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[soulnet]

Here is a couple of nice games I played against dudeabides (nice guy, btw, do not hesitate to play with him). We played it, analyze and replayed. I streamed and recorded the replay, so here are the kingdom, the two logs and the video:

Code: [Select]

Crossroads, Hamlet, Ambassador, JackOfAllTrades, Salvager, Festival, Haggler, Outpost, Rogue, Tactician
First game log
Second game log
Second game video

In the first game, I went for Jack/Amb to thin out into Hamlet/Xroads for actions and Festival/Haggler/Salver for money, using Jack and double-Tactitian for draw. Lots of combos. Jack loves disappearing villages (Necro, Hamlet, Festival) and both Jack and Tactitian love dissapearing money (Festival, Haggler, Salvager). Also, there are nice cheap piles, so Haggler is a must.

He opens Silver/Salvager, which I think is a mistake for any plan. In any case, he says he wants Tact ASAP and thus skips Amb, although he said after the game he would rather open Silver/Jack. I say Amb is key to thin out coppers, and with both Jack draw-to-5 and Tact's discard, Amb does not wastes your hand.

I won the first one due to building up much faster thanks to increased cycling and thinning, and I clinched points early. Possibly misplayed the endgame, got a little to confident, and could have lost it to some bad draws for me or good draws for him.

The second game was much closer. He could not open Jack due to getting 5/2, but still went heavy into Tact and Outpost (with Jacks this time), while I went into Ambassador early. I got pretty bad draws in the beginning and thought it was doomed (you can hear me whine about it in the video), but then the Ambassador thinning proves to be key, as he starts getting some bad draws while I consistently draw my deck or most of it. However, he is in the lead thanks to his better start, but I concentrated on watching piles trying to squeeze the win and his Copper finally gives him bad draws while I get a good turn and pile out while grabbing exactly the extra point I need to win. I think he misplayed the endgame, not getting an extra point in his last turn and getting xroads instead which made it easier for me to 3-pile, I guess it was probably due to being his second really bad turn in a row.

So, please comment on the games, but also on the kingdom. How many Jacks do you want? Is Jack and Salvage Silvers really good? Is it better to try to load up on Festivals faster for money? Is there something better than double Tactitian?

Also, if you can comment on the video, it would be great. I am going to stream live for GokoDom this weekend for the first time and I would love some pointers.

[amalloy]

A comment about the last turn. Of course you had a forced win and you took it, but it wasn't quite as close as you thought it was, re the number of buys/dollars available. You could have easily squeezed more points out, if your opponent's lead had been a bit larger.

After buying Province+Festival, you had $17 and plenty of buys, with 6 Crossroads left. The most obvious adjustment is to buy a Duchy and haggle Crossroads, leaving you with enough money to buy the last 5 Crossroads and an Estate: a 3-point improvement. But better still is to forget about the Crossroads, and just buy all eight Estates! That's a seven-point improvement on your actual play.

I presume you would have found either of these plays if it had been necessary, and you were just taking the first win that occurred to you; but since you did comment that you were really close to losing, I thought I'd point out that you actually left an entire Province-equivalent on the table and still won.

As for the video quality, it was fine. I could hear and understand what you were saying, and the video quality was sufficient to see what was going on. I think you could have spoken a bit more loudly - that's something I'm trying to work on for my own videos as well.

[soulnet]

Thanks for the comment.

It was $15 after the Province, though, so piling Estates was not possible. I noticed I could get Duchy+Xroads instead of Xroads+Estate, a 2-point improvement on my play (spending an additional $1 that I had left), but that was it.

In any case, I thought I was close to losing not because of the score, but because if I could not finish the game that turn (which would have been the case if I have had $4 less total money, for instance, and with $3 less total money I could only tie), I would probably lose on his next turn.

EDIT: I guess I could have piled Estates and buy the Festival, which would have been 1 point better than my actual play and 1 point less than doing Duchy+Xroads, but still, all within a couple of points.

[Titandrake]

Ambassador is required here, but I'm trying to decide whether I like Amb/Jack over Amb/Amb. Amb/Jack gives you better shots of hitting $5 later, which is an important cost point this game, but if Jack reveals Ambassador you're incredibly behind. Additionally, you have both Hamlet and Crossroads as $2 costs, which makes the early economy killing of Amb/Amb hurt less.

Amb/Jack can deal with some junking, but I feel like a deck with Hamlet/Amb/Amb after turn 4 is pretty scary to go up against, especially if the deck gets thin enough that picking up a Curse with Hamlet +Buy is feasible.

[qdread]

Ambassador is required here, but I'm trying to decide whether I like Amb/Jack over Amb/Amb. Amb/Jack gives you better shots of hitting $5 later, which is an important cost point this game, but if Jack reveals Ambassador you're incredibly behind. Additionally, you have both Hamlet and Crossroads as $2 costs, which makes the early economy killing of Amb/Amb hurt less.

Amb/Jack can deal with some junking, but I feel like a deck with Hamlet/Amb/Amb after turn 4 is pretty scary to go up against, especially if the deck gets thin enough that picking up a Curse with Hamlet +Buy is feasible.

Not so much in a Shelters game, though, where Ambassadoring a Shelter will fizzle, and NecroJack is so powerful if you can get them to line up.

[qdread]

Also, this seems like such a high-skill board, where there is very little margin of error to construct your engine since piles are in such danger of being rapidly run out, even with the presence of Ambassador. I am sure I would have gotten rolled if I were up against even a marginally better player than myself.

[soulnet]

Ambassador is required here, but I'm trying to decide whether I like Amb/Jack over Amb/Amb. Amb/Jack gives you better shots of hitting $5 later, which is an important cost point this game, but if Jack reveals Ambassador you're incredibly behind. Additionally, you have both Hamlet and Crossroads as $2 costs, which makes the early economy killing of Amb/Amb hurt less.

Amb/Jack can deal with some junking, but I feel like a deck with Hamlet/Amb/Amb after turn 4 is pretty scary to go up against, especially if the deck gets thin enough that picking up a Curse with Hamlet +Buy is feasible.

Not so much in a Shelters game, though, where Ambassadoring a Shelter will fizzle, and NecroJack is so powerful if you can get them to line up.

Shelters it the huge reason to go Jack, but I think I would have open Jack/Amb in an Estate game as well. There are lots of Jack best friends (Hamlet, a single Crossroads, TfB to use the Silvers later...) so Jack's increased cycling will help win the Amb war even against an Amb/Amb player. Collision is bad in both scenarios. Moreover, it is not clear to me than just playing Jack is clearly worse than just playing (one of the) Amb(s).

Also, this seems like such a high-skill board, where there is very little margin of error to construct your engine since piles are in such danger of being rapidly run out, even with the presence of Ambassador. I am sure I would have gotten rolled if I were up against even a marginally better player than myself.

Is hard to tell if someone is marginally better than yourself. And also, dudeabides is considerably higher than me in ratings, and I won. Luck is a big factor, and also, better players win more often, not always.

[dudeabides]

Is hard to tell if someone is marginally better than yourself. And also, dudeabides is considerably higher than me in ratings, and I won. Luck is a big factor, and also, better players win more often, not always.

You are in the Gokodom playoffs, though, Soulnet.  I, on the other hand, am not.  Good luck with your upcoming match. 

Thanks a lot for posting this and for humoring me by playing another game with that board.  This is one of the more interesting boards I've played in a while.  I agree with others' assessment that Jack/Ambassador opening is optimal on this board.  After playing the board a couple more times (with bots, so take the results with a grain of salt), I actually think avoiding Outpost is a good idea.  Outpost seems to increase the variance quite a bit.  In particular, finding the second Tactician can be difficult after an 8-card Outpost hand.

[qdread]

Ambassador is required here, but I'm trying to decide whether I like Amb/Jack over Amb/Amb. Amb/Jack gives you better shots of hitting $5 later, which is an important cost point this game, but if Jack reveals Ambassador you're incredibly behind. Additionally, you have both Hamlet and Crossroads as $2 costs, which makes the early economy killing of Amb/Amb hurt less.

Amb/Jack can deal with some junking, but I feel like a deck with Hamlet/Amb/Amb after turn 4 is pretty scary to go up against, especially if the deck gets thin enough that picking up a Curse with Hamlet +Buy is feasible.

Not so much in a Shelters game, though, where Ambassadoring a Shelter will fizzle, and NecroJack is so powerful if you can get them to line up.

Shelters it the huge reason to go Jack, but I think I would have open Jack/Amb in an Estate game as well. There are lots of Jack best friends (Hamlet, a single Crossroads, TfB to use the Silvers later...) so Jack's increased cycling will help win the Amb war even against an Amb/Amb player. Collision is bad in both scenarios. Moreover, it is not clear to me than just playing Jack is clearly worse than just playing (one of the) Amb(s).

I would agree with you on the opening. I am a little wary of opening double-Amb sometimes, and I feel like with Shelters, you'd have a pretty high risk of early turns where you only return one Copper. The economy boost from JoaT seems worth less frequent play of Ambassador here. You can always return two Coppers with Ambassador to at least keep pace with your opponent even if he or she does play two Ambs.