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[faust]

This one is for Roadrunner.

Sadly, Scout is not a good card. In fact, Scout is a bad card. So bad that in most cases you would not even want to take a Scout if you would get it for free, and that is fatal for a card that is not even terminal. Why is it so bad, and are there cases where it's still worth picking one up? Let us find out!

Comboless Scout

First, we want to examine how Scout fares without the presence of cards that synergize with it in a meaningful way. Imagine for simplicity a Big Money deck that has Scout added to it. What Scout does in this case it make your next hand better by removing dead cards from it. However, this comes at the expense of making you're current turn worse. If you play Scout and pick up one green card, then sure one green card is missing from your next hand. But this turn, you are now stuck with a five-card hand that includes this green card. And who is to say that the turn you played Scout isn't the one where you could have needed the extra Copper instead?

So if Scout picks up 1 card on average, it's pretty much the same as not having Scout at all. He does nothing for you, but at least won't hurt you. In order to be actually helpful though, Scout will have to pick up more than one green card on average. For Scout to pick up 2 greens on average however, your deck has to be 50% green. This basically never happens in a normal game.

So Scout without support is bad. Normally, it will pick up less than 1 card on average, thus actively hurting your deck. For Scout to be worth it, we need cards that work well with it. The rest of this article will be spent looking for such interactions.

We can split Scout into three parts: He puts green into your hand, reorders the top of your deck and provides +1 action. Typically cards will combo with one of these abilities.

Getting green

As said before, as long as you put only one card on average into your hand, Scout does not do anything. If you want to utilize this ability, you need ways to ensure you get more green.

Inheritance
We start out with what is probably one of the strongest Scout combos. If you use Inheritance to transform your Estates into useful actions, then Scout actually picks up the good stuff. For maximum effect you want the inherited card to be nonterminal, so that you can really load up on them.
The problem with the combo is that you need to spike $7, and picking up a Scout will certainly not help you do that. So don't pick up Scout before you inherit. But after the Inheritance, inherited Estates themselves compete with Scout for the buy. You should always carefully evaluate whether another Estate is not better for your deck than the Scout.

Hybrid VP
This is what Scout was originally designed for. You still need a LOT of Hybrid VP for this to pay off. Even if you gain 8 Nobles, you would still need a deck with significantly less than 32 cards total to expect being able to draw more than one of them. And if you have such a small deck why did you pick up all those Nobles anyway?
The fact of the matter is, the hybrid VP we have mostly prefer large decks over small ones. The larger the deck, the smaller the green density, the worse the Scout.

Discard for benefit
Remember how good it feels to discard a ton of actions to Storeroom and then redraw them with Scrying Pool? Can we make the same thing work with Scout and green cards?
Unfortunately no. Scout it just too bad at drawing. Even if you draw 4 green cards with Scout, playing a Storeroom afterwards, this will only net you $4. So you just spent $7 and two buys on something that in the best case is a terminal $4? Could have as well bought a Harvest.
I will say that Artificer is a much stronger discard-for-benefit card and might make this combo worth it. It's too early to tell.

Rabble
Rabble is countered by Scout; the Scout puts all the green into your hand. This is only worth it if your opponent plays multiple Rabbles per turn. Even then, you need to have the Scout in hand at the start of your turn. Scheme might make this possible. Wait, we're on a board with a Rabble engine and Scheme? Why are you wasting $4 on a Scout?

Apothecary
A cleverly timed Scout actually helps an Apothecary engine that starts choking on green. Apothecary leaves all the green on top of your deck; your Scout can clean it away. This is actually a decent combo.

Knowing the top of your deck

Sometimes Scout can be worth it even if he never picks up any green. Here are some examples.

Mystic
A Mystic-heavy deck benefits from Scout. Imagine your hand is 4 Mystics, Scout. Playing the Scout lets you draw four new cards. The catch is that 4 Mystics guarantee you to draw 2 cards anyway, so Scout effectively has about the power of a Lab here. It can be even better if you reveal more Mystics (or Scouts), which can continue drawing. For this to work, you only need one Mystic in hand. To pull the combo off, you need a high Mystic density though.
The Wishing Well combo is sadly too weak to ever matter.

Scrying Pool
Scrying Pool does two things with Scout: It effectively turns it into a cantrip because it is one more card that gets drawn with Scrying Pool, and if played before Scrying Pool it allows you to put that one non-action card on top to skip it with Pool.

Ruined Village anyone?

And then there are the oddball games where you just really need this +1 action, and don't have any other nonterminal lying around.

Peddler/Conspirator
Just wanna get a lot of actions in play? Well, Scout at least is nonterminal. This needs a lot of support in order to become a competitive strategy though.

Prince
Scout just may be the only nonterminal, and you really want to start your turn with 2 actions. Very unlikely.

Tokens
Say what you want of Scout, at least it's spammable. Pathfinding actually turns it into a decent card. Of course most of the time you'd rather turn an already-decent card into an awesome card.

Conclusion

What have we learned? There are probably three major Scout combos to keep in mind: Inheritance, Apothecary, Mystic. If you see Scout without any of these cards, chances are you won't be any worse off ignoring it.

[LastFootnote]

Mystic
A Mystic-heavy deck benefits from Scout. Imagine your hand is 4 Mystics, Scout. Playing the Scout lets you draw four new cards. The catch is that 4 Mystics guarantee you to draw 3 cards anyway, so Scout effectively never gets better than a Lab here, and getting the Lab effect requires a very high Mystic density. Still, sometimes it is good enough.

Wait, what? 4 Mystics guarantees you draw 2 cards, not 3. Unless there's something I'm missing.

[XerxesPraelor]

Yeah, it was a typo. Scout still ends up being worth a lab anyways.

[faust]

Mystic
A Mystic-heavy deck benefits from Scout. Imagine your hand is 4 Mystics, Scout. Playing the Scout lets you draw four new cards. The catch is that 4 Mystics guarantee you to draw 3 cards anyway, so Scout effectively never gets better than a Lab here, and getting the Lab effect requires a very high Mystic density. Still, sometimes it is good enough.

Wait, what? 4 Mystics guarantees you draw 2 cards, not 3. Unless there's something I'm missing.

Yes, it's a typo. Thanks; I'll fix it.

[LastFootnote]

Typo or not, it's still misleading. I remember talking about this before and nobody really listening, but I'll give it another shot. Ahem.

You don't need four Mystics in hand with your Scout in order for the combo to pay off, thanks to Scout's reordering. If you have even a single Mystic in hand, you can use Scout to put another Mystic on top of your deck. And then that Mystic that you draw with the first Mystic will also be guaranteed to hit, since you still know the top few cards of your deck (unless you drew a lot of Victory cards with Scout, in which case you already got great value). Or if you don't need the Mystics this hand, you can put a Treasure on top and draw that! Whatever benefits you most at the time.

[faust]

Typo or not, it's still misleading. I remember talking about this before and nobody really listening, but I'll give it another shot. Ahem.

You don't need four Mystics in hand with your Scout in order for the combo to pay off, thanks to Scout's reordering. If you have even a single Mystic in hand, you can use Scout to put another Mystic on top of your deck. And then that Mystic that you draw with the first Mystic will also be guaranteed to hit, since you still know the top few cards of your deck (unless you drew a lot of Victory cards with Scout, in which case you already got great value). Or if you don't need the Mystics this hand, you can put a Treasure on top and draw that! Whatever benefits you most at the time.

You are correct and I will incorporate this.

[Roadrunner7671]

This is too mean.

Can't Scout combo with any cards that have +cards?
Play Scout with $7 in hand, put Copper on top instead of a Gold, play Pearl Diver.
This example obviously works if you need a Village/draw card and you have a Scout and a cantrip in your hand.

[Deadlock39]

This is too mean.

Can't Scout combo with any cards that have +cards?
Play Scout with $7 in hand, put Copper on top instead of a Gold, play Pearl Diver.
This example obviously works if you need a Village/draw card and you have a Scout and a cantrip in your hand.

The problem is those benefits don't nearly make up for the fact that you Minion attacked your starting hand that turn by buying Scout.

[Roadrunner7671]

This is too mean.

Can't Scout combo with any cards that have +cards?
Play Scout with $7 in hand, put Copper on top instead of a Gold, play Pearl Diver.
This example obviously works if you need a Village/draw card and you have a Scout and a cantrip in your hand.

The problem is those benefits don't nearly make up for the fact that you Minion attacked your starting hand that turn by buying Scout.

But you get to save a Gold, or kick off!

[LastFootnote]

This is too mean.

Can't Scout combo with any cards that have +cards?
Play Scout with $7 in hand, put Copper on top instead of a Gold, play Pearl Diver.
This example obviously works if you need a Village/draw card and you have a Scout and a cantrip in your hand.

Scout absolutely combos with +Cards! Although the more cards you draw from the effect, the less the reordering helps. I mean with Smithy you were going to draw 3 of those cards anyway, and without Scout you'd have the 4th in your hand already. So Scout combos best with cantrips.

As others have pointed out, though, the problem is Scout's overall weakness. Some combo-centric cards (e.g. Market Square) only need one synergy to be worth buying. Scout needs at least two to even be marginal. If I have two of [cantrips; hybrid-VP cards; cards that care about deck order] available, then I'll consider Scout.

Again, the problem is simply one of raw power. If Scout gave +$1 (on top of its +1 Action), for example, it would be a fine card. Similarly, if you took +$1 away from a card (e.g. Bishop), it would become extremely marginal.

[heron]

In my experience, Apothecary is basically the only card which makes scout useful reasonably often. I am starting to come around to Mystic/Scout too, but Scout seems to improve Mystic so little that I am not really sure how much it is worth.

I haven't played with adventures, so maybe Inheritance makes Scout decent, dunno.

[faust]

This is too mean.

Can't Scout combo with any cards that have +cards?
Play Scout with $7 in hand, put Copper on top instead of a Gold, play Pearl Diver.
This example obviously works if you need a Village/draw card and you have a Scout and a cantrip in your hand.

And had this Scout been a Silver, I would have gotten to save both the Copper and the Gold.

[terminalCopper]

I appreciate articles showing the most epic logs with the discussed card. So could someone please post a couple of games where Scout is awesome really good not much worse than a laboratory easily on a regular basis more than once?

[jomini]

Scout/Herald is also something of a "thing" if you really need it to be a village in a deck that you cannot just trash down to mass Heralds. Ordering your top deck to be copper/action/copper/action can let you play two assured Heralds as long as the actions do not draw. This also has elements of ruined village-ness to it as hitting Scout off a Herald will let you play the terminals already in hand.

Another shot is with Vineyards, unlike with Provinces or Colonies, you basically want to cycle as much as possible (assuming you have just a few pots). Scout both adds VP and clears out green. Having something more or less efficient as a self-spy in a Vineyards game is not a bad go. Likewise if you have any sort of draw, you can do a better job of making sure you hit your gainers/pots without collisions.

While far from complete on its own, Crossroads/Scout can help make an engine where you really do want half your deck to be green.

In like vein, Scout/Venture can get some mileage at conserving Ventures/Actions, but that is already heavily constrained by Venture needing to be a really good buy which is already a very small number of boards.


The real place I have found Scout not to be completely worthless is in the mid-late game engine stage. If I have a big engine that is starting slow down thanks to green, Scout can be a decent $4 gain (e.g. off an IW) if there are no competing engine components left (e.g. we have piled the villages I got the IW to snag). Gaining an estate or silver is likely not worth much before the very end game if I have a classic double province or province/duchy engine. Because the penalty is so huge if my engine completely wiffs (e.g. I play 3 villages, but have no draw), taking out some insurance against that is better than nothing or stuff unlikely to get me more than an estate. With cantrip villages, adding a Scout lets me search 5 deck positions instead of 2 to find my draw. If I anticipate needing to dip heavily into the duchies (or alt-VP), Scout actually can be good to gain during the greening stage.

For instance, I once built an engine with Iw and was grabbing 6 VP Fairgrounds. I anticipated having to carry at least 10 VP cards by game end. Iw was a gimme to spam Mining villages and Smithies. Once those were gone, grabbing Scouts was actually helpful - it would pull garbage off deck top and leave me much better odds of hitting my draw (IIRC I had 6:4 on villages vs 4:6 on Smithies). This is a pretty constrained case - have a spare gain, nothing else that makes your engine more reliable (no Spy, Wishing well, Pawn, etc.), have already run out of components, and likely having a good deal of green to carry, but it is not constrained to just one or two cards as possible combo partners.

[Davio]

Scout, as so many other mediocre cards, suffers from the biggest problem: opportunity cost.

Whenever you voluntarily gain a Scout, you probably could have gained something better.

Sure, Scout could be helpful in particular situations, but that's just assuming there isn't anything better to buy.

[AdamH]

Under "getting green" and "discard for benefit" I feel like you didn't mention the best synergies here: Warehouse/Dungeon. This seems way better than Storeroom, though still probably not actually viable.

You also don't mention Scout/Crossroads (jomini mentioned this too), which I feel like at least deserves a nod here. My opinion is that Scout/Crossroads is only useful in puzzles where you can assume you get perfect shuffle luck. The problem is that Scout is just as likely to hurt a Crossroads for your next hand as it is to help a Crossroads in your current hand.

I think the "ruined village" section isn't adding anything of value, or at least it's misleading:

The Peddler/Conspirator thing necessarily requires Scout to be the only other non-terminal on the board. In the case of Conspirator, I don't know what deck you can play where Scout and Conspirator are the only non-terminals and you actually want to go for this, it seems way worse than Big Money (edge case me, I dare you!). In the case of Peddler, Silver does almost the same job in cost reduction: since there are no other non-terminals, your +Buy has to be terminal which means only two Peddlers per turn max. I'm having trouble coming up with decks here that beat Big Money as well.

Prince: I'm pretty sure just Princing one of your other terminals is just better in every case.

Tokens: It's better to put them on the already-good card rather than Scout.

I mean, you allude to these, so I think you already know this. But if you know these aren't actually good, then I think you should just say they aren't actually good up-front in the article, rather than try and find some edge-case that doesn't exist. Even if the edge-case existed, I don't think that would belong in the article.


As for Scrying Pool, I think there's an interesting math problem to do with this one: given a deck with A Scrying Pools, B other action cards, C Scouts, D victory cards, and E other cards, I wonder if you can choose A, B, D, and E so that your maximum expected draw on a turn shows up when C is not zero. I'm sure it can be done and I would expect that answer to result in a deck where I ask myself "why am I trying to draw this deck with Scrying Pool?" or "Don't I already have half of the available VP by now?"

In any case, I don't know that anyone knows the answer to this question for sure, and it seems speculative enough to me that I think a little more research should be done before putting that section into an article.

I appreciate articles showing the most epic logs with the discussed card. So could someone please post a couple of games where Scout is awesome really good not much worse than a laboratory easily on a regular basis more than once?

There was a game in Isotropic with Chapel, Sea Hag, University, Scout, Great Hall, and Goons where I effectively used Scout/Great Hall to get a game-winning triple-Goons turn (piling out the Curses like a baws). My two Scouts drew two Great Halls each on this turn. I want to say there was also Cartographer too, I remember having some other help lining up my Scout/Great Halls, but I don't remember what it was. Unfortunately, councilroom was not helpful in finding this log.

I also made a video once, it's a stream highlight somewhere. I Uni-gained Scouts over Uni-gaining nothing a couple of times and managed to convince myself that the Scouts made my deck better. I lost that game anyways. It would not make a compelling addition to this article.

And then there's this game but I've linked that one a lot recently, and Scout/Apothecary is already addressed nicely in the article IMO.

[iguanaiguana]

This one is for Roadrunner.

2015: the year in which one newcomer inspires an entire forum of people to have endlessly looping conversations about the most uninteresting topic possible within the passion they all share.

I applaud you, Roadrunner. You've got skillz.

[Witherweaver]

Inheritance
We start out with what is probably one of the strongest Scout combos. If you use Inheritance to transform your Estates into useful actions, then Scout actually picks up the good stuff. For maximum effect you want the inherited card to be nonterminal, so that you can really load up on them.
The problem with the combo is that you need to spike $7, and picking up a Scout will certainly not help you do that. So don't pick up Scout before you inherit. But after the Inheritance, inherited Estates themselves compete with Scout for the buy. You should always carefully evaluate whether another Estate is not better for your deck than the Scout.

Answer is obvious: Inherit your Scouts. 

[Witherweaver]

I think Scout does have some value as a late-game thing when you have started to green.  Maybe you have an extra buy or have a dud turn where you hit $4 and would otherwise buy nothing, or have some gainer.  At this point you're  getting a lot of victory cards and it's getting them out of your next draw so you can hit a higher money value for that turn.

It's still a question of opportunity cost, though.

[jomini]

You also don't mention Scout/Crossroads (jomini mentioned this too), which I feel like at least deserves a nod here. My opinion is that Scout/Crossroads is only useful in puzzles where you can assume you get perfect shuffle luck. The problem is that Scout is just as likely to hurt a Crossroads for your next hand as it is to help a Crossroads in your current hand.

Xroads/Scout is only useful if you are already deck draw. The best option is something like Tr/Xroads/Scout where you load down on green and play a bunch of Xroads to draw deck. This is still not obviously better than big money, but your criticism is only valid if you aren't drawing deck.

Prince: I'm pretty sure just Princing one of your other terminals is just better in every case.

Absolutely not. Prince can only hit cards that are $4 or under. Often the card you want to mass play costs more than that. The obvious example I have done is something like Prince/Scout/Goons/Catacombs (might have been some other Smithy-variant at $5/$6). Yes, I'd have also Princed Ruined village there, but getting even 3 Goons in play is 12 points, minimum, in the final hand.

As for Scrying Pool, I think there's an interesting math problem to do with this one: given a deck with A Scrying Pools, B other action cards, C Scouts, D victory cards, and E other cards, I wonder if you can choose A, B, D, and E so that your maximum expected draw on a turn shows up when C is not zero. I'm sure it can be done and I would expect that answer to result in a deck where I ask myself "why am I trying to draw this deck with Scrying Pool?" or "Don't I already have half of the available VP by now?"

In any case, I don't know that anyone knows the answer to this question for sure, and it seems speculative enough to me that I think a little more research should be done before putting that section into an article.

Well the simplest thing is what Davio mentioned - what else are you going to get instead? Pool drastically lowers Scout's opportunity cost because Silver tends to be a net negative for Pool decks. If the big complements to pool all fall at $5 or higher, Scout is better than Silver, Estate, or even a lot of cheap terminals. Say I'm building Pool/Margrave/Bazaar. I absolutely will grab Scout at $4 if it is just competing against Silver.

Scout's main problem is that early game it is almost strictly inferior to Silver. Late game it is almost strictly inferior to engine components (and is most often inferior to $4 engine components in the early game). That is many, many boards where Scout is obviously worse the entire game. The boards that violate this are either ones where some aspect of Scout is actually exceedingly powerful on that board (e.g. Prince/Scout/Goons/all terminals) or where all competing cards are gone (e.g. Smithy/Village/Iw with both the first two piles empty).

[Dingan]

The 1 thing I'll mention that has been stated elsewhere but not on this thread is that Scout came with Intrigue.  Intrigue has by far the best synergies with Scout than any other set. It's still not good, but it's better.  I've seen an Ironworks/Scout/Great Hall/Conspirator engine (all Intrigue cards) really pay off, especially when uncontested on Great Halls.  Also, remember that Intrigue was the 2nd set released, so even when combined with all other sets at the time (Intrigue + Base), Scout was still way better than it is now.

Don't get me wrong, Scout is terrible.  Just remember the context in which it was created. (I actually wonder if there are other cards that are significantly better or worse now than they were when they were released, hmmmm....)

[Accatitippi]

How often would you take a Scout if it came for free on every green card purchase, Duchess style?

[AdamH]

You also don't mention Scout/Crossroads (jomini mentioned this too), which I feel like at least deserves a nod here. My opinion is that Scout/Crossroads is only useful in puzzles where you can assume you get perfect shuffle luck. The problem is that Scout is just as likely to hurt a Crossroads for your next hand as it is to help a Crossroads in your current hand.

Xroads/Scout is only useful if you are already deck draw. The best option is something like Tr/Xroads/Scout where you load down on green and play a bunch of Xroads to draw deck. This is still not obviously better than big money, but your criticism is only valid if you aren't drawing deck.

I think we agree here, but I'm not quite sure what exactly you mean by this. If you're already drawing your deck without Scout/Crossroads then why do you want to add more draw to it? Is "Tr" Throne Room? I'm not quite clear on how exactly Throne Room is the best enabler for this.

Prince: I'm pretty sure just Princing one of your other terminals is just better in every case.

Absolutely not. Prince can only hit cards that are $4 or under. Often the card you want to mass play costs more than that. The obvious example I have done is something like Prince/Scout/Goons/Catacombs (might have been some other Smithy-variant at $5/$6). Yes, I'd have also Princed Ruined village there, but getting even 3 Goons in play is 12 points, minimum, in the final hand.

It would be interesting to see if this beats BM/Goons/Catacombs with whatever trashing I'm assuming you desperately want for this Prince/Scout/Goons/Catacombs deck. My money is on Big Money here (ha ha, money pun) but I'm not certain of that. I'm guessing simulation is off the table here

Well the simplest thing is what Davio mentioned - what else are you going to get instead? Pool drastically lowers Scout's opportunity cost because Silver tends to be a net negative for Pool decks. If the big complements to pool all fall at $5 or higher, Scout is better than Silver, Estate, or even a lot of cheap terminals. Say I'm building Pool/Margrave/Bazaar. I absolutely will grab Scout at $4 if it is just competing against Silver.

Scout's main problem is that early game it is almost strictly inferior to Silver. Late game it is almost strictly inferior to engine components (and is most often inferior to $4 engine components in the early game). That is many, many boards where Scout is obviously worse the entire game.

Uhh, hmm. I see what you're saying. In the context of Scrying Pool, though, the comparison that came to my mind is Candlestick Maker, since I know that has been discussed. I mean, I don't think BM/Scrying Pool beats BM (I could be totally wrong about that, in which case ignore this) but I would think most of the time opportunity cost for Scout here would be measured against some other non-terminal that SP can draw (otherwise you aren't going for SP) so then you have to compare that one to Scout.

The boards that violate this are either ones where some aspect of Scout is actually exceedingly powerful on that board (e.g. Prince/Scout/Goons/all terminals) or where all competing cards are gone (e.g. Smithy/Village/Iw with both the first two piles empty).

I talked about that first example above. If Villages and Smithies are out, I'm hard-pressed to find a reason to not Green like mad and get pile control and end the game on 3 piles/leave piles to where my opponent can't empty them on a win. In this case, I'm buying/gaining green cards and more Ironworks to get me that pile control.

[DG]

Scout is worth consideration with hunting parties too.

[luser]

Under "getting green" and "discard for benefit" I feel like you didn't mention the best synergies here: Warehouse/Dungeon. This seems way better than Storeroom, though still probably not actually viable.

You also don't mention Scout/Crossroads (jomini mentioned this too), which I feel like at least deserves a nod here. My opinion is that Scout/Crossroads is only useful in puzzles where you can assume you get perfect shuffle luck. The problem is that Scout is just as likely to hurt a Crossroads for your next hand as it is to help a Crossroads in your current hand.

Also there is problem that you would draw more from another crossroads, assuming that there is some support as pure scout-crossroads is worse than bm.

I think the "ruined village" section isn't adding anything of value, or at least it's misleading:

The Peddler/Conspirator thing necessarily requires Scout to be the only other non-terminal on the board. In the case of Conspirator, I don't know what deck you can play where Scout and Conspirator are the only non-terminals and you actually want to go for this, it seems way worse than Big Money (edge case me, I dare you!). In the case of Peddler, Silver does almost the same job in cost reduction: since there are no other non-terminals, your +Buy has to be terminal which means only two Peddlers per turn max. I'm having trouble coming up with decks here that beat Big Money as well.

Prince: I'm pretty sure just Princing one of your other terminals is just better in every case.

As conspirator I could imagine edge case of nobles where buying scout on 4 makes sense.

For prince it could actually work when actions you want cost 5+. For example kingdom with prince, tactician, scout, goons chapel its only way to get double-tact goons engine, same with merch guild/ship.

Tokens: It's better to put them on the already-good card rather than Scout.

I mean, you allude to these, so I think you already know this. But if you know these aren't actually good, then I think you should just say they aren't actually good up-front in the article, rather than try and find some edge-case that doesn't exist. Even if the edge-case existed, I don't think that would belong in the article.


As for Scrying Pool, I think there's an interesting math problem to do with this one: given a deck with A Scrying Pools, B other action cards, C Scouts, D victory cards, and E other cards, I wonder if you can choose A, B, D, and E so that your maximum expected draw on a turn shows up when C is not zero. I'm sure it can be done and I would expect that answer to result in a deck where I ask myself "why am I trying to draw this deck with Scrying Pool?" or "Don't I already have half of the available VP by now?"

A scrying pool was mentioned in previous article, see example games there. A scrying pool-scout works problem is that any cantrip is better. Even 10 coppers and 5 pools would become more reliable by adding scouts.

[Roadrunner7671]

How often would you take a Scout if it came for free on every green card purchase, Duchess style?

Every. Single. Time.
There are no edge cases.

[Limetime]

I once played a game with scout, city, rats, butcher, herald. It was really fun ending with a city mega turn where I lost. The scouts were decent.

[jomini]

Under "getting green" and "discard for benefit" I feel like you didn't mention the best synergies here: Warehouse/Dungeon. This seems way better than Storeroom, though still probably not actually viable.

You also don't mention Scout/Crossroads (jomini mentioned this too), which I feel like at least deserves a nod here. My opinion is that Scout/Crossroads is only useful in puzzles where you can assume you get perfect shuffle luck. The problem is that Scout is just as likely to hurt a Crossroads for your next hand as it is to help a Crossroads in your current hand.

Also there is problem that you would draw more from another crossroads, assuming that there is some support as pure scout-crossroads is worse than bm.

No. Xroads 1 draws you 3 (number of cards you search) * % green in deck. Xroads 2 draws you (3 + xroads 1) * % green.

For instance. if my deck is 33% green. Xroads 1 will draw me 1 card and Xroads 2 will draw me 1.33 cards for a total of + 2.33 cards at the price of two actions (the +3 being flat and non-scaling).

Scout/Xroads draws 4 * %green from the Scout's draw power and 7 * %green from the Xroads that is played next. Basically any card in the Scout search space draws twice.

With 33% green this works out to be 4/3 cards drawn by the Scout and then 7/3 being drawn by the crossroads for a total of 11/3 or 3.66 cards. This also takes one fewer action and lets you sort the top deck on hands with limited draw (so you can draw some more).

In general, if x is the percent green the two xroads in hand will draw 3x +(3+3x)x or 6x + 3x^2 while Scout/xroads will draw 11x. Scout/Xroads then draws more IFF:

11x >= 6x+3x^2
11 >= 6 + 3x
5/3 >= x

as 1 >= x >= 0 there should be no deck composition where Scout/Xroads hands are expected to draw less than Xroads x2.


Adam: Goons engines just churn points compared to much of anything else. With trashing, I can churn 9 VP per turn and attack you every turn. Piling down 8 provinces instead of 4 takes a lot longer with Smithy-BM variants Prince of Scouts is one of the slowest Goons engines, but Goons engines are just that good. BM is, much, much worse when it cannot start faltering and slowly drags it way across the 41 VP line.

Using Tr with the Scout/Xroads is to allow you greater flexibility. Ideally you want more Xroads than Scouts, but you run into problems that having hands with just Xroads lowers your draw potential. Tr gives you the choice if you track your deck of loading up on green first (Tr -> Scout), or drawing for more (Tr -> Xroads); Tr is also phenomenal at getting you value out of the green you draw (e.g. Tr/Baron/Xroads is almost good enough to play on its own, using Scout would make it a pretty decent-ish engine).

Pool prefers Scout when draw is still an issue, because Scout can let you use the discard (top deck a copper) and ensure more than cantrip draw if you see just two actions in 4 cards. Candlestick maker does a different function - coin and +buy, a much better comparison is with Vagrant or Pearl Diver. With Vagrant you can snap up greens and it is cantrip so it normally beats out Scout here. Pearl Diver, on the other hand, is only good when you have a low green amount. If you are trashing down with Counterfeit, Scout doesn't take too long before he draws an average of at least 1 card and 4 card top deck reordering is better than two card deck reordering.

Pile control sounds good, but if your opponent notices they can just snag VP a bit sooner and then you are carrying around a lot of space inefficient cars. Again, it isn't that Scout is often good, but that at times it is better than other stuff. Ramping up to the third pile needs at least two turns; during that time Scout has a small chance of swinging a single province (or colony) turn into a double.

[AdamH]

Adam: Goons engines just churn points compared to much of anything else. With trashing, I can churn 9 VP per turn and attack you every turn. Piling down 8 provinces instead of 4 takes a lot longer with Smithy-BM variants Prince of Scouts is one of the slowest Goons engines, but Goons engines are just that good. BM is, much, much worse when it cannot start faltering and slowly drags it way across the 41 VP line.

Using Tr with the Scout/Xroads is to allow you greater flexibility. Ideally you want more Xroads than Scouts, but you run into problems that having hands with just Xroads lowers your draw potential. Tr gives you the choice if you track your deck of loading up on green first (Tr -> Scout), or drawing for more (Tr -> Xroads); Tr is also phenomenal at getting you value out of the green you draw (e.g. Tr/Baron/Xroads is almost good enough to play on its own, using Scout would make it a pretty decent-ish engine).

Suffice it to say that I think you're overestimating these decks, but I can't really say because I don't know the climate of the games: It's difficult for me to talk about the Goons thing without knowing a whole kingdom (a kingdom with less than 10 cards is OK) but what would convince me is seeing that Goons engine beat BM with Goons when played properly.

The Crossroads deck with Baron, well that needs some treasure-trashing and probably another village to work (I don't think Throne Room cuts it unless you're pairing it with Scout as its only non-terminal).

[Elestan]

FWIW, this is a revised Scout idea I came up with a while ago.  It plays like a backward Scrying Pool, but does what I think a Scout should conceptually be doing:  Clearing away the junk, so that a deck with a lot of green or purple is still playable.  Cost 4.

+1 Action

Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal four cards that are either Actions or Treasures.  Place the revealed Actions and Treasures on top of your deck in any order.  Put the other revealed cards in your hand.

[Davio]

That's actually a pretty decent card, I like it, having it draw Curses as well is a big boon.

[markusin]

That's actually a pretty decent card, I like it, having it draw Curses as well is a big boon.

But it doesn't combo with Scout.

[Chris is me]

How well does Advisor combo with Scout? Advisor decks choke on green, and even failing to hit green Scout rearranges your deck so you can make your Advisor draw a bit better. The main problem I see is that you'd almost never want a Scout instead of another Advisor.

As for the theory card, I think it's a bit broken. If you have under 4 junk cards in your deck, you get to rearrange your entire deck! At least discard the other revealed cards.

[Elestan]

As for the theory card, I think it's a bit broken. If you have under 4 junk cards in your deck, you get to rearrange your entire deck! At least discard the other revealed cards.

No, if you have under 4 non-junk cards in your deck, you get to rearrange your entire deck.  To be more precise, you draw all the junk, and rearrange the 0-3 remaining non-junk cards on top of your deck.

I considered discarding the junk, and reducing the card's cost to 3, but drawing the junk makes the card situationally strong (mainly in the presence of strong copper trashing or DfB), and I think that's more interesting.

[A Ladder]

Cost 4.

+1 Action

Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal four cards that are either Actions or Treasures.  Place the revealed Actions and Treasures on top of your deck in any order.  Put the other revealed cards in your hand.

Hilariously, this makes it terrible with the dual victory cards of Intrigue.

[faust]

How well does Advisor combo with Scout? Advisor decks choke on green, and even failing to hit green Scout rearranges your deck so you can make your Advisor draw a bit better. The main problem I see is that you'd almost never want a Scout instead of another Advisor.

Scout combos with Advisor: Now your opponent has to think about whether he makes you discard a Copper or a Scout!

Seriously though, this is a nombo. Advisor is already more likely to draw green than anything else. Green-heavy decks make Advisor awful. If you have green, you don't want Advisors; if you don't have green, you don't want Scout.

[jomini]

Adam: Goons engines just churn points compared to much of anything else. With trashing, I can churn 9 VP per turn and attack you every turn. Piling down 8 provinces instead of 4 takes a lot longer with Smithy-BM variants Prince of Scouts is one of the slowest Goons engines, but Goons engines are just that good. BM is, much, much worse when it cannot start faltering and slowly drags it way across the 41 VP line.

Using Tr with the Scout/Xroads is to allow you greater flexibility. Ideally you want more Xroads than Scouts, but you run into problems that having hands with just Xroads lowers your draw potential. Tr gives you the choice if you track your deck of loading up on green first (Tr -> Scout), or drawing for more (Tr -> Xroads); Tr is also phenomenal at getting you value out of the green you draw (e.g. Tr/Baron/Xroads is almost good enough to play on its own, using Scout would make it a pretty decent-ish engine).

Suffice it to say that I think you're overestimating these decks, but I can't really say because I don't know the climate of the games: It's difficult for me to talk about the Goons thing without knowing a whole kingdom (a kingdom with less than 10 cards is OK) but what would convince me is seeing that Goons engine beat BM with Goons when played properly.

The Crossroads deck with Baron, well that needs some treasure-trashing and probably another village to work (I don't think Throne Room cuts it unless you're pairing it with Scout as its only non-terminal).

What do you think is good BMGoons play against even the slowest and crappiest Goons engines?

With Prince of Scouts/Goons you will be attacked every turn after what T12? If you are doing BMGoons, that means the only way you can buy provinces is with Gold x2/Goons. It is a lot of turns to either get Gold density that high or hit those odds against turns when you have under 40% gold in deck. You need 8 turns with $8 from 3 cards, that is just an awful lot.

[AdamH]

What do you think is good BMGoons play against even the slowest and crappiest Goons engines?

With Prince of Scouts/Goons you will be attacked every turn after what T12? If you are doing BMGoons, that means the only way you can buy provinces is with Gold x2/Goons. It is a lot of turns to either get Gold density that high or hit those odds against turns when you have under 40% gold in deck. You need 8 turns with $8 from 3 cards, that is just an awful lot.

Can I assume you're talking about a 3-card kingdom with Prince, Scout, and Goons? I mean, I assumed there would be some trashing here that help you out a lot, but OK.

But yeah in that kingdom, I believe the best strategy involves getting like three or four Goons at some point and then lots of Golds and Provinces after that without ever getting Prince or Scout. With no trashing, even this Prince of Scouts thing is going to have a hard time playing Goons every turn. Yeah it takes a while, but what is the Prince of Scouts thing doing? Does it aim for Double Goons turns? I don't see that being reliable at all. Actually, something this simple could potentially be simulated, though I may buy a couple more Goons as the BM+Goons player in reaction to this being my opponent's strategy. Like maybe a fifth in that case.

But what is the Goons "engine" player buying to get points? Treasures? That has to be better than more Scouts. So it's starting to look like a Big Money deck at this point anyways, just one that takes the worst possible route to double Goons turns. I just don't think it's good enough and now I think only a simulation would convince me that I'm wrong.

If you add in trashing then it's a different conversation. I guess you add Chapel? I dunno, I'm still not convinced it's better than BM+Goons although it's much harder to prove that.

[Roadrunner7671]

Adam, shouldn't you be at work?

[AdamH]

Mom! Stop bothering me! I can't be seen in public with you, it's too embarrassing!

[Roadrunner7671]

Don't take that tone up with me unless you want soap for dinner, Mister!

[faust]

What do you think is good BMGoons play against even the slowest and crappiest Goons engines?

With Prince of Scouts/Goons you will be attacked every turn after what T12? If you are doing BMGoons, that means the only way you can buy provinces is with Gold x2/Goons. It is a lot of turns to either get Gold density that high or hit those odds against turns when you have under 40% gold in deck. You need 8 turns with $8 from 3 cards, that is just an awful lot.

Can I assume you're talking about a 3-card kingdom with Prince, Scout, and Goons? I mean, I assumed there would be some trashing here that help you out a lot, but OK.

But yeah in that kingdom, I believe the best strategy involves getting like three or four Goons at some point and then lots of Golds and Provinces after that without ever getting Prince or Scout. With no trashing, even this Prince of Scouts thing is going to have a hard time playing Goons every turn. Yeah it takes a while, but what is the Prince of Scouts thing doing? Does it aim for Double Goons turns? I don't see that being reliable at all. Actually, something this simple could potentially be simulated, though I may buy a couple more Goons as the BM+Goons player in reaction to this being my opponent's strategy. Like maybe a fifth in that case.

But what is the Goons "engine" player buying to get points? Treasures? That has to be better than more Scouts. So it's starting to look like a Big Money deck at this point anyways, just one that takes the worst possible route to double Goons turns. I just don't think it's good enough and now I think only a simulation would convince me that I'm wrong.

If you add in trashing then it's a different conversation. I guess you add Chapel? I dunno, I'm still not convinced it's better than BM+Goons although it's much harder to prove that.

An engine with a Princed Scout can buy up Duchies and Estates at a much lower opportunity cost though - you get to clean every hand you get. I don't think that's enough to beat Goons-BM without other support, but it is something to consider.

[jomini]

What do you think is good BMGoons play against even the slowest and crappiest Goons engines?

With Prince of Scouts/Goons you will be attacked every turn after what T12? If you are doing BMGoons, that means the only way you can buy provinces is with Gold x2/Goons. It is a lot of turns to either get Gold density that high or hit those odds against turns when you have under 40% gold in deck. You need 8 turns with $8 from 3 cards, that is just an awful lot.

Can I assume you're talking about a 3-card kingdom with Prince, Scout, and Goons? I mean, I assumed there would be some trashing here that help you out a lot, but OK.

But yeah in that kingdom, I believe the best strategy involves getting like three or four Goons at some point and then lots of Golds and Provinces after that without ever getting Prince or Scout. With no trashing, even this Prince of Scouts thing is going to have a hard time playing Goons every turn. Yeah it takes a while, but what is the Prince of Scouts thing doing? Does it aim for Double Goons turns? I don't see that being reliable at all. Actually, something this simple could potentially be simulated, though I may buy a couple more Goons as the BM+Goons player in reaction to this being my opponent's strategy. Like maybe a fifth in that case.

But what is the Goons "engine" player buying to get points? Treasures? That has to be better than more Scouts. So it's starting to look like a Big Money deck at this point anyways, just one that takes the worst possible route to double Goons turns. I just don't think it's good enough and now I think only a simulation would convince me that I'm wrong.

If you add in trashing then it's a different conversation. I guess you add Chapel? I dunno, I'm still not convinced it's better than BM+Goons although it's much harder to prove that.

I do not remember what the trasher was, Chapel or Doc I think (I know I was using it to kill at least two coppers per turn in the late game).


We also had, I think, Workshop or Armory (some cheap terminal gainer); Transmute; Storeroom; Royal seal, Cache or Talisman (I recall it being a mostly useless treasure), and maybe Nomad camp, Herbalist or Woodcutters (some terminal +buy). The draw, I think, was Catacombs.

My analysis of the board was that optimal course was to trash down, build to Goons, buy Scout, buy Prince, Prince Scout, get another Goons, get another Prince of Scout and somewhere along the way get a Catacombs so I could buy more coppers.

My opponent tried Chapel -> BM/catacombs but he did grab some duchies when he had 4 and 5 provinces bought. It quickly became a romp with Goons flooding me with points.

Regardless, there are some very powerful engine setups that warrant having $12 necropoli, particularly if you have longer games (e.g. take my above game and make it a colony game, then Goons > Colony BM > Province BM). Possession and Goons come immediately to mind but even beyond that there are a few things that might be worth it like a Bridge Troll megaturn, a double Giant setup, and possibly some stacking attacks (e.g Rabble/Sab).

I have never seen anything that was really viable outside of Goons, but we have all seen $11 or higher Herbalists, $12 necropolis have their place as well.

[luser]

Under "getting green" and "discard for benefit" I feel like you didn't mention the best synergies here: Warehouse/Dungeon. This seems way better than Storeroom, though still probably not actually viable.

You also don't mention Scout/Crossroads (jomini mentioned this too), which I feel like at least deserves a nod here. My opinion is that Scout/Crossroads is only useful in puzzles where you can assume you get perfect shuffle luck. The problem is that Scout is just as likely to hurt a Crossroads for your next hand as it is to help a Crossroads in your current hand.

Also there is problem that you would draw more from another crossroads, assuming that there is some support as pure scout-crossroads is worse than bm.

No. Xroads 1 draws you 3 (number of cards you search) * % green in deck. Xroads 2 draws you (3 + xroads 1) * % green.

For instance. if my deck is 33% green. Xroads 1 will draw me 1 card and Xroads 2 will draw me 1.33 cards for a total of + 2.33 cards at the price of two actions (the +3 being flat and non-scaling).

Scout/Xroads draws 4 * %green from the Scout's draw power and 7 * %green from the Xroads that is played next. Basically any card in the Scout search space draws twice.

With 33% green this works out to be 4/3 cards drawn by the Scout and then 7/3 being drawn by the crossroads for a total of 11/3 or 3.66 cards. This also takes one fewer action and lets you sort the top deck on hands with limited draw (so you can draw some more).

In general, if x is the percent green the two xroads in hand will draw 3x +(3+3x)x or 6x + 3x^2 while Scout/xroads will draw 11x. Scout/Xroads then draws more IFF:

11x >= 6x+3x^2
11 >= 6 + 3x
5/3 >= x

as 1 >= x >= 0 there should be no deck composition where Scout/Xroads hands are expected to draw less than Xroads x2.

Thats both correct and completely useless. You are just counting case when you have scout with crossroads in hand with no other support, which is like hoping that treasure maps will collide. You don't account for hands with one or two scouts in hand but no crossroads, and that with some support you want to play engines draw most with third crossroads which you couldnt do if you draw scout instead crossroads.

[jomini]

Under "getting green" and "discard for benefit" I feel like you didn't mention the best synergies here: Warehouse/Dungeon. This seems way better than Storeroom, though still probably not actually viable.

You also don't mention Scout/Crossroads (jomini mentioned this too), which I feel like at least deserves a nod here. My opinion is that Scout/Crossroads is only useful in puzzles where you can assume you get perfect shuffle luck. The problem is that Scout is just as likely to hurt a Crossroads for your next hand as it is to help a Crossroads in your current hand.

Also there is problem that you would draw more from another crossroads, assuming that there is some support as pure scout-crossroads is worse than bm.

No. Xroads 1 draws you 3 (number of cards you search) * % green in deck. Xroads 2 draws you (3 + xroads 1) * % green.

For instance. if my deck is 33% green. Xroads 1 will draw me 1 card and Xroads 2 will draw me 1.33 cards for a total of + 2.33 cards at the price of two actions (the +3 being flat and non-scaling).

Scout/Xroads draws 4 * %green from the Scout's draw power and 7 * %green from the Xroads that is played next. Basically any card in the Scout search space draws twice.

With 33% green this works out to be 4/3 cards drawn by the Scout and then 7/3 being drawn by the crossroads for a total of 11/3 or 3.66 cards. This also takes one fewer action and lets you sort the top deck on hands with limited draw (so you can draw some more).

In general, if x is the percent green the two xroads in hand will draw 3x +(3+3x)x or 6x + 3x^2 while Scout/xroads will draw 11x. Scout/Xroads then draws more IFF:

11x >= 6x+3x^2
11 >= 6 + 3x
5/3 >= x

as 1 >= x >= 0 there should be no deck composition where Scout/Xroads hands are expected to draw less than Xroads x2.

Thats both correct and completely useless. You are just counting case when you have scout with crossroads in hand with no other support, which is like hoping that treasure maps will collide. You don't account for hands with one or two scouts in hand but no crossroads, and that with some support you want to play engines draw most with third crossroads which you couldnt do if you draw scout instead crossroads.

Well, obviously. There are hundreds of potential support cards and many of those can make a better engine without Scout or Xroads. Likewise, while I do not account for double Scout hands, I also do not account for Xroads/no green hands or green/no xroads. The reason for this is that whiffs are pretty much all the same, be they ones where you draw nothing or where you  churn green to no effect. Likewise, massively lucky hands do not do much for you if you already have a decent shot of deck drawing.

The point wasn't to make an exhaustive case that Scout/Xroads is some sort of magical thing, just that you get around a 50% increase by mixing in Scout. I haven't played this very weak combo much, but I'm guessing you want around 1 Scout / 2 Xroads and enough of both to hit either Xroads /2.5 green or Xroads/Scout every turn.

The problem with looking at Xroads 3 is that to have good odds of chaining xroads, you need to increase your green percent to some very high value. For instance, if you want to "only" have 30% of your deck be Xroads, you need around 50% of your deck to have odds of hitting Xroads 2 on the average hand. If you drop the Xroads % down to 25%, you are not expected to play a second Xroads your turn even if the rest of the deck is all green.



Truth be told hitting Scout -> Xroads -> Xroads is much more likely to draw useful stuff than Xroads x3. Say we have 40% green, and 40% xroads/scout. If we split the xroads & scouts evenly our expectation value is to draw around 10 cards (it gets complicated because Scout can reorder the deck top to draw Xroads 2 when it would otherwise be missed). Xroads x3 with 40% xroads, is expected to draw around 7.2 cards. Not only does Scout increase our draw, but it saves actions.


At the end of the day I will consider just about any engine before Scout/Xroads. I will also consider all manner of slogs and BM instead. But Xroads/Scout can make a viable engine and engines in general are always worth considering.

[Powerman]

Leave the forum for a year or two and people start rewriting your scout article.  #hurtfeelings

[Roadrunner7671]

Leave the forum for a year or two and people start rewriting your scout article.  #hurtfeelings

Then I have a challenge for you, Mr. Powerman!

Write Scout 3 in 2016!

[dghunter79]

I appreciate articles showing the most epic logs with the discussed card. So could someone please post a couple of games where Scout is awesome really good not much worse than a laboratory easily on a regular basis more than once?

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120713-195219-c6ef8676.html

Scout is unbeatable here.  I've posted this game about four thousand times but it's worth it.

[markusin]

I appreciate articles showing the most epic logs with the discussed card. So could someone please post a couple of games where Scout is awesome really good not much worse than a laboratory easily on a regular basis more than once?

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120713-195219-c6ef8676.html

Scout is unbeatable here.  I've posted this game about four thousand times but it's worth it.

I've never seen that log before I don't think. Essentially Scout had a lot of the things you're looking for to hopefuy make it good(Great Hall, Scrying Pool, light trashing for Curses and whatnot) and the Scout does not disappoint.

[DoomYoshi]

How often would you take a Scout if it came for free on every green card purchase, Duchess style?

This would make a 5/2 split maybe better as you can get an estate to pick up a scout and then a 5 (or another scout if you really want to keep your hands concentrated).

[ConMan]

How often would you take a Scout if it came for free on every green card purchase, Duchess style?

This would make a 5/2 split maybe better as you can get an estate to pick up a scout and then a 5 (or another scout if you really want to keep your hands concentrated).

I'm pretty sure that I would not be buying an Estate on turn 1 even if it came with a free Scout, unless there was something *really* good to Inherit.

[Polk5440]

This one is for Roadrunner.

2015: the year in which one newcomer inspires an entire forum of people to have endlessly looping conversations about the most uninteresting topic possible within the passion they all share.

I applaud you, Roadrunner. You've got skillz.

We should have known that encouraging an end to the never-ending Scout jokes on the forum would have left a Scout Respect Vacuum that would be filled by someone....