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[Davio]

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

Without smilies, it's really hard to tell sometimes! 

[GendoIkari]

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

Without smilies, it's really hard to tell sometimes! 

And in case there's any doubt, my reply was a joke based on his joke.

[Marcory]

As was mine; obv you can't buy Hovel, but if you could, it would be in the supply, hence my meta-edge case.

[enfynet]

We need to start a Hovel [Serious] thread now...

[Flip5ide]

Am I wrong... for trying' to trash my Hovel for Estate?
Am I wrong... with others sayin' I'm gonna lose the game?
I'm just tryin' to do that stuff that they all doing
Just cause everybody doing what they all do
If one thing I know, these shelters they just blow
I'm trashin' up this home of mine, this Hovel I called home

[jsh357]

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.

To be honest, I'm not sure why people are claiming it isn't a good idea--it reduces your deck size by one, removes a useless card(and the GH itself can be handy in the right environment, like in the presence of Peddler or Throne Room), and is a better opening than Silver in games where you don't want Silver (which is a lot of them).  Not to say you should feel stupid about it, but Great Hall/trash Hovel is a better opening than it is being given credit here. 

[jomini]

To be honest, I'm not sure why people are claiming it isn't a good idea--it reduces your deck size by one, removes a useless card(and the GH itself can be handy in the right environment, like in the presence of Peddler or Throne Room), and is a better opening than Silver in games where you don't want Silver (which is a lot of them).  Not to say you should feel stupid about it, but Great Hall/trash Hovel is a better opening than it is being given credit here. 

Part of the problem is that 1/3rd of the time your Hovel shows up in the $4 hand; while 3 to 4 isn't a huge gap, there are often a lot of good strong cards you want at $4 - Smithy, Remake, Militia, Young Witch, etc. that make it relatively bad. Secondly, Silver is not automatically bad. If I'm going to want 2 Silvers eventually (e.g. I play to buy Silver/Silver/Gold and run a draw engine to double provinces), I may as well get them now. $9/10 cards is a lower cash setup than $12/11. Particularly if my price points are $6, $7, or $9, I'm better off with two Silvers.

The value of trashing one card is also dependent on how quick I can draw my deck. Say I have Chapel out (so I obviously don't buy it on the first shot), how much, really is trashing one card worth on a $3 hand? I'm going to Chapel the Hovel out in two shuffles or less most of the time; getting something useful longer term (like a Menage or a silver) is likely better.

An instructive comparison might be with Doctor. Killing a net 2 cards is worth $2 (the $3 being the base price for a marginal trasher). Spending $3 for that and 1 VP then seems a bit expensive. Certainly something to do when the cards are setup for it (e.g. Peddler), but not your automatic goto move.

[Flip5ide]

To be honest, I'm not sure why people are claiming it isn't a good idea--it reduces your deck size by one, removes a useless card(and the GH itself can be handy in the right environment, like in the presence of Peddler or Throne Room), and is a better opening than Silver in games where you don't want Silver (which is a lot of them).  Not to say you should feel stupid about it, but Great Hall/trash Hovel is a better opening than it is being given credit here. 

Part of the problem is that 1/3rd of the time your Hovel shows up in the $4 hand; while 3 to 4 isn't a huge gap, there are often a lot of good strong cards you want at $4 - Smithy, Remake, Militia, Young Witch, etc. that make it relatively bad. Secondly, Silver is not automatically bad. If I'm going to want 2 Silvers eventually (e.g. I play to buy Silver/Silver/Gold and run a draw engine to double provinces), I may as well get them now. $9/10 cards is a lower cash setup than $12/11. Particularly if my price points are $6, $7, or $9, I'm better off with two Silvers.

The value of trashing one card is also dependent on how quick I can draw my deck. Say I have Chapel out (so I obviously don't buy it on the first shot), how much, really is trashing one card worth on a $3 hand? I'm going to Chapel the Hovel out in two shuffles or less most of the time; getting something useful longer term (like a Menage or a silver) is likely better.

An instructive comparison might be with Doctor. Killing a net 2 cards is worth $2 (the $3 being the base price for a marginal trasher). Spending $3 for that and 1 VP then seems a bit expensive. Certainly something to do when the cards are setup for it (e.g. Peddler), but not your automatic goto move.

What do you mean by "marginal trasher?"

[Gherald]

The opportunity cost of not buying a $4 card is a separate case (and rarely worth incurring if there are useful $4 cards to open with.)

In the case of $3 Hovel/GH with no good trashing around, buying a silver instead in terms of deck money density is a lot like buying two coppers and giving up 1 VP.

How often do you want an extra two coppers and -1 VP?  Yeah.

[jomini]

What do you mean by "marginal trasher?"

Weaker than Remake, Chapel, Steward, etc.

Doctor, without overbuy, suffers from very rapidly diminishing returns. It is a terminal action that doesn't take long until it ends up trashing single coppers, if you are lucky. When you first play it (assuming you have 12 cards), you kill on something around 2 cards (depending on the information you have and the shuffle luck). It is nice in that these cards don't come out of your hand (great you can buy something pricier than with Steward), but you quickly transition to killing one or fewer cards. Also bad, the cards you most want to trash in the early game - the estates are the ones Doctor has the hardest time efficiently trashing.

This is not to say that Doctor is a bad buy without overbuy, but I find if I want Doctor, I often want to pay 4; particularly if I can open 4 and use him again on T3 with a short shuffle.

Gherald:  Depends on how much you want the Silver. If Altar is out, you are generally better increasing the variance (lower odds of hitting $5, higher odds of hitting $6) and grabbing a Silver, particularly if you have terminal draw like Oracle or Smithy already in the mix. Likewise, Forge and Grand market make pretty good cases for getting the silver going sooner.

I mean let's consider what your $4 might be. Dead draw. In which case, your Ghall is 1/3rd or 1/4th dead. Envoy is particularly harsh on this for the obvious reason.

Strong trashing - Chapel, Masq, etc. Chapel is the obvious one here. If I want to keep the Necropolis, then I might be able to kill everything but the GHall in two chapel plays, but that requires really lucky draws. Most likely I have 3 or 4 plays of Chapel to kill everything regardless of getting Ghall. Silver may well get you going faster if the trashing works.

Attacks. If Militia is out, having a junk Hovel is less damaging, I have decent odds of that being one of the cards I'd be discarding regardless. Getting to $5 when you are discarding or getting junked typically makes Silver more valuable.

Gainers. Either I'm building to an engine faster (e.g. using Iw to set up village/smithy) or looking at an alt-VP rush/slog typically. If the former, then typically my components can overcome the card count and GHall goes back to the dead card problem. If I'm going for alt-VP, those are often exactly the times you want coppers and you will pitch the Hovel soon anyways.


Ghall is not a bad move, but it really depends on what sort of money distribution you want in the early game.

[prom_vrt]

I often do that on 5/2 opening if there's no +buy and no cursing attack. 1VP may decide the game if province split 4-4. But on the other cases I don't.

P.S. i do not know if my play is right or not. 

[Gherald]

That's my rule of thumb as well -- if it looks like a 4 province game with no +buy or other good way to break a tie, I'll buy an estate with $2

Occasionally when there are is no worthwhile $5 and the choice is something with silver's level of usefulness, I'll even get an early duchy

[Flip5ide]

That's my rule of thumb as well -- if it looks like a 4 province game with no +buy or other good way to break a tie, I'll buy an estate with $2

Occasionally when there are is no worthwhile $5 and the choice is something with silver's level of usefulness, I'll even get an early duchy

I often do that on 5/2 opening if there's no +buy and no cursing attack. 1VP may decide the game if province split 4-4. But on the other cases I don't.

P.S. i do not know if my play is right or not. 

What are your guys' pro ratings? I'm pretty sure there's no situation where an early Duchy is desirable over even just buying a silver. Just my thoughts.

[jsh357]

That's my rule of thumb as well -- if it looks like a 4 province game with no +buy or other good way to break a tie, I'll buy an estate with $2

Occasionally when there are is no worthwhile $5 and the choice is something with silver's level of usefulness, I'll even get an early duchy

I often do that on 5/2 opening if there's no +buy and no cursing attack. 1VP may decide the game if province split 4-4. But on the other cases I don't.

P.S. i do not know if my play is right or not. 

What are your guys' pro ratings? I'm pretty sure there's no situation where an early Duchy is desirable over even just buying a silver. Just my thoughts.

hard to find Pro Ratings, just look at their leaderboard positions:
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/leaderboard/

Sure there is.  What if you just don't need the Silver, or in other words, increasing the number of cards in your deck by adding a mediocre one is a bad idea?  In that case, replacing Hovel with Duchy is 3 points without increasing the size of the deck whereas purchasing Silver is a wasted buy.  Now, that said, the cases where there is not a good $5 Kingdom card available are somewhat uncommon, but they can happen.  Plus, sometimes it's better to hold off on the Hovel to replace it with a Province anyway.  Silver is only $2 and it's taking up a slot that could be something else, remember.  Sometimes that makes a difference.

[Flip5ide]

Pretty rare to buy and early duchy to discard a Hovel, but apart from that I thought he meant on the opening split. But still.

[prom_vrt]

That's my rule of thumb as well -- if it looks like a 4 province game with no +buy or other good way to break a tie, I'll buy an estate with $2

Occasionally when there are is no worthwhile $5 and the choice is something with silver's level of usefulness, I'll even get an early duchy

I often do that on 5/2 opening if there's no +buy and no cursing attack. 1VP may decide the game if province split 4-4. But on the other cases I don't.

P.S. i do not know if my play is right or not. 

What are your guys' pro ratings? I'm pretty sure there's no situation where an early Duchy is desirable over even just buying a silver. Just my thoughts.

hard to find Pro Ratings, just look at their leaderboard positions:
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/leaderboard/

Sure there is.  What if you just don't need the Silver, or in other words, increasing the number of cards in your deck by adding a mediocre one is a bad idea?  In that case, replacing Hovel with Duchy is 3 points without increasing the size of the deck whereas purchasing Silver is a wasted buy.  Now, that said, the cases where there is not a good $5 Kingdom card available are somewhat uncommon, but they can happen.  Plus, sometimes it's better to hold off on the Hovel to replace it with a Province anyway.  Silver is only $2 and it's taking up a slot that could be something else, remember.  Sometimes that makes a difference.

There might be edge case on this, but extremely rare IMO.
The opportunity cost for the Duchy can be very high compared to strong attacks, $5 engine components...

[jsh357]

Yes, I do agree with that, but if the 3 points win you the game, it was probably the right call.  Gherald isn't saying he trashes the Hovel just because he can; he does it knowing the 3 points could make the difference at the right time, which is a proper way to look at Hovel.

[prom_vrt]

Reasonable, but any example games? Or this is viable thing on Big Money Ultimate in poor kingdom haha

[Flip5ide]

Reasonable, but any example games? Or this is viable thing on Big Money Ultimate in poor kingdom haha

What's the difference between BMU and BM? Smithy?

[GeoLib]

Reasonable, but any example games? Or this is viable thing on Big Money Ultimate in poor kingdom haha

What's the difference between BMU and BM? Smithy?

BMU is the optimized strategy that buys only basic treasures and victory cards. BM is any strategy that mainly buys treasures and victory cards (definitions vary depending on who you ask).

[flies]

What's the difference between BMU and BM? Smithy?

BMU is the optimized strategy that buys only basic treasures and victory cards. BM is any strategy that mainly buys treasures and victory cards (definitions vary depending on who you ask).

"optimized" meaning it's a bot.  so BMU is a specific BM strategy.  so, in a way, yes, smithy is the difference. 

[Holger]

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.

To be honest, I'm not sure why people are claiming it isn't a good idea--it reduces your deck size by one, removes a useless card(and the GH itself can be handy in the right environment, like in the presence of Peddler or Throne Room), and is a better opening than Silver in games where you don't want Silver (which is a lot of them).  Not to say you should feel stupid about it, but Great Hall/trash Hovel is a better opening than it is being given credit here.

Agreed. As Last Footnote said, Donald wrote in the DA Secret History:

Hovel is the only one that changed. Originally it was an action you could trash by discarding your hand. It turned out that trashing it turn 1-2 usually seemed like the correct play, even if you drew it with four Coppers. So that was no good. Hovel as printed has nice flavor going for it; you move out of your old Hovel and into a nice Duchy.

So it was usually the right move to give up a turn just to trash Hovel; by buying Great Hall on T1/2, you can do this and get a VP to boot. (OTOH, the new Hovel trashes itself as soon as you start greening, the old Hovel would have hung around till the end without another trasher.)

An instructive comparison might be with Doctor. Killing a net 2 cards is worth $2 (the $3 being the base price for a marginal trasher). Spending $3 for that and 1 VP then seems a bit expensive.

Without using overpay, Doctor is very weak at $3 (or even $2), usually far weaker even than Lookout. Killing a net 2 cards for $2 (or even more cards for $1 each?) would be extremely strong on T1/2 if you didn't have to pay another $3 for Doctor on the same turn...

[silverspawn]

Without using overpay, Doctor is very weak at $3 (or even $2), usually far weaker even than Lookout.

this isn't true, and lookout is a weird thing to compare it too because lookout isn't very weak. doctor is swingy, but it will still catch more than one card on average, so it will kill stuff faster than lookout does, but lookout prepares your next turn, and  it's non terminal.

3$ doctor is usually worse than chapel, usually a lot better than trade route. it's usually better than loan too.

[GendoIkari]

If wasting an early turn to trash old Hovel was worth it, doesn't that imply that wasting an early turn on Trade Route, which will trash more than 1 card? But Trade Route is considered a weak opening isn't it?

[Awaclus]

If wasting an early turn to trash old Hovel was worth it, doesn't that imply that wasting an early turn on Trade Route, which will trash more than 1 card? But Trade Route is considered a weak opening isn't it?

Will eventually trash more than 1 card, but for the time being, it just increases your deck size by 1, and you have to waste more than one turn trashing those cards. And it's still a strong opening whenever it's the only trashing and trashing is essential.