Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1] 2 3 4  All

Author Topic: Rats?  (Read 23363 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

petegeo

  • Herbalist
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8
  • Respect: +5
    • View Profile
Rats?
« on: January 26, 2015, 01:36:48 pm »
0

Can Rats be any good in a two player game? and if so. Which card is recommend to play it with?
Logged

jsh357

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2577
  • Shuffle iT Username: jsh357
  • Respect: +4340
    • View Profile
    • JSH Gaming: Original games
Re: Rats?
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2015, 01:40:07 pm »
0

There are various threads and articles about it, but the answer is yes, and the most obvious combos are with trash for benefit cards like remodel or salvager.  A copper is worth 0, rats are worth 4.  You get more out of trashing the rats, not to mention a bonus card draw.
Logged
Join the Dominion community Discord channel! Chat in text and voice; enter dumb tournaments; spy on top players!

https://discord.gg/2rDpJ4N

Joseph2302

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 858
  • Shuffle iT Username: Joseph2302
  • "Better to be lucky than good"
  • Respect: +575
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2015, 01:47:07 pm »
0

Can Rats be any good in a two player game? and if so. Which card is recommend to play it with?

Yes it can, however it needs a useful way to get rid of the rats after you buy them (or your deck becomes just rats, which is bad).
The best uses are probably with Trash for Benefit cards, as replacing $0-2 cards (copper/estate) with $4 cards (rats) is usually good. For instance, you can Forge 2 rats into a province, which can be good.
Also, certain decks where more actions and less non-actions is better (like Scrying Pool or Vineyards) can be good with rats.
Logged
Mafia Stats: (correct as of 2017)
Town: 22 games, 8 wins
Scum: 5 games, 3 wins

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2015, 01:48:05 pm »
+2

Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

AdamH

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2833
  • Shuffle iT Username: Adam Horton
  • You make your own shuffle luck
  • Respect: +3879
    • View Profile
    • My Dominion Videos
Re: Rats?
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2015, 01:49:18 pm »
0

When I think of cards that make me want to buy Rats, these are the first ones that come to my mind:

Upgrade
Watchtower
Scrying Pool (kinda)
Apprentice
Knights

Three of those are non-terminal trash-for-benefit cards (if you count Watchtower's reveal-ability as non-terminal and the on-trash benefit of Rats+actual thinning as benefit). If you need help convincing yourself that Rats is not a bad card, look for these synergies.

Of course, if you don't see any of these cards, that doesn't mean you auto-ignore Rats. Other trash-for-benefit cards have synergy with Rats that can be useful. Even if you don't see those, Rats are better than Curses, so if it's a heavy junking game and the only trasher is Rats, you should probably pick one up in the early or mid-game.

Some cards that I thought might be good with Rats that aren't really all they're cracked up to be include:

Governor
Vineyard
Procession
Rogue/Saboteur

That doesn't mean they're bad, it just means you have to be very careful and don't expect Rats to be a rock star like it would be with that first list of examples.
Logged
Visit my blog for links to a whole bunch of Dominion content I've made.

pacovf

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3499
  • Multiediting poster
  • Respect: +3838
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2015, 02:12:59 pm »
+5

not to mention a bonus card draw.

A bit of a misconception. Rats is card draw neutral.

Let me illustrate: assume you start your turn with whichever TfB card, a card you want to trash from your hand, and a cantrip, and two other cards. The two cases would be:

-without rats: you play the cantrip, then the TfB on the card you want to trash. You end with 3 cards in hand.
-with rats: you play rats on the card you want to trash, draw the gained rats with the cantrip (perfect shuffle luck!), then trash it with your TfB. You end with 3 cards in hand.

The +1 card on trash of rats is just to compensate for the fact that rats is ultimately a dead card.
Logged
pacovf has a neopets account.  It has 999 hours logged.  All his neopets are named "Jessica".  I guess that must be his ex.

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2015, 02:23:42 pm »
+1

One of the more straightforward rats games I've played was against Stef. The important cards were hunting party, rats, and butcher. Each turn we wanted to draw cards with the hunting parties, play a rats to trash something and gain a rats, and butcher a rats to gain a useful card like hunting party or gold. It didn't need many rats, just one or two in the deck at a time. It was quite clearly advantageous to butcher the rats rather than butcher a copper.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Rats?
« Reply #7 on: January 26, 2015, 02:25:49 pm »
+1

not to mention a bonus card draw.

A bit of a misconception. Rats is card draw neutral.

Let me illustrate: assume you start your turn with whichever TfB card, a card you want to trash from your hand, and a cantrip, and two other cards. The two cases would be:

-without rats: you play the cantrip, then the TfB on the card you want to trash. You end with 3 cards in hand.
-with rats: you play rats on the card you want to trash, draw the gained rats with the cantrip (perfect shuffle luck!), then trash it with your TfB. You end with 3 cards in hand.

The +1 card on trash of rats is just to compensate for the fact that rats is ultimately a dead card.

It's still one card more in comparison to trashing a copper.

pacovf

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3499
  • Multiediting poster
  • Respect: +3838
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #8 on: January 26, 2015, 02:34:42 pm »
+4

not to mention a bonus card draw.

A bit of a misconception. Rats is card draw neutral.

Let me illustrate: assume you start your turn with whichever TfB card, a card you want to trash from your hand, and a cantrip, and two other cards. The two cases would be:

-without rats: you play the cantrip, then the TfB on the card you want to trash. You end with 3 cards in hand.
-with rats: you play rats on the card you want to trash, draw the gained rats with the cantrip (perfect shuffle luck!), then trash it with your TfB. You end with 3 cards in hand.

The +1 card on trash of rats is just to compensate for the fact that rats is ultimately a dead card.

It's still one card more in comparison to trashing a copper.

... but you still lost a card when you trashed that copper to gain that rats you are now trashing.

EDIT: let's word this differently. Rats is a cantrip that transforms a card you want to trash in your hand into a different kind of card you want to trash in your discard. You'll need to draw that card again to trash it, so the extra card on trash is just compensation for the initial handsize decrease (unless you trash it with watchtower, lookout, hermit or doctor).
« Last Edit: January 26, 2015, 03:11:46 pm by pacovf »
Logged
pacovf has a neopets account.  It has 999 hours logged.  All his neopets are named "Jessica".  I guess that must be his ex.

Dingan

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1154
  • Shuffle iT Username: Dingan
  • Respect: +1728
    • View Profile
    • Website title
Re: Rats?
« Reply #9 on: January 26, 2015, 03:01:44 pm »
0

Don't let these people fool you.  Rats are the worst!!!!
Logged

liopoil

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2587
  • Respect: +2479
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #10 on: January 26, 2015, 03:11:54 pm »
+1

Rats are awful. However, there are enough edge cases where it's excellent that the card is pretty decent.
Logged

liopoil

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2587
  • Respect: +2479
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #11 on: January 26, 2015, 03:15:27 pm »
+1

When I think of cards that make me want to buy Rats, these are the first ones that come to my mind:

Upgrade
Watchtower
Scrying Pool (kinda)
Apprentice
Knights

Three of those are non-terminal trash-for-benefit cards (if you count Watchtower's reveal-ability as non-terminal and the on-trash benefit of Rats+actual thinning as benefit). If you need help convincing yourself that Rats is not a bad card, look for these synergies.

Of course, if you don't see any of these cards, that doesn't mean you auto-ignore Rats. Other trash-for-benefit cards have synergy with Rats that can be useful. Even if you don't see those, Rats are better than Curses, so if it's a heavy junking game and the only trasher is Rats, you should probably pick one up in the early or mid-game.

Some cards that I thought might be good with Rats that aren't really all they're cracked up to be include:

Governor
Vineyard
Procession
Rogue/Saboteur

That doesn't mean they're bad, it just means you have to be very careful and don't expect Rats to be a rock star like it would be with that first list of examples.
There are a lot of other cases where rats can be good, but of your examples, scrying pool is way more than a 'kinda' and knights and vineyards should be switched.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Rats?
« Reply #12 on: January 26, 2015, 03:17:44 pm »
0

not to mention a bonus card draw.

A bit of a misconception. Rats is card draw neutral.

Let me illustrate: assume you start your turn with whichever TfB card, a card you want to trash from your hand, and a cantrip, and two other cards. The two cases would be:

-without rats: you play the cantrip, then the TfB on the card you want to trash. You end with 3 cards in hand.
-with rats: you play rats on the card you want to trash, draw the gained rats with the cantrip (perfect shuffle luck!), then trash it with your TfB. You end with 3 cards in hand.

The +1 card on trash of rats is just to compensate for the fact that rats is ultimately a dead card.

It's still one card more in comparison to trashing a copper.

... but you still lost a card when you trashed that copper to gain that rats you are now trashing.

EDIT: let's word this differently. Rats is a cantrip that transforms a card you want to trash in your hand into a different kind of card you want to trash in your discard. You'll need to draw that card again to trash it, so the extra card on trash is just compensation for the initial handsize decrease (unless you trash it with watchtower, lookout, hermit or doctor).
You didn't lose a card when you trashed the card with the rats. You had 5 cards before rats, 5 cards after. In your second bullet point in the post I quoted, you don't end with 3 cards, you end with 4 (unless you've drawn your whole deck, in which case, who cares?)

Now, with your edit, I see what you're saying. You draw an extra card, but you have one extra draw card in your discard pile. However, I really really don't think that makes it card neutral (drawing-wise); having an extra junk in discard is not equivalent to having one fewer card in hand AT ALL.

Also, if I'm misunderstanding, and you're saying it's neutral in terms of number of junk cards in your deck, then yes, I agree - as does every post in the thread. So maybe I'm a little confused.


Edit: Yeah, so this is wrong, I clearly wasn't thinking very straight. But it is worth noting that these things are split apart, and as we generally know, imbalance is very often good.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2015, 03:36:29 pm by WanderingWinder »
Logged

LastFootnote

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7495
  • Shuffle iT Username: LastFootnote
  • Respect: +10721
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #13 on: January 26, 2015, 03:29:54 pm »
+1

You didn't lose a card when you trashed the card with the rats. You had 5 cards before rats, 5 cards after.

Wait, what?

• Start with 5 cards in hand.
• Play Rats --> 4 cards.
• +1 Card;+1 Action --> 5 cards.
• Gain Rats --> 5 cards.
• Trash a non-Rats card from your hand --> 4 cards.

You have 5 cards before Rats, 4 cards after.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Rats?
« Reply #14 on: January 26, 2015, 03:35:22 pm »
0

You didn't lose a card when you trashed the card with the rats. You had 5 cards before rats, 5 cards after.

Wait, what?

• Start with 5 cards in hand.
• Play Rats --> 4 cards.
• +1 Card;+1 Action --> 5 cards.
• Gain Rats --> 5 cards.
• Trash a non-Rats card from your hand --> 4 cards.

You have 5 cards before Rats, 4 cards after.
Righto.

pacovf

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3499
  • Multiediting poster
  • Respect: +3838
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #15 on: January 26, 2015, 03:42:08 pm »
0

Edit: Yeah, so this is wrong, I clearly wasn't thinking very straight. But it is worth noting that these things are split apart, and as we generally know, imbalance is very often good.

Only not in this case. "Most" trashers have heavy handsize decrease associated with them (2+). So you are losing a card now, from a "normal turn", in exchange for getting an extra card in a future shuffle turn with "low handsize". That's twice the opposite of what you want to do.
Logged
pacovf has a neopets account.  It has 999 hours logged.  All his neopets are named "Jessica".  I guess that must be his ex.

TheOthin

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 459
  • Shuffle iT Username: TheOthin
  • Respect: +447
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #16 on: January 26, 2015, 03:44:08 pm »
+1

Specifically, in this case it's not imbalance. Imbalance is like Tactician where, in the most extreme case, you go from 5/5 turns to 0/10 turns. This is going from 5/3 to 4/4, which is actually balance.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Rats?
« Reply #17 on: January 26, 2015, 03:49:25 pm »
+1

Edit: Yeah, so this is wrong, I clearly wasn't thinking very straight. But it is worth noting that these things are split apart, and as we generally know, imbalance is very often good.

Only not in this case. "Most" trashers have heavy handsize decrease associated with them (2+). So you are losing a card now, from a "normal turn", in exchange for getting an extra card in a future shuffle turn with "low handsize". That's twice the opposite of what you want to do.
That's not necessarily true at all (in terms of judgment; in terms of mechanics, you are right).

The reason has to do with how engines work. You want to be converging on "I'm drawing my deck", and going backwards from that early is fine if it helps you get there late; once you are very close to that, it usually doesn't matter so much if you are going down a turn. Certainly if the future hand really is low-handsize, things aren't going well for you. Hopefully, you'll be putting some draw together by then, though.

Overall, for anyone looking from a bird's-eye-view the biggest point is you Trash For Benefit, where the $4 cost is better than what you'd otherwise have. It usually isn't going to be a super dramatic change from this, due to specifics, with the biggest exception to this being Watchtower (which not only has draw-to-X property, but lets you trash rats you would gain from playing other rats).

jomini

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1060
  • Respect: +766
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #18 on: January 26, 2015, 09:03:08 pm »
0

Rats can also work out well just to trash curses, use a Rats 3 times on curses and it is now a cheap Duchy (with optional trash a card to draw a card, say if you whiff on your engine late game and can spare a copper to fish for a village). Sure most other curse trashers are generally better, but if you have only money trashing (e.g. Spice Merchant) or no other trashing but will see the Rats often enough to clear out your curses, Rats is a good buy.

For instance say I lose the curse split 4:6 but we are both using Xroads, Village, Hunting Grounds, and Witch to draw deck. The game is getting to the point we need to buy Duchies. You buy the duchy, I buy a rats. Turn 0 I lose 3 points. Turn 1, I trash a curse, now I've just lost 2 VP relative to you and my deck was 1 card more space efficient. Turn 2, I trash 2 curses and that means I'm now even with you (+3VP for duchy vs - [-3]VP for curses -> Rats). Turn 3 I now trash 3 curses and now I'm up 3 VP net on you. All the while I have been having a slightly more robust engine. Rats is unusual as a late game "get rid of curses" option in that you can burn through an exponentially increasing number of curses (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32), not terribly useful often, but it does increase the span of time where you can easily pair them up with curses vs when you just want the Duchy points now.

Moral of the story is any trasher can be good when it is the only thing to ditch curses. However you need to be able to play it enough to buy it instead of estate or duchy and you have to consider the three pile setup (e.g. I may get more VP using Rats on Curses, but just piling estates ends the game faster). Even though Rats leaves you with ultimately dead cards they still don't cost you VP and for a while they aren't wholly dead (you have some non-zero chance of drawing them with a curse to trash).

In like fashion, some on-trash effects can be strong enough to merit using even Rats as the only trasher. Market square is the obvious example. If you have enough overdraw you swap say an Estate for 2 golds & a Rats. Do this three times and you have on net +1 dead card and +6 golds. While not close to overpowered, it is something to consider if draw is cheap and you find yourself with 2 or more Market square for whatever reason (e.g. 1 for a +buy, 2 because your engine currently does better with another Mrksqr than silver at some point mid-game). You might try Squire (e.g. Rats trashing Squires into Rabble is a net +2 cards after the initial Rats), but its utility is limited. On the other hand even Rats can be useful to pinata open Hunting grounds late game when you can gain actions easily (e.g. Haggler), but lack +buy & lack other action trashing (relatively rare, but fun when you can surprise people with a late game sprint of a Province & Duchy a turn).
Logged

AdamH

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2833
  • Shuffle iT Username: Adam Horton
  • You make your own shuffle luck
  • Respect: +3879
    • View Profile
    • My Dominion Videos
Re: Rats?
« Reply #19 on: January 26, 2015, 11:21:20 pm »
0

There are a lot of other cases where rats can be good, but of your examples, scrying pool is way more than a 'kinda' and knights and vineyards should be switched.

I mean, this is what a lot of people would say, but my experience has been that Scrying Pool+Rats isn't nearly as awesome as people make it sound (it's a lot like SP as a counter to Ruins. Yeah it's OK but it's not really THAT great -- actual thinning is much, MUCH better for SP and I would only go for Rats if there was no other actual thinning available whatsoever). Hey, it still made the good list  ;)

With Vineyard, if you're actually enabling Vineyard with Rats then it was probably already an amazing Vineyard board to begin with and Rats isn't the rock star it is like with my first list. That's why I put it there.

The presence of Rats is, a lot of times, enough of a reason to make me (and my opponent) not get Knights, which is one of the biggest victories imaginable since I don't like Knights. So maybe I'm biased on that one  :P

But anyways, my lists were just things I thought of without putting that much thought into it. It's my opinions, colored by my actual experience with the cards, and I realize people may disagree. I'll +1 your post  :)
Logged
Visit my blog for links to a whole bunch of Dominion content I've made.

popsofctown

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5477
  • Respect: +2860
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #20 on: January 26, 2015, 11:26:05 pm »
+1

Had a recent game where there was no way to trash treasure and victory except rats, and no way to trash actions except Death Cart.  Since Goons was on the board to heavily encourage a thin deck, I think Rats was correct there.
Logged

Seprix

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5607
  • Respect: +3676
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #21 on: January 27, 2015, 12:27:05 am »
0

You're simply putting cheap junk away and replacing it with expensive junk. That's it. If it's a slower game, and there's Bishop or Remodel, I'd consider it. I mean, that's not terrible at all. But most times, this card is going to be Chancellor or Scout on the board. :p
Logged
DM me for ideas on a new article, either here or on Discord (I check Discord way more often)

TheOthin

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 459
  • Shuffle iT Username: TheOthin
  • Respect: +447
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #22 on: January 27, 2015, 07:12:29 am »
+1

You're simply putting cheap junk away and replacing it with expensive junk. That's it. If it's a slower game, and there's Bishop or Remodel, I'd consider it. I mean, that's not terrible at all. But most times, this card is going to be Chancellor or Scout on the board. :p

Rats isn't a slow card; it's just combo-dependent. Bishop is certainly a slow interaction, but others like Apprentice and Forge are not.

According to the data mining, Top 100 players pick up Rats about 34% of the time. So not on most boards, but on a level a ways above Chancellor or Scout for sure.
Logged

ehunt

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1528
  • Shuffle iT Username: ehunt
  • Respect: +1855
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #23 on: January 27, 2015, 08:31:23 am »
+2

rats are great with ambassador because they have the same name as the other rats. this is true even though ambassador doesnt let you incur the +1 card benefit.
Logged

TheOthin

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 459
  • Shuffle iT Username: TheOthin
  • Respect: +447
    • View Profile
Re: Rats?
« Reply #24 on: January 27, 2015, 10:14:06 am »
+1

rats are great with ambassador because they have the same name as the other rats. this is true even though ambassador doesnt let you incur the +1 card benefit.

Hmm. On that note, I wonder if they might get along with Doctor and Journeyman. Not so much if you're just clearing out Coppers and Estates, but those cards can have issues with Ruins, and sweeping those all up into one card type along with your starting junk would make it easier for those cards to just name Rats. This also applies to a lesser extent with Curses, which Rats already increase your VP by trashing, although if you already have Doctor that might not be worthwhile. A lot of this could slide into the sort of Tunnel case of "yes this makes the card do SOMETHING but it's not actually worth doing".
« Last Edit: January 27, 2015, 10:25:26 am by TheOthin »
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 4  All
 

Page created in 0.102 seconds with 21 queries.