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[Seprix]

Who will take the Draw to Mordor?

-How much of a let down is giving your opponent an extra card with every play?
-Is this card better to play in Big Money or an engine?
-How many do you want to optimally play due to the penalty?
-Why is this card sometimes overlooked? After all, it has the incredible Hunting Grounds draw for cheaper, and with +buying power.

[Seprix]

Let me say flat out: I think this card is one of the stronger cards in Dominion. Not quite Wharf power, but closer than some might think.

[Doom_Shark]

I love this thing for late game engines. The plus card for others doesn't hurt too much, as they have likely been greening, and it hets your green out of the way. If your engine is running exceptionally well, the plus buy can get you two provinces in one turn,

Edit: I hate trying to do this on my phone, but that's really the only chance I get lately. I apologize for yhe typos

[Beyond Awesome]

CR is powerful draw, obviously best in an engine, but strong in BM. I favor or pretty high and ranked it decently in qvists rankings. Drawing 4 and getting a +buy is very strong

[Seprix]

CR is powerful draw, obviously best in an engine, but strong in BM. I favor or pretty high and ranked it decently in qvists rankings. Drawing 4 and getting a +buy is very strong

Yes. It has the draw of HUNTING GROUNDS. And it's cheaper. And it has +buy. This power cannot be overstated.

[Triumph44]

When I only had Base on Goko, it's amazing how many times the Bots thrashed me with Council Room + Big Money and how I refused to learn from it - every time I'd try something else and it would go Council Room+BM and crush.  I think unless there are some strong attacks - Ambassador, Cultist, etc. - Council Room+BM is real hard to beat.  In engines, giving the opponent a card can get dangerous when you start giving them 3 or 4 cards a turn, though there's nothing quite like playing a bunch of Council Rooms and then Ghost Ship/Militia/Goons.

[liopoil]

I dunno, a 6 card hand is pretty good. Margrave is better, I'd say. Oh, and a CR engine with a single margrave is very good too!

[Aleimon Thimble]

I've always been afraid of helping my opponent too much, which is why I tend to undervalue Council Room, Governor and Lost City. I just don't like them though; it feels so counterintuitive. I'm playing against my opponent, right?

Of course, it still feels really good to go Village-CR-Village-CR-discard attack.

[Donald X.]

When I only had Base on Goko, it's amazing how many times the Bots thrashed me with Council Room + Big Money and how I refused to learn from it - every time I'd try something else and it would go Council Room+BM and crush.

Yeah that is one strategy they know how to play.

[jsh357]

The draw is very often worth the drawback, I find. I only play it safe (usually) when I stand to gain nothing from playing CR. Still, you take more consideration than when playing most other cards.

[Seprix]

Council Room is interesting to play. You get so much more benefit, but you are helping your opponent too. It's not the biggest deal as long as you're thinking about what your opponent can/can't do and prepare accordingly.

[werothegreat]

Council Room is interesting to play. You get so much more benefit, but you are helping your opponent too. It's not the biggest deal as long as you're thinking about what your opponent can/can't do and prepare accordingly.

It just ends up speeding up games a fair amount.  My hand's better, yours is better, oop, the game's over!

[Infthitbox]

One thing to keep in mind is that, in the absence of specific context, subsequent extra starting cards in hand have less of an impact than the first extra card. So, for example, if you've made the leap to playing a first Council Room, the bar is slightly lower for playing the next one. It also has implications for 3p (or higher): if your opponents are already playing Council Rooms, the negative effects of picking up and playing your own Council Rooms is lower.

[Awaclus]

One thing to keep in mind is that, in the absence of specific context, subsequent extra starting cards in hand have less of an impact than the first extra card. So, for example, if you've made the leap to playing a first Council Room, the bar is slightly lower for playing the next one.

The effect is extremely marginal though, so it might be for the best to not keep it in mind.

[Davio]

This is a great card, because big hands love +Buy.

That's also why Margrave is so good, other than the attack and why Hunting Grounds on its own isn't great.

[Awaclus]

This is a great card, because big hands love +Buy.

That's also why Margrave is so good, other than the attack and why Hunting Grounds on its own isn't great.

Well, Council Room on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

[Witherweaver]

This is a great card, because big hands love +Buy.

That's also why Margrave is so good, other than the attack and why Hunting Grounds on its own isn't great.

Well, Council Room on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

That explains why I keep on losing with my golden single Council Room deck.

[Seprix]

Well, Council Room on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

Well, King's Court on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

[Awaclus]

Well, Council Room on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

Well, King's Court on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

I guess I could have used King's Court instead of Council Room there, but Davio didn't say anything about King's Court being good so it wouldn't have worked as well.

[ehunt]

1. Council Room/Bank is a solid straight-big-money combo. Council Room/Fool's Gold also.

2. Certainly Margrave is the better of the two cards, but if Council Room and Margrave are both available, consider building the engine out of a mix rather than going pure Margrave. Yes, getting hit by 3 Margraves is a meaner attack than getting hit by 2 Council Rooms and then a Margrave (because you have less information when you have to choose what to discard) but this marginal difference in attack power often doesn't outwiegh the extra cards from the Council Rooms, especially in terms of reliability.

[schadd]

Well, Council Room on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

Well, King's Court on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

you two deserve each other

anyway

the weird thing about council room is how the hell do you play around getting another card every turn, except for the ones where you don't. i mean, maybe playing with hireling will help us with it but we haven't played with hireling that much, really, and getting an extra card each turn amounts to, probably, needing one less laboratory than you have. the amount of laboratories you would get anyway is sort of calibrated to a constant but people are generally bad at recalibrating and so sometimes it can seem like council room is better than it is.

council room is a fine card. sorta loses out from comparison to margrave.

[Doom_Shark]

Certainly Margrave is the better of the two cards, but if Council Room and Margrave are both available, consider building the engine out of a mix rather than going pure Margrave. Yes, getting hit by 3 Margraves is a meaner attack than getting hit by 2 Council Rooms and then a Margrave (because you have less information when you have to choose what to discard) but this marginal difference in attack power often doesn't outwiegh the extra cards from the Council Rooms, especially in terms of reliability.

I actually would prefer hitting them with council room-margrave than margrave-margrave, because after the first margrave, subsequent ones tend to then improve the initial three-card hand anyway. The effect is actually pretty much the same. With margrave-margrave, they discard from six to three, then draw one, which is either junk and discarded, or improves the hand. With Council Room-Margrave, and the same cards, the junk card they might have drawn still gets discarded, and the good card they might have drawn still gets kept in favor of another card, which would still be discarded in the original scenario.

[eHalcyon]

Certainly Margrave is the better of the two cards, but if Council Room and Margrave are both available, consider building the engine out of a mix rather than going pure Margrave. Yes, getting hit by 3 Margraves is a meaner attack than getting hit by 2 Council Rooms and then a Margrave (because you have less information when you have to choose what to discard) but this marginal difference in attack power often doesn't outwiegh the extra cards from the Council Rooms, especially in terms of reliability.

I actually would prefer hitting them with council room-margrave than margrave-margrave, because after the first margrave, subsequent ones tend to then improve the initial three-card hand anyway. The effect is actually pretty much the same. With margrave-margrave, they discard from six to three, then draw one, which is either junk and discarded, or improves the hand. With Council Room-Margrave, and the same cards, the junk card they might have drawn still gets discarded, and the good card they might have drawn still gets kept in favor of another card, which would still be discarded in the original scenario.

A) Margrave-Margrave is 6 cards down to 3, then draw 1 and discard 1.

B) Council Room-Margrave is 7 cards down to 3.

In both cases, the opponent is discarding 4 cards total out of 7 (their starting hand and the top 2 cards of their deck).  But in the second case, they have more total information, making it a slightly (but, dare I say it, strictly?) weaker attack overall. 

Here's an easy example of when it makes a big difference:

Your opponent plays Margrave.  You have a single Treasure Map in hand.  Do you discard it?  It's a useless card unless you pair it with another Treasure Map, which you cannot guarantee with the rest of your hand.  So you discard it... and then the second Margrave draws Treasure Map.

But suppose your opponent plays Council Room first instead.  With the Margrave that follows, you draw your seventh card and see that you have a pair of Treasure Maps after all.  You can now keep those together!

A subtler but more common (and actually relevant) case is knowing whether you should keep a dead terminal before you draw a village, or whether to keep a village when you maybe don't need it.  CR-Margrave gives the victim a fuller picture so they can choose their discard better.

I think that this is a relevant consideration, but the extra draw from CR still makes it worthwhile more often.

[Davio]

Well, Council Room on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

Well, King's Court on its own isn't great either. You need other cards that you can actually play to generate dollars.

I guess I could have used King's Court instead of Council Room there, but Davio didn't say anything about King's Court being good so it wouldn't have worked as well.

Yes, we can continue this joke and say something clever about VPs and VP cards, but meh.

The only thing you need with Council Room is money and that's pretty easy to come by, because it's in every game!
If you have just an Hunting Grounds, you still need to find your +Buy or +Gain somewhere to make use of your huge hands.

[Awaclus]

The only thing you need with Council Room is money and that's pretty easy to come by, because it's in every game!
If you have just an Hunting Grounds, you still need to find your +Buy or +Gain somewhere to make use of your huge hands.

If you don't have anything but money in addition to Council Room, you won't be able to utilize the +buy much, either.