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[Limetime]

This is the thread to talk about things other than scout. (Scout things go here)
Feel free to sway the conversation to anything Dominion strategy related(except for scout)
Let's talk about theif.
Theif is a card that is pretty bad
Questions:
What Types of games like theif?
How many times do you need to play theif for it to effectively destroy a terminal draw big money strategy?
In a thief slog with gardens when do you get theif?

[Roadrunner7671]

Are you kidding, Thief is like the second best card, it's only worse than tuocS.

[liopoil]

In two-player, I think thief is actually best on niche engine boards where you can get and play a bunch of them in just 1-2 turns and it's worth doing that. You can halt the Big Money player in their tracks, so you can come back even down as much as 6-0 on provinces.

[enfynet]

Thief can be good with TR/KC boards too. The biggest downside is helping your opponent clear out Coppers if they are building an engine.

[Limetime]

Pirate ship is generally better than theif right.
List five boards that are unlike each other where this is not true.

[AdamH]

Any engine deck where you can trash your Coppers, but your payload still has to be treasures is made much weaker by Thief. This happens a lot in the base set, actually. I know of a few games I've played that are examples, but unfortunately Noble Brigand got to shine there, even though Thief would have done pretty much the same thing.

In 3P or more, Thief is quite ridiculous. Thief/Gardens even in a 3P game with little other support should crush most other strategies that need Treasure to do anything. In a 4P game Thief is really good even without support; unfortunately, at that point you're playing a 4P game of Dominion so you've already lost

[luser]

Not completely, best way to use thief is in 6p gardens game when everybody needs to buy thiefs. It also shines in scrying pool games, nothing is better than finding and stealing opponents potion.

[Awaclus]

Pirate ship is generally better than theif right.

Right.

[Just a Rube]

Games where alt-treasures are important (potion was mentioned, but Fool's Gold is also a good example) can sometimes make thief useful, especially if there is already enough trashing (e.g. chapel) that the extra copper trashing isn't significant and the odds of whiffing are lower. And that usefulness scales with more than two players, obviously. I remember giving an opponent conniptions when he tried to use fool's gold with heavy trashing to build an engine around; my thief kept sniping his economy.

But it's very much a niche card, one of the nichest. Which is both the problem and one of the reasons it's still better than The Card Which Must Not Be Named; thief is actively bad in 95% of games, but in the remaining 5% it's golden. TCWMNBN, on the other hand, is nothing in 95% of games, and slightly better than nothing in the remaining 5%.

[wachsmuth]

But it's very much a niche card, one of the nichest. Which is both the problem and one of the reasons it's still better than The Card Which Must Not Be Named; thief is actively bad in 95% of games, but in the remaining 5% it's golden. TCWMNBN, on the other hand, is nothing in 95% of games, and slightly better than nothing in the remaining 5%.

I disagree. It's bad in more than half of games. It's usually not even worth the space it takes up. It's not as bad as Thief, but it's still usually worse than not having it. Most of the time it's worth it to trash it if you somehow get one.

I have never gotten Thief to work with Gardens in 2-player, and I have tried. It's honestly worse than silver most of the time, and silver is a pretty bad card with Gardens.

[AdamH]

It also shines in scrying pool games, nothing is better than finding and stealing opponents potion.

Be careful, if you are trashing your opponent's Coppers for them (which is much more likely than hitting their Potion unless they are trashing the Coppers for you) then playing Thief is still worse than not playing Thief. The worst thing that can happen is that they have to re-buy their Potion, but you also spent a $4 buy on a card that you had to then draw and play. So you need to hit their Potion twice to really be getting value out of this.

I'd think that by the time you're able to play enough Thieves to have a decent chance of actually hurting your opponent this way, they already have enough Pools that it doesn't actually hurt them.

Examples of a game where this was actually effective are welcome. I've never seen Thief be good in 2P unless it's specifically targeting your opponent's payload and the opponent has spent the time trashing his Coppers for you.

[Awaclus]

Examples of a game where this was actually effective are welcome. I've never seen Thief be good in 2P unless it's specifically targeting your opponent's payload and the opponent has spent the time trashing his Coppers for you.

It's also good when you have an awesome engine but your BM playing opponent has been a little bit too fast and you're losing the game. It's still probably not enough to win the game, but it gives you a chance that you otherwise wouldn't have at all.

[liopoil]

Guys why did we decide it would be better to talk about another of the worst cards in the game. Do we need another thread to discuss cards we'll actually buy?

[AdamH]

Guys why did we decide it would be better to talk about another of the worst cards in the game. Do we need another thread to discuss cards we'll actually buy?

One person decided to say Thief. Some other people responded with comments. If you don't like the card we're talking about, be the change you want to see! Start talking about some other card that you want to get better with. Nobody will get mad at you for changing the subject; that has never happened on this forum, ever.

[faust]

I disagree. It's bad in more than half of games. It's usually not even worth the space it takes up. It's not as bad as Thief, but it's still usually worse than not having it. Most of the time it's worth it to trash it if you somehow get one.

You lost The Game.

[Accatitippi]

I sometime like to punch some unsuspecting opponent (bots are great for this) with a Pirate Ship spite deck, and while I understand it's hardly ever the best strategy, it can be devastating if the opponent doesn't answer promptly.
I find that you need:
- trashing (most often, but sifting is also good)
- an engine on the board
- no or weak coins from actions (except pirate ship, that is)
- a collaborating opponent (that is, an opponent that realizes too late that money is bad for him)

The thing is, it's fun, it hurts, it punishes the guy badly, and leaves you with a strong deck afterwards (sometimes stupid good). Thief is bad for this because when you want to gear into greening, it doesn't provide much help, so you're not even sure you'll win in the aftermath.

All in all, I think Pirate ship (and Thief to a much lesser extent) are powerful attacks that are fortunately very easy to play around. The fact that PS was considered awesome for some time shows how hard it can kick ass on careless or unexperienced (or robotic) opponents.

I love pirates.

[enfynet]

Ideally, you pick up Thief or Pirate Ship once your deck is able to handle the extra terminal action that may not immediately benefit you. (Saboteur) And if you pick up a few of them at once without giving your opponent time to react, you may very well stall them to a point where you can command the pace of the end-game.

[AdamH]

The fact that PS was considered awesome for some time shows how hard it can kick ass on careless or unexperienced (or robotic) opponents.

I always thought that PS was considered awesome for so long because it actually is awesome in lots of games with more than 2 players.

[schadd]

thief and pirate ship are good when there are treasure cards other than silver and gold that matter, never let yourself forget. there's nonzero games where you both go for a trim horn of plenty deck and can pick up a thief as another unique, and both of you forgot that horn of plenty is a treasure card because it's not, and then it turns out than 6 horns beats the snot out of 4 horns.

[liopoil]

Guys why did we decide it would be better to talk about another of the worst cards in the game. Do we need another thread to discuss cards we'll actually buy?

One person decided to say Thief. Some other people responded with comments. If you don't like the card we're talking about, be the change you want to see! Start talking about some other card that you want to get better with. Nobody will get mad at you for changing the subject; that has never happened on this forum, ever.

I don't actually really care, was just remarking. Thief is a fine card to talk about

[Limetime]

Let's compare thief to noble brigand
In my opinion when thief is good noble brigand is worse.
First of all Noble brigand can't steal platinum and kingdom treasures.
Platinum is very important to many colony games.
In colony games trashing is more important and both are more likely to hit platinums
To do a full economic pin you need to trash coppers not give them.

[Mavy2k]

I play quite a lot 4p games and thief is an okayish card there.
But it´s not vey much fun to play with. I often discard it for another kingdom card.

What usually happens is that one player gets really screwed by the thief, while it helps the other oponents, which leads to a lot of frustation for that one player, which Gold/Silvers always show up.
It rarely helps the player that bought it to win games, it helps his luckiest opponent a lot more.

[Limetime]

Talisman is another card that is really good when it does shine.
In this game that Ela streamed. Ela picked up a turn ten Talisman to get two extra minstrels, two extra moats, and two extra throne rooms. The chat agreed that she should of picked it up earlier even as early as the second shuffle. Near the end of that game she triggered a nasty shuffle that she had to waste a whole turn not buying any green. Luckily her opponent could not afford province.

[Davio]

Thief is not bad, it's situational.

Sadly, there aren't a lot of good situations for Thief.

[GendoIkari]

Thief is not bad, it's situational.

Sadly, there aren't a lot of good situations for Thief.

Pretty sure that a situational card, for which there aren't a lot of good situations, is a bad card. (I mean bad as in weak; not sure if that's what you meant).

[Dingan]

(Wasn't sure where else to post this)

Somebody should make an article about cards that are both trash-for-benefit and gainers.  So like Procession, Develop, Graverobber, etc.  Graverobber is probably my least-understood card, as it involves moving cards to and from the trash -- a mechanic which is very hard to master.  Add in things like Fortress, Rogue, or KC to the mix and I'm at a complete loss.

EDIT: Example game: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14722.0

[LastFootnote]

Somebody should make an article about cards that are both trash-for-benefit and gainers.

You mean remodels?

I think it would be tough to make one useful article about all of them, since the types of cards they want to/can trash vary so much. I guess one big thing is: sometimes it's good to remodel another Action you can't also play, especially if you can buy a copy of it back before you shuffle.

[Dingan]

Somebody should make an article about cards that are both trash-for-benefit and gainers.

You mean remodels?

Oh is that what they're called?  But I actually think Remodel, Expand, and Upgrade are far more simple than the other ones I mentioned.  I'm not sure why; maybe the top-decking, maybe Procession's Thrown Roomness.  Regardless, I almost always manage to screw these cards up somehow.

[AdamH]

These cards are all very complex; if I tried to write one article about the similarities of just Procession, Develop, and Graverobber; that article would be pretty bad. Procession and Develop deserve an article on just them, and perhaps Graverobber does as well.

The nice thing for you, at least, is that Graverobber is probably the easiest to understand out of all of these. If you can, just play a lot of games with Graverobber and no +Buy (and not Rebuild) and go for Graverobbers -- you'll get a pretty good feel of just how powerful it is at its best (it's not super-ultra-broken as payload, in which case it's a conditional gainer).

Without getting into too much detail (because that's hard), I'll say this much about Procession and Develop: do a check at the start of the game to see how "broken" they can be -- you want spammable (non-terminal) cards at appropriate price points. These cards do best when there's a lot of draw because gain-and-play gets really ridiculous with these guys -- you'll want to be thinking many more steps ahead than normal to make sure you don't waste any draw; think very carefully before playing every single Action card in your hand, especially cantrips, and especially when you have two (or three when you don't have cantrips in hand) or more Actions remaining in the case of Develop so you can do your mid-turn tricks...

Develop is really nice with cards that care about the top two cards of your deck (namely Herald and Wishing Well), and is really great when you can play it mid-turn because of the top-decking, so you'll want a deck rich with villages so you can afford to play mid-turn terminals that don't immediately draw you cards.

Procession starts to get better than "Throne Room with a drawback" when you can play the thing you gained on the same turn. I kind of already said that already. In this case, you'll be planning multiple turns ahead.

There you go. I will not be writing articles about these cards because I feel like I don't understand them enough. I feel like nobody in the world understands these cards to write an awesome article. Eh.

[Dingan]

These cards are all very complex; if I tried to write one article about the similarities of just Procession, Develop, and Graverobber; that article would be pretty bad. Procession and Develop deserve an article on just them, and perhaps Graverobber does as well.

The nice thing for you, at least, is that Graverobber is probably the easiest to understand out of all of these. If you can, just play a lot of games with Graverobber and no +Buy (and not Rebuild) and go for Graverobbers -- you'll get a pretty good feel of just how powerful it is at its best (it's not super-ultra-broken as payload, in which case it's a conditional gainer).

Without getting into too much detail (because that's hard), I'll say this much about Procession and Develop: do a check at the start of the game to see how "broken" they can be -- you want spammable (non-terminal) cards at appropriate price points. These cards do best when there's a lot of draw because gain-and-play gets really ridiculous with these guys -- you'll want to be thinking many more steps ahead than normal to make sure you don't waste any draw; think very carefully before playing every single Action card in your hand, especially cantrips, and especially when you have two (or three when you don't have cantrips in hand) or more Actions remaining in the case of Develop so you can do your mid-turn tricks...

Develop is really nice with cards that care about the top two cards of your deck (namely Herald and Wishing Well), and is really great when you can play it mid-turn because of the top-decking, so you'll want a deck rich with villages so you can afford to play mid-turn terminals that don't immediately draw you cards.

Procession starts to get better than "Throne Room with a drawback" when you can play the thing you gained on the same turn. I kind of already said that already. In this case, you'll be planning multiple turns ahead.

There you go. I will not be writing articles about these cards because I feel like I don't understand them enough. I feel like nobody in the world understands these cards to write an awesome article. Eh.

Thanks, this is good stuff.  Who knows, maybe I'll be worthy enough to write one someday...

A few other points about them off the top of my head:

• Graverobber, Develop, and Procession (depending on what you Process) all decrease your handsize by at least 1 card, usually 2
• Throning a Graverobber can sometimes be like "Place an Action card costing up to $5 on top of your deck. If you do, gain a Province."
• When playing with things that remove cards from the trash, I kind of think of the trash as a Native Village mat shared amongst all players

[Dingan]

I call these things "pseudo-plus-buys".  They're technically not "gainers" nor "plus-buyers".

• City.  It's sometimes, but rarely, +buy.
• Possession.  I would not call this a Workshop variant, although some people have.  I would say it's in a class of its own.
• Outpost.  It can certainly act as a gainer, although nowhere in its text does it mention the word "gain".

Any more?  Is there a different term for these kind of things?

[wachsmuth]

I call these things "pseudo-plus-buys".  They're technically not "gainers" nor "plus-buyers".

• City.  It's sometimes, but rarely, +buy.
• Possession.  I would not call this a Workshop variant, although some people have.  I would say it's in a class of its own.
• Outpost.  It can certainly act as a gainer, although nowhere in its text does it mention the word "gain".

Any more?  Is there a different term for these kind of things?

How about some of the 'gaining' events? Pilgrimage, Seaway, Mission, Ball? Maybe Black Market?

[Beyond Awesome]

I call these things "pseudo-plus-buys".  They're technically not "gainers" nor "plus-buyers".

• City.  It's sometimes, but rarely, +buy.
• Possession.  I would not call this a Workshop variant, although some people have.  I would say it's in a class of its own.
• Outpost.  It can certainly act as a gainer, although nowhere in its text does it mention the word "gain".

Any more?  Is there a different term for these kind of things?

How about some of the 'gaining' events? Pilgrimage, Seaway, Mission, Ball? Maybe Black Market?

Pilgrimage is definitely a gainer. Sea Way gives your deck lots of +Buy. Okay, Mission is its own thing. Ball is sort of like stonemason without buying the stonemason, so it seems to be in a grey area. Black Market perhaps counts.

[Awaclus]

Let's talk about brackets!

[Roadrunner7671]

Let's talk about brackets!

[spiralstaircase]

Let's talk about brackets!

OK.  My favourite bracket is the chevron, «».  How about yours?

[ThetaSigma12]

Let's talk about brackets!

OK.  My favourite bracket is the chevron, «».  How about yours?

I'm a sucker for the original. I always use them over parentheses when I can. [Which is a lot]

[faust]

Let's talk about brackets!

Why has RR not yet made a Scout combo bracket?

[Roadrunner7671]

Let's talk about brackets!

Why has RR not yet made a Scout combo bracket?

I'm waiting for the bracket madness to die down.

(I'm also waiting for computer access.)

[AdrianHealey]

A best combo with scout bracket!

[Roadrunner7671]

A best combo with scout bracket!

Let's talk about brackets!

Why has RR not yet made a Scout combo bracket?

I'm waiting for the bracket madness to die down.

(I'm also waiting for computer access.)

[Seprix]

Thief will be discussed in the 'Let's Discuss Dominion Cards' series shortly.

[Awaclus]

Thief will be discussed in the 'Let's Discuss Dominion Cards' series shortly.

So we shouldn't discuss it here? Wow, what a great way to generate discussion the 'Let's Discuss Dominion Cards' series is!

[Seprix]

Thief will be discussed in the 'Let's Discuss Dominion Cards' series shortly.

So we shouldn't discuss it here? Wow, what a great way to generate discussion the 'Let's Discuss Dominion Cards' series is!

You cannot discuss it here. Otherwise, you will be contacted by my legal team.

[Dingan]

(Yet again, wasn't sure where else to post this, and I feel this thread is kind of a catch-all for all random/miscellaneous thoughts.)

Question on proper etiquette here...

I recently played a game with Possession where my opponent had mentioned in the chat that he doesn't play with Possession, and wanted to ban it.  I didn't actually see the message until much later (I don't usually check the chat window at all during the game until after the game ends).  I proceeded to play the board as normal, buying Potion and eventually Possession.  In which case my opponent got very sour in the chat (which, again, I still didn't actually notice until later).  He then resigned, at which point I saw the chat window had some messages in it, and realized the gravity of the situation.

So my question is: What is the proper etiquette in such a situation?  I realize banning cards isn't anywhere in the realm of official Dominion rules/play, especially online.  But I do want to be sensitive to people that are passionate about it.  I guess at the very least, I should have noticed his messages in the chat window earlier and commented at the beginning of the game that I don't prefer to ban any cards.  But then again, there's no guarantee that all players read all chat messages.  So I'm not sure.

[Awaclus]

(Yet again, wasn't sure where else to post this, and I feel this thread is kind of a catch-all for all random/miscellaneous thoughts.)

Question on proper etiquette here...

I recently played a game with Possession where my opponent had mentioned in the chat that he doesn't play with Possession, and wanted to ban it.  I didn't actually see the message until much later (I don't usually check the chat window at all during the game until after the game ends).  I proceeded to play the board as normal, buying Potion and eventually Possession.  In which case my opponent got very sour in the chat (which, again, I still didn't actually notice until later).  He then resigned, at which point I saw the chat window had some messages in it, and realized the gravity of the situation.

So my question is: What is the proper etiquette in such a situation?  I realize banning cards isn't anywhere in the realm of official Dominion rules/play, especially online.  But I do want to be sensitive to people that are passionate about it.  I guess at the very least, I should have noticed his messages in the chat window earlier and commented at the beginning of the game that I don't prefer to ban any cards.  But then again, there's no guarantee that all players read all chat messages.  So I'm not sure.

Well, I would tell him something like "you don't have to play with Possession if you don't want to, but don't mind if I do".

The only time I can remember when my opponent has proposed to ban anything from a kingdom, it was something completely crazy (I think it was Pirate Ship but it might have been something else, either way it was way worse than ignorable in that kingdom), so I promised him that I certainly wouldn't buy it in that game, but that I would be fine with him buying it if he wanted to.

[Beyond Awesome]

I would say add it is since we don't have a ban system in the current implementation, no one is obligated to not buy a card just to make someone else happy. If you don't want to see that card then don't play full random. I know that's harsh, but you shouldn't have to bend over backwards for someone else. Hopefully, the next implementation offers a banning function. I think Donald X. suggested allowing players to ban 3 cards total from all the cards they own.

[AdrianHealey]

I almost always immediately leave when Rebuid is in the kingdom. I think that's the best way to go about if there are cards you don't want.

[Limetime]

Lets talk about Legionary.
How good is it in bm?
Does this make it worth going for a weak draw engine?
How many moats do you want in a Legionary game?

[Seprix]

Lets talk about Legionary.
How good is it in bm?
Does this make it worth going for a weak draw engine?
How many moats do you want in a Legionary game?

Interesting topic. Legionary does not cycle, but it gives a whopping $3, and landing it with Gold is just so brutal an attack. I think Legionary BM is absolutely conceivable, and strictly better than Giant BM. You have something to buy when you hit $5, and it's so much better than Silver.

if Moat is on the board with Legionary... Hmmm... I don't think Moat wins, especially if Moat doesn't attack back, and there's the terminal collision aspect if Moat does pick up Legionary. I don't know, I'd have to play about 10 games before having an idea.

Legionary is a brutal attack if you can get it off every turn. It WRECKS BM, so if it is possible with a weak draw engine that can thin even a little, it is absolutely worth going for, compared to the alternative BM.

[Dingan]

Legionary combos with Gold