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[-Stef-]

"Dear f.ds, I bought a second haggler and everybody disagreed with me. Was it really wrong?"
      "Yes, buying a second haggler was wrong."
"But I wasn't trying to win the game! I just wanted to play with multiple hagglers in my deck!"
      "Buying a second haggler was certainly the right move."

[AdamH]

Sometimes it can be frustrating to try and get constructive feedback. It takes a thread like this for me to even figure out what people are telling me, at least I'm going through the effort to review my losses and try to get better. At least we got to this point, however silly the way we got here may seem.

If Tournament was a $4 Peddler, I think my Haggler buy would have been correct, but it isn't. After letting this sit for a while, I think this I'm OK letting this go under the category of "Adam is bad with Tournament and the answer is to play more Tournament games, but I'd rather just be bad with Tournament than play Tournament games because I hate the card so much."

[jsh357]

I'm not contesting whether or not the tournament choices were bad, but as I recall you had a pretty high chance of haggler collision, so I was saying bazaar was better based on that.  It seemed pretty cut and dry.  You were going to want bazaars anyway, so getting second haggler later could have worked.

[-Stef-]

If Tournament was a $4 Peddler, I think my Haggler buy would have been correct

I don't. Again, not close.

The only change to this board that makes me like that 2nd Haggler is removing menagerie. With menagerie on the board, the bazaar+smithy thing simply gets outclassed by forager+menagerie.
The forager+menagerie stage requires $3 hands and cycling, not terminals.

Oddly enough, it is the possibility of a late double/triple haggler that makes 'getting your under control' as strong as it is here. If you would remove haggler entirely, the forager+menagerie thing becomes weaker and I would consider going for some more bazaar/smithies earlier.

[iguanaiguana]

Sometimes it can be frustrating to try and get constructive feedback. It takes a thread like this for me to even figure out what people are telling me, at least I'm going through the effort to review my losses and try to get better. At least we got to this point, however silly the way we got here may seem.

If Tournament was a $4 Peddler, I think my Haggler buy would have been correct, but it isn't. After letting this sit for a while, I think this I'm OK letting this go under the category of "Adam is bad with Tournament and the answer is to play more Tournament games, but I'd rather just be bad with Tournament than play Tournament games because I hate the card so much."

It sounds like you are using your dislike for tournament as a crutch. It isnt hard at all to play reasonably well with tournament. Get a few tournaments, find a way to spike an early 8, and collect whatever prizes you think are best for the board asap. If you had had that mindset about the game, you may have played it better instead of the mindset of: i don't like tournament so I'm going to partly ignore its implications for the board.

In another recent game, you saw that black market was really powerful and even though you don't like to use it, you committed wholly to a black market strategy and ended up crushing your opponent. Your play there was a lot more attractive, because you figured out what you needed to do and you did it.

In short, don't let your personal feelings about the cards warp your commitment to pursuing the best strategy on a random board.

[AdamH]

It sounds like you are using your dislike for tournament as a crutch. It isnt hard at all to play reasonably well with tournament. Get a few tournaments, find a way to spike an early 8, and collect whatever prizes you think are best for the board asap. If you had had that mindset about the game, you may have played it better instead of the mindset of: i don't like tournament so I'm going to partly ignore its implications for the board.

I thought the Tournament deck wouldn't be able to get through the Provinces before a Vineyard deck got a billion points. I feel like this is my main strategic shortcoming this game. If I had a better idea for the power level of Tournament I would have known it was good enough. I thought Vineyards would be better. You can call it what you want, maybe "crutch" is the right word in this particular case; if so, then I accept that. I don't think I'm taking a lazy way out here, after all, the whole reason this thread was made is because I take the time to re-watch all of my league matches and read what the chat has to say. I just have no desire to do what it takes to get better in this particular case. It just won't be fun for me.

In another recent game, you saw that black market was really powerful and even though you don't like to use it, you committed wholly to a black market strategy and ended up crushing your opponent. Your play there was a lot more attractive, because you figured out what you needed to do and you did it.

Are you talking about this game? -- I played horribly that game but I still won. If I have to play a game with a card I don't like, I don't think my personal feelings have ever affected my strategic decisions directly. Sure, they make me worse with those cards and I may make poor strategic decisions as a result, but I'm not going to look at a board and say "Black Market is good here, but I don't like it so I'm not going to go for it." Instead I'll say "I hate Black Market. Is it good here? No? Good, I feel better about not going for it."

As for these other claims that the Haggler would still be bad if Tournament wasn't Tournament, man I just straight-up disagree, with full knowledge of who I'm disagreeing with. 1/3 odds of collision is just fine with me in that position, I needed to catch up and I'd do that again in a heartbeat. Yes, Menagerie > Smithy on that board for most of the game but I still think the Haggler is better in that moment. It seems most of my disagreement with Stef is based on when to get the Haggler as opposed to if I want it at all. Man, we're both so confident that we're right and we disagree. Blech. What do you do about this? I just don't want to come across as closed-minded.

[iguanaiguana]

It sounds like you are using your dislike for tournament as a crutch. It isnt hard at all to play reasonably well with tournament. Get a few tournaments, find a way to spike an early 8, and collect whatever prizes you think are best for the board asap. If you had had that mindset about the game, you may have played it better instead of the mindset of: i don't like tournament so I'm going to partly ignore its implications for the board.

I thought the Tournament deck wouldn't be able to get through the Provinces before a Vineyard deck got a billion points. I feel like this is my main strategic shortcoming this game. If I had a better idea for the power level of Tournament I would have known it was good enough. I thought Vineyards would be better. You can call it what you want, maybe "crutch" is the right word in this particular case; if so, then I accept that. I don't think I'm taking a lazy way out here, after all, the whole reason this thread was made is because I take the time to re-watch all of my league matches and read what the chat has to say. I just have no desire to do what it takes to get better in this particular case. It just won't be fun for me.

In another recent game, you saw that black market was really powerful and even though you don't like to use it, you committed wholly to a black market strategy and ended up crushing your opponent. Your play there was a lot more attractive, because you figured out what you needed to do and you did it.

Are you talking about this game? -- I played horribly that game but I still won. If I have to play a game with a card I don't like, I don't think my personal feelings have ever affected my strategic decisions directly. Sure, they make me worse with those cards and I may make poor strategic decisions as a result, but I'm not going to look at a board and say "Black Market is good here, but I don't like it so I'm not going to go for it." Instead I'll say "I hate Black Market. Is it good here? No? Good, I feel better about not going for it."

As for these other claims that the Haggler would still be bad if Tournament wasn't Tournament, man I just straight-up disagree, with full knowledge of who I'm disagreeing with. 1/3 odds of collision is just fine with me in that position, I needed to catch up and I'd do that again in a heartbeat. Yes, Menagerie > Smithy on that board for most of the game but I still think the Haggler is better in that moment. It seems most of my disagreement with Stef is based on when to get the Haggler as opposed to if I want it at all. Man, we're both so confident that we're right and we disagree. Blech. What do you do about this? I just don't want to come across as closed-minded.

I just find it surprising that you could play so well on full random 2 player dominion and then also feel like you are weak with a card as powerful as tournament.

 Maybe if someone had posted a tournament + menagerie entry in your 'neat and potentially useful card interactions' thread, this all could have been avoided 'tournament nonterminally generates unique cards for the deck while discarding duplicates.'

[Titandrake]

No matter what, the best strategy is going to involve getting a Province and colliding it with Tournament ASAP. That lets you pound through Prizes, which are amazing whether you want more Provinces or transition towards Vineyards.

[...]

It's not a Vineyard vs Provinces dichotomy, it's a 1-2 Provinces + Vineyards vs mostly Provinces dichotomy.

Vineyard doesn't require a single minded rush for actions here; getting a Province doesn't require you to go for only Provinces here.

With Haggler on board, Province gives you 1 action for free, so you're not even slowing down your action gains by much. Note that if you buy a $5 with Haggler out you can't gain a free Haggler or Bazaar, so Province-gaining-Haggler or Province-gaining-Bazaar is very, very strong.

Generally, diluting your strategy or doing 2 things at once is a bad idea, but in this scenario side-tracking for 1 turn to gain Province costs you much less than it normally would. Maybe Vineyard is worse than Provinces, I honestly don't know, but even in the Vineyard line I don't think you should take 2nd Haggler that early.

[SCSN]

Sometimes it can be frustrating to try and get constructive feedback.

All feedback one receives is a gift, but instead of expressed gratitude all I see are complaints about the packaging and not receiving exactly what was hoped for.

If Tournament was a $4 Peddler, I think my Haggler buy would have been correct

Bazaar over Haggler has nothing to do with Tournament and everything with getting to the point of exponential growth (drawing your deck each turn) as quickly as possible.

I thought the Tournament deck wouldn't be able to get through the Provinces before a Vineyard deck got a billion points. [...] I thought Vineyards would be better.

It's not a case of either going for Provinces or for Vineyards (and either way the decks you want to build are largely the same), it's about getting your engine up and running, then getting one or two Provinces for prizes and for blocking, then expanding your deck and your gamestate control, and only then make a decision about how you're going to win, which can involve any or all of "getting more Provinces", "getting Vineyards" and "ending it on 3-piles", where you exact choices are going to depend largely on what your opponent is doing.

In general, the main strength of Vineyards (and Fairgrounds) doesn't come from "ZOMG Vineyards", but from it giving you more options, thus favoring the kind of deck that is adaptable and has greater control over the gamestate (i.e. an engine).

Man, we're both so confident that we're right and we disagree. Blech. What do you do about this?

During the replay of a game after one of our post mortes, AI told me something like "nothing you could have said would have convinced me, but replaying it from your position made me see you were right at once". Or if you're more into the classics I'll cite Sophocles: "Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial."

Do with that what you want.

[Seprix]

Reading this thread has been incredibly insightful for me, and I hope everyone reading this thread can take as much from this thread as I have.

Firstly, No one playing loads of Dominion is ever infallible. The more games a player plays, the more likely she is to not make mistakes. However, there will always be that chance of a mistake, and as she plays tougher and tougher opponents, the choices and actions taken become more and more subtle but just as (if not more) important to make and do correctly. I think everyone needs to realize that they can be wrong, and be open to correction. There's nothing wrong with being incorrect sometimes, or even all the time.

Secondly, and what naturally follows from the first insight, is that gleaning knowledge of the game never stops. As a direct result, I must take all criticism with utmost sincerity, and bring it into my next game where it is relevant. An example of this is the list of priorities, where I had always thought of 'Doing A, B...', and then 'Y' follows. My mind has been opened, much as it has been multiple times as I have played Dominion, and now I will think more about the natural flow of the game, and not as much about logical lists. Another example would be the concept of cycling discussed by Rubby.

Thirdly, again flowing directly from the second point, there is such an important element of Dominion that I have found that is vastly unappreciated. This element is the ability to take the game, and how you think about it having direct effects on your play. If Player Donald thinks Dominion is a game of luck, that's how Donald will approach the game when you win and lose. Following this train of thought, if you 'hate' a certain strategy, you'll be more apt to ignore it, even if it is the best play.