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[love]

Hi,

I looked at the game of Mic Qsenoch vs Wandering Winder.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150316/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1426551105776.txt

On turn 4 of Mic I ask myself Sage or Conspirator? I like Conspirator and he choosed Sage. Now I want to understand why.
Here are some reasons I came up with for both cards.

Reasons for Conspirator:
-Conspirator is the only $4 cost card in the kingdom and therefore is less vulnerable to Swindler
-Shelters delay the first appearance of terminal collision
-I think an engine with Conspirators is possible because there is trashing (Steward) and Starter cards (Sage) for Conspiartor.
-The Conspirator strategy article on DS Wiki says that it is wise to get Conspirators early and to be not to afraid of collision

Reasons for Sage:
-Replaying Swindler and Steward more frequently.

Please add reasons and disagree with statements that you consider as incorrect. Thank you for help.

P.S. I believe Horn of Plenty is viable strategy here as well. Do you agree?

[Awaclus]

Getting Conspirators early only applies when you're going for a Conspirator based engine. Here, I think you want to go for a Horn of Plenty based engine, so winning the Conspirator split isn't really important, and you shouldn't get Conspirators before you can reliably activate them (and you might not need them at all).

[Titandrake]

Cycling is king.

Although Shelters help, you still run the risk of a bad collision when Steward + Swindler is already in the deck. The faster reshuffling from Sage, and the ability to play Swindler more often, makes it the better choice in my opinion. Turn 4 is too early for Conspirator, it's jumping the gun for the payload.

Note MicQ's strategy isn't trying to hit $8 very fast with Conspirators, it's trying to get a very thin deck with good cycling to make Horn of Plenty good, then go for a City piledrive + Knights pin. Uncontested, that should beat trying to build up with Conspirator. In the linked game, it actually works incredibly well - the Cities gained from HoP are enough to play Knights almost all the time, and the HoP also give extra gains to win the Knight split. After WW's turn 12 he has very little change, after Mic's turn 13 it's essentially over because it's 3 Knights to 0.

[SCSN]

Here are some reasons I came up with for both cards.

Don't abuse your brain like that. It can come up with an infinite number of reasons for anything you attend to, but none of that aids in your decision making.

Look at the board, visualize the deck you want to build, then figure out what step you need to take right now in order to get there. General arguments for this or that card are as relevant to anything in Dominion as a compass is to a basketball player while aiming his shot.

On this specific board the big thing are the Knights; whoever wins the Knight war wins the game. To consistently play a lot of Knights (and trash your opponent's valuable cards), you need a thin deck, so the most important thing in the early game is to play Steward as much as possible. Sage helps with that, Conspirator doesn't do much at all.

Reasons for Conspirator:

-The Conspirator strategy article on DS Wiki says

Stop reading the wiki until you can recognize it as a joke.

[WanderingWinder]

http://www.twitch.tv/mic_qsenoch/c/6337626

Game starts a little more than a minute in.

You want to be really drawing your deck here, so you can play your key actions, and get your 5-costs going. While you will need some money to get those 5-costs, that's really secondary to being able to play them very often. And conspirator doesn't help you play them more often nearly as much as sage (which helps you thin, finding you your good cards more often). By turn 4, he also has VERY low chances of getting to activate conspirator, which seems really bad consider the number of terminals he already has and would rather play.

In general, yes, Horn of Plenty is probably viable, but you need to worry about knights killing you.

[theright555J]

Here are some reasons I came up with for both cards.

Don't abuse your brain like that. It can come up with an infinite number of reasons for anything you attend to, but none of that aids in your decision making.

Look at the board, visualize the deck you want to build, then figure out what step you need to take right now in order to get there. General arguments for this or that card are as relevant to anything in Dominion as a compass is to a basketball player while aiming his shot.

I didn't see that as him "abusing his brain", but rather attempting to do exactly what you describe.  The OP talks about conspirator being swindler defense, etc. and setting up a conspirator engine.  The reality is that is not a particularly good strategy on this board, and therefore suboptimal tactics flow from that.

I completely agree with what you are saying here, however I just think that the OP's question of "sage vs. conspirator right now?" actually is his attempt to visualize the deck he wants to build, which involves sages, conspirators, and likely cities to buy provinces...as an expert player you recognize that that is not really the kind of deck an expert player wants to build given this kingdom.

[Dingan]

Here are some reasons I came up with for both cards.

Don't abuse your brain like that. It can come up with an infinite number of reasons for anything you attend to, but none of that aids in your decision making.

Look at the board, visualize the deck you want to build, then figure out what step you need to take right now in order to get there. General arguments for this or that card are as relevant to anything in Dominion as a compass is to a basketball player while aiming his shot.

I didn't see that as him "abusing his brain", but rather attempting to do exactly what you describe.  The OP talks about conspirator being swindler defense, etc. and setting up a conspirator engine.  The reality is that is not a particularly good strategy on this board, and therefore suboptimal tactics flow from that.

I completely agree with what you are saying here, however I just think that the OP's question of "sage vs. conspirator right now?" actually is his attempt to visualize the deck he wants to build, which involves sages, conspirators, and likely cities to buy provinces...as an expert player you recognize that that is not really the kind of deck an expert player wants to build given this kingdom.

Good point, and I agree.  Specifically, plenty of non-expert players may be doing exactly this:

Look at the board, visualize the deck you want to build, then figure out what step you need to take right now in order to get there.

even though that "visualization" might include things like

• "I see Scouts and Gardens.  I visualize a very green deck, but my Scouts making up for that greenness.  In order to get there asap, I'll buy a Scout right now."
• "I see Transmutes and Dukes.  I visualize a deck with a lot of Transmutes to turn themselves and maybe some other things into Duchies, using my Gold I had gained from trashing my Estates as economy to buy Dukes.  In order to get there asap, I'll buy a Potion right now."
• etc.

Any expert player will be able to recognize when these visualizations are terrible.  But non-expert players may not, and at least they have some sort of goal/direction in mind (unlike completely new players and my friend's mom).  Or did you mean something different?

[pubby]

How does Graverobber affect your decisions about Knights? Does it make winning the split more or less important here?

[Ozle]

Damnit, I thought this was a decision about love, not a decision for love.

Im useless here now

[Titandrake]

How does Graverobber affect your decisions about Knights? Does it make winning the split more or less important here?

Graverobber is not a factor here early on. While there are still Knights, you'd rather gain a Knight. When the Knights are gone, Cities will be activated, and they'll probably be better too.

The only time I'd consider Graverobber is if the Knight split went 5-5, and I had a decent number of Cities, and I wanted to threaten Graverobber for Province and/or regaining Knights, and a 3 pile is not imminent from Horn of Plenties flying around. I'm not saying I wouldn't buy it, but the situation where I would is very rare. It would require a very even board because the player who is only slightly ahead has so much pile control from Horns, so you won't necessarily have time to play the Graverobber.

[markusin]

How does Graverobber affect your decisions about Knights? Does it make winning the split more or less important here?

Graverobber is not a factor here early on. While there are still Knights, you'd rather gain a Knight. When the Knights are gone, Cities will be activated, and they'll probably be better too.

The only time I'd consider Graverobber is if the Knight split went 5-5, and I had a decent number of Cities, and I wanted to threaten Graverobber for Province and/or regaining Knights, and a 3 pile is not imminent from Horn of Plenties flying around. I'm not saying I wouldn't buy it, but the situation where I would is very rare. It would require a very even board because the player who is only slightly ahead has so much pile control from Horns, so you won't necessarily have time to play the Graverobber.

In the absence of Horn of Plenty, Graverobber should be a good purchase after the Knights are gone and you have a few Cities. Without a HoP megaturn, more time will be spent trying to destroy the other's deck. The presence of activated Cities means lots of Knights are going to be played, and lots of Cities and Knights can end up in the trash for Graverobber to pick up. If Graverobber helps you have more Cities and Knights than your opponent, then you can use Graverobber's trashing ability on excess $5 cards to grab multiple Provinces in one turn, giving you the end game control.