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Author Topic: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand  (Read 16073 times)

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Davio

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #25 on: October 22, 2014, 02:18:57 am »
+1

The thing about Bridge is that I thought it scaled linearly, but it actually scales exponentially, which is not actually mathematically correct, because it scales "squaredly".

1 Bridge gets you 1 free Poor House and 1 Estate (worth $3)
2 Bridges get you 2 free Pawns and 1 Herald (worth $8)
3 Bridges get you 3 free Schemes and 1 Gold (worth $15)
4 Bridges get you 4 free Treasure Maps and 1 Province (worth $24)

You see the tendency here: +5, +7, +9

So the amount of $ worth you get by playing X Bridges is X2 + 2X
9 Bridges (KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge) gets you an amazing $99 worth of purchase power with 9 Buys.

I can agree that Bridge appears quite a decent card from first looking at it, but I only found out through playing multiple copies exactly just how powerful it was. Whenever there's a possibility for multiple Bridges in a kingdom, I almost always go for it.


Jack is a good candidate for this list. It seems like doing three mediocre things shouldn't be worth it, but we all know it is.
« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 02:23:19 am by Davio »
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sudgy

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #26 on: October 22, 2014, 02:20:00 am »
+5

The thing about Bridge is that I thought it scaled linearly, but it actually scales exponentially, which is not actually mathematically correct, because it scales "squaredly".

The mathematical term is "quadratic".
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   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm

Davio

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #27 on: October 22, 2014, 02:21:58 am »
0

The thing about Bridge is that I thought it scaled linearly, but it actually scales exponentially, which is not actually mathematically correct, because it scales "squaredly".

The mathematical term is "quadratic".
Okay, I had typed "quadratically" originally, but Chrome's spellchecker didn't like it. :)
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GeoLib

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #28 on: October 22, 2014, 11:18:56 am »
+2

The thing about Bridge is that I thought it scaled linearly, but it actually scales exponentially, which is not actually mathematically correct, because it scales "squaredly".

The mathematical term is "quadratic".
Okay, I had typed "quadratically" originally, but Chrome's spellchecker didn't like it. :)

With science and math, I have added so many words to the dictionaries on my browser and word processor. Don't trust the spellchecker if it's anything even remotely technical.
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theblankman

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #29 on: October 23, 2014, 06:17:17 pm »
0

Okay, I had typed "quadratically" originally, but Chrome's spellchecker didn't like it. :)
Spellcheckers often don't know technical terms.  "Quadratically" is definitely a word I've seen in published math/CS papers, and it is the word you were looking for :)
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enfynet

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #30 on: October 24, 2014, 01:26:54 am »
+4

My vote for ten goes to:

Cellar, Market, Militia, Mine, Moat, Remodel, Smithy, Village, Woodcutter, Workshop
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thespaceinvader

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #31 on: October 28, 2014, 09:52:49 am »
0

I think that village should maybe be on this list. I was convinced village was OP before discovering the blog. In fact, I think the last game I played before doing so I claimed that "village is overpowered and should definitely cost 4." Ha. There are so many problems with that... I realized though that I was kind of talking out of my ass, so I decided to do some research, and here we are two and half years later.
I've a friend who still claims village is way OP and should cost 4 (despite having played a lot longer, than I have, albeit with several thousand less Iso games).  Also, that Chapel should cost 5.  Refuses to be swayed otherwise.  He's good at the game, he gets the game he just... doesn't seem to get why cheap villages and chapels are FUN in the game.
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Davio

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #32 on: October 28, 2014, 10:31:25 am »
+1

It's hard to grasp why prices are as they are.

It takes a while to understand that raw power is not the only thing that influences a card's cost.
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DrFlux

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #33 on: October 30, 2014, 05:11:50 pm »
0

I definitely agree with stonemason being on this list. I played a game just the other day that was a colony game, with a SP engine, bishop, fortress, and stonemason. Oh, and there was no +buy. My opponent went for a bishop/fortress deck, but I realized I could close the game faster by stonemasoning colony into plats, and then plats into provinces. I think I emptied the province pile over 2 turns.

Not to mention it was a no brainer to pay 4P for two scrying pools, so I already had the stonemasons.
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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #34 on: October 30, 2014, 07:05:42 pm »
0

I still don't fully know how to use stonemason. Almost every board I play with it I ignore it because I don't think it will be very useful. And then suddenly I lose the game because my opponent did some crazy stonemason play that I didn't even consider.
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jomini

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #35 on: November 11, 2014, 09:44:04 pm »
0

I still don't fully know how to use stonemason. Almost every board I play with it I ignore it because I don't think it will be very useful. And then suddenly I lose the game because my opponent did some crazy stonemason play that I didn't even consider.

There are several basic plays for stonemason:
1. Overbuy him to get dual copies of engine components on the cheap. E.g. with a Hunting Party deck, you often want to pay 7 and nab to Hunting parties (then use the Stone Mason to clear estates). If you have $X, then you can get $2X - 4 value (excluding Stonemason). This can be viable even if the Stonemason is a dead card to you itself (either sift or trash past it)
2. Fast pile. For $12 and 3 buys you can burn all but burn an entire pile (Stonemasons), cheap components (like villages, sifters, etc.) can make 3-pile a LOT easier. You can also churn a lot of gains with playing Stonemason.
3. Point spiking. Trash Plat, gain two Provinces. A single colony buy is good for four Provinces (more than double the points) after three plays of Stonemason. With strong overdraw, you can have just $11 in cash in your engine, but in two turns gain a whopping 34 points (or overbuy a stonemason for two $5s and two $2 - like Nv/Catacombs). Province -> Gold -> Duchies is less impressive, but Stonemason with gold gaining (Explorer, Market Square, Mint, Mine, Bag of Gold, Taxman, etc.) can let an engine hammer the duchy pile quickly for the cost of two actions and some draw/sifting.
4. Down trading cards. You can set up some crazy vodoo with card gaining/Stonemason. For instance Procession/stuff can give you $5, $6, or $7 ($8 with Prince/Peddler) and even if the action is useless - Stonemason can turn it into two nice cards (e.g. Prssn -> Conspirator -> gain Sab -> draw Sab -> Stm [Sab -> 2 Conspirators]), The broad Remodel family can be really nice here.
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amalloy

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #36 on: November 11, 2014, 10:15:17 pm »
0

1. Overbuy him to get dual copies of engine components on the cheap. E.g. with a Hunting Party deck, you often want to pay 7 and nab to Hunting parties (then use the Stone Mason to clear estates). If you have $X, then you can get $2X - 4 value (excluding Stonemason). This can be viable even if the Stonemason is a dead card to you itself (either sift or trash past it)

Do you really want to Stonemason your Estates into two Coppers each in a Hunting Party stack? Estates aren't much worse than Copper with Hunting Party, unless you can get rid of them all; even if you do, that's three more junk cards in your deck, decreasing the frequency with which you draw Hunting Party in your opening hand.
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ConMan

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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #37 on: November 11, 2014, 10:17:53 pm »
0

I still don't fully know how to use stonemason. Almost every board I play with it I ignore it because I don't think it will be very useful. And then suddenly I lose the game because my opponent did some crazy stonemason play that I didn't even consider.

There are several basic plays for stonemason:
1. Overbuy him to get dual copies of engine components on the cheap. E.g. with a Hunting Party deck, you often want to pay 7 and nab to Hunting parties (then use the Stone Mason to clear estates). If you have $X, then you can get $2X - 4 value (excluding Stonemason). This can be viable even if the Stonemason is a dead card to you itself (either sift or trash past it)
<snip>
1A. Overbuy him with Potion to get 2 Scrying Pools or Familiars. Especially Scrying Pools, since then you only need 1 Potion in your deck and a single buy can net you 3 Action cards, which is amazing since Scrying Pool loves Action cards and rather dislikes having too many Potions.
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Re: Top 10 Cards beginners don't understand
« Reply #38 on: November 11, 2014, 10:46:22 pm »
0

I need to try playing with that card. I don know if mine have fingerprints on them yet.
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