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[prom_vrt]

On board without non-terminal source of coin (market, treasury, etc) or terminal coin + village
without lighthouse/moat/secret chamber...

How to counter pirate ship with the absence of above? Big money seems very weak since it'll only boost the opponent's pirate ship coin token.
Or the best chance is to mirror???

[popsofctown]

Action cards with coin block Pirate ship better by precluding the need for Silver, but any Action card will lower the hit rate for Pirate ship.  Stacking stuff like Village/Smithy, Lab, Oracle, etc, is still going to help you decrease the hit rate for Pirate Ship.  If you're playing a 1v1 game and there are no Colonies available, then something along those lines will probably perform better than mirroring. 

[Destierro]

Often, (in the scenarios you describe) the best bet will still be a money based strategy. Pirate Ship's problem is it is just too slow. If there are no villages, Pirate Ship loses it's main perk, being able to be played multiple times a turn.

Pirate Ship is one of those cards that just seems like it should excel, but falls short of expectations most times. It has a large ramp up time where it often actively helps your opponents deck while providing no benefit. The more you ramp it up the harder it becomes to hit treasures, which if there are no ways to play it several times a turn severely hampers its use. Pirate Ship is also very weak against trashing as it will often only become a terminal gold, which is just not worth it considering the amount of turns it does nothing.

However, there are some boards where it shines. Combined with King's Court and +buy it can be a very respectable source of coin. It can be a major factor on whether to go for an engine or a terminal money strategy. If there is a way to play Pirate Ship multiple times every turn it becomes an absolute powerhouse. You'll be swimming in coin, so make sure you have plenty of +buy.

[BadAssMutha]

Cantrip actions get a little better with Pirate Ship on the board, since as pops mentioned, they'll decrease the hit rate of Pirate Ship. If it's a board with +buys and some cheap cards, spamming cheap cantrips can be a good way to lower the odds that your good treasures will get hit. The cantrips won't affect your ability to draw your treasures, but it will make it harder for your opponent to trash them. In some cases, losing a Gold or even a Silver can mean more than the $1 extra the opponent's Pirate Ship is worth. This is especially true if it hits a Platinum. The more non-treasure cards you have, the better off you are, so put extra buys to good use.

[flies]

pirate ship gets *a lot* better in multiplayer, and when everybody goes for it, your treasure gets cleared out in a blink. 

Counter play basically amounts to getting your $ from actions.  Sometimes there is no solution besides going for pirate ship yourself.

In two player, it's almost always terrible.  The pirate ship player clears out your copper, so engines that would otherwise be too slow/weak become viable.

[SCSN]

and when everybody goes for it, your treasure gets cleared out in a blink.

Man, I'd love to not have to buy a trasher. Where do I sign up?

[LastFootnote]

and when everybody goes for it, your treasure gets cleared out in a blink.

Man, I'd love to not have to buy a trasher. Where do I sign up?

Yeah, you're hilarious. But when it doesn't trash your Estates and you have no cheap Actions that produce Coins, running out of money is a real concern.

[sitnaltax]

and when everybody goes for it, your treasure gets cleared out in a blink.

Man, I'd love to not have to buy a trasher. Where do I sign up?

Back when Seaside came out, I played a lot of 4p face-to-face and if it's the only +$ available, it ends up being very powerful in that situation. So everyone in my group ended up thinking of Pirate Ship as a power card. Later on, we had a board with Conspirator and an appropriate village, and I had learned to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of Pirate Ship, so everyone very obligingly cleared out my deck.

[Robz888]

The deck that doesn't buy Pirate Ship almost always beats the deck that does buy Pirate Ship.

Even mediocre money decks can trounce PS, so to succeed with PS you actually need some sort of engine scenario. You have to play multiple ships, so you need villages, and either some draw or cycling. But *any* virtual coin obsoletes it, as does any gainer, better attacks (which is virtually any other attack), a bunch of other things.

In a sense, Gold obsoletes Pirate Ship, and Gold is always available!

[flies]

The deck that doesn't buy Pirate Ship almost always beats the deck that does buy Pirate Ship.

Even mediocre money decks can trounce PS, so to succeed with PS you actually need some sort of engine scenario. You have to play multiple ships, so you need villages, and either some draw or cycling. But *any* virtual coin obsoletes it, as does any gainer, better attacks (which is virtually any other attack), a bunch of other things.

In a sense, Gold obsoletes Pirate Ship, and Gold is always available!

Do you have a lot of multiplayer experience?  I haven't got a lot, and it's mainly with weaker players.  My experience is that it's not that hard to get PS up to $5 even in 3 player, and higher is fairly common.  If more than one player is doing it, then everybody gets free trashing, not just the non-pirate ship player.

Supposing there's decent draw and +action but no virtual coin, I am not convinced that discard attacks beat it.  Junking attacks probably would.

Given that there usually is some virtual coin, PS is not often dominant, but virtual coin can be expensive. If you can't get your non-treasure economy going before PS depletes your starting treasure, you're pretty screwed; note that this basically can't happen outside of multiplayer.

[DG]

Pirate ship is strong in multiplayer, no doubt about it. Even in two player it can still turn up as a 'must buy' card even though it can usually be avoided. In response to the original post, I think the advice would be that most decks that can provide a good coin income without treasures will beat 2 players pirate ships. A counter that hasn't been mentioned yet is swindlers, saboteurs, and knights since pirate decks often rely on key cards.

[Robz888]

Pirate ship is strong in multiplayer, no doubt about it. Even in two player it can still turn up as a 'must buy' card even though it can usually be avoided. In response to the original post, I think the advice would be that most decks that can provide a good coin income without treasures will beat 2 players pirate ships. A counter that hasn't been mentioned yet is swindlers, saboteurs, and knights since pirate decks often rely on key cards.

I think Pirate Ship is at best a medicore card in multiplayer. The supposed cost to you is having your Treasures trashed--this is very often a good thing! The benefit to your opponents is, terminal source of coin. Terminal source of coin is actually not that great--just as Harvest! You'd rather, like, play Monument or Militia or something halfway decent.

[dondon151]

I feel like Robz's concept of a deck that uses Pirate Ship uses no cards other than Pirate Ship.

[ehunt]

This shouldn't be hard to test in a simulator (multiplayer straight big money vs pirate ship). Big money should probably buy a couple extra golds for insurance.

[DG]

Pirate ships don't simulate perfectly since they have the decision on whether to attack or spend. In Geronimoo's simulator I'm getting pirate+treasure at about 50-50 with smithy+treasure, which is much better than I expected. Smithy vs two pirate players in a three player game comes in at 10-45-45.

[TheExpressicist]

The best counter to Pirate Ship is to ignore it.

If you play Big Money you will be buying treasure faster than Pirate Ship can trash them. If you build an engine you'll be buying actions and thanking them for getting rid of your copper. And on boards where Pirate Ship actually is a powerhouse (which to me are fairly rare), then your own Pirate Ship is going to be providing your virtual coin for you and you don't need to worry about your treasure getting trashed.

[ehunt]

Pirate ships don't simulate perfectly since they have the decision on whether to attack or spend. In Geronimoo's simulator I'm getting pirate+treasure at about 50-50 with smithy+treasure, which is much better than I expected. Smithy vs two pirate players in a three player game comes in at 10-45-45.

I suspect smihy+treasure is failing to buy enough treasure to account for missing treasure

[dondon151]

The best counter to Pirate Ship is to ignore it.

If you play Big Money you will be buying treasure faster than Pirate Ship can trash them.

You can't ignore Pirate Ship in a BM vs. engine matchup.

[popsofctown]

I feel like Robz's concept of a deck that uses Pirate Ship uses no cards other than Pirate Ship.

Well if the Pirate deck contains villages or cantrips, those same villages and cantrips will be used as blockers.  So what else are you going to put in the Pirate Ship deck? Terminals that aren't Pirate Ship?

The 2 player Pirate Ship decks that are successful are indeed mostly Pirate Ship.

[dondon151]

The 2 player Pirate Ship decks that are successful are indeed mostly Pirate Ship.

This is probably the least effective way to play Pirate Ship.

[popsofctown]

Yeah, the whole, "pithy responses are just a precursor to real elaboration" thing is an increasingly silly characterization of dondon's posting.  The pithy responses are precursors to more arrogant pithy responses.

[dondon151]

I'm sorry, but I've been posting on an iPad for basically the entire day. I'm sure that a better player can explain how the paradigm of "lol Pirate Ship is so weak" is incorrect.

[markusin]

I'm not the best judge of Pirate Ship's strength, but it's ability to be a source of virtual coin can at least make it a desirable component in an engine.

I feel like it has the Noble Brigand dilemma. Good against Big-Money, but who goes Big-Money these days? Actually, it's better than Noble Brigand for that purpose. Pirate ship can trash alt-Treasures that Noble Brigand can't, such as Fool's Gold, Bank, Venture, Platinum, Philosopher's Stone, Stash (Chancellor/Stash->Chancellor/Stash). All that can be done in addition to trashing Gold, Silver, and Copper. While Thief can steal those Alt-treasures, Pirate ship doesn't bloat your deck as it trashes treasures. Those treasures may not be so useful to you, but can be critical to your opponent.

But all of that above just encourages your opponents to go engine. However, in games where the only real payload card is Pirate Ship itself, you'll be glad you got the Pirate ship ball rolling before your opponents.

[Awaclus]

I'm sorry, but I've been posting on an iPad for basically the entire day. I'm sure that a better player can explain how the paradigm of "lol Pirate Ship is so weak" is incorrect.

But Pirate Ship is very weak. You're correct about that it's far from unusable, even in 2-player games, though.

[dondon151]

This is just going to mostly echo what markusin said above, but since pops accused me of being arrogant and pithy, I feel obligated to give a more substantial reply.

First, I can't speak for everyone, but my assessment of card strength not only accounts for what the card does when it's in your deck, but also how the card influences players' decisions. This mode of assessment is more intuitive for alt VP cards than it is for Actions, but I think I'd be grossly underestimating Pirate Ship if I ignored its psychological effect. Pirate Ship puts a time limit on just about any money-oriented strategy. Even if it turns out that on most Pirate Ship boards, Pirate Ship ends up never being used, but its mere presence forces all players to preemptively counter it, then Pirate Ship can't be shrugged off as a terribly weak card.

Second, Pirate Ship is still usable in engine mirrors. It just depends on [the kingdom] what else is there. If Copper trashing is possible but poor, Pirate Ship could still be a desirable card because it can be powered up to provide appreciable amounts of money. The rule of thumb that is often stated, "getting your Copper trashed is a good thing," doesn't properly qualify the extent to which this is actually a good thing, plus it makes the assumption that all decks can effortlessly transition their economies from 7 Copper to pure virtual coin. Sometimes the virtual coin is just not that good (e.g., terminal Silvers); sometimes the virtual coin is expensive (e.g., Bazaar); in those cases it could be very nice to have a card that hinders the opponent's economy in the short term and provides $3-$4 per play in the long term.

And sometimes your opponent decides that it's a good idea to use concentrated sources of Treasure as economy in a drawing engine. You'd be delighted to hit just one of his Gold.

tl;dr 2000th post and "lol Pirate Ship is so weak" is a bad heuristic. If we've learned anything about Dominion, it's that most blanket statements are bad.