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[AdamH]

Good article! 

I'm with soulnet, Polk and others in thinking the Jack-in-an-engine section could maybe say a little more about synergy with trash-for-benefit cards.  You mention Forager several times, but not Bishop, Salvager or Apprentice.  Jack seems especially suited for engines built around tfb, since he does two things you'd otherwise need to do separately, draw up after trashing, and gain more cards to trash. 

Granted, silver isn't the greatest thing to feed your Bishop or Salvager, but maybe you use some of that silver to buy bigger and better trash   And if Jack fills your deck with enough silver that you Apprentice one to draw three more, that's a non-terminal +$4, right?  Maybe not as sweet as Apprentice/Market Square, but speaking of that combo, opening MS/Jack would be a solid road to buying the Apprentices.  And if I saw Jack, Bishop and any village other than Fortress, I'd at least consider plodding to the win at 2VP/silver.

It seems the only real synergy here is Apprentice, and it doesn't strike me as that strong -- I think it's a big deal that it's non-terminal, and it seems to me the main reason why you would want that is just to have some decent way to get rid of Silvers you don't want. Would you say that's accurate?

EDIT: typo

[markusin]

Good article! 

I'm with soulnet, Polk and others in thinking the Jack-in-an-engine section could maybe say a little more about synergy with trash-for-benefit cards.  You mention Forager several times, but not Bishop, Salvager or Apprentice.  Jack seems especially suited for engines built around tfb, since he does two things you'd otherwise need to do separately, draw up after trashing, and gain more cards to trash. 

Granted, silver isn't the greatest thing to feed your Bishop or Salvager, but maybe you use some of that silver to buy bigger and better trash   And if Jack fills your deck with enough silver that you Apprentice one to draw three more, that's a non-terminal +$4, right?  Maybe not as sweet as Apprentice/Market Square, but speaking of that combo, opening MS/Jack would be a solid road to buying the Apprentices.  And if I saw Jack, Bishop and any village other than Fortress, I'd at least consider plodding to the win at 2VP/silver.

It seems the only real synergy here is Apprentice, and it doesn't strike me as that strong -- I think it's a big deal that it's non-terminal, and it seems to me the main reason why you would what that is just to have some decent way to get rid of Silvers you don't want. Would you say that's accurate?

I don't think Apprentice's ability to trash Coppers, whose position in your hand can be replaced after playing JoaT, should be ignored. An early Apprentice should make a good addition to a JoaT deck.

[theblankman]

It seems the only real synergy here is Apprentice, and it doesn't strike me as that strong -- I think it's a big deal that it's non-terminal, and it seems to me the main reason why you would want that is just to have some decent way to get rid of Silvers you don't want. Would you say that's accurate?

Hmm... of the three cards I mentioned I'm sure Salvager has the weakest synergy and Apprentice likely has the strongest.  I guess my idea was that if you start with something like Hamlet/Jack or Festival/Jack and build up to playing 3 or 4 Jacks per turn, then you'll gain enough silver that you're happy to let Apprentice consume a few to draw the rest.  It would be an endgame-ish play, where if you have +buys, you'll want to draw as many of your silvers as possible and spend them on multiple VP cards.  I'm just speculating but it feels like there's potential to hit 13 or 16 a few times.  It definitely helps that Apprentice is non-terminal, and as markusin mentioned it's a copper trasher that fits nicely with Jack.  Maybe it won't work after all but reading your article has made me at least want to experiment with it. 

Re: Jack/Bishop, I think the planned endgame is a very thin deck with an equal number of Jacks and Bishops that trashes silver for points as fast as it gains them.  3 silver per turn keeps up with a province buyer, and gains ground when he misses $8, but that's 6 terminals, so if there's only one village then winning the split is absolutely necessary.  Also the engine would ramp up pretty slowly, and the opponent could play conventional double Jack with your Bishops trashing his copper.  So it's pretty questionable whether that deck can pull ahead before the opponent buys all 8 provinces, but I still might play around with it some time. 

Unrelated aside: I've played a few games where Jack's best friend turned out to be Inn.  As a disappearing village with a warehouse-like effect, it does two things Jack likes, and the on-buy effect lets you play Jack early and often.  I'm not sure if that warrants any special mention in your article, but I do think it's one of Jack's better village-y friends. 

[AdamH]

It seems the only real synergy here is Apprentice, and it doesn't strike me as that strong -- I think it's a big deal that it's non-terminal, and it seems to me the main reason why you would want that is just to have some decent way to get rid of Silvers you don't want. Would you say that's accurate?

Hmm... of the three cards I mentioned I'm sure Salvager has the weakest synergy and Apprentice likely has the strongest.  I guess my idea was that if you start with something like Hamlet/Jack or Festival/Jack and build up to playing 3 or 4 Jacks per turn, then you'll gain enough silver that you're happy to let Apprentice consume a few to draw the rest.  It would be an endgame-ish play, where if you have +buys, you'll want to draw as many of your silvers as possible and spend them on multiple VP cards.  I'm just speculating but it feels like there's potential to hit 13 or 16 a few times.  It definitely helps that Apprentice is non-terminal, and as markusin mentioned it's a copper trasher that fits nicely with Jack.  Maybe it won't work after all but reading your article has made me at least want to experiment with it. 

Re: Jack/Bishop, I think the planned endgame is a very thin deck with an equal number of Jacks and Bishops that trashes silver for points as fast as it gains them.  3 silver per turn keeps up with a province buyer, and gains ground when he misses $8, but that's 6 terminals, so if there's only one village then winning the split is absolutely necessary.  Also the engine would ramp up pretty slowly, and the opponent could play conventional double Jack with your Bishops trashing his copper.  So it's pretty questionable whether that deck can pull ahead before the opponent buys all 8 provinces, but I still might play around with it some time. 

Jack+Apprentice in this context seems like a worse version of Stables that only works on Silver and has to trash the Silvers instead of discarding them. It seems to me that the main reason you would want this is because you really want a way to get rid of the Silvers.

I can't back this up with experience, but my instinct tells me that the dream of Apprenticing a Copper then drawing back up with Jack isn't as awesome as we're making it out to be. Best-case it's pretty nice, but if you're desperate enough for Copper trashing to want to go with Apprentice, I bet it's going to be difficult to line this up and use it very much in a practical setting.

Jack/Bishop seems interesting. A lot of the time Golden Deck variants have trouble drawing and Jack really fits the bill nicely here. I sort of want to experiment with this.

Unrelated aside: I've played a few games where Jack's best friend turned out to be Inn.  As a disappearing village with a warehouse-like effect, it does two things Jack likes, and the on-buy effect lets you play Jack early and often.  I'm not sure if that warrants any special mention in your article, but I do think it's one of Jack's better village-y friends.

Ah yes, Inn. I've added this to the list of synergies.

[markusin]

The thing with Apprentice is that it's a really good win-while-you're-ahead card. Jack decks are pretty good at getting an early leaf. Once that happens, you can just trash Provinces or Golds or something to rush the game end. If your deck also has +buy, then there's a chance to double-Province after trashing a Province. Trashing Silver's with Apprentice is one of the worst ways to use Apprentice in this kind of deck, but you can do that if you're desperate.

During the really late game, Apprentice can even trash Jacks. It's worth experimenting with before any definitive conclusions are drawn about Jack/Apprentice.

[Awaclus]

Jack decks are pretty good at getting an early leaf.

Herbalist decks are also pretty good at that, and any decks when Sage is on the board.

[theblankman]

Jack+Apprentice in this context seems like a worse version of Stables that only works on Silver and has to trash the Silvers instead of discarding them. It seems to me that the main reason you would want this is because you really want a way to get rid of the Silvers.

I can't back this up with experience, but my instinct tells me that the dream of Apprenticing a Copper then drawing back up with Jack isn't as awesome as we're making it out to be. Best-case it's pretty nice, but if you're desperate enough for Copper trashing to want to go with Apprentice, I bet it's going to be difficult to line this up and use it very much in a practical setting.

If you're trying to maintain an engine that plays several Jacks per turn, I don't think it's "get rid of Silver" so much as "keep the right amount of Silver in your deck."  You want enough to consistently buy VP cards, but not so many that your engine pieces disconnect.  Since you can't avoid gaining Silver with Jack as your primary draw card, maybe Apprentice helps you smooth things out.  Or maybe I'm wrong and Stables is just better.  I do agree that paying $5 for a no-benefit copper trasher sounds bad, but if Apprentice on Silver is equal or better than Stables, then trashing copper becomes a nice side effect if you happen to draw the right hand for it.

Jack/Bishop seems interesting. A lot of the time Golden Deck variants have trouble drawing and Jack really fits the bill nicely here. I sort of want to experiment with this.

A 6VP/turn Golden Deck is certainly reachable, the question I haven't answered yet is whether you can get there quick enough to beat a Jack+whatever-else (opponent's Bishop?) that just buys all the provinces.  I suspect Golden Jack/Bishop is either excellent or not viable at all, with no in-between. 

It might be more viable in Colony games though, provided the board has a few village flavors so you can get enough actions to generate 10+/turn.  Jack doesn't speed up a Colony game as much, so there's time to trash down to your Golden Deck, and 4 Bishops is just enough to keep adding sets of village/Bishop/Jack after all your treasure is gone, so the deck can keep accelerating in its endgame. 

[AdamH]

Jack+Apprentice in this context seems like a worse version of Stables that only works on Silver and has to trash the Silvers instead of discarding them. It seems to me that the main reason you would want this is because you really want a way to get rid of the Silvers.

I can't back this up with experience, but my instinct tells me that the dream of Apprenticing a Copper then drawing back up with Jack isn't as awesome as we're making it out to be. Best-case it's pretty nice, but if you're desperate enough for Copper trashing to want to go with Apprentice, I bet it's going to be difficult to line this up and use it very much in a practical setting.

If you're trying to maintain an engine that plays several Jacks per turn, I don't think it's "get rid of Silver" so much as "keep the right amount of Silver in your deck."  You want enough to consistently buy VP cards, but not so many that your engine pieces disconnect.  Since you can't avoid gaining Silver with Jack as your primary draw card, maybe Apprentice helps you smooth things out.  Or maybe I'm wrong and Stables is just better.  I do agree that paying $5 for a no-benefit copper trasher sounds bad, but if Apprentice on Silver is equal or better than Stables, then trashing copper becomes a nice side effect if you happen to draw the right hand for it.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that I think the cases are very rare when you want to be playing several Jacks per turn. I've heard it's possible to make decks where Jack is your only source of draw but I'm very hesitant to build those decks and I think I'm someone with less fear of Jack-in-an-Engine than most around here.

Not saying it can't be done, but I'm saying it would be rare to see.

[theblankman]

Not saying it can't be done, but I'm saying it would be rare to see.

I agree.  I just think Apprentice might be one of those rare cases where you could spam Jack, because it helps you draw all that gained silver while also regulating how much silver stays in your deck.  Put it this way: if my main village is Festival or Hamlet, I'm not sure if I'd prefer a bunch of Smithys and a few Jacks; or a bunch of Jacks and a few Apprentices.  Of course, if the terminal draw card is Torturer, that's a different story  

[theblankman]

Okay, so I just tried Golden Jack/Bishop against Lord Bottington for the heck of it.  All my estates and treasures were gone by turn 16, which isn't all that slow if your opponent needs to buy all 8 provinces.  Plus I already had 30+ chips at that point, so I was actually in the lead (not sure if I would've been against a better player though).  Game ended on piles in 23 turns (one of the piles was Silver!).  I had 81 chips to the bot's 7 provinces and a duchy.  A real opponent certainly would've been a stiffer challenge but I still think the deck can win.  Lessons learned:

1) With a ton of terminals and only Jack for draw, I had to go full-on village idiot to minimize the chance of an all-terminal hand.  The concern wasn't just having enough action plays, it was making sure my first 5 cards contain at least one village.  I wonder if non-terminal draw/cycling like Lab/HP/Menagerie/Warehouse would help.  Absent those cards, I think two piles of villages are needed, and hand-size reducing ones like Inn and Hamlet are probably the best.

2) Get a Jack early for economy during buildup, but probably don't need more than 2 until you're mostly trashed and ready to chew up the Silvers they give you.  Not sure if it's better to open Jack or Bishop... it might depend on whether your 3 is a silver or a cheap village (opening village isn't necessarily bad since you need a ton of them, your engine pieces are cheap, and you'll gain Silver from Jack). 

3) Watch the Silver pile.  The deck stalls when it's empty because you stop gaining Bishop food.  At that point you need two other piles empty, or at least low enough that you can finish them by cannibalizing engine pieces for Bishop's coin. 

4) Be careful not to accidentally jack-trash a village you meant to play 

Overall first impression: Jack + Bishop + two village piles is rare, but when it happens the deck seems solid.  It gets an early chip lead unless the opponent also runs multiple Bishops, gets rolling in moderate time, and scores enough to beat Provinces overall.  I'm not sure about Colonies or big alt-VP like Vineyard, and I think it would be terribly outclassed by a Goons engine, but it's still something I will try again. 

[terminalCopper]

I really like your enthusiasm, but i think you go too far. Example given, if you appreciate to have two cards in your hand, it is not enough to call it a synergy. If it was, platinum would synergize with any other card, especially with itself.

[MarkowKette]

A few notes on my side to engines where Jack is your only draw.

First of all it suffers from the same problems all draw-up-to engines suffer from.
You need a lot more villages than jacks and not just (number of draw cards+1 which is a good estimate for other pure draw engines). Or you need really good sifting, like Inn, wandering minstrel, warehouse.
And drawing up to 5 Cards instead of 6 or 7 is a HUGE difference. So while Library is a really good draw card for like every engine that doesnt use treasures as payload because it also provides some of the needed sifting itself, Jack es really weak in that regard as you often have to connect 1-2 villages, a "silver-trasher", a silver and another Jack in the cards you draw with the Jack (and the villages, sifters you play afterwards).
Then obviously must have a way to get rid of those silvers and if that way is terminal you need another extra village.
Spice Merchant and especially Forager shine for that. Apprentice can be decent but it costs $5 and when trashing silvers increase your handsize like a Lab so are not stricktly bad for your draw up to engine but doesnt really synergize with it either.

So all in all i can say boards where you want to build such an engine are extremely rare and i think what you have to look out for if you want to build such are are A LOT of very CHEAP synergizing cards.
I only played one of those boards so far and that featured Jack, Forager and Wandering Minstrel.
All those cards are very cheap to get  and you only need 3 different cards here that deliver every component that you need.
Silver-trashing+ payload in forager, village and strong sifting in wandering minstrel.
Often the engine is there but it takes too long to get all needed components.
Example: (Jack,  Spice Merchant, Festival, Warehouse) here you find everything you need for such an engine but you need too many or too expensive components to set it up fast enough.

[Holger]

Jack of All Trades, Advanced

The original article can be found on the wiki and was written by theory in late 2011, right after Hinterlands was just released. The original article reflected the mentality of that time, which was that Jack was really strong for money, didn't really synergize with all that much, and was grossly overpowered and could only be beaten by the strongest engines (sound familiar? I really hope this article can be written about Rebuild some day).

I agree with most of this, but not with the "grossly overpowered" claim. theory only ever states that it's very strong for BM (as opposed to the initial impression mentioned of it being quite weak), and flat-out says that "DoubleJack isn’t unbeatable."  And the claim that Jack is one of the strongest BM card is still correct, I think, if you ignore stronger cards that were released later (Rebuild, Cultist).^* In Qvist's 2014 card list, it's still #4 among $4 cards, and none of the higher-ranked cards is good for BM. 
I really wish your Rebuild hope comes true, but even Donald X. has admitted that it's too strong for a one-card strategy, something he never had to do for Jack...

^* In the Dominiate simulator, it only loses to Wharf, Witch and (narrowly) Mountebank, but I think the latter two are due to suboptimal card implementation - Jack discards a Curse when it has none in hand, instead it should draw and trash it.
Edit: I was wrong, Jack seems to lose either way (although very narrowly against Wharf). In Province-Estate games, that is - Shelters may help Jack to win those match-ups, while Colonies are hopeless.

[Schneau]

   - Scheme can be very helpful for reliability in a deck with Silvers as its payload.

What does this sentence mean? To me, it reads that you're supposed to name Silver with Scheme, which isn't legal. So, I'm not sure what you meant.

[eHalcyon]

   - Scheme can be very helpful for reliability in a deck with Silvers as its payload.

What does this sentence mean? To me, it reads that you're supposed to name Silver with Scheme, which isn't legal. So, I'm not sure what you meant.

I still haven't read the draft, but I expect that Adam means you can use Scheme to put your engine components into your starting hands consistently, whereas otherwise the silver might get in the way.  You will usually prefer to draw the silver later by playing through the engine rather than having the silver in your hand to start.

[AdamH]

A few notes on my side to engines where Jack is your only draw.

First of all it suffers from the same problems all draw-up-to engines suffer from.
You need a lot more villages than jacks and not just (number of draw cards+1 which is a good estimate for other pure draw engines). Or you need really good sifting, like Inn, wandering minstrel, warehouse.
And drawing up to 5 Cards instead of 6 or 7 is a HUGE difference. So while Library is a really good draw card for like every engine that doesnt use treasures as payload because it also provides some of the needed sifting itself, Jack es really weak in that regard as you often have to connect 1-2 villages, a "silver-trasher", a silver and another Jack in the cards you draw with the Jack (and the villages, sifters you play afterwards).
Then obviously must have a way to get rid of those silvers and if that way is terminal you need another extra village.
Spice Merchant and especially Forager shine for that. Apprentice can be decent but it costs $5 and when trashing silvers increase your handsize like a Lab so are not stricktly bad for your draw up to engine but doesnt really synergize with it either.

So all in all i can say boards where you want to build such an engine are extremely rare and i think what you have to look out for if you want to build such are are A LOT of very CHEAP synergizing cards.
I only played one of those boards so far and that featured Jack, Forager and Wandering Minstrel.
All those cards are very cheap to get  and you only need 3 different cards here that deliver every component that you need.
Silver-trashing+ payload in forager, village and strong sifting in wandering minstrel.
Often the engine is there but it takes too long to get all needed components.
Example: (Jack,  Spice Merchant, Festival, Warehouse) here you find everything you need for such an engine but you need too many or too expensive components to set it up fast enough.

This is really good and well-put, I'm just not sure how to include it in the article, especially without adding a lot of length for something really specific. Not sure.

Jack of All Trades, Advanced

The original article can be found on the wiki and was written by theory in late 2011, right after Hinterlands was just released. The original article reflected the mentality of that time, which was that Jack was really strong for money, didn't really synergize with all that much, and was grossly overpowered and could only be beaten by the strongest engines (sound familiar? I really hope this article can be written about Rebuild some day).

I agree with most of this, but not with the "grossly overpowered" claim. theory only ever states that it's very strong for BM (as opposed to the initial impression mentioned of it being quite weak), and flat-out says that "DoubleJack isn’t unbeatable."  And the claim that Jack is one of the strongest BM card is still correct, I think, if you ignore stronger cards that were released later (Rebuild, Cultist).^* In Qvist's 2014 card list, it's still #4 among $4 cards, and none of the higher-ranked cards is good for BM. 
I really wish your Rebuild hope comes true, but even Donald X. has admitted that it's too strong for a one-card strategy, something he never had to do for Jack...

^* In the Dominiate simulator, it only loses to Wharf, Witch and (narrowly) Mountebank, but I think the latter two are due to suboptimal card implementation - Jack discards a Curse when it has none in hand, instead it should draw and trash it.

   - Scheme can be very helpful for reliability in a deck with Silvers as its payload.

What does this sentence mean? To me, it reads that you're supposed to name Silver with Scheme, which isn't legal. So, I'm not sure what you meant.

eHalcyon's response is what I meant by this ^

These have been clarified in the article. Thanks for the feedback!

[DG]

I've finally got round to reading through this. First of all, "double jack" isn't so special. It's not massively better than single jack in a head-to-head. Jack + cost 5 card(s) is often better, even unpopular cards like count, stash, and merchant ship. Perhaps it is obvious but you don't mention that kingdom treasures like stash, venture, and hoard work really well with jacks.

In multiplayer a jack is no longer single card defense. Your opponents can damage your hand/deck faster than a jack can repair it so you need to fit the jack into a new strategy, even if that just becomes "triple jack". Reaction defenses like moats and traders can become much stronger than jacks. On the other hand, full engines can become more difficult to build in multiplayer as each player gets a smaller share of key cards, so minion+jack or fishing village+jack can be a more realistic target.

In terms of engines, well I don't think that jacks are a good fit for engines generally. Engines often need to bring deck drawing under control, strict control. The jack is a always gaining a card and sometimes trashing a card so it is doing nothing to control the deck size. Buying and using other cheap cards to control the deck is usually better than buying and using the jack. Once an engine is established the jack can be good to gain silver but even then there is no choice, it gains only silver and you have to commit to working with that. Silver is an active impediment to the drawing of many engines with cards like apothecaries, tacticians, minions, scrying pools, menageries, etc.

Colony games could be mentioned. Silver is a mediocre card in colony games so using your terminal actions to gain more silver can be equally mediocre.

[AdamH]

I've finally got round to reading through this. First of all, "double jack" isn't so special. It's not massively better than single jack in a head-to-head. Jack + cost 5 card(s) is often better, even unpopular cards like count, stash, and merchant ship. Perhaps it is obvious but you don't mention that kingdom treasures like stash, venture, and hoard work really well with jacks.

Colony games could be mentioned. Silver is a mediocre card in colony games so using your terminal actions to gain more silver can be equally mediocre.

These have been added to the article. Thanks for pointing these out!

In terms of engines, well I don't think that jacks are a good fit for engines generally. Engines often need to bring deck drawing under control, strict control. The jack is a always gaining a card and sometimes trashing a card so it is doing nothing to control the deck size. Buying and using other cheap cards to control the deck is usually better than buying and using the jack. Once an engine is established the jack can be good to gain silver but even then there is no choice, it gains only silver and you have to commit to working with that. Silver is an active impediment to the drawing of many engines with cards like apothecaries, tacticians, minions, scrying pools, menageries, etc.

Well you're certainly not the first person to tell me stuff like this. Jack isn't the best thing in every engine imaginable, but a lot of the time the answer is just to stop playing jack at a certain point, and a lot of other times the answer is that Silver is actually good. Maybe not in all the cases you pointed out, but a lot of the reason I'm writing this article is because people say this all the time, where it implies that most of the time Jack gets in the way of your engine where I think most of the time Jack helps engines more than it hurts (I think it rarely hurts, myself).

[MarkowKette]

I will try to put my arguments together in a compressed way so you can maybe include it.
I think it is an important part(not because you often build such an engine) but to make clear that you often don't want to build such an engine even if it seems tempting and why.  Is the following ok for that?

Jack as your only draw:

Strong engines with Jack as your only draw are very rare. The reason for this is you need a lot of components to ensure a good reliability. You have a lot of "stop cards" and you only draw up to 5. Any victory cards are stop cards, Silver is a stop card when you draw it without a trasher, the silver-trasher is a stop card when you draw it without a silver(most of the time), any terminal actions(except the first Jack) are stop cards whenever you dont have 3+ actions remaining. So in order to make your engine reliable you need good sifting. If yount want to make this engine you need: Jacks, Sifters, Silver trashers, payload cards and Villages and +buy. Getting all these in the right numbers usually takes too much time. The few times you want to do this there have to be one or two really prime enablers ((cheap) cards that fullfill multiple of those tasks)
prime examples of such cards are: Forager ($3, silver trashing, payload,+buy, nonterminal), Hamlet ($2,Village, +buy, small sifting), Wandering minstres ($4, village , strong sifting), Fishing village ($3, very reliable village, small payload)

[AdamH]

I've re-worked the beginning of the Jack-in-an-Engine portion of the article (took out a lot of my babbling about the example and replaced it with this). Any thoughts?

[jomini]

I've finally got round to reading through this. First of all, "double jack" isn't so special. It's not massively better than single jack in a head-to-head. Jack + cost 5 card(s) is often better, even unpopular cards like count, stash, and merchant ship. Perhaps it is obvious but you don't mention that kingdom treasures like stash, venture, and hoard work really well with jacks.

In multiplayer a jack is no longer single card defense. Your opponents can damage your hand/deck faster than a jack can repair it so you need to fit the jack into a new strategy, even if that just becomes "triple jack". Reaction defenses like moats and traders can become much stronger than jacks. On the other hand, full engines can become more difficult to build in multiplayer as each player gets a smaller share of key cards, so minion+jack or fishing village+jack can be a more realistic target.

In terms of engines, well I don't think that jacks are a good fit for engines generally. Engines often need to bring deck drawing under control, strict control. The jack is a always gaining a card and sometimes trashing a card so it is doing nothing to control the deck size. Buying and using other cheap cards to control the deck is usually better than buying and using the jack. Once an engine is established the jack can be good to gain silver but even then there is no choice, it gains only silver and you have to commit to working with that. Silver is an active impediment to the drawing of many engines with cards like apothecaries, tacticians, minions, scrying pools, menageries, etc.

Colony games could be mentioned. Silver is a mediocre card in colony games so using your terminal actions to gain more silver can be equally mediocre.

On the other hand, you are selling Jack's ability to boot strap you into an engine a lot shorter here. Take something like Upgrade. Jack turns estates into Silvers for its first three plays, let's you quickly buy upgrades, and then let's you draw a full hand after killing coppers. Later on you can flip the Jack into an Upgrade (or whatever). Jack will get you 5's virtually every hand, very quickly, and even when facing attacks. For expensive engines, Jack works quite well. If your key price point really is $4 or $3, then yeah, Jack isn't as hot ... but for $5, $6, and $7 Jack allows you to get there quickly even if you are being hammered by attacks. I mean take something like Kc or Forge, it takes a good bit to get either of those, particularly if things like Cutpurse, Militia, or the like are kicking around. Jack gets them just about as fast as silver and helps you build action density in the process.

Or take a very strong synergy - Jack and the other guy's Bishop. Sure he will get a few more chips than you early, but he will have a lot of turns where the Bishop is a $0 and the rest will be for $1. Going for any sort of expensive engine off Bishop is a bit slow as you need an average of $1.3, 1.6 or $2 to nab a big component when you trash a card. Trashing off the other guy is great for Jack and lets you dip into the strong cards.

As far as Jack being weaker against attacks in 3er. Well sure ... against junking attacks. But most attacks don't stack well. Fortune teller is going to leave the same amount of crap on top. B-crat isn't likely to top deck yet another green. Virtually all the discards don't stack ... and if they do (Cutpurse, Torturer, Taxman) - you can just play the Jack for a full hand regardless. Deck inspection can be a bit worse - you have 2x the Spies going after you to discard strong cards - but how much does that really hurt? At worst they can leave one bad card on top for you and the only way you will consistently have multiple cards discarded from deck inspection is if you deck consistently has good cards on top. Aside from cursing and looters, what doesn't Jack stop just as well in 3er as 2er?

Even take something like Ambassador, sure you are going to be getting in on the Ambassador war ... but if you are trying to keep pace with the other guy's ambassadors you need to be returning 2 cards with each ambassador play. That means you have 2 other cards left for doing anything. Because Ambassador clears out three slots, this turns Jack into draw-3-cards and do other stuff when you can get village/Amb/Jack. Honestly, though in 3er, Jack is a pretty strong shot for a quick duchy rush. You can spam silver and copper isn't bad if you let the other guys play estate tennis and run down the pile for you. Pile out the duchies and you need to pile out one other thing before either of them hits more than half the provinces. Sure if its end up being two Jack players against one Amb, the Jacks lose ... but that isn't exactly an uncommon dynamic in 3er. There is a premium on being the odd man out.

[soulnet]

Rabble and Torturer are the two Attacks that really hurt Jack (when chained). That may be worth pointing out, given that Jack is usually pretty good against Attacks.

[jomini]

Actually I'd put both Rabble and Torturer as weaker against Jack. Rabble suffers from the problem that Jack kills the estates so you get less damage from it for a long time. If you are playing money Jack, you just have a ton of silver and it doesn't matter nearly as much when you reshuffle; you need to chain a LOT of Rabbles to top deck more than the one card Jack can just toss via inspection if you have 3 green in 20 cards. If you are playing engine, well presumably you are looking at double province turns so your window of vulnerability should be rather low. As an added bonus, a lot of Jack engines work really well with discard for benefit (Cellar, Warehouse, Inn, etc.) so you are even less likely to be stumped by green. In both cases, an opponent going Rabble should inform when you green and more importantly when to dip into the duchies ... but Jack is really good at making early Rabbles counter-productive (cycle faster) and making late Rabbles a crapshoot because of how thick the deck can get.

Likewise Torturer takes 3 plays to be painful against money-Jack and even then, it really is just "discard one card" effectively (presumably by the time you can chain 3 Torturers, the other guy's Jack has already crunched his estates so he can discard twice, gain a curse, and then trash it). Sure money-jack doesn't always have a Jack in hand ... but Jack into Torturer can work (particularly if the other guy doesn't have Jack to allow big draws and kill curses), particularly as it makes it really to hit 5 even while discarding 2 or even 4 cards. Jack-engine does need to keep around another card for the +action ... but you can still do pretty well with discard/gain curse/discard.

Frankly, there just are not that many cards which are stronger against stacked Rabble (sure Farming Village, Hunting Party, maybe Venture/Loan ...) than Jack. And against Torturer, sure Watchtower owns it and I guess Library and Scrying Pool (with possible options for things like Golem/Nv/Wharf/Tac) ... but if Torturer is quick and strong then it is going to beat just about everything. If it is weak, Jack is one of the best cards to say "skip it". Particularly in 3er where your opponents are beating each other up as well as you, Jack just seems to be among the best counters.

Now sure, Jack/Something else is normally your go-to, but even the stacking on Rabble and Torturer doesn't do much against Jack.

[amalloy]

In terms of engines, well I don't think that jacks are a good fit for engines generally. Engines often need to bring deck drawing under control, strict control. The jack is a always gaining a card and sometimes trashing a card so it is doing nothing to control the deck size. Buying and using other cheap cards to control the deck is usually better than buying and using the jack. Once an engine is established the jack can be good to gain silver but even then there is no choice, it gains only silver and you have to commit to working with that. Silver is an active impediment to the drawing of many engines with cards like apothecaries, tacticians, minions, scrying pools, menageries, etc.

On the other hand, you are selling Jack's ability to boot strap you into an engine a lot shorter here. Take something like Upgrade. Jack turns estates into Silvers for its first three plays, let's you quickly buy upgrades, and then let's you draw a full hand after killing coppers. Later on you can flip the Jack into an Upgrade (or whatever). Jack will get you 5's virtually every hand, very quickly, and even when facing attacks. For expensive engines, Jack works quite well. If your key price point really is $4 or $3, then yeah, Jack isn't as hot ... but for $5, $6, and $7 Jack allows you to get there quickly even if you are being hammered by attacks. I mean take something like Kc or Forge, it takes a good bit to get either of those, particularly if things like Cutpurse, Militia, or the like are kicking around. Jack gets them just about as fast as silver and helps you build action density in the process.

I played a game recently that I think exemplifies how Jack can help get an engine going fast, even if you may not want the Jack long-term. Sadly it was not on goko, so I can't use the Kingdom¹ Visualizer, but the kingdom was:

Menagerie, Village, Golem, Jack, Wandering Minstrel,
Council Room, Governor, Trading Post, Grand Market, Forge

My Jack opening let me buy engine pieces while thinning, without having to neglect my economy. I was able to get an early Council Room, and a Forge shortly thereafter. On turn 9 my deck was nothing but a ton of good cards, and I used Governor to exchange Jack for GM. I might even have been better off keeping the Jack, since Silver is decent for forging or remodeling, but either way Jack really helped kickstart this powerful engine. I'm sure I didn't play it optimally, but I would be a little surprised to hear that the optimal strategy doesn't involve Jack.

¹ I miss the Kingom Visualizer

[soulnet]

My Jack opening let me buy engine pieces while thinning, without having to neglect my economy. I was able to get an early Council Room, and a Forge shortly thereafter. On turn 9 my deck was nothing but a ton of good cards, and I used Governor to exchange Jack for GM. I might even have been better off keeping the Jack, since Silver is decent for forging or remodeling, but either way Jack really helped kickstart this powerful engine. I'm sure I didn't play it optimally, but I would be a little surprised to hear that the optimal strategy doesn't involve Jack.

Governor-Remodel really synergizes with Jack because it likes to have Silvers around to pick up $5s, and it reduces hand-size. Also, opponent's Governor-remodel synergizes with Jack as well.