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Author Topic: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)  (Read 49976 times)

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Deadlock39

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #50 on: July 31, 2015, 09:28:55 am »
0

the stream doesn't really help with all of this, though.  my chat being so unfamiliar with the game kinda forces me to go over rudimentary stuff over and over, and obviously that slows it down a lot too.  also, to be frank, it makes me a lot more dull than i otherwise would be - i'm a very intense person at heart who loves to bring up conversations on all sorts of topics while i play, but having to play professor all the time kills those aspects of me.  this is why i stopped streaming power grid, and i'd like to figure out a solution for this game...

(PPE: Adam has much more insightful comments here given his experience, but here's my random thought on it.)

Not sure if anyone here will be available/willing, but perhaps someone else could handle answering dominion questions in the chat so you can ignore them and do your thing.  Maybe someone would be willing to do this while playing against you. (This obviously doesn't work for a league match.) Then you also get the added bonus of having slightly distracted competition.

AdamH

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #51 on: July 31, 2015, 09:33:28 am »
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Not sure if anyone here will be available/willing, but perhaps someone else could handle answering dominion questions in the chat so you can ignore them and do your thing.  Maybe someone would be willing to do this while playing against you. (This obviously doesn't work for a league match.) Then you also get the added bonus of having slightly distracted competition.

In my experience, if someone asks a question related to rules or basic strategy in the chat, or "what does X mean that Adam said?" there are several F.DS people in the chat who know I won't answer it and will provide the answer -- when a question is asked, it usually gets answered several times.

The barrier is just to get people asking those questions if they feel like they don't understand.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #52 on: July 31, 2015, 10:50:31 am »
+1

thanks a lot once again!

adam, you're actually good at the game so the real dominion players will want to watch you.  one of the main reasons i'd like to stream is to learn bits of knowledge from people like you and mic and SCSN, but i'm comedy hour status atm so that's not likely happening nearly as much with me.  i'm also inclined to care about SCSN's opinion since i'm one of the people who loves his way of explaining the game; he is the reason i screw up urchin less than almost any other card right now.

the thing is that there's a fair amount of people who seem to be more interested in me as a person than any particular game i play - i've been very active on twitter for years now, so a lot of folks have kept up with me there even when i wasn't streaming.  that's a rather rare thing to achieve on twitch, but it also makes me feel obligated to do the professor thing to keep my friends engaged (as almost none of them have played dominion).  as i think about it, just being myself would probably work better for that, and you more or less said that yourself.

i've thought about streaming single-player campaign games to show the cards in action, but even that would be way too long for anyone to watch as a tutorial.  200+ cards is just too much for that to work, i think.  maybe i could do the First Game engine, a goons game...just show the basic concepts and the top-tier cards. even then idk

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #53 on: July 31, 2015, 11:09:00 am »
+2

the thing is that there's a fair amount of people who seem to be more interested in me as a person than any particular game i play

Yes, don't worry about putting me off because of being way too slow (almost all of my opponents are, and I continue to play them), as I'd watch you for those sexy glasses alone!

i've thought about streaming single-player campaign games to show the cards in action, but even that would be way too long for anyone to watch as a tutorial.  200+ cards is just too much for that to work, i think.  maybe i could do the First Game engine, a goons game...just show the basic concepts and the top-tier cards. even then idk

Don't bother. No one ever is going to be able to make much sense of Dominion without playing it themselves, and once they've played it they no longer need really long-winded really basic stuff. Maybe one brief tutorial video of the sort "Never heard of Dominion? How to start playing this awesome game" would be good, and then decide whether to do any follow-ups (and if so, what kind) based on its popularity and the feedback/questions you receive.
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AdamH

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #54 on: July 31, 2015, 11:09:22 am »
+2

adam, you're actually good at the game so the real dominion players will want to watch you.  one of the main reasons i'd like to stream is to learn bits of knowledge from people like you and mic and SCSN, but i'm comedy hour status atm so that's not likely happening nearly as much with me.

Top-level players were watching me long before I was any good at the game -- that's one of the really nice things about this community, really good people take the time to give advice to others instead of hoarding all of their game-winning secrets for themselves...

i'm also inclined to care about SCSN's opinion since i'm one of the people who loves his way of explaining the game; he is the reason i screw up urchin less than almost any other card right now.

SCSN has made real contributions to this community, and he's a very good player. That's certainly true. On the other hand, that doesn't mean you should just believe everything he says (and to be clear, that goes for everyone, not just SCSN, no matter how good of a player they are). I'm reminded of this thread right now where MQ and SCSN disagreed with the mindset I was taking. Math helps me understand cards better, it doesn't help them as much. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't do math. In this case, SCSN is telling you that he doesn't like the way you click. I think you should click however makes you comfortable no matter what anyone tells you. We're all beautiful flowers and don't let anyone tell you that you aren't perfect.

Around the beginning of this year I told myself that I was finally at the point where I needed to question top level players in order to get better at the game. It took me three years to work up the nerve to do it and I thought I was taking a huge risk. It turns out that not only was I right to start questioning everyone, but I wish I had started much earlier. Never be afraid to question yourself or anyone else, no matter what their reputation. Thinking critically is such a valuable skill and this community is mature enough to handle it. Just think, if I hadn't started questioning top-level players then you would just have people telling you how bad Jack is on that board a couple of pages up and you wouldn't even be able to read my highly correct insights that Jack of all Trades is amazing on that board and it's the best opening!

Everybody starts somewhere. When I started making videos I wasn't nearly as good as you are now. Don't let the football players tell you that chess club isn't cool, chess is way cooler than football.


i've thought about streaming single-player campaign games to show the cards in action, but even that would be way too long for anyone to watch as a tutorial.  200+ cards is just too much for that to work, i think.  maybe i could do the First Game engine, a goons game...just show the basic concepts and the top-tier cards. even then idk

This is probably a good idea -- I just think that live streams aren't the best medium for this, but rather recorded videos are. You can create a library of these videos and point to them on your Twitch info page so that if people in the chat ask you "wth is going on?" you can just point them to the videos. In my list of resources is a link to a page that just lists all of the card texts -- I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from having this plus showing the big cards at the beginning of the game, that way viewers don't feel like they have to memorize every single card and they get a nice refresher on what the relevant cards do at the start of each game.

Of course that goes hand-in-hand with the way I talk about kingdoms, so you might adjust the way you do it on your stream.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #55 on: August 05, 2015, 12:17:20 am »
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probably really need to take a break

i play probably...3+ hours a night? just fall into it when i get home from work.  and lately i've been on a rough streak (culminating in another terrible league match just now, which might get me demoted???).  i get these cases of burnout here and there.  also with this game in particular, since games are so much quicker than with power grid, i really fall into an "assembly-line" mindset of just doing whatever and moving on to the next game.

this has always been my issue with learning games: i can focus well for short bursts, but can't keep that up for longer sessions or just long periods of playing the game a lot in general.  that seems like a huge problem with dominion...

markusin

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #56 on: August 05, 2015, 08:34:35 am »
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probably really need to take a break

i play probably...3+ hours a night? just fall into it when i get home from work.  and lately i've been on a rough streak (culminating in another terrible league match just now, which might get me demoted???).  i get these cases of burnout here and there.  also with this game in particular, since games are so much quicker than with power grid, i really fall into an "assembly-line" mindset of just doing whatever and moving on to the next game.

this has always been my issue with learning games: i can focus well for short bursts, but can't keep that up for longer sessions or just long periods of playing the game a lot in general.  that seems like a huge problem with dominion...
I'm sure you'd also burn out and lose focus if you played 3+ hours of Power Grid every night. Keep that in mind.
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nate_w

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #57 on: August 05, 2015, 10:44:47 am »
+1

First of all, we all have ups and downs.  I dropped down about 700 points on Goko, 5 levels on isotropish recently.  Ok, streaks happen.  Don't let it get you too down.

Second, yeah it could definitely be because you are playing without really be focused on playing.  I remember playing like 6 games in a row with WW where I lost EVERY single game and, ok, so maybe 1 or 2 were luck of the draw, but mostly I was just playing terribly.  Maybe take it back a notch and play every game at half the speed you have been.  Take some time to analyze the board at the beginning as deeply as you can.  Don't just come up with a plan; refine that plan.  Consider alternatives.  Before triggering a reshuffle midturn, consider whether it's a good one.  Before buying something, reconsider.  Try to look at how the piles are running multiple times per game.  Maybe just try slowing things down.  Maybe instead of playing, spend an hour watching MicQ's excellent stream and thinking about why he's doing what he's doing, and if you differ in what you expected him to do, why that is. 

Idk, 5000 is definitely achievable!  I believe in you.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #58 on: August 07, 2015, 04:49:37 am »
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thanks!!!

in the midst of this break, i've been thinking that i should probably say more about some of these recent league matches.  the issue is that when i can take my time, i actually *do* have reasons for all the wacky things i try.  clearly they're bad reasons, but i need to work out why.

i'm mainly thinking of that monstrosity with apothecary & sea hag, the game that took 50 minutes on my stream or something ridiculous like that.  that was the one that got mic & SCSN real chatty.  some of the stuff they mentioned, like triggering bad shuffles and playing cantrips before apothecary, is just an issue of habit that i need to beat out of myself (see also: bad discards in mercenary games!).  there are other things i am curious about, though...

again, log for this one: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150730/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1438311967794.txt


getting 1 lookout & 2 sea hags - this was strongly criticized.  my thinking here was that winning the curse split would be extremely important with lookout as the only trasher, but i guess apothecary/cartographer make lookout trashing so much easier that this is wrong?  and the reason i only got 1 lookout is that with apothecary involved, i figured i really didn't want to trash any more copper than i already had.  this is likely a major fundamental issue with how i approach apothecary, hence why i'm bringing this up.

general quality of my deck - i currently tend to see apothecary as a "steady 1 province per turn" card.  it's just hard for me to picture any bigger engine being reliable with a card that WANTS so many junk cards in your deck.  so i got just enough money to get a province, with a bunch of apothecaries & cartographers to ensure i draw the whole deck.  i clearly should've gotten an herbalist at some point - think i was scared with curses being involved and needing $7P for a good turn with it.  but that seems more important in the midgame for building the engine, no?  really don't get how double-province turns would be a thing in this game.  what am i missing here?  is this one of those games where 2nd potion would be worth it?


also, one last thought on this game: i probably would've been better off going explorer-BM if i were just trying to win that one game.  but i figured apothecary had to be better if played well, and look at all the questions i got from trying that!


finally, a game i played recently vs. furuderika got me thinking.  as you can see this is an awfully generic board, and i decided to try a madman-horn of plenty megaturn.  do the lack of draw and the crappy treasure trashing kill the chances of that working?  i actually managed to get a bunch of horns in play one turn, but with 1 unique short of provinces or so.  i'm thinking if i don't blow my wad early, that could actually be the winner even with the problems this board offers...?

madman is another card i have no idea how to manage in general, as you can tell from that log.  timing is a mystery to me, as well as deciding when to pass up buying good cards for madmen.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2015, 05:10:02 am by funkdoc »
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #59 on: August 07, 2015, 08:05:27 am »
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I don't think you should just stick with Explorer BM, it's better to play the engine and make some mistakes and learn something.

The issue with a 2nd Sea Hag is how long will it be before they start colliding a bunch of turns due to Apothecaries and Cartographers and Lookout trashing. It's possible the 2nd Sea Hag should be a 2nd Potion (this also has collision problems). A 2nd Lookout also lets you win the deck size battle.

All the little play order mistakes can really add up on a board like this. Take turn 8: you pass on playing Cartographer but there's no reason to do that besides "Sea Hag misses the shuffle". But you already have another Sea Hag in that shuffle, the other 3 cards in your hand are bad and the Cartographer cycles around anyway and lets you make your next turn better. In this case it would have let you play a Lookout as well.

I don't think you want to double Province here, you'll have to decide how much to build up depending on where your and your opponent's decks are. One card you didn't seem to consider was Beggar.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2015, 08:12:50 am by Mic Qsenoch »
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Davio

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #60 on: August 07, 2015, 08:43:19 am »
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I don't think I ever bought a 2nd Sea Hag, just never seems worth it before Curses run out and it's just another dead card.
6 Curses + 1 Sea Hag is just one dead card less than 4 Curses + 2 Sea Hags.

In this particular case, I might even have skipped Sea Hag altogether and opened Lookout / Potion.
Apothecary is a great early game card, increasing your buying power and cycling all those Coppers can get you going pretty fast.
And as a bonus you know what you can trash with Lookout.

I would also get an Herbalist pretty quickly to make use of the Copper-filled hands to buy Apothecary+Something, you can put Potion back on top and just get a lot of Apothecaries really quickly. I might get a Beggar just because extra Coppers don't hurt as much with a lot of Apothecaries and it can help you reach $8 (I wouldn't use it to get Silvers to "defend" against Sea Hag).
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AdamH

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #61 on: August 07, 2015, 09:26:54 am »
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getting 1 lookout & 2 sea hags - this was strongly criticized.  my thinking here was that winning the curse split would be extremely important with lookout as the only trasher, but i guess apothecary/cartographer make lookout trashing so much easier that this is wrong?

You say this like you think Lookout isn't good trashing. Lookout is quite good, I think it's better than you're giving it credit for. I also think Sea Hag isn't actually a good card with any decent trashing around and Lookout certainly qualifies. Lookout alone is certainly enough for me to just skip Sea Hag completely. Yes, yes, I know pink hair in the moonlight but I can see really far from up here and there are some prettier ladies off in the distance so I think I'll keep my options open (+1 Action? Options open? Anyone?)


with apothecary involved, i figured i really didn't want to trash any more copper than i already had.  this is likely a major fundamental issue with how i approach apothecary, hence why i'm bringing this up.

general quality of my deck - i currently tend to see apothecary as a "steady 1 province per turn" card.  it's just hard for me to picture any bigger engine being reliable with a card that WANTS so many junk cards in your deck.

I would classify Apothecary as an early-game accelerator card. Rarely will a card dictate the type of payload your deck will have and Apothecary is certainly no exception. You sort of hit it when you refer to Coppers as junk cards -- Apothecary mitigates the downside of having the Coppers, but it doesn't mean you have to keep the Coppers, and just because you want to trash the Coppers doesn't necessarily mean you don't want Apothecaries early. Very few decks aren't made better by adding early Apothecaries.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #62 on: August 07, 2015, 10:26:56 am »
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yea, beggar scared me since i would have less of a chance of starting with apothecary or cartographer in my hand.  still hard for me to see how, say, 6 extra copper would help me.  3 seems good but i can't fathom more at this point.

re: skipping sea hag - this is the kind of stuff i like to hear.  like, "fundamentals" of specific cards if you will.  i've definitely seen lookout as closer to the "weak trashing" end of the spectrum, but i have to be underestimating the top-deck control.

davio, good call on topdecking potions!  i completely forgot about that part of herbalist and that seems to basically obsolete 2nd potion here?  i still don't see good +buy options below $7P though, unless i get a beggar.

mic, that's the point i was making re: not playing BM! =)  i realized early on that this is a game that really rewards you for trying the hard strats.  i'm not used to having this sort of mentality in tournaments etc. though, so i'm actually surprised i can follow through with it in league matches.  also, thanks for pointing out a case where it's good to trigger a shuffle - this is something i struggle a lot with now that i've become more aware of how bad it often is to trigger them.

speaking of which, i really need to work on madman more.  i've had hermit-market square show up once thus far and completely botched it...seems hard to practice this stuff except with specific saved kingdoms though
« Last Edit: August 07, 2015, 10:28:14 am by funkdoc »
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Mic Qsenoch

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #63 on: August 07, 2015, 10:49:50 am »
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also, thanks for pointing out a case where it's good to trigger a shuffle - this is something i struggle a lot with now that i've become more aware of how bad it often is to trigger them.

I think this is another case of "PPR syndrome". Some (useful) concept has lots of posts where it's written, a nice catchy acronym, and suddenly people don't want to buy the second to last Province just so they don't break "PPR". At this point probably more bad greening decisions have been made in the name of PPR than good ones (ok, probably not).

Triggering shuffles in the middle of your turn is usually good. Sometimes very bad, sometimes very very good. Sometimes meh. Well the point is not to be afraid of the reshuffles but just to evaluate them.

- What good cards will I cause to miss the shuffle?
- What bad cards will I cause to miss the shuffle? (people forget this one a lot while getting wrapped up in the first one)
- What do I stand to gain by causing the shuffle? Most of the time you're playing some action card that can help your turn be better, getting a better turn right now is usually worth it.
- How long is this next shuffle? (sometimes it's like 1-2 turns long and those turns are going to be good anyway).
- Will I cause my next 1-2 turns to be completely dead? (this is the nightmare situation that people should usually try to avoid like the plague).
« Last Edit: August 07, 2015, 11:08:22 am by Mic Qsenoch »
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AdamH

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #64 on: August 07, 2015, 10:56:12 am »
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re: skipping sea hag - this is the kind of stuff i like to hear.  like, "fundamentals" of specific cards if you will.  i've definitely seen lookout as closer to the "weak trashing" end of the spectrum, but i have to be underestimating the top-deck control.

In my mind, Lookout is good for the same reason Forager is good -- it's non-terminal and cheap. You can achieve a thin enough deck by using only Lookouts because you can buy multiples and just trash one to the other when the time comes.

Lookout does give you top-deck interaction, and it synergizes with top-deck interaction (you get a nice little bonus against Sea Hag, for example) but that's not the reason why it's so good; it's good without that.
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DG

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #65 on: August 07, 2015, 11:45:44 am »
+1

I think it would be quite easy in that apothecary kingdom to build a deck that is less than the sum of its parts. Open lookout/sea hag and buy the second lookout before the next shuffle. I think it is a common mistake to just use one lookout and then find it doesn't trash enough soon enough, with the result that the lookout seems poor (rather than misplayed). Two lookouts will really kill the coin income though so apothecaries will be useful to draw coppers while cycling the deck. Building up income with silvers will slow down the deck cycling and as a consequence slow down the curse trashing.

With that in mind I can see a mid game where both players are cursing with the sea hag, cleaning up with lookouts, and buying apothecaries or cartographers to improve drawing and cycling.  Adding great halls will probably hinder the deck in this stage and you should only get them when the vp is purposeful, i.e. near a three pile ending. After that mid game there will be a short transition period where both players will try to accelerate the deck income for a sustainable end game.

This is where I see a few options opening up as you can buy a couple of gold and use them to buy provinces with apothecary coins, use an explorer to gain treasures and cycle mostly with cartographers, try to sustain an apothecary/copper engine using cartographers for extra control, and/or use a herbalist for an extra buy to threaten a third pile. How you view the endgame might change how you prioritize cartographers or apothecaries. The mid-game progress could also change your endgame options. You can even get a feel of your deck performance while playing and make decisions based on that.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2015, 11:48:24 am by DG »
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DG

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #66 on: August 07, 2015, 04:51:46 pm »
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finally, a game i played recently vs. furuderika got me thinking.  as you can see this is an awfully generic board, and i decided to try a madman-horn of plenty megaturn.  do the lack of draw and the crappy treasure trashing kill the chances of that working?  i actually managed to get a bunch of horns in play one turn, but with 1 unique short of provinces or so.  i'm thinking if i don't blow my wad early, that could actually be the winner even with the problems this board offers...?

madman is another card i have no idea how to manage in general, as you can tell from that log.  timing is a mystery to me, as well as deciding when to pass up buying good cards for madmen.

I think there is a horn of plenty thing going on here but it will be hard work. There is plenty of opportunity to gain cards with workshop, hermit, taxman, horn of plenty, border village, and expand so you should aim to do this, not buy treasures for income. This would also makes it easier to have turns later in the game where you are improving your deck but still able to trash hermits for your megaturn madmen. When you gain 2 silvers early you are going in the wrong direction.

Here I'd plan to use the first madman to trash an estate (or two), gain a madman, and then use the madman turn to buy a high cost card to kick start your deck development.  After that a workshop will gain better cards than the hermit so you although you could certainly finish trashing estates with another hermit, you could also skip the hermits until the end game and add them late to your deck.
 
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #67 on: August 09, 2015, 09:56:57 pm »
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thanks as always, good people!

so i've started playing a little bit again, but am trying not to drive myself into the ground with it.  i've realized that some of my issues in league matches stem from mostly playing people who don't try any remotely hard strats at all.  i'm not used to managing 3-pile games because i have very little experience with people mirroring me on engines.

one recent game was a perfect case in point.  we have a board with steward, bridge, bazaar, AND hunting party...and my opponent decides to run with vault-BM because hey if you get 4 provinces first you win the game i guess!!!!!!!!!

i've been using a minimum rating when hosting games, but that doesn't seem to be enough.  maybe i should use iso rating instead of goko?  like level 20 for now?

funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #68 on: August 23, 2015, 09:44:38 pm »
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alright, so i'm still at it, been alternating between playing & watching videos

in particular, i recently discovered the twitch highlights of SCSN teaching jerni various boards and that's been an awfully fascinating series. one of the games there reminded me of a recent one i played where i'm unsure of the best strat...

the log appears to have disappeared into the ether so i'll try and break it down:

so one of the games SCSN did was a colony game that focused on a mint-platinum-remodel engine, i *think* with throne room and villages?

the game i played had that core engine in place, but with no villages.  instead, i went for a no-platinum approach - the board also had king's court + rabble + woodcutter, with cellar for some needed sifting.  my opponent tried the platinum remodeling strat and only got a couple king's courts to support it, so i was able to get...7? of the king's courts and tons of rabbles.  i figured after mint trashing, i could regularly leave her with a 2-card hand while getting monster turns by gaining & drawing woodcutters to use with KCs.  i won handily with just two such turns but it took me 22 turns to do it, and that feels especially wrong after seeing how quick the remodel engine was in SCSN's videos.  that engine in itself didn't have as strong support in this game, but maybe i should have combined the two approaches?  would have to spend a turn buying platinum since i absolutely don't want to remodel a KC, but that seems like it should work?  i think there were only 6 platinum or so left by the time i had the money and the KCs were gone, though.

i really, really wish i could find the log. GOKOOOOOOOOOOOO etc. etc.

SCSN

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #69 on: August 28, 2015, 03:29:19 am »
+1

It's a bit difficult to go in depth without a log, but the two things to realize on the board you describe are:

1. The engine is extremely fragile; you need KC-KC-Rabble in your hand to start doing anything of note and Cellar is the only sifting (as far as I can tell).
2. Because of KC-Rabble, you absolutely can't green early.

You don't absolutely have to play the Mint-Platinum-Remodel thing. Especially if your opponent greened early and you KC Rabble him a few times each turn you can basically do whatever you want. That you took 22 turns to win is irrelevant and you shouldn't use it as a metric for anything; as long as your opponent's win % is 0, it doesn't matter if you take 10 or 50 turns.

Quote
that engine in itself didn't have as strong support in this game, but maybe i should have combined the two approaches?  would have to spend a turn buying platinum since i absolutely don't want to remodel a KC, but that seems like it should work?  i think there were only 6 platinum or so left by the time i had the money and the KCs were gone, though.

Again it's really hard to tell exactly what to do without a log and detailed knowledge of the gamestate, but you absolutely don't want to buy any green until the turn where you end the game, so what I'd probably have done is build up to a deck a whole lot of KCs and Rabbles, two Mints, two Remodels and a Platinum, then Mint 6 Platina on your last turn, draw them and Remodel them into the remaining Colonies. Don't add any unnecessary junk (additional Platina, Colonies) until your last turn because the only way you're losing is if you don't go off for a while, so maximizing the chance of starting with KC-KC-Rabble is vital.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #70 on: August 28, 2015, 12:07:01 pm »
0

thanks! that makes a lot of sense, still hard for me to picture these kinds of engines at this point. the issue i see there is getting KCs early...i ended up getting a couple woodcutters just so i'd have something to use with KC and buy more of them. what's a more efficient way of building up your economy, given that you want to trash with mint ASAP?

the opponent did green early, otherwise i suspect she would have won since she had tons of platinum

funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #71 on: August 28, 2015, 10:30:55 pm »
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ok, one game in particular from tonight's league match has me curious...

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150828/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1440812596937.txt

my opponent got a miracle possession turn to score the early province, but i had to have been doing something wrong before that.  i just focused on scrying pools and stables, but maybe i needed to add some more economy like my opponent did?

tournament is weird, it seems like i lose fairly often focusing on engine cards like this.  also i'm sure i was making my deck too good with possession in the game, but i thought my lack of money would make that OK.  this seems like a tricky board from what i can tell.

Seprix

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #72 on: August 29, 2015, 12:18:32 am »
0

ok, one game in particular from tonight's league match has me curious...

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150828/log.55328665e4b0b01f29a2cbaf.1440812596937.txt

my opponent got a miracle possession turn to score the early province, but i had to have been doing something wrong before that.  i just focused on scrying pools and stables, but maybe i needed to add some more economy like my opponent did?

tournament is weird, it seems like i lose fairly often focusing on engine cards like this.  also i'm sure i was making my deck too good with possession in the game, but i thought my lack of money would make that OK.  this seems like a tricky board from what i can tell.

There's no trashing on this board besides Transmute. Transmute trashing CAN work, because you gain a Transmute after each Copper, but I don't like Scrying Pool in your case, especially with a 5/2 opening to further lengthen the time it takes to get to Scrying Pool. You should be focusing on getting Tournament Prizes, Stables first priority since there are no villages to speak of.

I mean, maybe Scrying Pool is correct here? I just don't know, man. It seems pretty slow and ineffective to implement anyways since you won't be playing more than two terminals tops (with a Prize) and it'll just take so long to buy enough Scrying Pools, and by then, your opponent has Prizes and you're boned since he can just outbuy (no buy on the board!) and even attack you. You can always get a Potion a bit later to counter Possession with your own if he threatens it.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2015, 12:20:21 am by Seprix »
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DM me for ideas on a new article, either here or on Discord (I check Discord way more often)

pubby

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #73 on: August 29, 2015, 01:26:43 am »
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One strategy is to add no economy to your deck, so it's impossible to hit $8. Build a deck that can play 1 possession per turn, and hope to win tournaments on possession turns. I'm not sure if this is better than what you did, but it's worth mentioning.

Also, transmute seems terrible here. Would rather buy nothing.
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funkdoc

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Re: funkdoc's journey to 5k (& beyond)
« Reply #74 on: August 29, 2015, 09:26:56 am »
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see, i feel like no scrying pools would lose to an opponent who gets all 10 of them?  that seems to be the case so often with these top-tier engine cards, but i guess there is possession

buying transmute was my way of waving the white flag, should've just resigned then if i was going to do that yea
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