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Author Topic: Most Skill-Intensive Cards  (Read 18003 times)

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Piemaster

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Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« on: January 10, 2012, 03:05:15 am »
+2

I am interested in what people think are the most skill-intensive cards.  I'm not talking about the best cards necessarily, but the ones where there is the biggest disparity between what a good player will get out of them and what a mediocre/bad player will get out of them.  I have a few thoughts, but I won't post them for now because I don't want to prejudice the discussion to begin with (plus I'm a noob so I would probably be wrong anyway).
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dondon151

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2012, 03:30:08 am »
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Governor is definitely one of the most skill-intensive cards to play. I'd also say that Horn of Plenty is difficult to play well, too.
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Davio

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2012, 04:14:46 am »
+1

Any card that offers a multiple choice takes skill.

Even Pawn with its six possible choices. A lot of players will automatically play it for +1 Card / +1 Action out of fear that they're drawing a dead action card. If you're paying attention to your deck, a lot of the time you can choose +1 Card / +$1 or +$1 / +1 Buy or even +1 Card / +1 Buy if you know it's likely a Silver or Gold.

Steward offers just 3 choices, but a good player knows when to choose what. I think I trash too rigorously with Steward.


There are some cards that aren't that hard to play once you have them, but you need to make a plan upfront of what to do with them: Apprentice, Bishop, Horn of Plenty and Silk Roads spring to mind. Also Mint, since you need a good reason to get stuck with your 3 Estates and just a few spare Treasures.

Contraband is a tricky card, since it requires skill from the other player. It's usually played first and then you have to think: Does he have enough for a Gold, a Platinum even? Do I veto Colony? Province?

Heavy Embargoing can make some games very weird very fast. While it doesn't take skill to Embargo something you have and your opponent wants, it takes some funky planning to plow your way to victory through an Embargo-ridden minefield.
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popsofctown

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2012, 04:38:03 am »
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Chapel.  It is it's own half of Dominion.
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theory

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2012, 04:41:49 am »
+2

I think of cards that require not just decision-making, but also some planning ahead:

Horn of Plenty
Ambassador
Torturer
Conspirator
Salvager, most of the trash-for-benefit cards
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Geronimoo

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2012, 04:48:16 am »
+2

Governor is very complex. First you need to choose the best option for your current turn, while taking into account the effects for your deck in the long run. Then you also need to consider what the impact will be to your opponent's turn and deck. And finally the tempo of a Governor game is much higher than that of a normal game with players constantly giving each other benefits so you have to re-evaluate all the cards in the Kingdom. I hate/love it!

Remake is another sick card: it allows you to transform your entire deck multiple times during a game. It's probably the card I play the worst.
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Mean Mr Mustard

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2012, 05:31:05 am »
+2

Mint: it can change the tempo of the whole game, for good or ill, depending on how it is bought and played.

Wishing Well: Is it a Great Hall or a Laboratory?

Tactician: Master of the art and science of the detailed direction and control of movement or manoeuvre of forces in battle to achieve an aim or task.  Uh, yeah.
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brokoli

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2012, 06:34:34 am »
+2

Trade route is difficult to understand. Like Theory said "Depending on which way you look at it, Trade Route is either a useful card throughout the whole game, or a card that anti-synergizes with itself.

Coppersmith can be incredibly good, if played well.

Throne Room and King's court : We all know how frustrating is the dead King's court...

Inn : Too often bought by beginners. But, when you buy Inn at the right time, it can be awesome.

Otherwise, I agree about :

Horn of plenty
Remake
Salvager/Apprentice
Wishing well
Pawn
Tactician (single tactician strategy is easy to play, but double tactician...)
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Davio

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2012, 07:35:54 am »
+1

I find myself paying more and more attention to shuffles with respect to "reveal and discard" cards.
This includes Navigator and Cartographer.

Because you are revealing (or looking at) so many cards, it's very easy to trigger a reshuffle at the wrong time, especially if you've played a key card in the same turn. And since you're discarding mostly junk, you don't want 2 or 3 turns filled with junk because you reshuffled at the wrong time.

If your hand is for instance "Cartographer 4x - Sea Hag" you have to pay attention not to Cartograph past the last card of your draw pile otherwise you possibly won't see the Sea Hag for some time and have a couple of awful turns to boot. You also don't want to trigger an unnecessary reshuffle when you're going to buy a key card this turn (like Goons).

Scout is similar as is to some extent Harvest.

So to sum up: Be careful with cards that reveal (make you look at) the top X cards.
Obviously the problem of untimely reshuffles also exists with regular drawing cards like Council Room or even Hunting Party, but since you're drawing cards, you'll probably play them anyway without minding the reshuffle too much.
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cherdano

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2012, 07:44:15 am »
0

Apprentice - no other card makes deck control as important. If you trash with Salvager, you know what you get. If you trash a province with Apprentice to buy up the last two provinces, only to find out that you don't draw a +buy...
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Anon79

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2012, 08:02:24 am »
+1

Governor & Horn of Plenty top my list. The first is both difficult to plan and difficult to play, while Horn of Plenty (barring an easy all-cantrip board) takes some planning to get use out of.

I would follow this up with Island - on many boards you can't blindly buy Islands, yet a 2VP lead can't be ignored on boards with no alternate VPs. Finally 2 cards that take almost no skill to play - Royal Seal and Apothecary - but need management of your deck in order to get the full power out of them. Royal Seal is in the elite $5 level so you better have a good reason for buying it, while Apothecary requires the investment into Potion.

I'm quite surprised to see Apprentice and Salvager appear here; if you follow the 3 rules of "1. never use them on Coppers unless you draw it with 4 coppers, 2. always use them with Estates whenever possible, and 3. when you start greening just use Apprentice on the highest card you can afford to give up & Salvager on whatever gets you to a breakpoint" you'll be playing them at I'd say near 80-85% efficiency.
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Geronimoo

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2012, 08:16:51 am »
+1

Island isn't that hard. It's a decent opener where you're probably going to be able to Island away an Estate and in the end you'll have +2VP buffer to make up for the little tempo lost. Just don't buy it after the opening unless you've created a very thin engine that will die when greening (like a Peddler/Market deck without Smithy). In the end game (greening) just treat it as any other green card: mostly don't buy it over Duchy.
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DG

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2012, 08:36:26 am »
+4

I was going to write a quite long reply about outposts, thrones, and so on but having re-read the question I'll answer ...

Quote
I'm not talking about the best cards necessarily, but the ones where there is the biggest disparity between what a good player will get out of them and what a mediocre/bad player will get out of them.

Copper.
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WHARF 2 THA BRIDGE

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2012, 08:52:59 am »
0

A card I find myself vetoing very frequently for exactly this reason is Forge. I never had a good enough grip on how to cheese province parity via forging, so I always just ban it. I think it's a very skill-heavy card though, since you have to navigate tons of immediate AND long-term decisions every time you play it.
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Davio

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #14 on: January 10, 2012, 08:53:38 am »
0

I was going to write a quite long reply about outposts, thrones, and so on but having re-read the question I'll answer ...

Quote
I'm not talking about the best cards necessarily, but the ones where there is the biggest disparity between what a good player will get out of them and what a mediocre/bad player will get out of them.

Copper.
If you're going that way you can probably add: Silver.

A bad player won't buy enough Silver.
A mediocre player will buy too many.
A good player will buy one too little or one too many.
A great player will buy just enough Silver.

@W2TB: I agree on Forge: Sometimes you have to make really marginal decisions: Forge an Estate + Copper into an Estate or don't Forge at all?
« Last Edit: January 10, 2012, 08:55:47 am by Davio »
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Geronimoo

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #15 on: January 10, 2012, 09:01:45 am »
+1

If you're going that way you can probably add: Silver.

A bad player won't buy enough Silver.
A mediocre player will buy too many.
A good player will buy one too little or one too many.
A great player will buy just enough Silver.
And the very best player will buy it with $5 every single time instead of that Bazaar/Market/...
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DStu

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #16 on: January 10, 2012, 09:04:52 am »
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And the very best player will buy it with $5 every single time instead of that Bazaar/Market/...

You are second on the leaderboard...
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #17 on: January 10, 2012, 09:05:18 am »
0

If you're going that way you can probably add: Silver.

A bad player won't buy enough Silver.
A mediocre player will buy too many.
A good player will buy one too little or one too many.
A great player will buy just enough Silver.
And the very best player will buy it with $5 every single time instead of that Bazaar/Market/...

Really? But surely Bazaar/Market/Treasury/Peddler are generally better than Silver when your average card is worth > $1?

Edit: assuming no terminal drawing of course.
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greatexpectations

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #18 on: January 10, 2012, 09:13:55 am »
0

i would argue that all of the alternate vp cards are pretty skill intensive.  they create a lot of tough decisions for me. 
- when to aim for them from the start of the game 
- when to realize i cant keep up on colony/province and i should refocus on alternate vp
- how to control the end game conditions to make sure that the game either ends quickly or is delayed long enough for the alternate vp to acquire more value.
- how to balance mid/late game buys between enhancing the value of the alternate vp and buying more green
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Davio

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #19 on: January 10, 2012, 09:21:16 am »
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I have the most problems with Vineyards. It's not hard to recognize a good Vineyards kingdom, but it's hard to put your components together in the right order. When do you buy that extra Potion? Do I need another Action card or already a Vineyard? Is my opponent doing the same or "stealing" good action cards? So many variables...
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Geronimoo

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #20 on: January 10, 2012, 09:46:02 am »
0

And the very best player will buy it with $5 every single time instead of that Bazaar/Market/...

You are second on the leaderboard...
Well, sometimes I can't resist the $5-action temptation but once I do I'll be number one :)
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jonts26

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #21 on: January 10, 2012, 10:51:43 am »
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If you're going that way you can probably add: Silver.

A bad player won't buy enough Silver.
A mediocre player will buy too many.
A good player will buy one too little or one too many.
A great player will buy just enough Silver.
And the very best player will buy it with $5 every single time instead of that Bazaar/Market/...

Really? But surely Bazaar/Market/Treasury/Peddler are generally better than Silver when your average card is worth > $1?

Edit: assuming no terminal drawing of course.

In a Big Money type game the silver would generally be better, though the +buy from market might help, I'm not sure. In any sort of engine the $5 money generating cantrip is going to be better.
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buggibum

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #22 on: January 10, 2012, 10:59:18 am »
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The most difficult cards are those you never play because you lack of experience dealing with difficult decisions with those cards.
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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #23 on: January 10, 2012, 11:15:21 am »
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If you're going that way you can probably add: Silver.

A bad player won't buy enough Silver.
A mediocre player will buy too many.
A good player will buy one too little or one too many.
A great player will buy just enough Silver.
And the very best player will buy it with $5 every single time instead of that Bazaar/Market/...

Really? But surely Bazaar/Market/Treasury/Peddler are generally better than Silver when your average card is worth > $1?

Edit: assuming no terminal drawing of course.

In a Big Money type game the silver would generally be better, though the +buy from market might help, I'm not sure. In any sort of engine the $5 money generating cantrip is going to be better.

O rly?

(Cantrip money-maker usually going to be better regardless, unless there's like a curser on board, or terminal draw).

Piemaster

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Re: Most Skill-Intensive Cards
« Reply #24 on: January 10, 2012, 11:30:07 am »
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I was going to write a quite long reply about outposts, thrones, and so on but having re-read the question I'll answer ...

Quote
I'm not talking about the best cards necessarily, but the ones where there is the biggest disparity between what a good player will get out of them and what a mediocre/bad player will get out of them.

Copper.
If you're going that way you can probably add: Silver.

I've got to admit I was half expecting a smart-ass answer somewhere in the thread, but I actually disagree with this one.  If a player just learned to play Dominion this afternoon you could tell them "buy Province, if you can't afford Province, buy Gold, if you can't afford Gold, buy Silver" and in ten seconds you would have taught them how to use their treasure in a way that, while not exactly optimal, will make them competitive against the majority of players.  You could argue that this actually makes treasure itself rather skill light, in the same way as other cards that probably won't be mentioned in this thread because they can be used quite close to optimally with very little thought (such as Laboratory, Sea Hag and Treasure Map).

Of course, if you are merely saying that most games are won and lost because one player made better choices about what cards to buy, and because Treasure is used to buy cards it must be the most skill-intensive card in the game, then... well okay, I can sort of follow that logic, but it doesn't really add much to the discussion to be honest.
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