, it's a gainer, it trashes and it attacks, but doesn't excel at any of those. I would say that the gaining is the main attractive of the card, gaining 5s is just really really strong. The trashing is really good also, but does feels like it ends up arriving to late to be really strong. With other thrashers present I have felt that more often than not the trashing in bats is a cost to get back to Vampire. Hexing is (almost) always nice, but will pretty much never be the reason you get this.

Werewolf- I don't think this is one of the stronger +3 cards option.  Thing is +3 cards is already really good. The Hexing is a nice option if you draw this dead, but you won't want to not draw just to hex your opponent. Best thing I feel is that you can get a few more Werewolves than other draw cards since they still do something even after you draw your deck.

Raider- Still don't have a good feeling for this,  it's not very strong, but Ii realize how sometimes the attack can be pretty brutal, tough I still don't really know when to look for those situations very well. it has a really high cost and can be quite underwhelming most of the times

Hexes/Boons- I like Boons, they're nice little extras that can influence the game, but will not really swing the game to one side too much. Hexes also aren't that strong, one big thing about attacks in general is that you generally want to to somewhat spam them. with junkers you aim to make their deck so full of junk as to be nearly unplayable, knights try to reduce your opponents deck to just those cards that do not from 3-6 and with hand size attacks you should aim to play them every turn. Since Hexes are all over the place they end failing in reaching any of those goals, and while they can hurt, they end up being much easier to deal with than their non hexing counterparts. One thing to note is that while Boons generally do not decide games, Hexes can, specially Deluded/Envious, that while cool new attacks, if they end up properly timed, can singlehandedly turn a losing game into a winning one.

Probably no one will read this, but since I took the time to write I might as well post... If you got this far congratulations (and I hope I did not waste your time)! :p

And I also do hope I kept spelling and gramatical errors to a minimun, I wrote this a bit on a whim and I was sure that if I ended up proofreading it to much that I would never really end up posting it...

38

Dominion General Discussion / Re: farmer's market is pretty good

« on: December 08, 2017, 09:50:29 pm »

King's court and X is a fun combo, where X is the set of all action cards.

Cue the edge cases.

King's Court and Jack of all Trades is a fun nombo.

There's that Dan Brooks x Mercury game in the championship finals that proves that this is not always the case...

39

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How good is Fishing Village really?

« on: December 08, 2017, 09:48:16 pm »

It's also a lot easier to consistently draw your deck if you start every turn with one (or more) extra actions...

I seem to agree with that too!:

The advantage is that you still start your turns with +Actions, so you will pretty much never stall.

If it's great when you draw your deck and great when you don't draw your deck, why is it that Fishing Village isn't all that good?


I mean, sure I think there are better Villages, I'd say Wandering Minstrel and Port at least, there are lot's of decks where I would rather have a drawing village, but I personally think that in most cases the reliability factor given by Fishing Village trumps the fact that it does not draw a card, even when you're drawing your deck.

40

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How good is Fishing Village really?

« on: December 07, 2017, 08:52:00 pm »

It's a great village. You don't draw your whole deck every game.

It's also a lot easier to consistently draw your deck if you start every turn with one (or more) extra actions...

41

Tournaments and Events / Re: Noctournament (Dualset)

« on: November 29, 2017, 05:33:40 pm »

gloures 6 - 0 Cookielord

9177425 Intrigue
9177871 Adventures
9178397 Hintherlands
9179581 Base
9180210 Prosperity
9180586 Seaside

42

Dominion League / Re: Season 24 - Results

« on: November 27, 2017, 10:34:18 pm »

Iīll be back!

43

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: November 24, 2017, 08:49:41 pm »

Rebuild/Expedition

Expedition let's you build a extremely thin Rebuild deck that still reliably hits 5 and accelerates the playing of Rebuilds. The game I just played I ended in 12 turns getting 3 provinces and milling all other 5.   

44

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: November 23, 2017, 05:15:21 pm »

tristan 4.0 is banned.

I'm like 99% sure you're joking, but, you are joking, right? That would be the quickest witch hunt ever if not.

More on topic: I don't know that I think Josh was being condescending until after he was first accused of being condescending, although I should admit I haven't read those other two threads Trivialknot linked to. I agree with Seprix though, deescalation would be good, because this has been a very enjoyable thread so far, and it'd be cool to keep it like that

While I don't think he really did anything too bad here, he definitely showed behavior similar enough to Tristan's to get me to suspect him. If he was really banned I'm pretty sure it would be due to his past accounts behavior than whatever he did now. And while there's no way for me to be sure he's actually tristan, I guess Theory might have some way to find out.

45

Tournaments and Events / Re: Dominion World Cup 2018 Sign-Ups

« on: November 23, 2017, 01:34:20 pm »

In!

gloures - Brazil

I have some hope of putting a Brazilian team together, if necessary I might try some recruiting once we get closer to the deadline

46

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Easy Puzzles

« on: November 22, 2017, 01:44:42 am »

Buy a ratcatcher and call it on the same turn.

Have a Princed Black Market, buy the Ratcatcher, and call it because it's still the start of the turn.

You would also need a Princed Herald or something, to play the Ratcatcher before the start of your turn

47

Dominion Articles / Re: Bard is not weak

« on: November 18, 2017, 03:08:08 am »

You don't get to pick though. That is a huge downside. It makes it tough to build and execute a plan. It might be worth picking up, but not over something more reliably good.

It doesn't make it tough to build and execute a plan. This is how you do it:

1. identify a key $5 you have to buy on turn 3 or 4
2. buy Bard
3. Bard lets you buy that key $5 on turn 3 or 4

4. Have Bard collide with your terminal 5 cost card you just bought in the next shuffle


I mean, sure, Bard can be good at getting 5 in turns 3/4, so it sometimes can be a good opening, a bit like Horse Traders (though HT is definitely better at reaching 5), which is a decent opener, but Horse Traders gives +buy which can be super important later. One thing to also note is that Silver is also actually a pretty good card at getting 5 and you will always have that.

But, yeah, if you have spare actions and/or want action payload Bard can be a good card, but that's pretty much the same situation where you would get Fortune Teller, Navigator, Harvest and a few other power cards... (granted Bard is probably better than those, or at least in the same level as Navigator)

48

Dominion: Nocturne Previews / Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions

« on: November 17, 2017, 08:10:05 pm »

Here's me talking out my ass a hot take: big money with Sheperd and Crypt is a thing, even more so with support from Monastery and/or Goat.

I've done that during the previews, it's pretty strong...

49

Tournaments and Events / Re: Noctournament (Dualset)

« on: November 17, 2017, 02:35:05 pm »

In!

50

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: November 17, 2017, 12:21:27 pm »

Shepherd/Cobbler
Sheperd can create really fun decks that draw a bunch but really lack reliability, if you have a Shepherd in hand your Cobbler can gain a Estate for 2 points and +2 cards that turn, if not you can gain a Shepherd for and use it in a hand thatīs likely full of green cards.