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[jsh357]

Sorry.  But I'm also Chris.  Because he's ww.  And so am I.  And so is wandering minstrel.

[eHalcyon]

Sorry.  But I'm also Chris.  Because he's ww.  And so am I.  And so is wandering minstrel.

I guess I'm a bit self-critical.

[Deadlock39]

This is mostly irrelevant, but wouldn't the cards WM skips follow rules similar to the "Venture math"? It is equally likely to skip bad cards as good, so the net effect on your deck should be cycling only.

This is of course only theoretical, because in a real world scenario, we can invoke the law of Minions, and show that WM will always discard Golds and Silvers and never Coppers and Estates.

It's not really the same, though, mostly because—unlike Venture—Wandering Minstrel often puts cards back on your deck. If you need to draw your Golds, Wandering Minstrel is going to make that much less likely unless you draw your entire deck. In short, Wandering Minstrel is great if your non-Action cards are bad, but not great in your non-Action cards are good. Having Wandering Minstrels in your deck should push you away from Gold and toward e.g. Baker.

WM makes you more likely to draw your actions and less likely to draw your non-actions. It should make you prefer (high quality) actions for this reason.  I only intended to point out that it won't make you less likely to draw your Gold than any of your other non-actions.  It isn't a very worthwhile point to be making (which is why I qualified it as such). 

[LastFootnote]

Having Wandering Minstrels in your deck should push you away from Gold and toward e.g. Baker.

I think that this is false. You want Wandering Minstrel's ability to do stuff for you, and the stuff that you want it to do is finding powerful terminals and more Wandering Minstrels. WM skips over Gold and stops on Baker, which are roughly equally harmful for you (i.e. not very) since Baker is a cantrip.

I was just using Baker as an example of an Action card with a Coin payload, but this brings up a good point. I think there are two situations here.

#1) You're not drawing your deck every turn. In this case, Wandering Minstrel skipping past your good Treasures sucks. There is no guarantee you will ever draw those Treasures. In this case, you definitely want e.g. Bakers rather than Golds in your deck because Wandering Minstrel will help you draw Bakers and keep you from drawing Golds.

#2) You are drawing your deck every turn. In this case, you want Wandering Minstrel to skip your payload cards so that you can draw them at the end of your turn, making your engine more reliable. So for a deck like this, Gold is great.

However, it's worth noting that type #2 decks do not just spring into being. Every type #2 deck is a type #1 deck for a while, and if all your payload is Treasure, Wandering Minstrels can shoot you in the foot during that time.

[Awaclus]

I was just using Baker as an example of an Action card with a Coin payload, but this brings up a good point. I think there are two situations here.

#1) You're not drawing your deck every turn. In this case, Wandering Minstrel skipping past your good Treasures sucks. There is no guarantee you will ever draw those Treasures. In this case, you definitely want e.g. Bakers rather than Golds in your deck because Wandering Minstrel will help you draw Bakers and keep you from drawing Golds.

#2) You are drawing your deck every turn. In this case, you want Wandering Minstrel to skip your payload cards so that you can draw them at the end of your turn, making your engine more reliable. So for a deck like this, Gold is great.

However, it's worth noting that type #2 decks do not just spring into being. Every type #2 deck is a type #1 deck for a while, and if all your payload is Treasure, Wandering Minstrels can shoot you in the foot during that time.

If you're building a type #2 deck, though, you probably don't want to spend a $5 buy on a Baker or a Gold at all until your deck starts to work.

I also believe that type #1 strategies are an edge case. It basically only ever happens if your payload cards are cantrips and there is no way to increase your handsize (or it's very limited). It's true that Wandering Minstrel is a good card to have in the mass Baker strategy, but the mass Baker strategy is rarely viable and Wandering Minstrel isn't enough to change that. WM can be enough to enable Highway or Conspirator based decks, though.

[LastFootnote]

If you're building a type #2 deck, though, you probably don't want to spend a $5 buy on a Baker or a Gold at all until your deck starts to work.

Really? You never e.g. buy a Gold early to help you buy engine components faster? You just use your 7 Coppers until you can draw your deck?

I also believe that type #1 strategies are an edge case. It basically only ever happens if your payload cards are cantrips and there is no way to increase your handsize (or it's very limited). It's true that Wandering Minstrel is a good card to have in the mass Baker strategy, but the mass Baker strategy is rarely viable and Wandering Minstrel isn't enough to change that. WM can be enough to enable a Highway or Conspirator based decks, though.

Makes sense.

[Awaclus]

Really? You never e.g. buy a Gold early to help you buy engine components faster? You just use your 7 Coppers until you can draw your deck?

I buy Silvers or Actions that give $ in order to hit $5 (usually). Gold is overkill for that purpose, and also a missed opportunity to buy one of those $5 cards.

[WanderingWinder]

I was just using Baker as an example of an Action card with a Coin payload, but this brings up a good point. I think there are two situations here.

#1) You're not drawing your deck every turn. In this case, Wandering Minstrel skipping past your good Treasures sucks. There is no guarantee you will ever draw those Treasures. In this case, you definitely want e.g. Bakers rather than Golds in your deck because Wandering Minstrel will help you draw Bakers and keep you from drawing Golds.

#2) You are drawing your deck every turn. In this case, you want Wandering Minstrel to skip your payload cards so that you can draw them at the end of your turn, making your engine more reliable. So for a deck like this, Gold is great.

However, it's worth noting that type #2 decks do not just spring into being. Every type #2 deck is a type #1 deck for a while, and if all your payload is Treasure, Wandering Minstrels can shoot you in the foot during that time.

If you're building a type #2 deck, though, you probably don't want to spend a $5 buy on a Baker or a Gold at all until your deck starts to work.

I also believe that type #1 strategies are an edge case. It basically only ever happens if your payload cards are cantrips and there is no way to increase your handsize (or it's very limited). It's true that Wandering Minstrel is a good card to have in the mass Baker strategy, but the mass Baker strategy is rarely viable and Wandering Minstrel isn't enough to change that. WM can be enough to enable Highway or Conspirator based decks, though.

I'm not sure WM is even enough to enable those decks, really. I'm sure it happens, but not often.

If you're building a type #2 deck, though, you probably don't want to spend a $5 buy on a Baker or a Gold at all until your deck starts to work.

Really? You never e.g. buy a Gold early to help you buy engine components faster? You just use your 7 Coppers until you can draw your deck?

Very very rarely. Gold could be that engine component (and I definitely want components over payload if I'm not drawing my deck yet), unless it costs 7+, so it needs to be that. And even then, I am hitting 6 already, so any kind of action $$ is going to be better. The most common case I can think of is, KC is the only village, there are no non-terminal $-producers, you already have a terminal $-producer, you're hitting exactly 6, you're probably trashing somewhat (else you just fix the problem via more draw). Which is already quite rare.

[LastFootnote]

This thread is depressing me. I'm glad I don't play 2-player games against elite players. I think I'd like Dominion way less if 90% of games were draw-your-deck engines.

[Awaclus]

I also believe that type #1 strategies are an edge case. It basically only ever happens if your payload cards are cantrips and there is no way to increase your handsize (or it's very limited). It's true that Wandering Minstrel is a good card to have in the mass Baker strategy, but the mass Baker strategy is rarely viable and Wandering Minstrel isn't enough to change that. WM can be enough to enable Highway or Conspirator based decks, though.

I'm not sure WM is even enough to enable those decks, really. I'm sure it happens, but not often.

I think it's rare mostly because usually there is more support for those decks than just Wandering Minstrel.

[WanderingWinder]

This thread is depressing me. I'm glad I don't play 2-player games against elite players. I think I'd like Dominion way less if 90% of games were draw-your-deck engines.

It's not 90% by any stretch. But it's a lot.

[SCSN]

This thread is depressing me. I'm glad I don't play 2-player games against elite players. I think I'd like Dominion way less if 90% of games were draw-your-deck engines.

I can tell you that drawing your deck feels a lot less depressing once you rid it of the junk you don't want to see!

[WanderingWinder]

Most of what I'd say has been covered. I'm going to say it again, mostly because I'd probably phrase it a little differently, but I generally agree with most of what has been said.

WM is a very very strong village. It's especially good early, as it cycles you to your actions (basically always your best cards, especially in the engines you want WM in), which speeds up how quickly your deck comes together by a LOT. It has some nice interactions with Wishing Well/Mystic/Herald. In a deck that's all actions, it's usually not much different than straight-up village. This means that later on, it tends to get weaker - but on the other hand, if you still have at least some non-actions, this helps to ensure you draw those last, which is what you want to do, as drawing them earlier gives you higher chances of not drawing your draw card. Card gets worse if there are actions you don't want to draw at some point (e.g. chapel after you're thin), but it's very rare that it's actually worse than a normal village. Have to watch it triggering reshuffles a bit, but you can deal with that, and it doesn't undo all the good work this normally does via skipping ahead. Better in games without trashing, but that's just because you lose some bonus - the trashing is still almost always going to be better than not trashing. It can do things with tunnel, that's cute, but that's not really where you want to be very often - these decks often don't want Gold, at least not much, and by the time you would get tunnel, you can usually do better.

[eHalcyon]

You'd rather open Minstrel/Steward over Steward/Steward?

I don't think anybody has answered this yet.

I think it's going to depend on the board, but I can definitely imagine situations where you'd prefer Minstrel/Steward.  Maybe the engine is really strong but WM is the only source of +actions and there are stronger terminals you'd rather play over Steward, so you want to contest the WM split early.  Cycling from WM means that you'll get to play your one Steward pretty often anyway; it may work out close to par with Steward/Steward if you consider the possibility of terminal collision for the latter (but I am too lazy to do the math).  You could even buy a second Steward after the first reshuffle, and the early WM cycling may well help you trash faster than just Steward/Steward.

Anybody have a less speculative take on this?

[jsh357]

You'd rather open Minstrel/Steward over Steward/Steward?

I don't think anybody has answered this yet.

I think it's going to depend on the board, but I can definitely imagine situations where you'd prefer Minstrel/Steward.  Maybe the engine is really strong but WM is the only source of +actions and there are stronger terminals you'd rather play over Steward, so you want to contest the WM split early.  Cycling from WM means that you'll get to play your one Steward pretty often anyway; it may work out close to par with Steward/Steward if you consider the possibility of terminal collision for the latter (but I am too lazy to do the math).  You could even buy a second Steward after the first reshuffle, and the early WM cycling may well help you trash faster than just Steward/Steward.

Anybody have a less speculative take on this?

I touched on it some in my post, but the basic idea is you have 1 less terminal and Minstrel helps you play the lone Steward more often.  I think both openings are good and sometimes double Steward is still better.

[SCSN]

I'd take Minstrel/Steward over double Steward 100% of the time.

Just pick up another Steward on T3/4, and Minstrels cycling combined with the fact that you don't have to play a Steward for coins to hit 4 (since you already have the Minstrel) any time soon ensures that you'll draw your deck faster than with a double Steward open.

[hvb]

I'd take Minstrel/Steward over double Steward 100% of the time.

Just pick up another Steward on T3/4, and Minstrels cycling combined with the fact that you don't have to play a Steward for coins to hit 4 (since you already have the Minstrel) any time soon ensures that you'll draw your deck faster than with a double Steward open.

+1. WM/Ambassador over double ambassador as well 100%

[Gherald]

If the only villages are at $4 I usually do any of them/Ambassador over Double Amb, with it understood that I'll be buying a second Amb on T3/T4.

But WM/Ambassador is especially great of course.

[Chris is me]

I'd take Minstrel/Steward over double Steward 100% of the time.

Just pick up another Steward on T3/4, and Minstrels cycling combined with the fact that you don't have to play a Steward for coins to hit 4 (since you already have the Minstrel) any time soon ensures that you'll draw your deck faster than with a double Steward open.

Another key reason to open Minstrel / Steward is that Minstrel is a lot more likely to pile out than Steward. You can pick up a second Steward later - obviously it isn't ideal to grab trashers after the first shuffle, but it's workable. WM's cycling is also helpful - forces the shuffle more often and you get to play the single Steward more often. I don't see when I wouldn't do this.

I think there's a similar argument for Ambassador / Masquerade as well - not that I open double Masquerade often.

[Gherald]

For the case of Ambassador, it's important to return 2 cards as much as possible, especially in the beginning

So if you draw  Amb - E - C - C - C, you should generally return two C's the first few times.

This makes it hard to afford a $3 buy, much less a $4 village if those are the only ones.

So that's why I like to get my $4 village right away, if it's the only village available.  I'll then have a T3/T4 where I ambassador a couple things (whether C's or E's) and on the other T3/T4 I'll buy my second ambassador, which now has a village to go with it and the first ambassador

I don't see a lot of other people buying the $4 village on T1/T2 so I think this is an interesting point to argue for more broadly.  Of course WM is the best $4 village of the bunch

[werothegreat]

How does Wandering Minstrel compare to other sifting villages (Farming Village, Native Village, Plaza, Hamlet)?  How does WM compare to other sifters/deck inspectors in general (Cartographer, Warehouse, Scout)?

[Awaclus]

(Farming Village, Native Village, Plaza, Hamlet)

Is there something that these four cards in particular have in common that other villages don't?

[werothegreat]

(Farming Village, Native Village, Plaza, Hamlet)

Is there something that these four cards in particular have in common that other villages don't?

...they sift?  Like I said?

[Awaclus]

(Farming Village, Native Village, Plaza, Hamlet)

Is there something that these four cards in particular have in common that other villages don't?

...they sift?  Like I said?

I don't really see how Native Village, Plaza and Hamlet sift.

[JW]

How does Wandering Minstrel compare to other sifting villages (Farming Village, Native Village, Plaza, Hamlet)?  How does WM compare to other sifters/deck inspectors in general (Cartographer, Warehouse, Scout)?

None of the bolded cards sift. Scout is terrible; Wandering Minstrel isn't. Wandering Minstrel is better than Farming Village because it looks at more cards. Since the main point of the cards is + Actions, it doesn't make much sense to compare to the +1 Action sifters.