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[popsofctown]

Keeping a Confusion in your deck to avoid gaining a Silver?  The underestimation of Silver in this thread is ridiculous. 

[eHalcyon]

Why would you ever play big money when there's a hand size attack on the board anyway (edge cases exist, but they're rare and super annoying)?

Big money is the default.  It takes specific cards like alt VP to make a viable rush or slog, and specific effects to make a viable engine.  If those aren't on the board, you're playing big money, attacks or not. 

Big Money is not the default.  It's the baseline.

[crlundy]

I am considering "Gain a Silver" as Wanderer's on-buy bonus, though probably it would have to cost $4 at that point.

Gaining a silver seems like a bland bonus, imo. Since you only play this card once, I think it's OK if the on-buy bonus be comparable to an on-play effect. I guess the simplest version of that would be a Noble Brigand when-buy-or-play, now that I think of it. So you're the only one who gets 2 uses out of it? (Although I like the card-drawing version and on-buy card drawing is not good...)

I like draw over gaining a treasure, especially since the card passes between players who might be playing different strategies.  Gain a treasure is definitely bad for some decks; those players would likely end the wandering you're going for (trash him or just not play him).  Gain a silver on buy at $4 makes it a good opener for a lot of decks though.

If you want it to work with any player's strategy, you could make it a "choose one". But then it always sucks to pass it off to your opponent because it would always be useful to them, so you never feel like doing it. I kinda like that it's somewhat situational and whether you buy this card depends on your opponents strategy.

[Awaclus]

If those aren't on the board, you're playing big money, attacks --

Yes, and that is a rare and super annoying edge case.

[theblankman]

Keeping a Confusion in your deck to avoid gaining a Silver?  The underestimation of Silver in this thread is ridiculous.

No, keeping a Confusion in your deck to avoid gaining a Silver now and getting the Confusion back later.  If the card is better for your opponents than for you, they'll play it and you'll end up with it in your deck again.

If those aren't on the board, you're playing big money, attacks --

Yes, and that is a rare and super annoying edge case.

I don't find it all that rare... engines, slogs and rushes require specific combinations of effects to work.  Any one thing missing and you're back to money.  Terminal draw but no village -> BM+Draw.  Ways to draw your deck but no extra gains?  Hope the engine starts running quickly.  Money has no requirements, just pick the best supporting card in the kingdom (or play BMU if they all suck).  Everything else needs at least 2 or 3 cards that work well together.  I call BM the default because its essential pieces are base cards, so it's what you play when any one of the essential pieces for another strategy is missing. 

[eHalcyon]

Keeping a Confusion in your deck to avoid gaining a Silver?  The underestimation of Silver in this thread is ridiculous.

No, keeping a Confusion in your deck to avoid gaining a Silver now and getting the Confusion back later.  If the card is better for your opponents than for you, they'll play it and you'll end up with it in your deck again.

If those aren't on the board, you're playing big money, attacks --

Yes, and that is a rare and super annoying edge case.

I don't find it all that rare... engines, slogs and rushes require specific combinations of effects to work.  Any one thing missing and you're back to money.  Terminal draw but no village -> BM+Draw.  Ways to draw your deck but no extra gains?  Hope the engine starts running quickly.  Money has no requirements, just pick the best supporting card in the kingdom (or play BMU if they all suck).  Everything else needs at least 2 or 3 cards that work well together.  I call BM the default because its essential pieces are base cards, so it's what you play when any one of the essential pieces for another strategy is missing.

As I said, Big Money is the baseline.  But if you want to improve as a competitive player, you really shouldn't consider it the default.  There are usually better things you can do.  Even when the stars don't perfectly align, the engine or rush or combo deck will often outperform BM anyway.  If you go into your games with BM as your default, you will miss the slightly-off-kilter engines that can still beat it.

[theblankman]

As I said, Big Money is the baseline.  But if you want to improve as a competitive player, you really shouldn't consider it the default.  There are usually better things you can do.  Even when the stars don't perfectly align, the engine or rush or combo deck will often outperform BM anyway.  If you go into your games with BM as your default, you will miss the slightly-off-kilter engines that can still beat it.

Even the most off-kilter engines have some things in common: a way to get lots of cards, and some payload that will win you the game if you play it a lot.  If either of those is missing from the board (and often at least one of them is), then you literally can't an engine.  WanderingWinder goes into great detail on the subject: http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/01/23/the-five-fundamental-deck-types-the-engine/

I'm not saying you should approach a game with BM as your default strategy, I mean that BM is the default because it's the only strategy guaranteed to be possible on every kingdom.  Sometimes it's not the best, but when there's nothing else, it's what you default to because it's always there.

[eHalcyon]

As I said, Big Money is the baseline.  But if you want to improve as a competitive player, you really shouldn't consider it the default.  There are usually better things you can do.  Even when the stars don't perfectly align, the engine or rush or combo deck will often outperform BM anyway.  If you go into your games with BM as your default, you will miss the slightly-off-kilter engines that can still beat it.

Even the most off-kilter engines have some things in common: a way to get lots of cards, and some payload that will win you the game if you play it a lot.  If either of those is missing from the board (and often at least one of them is), then you literally can't an engine.  WanderingWinder goes into great detail on the subject: http://dominionstrategy.com/2013/01/23/the-five-fundamental-deck-types-the-engine/

I'm not saying you should approach a game with BM as your default strategy, I mean that BM is the default because it's the only strategy guaranteed to be possible on every kingdom.  Sometimes it's not the best, but when there's nothing else, it's what you default to because it's always there.

In that same series of articles, WW talks about Big Money, which links to his thoughts about Money Density.  But in a much more recent article, WW basically says that this a mindset that you need to move past (as he has since done).

In any case, even if you take this position, Awaclus is still correct.  The times when Big Money is the right choice is rare.  There are pretty much always better things for you to do.

[Asper]

Well, obviously Big Money is not why we play Dominion. Every kingdom card tries to steer us away from pure BM, simply because it's not what the game is about. If pure BM without kingdom cards was a good tstrategy relatively often, Dominion's design as a game with kingdom piles had to be fundamentally flawed. It's basically a savety net, design wise: If, against the odds, the combination of kingdom cards is so unfitting that it becomes impossible to effectively play a combination of them, there's always Big Money. What makes this net more agreeable is that, even in such cases, kingdom cards will almost always add something, even if you limit yourself to very few of them. Heck, even opening Chancellor/Silver is strictly better than Silver/Silver if you will ignore all other kingdom cards anyhow (edge case: terminal collision with involuntarily gained terminals because of attacks). I get where the idea of BM as "default" comes from, and maybe it's just nomenclature, but i think "default" communicates "usual", which is not what i'd call BM.

[Awaclus]

Terminal draw but no village -> BM+Draw.

i.e. BM+no discard attack. So many things need to be true before BM+discard attack can be the best strategy on the board:

• No engine
• No rush/slog/combo
• No +cards or other strong BM enablers
• No Lighthouse or other cards that counter discard attacks
• No junking attacks

And finally,

• The discard attack has to be present

The first requirement already rules out a vast majority of the games and the third one rules out the rest, more or less. I think I've played exactly one discard attack/BM game this year, and I'd say that counts as a rare edge case.

[LastFootnote]

I just remembered this card somehow. I should print it out and test it. Here's the version I think I'll try:

Wanderer: Action, $3
+4 Cards. The player to your right gains this card.
When you gain this, put your deck into your discard pile.

[terminalCopper]

  Terminal draw but no village -> BM+Draw. 

This is very bad advice. You're missing a lot of engines with lab variants, peddler variants, Throne Room Variants, Herald, Ironmonger, some slogs, combos ... these things aren't the edge case. Big Money is.

[LastFootnote]

I just remembered this card somehow. I should print it out and test it. Here's the version I think I'll try:

Wanderer: Action, $3
+4 Cards. The player to your right gains this card.
When you gain this, put your deck into your discard pile.

Changed "When you gain this" to "When you buy this", since the intent is that only the player who initially buys it gets the under-line bonus.

[horatio83]

I like the idea but even with the gain bonus it might not create enough of an incentive to buy a card whom everybody profits from it (unless it is late in the game and you only plan to play it a a one-shot once anyway).

[LastFootnote]

I like the idea but even with the gain bonus it might not create enough of an incentive to buy a card whom everybody profits from it (unless it is late in the game and you only plan to play it a a one-shot once anyway).

Yeah, that's definitely a concern. I could potentially make the on-buy bonus something you'd pay $3 for anyway (gain a Silver), but I'll try it this way first. My hope is that the fact you get to play it first is enough incentive. And there may be times where that combined with putting your deck into your discard is enough. It could also cost less (down to $0 even).

[LastFootnote]

I realize belatedly that SirPeebles came up with this idea first! So credit where credit is due. I'm going to test my version soon, so here it is. Let me know if you have any last-minute feedback before I try it out.

[GendoIkari]

Is there a reason the on-buy Chancellor isn't optional? If it's meant to be a bonus to buying it, I would think it should be optional. Otherwise you may end up avoiding buying it if you're halfway through a shuffle where you've drawn worse-than-average so far.

[LastFootnote]

Is there a reason the on-buy Chancellor isn't optional? If it's meant to be a bonus to buying it, I would think it should be optional. Otherwise you may end up avoiding buying it if you're halfway through a shuffle where you've drawn worse-than-average so far.

Well I thought it would be cool if it were something you needed to take into account when buying it, but maybe you're right. I guess really it depends on how often you want to flip your deck and how often it gets bought in general. If it turns out to be marginal, making the Chancellor part optional is a good first step.

[GeneralRamos]

I love the idea. I'm currently toying with a similar passing mechanic for version 2.0 of Imp (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14295.msg546893#msg546893).
My question, probably a matter for FAQ, is what happens in the (fringe) case of a reaction by Trader? Where does the card go, since it never makes it to the next player's deck? Does the person who played it retain it? Does it get lost? Does it return to the supply?

[eHalcyon]

I love the idea. I'm currently toying with a similar passing mechanic for version 2.0 of Imp (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14295.msg546893#msg546893).
My question, probably a matter for FAQ, is what happens in the (fringe) case of a reaction by Trader? Where does the card go, since it never makes it to the next player's deck? Does the person who played it retain it? Does it get lost? Does it return to the supply?

I'd just cut the question entirely and have it be a "put" instead of a "gain" so the other player has no choice but to take it.

[LastFootnote]

I love the idea. I'm currently toying with a similar passing mechanic for version 2.0 of Imp (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14295.msg546893#msg546893).
My question, probably a matter for FAQ, is what happens in the (fringe) case of a reaction by Trader? Where does the card go, since it never makes it to the next player's deck? Does the person who played it retain it? Does it get lost? Does it return to the supply?

I would say that the only reasonable ruling is that it stays in the play area of the person who played it and then gets discarded as normal at the end of the turn.

[Co0kieL0rd]

I love the idea. I'm currently toying with a similar passing mechanic for version 2.0 of Imp (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14295.msg546893#msg546893).
My question, probably a matter for FAQ, is what happens in the (fringe) case of a reaction by Trader? Where does the card go, since it never makes it to the next player's deck? Does the person who played it retain it? Does it get lost? Does it return to the supply?

I'd just cut the question entirely and have it be a "put" instead of a "gain" so the other player has no choice but to take it.

I think eHalcyon's suggestion is the way to go. It probably avoids other problematic edge cases we haven't thought about, yet.