Topic: What's the best strategy here? Rats + Death Cart? (Read 5691 times)

ben_king · « **on:** March 02, 2015, 03:15:32 pm »

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Forager, Death Cart, Scout, Rats, Worker's Village, Counting House, Saboteur, Catacombs, Pillage, Hoard
I was playing this game in real life the other night. It was a shelters and colonies game, and it looked to me like a Catacombs-BM board, but the trick would be trying to get to Platinum quickly. I opened Forager+Rats, while my opponent opened Pillage-<nothing>. My plan was to thin and use Death Cart to vault from Rats to Platinum. Anyway, the Spoils from Pillage let my opponent get to Golds and Platinums much more quickly.

What do you guys think the winning strategy here is? Does it involve Rats/Death Cart? Or just Forager and Catacombs? Something else?

Jorbles · « **Reply #1 on:** March 02, 2015, 03:22:14 pm »

I think I'd probably open Death Cart-Forager and then get a second Death Cart and a Worker's Village before getting any Rats. Rats are good with Death Cart, but Death Cart is good on its own whereas Rats are bad on their own so you should get the DC first.

JW · « **Reply #2 on:** March 02, 2015, 03:35:28 pm »

I'd open at least 1 Forager on 3/4. Trash down with 2 Foragers and build the Catacombs/Worker's Village engine. Don't buy more than 2 Silvers unless you won't be able to get to Gold/Platinum otherwise (which is unlikely). Once the engine is drawing your deck consistently, add Pillage. On 5/2, take Catacombs and proceed in much the same way.

polot38 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 02, 2015, 04:54:17 pm »

The winning strategy here is an engine. Catacombs/workers village provide draw and forager provides good trashing. You should also start digging into the saboteur pile; simply put, unless your opponent can end the game very quickly, you constantly sab-ing them is going to act basically as a pin. Rats might provide some defense against this, but by far not enough to overcome playing 3+ sabs a turn. For this reason, non-engine strategies become utterly unviable, and workers villages become very important.

As for the starting buys, you have two real options; either forager/silver or forager/forager. Death cart is not a good idea (even with rats); it sets you two junk cards behind, and the extra economy is probably not worth it, especially with the presence of hoard, if you need to jump-start your economy (which you probably won't need to because of platinums), you can always buys a hoard to gain a few golds with (and trash it later with forager once you have enough golds).

qmech · « **Reply #4 on:** March 02, 2015, 06:44:54 pm »

Quote from: grsbmd on March 02, 2015, 03:15:32 pm

it looked to me like a Catacombs-BM board, [but the trick would be trying to get to Platinum quickly]. I opened Forager+Rats

These are not words that you are allowed to say in that order!

Alternatively: BM doesn't mean anything any more. There's always something else going on.

This board is not entirely straightforward. In any case, I don't think rushing Platinum is important: you want to focus on drawing your deck. I'd probably open Forager/Silver and be sad about it.

Kirian · « **Reply #5 on:** March 02, 2015, 07:58:58 pm »

Scout/Scout into a BM-Scout rush.

A Drowned Kernel · « **Reply #6 on:** March 02, 2015, 08:34:10 pm »

Quote from: Kirian on March 02, 2015, 07:58:58 pm

Scout/Scout into a BM-Scout rush.

Obviously loses to Counting House/BM, using WV to pick up extra coppers.

liopoil · « **Reply #7 on:** March 02, 2015, 08:42:48 pm »

Quote from: A Drowned Kernel on March 02, 2015, 08:34:10 pm

Quote from: Kirian on March 02, 2015, 07:58:58 pm
Scout/Scout into a BM-Scout rush.

Obviously loses to Counting House/BM, using WV to pick up extra coppers.

Oh man, I really want to try to make Counting house work, with colonies on the board, tons of buys, and catacombs... but it isn't meant to be.

2.71828..... · « **Reply #8 on:** March 02, 2015, 09:55:41 pm »

I think workers village/catacombs/hoard is going to win here.

Open double forager I think

Titandrake · « **Reply #9 on:** March 02, 2015, 11:43:30 pm »

The board is complicated but I agree with e. I might do Forager/Silver instead to hit $5 earlier for the Catacombs, but double Forager is entirely reasonable.

You need the WV/Catacombs engine to do interesting things on this board, there's no other way to viably draw through your deck. Death Cart looks tempting, but it's a payload card: you don't want it until you've started drawing your deck, and you might not even want it at all when you could buy a Pillage every turn instead. However, Death Cart gives a quick and simple way to get junk into your deck to feed to Foragers, so you can trash with a lot less caution than you normally would (if you run low on cards to trash, you have the option of Death Cart to throw 2 more cards in.)

TheOthin · « **Reply #10 on:** March 03, 2015, 07:16:49 am »

Is there a general maxim for when to go Forager+Forager vs. Forager+Silver? I usually go Forager+Forager for the fast trashing but it seems like that isn't too well thought of, at least not here.

Dingan · « **Reply #11 on:** March 03, 2015, 07:59:09 am »

With good village+draw+thinning, I see engine here. I would eventually want to be drawing my deck and Saboteur-blasting them every turn. Their only defense to this would be to either have the Sab hit their Rats, or if they could somehow be snatching up a bunch of Golds via Hoard, which are both not very viable. So that's what I'd do. I definitely would want as many Workers Villages as possible. Not exactly sure how to make that happen, but with that and Necropolis as the only villages, they're going to be key. Ever Workers Village you have is another Saboteur you could play each turn.

But I'm usually wrong.

-Stef- · « **Reply #12 on:** March 03, 2015, 08:35:58 am »

Rats is not a good defense against Saboteur. The best defense against Saboteur is to buy expensive cards. This defense is in fact very strong, and makes Saboteur a very bad card on this board. The investment of buying, drawing & playing the Saboteurs is simply higher then the cost of just re-buying the expensive cards.

Also if you get Saboteur-ed you get a lot of pile control for free (even without considering that a trashed Catacombs gets you a free card)

You should only buy saboteur if you can combine it with King's Court, or if your opponent has a serious problem with buying cards (say... a strong engine but no +buy, or maybe a key card he got from black market and can never get back, or a super-important Duchy split in a Duke game).

AdamH · « **Reply #13 on:** March 03, 2015, 08:51:09 am »

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur it's because of King's Court.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court, it's because of Ambassador.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court or Ambassador it's because my opponent has 50% of the VP and the only way I can win is by Sabotaging his green combined with miracles.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court of Ambassador or because I'm losing anyways, it's because I'm making a mistake.

pacovf · « **Reply #14 on:** March 03, 2015, 08:55:47 am »

Quote from: AdamH on March 03, 2015, 08:51:09 am

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur it's because of King's Court.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court, it's because of Ambassador.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court or Ambassador it's because my opponent has 50% of the VP and the only way I can win is by Sabotaging his green combined with miracles.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court of Ambassador or because I'm losing anyways, it's because I'm making a mistake.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court of Ambassador or because I'm losing anyways or making a mistake, it's because I want to annoy the other player as much as possible.

AdamH · « **Reply #15 on:** March 03, 2015, 09:00:08 am »

Quote from: pacovf on March 03, 2015, 08:55:47 am

Quote from: AdamH on March 03, 2015, 08:51:09 am
Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur it's because of King's Court.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court, it's because of Ambassador.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court or Ambassador it's because my opponent has 50% of the VP and the only way I can win is by Sabotaging his green combined with miracles.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court of Ambassador or because I'm losing anyways, it's because I'm making a mistake.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court of Ambassador or because I'm losing anyways or making a mistake, it's because I want to annoy the other player as much as possible.

Yeah yeah, I annoy them, then Prince a T-Map, and then lose the game!

Deadlock39 · « **Reply #16 on:** March 03, 2015, 09:12:25 am »

Yeah, with non-terminal trashing from Forager, an Engine with built in +buy (WV), and Hoard, there is no way Saboteur can put a dent in the engine. It will probably just improve the engine by putting more treasures in the trash and making the Foragers stronger.

(Turn my free Hoarded Gold into another Worker's Village... uh, thanks?)

ben_king · « **Reply #17 on:** March 04, 2015, 12:29:09 pm »

Thanks for the help. I'm not great at Dominion but I'm trying to get better, and this is really helpful!

brian.marcy · « **Reply #18 on:** May 12, 2015, 12:55:34 am »

Quote from: AdamH on March 03, 2015, 08:51:09 am

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur it's because of King's Court.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court, it's because of Ambassador.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court or Ambassador it's because my opponent has 50% of the VP and the only way I can win is by Sabotaging his green combined with miracles.

Almost all of the time when I buy Saboteur and it's not because of King's Court of Ambassador or because I'm losing anyways, it's because I'm making a mistake.

Your bottom line made me laugh out loud; thanks!

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Author Topic: What's the best strategy here? Rats + Death Cart? (Read 5691 times)