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« on: March 20, 2013, 05:35:40 pm »
After winning another game with Chopsticks, I just realized how strong this card is, so here we go...
Chopsticks (yellow, age 1) - void, leaf, leaf, echo
echo: Draw a 1
dogma: If the 1 deck has at least a card, you may transfer its bottom card to the available achievements.
So let's say both you and your opponent (assuming 2p, I have no experience with 3 or 4p games) have managed some early scoring for 20-30 points each, grabbed a few achievements, and are ploughing your way through ages 3-5. Somehow, you manage to draw Chopsticks, perhaps through some random dogma - or perhaps you saved it carefully since the beginning. If the 1 deck is not empty, then you can suddenly grab an achievement per turn: apply the dogma of Chopsticks, and achieve the 1 you just transfered.
There are a few reasons why Chopsticks is so strong. First, it does not care about sharing: because you play the dogma after your opponent in case of a share, you can make sure only one new 1 is achievable (and in case of a share, your opponent gets to draw a 1 while you draw a 1 and a card of your current level, which is a good trade...). Second, it is very hard for your opponent to stop you: he has either to steal Chopsticks of your board (I actually don't think this is possible in the early ages), cover it by sharing some meld action (fairly random and unefficient), or attack your score pile (Medecine and Mapmaking are probably too slow, and even at age 4 there is only Anatomy and Toilet which hurt just a little bit more). Note that score-pile attacks that transfer points to your opponent's score hurt less than normally, because as long as you have enough points, you can keep the rhythm of one achievement per turn, while your opponent needs normally at least three actions per dogma (score, tech up, achieve).
Another thing that hurts Chopsticks is depletion of the 1 deck. If this is a concern, there are cards that can return 1s, or you can try to draw (or have you opponent) draw Echo 1s instead of base 1s.
