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silverspawn

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Island
« on: January 06, 2015, 12:19:01 pm »
+18


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.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2015, 03:56:12 pm by silverspawn »
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Awaclus

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Re: Island
« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2015, 12:21:26 pm »
+3

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

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Re: Island
« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2015, 12:23:57 pm »
+1

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

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Re: Island
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2015, 12:48:44 pm »
+4

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.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Island
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2015, 03:37:18 pm »
+2

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

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Re: Island
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2015, 04:11:47 pm »
0

Paragraph 2, "when do get Island?" should probably be "when to get Island?"
Isn't that just a matter of style?

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Re: Island
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2015, 04:19:45 pm »
+2

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.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Island
« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2015, 04:20:16 pm »
+1

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. :P
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silverspawn

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Re: Island
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2015, 04:24:51 pm »
0

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

luser

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Re: Island
« Reply #9 on: January 06, 2015, 05:22:16 pm »
0

So lets try what is following strategy on this kingdom?

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

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Re: Island
« Reply #10 on: January 06, 2015, 06:32:09 pm »
+1

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.

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Polk5440

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Re: Island
« Reply #11 on: January 06, 2015, 08:21:37 pm »
+1

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).
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Seprix

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Re: Island
« Reply #12 on: January 07, 2015, 10:08:24 pm »
0

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.
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silverspawn

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Re: Island
« Reply #13 on: January 07, 2015, 10:18:18 pm »
+3

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.

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Re: Island
« Reply #14 on: January 08, 2015, 10:19:17 am »
+1

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

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Re: Island
« Reply #15 on: January 08, 2015, 02:19:31 pm »
+5

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.
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silverspawn

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Re: Island
« Reply #16 on: January 08, 2015, 04:09:46 pm »
+1

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.

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Re: Island
« Reply #17 on: January 09, 2015, 11:53:50 am »
+1

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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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.


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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.

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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.


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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).


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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.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2015, 06:51:16 pm by jomini »
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silverspawn

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Re: Island
« Reply #18 on: January 10, 2015, 03:57:10 pm »
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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.

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Re: Island
« Reply #19 on: January 13, 2015, 03:12:04 pm »
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So would you say this article is about done?
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Re: Island
« Reply #20 on: January 15, 2015, 09:40:05 pm »
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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.
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Re: Island
« Reply #21 on: January 15, 2015, 09:42:29 pm »
+1

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.
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Re: Island
« Reply #22 on: January 18, 2015, 01:03:34 pm »
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So would you say this article is about done?

yeah.

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Re: Island
« Reply #23 on: January 18, 2015, 01:28:11 pm »
+1

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
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Re: Island
« Reply #24 on: January 19, 2015, 01:59:16 pm »
+1

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