I'm not sure if this should go in Help! or not since it isn't an actual log. I played a game in real life with a friend, but I remember what the board was:
Haven
Pawn
Shanty Town
Smugglers
Spice Merchant
Jack of All Trades
Silk Road
Trading Post
Margrave
Harem
I made the deck on deck builder to look at:
http://www.dominiondeck.com/games/home-game.
I'm interested in seeing what people think the best strategy is. It seemed to me that Jack was good here. Since it draws to refill your hand it seems a decent defense against Margrave. Plus Spice Merchant can trash your Copper and Shanty Town, Pawn, Haven seem like they would all work well. My friend and I talked about strategy before the game, and he hasn't played a lot with Hinterlands cards, so in general he doesn't see the power of Jack. He wanted to go Trading Post for faster trashing and more immediate money. After we discussed this, he saw my point, but wanted to play it out where we tried different strategies. I disagreed on going the Trading Post strategy, but I wonder if pure Jack (double-Jack) and money is best.
So I tried Jack with Spice Merchant and Shanty Towns, and eventually a couple of Margraves. He went Trading Post and early Margraves with a lot of Shanty Towns. He also got a Smugglers and used Havens while I neglected to.
I ended up losing, but I think I made a card-handling mistake (after I had played Jack twice and was certain I trashed both times, I still had 2 Estates) and possibly some game-playing errors. But I'm more concerned with the best way to play Jack here. Shanty Town as a village is not that great, but the downpoint is somewhat mitigated by Jack drawing back up 5. I was envisioning Spice Merchant getting rid of the Copper, and eventually extra Silver if I had to, but it may be too slow. And with a lot of Silver you may not be mostly drawing your deck all the time. Margrave isn't a huge issue, because Jacks and Shanty Town both counter. The problem is, though, if you keep just a Jack in hand you're drawing actions dead. So you need to have a Shanty or you can't kick off drawing. With just Jack+money, I don't think the Margrave would be a problem at all. With enough Golds on $6 hands or a Jack in hand, you could hit 8 after being hit by a Margrave much more easily (because now if you have a Jack, it will replenish with mostly money instead of actions).
What's the best strategy here?