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[Chris is me]

Let's Discuss Adventures Cards is a daily(ish) series of forum threads where we discuss a different Adventures card each day. Right now the plan is to just go through all of them alphabetically, with a single thread for each Traveller line.



Card Text: $1, When you play this, put it on your Tavern mat. --LINE-- Directly after resolving an Action, you may call this, for +2 Actions.

Some points of discussion to start with (discussion of anything else related to Bridge Troll is also welcomed):

• COTR works differently than any other Village. It gives +2 Actions after an Action is resolved - as if you played 2 Villages before playing the Action. On the other hand, it is not usually possible to play a COTR and call it on the same turn. How does this affect an engine relying on COTR as its sole Village?
• When COTR is used as a "backup" Village in case one starts a turn with a hand full of terminals, how many can be safely bought? What factors need to be considered when building said engine? What are the opportunity costs to stacking up COTRs?

---

My opinion: COTR is a nifty little insurance policy. It can also be used as the main Village for an engine, albeit somewhat awkwardly. It's somewhat difficult / non-intuitive to use it this way and thus I'm really not good at playing with this card yet. I suspect I need a lot more practice with it to gauge a real idea of the card's strength and to use it to its full potential.

[Limetime]

Cotr is contending for being my favorite card. Coin of the realm is one of the strongest villages because they provide twice as much actions as regular villages, are much better at reliability than other villages. Amazing synergy with terminal draw (no longer need to collide village with terminal draw card).

[ConMan]

CotR does so many things that make me happy:

• It's a cheap little engine part. In fact, it's one of the cheapest villages available.
• It works right when you need it to - instead of guessing how many +Actions you'll need before you start playing terminals, you can play your terminal draw and *then* decide if you need a Village to play another card. And you don't even need to have your Village in hand to kick things off.
• It lets you do stupid stuff. And by stupid, I mean that Highway-Black Market-CotR-Workshop-Mandarin is a combo that lets you play the same Treasure card multiple times in a turn. It will in no way help you win the game, but who cares when you can pull a stunt like that?

On that note, I think that CotR is a strong enabler of the good old Black Market-Tactician combo, since it allows you to add a third terminal into the mix of your choice.

Obviously it has its downsides.

• Like a Duration card, it's slower than your average card - excepting Black Market or Storyteller, you won't get to use it as a Village the turn you play it, and it will keep missing the reshuffle unless you call it at the right time.
• It's only a Copper the turn you play it.

But, uh, that's about it? I think that a large proportion of decks, and especially engine decks, can grab a CotR with a spare buy even if it isn't the core of the strategy. So you can have your bog-standard Village or whatever as your main source of +Actions, but keep a few Coins on the Reserve mat for those times your draw goes the wrong way. It's about as reliable as Princing a Village, a fair bit weaker in a lot of circumstances but also a heck of a lot cheaper.

[AdamH]

Coin is really, really powerful. It enables lots of decks that no other village can, except for MAYBE Fishing Village for some of them. In decks where it's really hard to line up your business, Coin doesn't care.

Terminal draw gets much, much better when Coin is around.

If you're using Coin and it feels like other villages that you're used to, then you're not using it to its full potential. You need to buy it earlier (like a whole shuffle earlier, so 4-5 turns in some cases) than you bought other villages in order to have it online when you need it, but once it's there, the power is something really unique.

In this post I mention a game I played IRL where Coin enables a deck that wouldn't really be viable with any other village -- probably not even Fishing Village.

I also commented on wero's Coin article a while back -- while this is sort of old and kind of non-specific, I think there's a good amount of useful knowledge contained in that thread, as long as you take into account that nobody (including myself) really knows what they're talking about.

This is a complex card, it's very different from any other card that currently exists, and Dominion players in general have a long way to go before they unlock the full potential of this card.

[Roadrunner7671]

Coin of the Realm is a very high skill card. Even though I am positive that I can't utilize it to its true potential, I still enjoy playing with it. It's always a good pickup for $2, as you don't use it until you need it. The on play of $1 will often be overlooked, but it's a decent on play effect. The business end, of course, is with the reserve portion. It's useful in all sorts of decks. If yoy pick it up for $2 in a BM game, your two Margraves might collide at some point during the game. COTR can fix that. It's also obviously good in an engine.

[kn1tt3r]

I'm not so sure about CotR being a high skill card. I think it's just people haven't figured out yet how to use it properly. Once this is figured out, I suppose it's not that tough.

Or, in other words, it might be a strategically tough call when to go for it and to what extend. Tactically I think it kind of plays itself.

That being said, I myself have no clue about the card yet. It always feels so wrong buying a Copper only to have a Necropolis after some time that you might not even need. I guess it can enable certain decks and in general it gives reliability to not totally reliable engines, but currently I feel it's not a really great card. I might be completely wrong of course.

[SCSN]

It always feels so wrong buying a Copper only to have a Necropolis after some time that you might not even need. I guess it can enable certain decks and in general it gives reliability to not totally reliable engines, but currently I feel it's not a really great card. I might be completely wrong of course.

It's like two Necros because calling it does not consume an action.

[kn1tt3r]

It always feels so wrong buying a Copper only to have a Necropolis after some time that you might not even need. I guess it can enable certain decks and in general it gives reliability to not totally reliable engines, but currently I feel it's not a really great card. I might be completely wrong of course.

It's like two Necros because calling it does not consume an action.

Oh, even better. TWO Necropoles!

[terminalCopper]

It always feels so wrong buying a Copper only to have a Necropolis after some time that you might not even need. I guess it can enable certain decks and in general it gives reliability to not totally reliable engines, but currently I feel it's not a really great card. I might be completely wrong of course.

It's like two Necros because calling it does not consume an action.

Even better: It's a copper coming with two villages,  because aside from being a copper,  it does not consume any further slot in your deck.

[dedicateddan]

Coin of the realm is one of the better villages. It gives a total of +2 actions (double a village), only costs 2, and provides a coin as well.
-In a money-focused deck, having a coin of the realm on the mat is an insurance policy against action collision.
-In a draw-your deck engine, you play COTR every other turn, so it functions much like a village
-The tavern mat mechanics require planning. Coin of the realm can't be called until the turn after you play it, so balance actions/coins accordingly.

[aku_chi]

A really nifty card; I like the design.

I'm not very experienced with this card; my biggest take-aways from werothegreat's article and ensuing discussion is that Coin of the Realm is most valuable in the presence of terminal draw and +buy.  It works better than any other village with terminal draw, because you don't need to play it before you play the terminal draw.  It works best with +buy because it costs two coins (this is both very obvious and very important).  I suspect that on some boards with strong terminal draw and +buy, Coin of the Realm will be more valuable than any other village.

[Davio]

It's great that 1 Cotr lets you play 3 terminals, since most of the time you don't have a lot more than 3 terminals; oftentimes you have cantrips like Markets thrown in.

This is probably great with Wharf, since you can play "Wharf, (call) Cotr, Wharf, Wharf, spend Cotr during buy phase" every turn to enable a deck with 6 Wharves and just 2 Cotrs to power them. You only have to have 1 Cotr in your deck and the other on the mat.

[ipofanes]

This is probably great with Wharf, since you can play "Wharf, (call) Cotr, Wharf, Wharf, spend Cotr during buy phase" every turn to enable a deck with 6 Wharves and just 2 Cotrs to power them. You only have to have 1 Cotr in your deck and the other on the mat.

That'd be five cards in your hand, six cards to draw with your last turn Wharfs and six cards with the Wharfs you played. Times two for a "draw half your deck" game would be a deck of 34 cards total. Maybe somebody else would have ended the game before you have that many cards. Granted, the +buy help a lot but it may not be the dominant strategy. I think I'd gladly lose the Wharf split and be content with four Wharfs.

[Davio]

What's a "draw half your deck" game?

[SCSN]

What's a "draw half your deck" game?

It's a game where you would have drawn your deck had your opponent not lulled you into semi-consciousness by being so dreadfully slow that now, in the middle of your own turn, while you wait for him to discard, you give up your last vestige of resistance and make your keyboard assume the function of a pillow.

[Davio]

TIL the meaning of the word vestige.

[jomini]

Cotr has a few things going for it:
1. It is twice as space efficient as other $2 villages. If you are aiming to draw deck, you need only draw one Cotr a turn to get the effect of two squires. This makes a lot of +3 card engines more viable with less support (trashing, sifting, etc.), it is still inferior to vanilla Village for a lot a space efficiency concerns so I have seen a lot of people overbuy it.

2. It is exceedingly reliable. It is totally worth it to build your deck off some other village, but add a CotR  just to reduce hands where you whiff with an all terminal draw. It is particularly nice on high draw/low trashing & sifting boards for this.

3. It can enable turns full of Terminals with no/very limited draw. E.g. I did a Bridge, Haven, Doc, Iw, Cotr deck where I used Havens to get 6 Bridges & 2 Iw in hand. These boards are rare, but fun.

4. It interacts very well with everything that likes Treasures. Mint is insanely nice - trash coppers, Mint village; Smithy/Mint/Cotr is pretty reliable and very nice with almost any +buy. Mine, Forager, Taxman, Stables, etc. Bm and Storyteller are exceptionally good as you can buy fewer CotR being able to fully cycle the cards through the Tavern Mat with just one pass.

The downsides:
1. It cannot provide +actions when gained. This makes it much harder to ramp up turns with cards like Iw or Workshop if you villages are delayed a turn. One of the most powerful things for an engine is the ability to gain & play cards the same turn. Cotr takes an extra turn to get to the equivalent point of another village.

2. It reacts poorly with cards that care about actions. Most notably Kc, Tr, Prssn, and Rc. Others are trivial (like Transmute), but you can have problems with things like Vineyard, Library, Graverobber, Peddler, and Conspirator.

3. It is makes you engine highly vulnerable to Thief and like any $2/$5 village to Swindler.

4. It is not as space efficient as regular village. Yes having one or maybe two is great, but if you are drawing your entire deck it really is inferior to most any $3 or higher village.

A few specific interactions:
1. It plays very nicely with Shanty town - you use the actions to clear out terminals (particularly non-drawing ones) to play Shanties as activated cities. This is particularly nice if you want just one or two non-terminals in your Shanty deck (e.g. a Militia and a Masq).

2. Golem will skip Cotr, but it makes it much easier to manage actions when you can leave spare actions on the Mat when your Golem chain leaves you with unneeded actions.

3. You can spike an end game province very easily with Cotr and Diadem. Purely a tactical play where you already went Tournament/Cotr and just happen to line up Prov/Tour and two Cotr on the mat (Tour draw & coin must not be blocked, return the Cotr after resolving the Tour).

[Mavy2k]

Coin is an incredible powerful card for only $2. It would still be a cool card for $3. I would rank it in the top 3 of 2 cost cards.

It can obviously be compared to a village and you can certainly use it this way, but the main advantage is that it adds so much reliability to your deck.
You want 1 sitting on your tavern mat at all times, just in case. At some point in a game you usually wish you had one more action.

It will help you to play that extra Mountebank/Witch/Torturer, which can make a huge difference, since you do not have to fear collision or drawing cards dead.
A 5/2 opening on these boards can be absolutely devastating for your opponent.

[Stealth Tomato]

It's a weaker Fishing Village.

Fishing Village: +$1, +2 Actions. Next turn, +$1, +3 Actions effective.
Coin of the Realm: +$1, +1 Action effective. Next turn, +3 Actions effective. Can be reserved for a later turn.

Fishing Village is so damn powerful I'd be tempted to put this in a high tier, but I'm just not sure. You need multiples for it to be effective, and this isn't the sort of card you love having tons of copies of. If your kingdom has really strong draw and +Buy, sure, but that's a pretty low percentage of kingdoms.

[LastFootnote]

It's a weaker Fishing Village.

Fishing Village: +$1, +2 Actions. Next turn, +$1, +3 Actions effective.
Coin of the Realm: +$1, +1 Action effective. Next turn, +3 Actions effective. Can be reserved for a later turn.

Fishing Village is so damn powerful I'd be tempted to put this in a high tier, but I'm just not sure. You need multiples for it to be effective, and this isn't the sort of card you love having tons of copies of. If your kingdom has really strong draw and +Buy, sure, but that's a pretty low percentage of kingdoms.

Not quite.

Fishing Village: +$1, +2 Actions. Next turn: +1 Card, +2 Actions, +$1 effective.
Coin of the Realm: +$1, +1 Action effective. Future turn: +1 Card, +3 Actions effective.

[AdamH]

It's a weaker Fishing Village.

I understand the comparison, and maybe it's the fact that the card started out much closer to FV before it was ever a treasure that this is so distinct to me, but play this kingdom with Fishing Village instead of Coin and tell me it's remotely the same:

Witch, Embassy, Lost City, Coin of the Realm, Horse Traders, Baron, Secret Chamber, Advisor, Haggler, Ghost Ship (I refer to this kingdom a lot because it's a great example)

I feel like the comparison to Fishing Village is useful, but it's dangerous after a certain point, because you play it entirely differently. Fishing Village is much easier to pick up because it's better economically by a lot so you can still hit $5. But you have to play around the fact that later on if you don't get your FVs into play every turn, that your deck just might completely crash and burn and you're just totally screwed. When you buy these cards requires a totally different set of planning and calculations to do it right.

People are talking about the card rankings. I put Coin 5th in its category -- Chapel and Peasant are above it and I think that's pretty clear. Save and Borrow are also above it because Events are so stinkin' good -- they have a much smaller opportunity cost, you know? I like where I put Coin

[Mavy2k]

It's a weaker Fishing Village.

You can certainly use the card as a weaker FV, that is true.
But the card has much more potential than that.

I agree with Adam that you just play this card entirely differently, even when it seems so similar, but it really is not.

[Donald X.]

Coin of the Realm is very cool. It's not always the best village on the table; it's not great to have to draw it as a Copper. But it's a fantastic village when you just need a little villaging and aren't drawing your deck. And of course it's always nice to have that insurance, even with other villages doing your main villaging.

It was an Action originally, and LF suggested making it a Treasure. That means it's never* dead, which is also cool.

[ipofanes]

That means it's never* dead, which is also cool.

*Edge case: Tactician.

[Davio]

It's a weaker Fishing Village.

I understand the comparison, and maybe it's the fact that the card started out much closer to FV before it was ever a treasure that this is so distinct to me, but play this kingdom with Fishing Village instead of Coin and tell me it's remotely the same:

Witch, Embassy, Lost City, Coin of the Realm, Horse Traders, Baron, Secret Chamber, Advisor, Haggler, Ghost Ship (I refer to this kingdom a lot because it's a great example)

I feel like the comparison to Fishing Village is useful, but it's dangerous after a certain point, because you play it entirely differently. Fishing Village is much easier to pick up because it's better economically by a lot so you can still hit $5. But you have to play around the fact that later on if you don't get your FVs into play every turn, that your deck just might completely crash and burn and you're just totally screwed. When you buy these cards requires a totally different set of planning and calculations to do it right.

People are talking about the card rankings. I put Coin 5th in its category -- Chapel and Peasant are above it and I think that's pretty clear. Save and Borrow are also above it because Events are so stinkin' good -- they have a much smaller opportunity cost, you know? I like where I put Coin

The important thing here is to not play FV's like an idiot.

If you have 5 FV's, don't play 5 FV's during a single turn.
After the duration turn, they all get shuffled back in and you might draw a hand with all terminals and no FV's, or you might draw a hand with all FV's and no terminals.


Just try to play 2-3 every turn and you'll be fine.