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Author Topic: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)  (Read 49984 times)

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funkdoc

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funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« on: July 02, 2015, 07:31:43 pm »
+2

hi all, figured this would be a good move since i signed up for the dominion league!

so i've been playing online for a bit under a month and am hanging around 4600-4700 and iso level 23-24 atm.  seems like a good start but i'm still missing a lot of general concepts...

LINKS TO GAME REPORTS/VIDEOS OUTSIDE THE OP:

Dominion League S09 vs. gkrieg (video)

i can't always grab logs when i post questions, and this is such a case.  i remember the important stuff on the board though, so here's the deal with a game from this morning:


so the relevant cards on this board (province/estates game) were plaza, tournament, young witch (w/ cellar as the bane), governor, and king's court.  my thought process here was as follows -

- ENGINE ENGINE ENGINE

- without much early draw (figure you'd want to do other things with governor) and only governor for trashing, i figured cellar would be important even if it weren't the bane.  with that, i didn't think young witch would be worth it since it seemed like you'd have a deck loaded with cantrips to get drawn dead.

- i didn't want any silver or gold at all.  this seemed like a game where you wanted to sift through your coppers to trigger the big stuff.  the opponent's governors would probably give me some silver anyway.

- tournament is its usual self, since you want cantrips & virtual money anyway.  princess is the only +buy and trusty steed/followers are the only handsize increasers without king's court, soooooooo

- plazas should still be good even without early terminals since you can stockpile tokens for king's courts etc., and governor + king's court = mmmmmmmm. governor can also turn estates into engine pieces, which i figure is more important than gaining gold early.

- peddler is also on the board, but with no +buy besides princess...eh


so, long story short, i make a huge mistake opening plaza (forgot tournament was on the board for a second).  cellar is my other opening buy (opponent bought young witch on turn 1).  i stick to the basic idea outlined above, getting a governor at $5 and the first king's court via tokens.  however, my opponent gets a bunch of silver and gold and grabs 2 provinces pretty quickly.  my economy & cycling suffer greatly from getting my tournaments blocked, i have a few curses in my deck from young witch & followers, and they get all of the good prizes before i'm anywhere near a province.  i ended up resigning for like the 2nd time ever (still feels weird to me coming from games where quitting early is a huge no-no).

i'm guessing i had to get young witch even with the bane being a valuable card...the draw would've helped more than it hurt, it seems.  and i guess tournament meant i had to get early gold?  feels wrong to me in the long run but i guess racing for the prizes is more important than smoothing things out for your king's court turns...

thank in advance for any suggestions! =)
« Last Edit: July 12, 2015, 02:41:40 pm by funkdoc »
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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #1 on: July 02, 2015, 08:22:11 pm »
+2

so the relevant cards on this board (province/estates game) were plaza, tournament, young witch (w/ cellar as the bane), governor, and king's court.  my thought process here was as follows -



Code: [Select]
Cellar, Masterpiece, Woodcutter, Plaza, Scavenger, Spy, Tournament, Young Witch, Governor, King's Court, Peddler
You can look up logs on http://gokosalvager.com/. Cellar is not a sufficiently good bane to skip opening Young Witch here, as it's not good to have multiple Cellars early on.
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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #2 on: July 02, 2015, 08:39:17 pm »
+2

Can a Governor engine beat KC/Scavenger here? I think it can, but it's got to be pretty close.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #3 on: July 02, 2015, 10:02:13 pm »
0

the issue is that i'm not always posting from home or on a PC, so i'm not necessarily in a position to do anything beyond just type stuff.  i will definitely get logs when i can though!

anyway, thank you for doing the work for me.  how the heck did i not remember/notice scavenger...that would be a pretty big deal here as i think about it more.  and i guess there was another +buy, but not one i see mattering with how bloated the decks will be.  i think i just blinded myself to any and all stop cards besides king's court if that counts.

also, what exactly do you mean by "governor engine"?  just focusing on getting lots of them and building to the remodel megaturn?  i've generally just done that treating governor as its own separate thing - not clear on how to work that into a wider engine.

JW: yep, one of my most common weaknesses at this point is thinking i can ignore junking attacks when i really can't.  young witch is the worst for me because i'm often not sure what to make of banes that are decently useful in themselves.  another big situation for me is when something like junk dealer or upgrade is in the game and i think i can outpace the junk...i guess you still want to junk to slow them down, huh?

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #4 on: July 02, 2015, 10:35:00 pm »
+1

funkdoc, I hope you have better luck getting to 5000 than I've had. That number is like a brick wall for me.
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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #5 on: July 02, 2015, 11:04:28 pm »
+1

also, what exactly do you mean by "governor engine"?  just focusing on getting lots of them and building to the remodel megaturn?  i've generally just done that treating governor as its own separate thing - not clear on how to work that into a wider engine.
Buy lots of Governors and King's Courts and remodel stuff into Provinces.

Quote
JW: yep, one of my most common weaknesses at this point is thinking i can ignore junking attacks when i really can't.  young witch is the worst for me because i'm often not sure what to make of banes that are decently useful in themselves.  another big situation for me is when something like junk dealer or upgrade is in the game and i think i can outpace the junk...i guess you still want to junk to slow them down, huh?

The bane isn't usually a huge deal. If it's a card that you wouldn't normally want, you still probably don't want it even though it's the bane.

You can sometimes outpace the junk, but only if you can remove cards from your deck faster than your opponent can add more. For that, you need to be playing your trashers more often than he plays his junkers, and for that, you need a thinner deck to begin with. If you don't manage to trash down faster than your opponent, you can't really outpace the junk unless your trasher trashes more than one card per play or it's good enough that you want a lot of copies of it. It's worth taking into account that with trashers that trash from your hand, you need to draw the junk before you can trash it, so if you trash a card every shuffle and get a junk card every shuffle, the junk still hurts you while handing it out doesn't hurt your opponent.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2015, 02:40:24 pm »
+1

this thread's been due for an update (i'll edit the OP with links to specific reports/videos) and my first league match is a pretty good occasion for that!

i got crushed here 5-1.  4-1 in actual games played, but gkrieg had to leave and i just forfeited the last game because w/e, they earned it.  i was even 3-2 in getting first player, lol

video link is here: http://www.twitch.tv/srkfunkdoc/v/7447238 (note that i still feel weird about resigning so there's a lot of dragging things out long after i'm dead.)

logs are as follows...

Game 1: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150712/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1436721937127.txt
Game 2: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150712/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1436722662347.txt
Game 3: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150712/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1436723056372.txt
Game 4: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150712/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1436723837905.txt
Game 5: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150712/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1436724611562.txt


my own thoughts: main thing that stands out to me here is not getting followers in the second tournament game.  the estate flooding always scares me if i can get it early, but that's probably wrong with no way to trash curses.  i also forget that you can tell if your opponent blocked your tournament before you get the prize, so i majorly screwed up one turn thinking i could draw princess with a bunch of money when i couldn't.

the one big money-ish game w/ familiar i lost, it felt like terrible luck getting a bunch of $7 hands in a row.  but maybe that was because i didn't focus enough on familiar...?  i think i couldn't get a second one until it was already time to green, but memory could be off.  also in general w/ BM games, i probably often buy gold when i should be buying duchies.  and i'm not sure about opening trading post vs. potion on 5/2...i absolutely love the trading post open if it's going to be a money game, and figured a thinner deck would help me deal with familiar better.  the latter part didn't work at all here, as i forget if i was ever able to trash *any* curses.

the two games where i drowned in curses early *felt* like shuffle luck to me, especially the last one with that early king's court->hag.  but i wasn't positive on the opening in the last game.  felt like hag was just too important with zero trashing, and hunting party doesn't do a whole lot on the second shuffle? dunno


thanks in advance for any advice!
« Last Edit: July 12, 2015, 09:06:04 pm by funkdoc »
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gkrieg13

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2015, 06:58:47 pm »
+1

I think the kings court sea hag was extremely lucky for me in that last game. I was surprised when you took princess instead of trusty steed.
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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2015, 08:05:00 pm »
+1

Hi,

I didn't watch the whole stream but I tried to watch the games mentioned and want to add some of my thoughts on them.

my own thoughts: main thing that stands out to me here is not getting followers in the second tournament game.  the estate flooding always scares me if i can get it early, but that's probably wrong with no way to trash curses.  i also forget that you can tell if your opponent blocked your tournament before you get the prize, so i majorly screwed up one turn thinking i could draw princess with a bunch of money when i couldn't.
It's not just the curses, it's also the discard attack that slows your opponent down by a lot. So yeah, here are some nice defenses with Menagerie and also just a duration Wharf which helps a lot against the attack. Though, it looks like Trusty Steed would have helped a lot because it's the only Village in the game. And the only thing that's better than one Wharf in play is two Wharves in play. So, I think it's between Steed and Followers there and it's not entirely clear to me, but I think I would have taken Steed there.
I have to say, that it may well be that you would have been well off if you could just have played the Princess to gain another Province...
However: You shouldn't worry to much about you getting junked. Your opponent gets junked as well, has to discard, and also it's a +2 VP gain whenever you play Followers.
Another thing I've noticed: It seems like you tend to value Bag of Gold over Diadem, which you really shouldn't. I know I did the same when I've started to go deeper with Dominion, but Diadem is just better most of the time.

the one big money-ish game w/ familiar i lost, it felt like terrible luck getting a bunch of $7 hands in a row.  but maybe that was because i didn't focus enough on familiar...?  i think i couldn't get a second one until it was already time to green, but memory could be off.  also in general w/ BM games, i probably often buy gold when i should be buying duchies.  and i'm not sure about opening trading post vs. potion on 5/2...i absolutely love the trading post open if it's going to be a money game, and figured a thinner deck would help me deal with familiar better.  the latter part didn't work at all here, as i forget if i was ever able to trash *any* curses.
For your plan, I think I agree with opening Trading Post/Courtyard. Trading Post gets a lot worse the later you gain it. So it's a nice opening and okay after the first shuffle, but it rarely pays off getting it later.
What neither of you considered is Embassy-Tunnel which is really strong and it I think it should be able to outrace Familiar.
On your 9P hand you should have considered Stonemason -> 2x Familiar, again it's uncertain. I think you should have taken the Familiars, though. Your opponent took a single Familiar for on 5P next turn which seems like a clear mistake.
Later you bought a Courtyard for 5. Courtyard is nice, but Embassy is on the board and it's so so much better.

the two games where i drowned in curses early *felt* like shuffle luck to me, especially the last one with that early king's court->hag.  but i wasn't positive on the opening in the last game.  felt like hag was just too important with zero trashing, and hunting party doesn't do a whole lot on the second shuffle? dunno
I agree with your opening here. Turn 3 should just be a Hunting Party. Doesn't do a whole lot? How about winning the Curse split, or at least getting ahead ;)? In your deck at that point it would just find your Hag, so I think that's pretty nice by itself. The turn after you got yourself a Quarry, I think that's something nice to find with your Hunting Party as well? Later you talk about cycling with Ironmongers. Well, HP is the King of cycling ;).
You're also a bit unlucky that you don't hit 7 with your first Quarry play and your opponent does. And him hitting KC+Hag is really the beginning of the end.

I think the kings court sea hag was extremely lucky for me in that last game. I was surprised when you took princess instead of trusty steed.
Well, it's somewhat lucky. But having KC and Hag severly increases chances to colliding them compared to not having a KC in your deck ;)
« Last Edit: July 13, 2015, 10:16:35 am by assemble_me »
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2015, 08:40:24 pm »
+1

Just so you know, I feel much more inclined to look at games if logs are included in the posts rather than just video. But obviously, include whatever you feel like.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2015, 08:51:51 pm »
0

SIDENOTE: to anyone who watched the beginning and heard me say tournament is the best $4, i forgot about remake and that's the answer obv.  so don't blow me up over that one ok!!!

assemble_me: wow, thank you so much!  i kinda rushed this post because i had stuff to do today, so i didn't expect people to watch with the lack of timestamps.  anyway, i tend not to consider tunnel strats a lot because so often they just seem to be a trap for newer players.  i had never heard of embassy-tunnel as a thing but it makes a lot of sense as i think about it.  i'm really afraid of ignoring junking attacks with big money as i always seem to get killed whenever i try that, but i guess embassy *is* a BM monster so i could see this for sure.

also re: the courtyard instead of embassy at $5 later in the game, that's me playing scared again.  didn't want to draw my actions dead, went for the one that can topdeck those actions, forgot that's not such a huge deal with embassy.  same reason i shied away from wharf early in that tournament game...had 3 tournaments in my deck real early and didn't want to draw stuff dead with early province being so crucial.  it sounds silly to me now as i think about it, since the duration bit is the bigger reason you want wharf...

also really appreciate the hunting party advice!  it's very hard for me to understand the proper value of cards that cycle through tons of stuff early.  fortune teller gives me problems for the same reason - got crushed once by someone skipping my familiar every single shuffle with it.  as for why i didn't get a HP on second shuffle, i was too focused on king's court and the most obvious way to get there without thinking about how a HP that early would help me.


finally, a bit more of a general question that arose in these games: so early on, i tend to regard tournament as more or less a silver with better cycling.  i never buy a silver over a tournament until i have 3 or so.  what i notice is that i consistently tend to be the second one to get a province.  maybe more silver gives a better chance of that one gold turn you generally need to get that one province turn?  if there's terminal draw that also makes 3+ tournaments dicey that early, it seems.

i am also woefully inexperienced in playing wharf on boards that lack villages but aren't generic big-money stuff either.  like if you have some other nice action card(s) early, it's hard for me to picture a good balance with wharves.  that's why i didn't get a wharf ASAP in that tournament game when i probably should have - too scared of drawing my 3 tournaments dead.  seems like exchanging one of those tournaments for a silver would have solved a lot of those issues?


again, much appreciated! and gkrieg, great games and congrats once again!

funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #11 on: July 12, 2015, 08:52:57 pm »
0

Just so you know, I feel much more inclined to look at games if logs are included in the posts rather than just video. But obviously, include whatever you feel like.

yea, as mentioned in my newest reply that post was a bit of a rush job out of necessity.  edited in logs now~
« Last Edit: July 12, 2015, 09:06:33 pm by funkdoc »
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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #12 on: July 13, 2015, 05:17:16 am »
+1

also re: the courtyard instead of embassy at $5 later in the game, that's me playing scared again.  didn't want to draw my actions dead, went for the one that can topdeck those actions, forgot that's not such a huge deal with embassy.  same reason i shied away from wharf early in that tournament game...had 3 tournaments in my deck real early and didn't want to draw stuff dead with early province being so crucial.  it sounds silly to me now as i think about it, since the duration bit is the bigger reason you want wharf...
I worry a lot about adding terminal draw to a Tournament-BM deck as well. But it's more the case with cards like Smithy or maybe Oracle. Wharf is so good, I guess I wouldn't worry about it unless I had like 3 Wharves in my deck already. On the one hand you'll draw Tournaments dead. On the other hand duration Wharves will help colliding. I guess 3 is a good number of Tournaments in that deck, too.

finally, a bit more of a general question that arose in these games: so early on, i tend to regard tournament as more or less a silver with better cycling.  i never buy a silver over a tournament until i have 3 or so.  what i notice is that i consistently tend to be the second one to get a province.  maybe more silver gives a better chance of that one gold turn you generally need to get that one province turn?  if there's terminal draw that also makes 3+ tournaments dicey that early, it seems.
I've never thought about a rule of a thumb for adding Tournaments to a deck. I guess I usually end up with 3 or 4 in BM kind of games.
I don't really think about Tournament as a Silver. It's a Peddler, Peddlers are better than Silver, yes (unless your deck is like only green, Curses and Ruins otherwise). I don't think Silver increases your chances of hitting 8$ more than a Tournament unless your opponent already has a Province. So unless your opponent has a Province and you don't, Tournament's just better.
This is probably more important than simply the number of Tournaments in your deck: Does your opponent already have a Province? Are there Prices you want to get left?

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DG

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #13 on: July 13, 2015, 10:20:49 am »
+1

Game 2 - You get bad draws here but I think you still would have done better with oasis/familiar/taxman/menagerie rather than buying silvers, gold, and catacombs.
Game 3 - Open trading post here and then look for familiars and the stonemason buys. I think the decision on whether to buy the courtyard is actually quite difficult, since if you do add a lot of familiars and a stonemason, maybe treasuries as well, then the courtyard is always going to get congested and push an action card back to your next turn.
Game4 - You seem to go off the plan at about turn 11.  Get the third wharf, followers the next turn, and get ready for a messy endgame with an eye on some late duchy/duke scoring.
Game 5 - On turn 4 here you need to buy a hunting party not an ironmonger. The game is lost for you quite soon after that though. At some stage you did need to add some treasure to your deck, or even a bureaucrat, so that you weren't just drawing and discarding coppers/curses/estates with all your drawing cards.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #14 on: July 13, 2015, 09:58:36 pm »
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assemble_me: thank you, that helps a lot.  3 wharves would've sounded nutty to me but i sorta figured out by the end of that game that it might not be that bad!

DG: it still amazes me that players on your level take so much time to help out us randoms, but i come from communities where the top players almost all keep to themselves.  definitely enjoying it here!

Game 2 - You get bad draws here but I think you still would have done better with oasis/familiar/taxman/menagerie rather than buying silvers, gold, and catacombs.

ok, this is the most interesting part of your reply to me.  taxman was completely off my radar because it's always seemed slow and generally terrible to me, a la mine.

are you suggesting taxman to upgrade money without adding more cards, thereby getting more out of familiars?  that was my first thought upon reading that.  then i remembered that this game had vineyards - are you saying to go for those over provinces?  i tend not to see how vineyards can reach that level without a true engine, but there *are* plenty of cantrips+ here so i can see how that would make sense.  feels like you would need an extra potion in your deck though, no?

my reading of this as a money game was also why i didn't go harder for menageries, as you could probably tell.  seems this board is more interesting than i gave it credit for!

Quote
Game 3 - Open trading post here and then look for familiars and the stonemason buys. I think the decision on whether to buy the courtyard is actually quite difficult, since if you do add a lot of familiars and a stonemason, maybe treasuries as well, then the courtyard is always going to get congested and push an action card back to your next turn.

with engine potential lacking, i didn't see a lot of good stonemason buys.  $5P is the obvious one, but other than that...2x treasury is about all that seems reasonable to me, and that doesn't seem better than a gold with the way this board plays?  could well be wrong!

but looking back through the log of this one, how the heck did i not see i had $5P with stonemason on turn 5?  i always forget about it working with potion cards since so many other things don't, and that may well have killed me here.

Quote
Game4 - You seem to go off the plan at about turn 11.  Get the third wharf, followers the next turn, and get ready for a messy endgame with an eye on some late duchy/duke scoring.

i didn't really have a plan, tbh.  hence all the discussion with assemble_me on working wharf into cantrip-heavy decks.

i think what scared me with followers was that my opponent had more money than i did.  i figured i was never getting a province again if i went that route, while they might still be able to spike one.  but maybe going slog hurts the value of gold?  i mean regardless, followers was a monster here and i was an idiot for not grabbing it when i had the chance.

Quote
Game 5 - On turn 4 here you need to buy a hunting party not an ironmonger. The game is lost for you quite soon after that though. At some stage you did need to add some treasure to your deck, or even a bureaucrat, so that you weren't just drawing and discarding coppers/curses/estates with all your drawing cards.

i just wasn't sure how many decent cards i needed in my deck for hunting party to be worth it that early.  2 is enough though, eh?

another factor here was that i always think hunting party fishes for *two* unique cards instead of just one, for some reason.  maybe it's the initial cantrip bit that confuses me, or the other similar cards that grab 2 (adventurer, golem).

and i should've just resigned once things got out of hand, because i stopped caring about things like having money in my deck.


again, thank you very much!

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #15 on: July 14, 2015, 09:17:46 am »
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ok, this is the most interesting part of your reply to me.  taxman was completely off my radar because it's always seemed slow and generally terrible to me, a la mine.

are you suggesting taxman to upgrade money without adding more cards, thereby getting more out of familiars?  that was my first thought upon reading that.  then i remembered that this game had vineyards - are you saying to go for those over provinces?  i tend not to see how vineyards can reach that level without a true engine, but there *are* plenty of cantrips+ here so i can see how that would make sense.  feels like you would need an extra potion in your deck though, no?

That game is quite complicated. It has a first stage, with familiars, and the game can be won and lost there. After that the curses will empty, cities will look good, and there's the prospect of getting a big goons finish with extra buys from cities. If you buy action cards like menagerie and oasis, as opposed to treasure, then you'll be able to make more from a cities/goons thing in the endgame. Improving the vineyards total is a nice bonus. The major complication is that the three pile ending might arrive before decks are ready to score but lets not go into that.

In that sort of deck, a taxman will theoretically let you buy cheap action (drawing) cards each turn while improving your income from the seven treasures already in your deck. In the endgame, the deck will draw without being clogged up by extra treasure cards. The taxman itself has a lot of pros and cons so it might not work out.
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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #16 on: July 14, 2015, 05:14:08 pm »
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alright, something else that's been bugging me.  just a general issue since this is my late lunch break at work here...

i don't "get" bishop.  like, at all.  i played a game this morning where i crushed the scrying pool & grand market splits but was dangerously close to losing thanks to all of my opponent's bishop points (they opened with it it IIRC).  i know the early trashing is supposed to be bad, but they sure scared me with it!  i have no idea when i should be working it into an engine, as trashing coppers with it seems silly and i usually don't want to trash anything else in my deck...yet it feels like i'm missing opportunities by ignoring it.

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #17 on: July 14, 2015, 05:31:30 pm »
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i know [...] is supposed to be [...]

i.e. you don't know anything.

First explain in your own words why early Bishop trashing is supposed to be bad. Then (and only then) explain why this common supposition is misleading crap. Then try to see why you usually don't want an early Bishop anyway.

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as trashing coppers with it seems silly

What? Trashing Coppers is almost always fantastic. And if you're building a SP-GM deck it's much more than that.
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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #18 on: July 14, 2015, 07:14:38 pm »
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i know the early trashing is supposed to be bad, but they sure scared me with it! 

Early trashing with Bishop is good, but the free trash is even better for your opponent early on (you have 4 non-Bishop cards to choose from to trash, they have 5), which is why it's usually a bad opener.
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markusin

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #19 on: July 14, 2015, 07:33:29 pm »
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i know the early trashing is supposed to be bad, but they sure scared me with it! 

Early trashing with Bishop is good, but the free trash is even better for your opponent early on (you have 4 non-Bishop cards to choose from to trash, they have 5), which is why it's usually a bad opener.
It's very likely that you'll need to respond to a Bishop opening with a Bishop of your own in the early-mid game in cases where players can draw their entire deck and gain multiple cards. In games without +Buy, You'll really need to scoop up the majority of the Provinces quickly. If your opponents are able to draw their deck and play Bishop every turn while collecting Provinces and you aren't doing the same, you're bound to lose if the game isn't ending in a few turns.

You want to keep up with their Bishop trashing from the mid game onward on engine boards, and make up for their early game Bishop plays by getting the majority of the VP card points.

To say trashing Coppers with Bishop is silly is destructively imprecise. Sometimes the engine that can be built from light trashing is strong enough that it's correct to open Develop or even Trade Route. The issue with trashing Coppers with Bishop is that the other players gets to do the same without buying a $4 terminal that only gives +$1. This stops being the case later on in the game when your opponents are unlikely to want to trash stuff from their opening hand, while you get to selectively trash a card from your deck near the end of your turn. This makes Bishop very potent in the mid-game onward.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #20 on: July 14, 2015, 09:47:24 pm »
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yay back from work with some good stuff to answer!

i actually got over my fear of early trade route already, as that was a case where i was able to see the problems with the wiki logic fairly quickly.  giving benefits to your opponent sounds so much worse to me though, which is why i mentioned that about the coppers.  i figured you'd need more VP from bishop plays to make up for the advantage you give them, but i guess in the mid-game there will be turns when they have nothing to trash.

SCSN: i expected nothing less from you and will do my best to respond!

part 1 - the obvious big problem with early bishop trashing is that you and your opponent will likely thin your decks equally, except they get to do it for zero opportunity cost.  i don't think i've ever lost a game to a lower-rated player opening bishop, because i just get to build my deck and freeload my way to funtimes.  i've always had the mentality that i'd rather trash for free than spend an action and let my opponent do it just so i get 1 or 2 VP, which is also why i said that about coppers before.  in my experience with bishop thus far, i have been able to clear out enough coppers to be reliable without having to buy a bishop myself.  against high-level players it would be a much different story, clearly!

part 2 - obviously there's a point when the VP would more than make up for that, but i have no idea what that would be or how early you'd want to get on that.  and of course any thinning is better than none, so you might have to take the plunge if your opponent's going to be the freeloader?  i guess there are also times when the opportunity cost with bishop wouldn't mean anything, i.e. when there's no sub-$5 stuff you want anyway.  dunno, that's about all i've got!

part 3 - because usually other cards help you get to $5 and/or cycle more?  that can't really be it though, considering people still open stuff like trade route when it's the only trasher and bishop gives you more economy than most.  maybe you want to save bishop plays until you can draw enough of your deck to get good value from it?  but you need to thin to get there, and in our hypothetical that ain't happening if our opponent doesn't get one either.  i'm pretty stumped...this feels like a general question on how much to value weak trashing early, and i don't feel confident in an answer for that either.

funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #21 on: July 17, 2015, 05:39:14 pm »
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well, i just played one that completely turned my understanding of this game on its head...

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150717/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1437167914290.txt

i get mercenary on 2nd shuffle and mercenary #2 not too long afterward, while my opponent opened urchin/tournament instead.  despite my huge early lead in trashing, my opponent utterly dominated me - getting 4 prizes before i could buy a province.  seems almost like "delaying" the mercenary turned out well for them, as they hit me on a bunch of potential province turns.  meanwhile, my earlier mercenary plays hurt them far less since $5 wasn't an important number here.  is this a legit thing i need to think about?  i just figured trashing earlier = winning but this is interesting.

also, i often find myself in the spot where all i can trash for mercenary are like, a silver + the second mercenary.  i tend to do it because i figure you want to attack as often as possible, but i probably still had too much copper in my deck for that to be worth it in this game.  hate when i have to make that decision!

i also bought 1 tournament too many, at least.  the lack of a good $5 makes me confused, because i get scared of buying too much silver and hurting my chances of getting prizes later so i just load up on tournaments.

actually, speaking of the $5s, might catacombs be better here than i give it credit for?  i figured with tournaments + mercenaries and only crossroads as a village, it just wouldn't have a place.

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #22 on: July 17, 2015, 06:03:56 pm »
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well, i just played one that completely turned my understanding of this game on its head...

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150717/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1437167914290.txt

i get mercenary on 2nd shuffle and mercenary #2 not too long afterward, while my opponent opened urchin/tournament instead.  despite my huge early lead in trashing, my opponent utterly dominated me - getting 4 prizes before i could buy a province.  seems almost like "delaying" the mercenary turned out well for them, as they hit me on a bunch of potential province turns.  meanwhile, my earlier mercenary plays hurt them far less since $5 wasn't an important number here.  is this a legit thing i need to think about?  i just figured trashing earlier = winning but this is interesting.

also, i often find myself in the spot where all i can trash for mercenary are like, a silver + the second mercenary.  i tend to do it because i figure you want to attack as often as possible, but i probably still had too much copper in my deck for that to be worth it in this game.  hate when i have to make that decision!

i also bought 1 tournament too many, at least.  the lack of a good $5 makes me confused, because i get scared of buying too much silver and hurting my chances of getting prizes later so i just load up on tournaments.

actually, speaking of the $5s, might catacombs be better here than i give it credit for?  i figured with tournaments + mercenaries and only crossroads as a village, it just wouldn't have a place.

You didn't have a huge early lead in trashing. You trashed your first cards on turn 6, he trashed his first cards on turn 7. After your turn 9, he has 4 junk cards left in his deck while you have 6. This is partially mostly because you trashed an Urchin over a random junk card (in this case, a Copper) that you would have eventually drawn with your cantrips, and because you happened to collide your Mercenaries. Buying a Silver over a cantrip, and him trashing Coppers over Estates might have also contributed slightly towards this outcome, although those aren't necessarily bad and good plays here, respectively.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2015, 06:08:36 pm by Awaclus »
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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #23 on: July 17, 2015, 07:05:34 pm »
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You shouldn't have bought a Crossroads at turn 5. Buy either a Silver or a Market Square; I'm not sure which is better.

Think about this: if your Crossroads was a Silver, then your purchase at turn 6 would've been a Gold, instead of a Tournament. Turn 9, same thing.



Edit: don't knock yourself for the Urchin/Urchin opening. I think that was 100% correct.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2015, 07:08:09 pm by TrojH »
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #24 on: July 17, 2015, 10:05:48 pm »
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i think i felt like i had a big lead in trashing because there was one point where i got rid of all my estates and my opponent still had 2.  but i guess that didn't last long at all!

the thinking with crossroads was that i should still be able to play tournaments after mercenary.  but i guess that's really hard to get, especially if you trash estates.  2 mercenaries and 2-3 tournaments seems so scary to me though...but yea, good call there.
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