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[c4master]

First of all, hello to everybody, as I'm new to this forum.

Lately, I've thought about cellar being one of these cards, players tend to ignore (except for tunnel/cellar combo). This also applies to the qvist ranking, where cellar takes a rather boring place (10th-13th). The card description on dominionstrategy talks a bit about synergies with non-terminal card drawers like laboratories.

Figuring out whether these cases are the only ones where cellar can shine, I generalized the question to: "How much does it help to cycle through your deck?" or rather "In which cases..."

I ended up thinking, that cycling helps you to play your action cards more often wihtout the risk of collisions.

So, generally speaking, cycling cards like cellar, inn, warehouse and so on help strategies with terminals you want to play as often (or as soon) as possible. Such terminals would especially be cursers, but also stuff like monument or bishop.

I guess one big letdown is, that engine decks allow you to play these cards even more than once per turn. Still, if I am planning any engine, say around bishop, is it then a mistake to open bishop/cellar? Is it worth to cycle through your deck, just to play that card more often?

In a 2-player-match you can take about 15-20 turns. In any non-enginge-deck you would play a card no more than 6 times, I guess. With cellars, you could play your favorite card about nearly every turn, at least 12 times, I guess. Is this worth the investment (i.e. the opportunity cost of not buying a silver)?

[KingZog3]

It depends. Bishop needs stuff to trash, and if you do nothing but play 1 bishop you'll lose, because you can't end the game fast enough. The game will drag out much longer than 15 turns and your opponent can get all the provinces. Also bishop lets your opponent trash, so if you play it often, your opponent may not even need to buy trashing cards.

I think the reason Cellar is not used much is that it lowers your hand size which hurts a lot early game. It's usually good end game when you already have an engine, but it's slowing down from VP cards. Cellar smooths things out in cases like this.

[ehunt]

Cellar is pretty good. It just competes with lots of good 2s.

In general I think the borrowing of the word cycling from MtG strategy has been a little misleading. It's important in both games, but for different reasons. In MtG seeing a key card is a win/lose situation. For instance, Pearl Diver would be a pretty good Magic card! In Dominion it's just that you want to see your good cards often, so you want your discard pile to go back into your deck as soon as possible when your good cards are in it (cycling is more often than not bad in the end game).

[TheExpressicist]

In a 2-player-match you can take about 15-20 turns. In any non-enginge-deck you would play a card no more than 6 times, I guess. With cellars, you could play your favorite card about nearly every turn, at least 12 times, I guess. Is this worth the investment (i.e. the opportunity cost of not buying a silver)?

If your goal is to play a single terminal as many times as possible, opening Terminal/Terminal/x/x results in more plays than Terminal/Cellar/x/x*.  If your goal is to be the first person to play a terminal 5 times (and thus win a curse/junk war), Cellar/Terminal/Terminal/x will do that faster than Terminal/Terminal/x/x or Terminal/Cellar/x/x**. Make what you will of that.

In my opinion, its best to look at cycling as an overall augmentation to your deck and not as a vehicle for playing as many key terminals as possible.

*By turn 15: ~8.75 plays for T/T/x/x, vs. only ~5.75 plays for C/T/x/x. Or by turn 20, ~15 plays vs. only ~11.
**Between turns 6 and 7 for C/T/T/x, vs. between turns 7 and 8 for T/C/x/x or T/T/x/x

[Grujah]

For instance, Pearl Diver would be a pretty good Magic card!

Well... wouldn't really say "pretty good".it would compare bad to Serum Visions, which is, in turn, worse Preordain (Which is, in most cases, just worse Brainstorm). Does save your general from Hinder in EDH, though.

Would be interesting if it costed 1 phyrexian blue, also. If it was instant, too. (Maybe +1 action = instant).

[Polk5440]

Getting to play a key terminal more often is one use.

I also like to think of cycling as like weak trashing. It helps you move through junk. The junk doesn't go away, but it doesn't stay in your hand, either.

Sifters can also become important later, during greening. You don't WANT to trash your Provinces and Duchies, but you don't want them in your hand, either. When playing games with Cellar, I often think about picking one up when I start greening.

[Kirian]

Don't forget that Cellar is much worse than Warehouse.

[markusin]

Cycling can help you play your terminals more often, but they're not the only way to do so. As TheExpressicist mentioned, you can just buy more terminals. Also, you can just buy a load of Schemes, but Scheme isn't really a cycling card.

Cellar, Warehouse, Inn: These cards all reduce your handsize by one. Using them to cycle early on often comes at a cost of not being able to afford as much.

What does cycling really do? Look at Chancellor. Chancellor doesn't help you play your purchases more often if you discard them with it, but it does let you play your new purchases sooner. This is the real effect of cycling: finding your new purchases sooner. This is good while building up, but can be bad when buying VP cards. Garden rushes with Workshop are a prime example of when you don't want to cycle. In that case, cycling leads to more Gardens clogging your hands. There too, you play thr key terminal, Workshop, as often as possible by gaining a lots of them.

Now, there is also the idea of filtering, or sifting as often referred to here on the forum. That's when you are able to, uh, exchange cards you don't want to draw with cards you do want to draw. This corresponds to when your cyclers are discarding junk cards like estates and curses. Having large handsizes increases the chance that your cyclers/sifters like cellar will have junk to discard. If you trashed all your junk, then sifters aren't so useful, and their hand reduction will work against you.

Early game, cellar has some issues. Imagine a hand of 4 Copper and 1 Cellar, with 3 Estates on top. Discarding your copper will give you a hand full of Estates, killing your current turn purchase. Warehouse, however, could have drawn and discarded those estates, improving your next turn without weakening the current turn too much. This is its key advantage over Cellar, and its because it sifted better than Cellar. Cellar would have cycled as much though.

So yeah, cycling and sifting: subtle but valuable differences.

[DG]

A cellar or warehouse is doing a number of things at the same time. Let's look at those one by one.
- Reducing the hand size by 1 card. This is an overhead cost for the use of the cellar. This can make the cellar worse than nothing. Put it together with a trashing card such as bishop and you could easily have too few cards left in hand.
- It sifts/selects cards. This is more useful if you have different quality or different types of card you want to play. Cellar may not be a good a card to put with bishop since drawing the bishop will change the type of card you need in hand. Warehouse is a much stronger sifter of cards since you get the decision to discard after making the draw.
- It cycles the deck so you shuffle more often. This can be a good thing if you have key cards you want to play more often or your deck is steadily improving. This can be a bad thing if your deck is getting worse with green cards or curses. With a cellar you can choose how many cards to discard and whether you will draw past the end of your deck or not, which can provide advantage.

When you buy a cellar you are making a judgement across those three separate points. If you can increase your hand size then all those points improve.

The danger of taking a cellar as an opening card instead of silver is that you miss out on early spending and deck development. Key cards often come at cost 5 and gold is usually important at 6. There is no point cycling your cards if they are all mediocre. In decks where silver is going to be a bad card or you are not bothered by initial spending then yes you can look for alternatives such as wishing well or cellar.

(looks like Markusin said all this just before me, nevermind!)

[Awaclus]

In general I think the borrowing of the word cycling from MtG strategy has been a little misleading. It's important in both games, but for different reasons. In MtG seeing a key card is a win/lose situation. For instance, Pearl Diver would be a pretty good Magic card! In Dominion it's just that you want to see your good cards often, so you want your discard pile to go back into your deck as soon as possible when your good cards are in it (cycling is more often than not bad in the end game).

It's important for both games for the same reason: you want to see your good cards more often. It's just that in Dominion, you can already expect to see each of your cards several times, while in Magic, you usually see less than 1/4 of your deck per game* if you don't have any cycling, so you don't always see your best cards at all.

*if it's an official Constructed format; in Limited and Highlander games, deck sizes vary but the point stands.

[GendoIkari]

Welcome to the forum!

[mustang255]

I think part of the reason that cycling is not that strong is that all the cycling* cards in Dominion have some overhead; Cellar, Warehouse, and Inn all reduce your overall hand size; Embassy is terminal; and Storehouse has both of these problems. Pearl Diver would qualify, except that it doesn't actually discard anything, just reorder cards.

I playtested a card whose only effect was to replace itself in your hand, and it was surprisingly powerful, even as an opener (4 cost, +1 action, look at top 4 cards, put one in hand and discard the rest). http://souvagames.blogspot.ca/2014/01/playtest-report-ranger.html.

In some ways, you can think of cycling as pseudo-trashing. Every junk card you can discard for something better per reshuffle is like having one junk card fewer. It isn't a perfect analogy, as things like handsize reduction, and shuffle luck come into play; but cards that work well in trimmed decks are also good in decks with heavy cycling (Conspirator comes to mind).


*Using a magic-esque definition of cycling, of any card that lets you discard undesired cards in exchange for others.

[markusin]

I think part of the reason that cycling is not that strong is that all the cycling* cards in Dominion have some overhead; Cellar, Warehouse, and Inn all reduce your overall hand size; Embassy is terminal; and Storehouse has both of these problems. Pearl Diver would qualify, except that it doesn't actually discard anything, just reorder cards.

I playtested a card whose only effect was to replace itself in your hand, and it was surprisingly powerful, even as an opener (4 cost, +1 action, look at top 4 cards, put one in hand and discard the rest). http://souvagames.blogspot.ca/2014/01/playtest-report-ranger.html.

In some ways, you can think of cycling as pseudo-trashing. Every junk card you can discard for something better per reshuffle is like having one junk card fewer. It isn't a perfect analogy, as things like handsize reduction, and shuffle luck come into play; but cards that work well in trimmed decks are also good in decks with heavy cycling (Conspirator comes to mind).


*Using a magic-esque definition of cycling, of any card that lets you discard undesired cards in exchange for others.

There is one sifter that doesn't have overhead: Cartographer. In my opinion, it's one of the best sifters around. Stables is really good too when it works, but has the discard-a-treasure requirement.

It's no surprise that "+1 action, look at top 4 cards, put one in hand and discard the rest" is strong for 4. That's almost a cartographer that reorders first, except it cycles by one card less and you're forced to discard the other 3 cards. I believe one of the broken Heralds Donald X. has an outtake of that he tested did just that.

I do have to give Cellar credit for being the cycler/sifter that gives the most control over reshuffle timing.

[c4master]

In a 2-player-match you can take about 15-20 turns. In any non-enginge-deck you would play a card no more than 6 times, I guess. With cellars, you could play your favorite card about nearly every turn, at least 12 times, I guess. Is this worth the investment (i.e. the opportunity cost of not buying a silver)?

If your goal is to play a single terminal as many times as possible, opening Terminal/Terminal/x/x results in more plays than Terminal/Cellar/x/x*.  If your goal is to be the first person to play a terminal 5 times (and thus win a curse/junk war), Cellar/Terminal/Terminal/x will do that faster than Terminal/Terminal/x/x or Terminal/Cellar/x/x**. Make what you will of that.

In my opinion, its best to look at cycling as an overall augmentation to your deck and not as a vehicle for playing as many key terminals as possible.

*By turn 15: ~8.75 plays for T/T/x/x, vs. only ~5.75 plays for C/T/x/x. Or by turn 20, ~15 plays vs. only ~11.
**Between turns 6 and 7 for C/T/T/x, vs. between turns 7 and 8 for T/C/x/x or T/T/x/x

Well, after all, you just cannot open Terminal/Terminal, if it costs 4 or 5.

A cellar or warehouse is doing a number of things at the same time. Let's look at those one by one.
- Reducing the hand size by 1 card. This is an overhead cost for the use of the cellar. This can make the cellar worse than nothing. Put it together with a trashing card such as bishop and you could easily have too few cards left in hand.
- It sifts/selects cards. This is more useful if you have different quality or different types of card you want to play. Cellar may not be a good a card to put with bishop since drawing the bishop will change the type of card you need in hand. Warehouse is a much stronger sifter of cards since you get the decision to discard after making the draw.
- It cycles the deck so you shuffle more often. This can be a good thing if you have key cards you want to play more often or your deck is steadily improving. This can be a bad thing if your deck is getting worse with green cards or curses. With a cellar you can choose how many cards to discard and whether you will draw past the end of your deck or not, which can provide advantage.

When you buy a cellar you are making a judgement across those three separate points. If you can increase your hand size then all those points improve.

The danger of taking a cellar as an opening card instead of silver is that you miss out on early spending and deck development. Key cards often come at cost 5 and gold is usually important at 6. There is no point cycling your cards if they are all mediocre. In decks where silver is going to be a bad card or you are not bothered by initial spending then yes you can look for alternatives such as wishing well or cellar.

(looks like Markusin said all this just before me, nevermind!)

I just picked your answer, because it has been easier for me to understand compared to Markusin's.

So one point is, that we really need an early acceleration in order to buy many $5 or $6 cards. Question is, whether you can afford one more turn before doing so, since cellar let's you skip some (hopefully bad) turns later on. The reduction of the hand size really is a big letdown, but otherwise it was just cellaring through your deck until you find what you need, which would be too strong.

-------

So do you think, markusin, a card being a little weaker than your ranger, with chosing only one card out of two, would still be worth buying?
I'm questioning because you probably have in hand at least 1 or two cards being worse than your "average", whatever that is. So I guess, chances are high, that you will at least discard one card for a - hopefully - better one. There's still the hand size reduction with cellar.

[flies]

following markusin, i think a better word here is "sifting".  "cycling" is usually used to refer to effects like chancellor that cause you to see the cards you just bought sooner.  the word more commonly used for going through a bunch of cards and not keeping most of them is "sifting", with "filtering" being less common but still unambiguous.

[Asper]

Whenever i play a Cellar with two junk cards in hand, i tell myself i actually played a Laboratory...
Of course, i didn't. First, you have the risk of reshuffeling with that junk staying in your deck. Second, when Cellar is best, Lab is worst - a lot of junk means you are less likely to draw actions you want, and if that happens even Laboratory is just an expensive Moat. Apart from that i like Cellar and think it's a nice addition in decks that like to green early or have no other defense against (notable) Cursers. Playing other actions more often is a nice bonus, but i think cycling itself isn't that good. If you have to use Cellar that often (say: if you gain that much junk) your deck isn't really likely to become noticeably better each reshuffle (likely worse until the middle to late game).

[markusin]

I agree that DG did a better job at organizing the main points better that I did.

About that weakened ranger that only picks one out to 2 cards to draw. Well, it doesn't reduce handsize and I'm thinking it's better than a friendly Spy and on par with Advisor. Spy can discard the second top card of your deck if it's junk. This ranger can do that or discard the first card to draw the second, but it must discard one of them. It certainly gets you get to your key card faster.

I'd buy that ranger at $4$3 like Wishing Well and grudgingly at $4.

[BadAssMutha]

So one point is, that we really need an early acceleration in order to buy many $5 or $6 cards. Question is, whether you can afford one more turn before doing so, since cellar let's you skip some (hopefully bad) turns later on.

Usually, the answer to this question is no. Getting to $5 on turns 3/4 can be very important, especially if there are powerful cards out (cursers, trashers, etc). If you wait "one more turn" to pick up a card that helps you get that $5, now you might not be able to play it until turn 5 or beyond. You won't get the benefit as early, which means you might still have a hard time coming up with more $5s. If the $5 is an attack, you've missed hurting your opponent early on, which is better than later. "Acceleration" is a great word for this - if you don't hit the gas right away, your opponent could pull away, leaving you to sift through your mediocre deck and unable to catch up. Get the good cards first, then worry about sifting to find them.

[markusin]

A few more words of caution:

You generally shouldn't go nuts buying multiple Cellars. The result will often be that you discard cards with a Cellar only to draw more Cellars. Each Cellar drawn reduces your effective hand size by 1. This is especially problematic if it happens almost every turn. Warehouse and Inn have a similar problem, but not to the same extreme.

A good way to avoid getting suffocated by your own cyclers is to have hand size increasers as well.

[theory]

Sifters in general are crushed by small hand sizes and much stronger with large hand sizes.  Council Room = good, Militia = bad.

[Davio]

Cellar's pro is that it only costs $2, it really can't cost anymore because it's that weak.

This means you could tack a +Buy on a Cellar late game and hope that you can get to at least Duchy again if you draw something like Cellar-Province-Duchy-Copper-Copper. You could also open Witch-Cellar and have some success with that.

If you discard just one card, the Cellar didn't do anything extra since you would have drawn that card anyway. The only result is that you have one of your "would-be" 5 cards in your discard instead of in your hand and the Cellar in your play area.

So at least 2 cards need to be discarded with it to make it useful and here we see its main use: the cycling. At the beginning of the game, Copper is about an average card so if you discard Coppers, you aren't going to get much more buying power from what you draw back, but the card you buy is in your hand a bit sooner.


I wonder, if we use a "zap" to turn one of the Coppers from a starting deck into a Cellar and use the Cellar to always discard VP cards and Coppers, how much it would help this BM variant over regular BM. Maybe we can learn something from that?

[liopoil]

when I saw this thread, I expected it to be something else. I thought it would be about the chancellor sort of bonus - going through your deck faster to get new cards sooner. I think that's a pretty minor bonus, hence why chancellor isn't very good, but what do other people think about this?

[silverspawn]

when I saw this thread, I expected it to be something else. I thought it would be about the chancellor sort of bonus - going through your deck faster to get new cards sooner. I think that's a pretty minor bonus, hence why chancellor isn't very good, but what do other people think about this?

chancellor isnt a usless card at all, it's just that most of the terminal silver 3-4$ cards have effects that are better.

[KingZog3]

when I saw this thread, I expected it to be something else. I thought it would be about the chancellor sort of bonus - going through your deck faster to get new cards sooner. I think that's a pretty minor bonus, hence why chancellor isn't very good, but what do other people think about this?

chancellor isnt a usless card at all, it's just that most of the terminal silver 3-4$ cards have effects that are better.

Chancellor is actually weak. the reason I think is because you often don't want to put your entire deck into your discard, you just want to get to the good cards sooner. Those cards may still be in your deck, or at least some of them. I would say more, but I don't have time.

[sudgy]

I would say you want to put your deck in your discard every time.  The problem is that it isn't very good in relation to other $3 cards (including silver).