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[qmech]

Bazaar: Village is great, but expensive for just extra coin.

Bazaar is a Village plus a Peddler, which is ~$7 of value but only requiring a single buy.  So the coin is actually rather good value, if you want the coin; the problem is that you'd often rather have more, cheaper villages instead.  But when you do want the coin, it's not expensive.

[Flip5ide]

Goons: virtually never skippable. Only question is engine or Goons/money.

"Virtually never skippable" is a region populated by probably Chapel and maybe Ambassador... if anything. One step further is the land of Mountebank, Wharf, and Rebuild. One more step and you get to Witch and Sea Hag.

Three steps down the road, if you look to the right you will see the coveted Goons, on a lunch break.

[dondon151]

"Virtually never skippable" is a region populated by probably Chapel and maybe Ambassador... if anything. One step further is the land of Mountebank, Wharf, and Rebuild. One more step and you get to Witch and Sea Hag.

Three steps down the road, if you look to the right you will see the coveted Goons, on a lunch break.

This is, like, totally not true. Sea Hag is very skippable and Rebuild is skippable whenever there's a stronger engine. Goons is almost mandatory if there's a way to play more than one per turn, and if there are no splitters, chances are Goons is the strongest terminal in the kingdom.

[Awaclus]

Goons: virtually never skippable. Only question is engine or Goons/money.

"Virtually never skippable" is a region populated by probably Chapel and maybe Ambassador... if anything. One step further is the land of Mountebank, Wharf, and Rebuild. One more step and you get to Witch and Sea Hag.

Three steps down the road, if you look to the right you will see the coveted Goons, on a lunch break.

Ambassador and Wharf, yeah, Mountebank maybe. The other cards, not really.

[Mic Qsenoch]

If you look at gain rates from the top 20 players, Tournament is the clear winner. Many of the cards being named above appear at the top, but some are quite a ways down the list. Of course gain rate doesn't fully capture "skippability" but it's the simplest analysis.

[Flip5ide]

"Virtually never skippable" is a region populated by probably Chapel and maybe Ambassador... if anything. One step further is the land of Mountebank, Wharf, and Rebuild. One more step and you get to Witch and Sea Hag.

Three steps down the road, if you look to the right you will see the coveted Goons, on a lunch break.

This is, like, totally not true. Sea Hag is very skippable and Rebuild is skippable whenever there's a stronger engine. Goons is almost mandatory if there's a way to play more than one per turn, and if there are no splitters, chances are Goons is the strongest terminal in the kingdom.

I'll trust you on this one.

[Flip5ide]

If you look at gain rates from the top 20 players, Tournament is the clear winner. Many of the cards being named above appear at the top, but some are quite a ways down the list. Of course gain rate doesn't fully capture "skippability" but it's the simplest analysis.

I was going to add Tournament but I forgot.

[liopoil]

Chapel is also very skippable on big money boards or ones with alternatives that happen to be better for the board, like ambassador sometimes. Truly tournament is the one card that has a place in pretty much every deck.

[werothegreat]

Chapel is also very skippable on big money boards or ones with alternatives that happen to be better for the board, like ambassador sometimes. Truly tournament is the one card that has a place in pretty much every deck.

Not Wharf?

[Flip5ide]

Duke: Buy all Duchies first.  Usually better than Provinces.

I think "all" is a bit too much said.

Duke: Buy three Duchies minimum, then alternate Duke and Duchy buys.

If you buy three duchies then a Duke, you're doing it wrong. Pretty definitely. In a 2 player game, you usually want to buy at least 7 duchies before the first Duke (and very often just all 8 ).

(Edited to remove )

Can someone explain this? I don't remember any of this in any articles. If I am all alone in the Duke/Duchy race and my opponent has already snagged 4 provinces or so... there is no way that 7 Duchies and 0 Dukes is optimal. Unless the game (and your buying power) lasts long enough to see through buying 3-4 Dukes. But I mean the game usually ends before I get 7 of either, combined.

[AdamH]

Of course gain rate doesn't fully capture "skippability" but it's the simplest analysis.

Gain rate doesn't capture "skippability" at all. It's a completely different metric. You would want to measure games where it's gained at all without taking into account the number of copies that were gained.

"Virtually never skippable" is a region populated by probably Chapel and maybe Ambassador... if anything. One step further is the land of Mountebank, Wharf, and Rebuild. One more step and you get to Witch and Sea Hag.

Three steps down the road, if you look to the right you will see the coveted Goons, on a lunch break.

In 2000-2500 games of Dominion I've played, many of them pre-Dark Ages, I've been happy skipping Chapel and Rebuild many, many times. I skip Sea Hag more often than I buy it.

Mountebank and Witch I've skipped a few times, yeah. Mountebank is a lot easier to skip because of Gardens and Counting House, but Witch not so much.

I've skipped Goons twice ever and been happy about it. Neither game had a village, one had Library (though there's some debate on that one) and the other was Cultist.

I've skipped Ambassador once ever and been happy about it. To be fair, my opponent didn't buy Ambassador either. (Wow I watched this game again, I can't wait for all the people to tell me I should have gone with Black Market here...

I don't recall ever skipping Wharf or Tournament and being happy about it, but I may not have remembered these things. On a very fast Ironworks/Vineyard board I could certainly see myself skipping wharf, in fact in many rushes (IW/Gardens, Beggar/Gardens) or other combo decks (NV/Bridge, Hermit/Market Square, maaaaaybe Masterpiece/Feodum) I'd consider skipping Wharf and/or Tournament (or like all of these cards really)

[markusin]

I've skipped most of the power cards at least once and be happy about it. For Wharf, I've beaten it with IGG/Scavenger. There was only one time I remember skipping Tournament and winning ever. It was in the Iso days where I think I had 5/2 had went for a Cartographer/Cellar/Tunnel deck. It ended up being faster to just go straight for Provinces and Gold.

I still have to find a game where it felt good skipping Masquerade when my opponent didn't. I've won a game like that, but it was a BM board where we opened 5/2 and my opponent didn't open Masquerade. Ambassador too.

[Awaclus]

Duke: Buy all Duchies first.  Usually better than Provinces.

I think "all" is a bit too much said.

Duke: Buy three Duchies minimum, then alternate Duke and Duchy buys.

If you buy three duchies then a Duke, you're doing it wrong. Pretty definitely. In a 2 player game, you usually want to buy at least 7 duchies before the first Duke (and very often just all 8 ).

(Edited to remove )

Can someone explain this? I don't remember any of this in any articles. If I am all alone in the Duke/Duchy race and my opponent has already snagged 4 provinces or so... there is no way that 7 Duchies and 0 Dukes is optimal. Unless the game (and your buying power) lasts long enough to see through buying 3-4 Dukes. But I mean the game usually ends before I get 7 of either, combined.

If your opponent can buy 8 Provinces before you can buy 7 Duchies, you're doing something wrong.


You want to get Duchies first because there are only 8 in the supply, you need them, and they are useful for your opponent as well, while Dukes are entirely useless for your opponent. That's why you have to ensure that you can get as many Duchies as possible before starting to gain Dukes instead. There are situations where you need the extra points as fast as possible, and you would rather have an early Duke for that reason, but you'll notice when you are in one of those situations so the default thing to do is to gain a ton of Duchies first.

[WanderingWinder]

Duke: Buy all Duchies first.  Usually better than Provinces.

I think "all" is a bit too much said.

Duke: Buy three Duchies minimum, then alternate Duke and Duchy buys.

If you buy three duchies then a Duke, you're doing it wrong. Pretty definitely. In a 2 player game, you usually want to buy at least 7 duchies before the first Duke (and very often just all 8 ).

(Edited to remove )

Can someone explain this? I don't remember any of this in any articles. If I am all alone in the Duke/Duchy race and my opponent has already snagged 4 provinces or so... there is no way that 7 Duchies and 0 Dukes is optimal. Unless the game (and your buying power) lasts long enough to see through buying 3-4 Dukes. But I mean the game usually ends before I get 7 of either, combined.

Sure. 7 Duchies and 0 Dukes is absolutely optimal there (unless there's some strange case where there are 2 other piles which are going to be empty very soon). Here's the issue: your opponent needs to get all 8 provinces there to end the game, right? So 8 provinces is 48 points (I am going to ignore estate points, they usually don't change much). To get 48 points, I will need at least 11 duchy/duke. The most optimal way to split 11 duchy/duke is 7 duchy/4 duke, which nets 49 points. So you're going to need 11 anyway, you might as well get the duchies first, since they are much more likely to run out, and you are doing a little bit of a denial to your opponent (who can make some use of a duchy, but no use of a duke).

You're probably coming at it from the angle of "the game is going to end soon, I should get as many points as possible as fast as possible". This is a really common thing I see in a lot of people, but it's actually wrong. The point is, those extra points will never win you that game which is ending soon anyway. If the game really ends that soon, you are just going to lose either way, and it doesn't actually matter how many points you have - what matters is whether or not you have more when the game ends. Going for more dukes sooner might look good in that sense, because it scores more points. But it doesn't actually do that in a way that lets you win.

[werothegreat]

maaaaaybe Masterpiece/Feodum

As much as I like this combo, I've actually never gotten to play it unless I deliberately added both of them to a kingdom.

[liopoil]

WW, you are ignoring the possibility of a 3-pile, which is often quite relevant.

[WanderingWinder]

WW, you are ignoring the possibility of a 3-pile, which is often quite relevant.

Duke: Buy all Duchies first.  Usually better than Provinces.

I think "all" is a bit too much said.

Duke: Buy three Duchies minimum, then alternate Duke and Duchy buys.

If you buy three duchies then a Duke, you're doing it wrong. Pretty definitely. In a 2 player game, you usually want to buy at least 7 duchies before the first Duke (and very often just all 8 ).

(Edited to remove )

Can someone explain this? I don't remember any of this in any articles. If I am all alone in the Duke/Duchy race and my opponent has already snagged 4 provinces or so... there is no way that 7 Duchies and 0 Dukes is optimal. Unless the game (and your buying power) lasts long enough to see through buying 3-4 Dukes. But I mean the game usually ends before I get 7 of either, combined.

Sure. 7 Duchies and 0 Dukes is absolutely optimal there (unless there's some strange case where there are 2 other piles which are going to be empty very soon). Here's the issue: your opponent needs to get all 8 provinces there to end the game, right? So 8 provinces is 48 points (I am going to ignore estate points, they usually don't change much). To get 48 points, I will need at least 11 duchy/duke. The most optimal way to split 11 duchy/duke is 7 duchy/4 duke, which nets 49 points. So you're going to need 11 anyway, you might as well get the duchies first, since they are much more likely to run out, and you are doing a little bit of a denial to your opponent (who can make some use of a duchy, but no use of a duke).

You're probably coming at it from the angle of "the game is going to end soon, I should get as many points as possible as fast as possible". This is a really common thing I see in a lot of people, but it's actually wrong. The point is, those extra points will never win you that game which is ending soon anyway. If the game really ends that soon, you are just going to lose either way, and it doesn't actually matter how many points you have - what matters is whether or not you have more when the game ends. Going for more dukes sooner might look good in that sense, because it scores more points. But it doesn't actually do that in a way that lets you win.

[liopoil]

Sorry, missed that. I don't think that case is so strange though.

[LastFootnote]

maaaaaybe Masterpiece/Feodum

As much as I like this combo, I've actually never gotten to play it unless I deliberately added both of them to a kingdom.

Really? It's come up pretty often for me. At least three times, I think. Probably more.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Of course gain rate doesn't fully capture "skippability" but it's the simplest analysis.

Gain rate doesn't capture "skippability" at all. It's a completely different metric. You would want to measure games where it's gained at all without taking into account the number of copies that were gained.

I meant "gain rate" as the % of games where this card is gained. And that's the data in the link I posted. Nothing to do with number of copies.

[qmech]

maaaaaybe Masterpiece/Feodum

As much as I like this combo, I've actually never gotten to play it unless I deliberately added both of them to a kingdom.

Really? It's come up pretty often for me. At least three times, I think. Probably more.

My very first Guilds game had Masterpiece, Feodum and Trader.

Transmute, University, Lookout, Masterpiece, Urchin, Alchemist, Bridge, Feodum, Trader, Adventurer

Knowing what we know now about Mercenary, there might actually be a Bridge megaturn there.  Probably a reasonable Kingdom design submission...

[swedenman]

maaaaaybe Masterpiece/Feodum

As much as I like this combo, I've actually never gotten to play it unless I deliberately added both of them to a kingdom.

Really? It's come up pretty often for me. At least three times, I think. Probably more.

It's come up once for me. My opponent didn't see it and it was otherwise an engine board, so I was pretty much uncontested on Silvers and Feoda. I ended up with 36 Silvers and all 8 12-point Feoda. That was pretty satisfying.

[Willvon]

On a more general note, I think a lot of the recent summaries are just that -- summaries of the card text themselves.  But just stating what the card does isn't helpful; I can just read the card itself for that.

The OP states the goal is to create descriptions "summarizing a specific card and/or giving strategic advice for its use in only 10 words." It does not specify giving strategy only. If want to give strategy only, that's fine. But that is not what this post is limited to according to what I read.

[eHalcyon]

On a more general note, I think a lot of the recent summaries are just that -- summaries of the card text themselves.  But just stating what the card does isn't helpful; I can just read the card itself for that.

The OP states the goal is to create descriptions "summarizing a specific card and/or giving strategic advice for its use in only 10 words." It does not specify giving strategy only. If want to give strategy only, that's fine. But that is not what this post is limited to according to what I read.

OK, fair enough.  But I stand by what I said that just summarizing isn't useful.  The official cards themselves are already made to be succinct.  I think the OP implies that a strategic take should be applied, and strategy is certainly the purpose behind the inspiration for this thread.

[dondon151]

OK, fair enough.  But I stand by what I said that just summarizing isn't useful.  The official cards themselves are already made to be succinct.  I think the OP implies that a strategic take should be applied, and strategy is certainly the purpose behind the inspiration for this thread.

Throne Room: Choose an Action card in your hand. Play it twice.