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Author Topic: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone  (Read 20057 times)

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LastFootnote

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #25 on: May 06, 2015, 01:43:52 am »
+4

Quote
Philosopher's Stone is a tough sell without other Alchemy cards available.

3. ^ That advice is exactly backwards. With the exception of Herbalist, the majority of alchemy cards are exactly the kind of cards you do NOT want to see on a board to make P stone viable.

Thanks for taking that quote completely out of context. The context is that you can't draw your deck. See?

For the rest of this post, let's take it as given that you can't draw your deck.

Even then, Philosopher's Stone is a tough sell without other Alchemy cards available.

As Adam says, the point is that getting a Potion just for Philosopher's Stone is almost always a bad idea. But assuming there are other Potion cards available, buying Philosopher's Stones with the Potion you already have can be great.

As for other Alchemy cards all working poorly with P.Stone, that's mostly a myth. Apprentice, Scrying Pool, and Alchemist don't play well with P.Stone, and that's about it. Philosopher's Stone is often great on a Familiar board. The Herbalist/P.Stone synergy is well known. Transmute, Vineyard, and Possession have no particular interaction with P.Stone beyond needing Potion (which again, is useful; you can buy Transmute or Vineyard when you miss $3P and you can buy P.Stone when you miss $6P for Possession). Assuming you can't draw your deck, University and Golem are great. University powers up P.Stone by gaining cards and Golem doesn't hurt P.Stone much when it's playing non-drawing Actions. Finally, I am really not convinced that Apothecary and P.Stone have anti-synergy. If they're in the same hand, you are nearly always getting more +$ from playing Apothecary than you lose. And when they're not, Apothecary cycles you to your Philosopher's Stones faster. Most importantly, they both want Coppers in your deck.

Again, this all assumes you can't draw your deck. If you can draw your deck, then don't buy Philosopher's Stone!
« Last Edit: May 06, 2015, 01:58:58 am by LastFootnote »
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pubby

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #26 on: May 06, 2015, 05:19:21 am »
+1

I'd like to see a simulation that shows a big money strategy that's improved by the use of Phil Stone. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I can't really think of anything like that. The only one I can think of is Familiar...

Quick tests without trying to optimize much:

Code: [Select]
        Strategy | VP        | Win% (with P.Stone)
-----------------+-----------+------
        BigMoney | Provinces | 36.3%
        BigMoney | Colonies  | 47.4%
     DoubleWitch | Provinces | 56.1%
     DoubleWitch | Colonies  | 66.7%
DoubleMountebank | Provinces | 61.5%
DoubleMountebank | Colonies  | 78.2%
    SingleSeaHag | Provinces | 62.1%
    SingleSeaHag | Colonies  | 78.8%

Code: [Select]
{
  name: 'DoubleWitchPStone'
  requires: ['Witch', "Philosopher's Stone"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Colony" if my.countInDeck("Platinum") > 0
    "Province" if state.countInSupply("Colony") <= 6
    "Witch" if my.countInDeck("Witch") < 2
    "Duchy" if 0 < state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Estate" if 0 < state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Philosopher's Stone"
    "Platinum"
    "Gold"
    "Potion" if my.countInDeck("Potion") < 1 and my.countInDeck("Silver") >= 2
    "Silver"
  ]
}

{
  name: 'DoubleMountebankPStone'
  requires: ['Mountebank', "Philosopher's Stone"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Colony" if my.countInDeck("Platinum") > 0
    "Province" if state.countInSupply("Colony") <= 6 and my.countInDeck("Gold") > 0
    "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Mountebank" if my.countInDeck("Mountebank") < 2
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Philosopher's Stone"
    "Platinum"
    "Gold"
    "Potion" if my.countInDeck("Potion") < 1 and my.countInDeck("Silver") >= 2
    "Silver"
  ]
}

{
  name: 'SingleSeaHagPStone'
  requires: ['Sea Hag', "Philosopher's Stone"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Colony" if my.countInDeck("Platinum") > 0
    "Province" if state.countInSupply("Colony") <= 6
    "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Philosopher's Stone"
    "Platinum"
    "Gold"
    "Sea Hag" if my.countInDeck("Sea Hag") < 1
    "Potion" if my.countInDeck("Potion") < 1 and my.countInDeck("Silver") >= 2
    "Silver"
  ]
}

{
  name: 'BigMoneyPStone'
  author: 'WanderingWinder'
  requires: ["Philosopher's Stone"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) ->
    if state.supply.Colony?
      [
        "Colony" if my.getTotalMoney() > 32
        "Province" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
        "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
        "Philosopher's Stone"
        "Platinum"
        "Province" if state.countInSupply("Colony") <= 7
        "Gold"
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
        "Potion" if my.countInDeck("Potion") < 1 and my.countInDeck("Silver") >= 2
        "Silver"
        "Copper" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
      ]
    else
      [
        "Province" if my.getTotalMoney() > 18
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 4
        "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
        "Philosopher's Stone"
        "Gold"
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
        "Potion" if my.countInDeck("Potion") < 1 and my.countInDeck("Silver") >= 2
        "Silver"
      ]
}



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Polk5440

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #27 on: May 06, 2015, 12:27:22 pm »
+13

Occasionally, Phil. Stone is a good store of value for later trashing.

Example:

Code: [Select]
---------- Stef: turn 13 ----------
Stef - plays Squire
Stef - takes 2 actions
Stef - plays Fortune Teller
Polk5440 - shuffles deck
Polk5440 - reveals Forge, Herald, Squire, Copper, Herald, Potion, Herald, Advisor, Copper, Herald, Copper, Copper, Estate
Polk5440 - discards: Forge, Herald, Squire, Copper, Herald, Potion, Herald, Advisor, Copper, Herald, Copper, Copper
Stef - plays Potion
Stef - buys Philosopher's Stone
Stef - gains Philosopher's Stone
...

---------- Stef: turn 15 ----------
...
Stef - plays Stonemason
Stef - trashes Philosopher's Stone
Stef - gains Vineyard
Stef - gains Vineyard

I had no idea what Stef was doing when he bought that Phil Stone. I thought he'd lost his mind. How wrong I was.
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Dingan

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #28 on: May 06, 2015, 12:55:17 pm »
0

Isn't there some sort of background story with the padlock on the P-Stone box?  I'm no historian, but I thought I remember reading somewhere on these forums that there was controversy with if they should have the padlock there or not, because padlocks of that type weren't yet in Europe during the Dark or Middle Ages (which Dominion is largely based on), or something like that.
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sc0UT

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #29 on: May 06, 2015, 01:56:04 pm »
+3

Isn't there some sort of background story with the padlock on the P-Stone box?  I'm no historian, but I thought I remember reading somewhere on these forums that there was controversy with if they should have the padlock there or not, because padlocks of that type weren't yet in Europe during the Dark or Middle Ages (which Dominion is largely based on), or something like that.

Maybe this one?

Philosopher's Stone: The padlock is anachronistic (they had padlocks, but not that style). The philosopher's stone is a substance, which some guessed would be a red powder, so the artwork isn't otherwise off.
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xyz123

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #30 on: May 06, 2015, 03:10:01 pm »
0

I could see Philosopher's Stone being useful in a Scheme/Golem/X deck. You would have bought potions to get Golem but you would not want any more action cards.

What about using it as Apprentice fodder? I think it would need the right deck as you would have needed another reason to buy potions but it would allow you to draw 5 cards.

Could it also be a (very) soft counter to gaining unwanted potions as a result of Swindler or Masquerade? If you are playing a money strategy and gave 3+Potion to spend it is going to be usually better than silver.

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Awaclus

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #31 on: May 06, 2015, 03:13:34 pm »
+1

I could see Philosopher's Stone being useful in a Scheme/Golem/X deck. You would have bought potions to get Golem but you would not want any more action cards.
The problem with that is that Scheme/Golem/X decks aren't very good in the first place.
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Gherald

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #32 on: May 07, 2015, 07:12:38 pm »
0

Thanks for taking that quote completely out of context. The context is that you can't draw your deck. See?
I read your context. Alchemy cards incrementally help you draw and do other things that, when you can do them, make P stone less viable.  So Alchemy cards do not help P stone's viability, they incrementally hurt it, and to claim otherwise is backwards.  The more (non-Herbalist) alchemy cards you see, the less you want to go for P stone.
Quote
Philosopher's Stone is often great on a Familiar board.
Its greatness or lack thereof really isn't impacted at all by Familiar.  When you see familiar, you worry about winning the curse split and about trashing, not flooding your deck with coppers.  They anti-synergize in this respect.  They synergize slightly in that you can use your potion to buy a P stone after familiars, though at that point you usually don't have the kind of deck where you want to start adding coppers. Overall it's a meaningless wash, Familiar + P stone is not at all relevant, much less "often great"
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DG

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #33 on: May 07, 2015, 07:17:52 pm »
+2

Oh no, philosopher's stone is great in a familiar kingdom. Assuming there's no trashing, I'm guessing you want to buy only one familiar before you switch to buying philosopher's stones.
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Awaclus

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #34 on: May 07, 2015, 07:24:20 pm »
+3

Oh no, philosopher's stone is great in a familiar kingdom.

In an unfamiliar kingdom, it sucks.
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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #35 on: May 07, 2015, 07:41:59 pm »
+1

Thanks for taking that quote completely out of context. The context is that you can't draw your deck. See?
I read your context. Alchemy cards incrementally help you draw and do other things that, when you can do them, make P stone less viable.  So Alchemy cards do not help P stone's viability, they incrementally hurt it, and to claim otherwise is backwards.  The more (non-Herbalist) alchemy cards you see, the less you want to go for P stone.
Quote
Philosopher's Stone is often great on a Familiar board.
Its greatness or lack thereof really isn't impacted at all by Familiar.  When you see familiar, you worry about winning the curse split and about trashing, not flooding your deck with coppers.  They anti-synergize in this respect.  They synergize slightly in that you can use your potion to buy a P stone after familiars, though at that point you usually don't have the kind of deck where you want to start adding coppers. Overall it's a meaningless wash, Familiar + P stone is not at all relevant, much less "often great"

Other Potion-cost cards lower opportunity cost of PStone because there's more stuff to buy with your Potion.  That's the part of LF's post that you're ignoring.

If there's adequate trashing you shouldn't be going after PStone anyway; that has nothing to do with Familiar.  If there isn't trashing, PStone is good because Familiar is filling your deck with Curses.  PStone is often worthwhile then without you adding Coppers.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #36 on: May 07, 2015, 08:42:34 pm »
+2

On P-Stone with Alchemy:

I think there is definitely something with Herbalist / Familiar. Transmute synergy doesn't seem awful, but you know what does sound awful? A deck with Transmutes and P-stones.

The card drawers all suck with P-stone.

I don't see anything with University except in the case where you have no draw/trashing but do have decent sifting. And it still seems no special synergy. I wouldn't discount this case entirely, but it does seem pretty rare.

The problem with the P-stone + other Potion costers is that: yes, you have a Potion, but you also have way better cards to buy with the Potion! So if it's a 3P or less you are usually buying the other thing. If it's more than 3P and you only manage to draw 3P, there's a good chance you don't even want a P-stone! Because P-stone doesn't fit with Golem or Possession decks in any special way. It's really easy to have some other action on the board you want more than P-stone. Familiar seems like the only Potion coster that is good with it in a noticeable way.

It's simply a reflection of what P-stone does, it just gives you money. That effect isn't going to synergize strongly with very many things.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2015, 08:52:58 pm by Mic Qsenoch »
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werothegreat

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #37 on: May 07, 2015, 10:10:24 pm »
0

Beyond Awesome and I played Cursecatchers today (Adventures/Alchemy kingdom).  It had four Potion cards, including Philosopher's Stone.  Neither of us bought one.
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LastFootnote

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #38 on: May 08, 2015, 08:40:55 am »
0

Beyond Awesome and I played Cursecatchers today (Adventures/Alchemy kingdom).  It had four Potion cards, including Philosopher's Stone.  Neither of us bought one.

Probably you should have.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #39 on: May 08, 2015, 09:30:17 am »
0

Beyond Awesome and I played Cursecatchers today (Adventures/Alchemy kingdom).  It had four Potion cards, including Philosopher's Stone.  Neither of us bought one.

Probably you should have.

The board in question:
Save, Trade / Peasant, Bridge Troll, Ratcatcher, Caravan Guard, Amulet / Golem, Apothecary, Herbalist, Familiar, Philosopher's Stone

In a 2 player game I wouldn't buy P-stone over any of the non Potion costing actions let alone any of the Potion costing ones.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2015, 09:38:13 am by Mic Qsenoch »
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LastFootnote

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #40 on: May 08, 2015, 09:42:56 am »
0

Beyond Awesome and I played Cursecatchers today (Adventures/Alchemy kingdom).  It had four Potion cards, including Philosopher's Stone.  Neither of us bought one.

Probably you should have.

The board in question:
Save, Trade / Peasant, Bridge Troll, Ratcatcher, Caravan Guard, Amulet / Golem, Apothecary, Herbalist, Familiar, Philosopher's Stone

In a 2 player game I wouldn't buy P-stone over any of the non Potion costing actions let alone any of the Potion costing ones.

Probably you should.
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #41 on: May 08, 2015, 10:07:23 am »
+1

I get it LF, you like P-stone, but sorry it's bad and in general gets worse with other Alchemy cards. Why don't you say why you'd buy a P-stone on that board?

Here's the deck I want to build: it draws a lot of cards and plays multiple Bridge Trolls. Teacher, Apothecary, other cantrips, trashing and Golem all make this feasible. Familiar and Bridge Troll slow the game down and give Teacher plenty of time to come into play. P-stone does not enable this end goal in any way. It gets in the way in fact because I don't need the money and it doesn't draw cards, and the deck I want to build makes P-stone produce $0. What possible reason would this deck have for buying a P-stone?

In an engine mirror I won't get to do all the things above, but if it's not a mirror I'll have all the time in the world to do whatever.
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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #42 on: May 08, 2015, 10:46:27 am »
0

I built a Golem engine that played two Bridge Trolls every turn. Dropped +Action on Golem and +$ on Familiar. Absolutely no need for Philosopher's Stone there.
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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #43 on: May 08, 2015, 10:48:36 am »
0

I get it LF, you like P-stone

:))

but sorry it's bad and in general gets worse with other Alchemy cards.

 :o :'(
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Donald X.

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #44 on: May 08, 2015, 04:46:06 pm »
+4

Beyond Awesome and I played Cursecatchers today (Adventures/Alchemy kingdom).  It had four Potion cards, including Philosopher's Stone.  Neither of us bought one.

Probably you should have.

The board in question:
Save, Trade / Peasant, Bridge Troll, Ratcatcher, Caravan Guard, Amulet / Golem, Apothecary, Herbalist, Familiar, Philosopher's Stone

In a 2 player game I wouldn't buy P-stone over any of the non Potion costing actions let alone any of the Potion costing ones.

Probably you should.
Knowing you, if you actually played that set of 10, you'd probably end up with something like 8 Caravan Guards, 6 Bridge Trolls, 4 Ratcatchers, 1 Familiar, 1 Golem, 1 Teacher, 4 Coppers, 4 Silvers, 1 Potion, and 4 Curses.
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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #45 on: May 08, 2015, 04:48:46 pm »
+1

Beyond Awesome and I played Cursecatchers today (Adventures/Alchemy kingdom).  It had four Potion cards, including Philosopher's Stone.  Neither of us bought one.

Probably you should have.

The board in question:
Save, Trade / Peasant, Bridge Troll, Ratcatcher, Caravan Guard, Amulet / Golem, Apothecary, Herbalist, Familiar, Philosopher's Stone

In a 2 player game I wouldn't buy P-stone over any of the non Potion costing actions let alone any of the Potion costing ones.

Probably you should.
Knowing you, if you actually played that set of 10, you'd probably end up with something like 8 Caravan Guards, 6 Bridge Trolls, 4 Ratcatchers, 1 Familiar, 1 Golem, 1 Teacher, 4 Coppers, 4 Silvers, 1 Potion, and 4 Curses.

Busted...

Somehow I missed that Peasant was in that set, which changes things a lot. I mean, probably a top-level player is still better off with a huge engine even without Peasant, but I think a P.Stone strategy could still be somewhat competitive. Maybe.

EDIT: Hey wait, I lost that game! Obviously I should have bought P.Stones.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2015, 05:17:09 pm by LastFootnote »
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Davio

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #46 on: May 10, 2015, 02:38:52 pm »
0

Philosopher's Stone has an inherent problem: It needs a lot of cards in your deck (that you can't play), but this means you'll see your Stones less often. It's a paradoxical card. You can't really rely on it being your main source of income, so you can't really create a deck for it.

Philosopher's Stone is typically something you stumble into buying because you already have a Potion for another card you wanted. It makes for some tactical decisions: Do you buy one more Familiar to win the curse war or get a PS instead, getting a better long term reward?

PS could be much more interesting if it didn't require a Potion, it would have made a decent promo actually, because of the card counting thing. It's just a shame that very few cards can do anything useful with it due to its paradoxical nature. What can deal with a bloated deck in which you need to find particular Treasures? I can only think of Adventurer of the top of my head and Herbalist has its novelty topdecking thing going on.
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werothegreat

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #47 on: May 10, 2015, 02:52:45 pm »
0

Upon reflection, Storeroom is probably a better enabler for PS than Herbalist; it sifts through your bulky deck to find your PSs and Potion, gives +Buy, and increases your deck size when it's done, giving you some extra coin in the process, making it easier to get $3P in the first place.
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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #48 on: May 10, 2015, 03:05:44 pm »
0

Upon reflection, Storeroom is probably a better enabler for PS than Herbalist; it sifts through your bulky deck to find your PSs and Potion, gives +Buy, and increases your deck size when it's done, giving you some extra coin in the process, making it easier to get $3P in the first place.

While it may be easier to hit $3P with Storeroom than Herbalist, top decking a potion or a Phil Stone is just way, way better than Storeroom's sifting ability. I too belive that Herbalist is just better with Phil Stone.

Maybe someone can show a simulation where this is not the case?
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jomini

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Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #7: Philosopher's Stone
« Reply #49 on: May 12, 2015, 12:30:29 am »
+2

Philosopher's Stone has an inherent problem: It needs a lot of cards in your deck (that you can't play), but this means you'll see your Stones less often. It's a paradoxical card. You can't really rely on it being your main source of income, so you can't really create a deck for it.

Philosopher's Stone is typically something you stumble into buying because you already have a Potion for another card you wanted. It makes for some tactical decisions: Do you buy one more Familiar to win the curse war or get a PS instead, getting a better long term reward?

PS could be much more interesting if it didn't require a Potion, it would have made a decent promo actually, because of the card counting thing. It's just a shame that very few cards can do anything useful with it due to its paradoxical nature. What can deal with a bloated deck in which you need to find particular Treasures? I can only think of Adventurer of the top of my head and Herbalist has its novelty topdecking thing going on.

Pstone's big problem is that it is pretty much solely a source of +coin and all sources of +coin have to compete with Gold and Silver. Unlike with say trashing, there are very few times where what Pstone gives is only possible with Pstone so it has to clear a much higher opportunity cost to be useful.

For instance, Scavenger can fairly reliably cycle Pstone. Open Scav/silver -> buy a pot -> Scav the pot (buy a Pstone) -> (buy Scavs) -> Scav a Pstone. It doesn't take long to get to 25% of your deck being Scavs and hitting Pstone/Scav every turn. The problem is that you need 15 cards in the discard/draw deck to be competitive with a simple gold. With 5 in hand, that is 10 turns into the game to equal gold and 15 to beat it. With gold/silver as benchmarks you need a very quick ramp up to make Scav/Pstone beat Scav/BM.

What can provide that? You can have a sunk potion cost from Familiar. You can have cheap +buy (say from Candlestick maker) to bulk out the deck. You can have something really nice like Traveling fair (extra +buy, no action cost). Junking attacks (add free bulk, make game longer) can make the difference between $3P and $6 a lot more significant. Colonies can let you go longer and have efficient VP for when the Pstone gets strong enough to matter.  Black market can lower the opportunity cost (you can play the Pstone and then continue drawing; this might even make Pstone not totally crappy with Storyteller, but I doubt it). But all this stuff is insufficient on its own, most often you are looking at 3 or 4 card combos here.

As of yet, no card causes Pstone to be drawn more often than gold, and even most of the ways to draw either over other cards just aren't that great (Golem skips both, Venture/Adventurer has to deplete coppers, Sage gets stuck on Pots and Green, and Hunting party/Journeyman end up being not so hot in practice). It rarely benefits from trashing or drawing (as needs a lot of cards to beat Gold); and even sifting does relatively little (8 cards cycled via Storeroom is around the max and that isn't enough to make Pstone beat Silver and hit every turn without a lot of build time).

So we have a card that costs almost as much as gold (and absolutely more than silver), takes a lot to make worth more than gold, and cannot be drawn more frequently than gold  (barring edge cases it is almost universally going to be drawable less often than gold). Why would we ever buy it over gold unless we are already sitting on a Pot for some reason (or on a functional equivalent like Loan/Mine)? Even when we have the pot, how often will it really be competitive with Gold when Gold works so much better with every engine enabler (+cards, trashing, etc.)?

Only a few rare tactical plays come to mind:
1. It stores potion value for later. Want an Apothecary/Golem next turn when you have a Develop? Okay that happens every so often (particularly if you play Base/Alchemy/one other expansion). Mint is a fun mention here as it is one of the few ways to gain Potion value without using a +buy (Mint a Pstone, Remodel it into a Golem, buy something else with your lone buy). Another is Stonemason as already noted. It can also be worth it to pull useful value out of Familiars after curses run out (e.g. Butcher a Familiar to a funny Silver/Gold) or to get Graverob value out of a Transmute (say after you're done killing curses in a University deck with Unis gone from the supply).
2. Fun with top decking late game. It can be worth it to dump a Pstone on deck top with Watchtower, particularly if you can pair it with something synergistic like Storeroom; 6P just might be left over change in an engine when there are no more Universities and with just 27 cards that assures a province next turn. Herald is another option, though you often need to sacrifice a duchy or province to set things up (though with something like Counterfeit it could work once in a long while).
3. Use it as a not-totally-useless-unique card. It does play well with Horn (2 unique cards that don't need +action) in marginal Horn decks and can juice Forager for similar reasons.
4. Juicing mass discard setups. Something like Inn/Cellar/Council Room really can draw the deck and leave a good bit of fodder for Pstone to build value. Other options include things like juicing a mass Madman/Storeroom setup (where each Pstone could be a province in a megaturn) or big Nv discard setup (e.g. Gold/Pot/Nv/Nv/Courtyard/Iw where you can gain a +buy and have an unlimited discarder on the mat).
5. It resists mass Noble Brigand. I've seen once where it paid to go Pstone against Kc/Nbrig. No other +coin (+value), only draw was Pearl diver or something, and heavy trashing. So you either needed Kc/Kc/Nbrig/Nbrig/Gold, or you needed a deck that could stand mass copper & mass treasure stealing.
6. It defends against Smugglers, Knights, and Giant.
7. It is less likely to be Embargoed than Gold.
 

Pstone's ultimate problem is Gold. Gold does most everything Pstone wants to do, better. It is just marginally harder to buy Gold early game and possibly less valuable late game; otherwise pretty much every comparison favors Gold the vast majority of the time.
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