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Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester

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chwhite:
Even the "bad" cards in Cornucopia have their moments in the sun.  Fortune Teller is probably the worst card in Cornucopia, a slightly-improved Bureaucrat variant which, in the midgame of any set with trashing, is often going to be just like playing Chancellor and giving your opponent the benefit (or, worse, letting him/her topdeck a Nobles).  Jester isn't nearly as bad, but it pales in comparison with all the other non-Saboteur $5 attacks- spending $5 for a terminal Silver that spends a lot of its time just giving your opponents a Copper is often not worth it.  However!  When combined with +Actions, together they become a nasty late-game source of Curses.  As soon as your opponent starts laying into the Provinces, play Fortune Teller to put one on top of their deck, then use Jester to hand them a Curse. 

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110617-124713-f29fa5fd.html

This sample game is both a good example of Fortune Teller/Jester (in fact it's what inspired me to write this post), as well as a cautionary tale of why unsupported Fortune Teller can be so weak- see turn 7 for an example of the Fortune Teller playing the role of reverse-Chancellor (granted, I was lucky to have my one remaining Estate in hand).  Remake, Scrying Pools, and Fishing Villages all feature in both our decks as well, and bolster the combo- the presence of the strong but potion-costing Pools, and lack of +Buy, make Jester a better investment than usual even without Fortune Teller.  Here, my opponent gets the first Province, but is subsequently slowed down by Curses, while his Jesters harmlessly discard Fishing Villages after the stack is emptied.

WanderingWinder:
I think you're really underrating Fortune teller. Its attack is pretty good, and okay, it's a terminal silver, but it's only $3. Not the best card out there, but not really a bad one either. Much better than Chancellor. According to my popular buys page, I buy it 66% of the time and win 66% of the time I do.
I also think our perception of Jester is pretty coloured by our tendency to play 2-player games. It scales up a lot differently with more players, sorta like thief and pirate ship, and it's obviously better the more players there are, as there's more good stuff you can get.
Finally, this combo seems really contrived to be able to pull off, as you need a village with them to be able to play both, and 3-card combos are pretty difficult to get in hand if you aren't drawing your whole deck. If you are drawing your whole deck, there are a ton of things that will win for you.

chwhite:

--- Quote from: WanderingWinder on June 21, 2011, 11:25:50 am ---I think you're really underrating Fortune teller. Its attack is pretty good, and okay, it's a terminal silver, but it's only $3. Not the best card out there, but not really a bad one either. Much better than Chancellor. According to my popular buys page, I buy it 66% of the time and win 66% of the time I do.
I also think our perception of Jester is pretty coloured by our tendency to play 2-player games. It scales up a lot differently with more players, sorta like thief and pirate ship, and it's obviously better the more players there are, as there's more good stuff you can get.
Finally, this combo seems really contrived to be able to pull off, as you need a village with them to be able to play both, and 3-card combos are pretty difficult to get in hand if you aren't drawing your whole deck. If you are drawing your whole deck, there are a ton of things that will win for you.

--- End quote ---

My popular buys shows a different story: Jester is actually the card I have the single *worst* "win rate with".  Fortune Teller is also in my bottom 10, and I do better than usual when I avoid it (unlike Jester, whose mere presence apparently drags my game down whether I go for it or not).  So I hadn't really figured out how to make them work yet, which is why this game was so notable for me.  Totally agree with how Jester scales well with more players, however.

Also, this combo's only really "contrived" in the not-very-meaningful sense that any combo which relies on two terminal actions is contrived.  I mean, sure, it's not going to be usable all or even most of the time- it requires both the presence of Villages and the absence of better cursing options to be effective- but very few combos are always applicable.  As I said, this board was really an ideal situation for the combo for many reasons.

DStu:
Ideal would be a Golem I guess?

mischiefmaker:

--- Quote from: WanderingWinder on June 21, 2011, 11:25:50 am ---I also think our perception of Jester is pretty coloured by our tendency to play 2-player games. It scales up a lot differently with more players, sorta like thief and pirate ship, and it's obviously better the more players there are, as there's more good stuff you can get.

--- End quote ---

I played a 5p live game with Jester a few weeks ago and I didn't really see too much of a difference in terms of how it played -- almost everyone had one or two, and most of the time it was played, we handed out coppers, occasionally a curse (Remake was on the board, though), and there were a bunch of AP decisions (give my opponent another Remake, or take my first one? Give him a second silver, or my third? etc.).

The biggest difference we noticed is that Jester ends the game FAST. Especially in the presence of strong trashing like Remake -- I think that game lasted like 10 turns, and the winner had 11 points, with one or maybe two provinces purchased total. And unlike other 3-pile accelerators, it's hard to control when the game ends, because your Jester might hit 4 of the same card to end the game, or it might miss all of a single card that you don't have enough to purchase.

(Worth mentioning that that group is not all experts -- if I had to guess I'd say they are probably the equivalent of level 30, 25, 20, 10, 10, something like that.)

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