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Author Topic: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester  (Read 16663 times)

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chwhite

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Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« on: June 21, 2011, 10:21:13 am »
+1

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.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2011, 11:25:50 am »
+1

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

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2011, 12:04:57 pm »
0

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.

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.
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DStu

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2011, 12:12:28 pm »
0

Ideal would be a Golem I guess?
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mischiefmaker

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2011, 01:18:14 pm »
0

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.

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.)
« Last Edit: June 21, 2011, 01:19:58 pm by mischiefmaker »
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Taqman

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #5 on: June 22, 2011, 02:05:31 am »
0

I'm not convinced this is such a great combo, chwhite. 

First of all it requires a +2 action card, a golem, or a double throne room/ KC.  So there is no fundamental synergy here, but there are certainly plenty of situations where you could set this up. 

Fortune Teller on its own is actually a decent attack, it really can slow down your opponent when you need it most. 

Jester, however, is more of an offensive card, more like a Smugglers.  If your opponent draws a copper, you can give him another, but that is just a consolation prize... neither the new copper nor the old one go back on top of his deck.  It's nice to have him draw a victory card because Jester causes him to gain a curse, but it's a much weaker curse than a Witch's curse because it gets rid of that terrible card from his deck and improves his next hand. 

Together you have a double-terminal combo that results in a reasonably mild attack when you finally set it up.  If they randomly come up together with a +2 action card, sure, play this combo.  If you have to go out of your way to buy either one of these cards, it's probably not worth it.

Fortune Teller/ Saboteur is a pretty solid late game gambit though...
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painted_cow

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #6 on: June 22, 2011, 12:07:52 pm »
0

Did i miss something or is the combo the curse-effect for the opponent?

PS: In my opinion Jester is quite good on its own, also in 2-player.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2011, 12:33:22 pm by theory »
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chwhite

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #7 on: June 22, 2011, 12:30:18 pm »
0

Did i miss something or is the combo the curse-effect for the opponent?

Yeah.  Well, to be more specific that it guarantees the Jester gives out a curse, rather than (as the example showed) hit that Fishing Village which was bought out five turns ago.
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theory

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #8 on: June 22, 2011, 12:34:26 pm »
0

I don't think this is a combo worthwhile to build your deck around, but I often end up in a deck with several Jesters in it, and at that point Fortune Teller is a nice addition to help make sure it hits better things.
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chwhite

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #9 on: June 22, 2011, 12:38:38 pm »
0

I don't think this is a combo worthwhile to build your deck around, but I often end up in a deck with several Jesters in it, and at that point Fortune Teller is a nice addition to help make sure it hits better things.

Oh, of course.  The deck I built in the example was really built on Scrying Pool and Fishing Village, and these cards were kickers, similar to how Militia is a good kicker to a Council Room draw engine.
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DStu

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #10 on: June 22, 2011, 12:57:14 pm »
0

Tesed Gernimoo's simulator with Golem/FT/Jester:

<player name="Golem/FT/Jester">
    [$PPR]
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Golem"/>
   <buy name="Jester">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Jester"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Fortune_Teller">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Fortune_Teller"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Potion">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Potion"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="getTotalMoney"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="9.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>


against _Single Jester is more or less tied: ~49 : 47.5

PS: [$PPR] is the Victorycard-stuff, just copy&paste from some other strategy.
PS2: Golem>Gold is slightly better: 52:45
« Last Edit: June 22, 2011, 01:00:11 pm by DStu »
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rrenaud

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #11 on: June 22, 2011, 01:00:12 pm »
0

Is fortune teller/jester another scout/wishing well?  In theory it sounds good but in practice it's a lot of work for something that a single card does just as well.

Consider fortune teller/jester vs mountebank.  FT -> Jester is a lot harder to pull off, and guarantees your opponent gets a curse.  An unblocked mountebank gives your opponent a copper and a curse, which is a much stronger attack.
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mischiefmaker

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #12 on: June 22, 2011, 01:19:10 pm »
0

I tried playing some Golem/FT/Jester games today against the kingdom.servegame.org AI, and I came away with a few conclusions:
 - it takes a while to get going
 - you get a lot of hands with $4 and $5 in the mid-game; what do you do with these? Buying actions is clearly the wrong choice if you're trying to consistently hand out curses; buying treasure/VP makes it harder to find your golems.
 - you often run into conflicts where you draw FT/golem or Jester/golem, or even golem/golem, which makes it harder to get $8 even with the $4 from the combo

So, overall, what theory/chwhite said -- it's a useful thing to know about that you might consider adding in the midgame to put you over the top in the endgame, if you already have a drawing engine with +actions to spare set up, but it's not something you want to try and build a deck around.
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chwhite

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #13 on: June 22, 2011, 01:21:10 pm »
0

Is fortune teller/jester another scout/wishing well?  In theory it sounds good but in practice it's a lot of work for something that a single card does just as well.

Consider fortune teller/jester vs mountebank.  FT -> Jester is a lot harder to pull off, and guarantees your opponent gets a curse.  An unblocked mountebank gives your opponent a copper and a curse, which is a much stronger attack.

Um, I'm not sure what your point is?  Of course Mountebank is far stronger (as is Witch, Familiar, Hag, and maybe YW depending on the Bane).  I explicitly said this is only worth going for if there aren't other cursers, and oftentimes there aren't.

What makes Scout/WW silly is that you're spending two cards to get two cards, and maybe clear out some green from your next hand.  Even so, there are some corner cases where I'd consider such a combo- if it's the best way to activate a Conspirator chain, for instance.
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DG

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #14 on: June 22, 2011, 01:42:25 pm »
0

I'm surprised there's so much interest in this. Jester and Fortune teller is only going to be an occasional combination, as with anything that puts two terminals together. If you had something to pull it together though, perhaps scrying pools or golems, then it would start to cause problems. The two +2 coin effects should lead to your own province buying turns. The deterioration from both the jester and fortune teller increases as more curses enter the opponent's deck.
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adf

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #15 on: June 22, 2011, 01:46:12 pm »
0

Why is no one talking about Fortune Teller/Saboteur? It only works in a trashing game, but I feel like it's much more devastating and better in the late game.
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Geronimoo

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Re: Combo: Fortune Teller/Jester
« Reply #16 on: June 22, 2011, 05:33:53 pm »
0

Tesed Gernimoo's simulator with Golem/FT/Jester:

<player name="Golem/FT/Jester">
    [$PPR]
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Golem"/>

Thx for using my Simulator and posting a self built strategy! I would not omit any of the XML-code though. I know it's readable for computer nerds like me (and probably you :) ?), but most people will get lost and not try out your strategy because of it.
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