Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Flip5ide]

I may be wrong in my intuition here, but after a couple times of trashing my Hovel by buying an Estate with a 5/2 split (instead of buying nothing), I realized that I'm pretty sure it hurts more than helps and I don't do it anymore. But all the time I see people essentially trading their more-trashable Hovel for an Estate.

Not really a big deal in terms of deciding a game, but for some reason I see a lot of people doing this. And mind you, it's not a TfB thing. Am I right here?

[LastFootnote]

I think you are right. In a Rebuild game, buying the Estate is worth it. There are a few other reasons to do it. (My favorite is buying an Estate to trash my Hovel in order to activate Market Square.) but normally I think it's a Bad Idea.

[Beyond Awesome]

If you start to play people in the 5000+ ranking, almost no one trashes their Hovel with estate except Rebuild and edge cases.

[2.71828.....]

Butcher would be another example of when you would want to trash the hovel on a 5/2

[jsh357]

Sometimes I trash it on $2 when I have Apprentice or Salvager in mind, but usually it's not a good plan.  You'd rather trash it for a Province or something.

[Kirian]

Yeah, it's only a good idea if you really want that estate.  That said, assuming the board makes Tunnel or Island useful, those can also trash Hovel.

[Awaclus]

Yeah, it's only a good idea if you really want that estate.  That said, assuming the board makes Tunnel or Island useful, those can also trash Hovel.

I would say that Hovel makes Island useful if you can open with it to trash the Hovel, if there is no other strong trashing and the board isn't a special case scenario where trashing isn't useful.

[enfynet]

I guess that Great Hall opening is a good idea now, right?

[silverspawn]

I guess that Great Hall opening is a good idea now, right?

no, mostly it's not.

[GendoIkari]

I guess that Great Hall opening is a good idea now, right?

It would be often if the choice were Great Hall or nothing.

[LastFootnote]

I guess that Great Hall opening is a good idea now, right?

no, mostly it's not.

The original version of Hovel let you discard your hand to trash it. Apparently it was pretty much always the right decision to do it ASAP. This suggests that opening Great Hall to trash your Hovel is indeed a good idea.

[Beyond Awesome]

I guess that Great Hall opening is a good idea now, right?

no, mostly it's not.

The original version of Hovel let you discard your hand to trash it. Apparently it was pretty much always the right decision to do it ASAP. This suggests that opening Great Hall to trash your Hovel is indeed a good idea.

The thing about trashing Hovel to GH is that you cycle much quicker. Your other card is guaranteed to be played turn 3/4 and also it will cycle your deck quicker.

[Breezy D]

Getting an estate to trash hovel early can be good in an ambassador war.

[SirPeebles]

My advice:  never buy Hovel.

[GendoIkari]

My advice:  never buy Hovel.

Well sure, but you need to know how to deal with one in case you are Ambassadored one.

[silverspawn]

The original version of Hovel let you discard your hand to trash it. Apparently it was pretty much always the right decision to do it ASAP. This suggests that opening Great Hall to trash your Hovel is indeed a good idea.

Yea, I've been wondering about this statement a lot. My guess was that they simply misplayed it. I recall a bunch of games where you had the chance to trash hovel via great hall, but players rarely do it.

simulations show this:

silver/trash hits 5 with a 100.0% chance once and with a 0.0 % chance twice
silver/silver hits 5 with a 76.2995% chance once and with a 14.9157 % chance twice

which makes sense, silver/trash has 10 cards, so you'll draw all of them in your first 2 turns, and the hand with silver either hits 5$ or has both dead cards, in which case the next hand has 5 coppers and hits five, but you only have a total money of 9$, so you can't hit 5$ twice -> 100%/0%. one guaranteed 5$ is mostly preferable to the usual 76% one/15 two, so yea, maybe it' is better than i thought after all.

[Beyond Awesome]

The original version of Hovel let you discard your hand to trash it. Apparently it was pretty much always the right decision to do it ASAP. This suggests that opening Great Hall to trash your Hovel is indeed a good idea.

Yea, I've been wondering about this statement a lot. My guess was that they simply misplayed it. I've recall a bunch of games where you had the chance to trash hovel via great hall, but players rarely do it.

simulations show this:

silver/trash hits 5 with a 100.0% chance once and with a 0.0 % chance twice
silver/silver hits 5 with a 76.2995% chance once and with a 14.9157 % chance twice

which makes sense, silver/trash has 10 cards, so you'll draw all of them in your first 2 turns, and the hand with silver either hits 5$ or has both dead cards, in which case the next hand has 5 coppers and hits five, but you only have a total money of 9$, so you can't hit 5$ twice -> 100%/0%. one guaranteed 5$ is mostly preferable to the usual 76% one/15 two, so yea, maybe it' is better than i thought after all.

With a power $5 on the board, that sounds pretty good to me

[Marcory]

In basic Thunderstone, the optimal play was almost always to waste your turn in order to destroy a Militia, which suggests that players using a turn to trash the original Hovel were probably correct. 

[Marcory]

My advice:  never buy Hovel.

Edge case with Shelters in the Supply and no other cards that trash from your hand: You are Possessing your opponent, but you have Outpost and Watchtower in your own hand. The Possessed hand only has one copper and one Quarry for money, but it has 2 buys. Buy and topdeck Market Square and Hovel. When you play your Outpost turn, you'll almost certainly be able to buy a Victory card (if only Overgrown Estate) to trash your Hovel and gain a Gold. 

[Beyond Awesome]

My advice:  never buy Hovel.

Edge case with Shelters in the Supply and no other cards that trash from your hand: You are Possessing your opponent, but you have Outpost and Watchtower in your own hand. The Possessed hand only has one copper and one Quarry for money, but it has 2 buys. Buy and topdeck Market Square and Hovel. When you play your Outpost turn, you'll almost certainly be able to buy a Victory card (if only Overgrown Estate) to trash your Hovel and gain a Gold.

Yes. That is quite the edge case seeing that Shelters are in the supply 

[Gherald]

Not as good with Madman or Spoils around, then you may as well use your 2 buys to topdeck a pair for $0

[Davio]

My advice:  never buy Hovel.

Well sure, but you need to know how to deal with one in case you are Ambassadored one.

Masqueraded, surely?

You can't gain a Hovel from the supply. Or maybe that's the joke? My sarcasm detector is off sometimes.

[Kirian]

My advice:  never buy Hovel.

Well sure, but you need to know how to deal with one in case you are Ambassadored one.

Masqueraded, surely?

You can't gain a Hovel from the supply. Or maybe that's the joke? My sarcasm detector is off sometimes.

Yeah, huge sarcasm there.

[enfynet]

No worries. My reply was sarcastic and managed to start a debate.

[pacovf]

No worries. My reply was sarcastic and managed to start a debate.

I'm glad it was, I upvoted it because I thought so, and was feeling stupid after reading all those replies saying that it could very well be the right move.