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[Sindean]

I was playing with a friend of mine today and we ended up with a board with no attack cards.  It contained Nobles and Coppersmith so I took the strategy of acceleration through the early game into the nobles draw.  Of course it's BM at the core.  It seemed to fair ok, but at the end I just couldn't pull it out.

The log is here: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/16/game-20120116-154247-57d4de4d.html

What's the best way to deal with a board such as this?

Thanks,

Sindean

[jonts26]

So a very well known strategy is to just buy a single envoy and nothing but money. This averages 4 provinces in about 14 turns. I think that's a good baseline to compare any other strategy to. Now the presence of nobles lets you take a little longer ramping up because you can still overcome something like a 5/3 province split against you without too much trouble.

Coppersmith usually fairs somewhat poorly in big money (and really in most decks in general). It's not a very good card and drawing with nobles isn't enough to make it so. Nobles are also a somewhat slow way to draw cards into your deck. Playing two (one for actions and one for cards) has the same effect as a single laboratory. The card is much better when you can use it primarily for +3 cards (usually when good village types are present) and only use the +2 actions when you get a bad draw.

Honestly I don't see anything too exciting here. I would probably play Envoy/Big Money and buy a few nobles along the way after I have a couple Gold.

[ehunt]

Interesting!

Coppersmith's not my favorite. In this game, it usually provides you about the same benefit as a silver, is worse than a silver once, and is an amazing gold equivalent on turn 5.

Contrast the envoy. If you buy no other action cards but an envoy, he's essentially always as good as a silver and is very often much better. Also, you're very happy to draw Nobles Envoy x x x and very sad to draw Nobles Coppersmith x x x (which happens to you in the late game).

Now, there are boards where coppersmith is amazing, but they tend to involve lots of swingy high-power cards (wharf or king's court come to mind, although the less powerful, but still quite powerful, apothecary comboes well with coppersmith). But generally it's one to look past.

By the way, on this board, I'm very tempted by highway and trade route to try to build a crazy mega-engine. But although I would probably play it this way, as it would be more fun to play than a basic envoy strategy, my suspicion is that the basic envoy strategy wins out.

edit: crossed jonts, with whom I agree.

[olneyce]

I think the best strategy is to build a Nobles/Farming Village/Highway engine, using one Trade Route to give a +buy, and to clear out the chaff.  The idea is to use the Nobles as flexible Smithies: mostly for their draw, but once you deck starts to get loaded up with them you can play double-Nobles to get actions+draw.  You want to buy a Province relatively early to boost the power of your Trade Route.

I solo-ed this a couple times and it can regularly get 4 Provinces by turn 15, usually with 5 or 6 Nobles, too.  I was opening Silver/Trade Route, buying a Highway and Nobles at the first opportunity, and buying an Estate if I couldn't get to $5 early, to power up the Trade Route a bit.  I think it's worth taking on the one extra card since you will be drawing your entire deck and trashing a card from it basically ever turn from 7 or 8 onward.

Here's an example:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/16/game-20120116-235749-853e2aa4.html

4 Provinces in 14 (with 3 Nobles), all 8 Provinces in 19. 

Matches up fairly well against Envoy, and it's a lot more fun.

[Sindean]

Interesting.  I hadn't heard of Envoy-BM before, but I can see how that would work.  All in all the board was irritating because I didn't see any clear synergy between the cards.  Honestly I'd never played Trade route before so I wasn't sure how it worked.

Thanks for your comments I'll try and couple solo games to get a better feel for this type of play.  It's so odd to not be able to do anything to my opponent.

Sindean

[DsnowMan]

Given the strategy you did take, you probably wanted a trade route for the +buy and the money it was providing at the end. Don't need to open TR, but buy one a few turns in.

[DG]

There are a few problems with building a drawing deck entirely from nobles
- they're very expensive and it takes a long time to buy them
- when used for +2 actions they are the worst village going, even worse than a native village costing 2
- when used for +2 cards they are only as good as a smithy costing 4
- when you have two nobles in hand they need to deliver as much as two golds. Two gold and two copper can buy a province.

Nobles are versatile and you can make use of that by putting them in an existing drawing chain and using their action to assist your cards in hands. For this deck a drawing combination of envoy/farming village/nobles is stronger than just nobles. Even so that's not going to do much without a pay off with big turns and extra buys. Adding all that makes it a bit slow to assemble.

[WanderingWinder]

There are a few problems with building a drawing deck entirely from nobles
- they're very expensive and it takes a long time to buy them
- when used for +2 actions they are the worst village going, even worse than a native village costing 2
- when used for +2 cards they are only as good as a smithy costing 4
- when you have two nobles in hand they need to deliver as much as two golds. Two gold and two copper can buy a province.

Nobles are versatile and you can make use of that by putting them in an existing drawing chain and using their action to assist your cards in hands. For this deck a drawing combination of envoy/farming village/nobles is stronger than just nobles. Even so that's not going to do much without a pay off with big turns and extra buys. Adding all that makes it a bit slow to assemble.

Well, that's all the wrong way to look at nobles. Trying to use nobles as a draw deck is, as you say, a bad proposition. They do help draw decks some. But mostly, look at them as smithies with 2 VP attached. And then there's a slight bonus with collisions, but that's pretty weak to count on.

[RisingJaguar]

There are a few problems with building a drawing deck entirely from nobles
- they're very expensive and it takes a long time to buy them
- when used for +2 actions they are the worst village going, even worse than a native village costing 2
- when used for +2 cards they are only as good as a smithy costing 4
- when you have two nobles in hand they need to deliver as much as two golds. Two gold and two copper can buy a province.

Nobles are versatile and you can make use of that by putting them in an existing drawing chain and using their action to assist your cards in hands. For this deck a drawing combination of envoy/farming village/nobles is stronger than just nobles. Even so that's not going to do much without a pay off with big turns and extra buys. Adding all that makes it a bit slow to assemble.

I was about to comment along the same lines... but weirdly he hits either <$4 or >$5 non-stop after the opening turns.  I'm sure it was his idea to get farming villages and probably envoys too but his money went weird on him. 

[Sindean]

I was about to comment along the same lines... but weirdly he hits either <$4 or >$5 non-stop after the opening turns.  I'm sure it was his idea to get farming villages and probably envoys too but his money went weird on him. 

You're quite right... I didn't plan on going all nobles, but the money seemed to fall just right to push me in this direction and I figured it was a good way to go if I could get a bunch of them in my hand. Then once I was committed it all went downhill.