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Elanchana

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Key card or gainer first?
« on: January 23, 2016, 02:50:56 am »
+6

I've tried answering this question for every board it applies to that I've played, and I always seem to be wrong. So here goes.

You're playing a kingdom, and there is a key card on the board for which the split is important. There is also a gainer that can gain said key card. You can open with either. Which do you choose - buy the key card right away, or buy the gainer to facilitate getting the card faster later on?

Now it would be ludicrous to expect a definitive answer for every scenario ever, so here are a few narrowers. What would your decision be if the key card were a village (just about any village works), a draw card (like Smithy or Envoy), or a payload card (like Bridge or Fool's Gold)? What if one or both cost $3 - would you double either? What if both cards were more expensive and you just hit $6 on turn 3?

Specific examples are good too, especially if you'd favor opposite choices in different games.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2016, 04:41:52 am »
+2

Almost always the gainer.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2016, 06:22:00 am »
+5

Let's say there's Minion and Altar on the board (I choose those cards, because I think a case can be made for either approach in that scenario, and I had this combo on a board a couple of times), my thought process is usually this:

Looking at the board: "Alright, you can gain Minions with Altar. So that's pretty sweet."
Hitting an early $6: "I could buy Altar. That would be cool. But.. what if I don't draw it in time. WHAT IF I NEVER DRAW MY ALTAR? EVER!" Then I start breathing heavily, sweat dripping down my forehead and I buy a Minion.
__________________________________________________________________________________

That aside, I think it's interesting that you propose to look at the type of action card the key card is.

1. I would propose to look at the gainer first:

- Does the gainer trash for benefit? If so, can the gainer turn your starting cards into the key card?
- Is the gainer non-terminal?
- Is the gainer available to everyone or do you have to hit a lucky early $5 or $6?
- Is the gainer cheaper or more expensive than the key card?
- Does the gainer provide some additional benefit by letting you play the key card earlier (Armory)?
- Does the gainer say: "Gain a Card" or "You may ..."

2. Then I would look at what cards you can pair the gainer with. Essentially, buying the gainer over the key card while your opponent buys the key card means you are one down. Assuming every player could buy the key card each turn, you need to justify buying the gainer by at least gaining two of the key cards in one turn. I know that's very simplistic, but it helps me think about it.

- Is there cycling/sifting, so you can play the gainer more often?
- Is there decent trashing?

3. Thirdly, I would think about alternatives:

- Is there +buy?
- If both players are building towards an engine, can the gainer for the key card be outraced by your opponent's quick building involving all components (meaning: can your opponent draw his deck a turn or two earlier than you and snatch the last cards from you)?

4. You would also have to think about your opening as a whole:

- Does opening with the gainer force you to pair it with a card (like Silver) you're not super comfortable with on that board to increase your chances of being able to create the economy to buy the key card in the same turn you use the gainer?
- Does opening double gainer mean you can't get the necessary buying power early on?

5. I think the whole thing plays out differently, depending on the card's cost: If it costs $3 or $4, it is sometimes a question how many of those your deck can handle without any further build (gainer might be better here). $5 cards that are key cards usually run out quickly, because often enough you want all of those in your deck immediately.

6. You would also have to take into account, if the gainer becomes dead in your hand after the split is decided? Are the only other Cards you could gain detrimental to what you are building towards?

__________________________________________________________________________________

Back to the Altar-Minion case, I think there's reasonable grounds to panic-grab a Minion over Altar. Your opponent's Minions help him get more Minions or cycle (and attack you) and a turn where you can Altar an Estate into a Minion and still have $5 to spare (early enough that it might matter) is not guaranteed. Of course, if you tie the split and the Altar doesn't become dead weight, you might have a significant advantage in the endgame if there is no other way to gain two cards per turn.

To sum up: I dunno. But I am not very good at Dominion. Which is why I hope that someone who is really good at Dominion will explain to me where I'm patently wrong and where I might have a point.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2016, 08:38:33 am »
+3

It's really hard to generalize, but - will the gainer get me at least 1 more copy of that card over time versus straight buying the card? Does the gainer have other benefits (trashing, etc)? Can I gain nice but less important things with the gainer? If the answers to these are yes I definitely get the gainer.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2016, 12:42:11 pm »
+1

Let's say there's Minion and Altar on the board (I choose those cards, because I think a case can be made for either approach in that scenario, and I had this combo on a board a couple of times), my thought process is usually this:

Looking at the board: "Alright, you can gain Minions with Altar. So that's pretty sweet."
Hitting an early $6: "I could buy Altar. That would be cool. But.. what if I don't draw it in time. WHAT IF I NEVER DRAW MY ALTAR? EVER!" Then I start breathing heavily, sweat dripping down my forehead and I buy a Minion.

[...]
Back to the Altar-Minion case, I think there's reasonable grounds to panic-grab a Minion over Altar. Your opponent's Minions help him get more Minions or cycle (and attack you) and a turn where you can Altar an Estate into a Minion and still have $5 to spare (early enough that it might matter) is not guaranteed. Of course, if you tie the split and the Altar doesn't become dead weight, you might have a significant advantage in the endgame if there is no other way to gain two cards per turn.

To sum up: I dunno. But I am not very good at Dominion. Which is why I hope that someone who is really good at Dominion will explain to me where I'm patently wrong and where I might have a point.

So I can't help but think of the game we played, http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160110/log.0.1452445133924.txt

I based my entire opening plan around getting to Altar. With Altar specifically, not only do you get to gain key $5s, you do so while clearing out junk. On turn 4, we both hit $6, and I get Altar and you buy Minion. I don't think it was particularly anomalous that we ended up splitting Minions 5/5 there, and I did so while clearing out 3 Coppers (I bought 2 of the Minions). At the end of that game, I end up with a much cleaner deck, and I attribute that to picking up Altar first. Generalization is difficult, but Altar's additional function of clearing junk makes me think you should prioritize Altar over the key card (if Altar is capable of gaining it; doesn't work for key, split-worthy $6s). With other gainers, I don't think its anywhere near as clear-cut. For example, it feels like getting University to try to win the Minion split is probably misguided; but there's a lot of middle ground between those two cases.

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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #5 on: January 23, 2016, 12:58:26 pm »
0

So I can't help but think of the game we played, http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160110/log.0.1452445133924.txt

I had this game in mind as well when I posted  ;D.. We split the Minions, but I was toast at that point already.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #6 on: January 23, 2016, 01:17:25 pm »
+1

I had one game where Native Village + Bridge was the clear strategy. But Ironworks was also available. I bought an Ironworks while my opponent went straight to Bridge. I lost. I posted the game in the help section and people told me that the extra shuffle needed for Ironworks made it too slow. 
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #7 on: January 23, 2016, 01:42:02 pm »
+8

I had one game where Native Village + Bridge was the clear strategy. But Ironworks was also available. I bought an Ironworks while my opponent went straight to Bridge. I lost. I posted the game in the help section and people told me that the extra shuffle needed for Ironworks made it too slow.

In this case, Bridge is both a key card and a "gainer": the +buy and cost reduction will often do the same as a gain when you want $2s.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #8 on: January 23, 2016, 01:51:27 pm »
+4

I think the most important word in the question is "first," which implies time, i.e. WHEN is the card key?  Do you more of them endgame, or do you want to start playing them right away.  Let's take two extreme examples, University as the gainer, key card either Stables or Cultist.  For Stables, I'm gonna consider the Uni cause getting more Stables can eventually make up for my opponent getting early ones (as always, depends on the board).  For Cultist, I'm almost always gonna skip Uni and look to put junk in my opponent's deck ASAP.  Of course there's a large gray area in the middle that's mostly learned by just laying boards where you have to make that kind of decision.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #9 on: January 23, 2016, 02:01:56 pm »
0

I think the most important word in the question is "first," which implies time, i.e. WHEN is the card key?  Do you more of them endgame, or do you want to start playing them right away.  Let's take two extreme examples, University as the gainer, key card either Stables or Cultist.  For Stables, I'm gonna consider the Uni cause getting more Stables can eventually make up for my opponent getting early ones (as always, depends on the board).  For Cultist, I'm almost always gonna skip Uni and look to put junk in my opponent's deck ASAP.  Of course there's a large gray area in the middle that's mostly learned by just laying boards where you have to make that kind of decision.

The Cultist split isn't usually very important, though.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2016, 02:51:40 pm »
0

Not quoting because there are too many great posts in here.

I supposed I asked the question wrong - it should be something like "What factors would make you go for the key card vs the gainer?"

I'll give my take but please correct me if anything is wrong (I did start this thread for advice after all). Attacks, especially junking attacks, would make me go for the gainer first, since it would become increasingly less likely to be able to buy the card. Good sifting or trashing would also make me get the gainer to play it more often, and in the case of trashing, I'd be more okay with trashing my coppers faster. I'd be more likely to get the key card first if it's a payload card, since if the pile race is early it will make it easier to buy more anyway (Infh1tbox's comment about Bridge). More expensive/unopenable combos would also make me go for the key card.

One specific key card that I'm wondering about is Fool's Gold in a rush. Open double FG or FG/Talisman? That's something that I can never get right.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2016, 04:12:02 pm »
+2

One specific key card that I'm wondering about is Fool's Gold in a rush. Open double FG or FG/Talisman? That's something that I can never get right.

Assuming a 2p mirror FG rush, then FG will usually empty on Turn 5.
And you will have played your gainer once.
So it doesn't usually matter for the FG split.
So it mostly depends on if the gainer is good later on in the game.
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Awaclus

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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2016, 04:47:54 pm »
+1

So it mostly depends on if the gainer is good later on in the game.

And the standard of "good" here is basically better than nothing, since you're choosing between having both the gainer and the FG the gainer helps you gain or just having the FG without the gainer. I wouldn't do it with Talisman usually (unless I have a very good reason to believe my opponent is not going for the FGs, or at least not as fast as I am), but with something like Woodcutter I might do it reasonably often.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #13 on: January 24, 2016, 02:49:58 pm »
+9

I think the question really ought to be whether you want the gainer at all. If you want the gainer at all, you probably want it first, since if you wait for a few copies to come off the stack, then the pile is close to empty, and when are you really getting the advantage anyway? What is the reasoning behind wanting a card, wanting to get some of that card, and THEN wanting to pick up a card whose purpose is to gain more copies of that card you've already started in on? (I'm genuinely curious, and there probably is a situation for it, I'm just not really seeing it right now).



As for whether or not you want to go for the gainer or go straight in for the "key card", that depends on a number of things. The rough gist of it is that you need to figure out whether you want to get the key card AFAP (as fast as possible), or whether you want as many as possible. Of course, sometimes both will be true, but usually it slides one way or the other as to whether it's more critical to get a "critical mass" or to get started. The trade-off you usually make is that you're down one 'key card' for a shuffle, then you're even the next shuffle, and it's only the shuffle after that in which you get ahead.

Interestingly, I think Junkers are one of the clearer cases, but in the opposite way of what you've said: You almost never want to get a gainer for a junker, but rather go for the junker straightaway. The point here is that you are trying to win a split, but it's not the junker split - it's the junk card split (e.g. curses). And because the junk hurting their deck is such a big deal, making the shuffles bigger and the decks worse earlier on seems like it's almost always going to be more important, than getting a bigger split. It's also important that junkers aren't really cards that you just want lots of, really. The exception would be cultist, because of the Lab clause, but the problem there is that there are so few gainers - University is clearly too slow, whereas Altar is actually an interesting question, but of course there are good chances you draw it dead, terminal collision, etc. which usually make you just heads-down rush the cultists.


When you're talking draw engines, because those components you gain speed up how fast the shuffles go, it's often not worth going for the gainer at all. And this is usually when you go for delayed gainers - not in order to get a "key" card, but to improve consistency later in the game, where you are buying more expensive things and gaining out components to maintain your engine running.



In general, there aren't many cards you want to open gainer for, but the ones that exist are usually incremental advantage cards: cantrips with some little bonus, that don't help you draw that much.






As for the specific case of FG, the gainer regains the tempo on turns 3/4, and if you hit on turn 5 exactly as first player, you can win the split - IF you are contested. If you aren't contested, then the gainer is almost always going to get you to your 10 faster, or if you're lightly contested, it will help you win the split more. Keep in mind that you need the thing to actually give you an extra gain of an FG: Workshop is probably high enough chance to do so (though depending on what else you have to workshop after FG are gone, possibly dubious anyway), even though you could potentially hit Estate-Estate-Estate-Copper-Workshop, but Hamlet on turn 1/2 is probably a bit too much of a risk.


In general, gainers get helped a lot by having more than one target card to grab. An Ironworks won't help me win the Caravan split by much, and I'll behind until nearly the time they run out. But if there are both Caravans and then Advisors or Caravan Guards or even Vagrants, then the Ironworks gets a lot better.


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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2016, 04:11:11 pm »
+3

Gainers:

Better "never" than "late".
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #15 on: January 25, 2016, 04:51:11 pm »
+7

I think a corollary to this is how important is hitting $5 on turns 3 or 4?  Often going for the gainer will lower your $5 T3/T4 probability.  If it is imperative that you get $5 early, get the $4-cost first and then the gainer when opportunity arises.  If $5 is less crucial, go for the gainer.

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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #16 on: January 25, 2016, 04:56:46 pm »
+4

I think a corollary to this is how important is hitting $5 on turns 3 or 4?  Often going for the gainer will lower your $5 T3/T4 probability.  If it is imperative that you get $5 early, get the $4-cost first and then the gainer when opportunity arises.  If $5 is less crucial, go for the gainer.



Absolutely agree. This is one of the best reasons to delay your gainer (though in this case, you probably aren't getting the gainer for a 'key card').

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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #17 on: January 26, 2016, 05:26:21 pm »
0

I recently played a 3-player game IRL where I was very conflicted about opening with a gainer.

Kingdom: Fishing Village, Armory, Cultist, Margrave, Dungeon, Young Witch, Silk Road, Graverobber, Moat, Secret Chamber

Fishing Village was the bane.  I don't remember the 11th kingdom card, but nobody purchased it.

No trashing.  Fishing Village as the only village.  I figured winning the Fishing Village split would be very important.  But, with Cultist and Margrave, getting to $5 early was also really important.  So, opening 3/4, my dilemma was Fishing Village + Armory or double Fishing Village.

I ended up going with Armory, because I figured that it would be worth gaining several Dungeons with Armory after Fishing Villages were gone.  I gained one Fishing Village with Armory and won the split 4/3/3.  One of my opponents got a Cultist faster, the other ignored Cultists for Margraves.  I got a Margrave and a couple Cultists (I was in the middle of a 10/6/4 Ruins split, I believe).  The game turned into a long slog, so the Dungeons from Armory came in handy.  I also gained a Young Witch mid-game, once my opponents' decks became bloated with non-bane cards (neither followed).  I ended up winning by going heavy green into Silk Roads.

I don't know whether my opening was optimal.  What do you guys think?
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #18 on: January 26, 2016, 07:17:35 pm »
0

I think your game is an example of a different question. You talk about trying to win the Fishing Village split, but I don't think you actually need to win this split. With Cultist and no trashing, you aren't building a crazy engine, and because Fishing Village gives +Action over 2 turns, you don't need as many as you would otherwise.

I would open Armory/FV or Armory/Silver. In the first case, gaining a Silver on my first Armory play because it's more likely I don't hit $5. In the second case, gaining FV or Silver depending on whether I thought I would hit $5 or not. This is a 2 player perspective and it might be different in 3 player.
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #19 on: January 27, 2016, 12:01:52 am »
0

I think your game is an example of a different question. You talk about trying to win the Fishing Village split, but I don't think you actually need to win this split. With Cultist and no trashing, you aren't building a crazy engine, and because Fishing Village gives +Action over 2 turns, you don't need as many as you would otherwise.

Hmm, but doesn't Cultist mean you end up with both (a) terminal draw, potentially quite a lot, and (b) a bunch of terminal Ruins in your deck?
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #20 on: January 27, 2016, 12:32:32 am »
+1

I think your game is an example of a different question. You talk about trying to win the Fishing Village split, but I don't think you actually need to win this split. With Cultist and no trashing, you aren't building a crazy engine, and because Fishing Village gives +Action over 2 turns, you don't need as many as you would otherwise.

Hmm, but doesn't Cultist mean you end up with both (a) terminal draw, potentially quite a lot, and (b) a bunch of terminal Ruins in your deck?

You still want +Action, but for me this game looks like you get to Cultist ASAP, and once Ruins are out you transition into a Silk Road slog. Because Cultist can play itself, it's a bit less reliant on +Actions. If you have spare actions for Ruins, it's nice, but I'm not convinced getting to play some extra Ruins is worth not having a Silver in your deck once you go for the slog. Maybe that's wrong, you could use Graverobber to trash Ruins up to FV/Dungeon, but that feels a bit slow and you have to start worrying about 3 piles. (Ruins + SR + FV sounds like a potential threat if one player tries to go engine and another transitions into the slog.)

So, my plan would be to get 1-2 Silver early to hit $5, then pick up Fishing Villages over Silver while you're playing Cultists, then switch back to picking up Silver after 3-4 Fishing Villages. In 3 player, maybe you do need to rush them. In 2 player, you want them, but you don't need to get all of them ASAP.

(I don't know if what I'm saying is actually right, this board is pretty tricky.)
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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #21 on: January 27, 2016, 01:46:10 am »
0

I think the most important word in the question is "first," which implies time, i.e. WHEN is the card key?  Do you more of them endgame, or do you want to start playing them right away.  Let's take two extreme examples, University as the gainer, key card either Stables or Cultist.  For Stables, I'm gonna consider the Uni cause getting more Stables can eventually make up for my opponent getting early ones (as always, depends on the board).  For Cultist, I'm almost always gonna skip Uni and look to put junk in my opponent's deck ASAP.  Of course there's a large gray area in the middle that's mostly learned by just laying boards where you have to make that kind of decision.

The Cultist split isn't usually very important, though.

Right, Ruins are usually the more important split, but that's usually just the split of the first 10 Cultist plays.  So I usually skip the gainer hoping to get Cultist shuffled in sooner, so I can play it early and often.

Edit: Or the way WW said it...
Interestingly, I think Junkers are one of the clearer cases, but in the opposite way of what you've said: You almost never want to get a gainer for a junker, but rather go for the junker straightaway. The point here is that you are trying to win a split, but it's not the junker split - it's the junk card split (e.g. curses). And because the junk hurting their deck is such a big deal, making the shuffles bigger and the decks worse earlier on seems like it's almost always going to be more important, than getting a bigger split. It's also important that junkers aren't really cards that you just want lots of, really. The exception would be cultist, because of the Lab clause, but the problem there is that there are so few gainers - University is clearly too slow, whereas Altar is actually an interesting question, but of course there are good chances you draw it dead, terminal collision, etc. which usually make you just heads-down rush the cultists.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2016, 01:55:56 am by theblankman »
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it's a shame that full-random is the de facto standard

kn1tt3r

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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #22 on: January 27, 2016, 02:10:47 am »
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I think if the key card you are talking about is the same card you intend to get with the gainer, you usually should get the gainer first (if you want it at all). However, it's a bit more interesting when you want like 1 key card and the a lot of other key cards. For example, there is a board with Sea Hag, Armory, Ironmonger (no trashing). Now you COULD get the Armory first, maybe first gain the Sea Hag with it and later Ironmonger, but usually you probably should get the Sea Hag first and then the Armory (in this case you might not want the Armory at all).
Potion is another example, which you often want before some gainer (except for Vineyard games).
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shark_bait

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Re: Key card or gainer first?
« Reply #23 on: January 27, 2016, 05:06:14 pm »
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In regards to the FG scenario, Nomad Camp is exceptionally good (for player 1) because they can get the 2nd play of NC in for a 6/4 advantage before the pile runs.  It's less good for P2 as even if they get a chance to play it twice before P1 gets it twice they would only split the pile 5/5.
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Hello.  Name's Bruce.  It's all right.  I understand.  Why trust a shark, right?

Is quite curious - Who is the mystical "Celestial Chameleon"?
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