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Author Topic: Cards You Horribly Misjudged  (Read 34294 times)

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chwhite

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #25 on: December 20, 2011, 01:34:13 pm »
+1

Oh, boy, there are lots of these.  Like most everyone here, I didn't get Chapel and Ambassador at first.  Why would I want to trash without benefit unless Curses are around?  Sure I can pass opponents this Estate from my hand, but that's all of my action, and what's more is I'm giving them points and taking points away from me!

Torturer and Minion were two other cards I had no idea how to use until I had spent some time on Isotropic: this is probably because they require multiple plays to unlock their full potential, and I started out as basically just a BM + X player.  Watching those two chains beat me down regularly in the early days was more than anything the impetus I needed to start exploring more complicated (and more fun) chains.

Masquerade, yeah.  Back in the pre-Isotropic days, I was all like "the drawing power of Moat and a pass that doesn't matter?  For three?  Why would I ever buy this?"  Then it started to dawn on me that, hey, the trashing is useful too, and then I started to win a bunch with Masq-BM, and that's right about the time that Council Room stats came online and showed us all that, whoa, this is a sneaky powerful card.

Those are the most egregious examples, and I'm far from unique in all of them.  But even after I started to become a good player there were things I misjudged.  I thought Vault and Venture were horrible when they first came out; it took recognizing Vault's power to even think about ever buying Secret Chamber and I still don't think Venture is that good, actually.  I expected Jester to be amazing and Remake to be weak, taking away the best part of Upgrade (the fact it's a cantrip), but by the time Cornucopia came out I had enough experience to correct these misapprehensions pretty quick: a couple games in and I knew Jester was a mild annoyance and Remake was instead an awesomer Steward.  With Hinterlands, I underestimated JoaT for sure, and I knew IGG was good but didn't get how game-warping the IGG-Duchy rush was until I saw it in action.

Really, I've misjudged most of the cards at least a little bit one way or another.  Probably the only card where I was right on the money from day one is Menagerie.  I thought it was pants-wettingly powerful the second I saw it, almost always worth bending your play to make it work, and yeah it sure as hell is.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2011, 03:46:44 pm by chwhite »
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mischiefmaker

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #26 on: December 20, 2011, 04:18:50 pm »
0

Loan was for sure the biggest one for me, but perhaps the card I owe the biggest debt of gratitude to. I racked my brain trying to figure out when I would ever want to buy a Loan, and when I couldn't, I asked the smartest person I know (Google), who led me to dominionstrategy.wordpress.com, who in turn introduced me to Isotropic.

Like almost everyone else, I thought Jester was going to be ridiculous and game-warping. Turns out, not so much, except possibly in multiplayer games.
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ehunt

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #27 on: December 20, 2011, 05:44:46 pm »
0

I thought Highway was game-breakingly good and King's Court was only OK.

I thought Transmute was ... I don't know if I ever thought it was good, but I thought there was surely some really clever use of it in the right game.
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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #28 on: December 20, 2011, 06:15:55 pm »
+1

Province- I was eating pizza and had my plate over part of the card when first shown it by my friend (he slid it across the table) and thought it said Pizza. Later I saw the same picture with the word Province and yelled "WHAT THE COPPER IS THIS?!?"

Then I read Gardens instead of just pushing it aside as a "girls' card". Needless to say I face palmed :(
edit: Chapel I actually understood, as well as most of the other cards. Ironically I first saw this game when I was ~8 but never remembered the name and didn't find it till I was ~13@ theory's awesometastic blog. ^_^_^_^
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Saucery

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #29 on: December 20, 2011, 07:07:25 pm »
+1

In my first game I bought pawns.

Many of them.
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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #30 on: December 20, 2011, 07:35:47 pm »
0

In my first game I bought pawns.

Many of them.
Lol. Were you playing chess before hand?
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Young Nick

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #31 on: December 20, 2011, 10:16:51 pm »
0

I would just like to add one reason that I feel that many overestimated Jester's ability. If I remember correctly, when Cornucopia came out, there was a lot of talk on BGG/blogs about how powerful attacks were. I remember reading through the Cornucopia card list waiting to see which attacks were in it and how awesome they would be because the Isotropic data had proved attacks to be stronger than what we could see at first glance. I can't imagine I was the only one with that sentiment and for that reason I feel like Donald could have placed the worst of attacks in Cornucopia and people still would have overestimated it like crazy.
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WHARF 2 THA BRIDGE

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #32 on: December 20, 2011, 11:33:04 pm »
+1

I am gonna go with Ambassador, not once, but twice.

Obviously when I first started playing the game with my friends I thought it was a boring card that didn't do anything. Then my friends and I all had the Steward revolution and started to open Steward/Steward, and realized that it wasn't bad to open two terminals like that if the effect you got from them was that good. Once I figured out how powerful Ambassador was, I started to open games with Ambassador/Ambassador.

THEN the second time around, I misjudged the best way to play Ambassador. I feel kind of dumb posting this and letting the secret out, but most of the time I play a game vs. someone and we both open Ambassador/Ambassador, and then on their first Ambassador turn, they return 1 estate and play 3 coppers to buy a silver, I'm really happy. Whenever I play Ambassador, all I want to do is get my deck down to two Ambassadors and 3 coppers, THEN buy a silver, then get rid of 2 more coppers and buy another silver. Then hopefully play Ambassador and give them a copper every turn for the rest of the game unless I'm buying a province.

I remember when I got the most important Ambassador lesson. I think I was around level 25, and I played vs. someone who was in the 30s at the time. We both opened Ambassador/Ambassador, got really thin decks. Then I started to buy money, and he bought... another Ambassador. I thought this was absurd. There was a village in this game and some card drawing card. He built a deck that could draw itself with actions to spare, and spent a few turns giving me a bunch of coppers. I might have got to 3 provinces before my deck became full of coppers and unplayable. It was an easy victory for him from there.

So, first I misjudged why Ambassador is useful. THEN, I misjudged just how powerful and useful it is. I almost never veto it because unlike some of the other swingy, irritating attacks, I feel like Ambassador is a high skill card.
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Davio

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #33 on: December 21, 2011, 03:19:08 am »
0

In my first game I bought pawns.

Many of them.
Lol. Were you playing chess before hand?
Hehe, I thought Pawn was awesome too. I mean, there are 6 choice combo's you can make!

I still think it's a decent card which can give you a needed Buy and when all else is unnecessary you can just cantrip it.

But so many a game did I do:
...Davio plays a Pawn, drawing 1 Card and getting 1 Action
...Davio plays a Pawn, drawing 1 Card and getting 1 Action
...Davio plays a Pawn, drawing 1 Card and getting 1 Action
...Davio plays a Pawn, drawing 1 Card and getting 1 Action
...Davio plays a Pawn, drawing 1 Card and getting 1 Action
...Davio plays a Pawn, drawing 1 Card and getting 1 Action

I think I underestimated Fishing Village in the beginning. I knew it was good, not that it was THAT good. The magic extra action can really give that next turn a giant boost.
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Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #34 on: December 21, 2011, 04:56:53 am »
0

Ironically I first saw this game when I was ~8 but never remembered the name and didn't find it till I was ~13@ theory's awesometastic blog. ^_^_^_^

Those numbers don't add up unless you were a playtester at 8 years old.

And on-topic, I don't really have many cards that I misjudged. I first discovered Dominion around October-ish time last year when someone at my local boardgame club pulled it out and taught me. At the time I was pretty new to 'real' games altogether (I'd only been going to the club for a month or two to get me out of the house and before that I'd only played Monopoly, Scrabble, Chess... The usual suspects). I fell in love with the game and looked it up on BGG and discovered the link to Isotropic. I played there a few times and then saw Theory in the lobby advertising this site and so I was pretty much here before I'd finished learning all of the cards.

I guess I underestimated a couple of cards the first time I saw them (Chapel, Ambassador, Goons etc.) but as soon as I'd been beaten by them once or seen an article about them on the blog, I knew what was going on.
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Qvist

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #35 on: December 21, 2011, 05:22:40 am »
0

As many, I underestimated Chapel, Minion, Masquerade and Ambassador.
I also underestimated Huning Party at first because I didn't realize how to build a engine around it.

Then Hinterlands came out and I just link to my old post:
Quote
Ill-Gotten Gains: I don't like it. It's the only curse-giver in the set and only a one shot. And $5 is definitely overpriced. So you need trash-for-benefit cards and then you have a feast-like card with a one-shot cursing attack. Or you buy a new one for every trashed one.
Quote
Jack of all Trades: A little bit too complicated for my taste. It combines Bureacrat, Spy, drawing and trashing. I think one buy at the start is good, but I don't think it's a very good card.

And of course I overestimated Thief and later Pirate Ship and Possession.

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #36 on: December 21, 2011, 03:17:20 pm »
0

Ironically I first saw this game when I was ~8 but never remembered the name and didn't find it till I was ~13@ theory's awesometastic blog. ^_^_^_^

Those numbers don't add up unless you were a playtester at 8 years old.

And on-topic, I don't really have many cards that I misjudged. I first discovered Dominion around October-ish time last year when someone at my local boardgame club pulled it out and taught me. At the time I was pretty new to 'real' games altogether (I'd only been going to the club for a month or two to get me out of the house and before that I'd only played Monopoly, Scrabble, Chess... The usual suspects). I fell in love with the game and looked it up on BGG and discovered the link to Isotropic. I played there a few times and then saw Theory in the lobby advertising this site and so I was pretty much here before I'd finished learning all of the cards.

I guess I underestimated a couple of cards the first time I saw them (Chapel, Ambassador, Goons etc.) but as soon as I'd been beaten by them once or seen an article about them on the blog, I knew what was going on.
w/e who knows. Besides I said about 8. Maybe I was 9 or 10. I don't remember that well as to ages xD. I just remember events I've been too. For instance, I remember my first base ball game @ a stadium but I don't remember my age then or what stadium it actually was lol.
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Epoch

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #37 on: December 21, 2011, 05:07:31 pm »
0

I can't imagine I was the only one with that sentiment and for that reason I feel like Donald could have placed the worst of attacks in Cornucopia and people still would have overestimated it like crazy.

The problem with this hypothesis is that Donald did put Fortune Teller in Cornucopia, and I don't think many people overestimated it.  While Fortune Teller isn't in many ways the "worst" attack, it's on nobody's top 5 list, and it never attracted any particular excitement.
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Morgrim7

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #38 on: July 27, 2012, 03:48:42 am »
0

Sorry to preform thread necro, I just found this very interesting.
-Thief. Oh, Lord. "I can take my opponents treasure? Awesome!" And then…I realized…I might have made a mistake…

-Lookout. This probably came from me having to decide what to trash from drawing Province Gold Witch.

-Tournament. The prizes just seemed way to hard to get. ???

-Scrying Pool. "What? This is just a gimped Spy."

Trashing Cards, Nobles, and Scout are some others.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2012, 03:51:42 am by Morgrim7 »
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Dubdubdubdub

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #39 on: July 27, 2012, 05:13:43 am »
0

What? Nobody's mentioned Duke yet?

Intrigue was the only set my friends had and I didn't, so I didn't play with it much. They never bought Duke and I never really considered it, just following their lead of overbuying Ironworks, Saboteur and Nobles.

Not until my Iso days did I find out how incredible this card is and how many support can be found for it. If you stop buying Provinces and have a significant Duchy lead, the second half of the game will be much easier on you than on your opponent.


Also, Courtyard.
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brokoli

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #40 on: July 27, 2012, 05:31:24 am »
0

What? Nobody's mentioned Duke yet?
Duke is the card I best understood. Each time Duke was in the game, I went for it and won, really. After on isotropic, I understood duke was not always the best strategy. But I still think this card is incredibly underrated and it is probably in my top 10 $5 best cards.

I underrated courtyard too.
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WheresMyElephant

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #41 on: July 27, 2012, 08:34:23 am »
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I can't imagine I was the only one with that sentiment and for that reason I feel like Donald could have placed the worst of attacks in Cornucopia and people still would have overestimated it like crazy.

The problem with this hypothesis is that Donald did put Fortune Teller in Cornucopia, and I don't think many people overestimated it.  While Fortune Teller isn't in many ways the "worst" attack, it's on nobody's top 5 list, and it never attracted any particular excitement.

I wasn't really around for this but it's not like the CouncilRoom data ever especially vindicated attacks like Spy and Bureaucrat. "Attacks are strong in Dominion" has always been shorthand for something like "Good attacks are REALLY strong, and the rest are sort of forgettable cards so let's forget them." Or "Curses and hand reducers are strong." I have seen this cause some confusion, especially for beginners, so I can imagine some people might have overestimated Fortune Teller. But in general I have to imagine the community had this stuff straight; again I don't think Spy was ever faddish around this time or anything like that.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2012, 08:49:43 am by WheresMyElephant »
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Axxle

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #42 on: July 27, 2012, 08:40:55 am »
0

Spy was a super popular card when I first started playing IRL.  An attack you can spam? Yes please!
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Asklepios

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #43 on: July 27, 2012, 08:58:42 am »
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Bureaucrat. I remember playing a few games, introducing Dominion to a friend, and explaining how Bureaucrat was just the best card. You don't have to buy any more Silvers--it gives you all the Silvers you will need!

Hey, this is pretty much STILL how I view Bureacrat. For Province games it seems like a fantastic accelerator that lets you add silver to your deck while spending your precious buys on other stuff, with a moderately useful early game attack thrown in. There's quite a lot of games where I open Bureaucrat / Silver, then just BM it to Provinces...

It might not be the game's strongest card, but for games where an engine isn't worth it and theres no terminal draw to go BM + X, BM + Bureacrat is pretty solid, I think.
(For reference, my %+ given availability is 27% compared to a 23% average. My win rate with is 1.30 compared to a 0.8 average.)

In my experience a lot of people seem to write of Bureaucrat as a weak card, so don't even consider it, where a lot of the time there's a lot to be said for instantly stacked silver that costs an action and a card, but no buys, and has a low level attack tagged on it. In some kingdoms its a trap, but in others, its a game winner.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2012, 09:03:16 am by Asklepios »
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WheresMyElephant

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #44 on: July 27, 2012, 09:47:11 am »
0

In my experience a lot of people seem to write of Bureaucrat as a weak card, so don't even consider it, where a lot of the time there's a lot to be said for instantly stacked silver that costs an action and a card, but no buys, and has a low level attack tagged on it. In some kingdoms its a trap, but in others, its a game winner.


I don't mean to lecture a far superior Bureaucrat (and overall) player but I had a bit of an epiphany when I realized Bureaucrat's attack is basically just pushing a card out of your opponent's future hand to offset the space in YOUR hand that Bureaucrat took up. It's like Minion's attack: just leveling the playing field.

Not quite leveling it all the way like Minion does, of course: it's unreliable, kicks in a turn later than Minion, and you don't get your Action back. So I guess that shows you what it takes to balance free Silver! We can probably agree a Bureaucrat with +1 Action would be very strong, and I'd venture that Bureaucrat with the Minion attack might be surprisingly good too.

See also: Sea Hag. Apropos of this thread, when I first saw Sea Hag I thought its little top-decking gimmick could never make up for its lack of a positive benefit. Even after I learned better, it was always sort of a mystery until I realized the top-decking makes your opponent share your misery (and the rest is just Witch, plus of course the small chance of discarding a critical card.)
« Last Edit: July 27, 2012, 10:04:13 am by WheresMyElephant »
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Davio

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #45 on: July 27, 2012, 10:10:06 am »
0

Hello, dear old topic of mine.

I would just like to ad.... um, Native Village?
It's a card that I just can't get into my system and only buy on spare $2's. And when I don't feel like getting a lot of them I mostly skip them anyway. Native Village is probably the single reason I'm not #1 in the rankings. Yes, that must be it! :D

Also Noble Brigand, I used to think it's only slightly better than Thief (still bad), but I can see how it's better now with the on-buy attack. Especially when you're both entering the greening stage, grabbing a single Gold from your opponent can be massive.

And Cache. I don't think I really misjudged it, but fearing the Coppers I would just stick to Silver. Then again variance is the reason we can even get a few Provinces, so we should embrace it and Cache provides it.
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Kahryl

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #46 on: July 27, 2012, 10:16:33 am »
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Gaining a silver is great and I think that is an effect that is unjustly scoffed at (I like Explorer a LOT more than most people here), but the problem with Bureaucrat is it does nothing for you RIGHT NOW. The $2 or +2cards "tacked on" to other attacks and utilities are really the majority of their power. Topdecking the silver is not at all a replacement for this because you're basically Fortune Telling this turn.
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jotheonah

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #47 on: July 27, 2012, 10:18:25 am »
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Torturer, man. I was like "Your opponent gets to CHOOSE what attack hits them? This is like the best attack to be hit with ever!"

"Oh, it's discard two cards, not discard down to three. Well that does kind of suck"

"Oh, it draws a ton of cards for your opponent to make it really easy to chain a bunch of them"

"Oh crap I just discarded my entire hand the third time in a row, maybe it's time to start taking curses?"

Major learning curve with that one!
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jotheonah

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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #48 on: July 27, 2012, 10:19:23 am »
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Oh, and then the next one "Oh, if I buy them myself I can torture my opponents, and that's fun." That's of course the point where you fall in love.
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Re: Cards You Horribly Misjudged
« Reply #49 on: July 27, 2012, 03:02:01 pm »
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The first time I was introduced to Dominion was when my friends bought me a copy of Intrigue for Christmas (just 7 months ago!), and we played a bunch of games with Intrigue and their Base set.  They didn't know any of the Intrigue cards either.

The first game we played with Saboteur was brutal, and we ended up thinking it was a broken card.  It was a 4-player game.  One guy opened 5/2 and picked up Saboteur.  The first time he played it and we all lost one of our shiny action cards, we were incensed.  We all decided we needed Saboteur too.  The first guy bought a TR and managed to match it up next hand.  His double Saboteur wiped out our Saboteurs.

We all thought the guy with the TR-Saboteur (and probably a couple other Saboteurs at that point?) had the game in the bag and we all decided to forfeit.  And then ban Saboteur from all future games.

I found f.ds because I went to find out how the designer could have allowed such a game-breaking card.  I know better now...
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