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[HiveMindEmulator]

Governor is kind of a tricky card. It can do a lot of things, each of which also help your opponents, so it’s important to recognize when each of them are good. As a general rule:
1. You only want to use the trash option late, because the free “upgrade” for your opponent is too strong early.
2. You prefer to use the draw option when your opponents can’t take advantage of the larger handsize (i.e. you either have a hand-size reduction attack or it’s the last turn).
3. The gain a gold option is not that bad! While silver helps your opponents, in most decks it’s not even remotely as useful to them as gold is to you, because you can use the gold not only to buy stuff, but to remodel into provinces!

A great way to combine all these abilities is in combination with warehouse. The plan is to open warehouse/silver (or some good money-giving terminal, since governor and warehouse are non-terminal), adding another silver to help you buy a lot of governors, which you buy even with $6. The warehouses will help you play the governors more often to gain a lot of gold, which is the only option you should choose during the mid-game. When it starts to get toward the greening stage, you start remodeling the golds into provinces, and then on your last turn, you set up a mega-turn, using the governor draw abiltiy to draw into a huge hand, which you then shape with warehouses to allow you to remodel into multiple victory cards and buy another. You should be able to net at least 2xprovince+estate like this, and even if you give your opponents 8-card hands, they won’t get to use them if the game is over!

Warehouse is a particularly good partner for governor because the cycling helps you play the governors a lot, and because it’s really easy to put together $5 4-out-of-7-card hands with all the gold you’re gaining. And then it’s great when you have the monster-sized hand from using the draw option. But there are alternative partners. Cellar generally does the same thing but is a bit more likely to leave you with sub-$5 hands, since you can end up drawing and not discarding estates. Trashers can also have a similarly useful effect, since even though you won't see as many cards as with warehouse every turn, you’ll have less junk, which will allow you to still play the governors very often and pair them with golds late game. Adding +buy can also be nice, as you may have excess money to spend on your mega-turn, or you may find a bunch of golds with not enough governors. Even cheap terminal +buy like woodcutter is fine since governor is non-terminal.

Strong against:
 - trimmed decks (where the silver is disruptive)
Weak against:
 - terminal drawers (which become much stronger with silver)
 - handsize reduction attacks (which counter warehouse and combo more strongly with governor)

Examples:
Warehouse:solitaire, vs Governor/HP BM
Cellar:vs Bishop
Chapel: solitaire

[ackack]

This is a setup where I'm not going to find solitaire results particularly convincing. While I agree that gaining the Gold is usually the strongest Governor option, I'm not sure that you can write off all the Silvers you give to your opponent. Among other things, their economy being generated for free means they can spend time picking up other cards that are useful but might ordinarily be a bit too slow. Thus I think this is going to speed up a lot of middling strategies from your opponents as well, meaning 5 Provinces in 14 turns is probably an overstatement of the relative strength of this.

added: Some concrete examples from those particular games: I think a Masquerading opponent does very well against this plan in the first game. Ordinarily I think a 2nd Masquerade is slightly dicey, but here with the Silver streaming in it would probably be a good idea. Getting pumped up with Silver would also speed up a Chapel/money strategy by a turn or two, I'd imagine.

[HiveMindEmulator]

It's true that solitaire is a bad place to show this, but it's not really just "5 provinces in 14 turns". First off, it's actually 13 turns in both examples. The 14th turn is just spent resigning the solitaire game. But more importantly, the timing and purchases of the actual mega-turn should depend on what your opponent is doing. If they have 4 provinces by turn 13, you actually end up splitting them 4-4 with an extra duchy for you for the win. And even with extra silver, it's hard to get more than 4 provinces by turn 13, since to do that, you have to buy them every other turn starting with turn 7. There are strategies that can do that with the silver injection, but not s many that it's makes this combo never viable.

To be more specific, this strategy is probably bad against strategies that focus on terminal card-drawing, like smithy+money, because silver helps those strategies more than others. Against chapel+money, I don't think will do that bad. Silver really only stops chapel+money from stalling out. It won't help it buy provinces sooner. Generally, it will be good vs decks that rely on few powerful non-drawing actions played often with warehouse, because the silver slows their cycling, and, unlike gold, is not that useful in smaller warehouse hands. This is not the most powerful combo ever, but I think it certainly qualifies as "good".

Anyway, I only have solitaire games now because I haven't actually seen the situation come up yet. Governor is pretty new. I wanted to put this out there since governor is getting a bad rap from some people on the "updating the best/worst list", but the existence of strats like this keep it nowhere near the worst list imo. Rather than posting there, I figured I'd just make a whole real post of it, and hopefully someone can play this strat and submit a good game log.

[timchen]

Excellent thought I would say. Certainly something I look forward to trying.

[Geronimoo]

Solitaire might blind you from the benefits your opponent is gaining (which are not light!)

I implemented this combo in the simulator. Try the Governor/Warehouse bot.

The mega turn is a bit hard to program, so that's certainly not played perfectly.

The combo barely beats BMU and gets crushed by Envoy (as expected). It does however crush Minions/Chapel because that deck really hates the Silvers it receives.

Definitely an interesting option if your opponent is going for some moneyless engine, but not if he's going big money.

[ackack]

Anyway, I only have solitaire games now because I haven't actually seen the situation come up yet. Governor is pretty new. I wanted to put this out there since governor is getting a bad rap from some people on the "updating the best/worst list", but the existence of strats like this keep it nowhere near the worst list imo.

I agree the thought of Governor as one of the worst 5s seems pretty out there. I dislike the card at the moment, but I feel like a lot of that is running bad in my first few Governor games.

[chwhite]

Anyway, I only have solitaire games now because I haven't actually seen the situation come up yet. Governor is pretty new. I wanted to put this out there since governor is getting a bad rap from some people on the "updating the best/worst list", but the existence of strats like this keep it nowhere near the worst list imo.

I agree the thought of Governor as one of the worst 5s seems pretty out there. I dislike the card at the moment, but I feel like a lot of that is running bad in my first few Governor games.

There is absolutely no way Governor belongs anywhere near the "worst $5s" list.  The remodel option is poor, yes, but the other two choices are very often useful, and worth the downside when used judiciously.  I really don't see how Governor can be a horrible card but Council Room escapes the same judgement: they're both right around the middle of the pack.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Solitaire might blind you from the benefits your opponent is gaining (which are not light!)

I implemented this combo in the simulator. Try the Governor/Warehouse bot.

The mega turn is a bit hard to program, so that's certainly not played perfectly.

The combo barely beats BMU and gets crushed by Envoy (as expected). It does however crush Minions/Chapel because that deck really hates the Silvers it receives.

Definitely an interesting option if your opponent is going for some moneyless engine, but not if he's going big money.

I think this is a very hard strategy to sim, not just for the mega-turn, but for deciding when to start remodeling. I think your bot remodels too early. With [governor, gold, copper, copper] the right play is often to gain gold and buy governor.

[Jimmmmm]

Anyway, I only have solitaire games now because I haven't actually seen the situation come up yet. Governor is pretty new. I wanted to put this out there since governor is getting a bad rap from some people on the "updating the best/worst list", but the existence of strats like this keep it nowhere near the worst list imo.

I agree the thought of Governor as one of the worst 5s seems pretty out there. I dislike the card at the moment, but I feel like a lot of that is running bad in my first few Governor games.

There is absolutely no way Governor belongs anywhere near the "worst $5s" list.  The remodel option is poor, yes, but the other two choices are very often useful, and worth the downside when used judiciously.  I really don't see how Governor can be a horrible card but Council Room escapes the same judgement: they're both right around the middle of the pack.

What do mean by the Remodel option is poor? I mean, clearly you don't want to be doing it at the start of the game, but is it a bad thing to be converting your mass of Golds into Provinces towards the end? I mean, sure they might be able to turn a $4 card or two into Duchies on the right board, or occasionally a $7 card into a Province, but I would say if you're doing it late enough your opponents more often than not will not want to trash anything. Am I missing something?

[chwhite]

Anyway, I only have solitaire games now because I haven't actually seen the situation come up yet. Governor is pretty new. I wanted to put this out there since governor is getting a bad rap from some people on the "updating the best/worst list", but the existence of strats like this keep it nowhere near the worst list imo.

I agree the thought of Governor as one of the worst 5s seems pretty out there. I dislike the card at the moment, but I feel like a lot of that is running bad in my first few Governor games.

There is absolutely no way Governor belongs anywhere near the "worst $5s" list.  The remodel option is poor, yes, but the other two choices are very often useful, and worth the downside when used judiciously.  I really don't see how Governor can be a horrible card but Council Room escapes the same judgement: they're both right around the middle of the pack.

What do mean by the Remodel option is poor? I mean, clearly you don't want to be doing it at the start of the game, but is it a bad thing to be converting your mass of Golds into Provinces towards the end? I mean, sure they might be able to turn a $4 card or two into Duchies on the right board, or occasionally a $7 card into a Province, but I would say if you're doing it late enough your opponents more often than not will not want to trash anything. Am I missing something?

Well, generally you don't want to do it until the greening stage, because early on it's not just going to benefit your opponent a lot, it will very often benefit your opponent more than you (b/c of Copper trashing)- something that's not the case with the other two options.  So it's basically an endgame option, and at that point the +3 Cards is likely to be more powerful. Keep in mind also it's a Farmland-style "exactly 2" remodel, which limits its utility even further.

I'm not saying it's never worth taking the remodel option, but I do think it's almost never worth buying Gov primarily with that in mind.  The two best-case scenarios for Governor are as a draw engine with hand reduction along the lines of Council Room, and as a Big Money enabler (that mostly gains Gold, but can draw when it must) against some sort of engine that dislikes Silver, such as Minion, Scrying Pool, etc; both of these scenarios don't really use the remodel much.

[tlloyd]

Using the remodel option early can't be that big a benefit to your opponent in a chapel game. Especially if you can remodel the silvers he's giving you into more governors.

[DG]

I haven't played much with the governor but it seems important to get the most out of all three uses whilst getting offering as little as possible to the opponent. All three benefits are strong and will be of use in different decks at different times. Nobody ever talks about the strongest or weakest power of a steward.

[fellowmartian]

I've won a few games spamming Governor. I think it's a card that is worth thinking about the game a little differently with. If you have three or four of them, and have been using them mostly for gaining Golds, you can (relatively) easily have a three-Province final turn (2-3 remodelled, 0-1 bought). Meanwhile, the Silvers do mount up for you opponent but on some boards all this does is thin out their good action cards, and yes, put them in with better chances of $8 in a hand, but by the time they get there, you can be more or less ready to end it. If you throw a Militia or suchlike into your deck, it becomes extremely powerful -- you can gain Golds, get them in hand and remodel them, then leave your opponent with very little benefit.

[mnavratil]

Governor/Border Village seems like another winning 2-card governor combo to me (maybe this is just super-obvious?).
The border Villages provide free fodder to trash into provinces and every time you gain one you can get another governor.

My guess is that this combo is faster than governor/warehouse and since you don't need to use the gain a gold option as much, may give an opponent less benefit.

In general governor seems to have it's place, but I am just poor at picking out when it is strong and so tend to underbuy it.

[iamsum1gr8]

I, on the other hand, think that Governor is best used as a super lab... I have a strong penchant for Big Money and a super lab strategy with a good terminal is always going to be somethin i have trouble resisting.

Here is one of my games where I had 5 provinces turn 11 in a two player game... http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111117-004950-65e43f2b.html

In this game my deck was more streamlined then my opponents, thank you Masquerade, despite the T1 witch.  This meant that I was able to make more use out of the +3 cards option then my opponent gained from having 6 card hands.

With all that said, here is a game where I didn't buy Governor and my opponent bought 3 and I believe they benefitted me more than him...  Partly because it was a colony game, and partly because I am in love with Trader, courtesy of my love of green decks filled with silver... http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111117-014233-882d259b.html

In this game Stables was a much better card then Governor, for my strategy, as the super lab ability doesn't benefit your opponent.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I, on the other hand, think that Governor is best used as a super lab... I have a strong penchant for Big Money and a super lab strategy with a good terminal is always going to be somethin i have trouble resisting.

In Geronimoo's simulator, mass governor loses to big money with "standard" governor play strategy, which is just using it as a double-lab. With the "WarehouseCombo" play strategy (even without buying warehouses), however, it does beat big money.

EDIT: I just realized this is a bit unfair to the "standard" strategy, as it will keep playing governors and letting the opponent draw, even when it already has $8 and has nothing to gain by playing more governors.