Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[JW]

Code: [Select]

Scrying Pool, Masterpiece, Storeroom, Bishop, Death Cart, Quarry, Library, Mine, Rabble, Harem
Provinces/Shelters. Log here. I just lost this game playing Rabble and money against my opponent's Scrying Pool engine. Looking at the board I would have said that the engine is too slow to compete with money fueled by Masterpiece but he opened 5/2 and so couldn't open Storeroom-Potion, but won anyway.

My opponent picked up multiple Death Carts to increase action density so he could draw more cards with pools to discard to Storeroom. In retrospect I probably should have planned for a longer game as his deck accumulates more actions and so his explosive turns get more coins (but are still limited to at most 3 buys), meaning that eventually he'll be able to buy Provinces easily. Buying Harem and Duchy (trashing hovel) as early as I did might have been mistakes. Thoughts appreciated!

[assemble_me]

I'd go for a Pool-Storeroom kind of thing as well here, as I think it is very strong even if you're limited to two SRs.
His big benefit in this one is that you don't follow on Pools so he can get enough to draw his deck easily. I think I would have picked up Bishop(s) early to thin a bit and go for Death Carts later (seems very early to me, actually). I think that's a good play here because the pool deck should benefit way more from the trashing than a BM kind of deck.
(also his Estate on 2 seems really terrible to me tbh, especially as he doesn't take Bishops)

[AdamH]

I think Bishop is what makes that deck viable. It provides the thinning that deck so desperately needs and extra points for when you inevitably fall behind. Your opponent didn't go for it and still won, which makes me look at your strategy.

Terminal Draw+Big Money should do much better than what you had -- you were only picking up Province #3 on T15, and I see you were hitting a decent number of $6 and $7 hands when greening. Without looking at it too closely, since the game was close and you had some sorta-bad draws, I'm inclined to say you got a little bit unlucky here.

I guess your T6 Masterpiece could have been a Rabble? I think your T10 Harem could have been a Gold, though I'm less sure about that. I think the lesson here is that if you let your opponent have all ten Scrying Pools, you're gonna have a bad time.

[DG]

Terminal Draw+Big Money should do much better than what you had -- you were only picking up Province #3 on T15, and I see you were hitting a decent number of $6 and $7 hands when greening. Without looking at it too closely, since the game was close and you had some sorta-bad draws, I'm inclined to say you got a little bit unlucky here.

A repeated spy attack will typically slow a big money deck down by about two turns.

[JW]

I think Bishop is what makes that deck viable. It provides the thinning that deck so desperately needs and extra points for when you inevitably fall behind. Your opponent didn't go for it and still won, which makes me look at your strategy.

I might have wanted Library instead of Rabble. If the engine should use Bishop heavily against a Rabble-big money player, then the money player should probably take Library instead since it works so well against opposing Bishops.

I guess your T6 Masterpiece could have been a Rabble? I think your T10 Harem could have been a Gold, though I'm less sure about that. I think the lesson here is that if you let your opponent have all ten Scrying Pools, you're gonna have a bad time.

Even with Necropolis, 3 Rabbles in 16 cards would have been a lot (had I bought Rabble over Masterpiece there). The T10 Harem looks suspect to me as well, though I think Masterpiece-overpay for 4 Silvers might have been better. A Jack of all Trades once told me that having a critical mass of silvers can be very effective.

Should the un-contested engine player take a second Potion? If I tried the engine against money I'd consider 2 Potions to accumulate Scrying Pools quickly, using Bishop for a bit of thinning and only add Death Cart after I had a critical mass of Pools to draw the deck most turns.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Doesn't the money player have to empty Provinces to win against a deck that can eventually Bishop for an average of between 4.5-6 points a turn? That seems like a tough job against a stack of SPs, though the Bishop trashing helps a bit.

[iguanaiguana]

Doesn't the money player have to empty Provinces to win against a deck that can eventually Bishop for an average of between 4.5-6 points a turn? That seems like a tough job against a stack of SPs, though the Bishop trashing helps a bit.

You lost me here. If you play your storerooms, you can buy  multiple golds but can't play bishops. If you play two bishops, you can't play storeroom at all and get at most one gold that turn. So how can anyone sustain 6 points a turn?

[SCSN]

Doesn't the money player have to empty Provinces to win against a deck that can eventually Bishop for an average of between 4.5-6 points a turn? That seems like a tough job against a stack of SPs, though the Bishop trashing helps a bit.

You lost me here. If you play your storerooms, you can buy  multiple golds but can't play bishops. If you play two bishops, you can't play storeroom at all and get at most one gold that turn. So how can anyone sustain 6 points a turn?

Alternating between bishopping one Gold, buying 2 and bishopping 2 Golds, buying one averages out to 0.5 * (8 + 4) = 6 VP/turn.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Doesn't the money player have to empty Provinces to win against a deck that can eventually Bishop for an average of between 4.5-6 points a turn? That seems like a tough job against a stack of SPs, though the Bishop trashing helps a bit.

You lost me here. If you play your storerooms, you can buy  multiple golds but can't play bishops. If you play two bishops, you can't play storeroom at all and get at most one gold that turn. So how can anyone sustain 6 points a turn?

Alternating between bishopping one Gold, buying 2 and bishopping 2 Golds, buying one averages out to 0.5 * (8 + 4) = 6 VP/turn.

The exercise was intended to be left to the reader.

[DG]

Doesn't the money player have to empty Provinces to win against a deck that can eventually Bishop for an average of between 4.5-6 points a turn? That seems like a tough job against a stack of SPs, though the Bishop trashing helps a bit.

The province buying player can buy death carts as soon as the ruins are empty, assuming the scrying pool player is using ruins to fill the deck with actions.

We are talking about a different scrying pool deck now though. The original game had scrying pools connecting death carts. For the storeroom/bishop thing the death carts are probably the least important engine card.

[funkdoc]

i can't think of a time i've tried terminal draw-BM against scrying pool and actually won

part of it is letting them have all 10 pools, of course, but i also wonder if the attack isn't a bigger deal than i thought at first.  just so easy to skip your golds when they get to play that many...

EDIT: missed DG's post on this exact matter above.  thanks, that makes a lot of sense!