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7826

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 07:02:36 pm »

Here's something that might shed some light: is Woodcutter bad because Festival exists?  Is it made worse because Festival exists?  Or is it just inherently bad?  This is a really cut and dried case where, given a price difference, one card really is better than another.  They're exactly the same, except one of them has +2 Actions, and thus it costs more.  These two are also in the very first set.  Would Donald X. have put them both in the same set for all to see that one literally is better than another if that meant that people would assume that Woodcutter is automatically bad simply because Festival is there?

7827

Rules Questions / Query - Watchtower/Trader/Moat/Followers

« on: December 15, 2011, 03:51:06 pm »

Is it possible to block part of an attack?  For instance, let's say Bob plays a Followers, but Alice has a Watchtower, Trader, and Moat in hand.  Can she use the Moat to block the discard, but Trader the Curse into a Silver, then Watchtower it to the top of her deck?  Or would she have to choose between using Moat to block everything, or Trader/Watchtower but still have to discard?

7828

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What's your strategy on this dog of a board?

« on: December 15, 2011, 03:42:13 pm »

You let him get all the Tournaments.  That's just asking for Followers to spank you.

7829

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 03:39:18 pm »

Man, just when I think this silly debate is over...

To be blunt, you're wrong. And while I'm glad you read my post, I don't think you understood it. Cellar does what it does whether Warehouse is in the game or not. You may prefer Warehouse, but that speaks to relative, not absolute, value. Minion and Horse Traders are different. The value of Minion is partly based on the ability to leave your opponent with a hand of four random cards (in contrast to Militia which leaves them with three above-average cards.) But if your opponent is holding a HT, playing Minion will instead leave him with a hand of six cards. Thus, the presence of HT changes what effect Minion has. There is nothing comparable about Warehouse/Cellar.

Right.  The existence of Platinum makes Noble Brigand weaker, but the existence of Thief doesn't make it stronger or weaker.

7830

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 03:05:09 pm »

Another thing I find interesting is that for the trashers, Chapel (restricted to four cards) is $2, whereas Forge (unrestricted) is $7, although it does give you another card in return.  Whereas Warehouse (restricted to three cards) is $1 more than Cellar (unrestricted).  Also interesting - Scheme is to Herbalist as Apprentice is to Salvager - the Cards/Actions cards are $1 more than their Money/Buy analogues.

7831

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 03:01:43 pm »

^I don't think the arguments about crossroads hold for cellar. Crossroads requires you to have victory cards, which have to be useless. Cellar doesn't really rely on you having "bad" cards in your deck. It's really at its best when you're not using it to chuck bad cards, but to get cards that are more useful in your current hand. For example, if you're going for some variety of village/smithy, but draw a hand of [cellar, smithy, smithy, smithy, copper], you'll gladly discard a couple smithies to try to find a village so you can get your chain going.

Right.  If I have a Moat, an Estate, a Cellar, and two Silvers in my hand, I'm glad I had the Moat to protect against Attacks, but when it comes to my turn, I'm going to cellar the Moat and the Estate, rather than playing the Moat and risk drawing Actions dead.  If that were a Crossroads, it would be different - it might in fact even be better - I'd draw a card because of my Estate, then play the Moat, and still have two Actions.  But if that Estate is a Curse, you'd be mighty glad you have a Cellar.

I'm really liking this discussion.

7832

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 01:52:33 pm »

I think the best lesson to be drawn from all of this is that I should rephrase how I wrote up Cellar, namely, why it's bad on its own, and refer to Warehouse only as supportive evidence that Cellar is a poor card.

Does this wording satisfy everyone?

Cellar is a card to buy only if its superior alternatives (Warehouse, Crossroads, Vault) are not available.  The fact that you discard before drawing makes it considerably worse than Warehouse, and giving up a potential Silver for a chance at redrawing up to 4 other cards in your hand is just not worth it.  It's nice in very big draw decks, because it keeps your engine flowing, but it implicitly depends on bad cards in your hand (and not just in your deck) in order to truly succeed.  Against hand-discard attacks in particular, it completely collapses and leaves you with unpalatable options all around.

Nevertheless, unlike the cards above it, Cellar still sees quite a bit of use in 2-player games.  You'll wish it was a Warehouse instead, but in big draw decks, and towards the end of the game, you'll grudgingly take the Cellar nevertheless.

Very much. 

7833

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Bahaha cool combo you'll probably never get to play.

« on: December 15, 2011, 01:17:50 pm »

7 Highways, KC - KC - Bridge - Bridge - Bridge.  All the Provinces.

The Highways don't actually add anything to that. Unless you change Provinces to Colonies.

True.  I was thinking of the Bridges more as +Buys, which would be necessary.  Good catch.

7834

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 01:09:26 pm »

I have nothing against rating cards.  What I take issue with is the methodology.

Your original statement was:
"Given that it seems most people in this forum go by the random selection method of choosing cards, why are these "best to worst" lists so prevalent?  You're only dealing with 10 cards at a time, and usually you don't have a say in what those 10 are.  So the whole process seems silly."

If all you're NOW saying is that Cellar should be judged according to all the boards it could potentially be on, rather than against Warehouse, then fine.  I have no problem with that.  I personally have it right in the middle of the $2 cards for all the reasons discussed here.

But YOU were the one who brought up this 'there are only the 10 cards on the board' thing as if it were a reason to not rank cards at all.

Touche.  I still agree with what I first said, but I also agree with what I'm saying now.  If that makes any sense.

7835

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 12:36:05 pm »

That's kinda harsh theory, seeing as how werothegreat is right.

Does it worry you that, as far as I can tell, no one in this thread agrees with your way of evaluating a card's strength? Speaking of "hints" or indicators, isn't that a hint that your way might just not be good?

There are two separate conversations.  Werothegreat keeps intruding on the one about HOW to rate the cards by insisting that the cards shouldn't be rated at all.  Which is just totally unhelpful.  Again, it's not to say that you should be obliged to rank the cards; it's just to say that the willful ignorance about why other people might want to do this is annoying.

On the conversation about Cellar in particular, I think it's clear that theory has agreed about the awkwardness of the original phrasing.  He has ceded quite a bit of ground, and is basically agreeing with the original critique that was made--that Warehouse existing doesn't MAKE Cellar worth less, but just indicates its weakness.  I don't really see why there is still an argument here, actually.

I have nothing against rating cards.  What I take issue with is the methodology.

You want a real-world example?  Here's one:

You go into a pie-shop.  They have cherry pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie.  By your totally objective system ( ) you know that apple pie is the best pie, and fittingly, it costs more, and so on down the line.  Cherry pie is pretty good, and you like what it adds to your palate, but it's on the cheap side.  But there's another pie-shop 100 miles away that you went to once that had the most amazing cherry pie.  Something with the spices or whatever, and it was a little more expensive.  But while you recognize that that pie was superior to the cherry pie currently facing you, that cherry pie is 100 miles away, so it doesn't matter.  You don't have the money today to get the apple pie, but you do have enough for the cherry pie.    Do you skip over this cherry pie because you know it's "worse" than the one 100 miles away?  Or do you pick up a slice because you're in the mood for cherry pie, even if it might be sub-par?  Pecan pie is the same price, but you hate pecans, so in this instance, you know that cherry pie is the one to go with for your price range.  So do you take the "worse" cherry pie, or do you go without?

7836

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 11:17:36 am »

Well, unless there's Black Market.

7837

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 15, 2011, 11:16:45 am »

Real-world example: I want to buy a 22" monitor.  I see one on sale for $200.  I don't really know if that's a good deal or not, but I have a gut feeling that it isn't.  I search Google and find 23" monitors that are otherwise identical and on sale for $150.  That is pretty good evidence to me that the 22" for $200 is a bad deal -- even if the 23" monitors are temporarily out of stock.  It could be that the 23" monitor people are insane and wildly underpricing their stuff, but I assume market pressures keep them in line.  (Market pressures in the analogy being Donald X.'s sense of design.)

On the flip side, if I see 23" monitors on sale for $100, that's pretty awesome.  When I then see a 24" monitor for $50, which I instinctively know is an unbelievable deal, that isn't proof that the 23" for $100 a bad deal.


So back to Cellar/Warehouse.  Warehouse is not causing Cellar to be "The Worst", any more than the 23" for $150 "causes" the 22" for $200 to be a bad deal, because 22" for $200 really is just inherently bad even if all the 23" are sold out right now.  But to an uninformed consumer, it's good evidence that Cellar can't be very good, because even when Cellar is a lot better, it's still not overpowered.

This isn't the real world.    There's no going to Best Buy to see if you can get a better deal.  You're stuck with the 10 kingdom cards you have.  So whatever else might be out there isn't relevant.

7838

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Bahaha cool combo you'll probably never get to play.

« on: December 15, 2011, 11:12:50 am »

7 Highways, KC - KC - Bridge - Bridge - Bridge.  All the Provinces.

7839

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Bahaha cool combo you'll probably never get to play.

« on: December 15, 2011, 12:50:42 am »

Alice should have played her Watchtower, then her Laboratory

Alice still had enough for a Province. 

7840

Dominion General Discussion / Re: How good are these combos?

« on: December 14, 2011, 10:33:18 pm »

And Salvager may also be a good enabler:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/08/game-20111208-145031-0292ef12.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201112/08/game-20111208-145757-73f5c491.html

In a two-player game, you'd never get that many Fool's Golds.

7841

Dominion General Discussion / Bahaha cool combo you'll probably never get to play.

« on: December 14, 2011, 10:30:13 pm »

Ok, Alice plays a Possession, ends her turn, draws a new hand, which has two Tunnels, a Watchtower, a Festival, and a Laboratory.  Bob's Possessed hand has a Militia and two Golds.  You probably know where this is going already.  Alice makes Bob play the Militia, and she then discards her two Tunnels, gaining two Golds, and Watchtowering them to the top of her deck.  She then makes Bob buy her a Province.  Then, provided Bob does nothing to wreak havoc with Alice's deck during his turn, Alice then plays her Festival, then her Laboratory, drawing her two Golds, and buying another Province.  Just thought of it while reading another thread. 

Feel free to post other combos that would be totally sweet but would probably never happen in real life.

7842

Rules Questions / Re: Possession + Trader

« on: December 14, 2011, 10:24:17 pm »

Just a quick question - Bob has Mine/Trading Post/Explorer/whatever, and Alice uses it to gain a Silver/Gold (while Possessing Bob).  That goes into her discard, not her hand, right?

7843

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 14, 2011, 10:04:48 pm »

On the other hand, such a metric could just as easily reflect a card's being hard to play well as its being bad. A good card that's often played poorly would rate as a weak card in that system, and only super-easy-win cards rate as strong.

Also this.  Yes.

7844

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 14, 2011, 10:04:21 pm »

That's very true, but if you aggregate every possible random setup, you'd realize that Mountebank is a "good" card in X% of them, and Thief is a "good" card in Y% of them, where X >>>> Y.  Identifying the "best" and "worst" cards is an exercise in finding which cards have the highest X and lowest Y.

Alternatively, you can consider that if you buy Mountebank on a random board, on average, your win probability changes by X (where X is positive), whereas if you buy Thief on a random board, on average, your win probability changes by Y (where Y is negative).  Call this X or Y the "win probability delta".  So we try to identify the cards that on aggregate have the most positive and least positive win probability delta across all boards.


(this is such an rrenaud post)

And that's totally fine.  I am for this.  This is a good way of rating cards.  Though Thief could still be effective if played correctly.  If your opponent has heard how sucky Thief is, they'll avoid it, but if you go for it (provided there are +2 Actions available), it will make them hesitant to get Treasures, diminishing their buying power, and forcing them to buy Actions with + Coins.  In the meantime, you're using their money to buy Victory cards.  It all depends, really.  Ooo I was playing with a rather silly person the other day - Pirate Ship was on the board, but he was buying Golds and Silvers... he was severely regretting that when my four Pirate Ships were at +$5 and I was getting multiple Provinces.

7845

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 14, 2011, 09:50:43 pm »

Diamond would definitely make gold underpowered.

To say "cellar is bad" doesnt mean anything on its own. It has to be worse than other cards available in the game.
The only way to compare the merit of a card is with other cards that exist.

Available in the game that you're CURRENTLY PLAYING, which I think a lot of you are forgetting.  If there are cards that are "better" than Cellar in your current setup, then yes, Cellar is bad.  But if Cellar is the only thing that does what it does, it can be essential in certain setups.  For example, the first game setup.  It takes far too long to use Remodel and Mine to trash away useless garbage - it's much easier to Cellar it away - which also helps you draw more cards to coincide with your Smithy.  I was playing this setup the other day (admittedly with a first-time player) but with Market, Cellar, Village, Smithy and Mine, I had Gold pouring out of my ass and was eventually able to buy two or three Provinces every turn.  Without the Cellar, that would have dwindled down to one Province.  And again, since most of you play with a random selection of cards, your focus should be on what immediately is better than what, what you should be early game, what mid-game, what late game, and not "hey, is this card better or worse than some card that isn't even in this setup?"  From what I gather, no one ever picks and chooses what cards to play with on isotropic - in fact, this seems to be frowned upon.  So if you're not picking "best" cards, how can you value these cards merely based on something doing its job "better"?  Determine the worth of a card on its own, not compared to whatever else is out there.

7846

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 14, 2011, 03:23:47 pm »

This is like saying 'it's stupid to make a list of your 10 favorite albums of 2011, because you can only listen to one of them at a time!'

There's a difference between favorite and best.  I could most definitely make lists of my favorite cards - there are definitely cards that I personally enjoy playing.  But that's not what we're doing here, is it?  And I have nothing against rating cards to discuss strategy and help out noobsters - but when we start hearing sentences like "But with the advent of Warehouse, Cellar’s main selling point is now that it’s slightly cheaper, and honestly, you’re almost never going to need a Cellar but unable to afford the Warehouse." (which is taken directly from the original Five Worst $2 cards list), I am irked.  If Cellar and Warehouse are both in the same setup, then sure, you'll go for Warehouse.  But how likely is that to happen?  If Cellar is there, and Warehouse isn't, you'll go for the Cellar, particularly in lieu of cheap mass trashers like Chapel and Steward.

7847

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 14, 2011, 01:42:38 pm »

As I said somewhere in the blog comments, it's very, very difficult to justify buying a card at $2 when a $3 card does it so much better.  Each card fulfills some predestined role, but if you ever find yourself in the exact situation that a card is designed for, and you still wouldn't take it, then I'd consider it weak.

Of course, you will buy Cellar, and you will end up needing it, but that's just because no card in Dominion is that bad! When every card is good in some way, you need to find ways in which they "suck".  Being severely out-classed by a similarly-priced card is a pretty clear-cut way that it sucks.  Caravan is outclassed by Lab, but the price difference is bigger, and Caravan isn't really that much worse.  OTOH, the badness of Adventurer is just exemplified with Venture.  I do buy Adventurer, and I love the card, but in every situation that I would buy Adventurer, I would buy Venture instead if it's available.  That, to me, is about as weak as Dominion cards get.

While I recognize that some cards you would never buy no matter what else is on the board (and I can't think of any off the top of my head), and there would be some I would reluctantly get because nothing else on the board does what it does (I'm looking at you, Loan), but most cards' merit is heavily dependent on what else is out there.  Given that it seems most people in this forum go by the random selection method of choosing cards, why are these "best to worst" lists so prevalent?  You're only dealing with 10 cards at a time, and usually you don't have a say in what those 10 are.  So the whole process seems silly.  To me, the mark of a good Dominion player is one who can make a good strategy based off of whatever's on hand.  Maybe that would be more constructive - have like a weekly 10 random cards where we discuss how to build a strategy around said cards.  Or if we must go with a theme of "best and worst," perhaps restrict it to "worst" being "I would not buy this card EVER (or maybe sometimes, just very rarely)" and "best" being "if this is on the board, spam it or die."  Or as another idea - see who can build a working strategy around a "worst" card.

7848

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 14, 2011, 01:20:04 am »

What I dislike about most of these lists is that there's sort of a base assumption that you're playing with every single card in your kingdom.  Sure, Venture is "strictly" better than Adventurer, but if Adventurer is in your kingdom and Venture isn't, then your plan might use Adventurer, and if you can draw two Golds with it, maybe use it with a Throne Room, you can totally kick ass with it.  The same can go for any number of cards.  How good a card might be is highly, highly dependent on what else is on the table, and it's very unlikely you'll ever have a setup where you have cards that are "strictly" better than one another, like Remodel and Expand, or Secret Chamber and Vault.  So be nice to these cards.

Sorry if this is off-topic - I'm going by the first post.  This got bumped up to the top, and I'm not reading 7 pages of posts just to get caught up.

7849

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $4 cards Part 2/3 posted

« on: December 13, 2011, 12:10:15 pm »

A small update to all of you: Already got 5 lists. Very interesting to see similarities and differences.

Are you only counting lists that have been PMed to you?

7850

Dominion General Discussion / Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $4 cards Part 2/3 posted

« on: December 12, 2011, 02:33:12 pm »

Intrigue:
$2 - Meh?  These are really all well-priced - they're shitty cards.  They do something decently, but you'd rather have something more expensive.  Please feel free to disagree.

You take that back about Courtyard!

Courtyard is by no means a shitty card, and there are lots of engines where you would rather have it than Silver.

I'll grant you that, but I'd rather have a Smithy or a Laboratory.