Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!  (Read 4949 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Elanchana

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 697
  • Princess of Derpminion
  • Respect: +1013
    • View Profile
WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« on: May 10, 2015, 10:19:48 pm »
+3

I played Svenisntb today, whose rating was a bit out of my comfort zone but I thought I was up for the challenge. These two games happened.

Game 1 (log)



Code: [Select]
Candlestick Maker, Fool's Gold, Apothecary, Procession, Spy, Trader, Baker, Margrave, Rabble, Forge
I don't understand how I did so badly in this game. We both opened Margrave/Fool's Gold, and even got a 5/2 so I could save my Baker token. The Fool's Gold split was even. I got a Trader (which is the only possible mistake I can see - it seemed like a good idea at the time because fewer Coppers meant more FG plays) and a couple of Spies (which are nonterminal, cantrips, AND directed draw) while he got more Margraves than me (because I wanted to err on the cautious side of the terminal count) and Silvers (which is just what??? I don't see how Silver is useful in a FG game and they only made a difference twice). And yet I seemed to never see my Fool's Golds while he looked like he was playing his every turn. So... cycling? Trashing addiction? I really just want to say I got screwed by bad shuffle luck but f.ds might have more to add.


Game 2 (log)



Code: [Select]
Moat, Urchin, Gardens, Horse Traders, Militia, Scavenger, Silk Road, Wandering Minstrel, Mint, Prince
I'm proud to say I pulled it back in this game. With no reliable draw and two sources of slog-friendly alt-VP on the board I decided to forego any thought of an engine and start by rushing Gardens. Svenisntb didn't seem to get that memo. Not only did I successfully apply the Stef Rule (make your opponent struggle to empty the entire Province pile) but I finally got to see how discard attacks aren't that effective against slogs and even block them with Horse Traders. Patience won out and I ended with 4-point Gardens, 6-point Silk Roads, and a smile. Would there have been a way for him to beat my slog?
« Last Edit: May 10, 2015, 10:21:00 pm by Elanchana »
Logged
Sure it's just a game. The same way that your best friend in the whole world is "just a friend".

TwitchYouTubeMusic

!!CHANGED MY USERNAME ON 2.0!!

liopoil

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2587
  • Respect: +2479
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2015, 10:28:21 pm »
0

In the first game, Trader is definitely no good. It is just so slow for copper trashing and as you said, silver is bad. You definitely want at least a second Margrave for sure, and baker over spies easily, even if you have to spend a coin token to get there. You might hit $4 with no coin tokens, but then and only then is a spy okay. Hmm maybe a rabble over the second margrave would be better, but regardless you want at least two terminal draw cards, probably 3 eventually.
Logged

Hyphen-ated

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 57
  • Respect: +49
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2015, 02:07:36 am »
+1

I got [...] a couple of Spies
It was seven spies. That's a lot of spies. Spy is not very good.
Here's my advice (of questionable quality):
Trader was definitely bad. You only even used it once.
On turn 6 you bought the last FG and a spy with 9. I think that spy should have been a gold, baker, or margrave
On turn 10 you bought province-spy with 13. I think that spy should have been baker or duchy
On turn 11 you spent a coin token to get to 4 for a spy. I think that should have been nothing or silver
On turns 12 and 13 you bought a spy with 7. I think those should have been gold or duchies (only 4 provinces left at this point)
On turn 14 you bought a spy with 5. i would have duchied
Logged

pubby

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 548
  • Respect: +1046
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2015, 02:11:43 am »
0

Quote
I don't see how Silver is useful in a FG game
It's useful in terminal draw big money. Gold even more so. Turns 5 and 6 you had the chance to buy golds but instead bought crappy $4 cards. That's a huge mistake in my eyes, and it likely cost you the game.
Logged

Awaclus

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11809
  • Shuffle iT Username: Awaclus
  • (´。• ω •。`)
  • Respect: +12847
    • View Profile
    • Birds of Necama
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2015, 03:41:07 am »
0

When you're playing terminal draw big money, you usually don't want any Action cards other than the terminal draw. Certainly not 9.
Logged
Bomb, Cannon, and many of the Gunpowder cards can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way

The YouTube channel where I make musicDownload my band's Creative Commons albums for free

Chris is me

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2745
  • Shuffle iT Username: Chris is me
  • What do you want me to say?
  • Respect: +3457
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2015, 05:18:23 pm »
+1

I think this will probably rehash earlier points, but here's my thoughts:

Game 1:
T5: I have no idea why you bought Trader here. If there are Fools Golds on the pile and you're trying to win the split, you should really only buy cards that give you a future advantage in buying Fool's Golds (such as Margrave or Nomad Camp.)

T6 (and several others): Spy is really not that good in general, and specifically here it doesn't synergize very well with terminal draw at all. You were afraid of a second Margrave, but dead drawing a Spy with Margrave is about as bad as dead drawing your second Margrave.

T6 (specifically): With $7 left for your remaining Buy, you had a number of good options. Gold is more valuable than you give it credit for even in a Fool's Gold game. Think about it: A hand of three Golds and a hand of three Fool's Golds have the exact same value. Even the hand of 2 Gold and 1 FG is just barely worse than a hand of 2 FG and one Gold. No shame in picking that up. Alternatively, you could grab a Margrave here. With 16 cards in your deck, collision isn't a huge concern, and the more frequent +Buy and attack make up for the occasional collision. If you collide with Trader, you can always just use your second Buy to gain a Silver instead.

T12: By now your deck has 11 Treasures (and only 5 of them worth anything, though you only get the benefit of four of them) and 23 cards total. Margrave really starts to lose value here. This is why your opponent kept buying Money; in the absence of really strong engine potential, you're going to want to sustain your money density, and just Fool's Gold isn't good enough for that. It's true that you're diluting your Fool's Golds a bit by doing this, but the Fool's Golds themselves can enable purchases of Gold (or you can use the Reaction if you have one FG and a Margrave, etc in your hand). You basically didn't commit to terminal draw hard enough. You can have a few Actions, but you can't reliably count on cantrips at all.

So basically, buy Gold and Silver over cantrips in terminal draw big money. Also, Spy's pretty bad.

=====

Game 2:

Overall, I think it would have been better to go for Silk Road first. To get 4 point Silk Roads, you need to get 13 more Victory cards on top of your starting 3 Estates. This is actually a lot easier than getting 30 more cards to get Gardens to 4 points, and once you saw your opponent go for Mercenary on the first shuffle, you could have seen his deck was less well equipped to contest Gardens then to contest Silk Road.

T3: I actually would have gone Gold / Copper (or with Silk Road, Gold / nothing here), for one simple reason: Gold / Copper is far better to have than Silver / Silver in the presence of discard attacks.

T5: I agree with your buy of Horse Traders on 6 here. You really want at least two as soon as you can and you didn't have many great opportunities prior. Horse Traders is a fairly soft terminal that tolerates collision well.

T7: I think I would have gained one more Horse Traders before starting the rush / slog, but clearly you had some time on your hands. Remember that in the event of terminal collision, you can still use both Reactions, and the HT is a good target for the other HT discard. You can see it's evidently clear that your opponent has no intention of contesting Gardens at this point, and even if they did there's another pile for you to get VP from, so I would have spent a little longer building. You end up buying another HT on Turn 9 anyway.

Overall I think you made mostly the right calls here - the threat of Prince Militia here makes an alt-VP strategy your most effective counter-attack. I would have just bought a few more Horse Traders, gone Silk Road first, and then Gardens to end the rush.
Logged
Twitch channel: http://www.twitch.tv/chrisisme2791

bug me on discord

pm me if you wanna do stuff for the blog

they/them

Awaclus

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11809
  • Shuffle iT Username: Awaclus
  • (´。• ω •。`)
  • Respect: +12847
    • View Profile
    • Birds of Necama
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2015, 05:25:46 pm »
+1

Even the hand of 2 Gold and 1 FG is just barely worse than a hand of 2 FG and one Gold.

$7 is more than "just barely" worse than $8. The difference between $5 and $7 is often a lot smaller than the difference between $7 and $8. The reason why you do want Gold is that 2 FG and one Gold is exactly $8; the Gold is essentially functioning as an additional Fool's Gold for the purpose of buying Provinces as long as you have only one of them (and you want more than one in your deck to draw one in your hand more often).
« Last Edit: May 11, 2015, 05:27:18 pm by Awaclus »
Logged
Bomb, Cannon, and many of the Gunpowder cards can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way

The YouTube channel where I make musicDownload my band's Creative Commons albums for free

JW

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 968
  • Shuffle iT Username: JW
  • Respect: +1781
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2015, 05:36:39 pm »
0

Code: [Select]
Moat, Urchin, Gardens, Horse Traders, Militia, Scavenger, Silk Road, Wandering Minstrel, Mint, Prince
I'm proud to say I pulled it back in this game. With no reliable draw and two sources of slog-friendly alt-VP on the board I decided to forego any thought of an engine and start by rushing Gardens. Svenisntb didn't seem to get that memo.

On turn 9 your opponent resigns buys a Province. If you want to get Urchin and trash down, against the slog you need to get Prince (ideally of Wandering Minstrel or Moat) and get a Horse Traders and only start to buy Provinces once your deck is able to buy at least Province + engine piece consistently. In comparison, your opponent never even bought Horse Traders.
Logged

Elanchana

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 697
  • Princess of Derpminion
  • Respect: +1013
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2015, 06:11:03 pm »
0

All points about game 1 are embarrassingly valid. I was considering the game a FG rush insread of terminal draw BM.
Logged
Sure it's just a game. The same way that your best friend in the whole world is "just a friend".

TwitchYouTubeMusic

!!CHANGED MY USERNAME ON 2.0!!

dondon151

  • 2012 US Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2522
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #9 on: May 11, 2015, 11:06:49 pm »
+2

All points about game 1 are embarrassingly valid. I was considering the game a FG rush insread of terminal draw BM.

Many games with FG are FG rushes. There's no dichotomy that says that FG rushes can't also be terminal draw BM. FG rushes are actually somewhat likely to be terminal draw BM because FG is a money-centric strategy. I think this is a habit that players fall into when they like to categorize decks: they forget about the actual card interactions.

For game 2 I would normally solitaire to experiment, but I don't have Prince. Given that slog has zero support outside of HT, I'm inclined to think that an engine can beat it. A princed Moat is the equivalent of 2 Labs.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2015, 11:16:18 pm by dondon151 »
Logged

Awaclus

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11809
  • Shuffle iT Username: Awaclus
  • (´。• ω •。`)
  • Respect: +12847
    • View Profile
    • Birds of Necama
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #10 on: May 12, 2015, 01:46:13 am »
0

All points about game 1 are embarrassingly valid. I was considering the game a FG rush insread of terminal draw BM.

FG strategies aren't rushes, they are big money. If you put terminal draw in them, they are terminal draw BM.
Logged
Bomb, Cannon, and many of the Gunpowder cards can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way

The YouTube channel where I make musicDownload my band's Creative Commons albums for free

Chris is me

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2745
  • Shuffle iT Username: Chris is me
  • What do you want me to say?
  • Respect: +3457
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2015, 10:38:23 am »
0

All points about game 1 are embarrassingly valid. I was considering the game a FG rush insread of terminal draw BM.

The most pedantic-est way to put it would be to say that there was a rush for the Fool's Gold pile in order to quickly improve your terminal draw BM money density. If the game itself was a rush, you'd generally be going for three piles, though that doesn't usually work for FG.
Logged
Twitch channel: http://www.twitch.tv/chrisisme2791

bug me on discord

pm me if you wanna do stuff for the blog

they/them

svenisntb

  • Chancellor
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 23
  • Respect: +18
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2015, 02:29:28 pm »
+1

These were great games!

The first has received thorough attention. Spies were bad because they can be drawn dead.

The second game was fascinating though. I just recently got Prince and this was the very first game I played with it. On turn 9 I simply had forgotten that it was an option. I think I may have have won if I had gotten the Prince there, as it was I didn't get it until the next reshuffle. I possibly should have purchased 2 Princes before switching to Provinces, just to get the consistency I needed to empty all 8 provinces without stalling.
Logged
I learned everything I know watching Wandering Winder on Youtube. This is not a joke.

Elanchana

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 697
  • Princess of Derpminion
  • Respect: +1013
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #13 on: May 12, 2015, 02:33:16 pm »
0

These were great games!

The first has received thorough attention. Spies were bad because they can be drawn dead.

The second game was fascinating though. I just recently got Prince and this was the very first game I played with it. On turn 9 I simply had forgotten that it was an option. I think I may have have won if I had gotten the Prince there, as it was I didn't get it until the next reshuffle. I possibly should have purchased 2 Princes before switching to Provinces, just to get the consistency I needed to empty all 8 provinces without stalling.

So you ARE on f.ds! Thanks for stopping by! :D

Yeah Prince takes a little getting used to, and you always have to consider your Prince-able options really carefully before buying it over Province. I was holding my breath that you wouldn't Prince a Militia because that would have made it a hundred times harder for me to keep my lead.
Logged
Sure it's just a game. The same way that your best friend in the whole world is "just a friend".

TwitchYouTubeMusic

!!CHANGED MY USERNAME ON 2.0!!

swedenman

  • Young Witch
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 148
  • Respect: +118
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #14 on: May 12, 2015, 03:37:52 pm »
+3

All points about game 1 are embarrassingly valid. I was considering the game a FG rush insread of terminal draw BM.

FG strategies aren't rushes, they are big money. If you put terminal draw in them, they are terminal draw BM.

Actually I'm pretty sure it's a Fool's Gold/Margrave combo deck ;)
« Last Edit: May 12, 2015, 03:41:53 pm by swedenman »
Logged

svenisntb

  • Chancellor
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 23
  • Respect: +18
    • View Profile
Re: WTFool's Gold and the Stef Rule holds true AGAIN!
« Reply #15 on: May 13, 2015, 01:09:31 am »
0


So you ARE on f.ds! Thanks for stopping by! :D

Yeah Prince takes a little getting used to, and you always have to consider your Prince-able options really carefully before buying it over Province. I was holding my breath that you wouldn't Prince a Militia because that would have made it a hundred times harder for me to keep my lead.

Yes, I am on f.ds, usually as a lurker, but occasionally I come out of the shadows. ;)

I had the choice between Militia and Scavenger, but while Militia would have hurt you the Scavenger was the only reason the game stayed close in my opinion. I was able to top deck whatever I wanted at the start of every turn. Most turns I had at least 1 WM in hand and so I could add whatever I needed to my hand.

We could rematch this board, see how getting a Prince first works out, and if there is time to get 2 Princes in play. Also I do think getting Silk Road first over Gardens would help the slog player quite a bit.
Logged
I learned everything I know watching Wandering Winder on Youtube. This is not a joke.
Pages: [1]
 

Page created in 0.078 seconds with 21 queries.