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Author Topic: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together  (Read 31879 times)

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Copernicus

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Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« on: December 06, 2011, 12:02:56 pm »
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Simple stuff really -- cards that don't work quite as well together as they initially appear to, usually because of what is directly written on the card and ignored.


King's Court/Throne Room and Goons/Highway -- They have a "While in play" clause that means the +VP or -cost effects are not duplicated.  Still an ok combo, just not as insane as it could be.

Masquerade and Throne Room -- In 2-player games, you'll almost always get back the first card that was passed to the opponent.

Treasure Map and Scheme -- Treasure Map will always self-trash when played.

Alchemist and Mandarin/Mint -- Purchasing the Mandarin or Mint will get rid of the Potion which Alchemist requires to be in play.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2011, 12:07:46 pm »
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Masquerade and Throne Room -- In 2-player games, you'll almost always get back the first card that was passed to the opponent.
...so just pass them your second-worst card to start with, and save your worst for the second pass.

As far as anti-combos, when I saw the thread title, highway+Bishop jumped to my mind.

Lekkit

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2011, 12:28:11 pm »
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Terminal Actions.
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chwhite

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2011, 01:33:45 pm »
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First thing that came to mind is Golem/Tactician.  Golem/Trading Post is another potentially treacherous one.
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theory

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #4 on: December 06, 2011, 01:43:08 pm »
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First thing that came to mind is Golem/Tactician.  Golem/Trading Post is another potentially treacherous one.
Golem/Tactician sometimes works: e.g., Golem into Tactician and Library (and then play another Tactician!), but I agree with your overall point.
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DG

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #5 on: December 06, 2011, 01:52:28 pm »
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Someone once confidently played golem-ghost ship-possession against me. Now that was funny!

Another one I can remember was a game where both my opponent and myself had warehouses, young witch, lighthouses, and remake. By the time you'd played the cards out you had no cards left to achieve anything on any turn.
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michaeljb

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #6 on: December 06, 2011, 02:27:31 pm »
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-Hoard and Treasury
-Highway/Bridge/Princess and Forge/Border Village/Haggler/Salvager/Bishop/Apprentice/Trader/etc
-hand-reducers (Warehouse/Cellar/Young Witch/Oasis/Hamlet/etc, continually playing them just reduces your hand to nothing, like DG described)
-Duration cards and opponent's Possession
-a very trim deck and anything that requires a discard; like playing an Envoy when you have less than 5, you'll end up with a net draw of less than its usual 4
-Border Village and non-terminal, non-Apprentice $5's
-buying Farmland to improve cheap cards
-Rabble followed by Pirate Ship/Thief/etc; actually have had this played against me, it was pretty funny
-stack of Margraves is pretty self-defeating
-Ironworks to gain Ironworks when the Kingdom does not contain Gardens or Vineyards; I've seen this quite a few times with more inexperienced players, seems like they think "ooh, I should buy one of those, free cards! For my free card, I'll take...ooh, I could get more free cards!"
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Kirian

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2011, 02:29:55 pm »
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Golem with any mandatory trasher.  I suspect Remake would be even worse than TP, with Remodel and Upgrade at least not as bad.  Golem-Ambassador too.

Actually, Golem with a lot of cards.

Grand Market and Coppersmith or Counting House.
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Qvist

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2011, 02:52:12 pm »
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Once I made the mistake and buyed Quarry with the intent to play Workshop/Ironworks/University to gain better cards.
I think you know why that didn't work. ;)

theory

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #9 on: December 06, 2011, 02:55:45 pm »
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Once I made the mistake and buyed Quarry with the intent to play Workshop/Ironworks/University to gain better cards.
I think you know why that didn't work. ;)
Nah, it works, you just need to throw a Black Market in there too ;)
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Qvist

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #10 on: December 06, 2011, 03:09:28 pm »
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That came to my mind too. But I was in desperate search. There wasn't any Black Market there.

Kuildeous

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #11 on: December 06, 2011, 03:49:30 pm »
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Masquerade and Throne Room -- In 2-player games, you'll almost always get back the first card that was passed to the opponent.

I'm not so sure about this one. Sure, you'll get that card back, but if you're passing two bad cards, then that means you get to trash two of your worst cards. On top of that, you'll be back to five cards in your hand. Granted, I'd be wary about playing Throne Room/Masquerade if I only have one bad card in my hand. I'd have to be pretty certain I have another bad card in my next four draws.

I'll jump on the bandwagon and say Golem + anything that is mandatory. I had to discard a Gold and something else [edit: and a Silver] thanks to a required Horse Trader. But Remake, Trading Post, and the like would be pretty horrible.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2011, 03:55:47 pm by Kuildeous »
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Crispy

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #12 on: December 06, 2011, 04:01:07 pm »
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Recently discovered playing a golem with trade routes after someone played a ghostship can leave you with no cards in your hand.  Happened to me and one other player.  Played a Golem after someone played a ghostship and drew two Trade Routes trashing the remaining two cards in my hand.
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Sprocket

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #13 on: December 06, 2011, 04:33:14 pm »
+1

alchemist/treasury when opponent is playing minion.
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Deadlock39

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #14 on: December 06, 2011, 04:58:51 pm »
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Yeah, michaeljb covered the more general category, but I screwed myself with Highway/Apprentice the other day.  The sad part was I think I could have won the game on the turn that crashed and burned if I had just made sure to draw my whole deck before playing out my Highways.

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #15 on: December 06, 2011, 05:24:47 pm »
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Masquerade and Throne Room -- In 2-player games, you'll almost always get back the first card that was passed to the opponent.

I'm not so sure about this one. Sure, you'll get that card back, but if you're passing two bad cards, then that means you get to trash two of your worst cards. On top of that, you'll be back to five cards in your hand. Granted, I'd be wary about playing Throne Room/Masquerade if I only have one bad card in my hand. I'd have to be pretty certain I have another bad card in my next four draws.

I'll jump on the bandwagon and say Golem + anything that is mandatory. I had to discard a Gold and something else [edit: and a Silver] thanks to a required Horse Trader. But Remake, Trading Post, and the like would be pretty horrible.

So the worst possible thing that can happen is that you'll end up giving back whatever they passed you and only getting to trash one thing... Unless you have a high expectation that they will be forced to pass you a good card, this seems like a lot of worry over nothing.
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Mean Mr Mustard

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #16 on: December 06, 2011, 05:35:22 pm »
+1

Tactician/Potion:  Without Black Market Potion is a dead card in a double-Tactician setup.

Caravan/Menagerie:  Makes getting all unique cards nigh impossible.

King's Court/Outpost: Goodbye KC, hello 3 card hands.

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Sprocket

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #17 on: December 06, 2011, 05:41:39 pm »
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King's Court/Outpost: Goodbye KC, hello 3 card hands.

wouldn't this just be the same as playing Outpost without KC?  Outpost only effects how you draw at the end of the current turn, right?
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DG

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #18 on: December 06, 2011, 06:40:51 pm »
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Most of the time you end up losing tempo if you try to remove copper from your deck with spice traders, moneylenders, loans, upgrades, trading posts, remakes, etc. after adding it with caches or ill gotten gains. Unless you've got your deck under very tight control you're usually working very hard to go nowhere.

Apothecary and lookout only half works. You start by trashing out the estates that are left on top of your deck by the apothecary. You then struggle to get value from the lookout since the apothecary always takes coppers into hand and leaves good cards on top of the deck.

Golem (or hunting party) with a navigator seems like a good idea for preparing the next hand. Quite often the navigator forces the a shuffle of a poor discard pile into a new draw deck, consigning you to a series of bad turns.

Minions and Possesion look as if they go together since you can keep discarding minion hands until you draw the possession. Unfortunately it means that you possess a 4 card hand and then your opponent gets to play a 5 card hand for their real turn.

Combining swindlers with cursing attacks starts to wrong when you swindle curses into copper.

Fortune tellers with mountebanks can backfire when you repeatedly put a curse into your opponent's next draw.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2011, 06:57:17 pm by DG »
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #19 on: December 06, 2011, 06:52:54 pm »
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King's Court/Outpost: Goodbye KC, hello 3 card hands.

wouldn't this just be the same as playing Outpost without KC?  Outpost only effects how you draw at the end of the current turn, right?

Yeah I think how it would work would be both KC and Outpost stay out, then you have your Outpost turn and then discard them both and draw 5 as per usual.
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jotheonah

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #20 on: December 07, 2011, 01:50:30 am »
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When Possession is on the board, don't buy Ambassador or Governor.

(The first (and last!) time I watched someone play my Governor to gain both the Gold and the Silver I nearly cried.)
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Reyk

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #21 on: December 07, 2011, 09:29:43 am »
+1

Caravan + Library.

When Possession is on the board, don't buy Ambassador or Governor.

The Ambassador thing is too simplicistic as discussed already in other threads. As an interesting example I will give this game:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111007-113232-dbf0d6d8.html

WW with creative play almost got out the bad 2/5 start (an example too for interesting _non_ identical starting hands). Ambassador and a little luck nevertheless were key to success.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #22 on: December 07, 2011, 10:23:25 am »
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Treasure Map and Scheme -- Treasure Map will always self-trash when played.

I bought Schemes in a Treasure Map game recently... I didn't make the mistake of trying to actually play the Treasure Maps though... so I just had wasted my buys.
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Lekkit

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #23 on: December 07, 2011, 10:39:17 am »
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I've had to explain numerous times that playing a Highway doesn't allow you to trash a Silver with a Remodel and then gain a Gold. Dunno if it's a not combo, but still. A lot of players seems to think that way the first time they see the two cards together.

Bridge or Pricess also works in this matter.
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jomini

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Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together
« Reply #24 on: December 07, 2011, 02:32:54 pm »
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For a lot of these, they can actually be quite strong if you maximize the use of the cards (playing them for their full benefit for instance:


KC/outpost has some fine synergy in a very thinned deck. Take a simple deck where the only chaining is KC/KC/Outpost/Bishop deck.

Normal turn: I chain the KC's to get an outpost turn (KC/Outpost stays on the board) then play the bishop for 4 VP (crunching a silver) and buy a silver.

Outpost turn: I draw my entire deck KC, Bishop, and silver. I KC the Bishop and I net 4 VP (crunching a silver) and a silver.

Each turn I get 8 VP.

If you can't otherwise chain, two copies of KC can be used to chain so you can play useful actions on both turns. The strongest of these being the unstoppable pin from  KC/KC/outpost/masq where your entire deck goes poof the moment I play the combo.

Further having KC around makes outpost turns worthwhile. With good enough odds of hitting KC/most anything decent (lab, grand market, golem, adventurer, etc.) can make a 3 card hand much more worthwhile.

Highway/Bridge/Princess works quite well with trash-for benefit when you either have a lag between acquire (at low prices) and trashing (at high prices) or when you can bring the price of your gained card down to zero (e.g. forging a late game copper into a duchy is quite strong). Gaining a bunch of self replacing cards (pawn, pearl diver, village, wishing well, etc.) for zero cost means that they don't slow down your deck ... but can be fed to the forge whenever you need them to top off a province acquisition.




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