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[teamrocketgrunt]

I played this game against Burning Skull last night as part of a "let's-get-severely-torched-by-someone-plain-better-in-a-league-match" theme night I had over at my place. There were refreshments, a pinata and of course the getting severely torched.

Kingdom:

Code: [Select]

Forager, Caravan, Coppersmith, Thief, Tournament, Duke, Hunting Party, Margrave, Venture, Peddler
Log: http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160406/log.0.1459969707999.txt

After the games, he was nice enough to answer my questions concerning our games, but I forgot to ask all of them. Here is one:

What Prize would you have picked in my place? I collide Tournament and Province first, but I have the weaker deck overall. At this point, Burning Skull has three HPs to my one, which - in at least one instance - is my own doing, because I deliberately choose double-Peddler (costing 2 at that point) for $6 over single HP before the reshuffle because I was worried I wouldn't have the economy to hit $8 afterwards. This was probably silly. When I collided Province+Tournament I knew I wouldn't be able to draw my Province up again and it was very likely that my opponent would pick whichever Prize I didn't. So do you get Followers or Trusty Steed in my position?

Here is another: As a result of picking Followers, my opponent got Trusty Steed. Which allowed him to grab Margraves (well, a Margrave). In the end he double-Provinced twice. Should I have gone for that as well? Is shooting for single Province a worse mistake than I think?

Last one: My overall questionable play aside, I found myself repeatedly and instinctively discarding Provinces to his Margrave which allowed my opponent to play Tournaments for +1 Card, + $1 afterwards. How do you balance the damage of keeping a dud Card in your hand vs the damage your opponent can do with that extra payload? And does HP influence your decision? Like, would you be more inclined to keep a Province in your hand with a HP there, because then your HP won't find more Provinces for you?

I might post more game reports from my theme night eventually. Until then, big thanks to my opponent for providing a great learning experience  .

[Awaclus]

I think Trusty Steed is better than Followers here, because you can get the discard attack from Margrave instead, your opponent can easily trash the Curses with Forager, and you don't really want the Estates in your deck either.

Given that he had more Hunting Parties and the Trusty Steed, I think it was certainly correct for him to go for double Provinces, but it would not have been so great for you because your deck wasn't as strong.

Regarding keeping a Province in your hand, I think that generally you should do it if you think you can have a great turn even with the two remaining cards or if you think that you're going to have a dud turn either way. If you think that you could have a great turn with 3 cards but not with 2, it's not worth it to basically skip a turn just to (potentially) hurt your opponent. HP does influence the decision in the sense that it increases your chances of having a good turn because it's a good card, but I wouldn't pay too much attention to the part where you're hoping to skip over Provinces because that probably won't end up happening anyway.

[Davio]

Trusty Steed is the only card which lets you play Margrave before Hunting Party, so that's a very good reason to get it.

Otherwise, you risk playing through your HPs, discarding a lot of junk, but having to reshuffle all of the junk back in when you play Margrave with an empty draw deck.

[faust]

Hunting Party does influence the discard decision in the sense that if he plays a Hunting Party before he plays Margrave, you'll know part of his hands (you don't know what he draws with Margrave though), so you know if there are any Tournaments in his hand to block. I'm not sure however if this info is ever significant enough to outweigh the considerations that Awaclus already stated.

[Chris is me]

I would say Followers was probably the right choice if it weren't for Forager and Hunting Party, but having both of those means that the damage Followers does is pretty limited, particularly when the board already has a discard attack, and that Trusty Steed would have been better.

[Infthitbox]

I don't quite have the time to do it right now, but Burning Skull streamed this set, and Twitch has chat replay now, so if you watch back that game in his broadcast, you'll be able to see what Stef and the rest of us were discussing about the prizes and general endgame play. I'm pretty sure that at one point near the end of the game the consensus was you were ahead.

Here's the link to the broadcast (should be good for at least a few more days): https://www.twitch.tv/burningskull88/v/58983133

This game starts at like the 10 minute mark.

[DG]

I think you must have realized later during the game that once your opponent had the noble steed you couldn't let him have the princess too. Followers and princess is a poor pair of prizes but if it is a consequence of taking followers first then perhaps that was the wrong decision.

[Infthitbox]

Ok, I went back and grabbed the chat from this game: note that this chat is from Burning Skull's perspective, and starts as he is choosing his prize after teamrocketgrunt has already chosen followers:

Stef_42 : steed looks much better
Stef_42 : igor can get margrave now
Stef_42 : duchies are interesting prizes with dukes
Infth1tbox : is there the time to move into that?
Stef_42 : hard to say
Stef_42 : if you go for duchy/duke, buy margrave+HP now
Stef_42 : go cards
Stef_42 : you can gain duchies if you draw enough
Stef_42 : he completely forgets about duchy as prize
Infth1tbox : doesn't want a free duchy
Stef_42 : double P looks quite good for sure
Bobiuseu : I literally turned chat on to ask aabout that
Infth1tbox : would look better if he had +3 points
Stef_42 : 12 is still a lot for opponent
Stef_42 : but this hand will be very bad if he gets blocked
Stef_42 : risky play - maybe, but that doesn't make it bad at all
Stef_42 : it's not as though igor was in a position to play it safe
Infth1tbox : couldn't he have gained a duchy, bought 3, and then been in reasonable shape?
Stef_42 : yes that was a reasonable plan
Stef_42 : but so was this
Stef_42 : ok, I liked the quad duchy plan better
Stef_42 : now he just wins
Stef_42 : easily
Mic_Qsenoch : who got first prize?
Stef_42 : yes that was a very bad discard by rocket
Stef_42 : rocket got first prize (followers)
Mic_Qsenoch : looks terrible
Mic_Qsenoch : though i don't know what the decks were then
Stef_42 : igor was way ahead at that point
Mic_Qsenoch : i see

On the last turn, if you don't discard the Province to the Margrave, you don't lose that turn. He didn't show you any Tournaments from the initial Hunting Party, so I'm not sure how much you can really put him on having multiples off the Margrave draw.

[Seprix]

I think I like Trusty Steed, followed by Princess. Followers is sort of pointless, as Margrave is just a better draw card which does the same thing, and junking is a bit lame with Forager.

[dedicateddan]

I'd pick up Hunting Party/Peddler on turn 8, and Trusty Steed on 10. Followers is only a little stronger than Margrave. There's even the chance for a double-collision on turn 10. Princess would be the second priority, followed by HP stack, followed by points.

[teamrocketgrunt]

Ok, I went back and grabbed the chat from this game: note that this chat is from Burning Skull's perspective, and starts as he is choosing his prize after teamrocketgrunt has already chosen followers:

Thanks for going back and grabbing the relevant chat log. It does provide some additional insight. I think Mic puts what all of you have been saying in a nutshell.

Stef_42 : yes that was a very bad discard by rocket
Stef_42 : rocket got first prize (followers)
Mic_Qsenoch : looks terrible

Much more important though, I absolutely love the abbreviation "rocket". Makes me think of this: