Print

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

[Elanchana]

Code: [Select]

Stonemason, Scrying Pool, Develop, Watchtower, Bishop, Cultist, Mandarin, Rabble, Nobles, Peddler
Log

So my first thought here was "Hey, ruins count as actions - Scrying Pool can defend against Cultist!" But while that might be true, things didn't quite go according to plan. First of all, Jeebus had a 5/2 split, which meant that ruins were being pelted into my deck from the second shuffle. Then on top of that, he grabbed three more over the next few turns and chained all four immediately after. I, meanwhile, only managed to get a single Cultist, and by the time it finally appeared in my hand, it was too late to even try to even out the ruins so it got fed directly to my Develop. And it just went downhill from there - the Scrying Pools hid from me and hardly ever worked as expected, my terminals (including trashers) collided way too much for comfort, and it's a wonder I didn't rage quit.

But fortunately, this is one of the games that I'm actually willing to analyze. I know for a fact I fell victim to bad decision making in the later half of the game, which mostly involved trashing ruins instead of coppers (either I had no choice or I didn't want to lose my economy... it seemed like a good idea at the time). What I'm concerned with is the early game. Should I have kept the Silver opening, increasing my chance of getting Stonemason/double Pool, or should I have gone with Develop, for an early start on the trashing, or Watchtower, to further defend against Cultists? Should I have bothered with buying that Cultist in turn 5, and if so, should I have played it in turn 9 or not? Was it even worth it to go for Scrying Pools in the first place, or should I just have opened double Silver and competed for Cultists even with Jeebus's 2/5 opening?

[Limetime]

If you want to go hard core defence you should open watchtower/potion hoping to either top deck scrying pool or double pool. You kinda want peddlers asap and watchtower help you do that more than silver.

[faust]

How good the defence works out will probably depend on how early, and whether at all, you get Ruined Markets. Without +buy, I don't see this being fast enough.

[Chris is me]

Biggest things I can see helping Scrying Pool versus Cultist are Stonemason, Watchtower, and Peddler. I would open Watchtower / Potion, pick up one more Watchtower on exactly 3 maybe?. Try and get multiple Pools with Stonemason. You should be able to get cheap Peddlers quickly, maybe even 2 of them if you have $4 after playing 3 actions. Stonemason on Peddlers can turn them into Nobles or Duchies, too. I would expect and be ready for a three pile.

[Limetime]

What chis said and: After your engine is cooking you don't need provinces just bishop peddlers. The opponent won't realistically get all 8 provinces while you can easily trash 8 peddlers. Watch out for piles but the cultist player will have less pile control.

[Kirian]

Well that's a hell of a typo.

[Awaclus]

Well that's a hell of a typo.

I thought it was on purpose.

[Dingan]

I'm not convinced Scrying Pool is the way to go here, especially if your opponent opens Cultist/-, and even more especially if your opponent plays 3 cultists by T5, as they did here.  I can see the Cultist player using Stonemason to grab 2 Nobles per turn once they're strong.  In which case, they would have pretty good pile control with all those Nobles and Stonemasons, and the Ruins being empty.  I could see the game ending pretty quickly on Ruins/Nobles/(Cultist or Stonemason or Estate), with the Cultist player winning because they have more Nobles.

Had your opponent and you both opened 4/3, maybe that would be an entirely different story.  Or maybe not.

[AdamH]

I've played Scrying Pool/Vineyards as a counter to Cultist and it still wasn't strong enough. Scrying Pool itself doesn't do much to help you against Ruins, really.

That particular game, though, was a 3P game where one guy went Cultist, I went for the Vineyards counter, but I like never saw my Potion, and the third guy didn't seem to have a plan other than to deny me Vineyards which weren't really worth anything to him. I was buying Ruins the whole game to make sure I won the split (which has to be awful).

Umm, I guess the point is that Vineyard is probably fine against Cultist, but Scrying Pool doesn't do anything. And don't buy Ruins unless you're like not going to shuffle again before the game is over. Yeah.

Cultist makes me sad but at least there's Coin of the Realm now to help out a little bit...

[Elanchana]

Cultist makes me sad but at least there's Coin of the Realm now to help out a little bit...

I'm never gonna live that down, am I?

So is Scrying Pool just not a good idea against Cultist unless there's, Iunno, super trashing or something? It doesn't look like there would have been hope for it here against his draws even with better buys...

[A Drowned Kernel]

Cultist makes me sad but at least there's Coin of the Realm now to help out a little bit...

I'm never gonna live that down, am I?

So is Scrying Pool just not a good idea against Cultist unless there's, Iunno, super trashing or something? It doesn't look like there would have been hope for it here against his draws even with better buys...

The log is lost to time but I played a game once where there was scrying pool, secret chamber, and grand market vs. Cultist. I opened secret chamber/potion and my opponent went Cultist/BM and I won handily. That's a pretty specific combo though (and would work better with Storeroom)

[Roadrunner7671]

Cultist makes me sad but at least there's Coin of the Realm now to help out a little bit...

I'm never gonna live that down, am I?

So is Scrying Pool just not a good idea against Cultist unless there's, Iunno, super trashing or something? It doesn't look like there would have been hope for it here against his draws even with better buys...

I built a deck at Scott's tournament with Cultist and Witch. I tied (but got to advance) in a three player game with Trader and Procession as the only trashing. Processing Ruins, buying Vineyards with my Ruined Markets, that might've been my finest victory ever. So don't let someone tell you it can't be done. Scrying Pool is underrated, even though people think it's great.

[Jeebus]

I remember wondering about this game too. I've lost before with Scrying Pool against Cultist, so I don't think it's always a good idea. Here I had lucky draws early and I feel like you had some bad draws; the Scrying Pools should be able to draw a bit more consistently. But in any case I think that Cultist is the way to go here, due to two things.

1) This was mentioned by Dingan. Cultist player can end the game quickly on 3 piles because of the 8 card Nobles pile.

2) There is no Village and only weak trashing. With Villages you could trash more cards per turn.

[markusin]

Remember that though Scrying Pool can help you draw a bunch of Ruins, the Ruins make it less likely that you draw Scrying Pool in your starting hand in the first place. Maybe with better trashers (Steward, Remake, etc.), Watchtower defense and/or villages the Scrying Pool player would have a better chance.

Also, facing off against a Cultist opening is very different from facing off against a second shuffle Cultist.

[Asper]

You can change a thread subject after the fact by editing it in the OP.
~The more you know

Not that we'd want to lose this gem.

[Elanchana]

You can change a thread subject after the fact by editing it in the OP.
~The more you know

Not that we'd want to lose this gem.

Change it? It was perfect from the beginning.

[Beyond Awesome]

On 3/4 I think Watchtower/Potion has to be the correct opening against the 5/2 Cultist. You really, really need a second, and potentially even a Third Watchtower. The key is to once or twice get double SP with Stonemason, ideally hope for a ruined market to help buy pieces, if not, then, you can use Bishop to gain points if it seems the opponent can potentially pile out over you. Stonemason does give you a stronger pile advantage though. Ideally, you probably want to play Bishop every turn, probably buying a gold to get the most points, hoping you can last long enough. I don't know. A lot really depends on shuffle luck. I do think that SP is 100% the right card to go for though in your shoes.