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[silverspawn]

Island is the combination of two largely unrelated effects in one package: it provides two VP and it thins your deck by one card. The problem with this specific combination is that both effects excel on very different types of boards. A static VP boost is better the weaker the board is, while thinning is mostly valuable in engines, which tend to be strong boards. Because of this, you will almost never see a board where both effects are equally valuable, and likewise, both individual effects are usually too weak to warrant a buy on their own.

So, how do you decide if Island is worth it? If you just want VP and Island is the best option in your current turn, go for it. If you have a nice engine in a slim deck that's afraid of green cards, you can consider it to exile your Provinces, but make sure that the late thinning is really necessary. Mostly you want it for specific combinations. And if the board has none of that, just ignore it.

If you do want Island, when exactly should you pick it up? In a lot of situations this decision is trivial, but if it's not, there is no general answer. It basically works like other trashers, so you'll just have to rely on intuition. Opening Island is only advisable on really weak boards.

This is really all I have to say about the card in general, so the rest of the article will be a list of enablers.

1. Workshop and Variants
While the presence of a workshop type card doesn't really make each copy of Island any more useful, it decreases the cost to gain them significantly. Ironworks is the best as it is a cantrip when gaining Island, and can be considered even on weak boards, just for the VP. Armory and a plain Workshop usually want to be integrated into an engine, preferably playing the gained Island on the same turn.

2. Hoard
Hoard is really straight forward. Buying Duchies or Estates to trigger early Hoards is often a mistake, but buying Island is pretty good. Ask yourself whether you'd take an Island for free; if yes you should buy it over gold itself, if not you might still want to buy it for 4$ or 5$.

3. Copper Trashers
If you can just trash your Coppers but not your Estates or Shelters, using Island to clean the remaining junk out of your deck can be good, if the additional thinning is worth it. Loan and Counterfeit aren't as good for this as Spice Merchant, and Moneylender is most likely a trap.

4. Menagerie
Here we have a case where the fact that Island exiles cards rather than trashing them is the deciding factor. If you use Menagerie as your primary draw, you often run into problems once you pick up your second province, especially if there is no way to discard them mid turn. Island allows you to put that province aside, effectively removing the problem while leaving the points intact. Do this only if other cards allow you to trash down first.

5. Wishing Well/Apothecary
If no better trashing is present and Copper isn't that bad of a card, you can consider using Island to get rid of your Estates or Shelters, and later your Provinces. You'll need a decent payload for this to be worth it.

6. Hovel
Like Great Hall, you can buy Island to trash a Hovel if you draw it with 4$. Unlike Great Hall, however, an Island/Silver opening does not guarantee 5$ on the second shuffle, so think twice about this.

7. Procession
Island can be interesting for Procession, partly because it is a good target (you'll exile two cards, gain a card costing 5$, and leave the 2 VP intact), and partly because its dual type aspect can make it a possible payload. Do this with caution.

Conclusion
Island is a weak card. The most important thing is not to buy it without a good reason, and the most common misplay is to do just that. Still, it has its uses, the key is just knowing when to get it. There is no easy answer about what to do if you draw it without good targets; sometimes it's better to hold it off, but more often you probably just want to use it on a Copper.


Example Games:

Hovel and Spice Merchant: I buy just one Island to get rid of my only two dead cards (Hovel and OE)

Menagerie: Stef brilliantly plays a Menagerie Engine with Contraband, buying Duchies and Islands as VP.

Spice Merchant and Ironworks: Stef is utilizing Ironworks in a Hunting Party engine to exile all of his green cards.

Procession: I play a crazy procession/fortress engine where I use Island as a payload.

Apothecary, Wishing Well, and Armory: Stef plays a beautiful Apothecary engine, using Armory -> Island to set aside his points.

Wishing Well: A case of less support but a high payload, a Wishing Well/Monument engine, also played by Stef.

[Awaclus]

You were delaying this to make it your 2000th post?

[silverspawn]

You were delaying this to make it your 2000th post?

Oh wow. No, that's coincidence, I didn't look at my post count.

[dondon151]

I think you should probably write a section on when one should open with Island, if at all. It's sort of covered with Hovel, but opening with Island can be the strongest move on a weak board, and it just depends on how weak the alternatives are.

[eHalcyon]

Paragraph 2, "when do get Island?" should probably be "when to get Island?"

[silverspawn]

Paragraph 2, "when do get Island?" should probably be "when to get Island?"

Isn't that just a matter of style?

[qmech]

Nice article!

Paragraph 2, "when do get Island?" should probably be "when to get Island?"

Isn't that just a matter of style?

You can say "when do you get", but "when do get" doesn't work.

[eHalcyon]

Paragraph 2, "when do get Island?" should probably be "when to get Island?"

Isn't that just a matter of style?

It's a matter of grammar.

[silverspawn]

uh yea, I meant to write "when do you get", of course.

[luser]

So lets try what is following strategy on this kingdom?

island, ironworks, workshop, armory, hoard, moneylender, menagerie, wishing well, procession, apothecary, colony, shelters

[Titandrake]

So lets try what is following strategy on this kingdom?

island, ironworks, workshop, armory, hoard, moneylender, menagerie, wishing well, procession, apothecary, colony, shelters

Apothecary/WW, use Ironworks to gain Wishing Wells. Early on you can Ironworks some Islands but I don't think you want to do the full IW/Island thing, you want just enough to get rid of your Estates. (Edit: Well, Shelters in this case)

There are no $5s to gain from Proc-Island, and at best you can Proc-WW to gain more Processions, but I think the straightforward Apothecary/WW will beat that out. Lack of +Buy means you only want to hit $11.

Alternatively, some Menagerie-based deck could perform better. That deck probably gains more Islands and Processions to help manage the duplicates, and could potentially go for a very fast 3 pile.

Leaning towards Apothecary, when you're drawing your deck you IW a Moneylender, since Moneylender + 7 Copper = Plat. Then, you go for Colony every turn, ideally IW on Island if any are still left at this point to set aside those Colonies. Hoard is a trap for this deck and you skip it. If you try the Menagerie thing, you'll want Hoard, but you can't mix Menagerie and Apothecary that well, too many duplicate Coppers and you can't deal with all of them.

(#missingTheJoke)

[Polk5440]

Last line should be "also played by Stef" (not "be").

Thanks for writing this up! I would also like to see a paragraph on opening Island (or not).

[Seprix]

Polk, how is the Island of Elba this time of year?

Not a bad article. Like Don said, I'd like to know good times to open Island.

[silverspawn]

Yeah, I didn't actually say anything about when you buy it, just about in which games you buy it. For some reason that never crossed my mind.

I should integrate a paragraph about that, but I've been struggling to make it fit. Once I get it right, I'll edit the OP.

[werothegreat]

Let me know when the article is done, and I'll put it up on the wiki!

[jomini]

Another time to consider Island is when you have otherwise built an engine, but end up with a spare $4 during the build-up.  For instance, on a colony board you may hit $7 and your best option is to grab Island/Silver so that next turn you can mat your trasher and then buy Plat (this assumes that the $1 differential between Gold & Silver is not worth a card). This is risky if you don't currently have overdraw, but netting 2 VP and a slightly more reliable engine when you do have overdraw in a deck drawing engine can go a long way.

Another strong set of combos are with Gardens and Silk Roads - both are good options for Island. Gardens a nice if only because Island is another short pile that your slog deck can pick up whenever it would have gotten a Gardens that gives VP as well. Silk road makes Island a very nice buy, it is a cheap VP card, it can protect your precious green from trashing attacks (e.g. Swindler), and you have to worry less about keeping your deck up to $4 a hand when maybe a third or half your green will go vanish as it is set aside.  Normally for these alt-VP you'd want to open some sort of enabler first (obviously Iw is great, but even weaker things like Workshop or Squire can be quite viable) and maybe get a few copies (e.g. Spamming Squires & Silvers).

Not as good is Vineyard. Vineyard decks are very likely to have strong draw and being able to mat the Vineyards themselves or the eventually useless Potion; while less commonly a threat Islands can help hide Vineyards from things like Swindler (Vineyard -> nothing/Transmute) or Masq (say something like Cutpurse/Masq). Less useful is with Fairgrounds as Island is not a terrible way to gain & hide crappy terminal actions that might otherwise muck up the deck; obviously Fairgrounds/Island is just $2 more expensive than provinces, but gives 2 VP more so you might be able to build an extra turn or two to set that up when Province/Island is just a bit too slow.

Pool is another card that works very well with Island, the 16VP that Pool can draw is pretty nice, and Pool decks benefit a lot more than normal from Estate clearing and setting aside Provinces, particularly when Pool itself is your only draw.  On a related note, Island can be good to grab if (for completely other reasons) you've already gained a Transmute; over two turns you can swap $4 of value into $12 of value or $6 of buying power.

Island has some synergy with Ironmonger in that it can both decrease deck size and turns Ironmonger into a lvl 2 City when it hits, not strong enough of its own right, but it can make an engine viable if you have some other reason to go for it.

A fun trick is using Island to set aside just enough VP so that you can gain 2 Rats (or just one if you can gain mid-action phase) and then threaten to clear out the Rats whenever you draw deck (play a Rats, gain a Rats; play a Rats, gain a Rats, draw a Rats; repeat). If you have two piles likely to drain completely and quickly (e.g. Curses and Fishing Village); you can tuck away an Island and then gain all the Rats in one go for a surprise win against folk who haven't seen it; for people who have you can sometimes force some interesting end games where if they gain X (say a fifth highway on a Hermit/Highway board) you can instantly end the game. The game rarely sets this up for you unless you are playing Seaside/Dark Ages, but it is worth it at least once to auto-pile the Rats for the fun of it.


Defensively, Island can be useful. Swindler can be very dangerous when you have Prince/Peddler out that can nuke provinces, you are going alt-VP, or the other guy might be able to Swindle a huge number of times (or with high targeting like mass Rabble/Swindler) after the last Province is gone on the last turn (e.g. Rabble stacks 3 Provinces on your deck top, one Prov in supply, he plays 3 Swindlers); other trashing attacks are mostly dangerous to alt-VP, but Island can protect at least some VP. B-crat, Fteller, and Rabble can provide a decent nudge towards going for $12 instead of $16 as a greenless deck never slows down to those attacks.

Possession is an odd duck case, but Island does open up a lot of options. For instance, it makes it a lot safer to do something like build an engine off Ambassador or Masq as you can use the power cards, then safely hide them. the opponent then has to spend time getting double Amb or double Masq which is often another turn for you to win the game if they've gone Possession and you haven't. Likewise, if you want to keep your deck below $8 after you've gotten above that, Island can turn your deck into "a duchy at best". On the other hand, Island itself can majorly hammer you if it is still in your deck at the wrong time; Island -> set aside Possession is brutal.

[silverspawn]

Another time to consider Island is when you have otherwise built an engine, but end up with a spare $4 during the build-up.  For instance, on a colony board you may hit $7 and your best option is to grab Island/Silver so that next turn you can mat your trasher and then buy Plat (this assumes that the $1 differential between Gold & Silver is not worth a card). This is risky if you don't currently have overdraw, but netting 2 VP and a slightly more reliable engine when you do have overdraw in a deck drawing engine can go a long way.

I think I covered this with the sentence: "If you have a nice engine in a slim deck that's afraid of green cards, you can consider it to exile your Provinces, but make sure that the late thinning is really necessary." This is the rare case of when Island is okay because it just fits into the current turn perfectly, even if there is no enabler. Or do you think that's something different?

Another strong set of combos are with Gardens and Silk Roads - both are good options for Island. Gardens a nice if only because Island is another short pile that your slog deck can pick up whenever it would have gotten a Gardens that gives VP as well. Silk road makes Island a very nice buy, it is a cheap VP card, it can protect your precious green from trashing attacks (e.g. Swindler), and you have to worry less about keeping your deck up to $4 a hand when maybe a third or half your green will go vanish as it is set aside.  Normally for these alt-VP you'd want to open some sort of enabler first (obviously Iw is great, but even weaker things like Workshop or Squire can be quite viable) and maybe get a few copies (e.g. Spamming Squires & Silvers).

I don't consider Gardens an enabler for Island, I think it's a trap. A Garden deck is usually huge, which makes the thinning from Island almost irrelevant. Silk Road can certainly be a reason to buy it, but almost exclusively for the VP rather than the exiling. You very likely shouldn't buy Island it over Province or Silk Road, so if anything you'd buy it over a Duchy, which I don't think is important enough to deserve a mention.

Not as good is Vineyard. Vineyard decks are very likely to have strong draw and being able to mat the Vineyards themselves or the eventually useless Potion; while less commonly a threat Islands can help hide Vineyards from things like Swindler (Vineyard -> nothing/Transmute) or Masq (say something like Cutpurse/Masq). Less useful is with Fairgrounds as Island is not a terrible way to gain & hide crappy terminal actions that might otherwise muck up the deck; obviously Fairgrounds/Island is just $2 more expensive than provinces, but gives 2 VP more so you might be able to build an extra turn or two to set that up when Province/Island is just a bit too slow.

I agree that all of these can be theoretical reasons to buy Island, but I honestly don't think any of these cases is relevant enough to deserve a mention; I consider them edge cases.

Pool is another card that works very well with Island, the 16VP that Pool can draw is pretty nice, and Pool decks benefit a lot more than normal from Estate clearing and setting aside Provinces, particularly when Pool itself is your only draw.  On a related note, Island can be good to grab if (for completely other reasons) you've already gained a Transmute; over two turns you can swap $4 of value into $12 of value or $6 of buying power.

I don't think Pool enables Island. I agree that trashing is good for SP decks, but Island is just a really slow trasher, every other trasher is probably better. And yeah, Island is an Action card and can be drawn with SP, but so can any other trasher.

I don't think I ever had a game where using Transmute to trash a card with several types was strong.

Island has some synergy with Ironmonger in that it can both decrease deck size and turns Ironmonger into a lvl 2 City when it hits, not strong enough of its own right, but it can make an engine viable if you have some other reason to go for it.

Again, I don't see this as relevant enough to be mentioned. If it was Great Hall, sure, but Island sets itself aside after you use it once, so you're not likely to hit it with Ironmonger more than once.

A fun trick is using Island to set aside just enough VP so that you can gain 2 Rats (or just one if you can gain mid-action phase) and then threaten to clear out the Rats whenever you draw deck (play a Rats, gain a Rats; play a Rats, gain a Rats, draw a Rats; repeat). If you have two piles likely to drain completely and quickly (e.g. Curses and Fishing Village); you can tuck away an Island and then gain all the Rats in one go for a surprise win against folk who haven't seen it; for people who have you can sometimes force some interesting end games where if they gain X (say a fifth highway on a Hermit/Highway board) you can instantly end the game. The game rarely sets this up for you unless you are playing Seaside/Dark Ages, but it is worth it at least once to auto-pile the Rats for the fun of it.

Well, I have only been able to use a 3 pile of rats to end the game like once or twice in my career, although I often hoped for it, and I don't think Island is a crucial part for that. You can also do with fortress and VP's in your hand, with a victory chip, with a curse in your opponents deck, or just by buying an Estate at the end of your turn with virtual coin.

Defensively, Island can be useful. Swindler can be very dangerous when you have Prince/Peddler out that can nuke provinces, you are going alt-VP, or the other guy might be able to Swindle a huge number of times (or with high targeting like mass Rabble/Swindler) after the last Province is gone on the last turn (e.g. Rabble stacks 3 Provinces on your deck top, one Prov in supply, he plays 3 Swindlers); other trashing attacks are mostly dangerous to alt-VP, but Island can protect at least some VP. B-crat, Fteller, and Rabble can provide a decent nudge towards going for $12 instead of $16 as a greenless deck never slows down to those attacks.

I can see using Island to protect your Provinces as being a thing, but it would require both swindler (as it is the only card which can kill a Province effectively), Prince or Peddler, and decent enough support to make it better than a silver. That's too narrow.

Possession is an odd duck case, but Island does open up a lot of options. For instance, it makes it a lot safer to do something like build an engine off Ambassador or Masq as you can use the power cards, then safely hide them. the opponent then has to spend time getting double Amb or double Masq which is often another turn for you to win the game if they've gone Possession and you haven't. Likewise, if you want to keep your deck below $8 after you've gotten above that, Island can turn your deck into "a duchy at best". On the other hand, Island itself can majorly hammer you if it is still in your deck at the wrong time; Island -> set aside Possession is brutal.

I highly doubt that using Island to prevent your opponent from abusing the synergies with Possession works. For one, Island is one of the three main synergies (as you said), but also because both of the other two (Amb and Masq) can hand out cards to your opponent; so even if you go through the trouble of exiling your masquerade with Island before he can play Possession, he can just pass you another Masquerade with little effort.


So, I have to limit the article to the most important synergies, otherwise a lot of this stuff could certainly be included. If more people think that any of these is important enough to be in it, I'll reconsider.

[jomini]

Another time to consider Island is when you have otherwise built an engine, but end up with a spare $4 during the build-up.  For instance, on a colony board you may hit $7 and your best option is to grab Island/Silver so that next turn you can mat your trasher and then buy Plat (this assumes that the $1 differential between Gold & Silver is not worth a card). This is risky if you don't currently have overdraw, but netting 2 VP and a slightly more reliable engine when you do have overdraw in a deck drawing engine can go a long way.

I think I covered this with the sentence: "If you have a nice engine in a slim deck that's afraid of green cards, you can consider it to exile your Provinces, but make sure that the late thinning is really necessary." This is the rare case of when Island is okay because it just fits into the current turn perfectly, even if there is no enabler. Or do you think that's something different?

There are two things that make this slightly different, one is that this is a buy for a single card, normally your trasher, so it can be applicable before you get to greening. (e.g. if I'm going to build up to $22 it can make sense to spend the $4 when I'm at $7 or some other price point long before you get green) and secondly it can become more important if your trasher is some sort of stop card in your engine - e.g. a mandatory trasher in a Wt draw engine so it reduces all subsequent Wt draws by 1 card, if you need to use Golem or Herald as a village, or if you are using cards like Farming Village, Wandering minstral, or Journeyman where one card type greatly decreases your ability to flip past junk. On the high end, having something like Trading post/Golem makes Island on the trasher obscenely powerful, on the weaker end it is just grabbing something to get rid of a dead card (like province), somewhere in the middle is setting up one huge turn and nixing a dead card for more reliable draw. For engines, the payout for Islanding one card can vary a lot, as can the opportunity cost - even when it isn't worth Islanding provinces it can be worth it to nix the trasher.

I don't consider Gardens an enabler for Island, I think it's a trap. A Garden deck is usually huge, which makes the thinning from Island almost irrelevant.

That depends on if Gardens are contested or not. If they aren't, then Island is very nice. It takes only 8 gains to empty the pile which is often 1.5 turns shorter than piling out a kingdom card and they are worth double the points of Estates. If your opponent goes something Garden intolerant, then you can hide your estates and get by with fewer early enablers; further most Gardens enablers work pretty well with Island.

Silk Road can certainly be a reason to buy it, but almost exclusively for the VP rather than the exiling. You very likely shouldn't buy Island it over Province or Silk Road, so if anything you'd buy it over a Duchy, which I don't think is important enough to deserve a mention.

If Silk road is not going to be contested, then you should go Island early and keep a steady mix. Exiling the estates and the odd Silk Road does increase the frequency with which you hit enablers. If some of your enablers are non-terminal (Iw being king, but also things like Candlestick maker and Pawn) it really does increase the rate at which you pile down green.

In both the Gardens and Silk road cases, the question is can you risk gaining Island instead of Gardens/Sr, but honestly that is the risk with virtually all Gardens/Sr enablers except maybe Iw. In a mirror, you have to be very careful and often lucky to not overbuy enablers and come up short on the Garden/Sr split.

I agree that all of these can be theoretical reasons to buy Island, but I honestly don't think any of these cases is relevant enough to deserve a mention; I consider them edge cases.

More I'd go with Alt-VP being a mention; Island does work really well when you are bloating out a Vineyards deck as it counts twice and can hide your Vineyards. For the rest it applies mostly on boards where things are non-trivially obvious.

I don't think Pool enables Island. I agree that trashing is good for SP decks, but Island is just a really slow trasher, every other trasher is probably better. And yeah, Island is an Action card and can be drawn with SP, but so can any other trasher.

Yeah, but only Nv can sock away green to keep your pool deck reliable as it scores points, and on a lot of Island/Pool boards there will either be no other trashing or stuff that isn't so nice at trashing - like Hermit or Counterfeit that makes Island good at popping off stop cards that would otherwise be left.

I don't think I ever had a game where using Transmute to trash a card with several types was strong.

It is a pretty good thing when the deck already supports Transmute for some other reason. For instance I did a Pool/Transmute/Familiar/Necropolis/Remodel/Island deck. Potion was a given with both Pool and Familiar, Transmute was decent at killing Curses and coppers and then tossing in Islands let me get golds to remodel to Provinces without having to spend multiple turns going Transmute -> Duchy -> Gold -> Remodel. Again this is only good if you've already gotten Transmute for some reason that negates the opportunity cost (e.g. you hit $1P on a Familiar board) and you can use a lot of card value or reliable draw to pair up Island & Transmute.

Again, I don't see this as relevant enough to be mentioned. If it was Great Hall, sure, but Island sets itself aside after you use it once, so you're not likely to hit it with Ironmonger more than once.

Most likely not, but the point is that Island is a bit better during the buildup if you are doing Ironmonger, I'd take at least a few if I have a low opportunity cost way to get Islands.

Well, I have only been able to use a 3 pile of rats to end the game like once or twice in my career, although I often hoped for it, and I don't think Island is a crucial part for that. You can also do with fortress and VP's in your hand, with a victory chip, with a curse in your opponents deck, or just by buying an Estate at the end of your turn with virtual coin.

Absolutely correct, on the other hand Island is one of the easier ways to keep the threat an option after the opponent gets a province. Again I say this more because it is really fun to do rather than it being really strong thing.

using Island to protect your Provinces as being a thing, but it would require both swindler (as it is the only card which can kill a Province effectively), Prince or Peddler, and decent enough support to make it better than a silver. That's too narrow.

You are forgetting about Alt-VP. Fairgrounds, Silk Roads, and sometimes even Feodum and Gardens all can be killed by Knights, Rogue, Swindler, and Sab (if Sab can be played enough).

I highly doubt that using Island to prevent your opponent from abusing the synergies with Possession works. For one, Island is one of the three main synergies (as you said), but also because both of the other two (Amb and Masq) can hand out cards to your opponent; so even if you go through the trouble of exiling your masquerade with Island before he can play Possession, he can just pass you another Masquerade with little effort.

More aptly, he can pass you a Masq or Amb one turn later than if you have the Masq or Amb already in deck for him, which can be long enough to win the game. Spend $4 late game for an extra turn? That is a pretty good trade. Further, if your opponent cannot play both Possession and Masq/Amb the same turn (e.g. a no-village engine), then you can keep setting aside the poison card they give you.

The general case is also of note. You should at least highlight the dangers of Island in Possessed decks (e.g. attack cards can be lost) but on the other hand if you want to kill your deck so it cannot purchase provinces (instead it just Possesses the other guy and maybe buys more Possessions), then Island can be a decent way to get under $8. For example If we are playing with a Kc/Possession dominant setup (say something like Journeyman/Wandering Minstrel for draw, some gainer, no +buy), I really don't want my deck to be able to hit $8 reliably so Islanding away a Silver (and being vulnerable for one turn to losing one of my own Possessions) is a better risk as then my opponent can at best nab duchies using my deck instead of provinces. An 11 VP swing is big thing.

Certainly, you don't want to blindly stack up on Islands in a Possession match, but you may need to grab an Island just to get rid of one card so you deck is not good enough to gain bonus provinces. Say I use Salvager (which could also be something like Apprentice, Remodel, Stonemason, etc.) to get my deck going and my opponent is using Possession (I'm not), then it is quite likely that at some point he will be able to "trash" a province -> buy a Province. That is going to be a much bigger thing for him than whatever I might trash. So I then buy the Island and halve the utility of a Possession play. Sure anything else that can trash actions is also an option (besides the card I want to nuke), but it might have its own problems (e.g. Trade route might actually be worth $3 coin for him when he "trashes" a province and I have nothing I can trash), it clutters up my deck, and it doesn't give me VP - and of course Island is likely the only other option on a lot of Possession boards.

Possession is screwy enough that when Island is helpful, it is really helpful and when Island is  bad it is really bad. When I need to get below $8 (so mass Possession doesn't quick buy six provinces), Island works to do it. Similarly when I need to use a scaling TfB early and need it gone late, Island really works. Timing is also a non-intuitive thing - when you want Island is really game state dependent. Slowing down to hide your Salvager has its own risk as now you can't burn a province/buy a province. Possession is perhaps the strongest case for when hiding a card is valuable (because the card in your deck can be SO much more valuable to the opponent), but also one of the times when it is riskiest.

On net, meh, maybe its a wash, but I think when to buy/not buy with Possession is pretty interesting and relevant strategy.

[silverspawn]

Okay, I think this has to do. I can't really give any useful advise about when to pick up Island, but I think it should still be addressed, even if all I say is, figure it out by yourself.

[werothegreat]

So would you say this article is about done?

[PK9]

I can see using Island to protect your Provinces as being a thing, but it would require both swindler (as it is the only card which can kill a Province effectively), Prince or Peddler, and decent enough support to make it better than a silver. That's too narrow.

Is Swindler/Peddler even something to consider in this case?  Unless there really isn't any +buy or action-chaining, Peddlers are gonna run out before anyone buys a Province (especially with Swindler in play), and then the Swindler is more likely gonna become a liability because it could go Peddler-->Province instead. 

Prince on the other hand, yeah, I don't think I've ever seen the Prince pile emptied.

[LastFootnote]

I can see using Island to protect your Provinces as being a thing, but it would require both swindler (as it is the only card which can kill a Province effectively), Prince or Peddler, and decent enough support to make it better than a silver. That's too narrow.

Is Swindler/Peddler even something to consider in this case?  Unless there really isn't any +buy or action-chaining, Peddlers are gonna run out before anyone buys a Province (especially with Swindler in play), and then the Swindler is more likely gonna become a liability because it could go Peddler-->Province instead. 

Prince on the other hand, yeah, I don't think I've ever seen the Prince pile emptied.

This sounds well outside the scope of a card article. I think articles could already afford to be shorter, with fewer of these edge cases.

[silverspawn]

So would you say this article is about done?

yeah.

[werothegreat]

Added!  Hope you don't mind, but I included a short "Traps" section detailing reasons against the poor advice previously in the strategy section of the article.

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Island#Strategy_Article

[silverspawn]

that's fine, you're right about what you say there.

[jomini]

I'm really not seeing how Island is a trap on Garden or Silk Road boards. Let's say it's a mirror. You get the optimal number of enablers (e.g. IW), and then you race to split the Alt-VP 4:4. At this point you have a deck that is setup to gain VP cards that cost $4. Why on earth would you gain anything other than VP cards that cost $4? Even if the Island is just a dead card, it is a dead card worth 2 VP that makes your alt-VP stronger. Sure with Gardens you might race back to the enablers for a 5:5 split ... but now you have 5 enablers for gaining $4 cards and you have one that gives you 2VP and ones that give you 1VP or fewer; why exactly would you not get the 2 VP ones?

I cannot fathom a case where I'm in a Silk Roads or Gardens mirror where "not getting Islands" is the right play. I mean how Silk Roads/Gardens mirrors end up with an estate rush already? At the very least Island should be gained instead of Estate whenever possible most of the time in a mirror.

So what about non-mirrors?
Okay, well say it is a slog. In that case, you want each gain (which will be limited) to give you as much VP as possible. You have no interest in ending the game early so you are basically looking at enablers, Payload, and then either Duchies, Islands, or Estates. If your deck is good at $5 (e.g. Horse Traders) then you likely want to split Islands/Duchies to prolong the game & score max points (particularly when you hit just $4). If your deck can hit $4 and not $5 then it is Estates vs Islands. Estates are much, much easier for an engine player to clear out and they score fewer points -> take the Islands to the bank. As you want the game to last long enough to build up your deck to some beastly proportion, then you might even consider splitting buys between 2 (or 3) piles of VP cards to maximize points per gain AND gains left in game.

Okay well what about the rush? Well, yes, here we will see a bias towards Estates. While you can gain Islands as easily as Gardens, some enablers work better at fast clearing out the estates themselves (e.g. Horse traders) or are likely to leave you with $2 in coin, but not $4 (e.g. Workshop).


In short, Islands should be gained after Gardens/Silk Roads if you are looking at a mirror (and possibly after Duchies) or a non-mirror slog. They can be traps for non-mirror rushes ... but only if you can more quickly finish the game on something else (e.g. Estates; or random actions with Gardens/Talisman).

You cannot be serious that having another cheap VP pile out for Silk Road makes Silk Road worse. At worst Islands are just slightly more expensive Tunnels on a discardless board. If I'm guessing if I should go Workshop/Silk Road either Tunnel or Island opens up a lot of slog potential.

Sure don't buy Islands first if there is any danger it will cut into your Sr/Gardens count, but otherwise, why exactly wouldn't you vacuum them up afterwards?

[jaketheyak]

Yeah, I think the advice that Island competes on price with Gardens/Silk Roads indicates that the trap is supposed to be "buying Islands before all the Gardens/Silk Roads are gone" not "buying Islands after all the Gardens/Silk Roads are gone".

I guess what they are saying is not to be fooled into thinking that it's a good plan to alternate between buying Gardens/Silk Roads and buying Islands, in the vain hope that you can use your Islands on your Gardens/Silk Roads and stop the green from clogging your deck.

[Asper]

Very informative article. I found it truly helpful. Kudos.

[popsofctown]

I think it'd be nice to emphasize that to consider opening an Island, the 5$ cards in particular are the part of the board you want to consider weak.  It seems to me that a lot of lower players are forgetful about the relationship with the power level of the 5$ cards and how acceptable openers that produces less $ than Silver are.  Of course, any board with weak 5's in, in turn, a weak board, so silverspawn already covered that, but I think it was in a way that's a tad less accessible.

It's a really good article and there was stuff I hadn't thought about in it

[c4master]

Yeah, I think the advice that Island competes on price with Gardens/Silk Roads indicates that the trap is supposed to be "buying Islands before all the Gardens/Silk Roads are gone" not "buying Islands after all the Gardens/Silk Roads are gone".

I guess what they are saying is not to be fooled into thinking that it's a good plan to alternate between buying Gardens/Silk Roads and buying Islands, in the vain hope that you can use your Islands on your Gardens/Silk Roads and stop the green from clogging your deck.

I agree on that.

So, there's the question whether or not Islands ENABLE slogs or rushes.

I'm pretty sure, Islands never enable rushes at all. Either it's possible in the first place, or Island doesn't help you "rushing" anything.
For the slogs, I think, Islands are fine. It's more VP, which is espacially nice in Silk Road slogs. You might see your first two Islands before the game ends (maybe), but having another shuffle before the end, so that the "place aside"-effect can do any benefit, is very questionable. So, in a slog, an Island is basically just 2VP for $4. Which is nice, because usually there are no other options to spend $4 once the Silk Roads or Gardens are gone. If I hit $5, I would still buy Duchy over Island most of the time, unless I'm willing to end the game by piling Islands (if that's possible).
So I'd say, Islands don't actually enable slogs. They don't even actively help them. It's just a card worth 2VP once your slog targets are gone.

Btw: On Duchy/Duke games, Islands would be nice, but they have to compete with Silver or maybe even better cards like Smithy. So I don't quite see a place for it on these games - at least not early on.

Man, that article just showed me how much I overvalued Islands.

[Minotaur]

So X years later, the consensus seems to be that this is a very situational finesse card that you most likely buy at specific times depending on the board and your shuffle luck?

One problem with this card as an alternative to Duchy is that the action doesn't help you until two shuffles later.  Sometimes, that's too late, and you threw away 1 VP for nothing.  So in this case, it can still function as $4 consolation prize.  You don't always want to spend $4 on 2VP three or more shuffles before the game ends...

EDIT:  I went ahead and included these thoughts in the wiki.

Added!  Hope you don't mind, but I included a short "Traps" section detailing reasons against the poor advice previously in the strategy section of the article.

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Island#Strategy_Article

In the year 2018, no one thinks buying Scout is ever a good idea anymore.

[infangthief]

In the year 2018, no one thinks buying Scout is ever a good idea anymore.

In the year 3018, etymologists ponder the origin of the phrase 'combos with Scout'.

[Minotaur]

In the year 2018, no one thinks buying Scout is ever a good idea anymore.

In the year 3018, etymologists ponder the origin of the phrase 'combos with Scout'.

I'm pretty sure it means enjoying a pretzel snack on the front porch on a Summer day with your daughter from To Kill A Mockingbird.  It means you have very good memories associated with the card being discussed.

[Screwyioux]

Some considerations for this article:

I think your main premise of Island having two different uses in different contexts is a fine one to begin examining the card with, but saying they excel on different kinds of boards is a little too general.

I think calling a board "strong" or "weak" is a little to vague to be useful so I'd just cut out talk of it entirely and focus on what the Island is actually doing for your deck. For instance, money decks certainly want Island's thinning, the difference is they only care about thinning the Estates (or other green cards later), so picking up an Island for that deck has a more specific purpose and you get fewer of them because of it.

"It basically works like other trashers, so you'll just have to rely on intuition. Opening Island is only advisable on really weak boards."

I understand what you mean by this, but Island does NOT work like trashers, and the reasons why are illuminating for why you almost never open with it:

- It's a terminal stop card you need to line up with what you want to thin
- It only works once

It's a tad misleading to say that Island thins your deck by one card. It's not wrong in the long-run, but there's a huge difference between that and, say Bonfire or Cemetery, or even Trade Route which is similar in terms of thinning capabilities, but a more common opener because it works more than once.
 I suppose the main point there is that Island's thinning is very weak in terms of getting control of your deck, so if that's the reason you're getting the Island, evaluate your other options and whether or not you need the effect at all.

As far as synergies go, I think you make a few points that either aren't actually good or don't have much to do with Island in particular.
For Workshop variants, I think you can just make this about Ironworks. The other ones are as true for every card under $5 are they are for Island. You make this just about Ironworks and I'm down with it.

Hoard- I'm down with it but I don't think you need to mention buying Duchies or Estates. When you have a Hoard out you usually just buy whatever green card you can (in decks where you wanted a Hoard in the first place anyway) and Island is a cheap one. It possibly disappearing from your deck later is just a bonus.

Copper Trashing- I'm not down with it. I don't think this section is great advice, or specific to island.

Menagerie- I'm not down with it. This is not a particularly strong synergy with Island, the decks you're talking about probably shouldn't have grabbed a Menagerie in the first place.

WW/Apothecary- I'm not down with it. This stuff is true of Island, yes, but it doesn't push you to buy either one of these cards.

Hovel- I'm down with it as long as you mention that this requires thinning the two shelters over the course of a shuffle to be better than just adding a Silver and hitting $5. This is true often enough to be worth a mention but I think you need to say it.

Procession- I'm not down with it. Mostly because it's just pretty weak.


Finally, similar to what I mentioned you should address with Hoard, I think one of the more common use cases for Island is when 2 points is as good as 3 points (you can't or don't want to buy a Province for some reason but you still need to increase your score) and it has the strict advantage over Duchy of maybe being able to disappear one day.

[GendoIkari]

So no mention of Laboratory here. Removing one card from your deck is very similar to adding a Laboratory to your deck.... which means that Island should function a lot like a Laboratory that's also worth 2. Of course, what makes it not as strong as that is that the turn you play it is really bad; being -1 action and -2 cards. But once you've gotten past that one-time downside, it should be very similar to  Lab.

So my question is... why isn't this way stronger? An actual Lab for that also included 2 would be crazy. Is it all because of the on-play downside, or am I missing something?

[Minotaur]

So no mention of Laboratory here. Removing one card from your deck is very similar to adding a Laboratory to your deck.... which means that Island should function a lot like a Laboratory that's also worth 2. Of course, what makes it not as strong as that is that the turn you play it is really bad; being -1 action and -2 cards. But once you've gotten past that one-time downside, it should be very similar to  Lab.

So my question is... why isn't this way stronger? An actual Lab for that also included 2 would be crazy. Is it all because of the on-play downside, or am I missing something?

I'm not actually great at Dominion, but I have some thoughts.

1.  Any sifter or trasher does this better.  There are a lot of them, and basically any of them are better at it.
2.  Tempo.  Any somewhat strong card I could have bought for $4 can help me pick up a $5 card the first time I play it.  Now I have an actual Laboratory as well as a $4 card I hopefully wanted to have anyway.  If I open Silver-Silver, what could I have on Shuffle 3 as opposed to if I'd opened Silver-Island and set aside an Estate on Shuffle 2?  This is a somewhat less general place to begin an investigation.
3.  Having to use it on a Copper is better than not using it, but still hurts a lot.
4.  Any risk of a terminal collision is really bad.
5.  It's like using Feast to gain a Laboratory.  I never quite understood what was so bad about Feast, but maybe it's #2?  I should read up on that...

There might be more to it, but it's interesting to think about.  How about this?  It's better than just about any Ruins, but it sort of removes the VP from the discussion.

Crumbling Chapel
Action-Tourist Attraction
Cost: $1

Trash this.  Place a card from your hand on your Rubble mat.

(Maybe it could cost $2 since it's not "strictly worse" in that you eventually want to trash your Chapel but can't...)

[crj]

Of course, what makes it not as strong as that is that the turn you play it is really bad; being -1 action and -2 cards.

That's a pretty big downside.

Also, while with Laboratory you get the benefit after one shuffle, with Island you have to wait two shuffles for the benefit.

Plus, to play Island you need to line it up with a card you want out of your deck. Whereas nobody cries if they play Laboratory and discover they now have a hand of six useful cards.

(Of course, the real reason people are so down on Island compared with Laboratory is the risk of being Possessed into using it destructively. I mean, imagine how much of a mess you'd be in if your opponent put your Scout on an Island!)

[Holunder9]

So my question is... why isn't this way stronger? An actual Lab for that also included 2 would be crazy. Is it all because of the on-play downside, or am I missing something?

Ignoring the presence of trashers which do the thinning job that Island does better I think it all comes down to Island being dead on the turn you play it. It is kind of like Hireling vs. Lab, that Hireling is dead on the turn you play it could make the card situationally worse than Lab although it is an auto-Lab in all future turns.

[Minotaur]

It's sort of like if Feast also granted +2 VP when you played it, if you forget about Throne Room.  So it's stronger than that, but a bad card and +2 VP, eh...

[crj]

it all comes down to Island being dead on the turn you play it. It is kind of like Hireling vs. Lab, that Hireling is dead on the turn you play it could make the card situationally worse than Lab although it is an auto-Lab in all future turns.

Given you don't have an engine yet, delaying the benefit by a shuffle (Island v. Lab) is a bigger deal than delaying it by a turn (Hireling v. Lab).

Plus, in effect, the benefit of Hireling is delayed by how much longer it takes you to reach $6 than $5. It might be that kind of board, or you might get lucky, but often it's way easier to make sure you have a good chance of reaching $5 on T3/T4 than of reaching $6.

[jomini]

So no mention of Laboratory here. Removing one card from your deck is very similar to adding a Laboratory to your deck.... which means that Island should function a lot like a Laboratory that's also worth 2. Of course, what makes it not as strong as that is that the turn you play it is really bad; being -1 action and -2 cards. But once you've gotten past that one-time downside, it should be very similar to  Lab.

So my question is... why isn't this way stronger? An actual Lab for that also included 2 would be crazy. Is it all because of the on-play downside, or am I missing something?

The on play penalty is pretty large two cards moves you from a $5 on average to a $3. Playing a Lab early is pretty close to playing $1.4 coins. One of these options lets you buy another accelerating card from the same pile, the other does not. Add in the value of playing a power terminal more often and we should expect the Lab to win out the vast majority of the time.

But there are a few other things to consider: Labs can increase your maximum hand size, not just how quickly you draw and shuffle. This becomes important when you are looking at things like building a double province engine. You can build Island golden decks that are roughly equivalent to buying a prov & a Lab ... but honestly 12$ and a buy is pretty hard to pack into 5 stop cards (baseline takes up all 5). Labs can hit 13$ and a buy much more easily - even getting out $6 cards moves you down from $2.4/card for the Island option to $2.1/card for the Lab. Yeah you can do either with cantrip cash, but there are just way more boards that make Lab work than Island for space efficiency. Similarly, things like attacks and Outpost mean that you need to deal with low initial card counts, Lab is great. Thrones, Wall, etc. also tend to prefer the lab.

[Minotaur]

Kind of makes me wonder if gain-to-your-hand options make Island into a decent finesse play, or if setting aside a Province in the middle of the turn is just a feel-good substitute for something more powerful most of the time.

Island might do well as an addition to any engine in asymptotic Dominion, but no one actually plays that, so it could be a moot point.  You could even use your last Throne on Island after you draw your deck and Island with two other Victory cards at the end of most turns, but this is probably not a realistic goal for a finite Dominion...

Asymptotic Dominion with Labs requires gaining more Labs than Victory cards + Treasures; otherwise, you draw only green and eventually stop when "you have flipped 5 more Tails than Heads", which eventually happens with probability 1.  The probability of this catastrophe per turn in the long run is some function of what % of your deck is Laboratory, and catastrophe has probability 1 for P(Lab)<= .5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton%E2%80%93Watson_process#Extinction_criterion_for_Galton%E2%80%93Watson_process

Of course, knowing that doesn't make me better at Dominion.  Demonstrably... 

[markusin]

Kind of makes me wonder if gain-to-your-hand options make Island into a decent finesse play, or if setting aside a Province in the middle of the turn is just a feel-good substitute for something more powerful most of the time.

Island might do well as an addition to any engine in asymptotic Dominion, but no one actually plays that, so it could be a moot point.  You could even use your last Throne on Island after you draw your deck and Island with two other Victory cards at the end of most turns, but this is probably not a realistic goal for a finite Dominion...

Asymptotic Dominion with Labs requires gaining more Labs than Victory cards + Treasures; otherwise, you draw only green and eventually stop when "you have flipped 5 more Tails than Heads", which eventually happens with probability 1.  The probability of this catastrophe per turn in the long run is some function of what % of your deck is Laboratory, and catastrophe has probability 1 for P(Lab)<= .5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton%E2%80%93Watson_process#Extinction_criterion_for_Galton%E2%80%93Watson_process

Of course, knowing that doesn't make me better at Dominion.  Demonstrably... 

Yeah, I'm sure someone can do the math to figure out under which circumstances does adding a literal Laboratory reduce chances of a dud more than removing a stop card from the deck.

Card draw gives you a higher ceiling for what you can do with your turn, but will often not be as good for deck reliability compared to removing stop cards from your deck. However, green cards are stop cards you usually need in your deck to win, and having a lower ceiling for deck output by removing stop cards rather than adding draw eventually makes it difficult to buy Provinces.

Island happens to be a card that can rid your deck of even other green cards without losing the VP on the islanded green card. That can be quite good if you have a convenient way to get Islands.

[aku_chi]

So X years later, the consensus seems to be that this is a very situational finesse card that you most likely buy at specific times depending on the board and your shuffle luck?

One problem with this card as an alternative to Duchy is that the action doesn't help you until two shuffles later.  Sometimes, that's too late, and you threw away 1 VP for nothing.  So in this case, it can still function as $4 consolation prize.  You don't always want to spend $4 on 2VP three or more shuffles before the game ends...

According to the stats markus has been collecting, Island is gained pretty often:



Island is gained substantially more than Duchy, Gardens, and Silk Road - and just as often by the winner, unlike those three cards (which are gained more often by the loser).  Island is even gained more often than Distant Lands; I think there's a case that Island has been underrated in recent years.  Temple is also an interesting comparison point, and I think Island comes out looking better.

[Seprix]

Gained more, and by the winner? Hmmmm. Worth examining my play.

[markusin]

So X years later, the consensus seems to be that this is a very situational finesse card that you most likely buy at specific times depending on the board and your shuffle luck?

One problem with this card as an alternative to Duchy is that the action doesn't help you until two shuffles later.  Sometimes, that's too late, and you threw away 1 VP for nothing.  So in this case, it can still function as $4 consolation prize.  You don't always want to spend $4 on 2VP three or more shuffles before the game ends...

According to the stats markus has been collecting, Island is gained pretty often:

<Island stats>

Island is gained substantially more than Duchy, Gardens, and Silk Road - and just as often by the winner, unlike those three cards (which are gained more often by the loser).  Island is even gained more often than Distant Lands; I think there's a case that Island has been underrated in recent years.  Temple is also an interesting comparison point, and I think Island comes out looking better.

Comparing it to Distant Lands is interesting. It's two less VP than Distant Lands, but doesn't compete with other 5-cost cards, is in the Workshop price range, and even gets rid of another card from your deck along with itself when played.

It's still a tough card to evaluate when figuring out when to gain it, outside obvious stuff like Ironworks.

[DG]

If the win rate for opening with islands is about 50% then players are judging it's power correctly, by and large. They're opening 13% of the time with islands so by deduction that rate is appropriate and 13% isn't often really.

As for the end game, tunnels and islands can be picked up as a 2vp card so it's hard to exactly judge their overall impact in a strategy. Islands also have the potential to be part of a big 3 pile finish so the number of gains could also be a skewed statistic.

[Minotaur]

That's some fascinating data.  There is the issue of separating cause and effect when correlating win rates though...