Print

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

[Seprix]

An inquiry: How does Moneylender even make money? I'd totally invest in a system that gives me three temporary dollars for every one I invested. I'm spending the money anyways. Of course, being the capitalist pig that I am, I don't see any way of making a profit. But Comrade Moneylender here, he doesn't make money. He just cares about the community like the nice man he is, and that is just Making Fun for himself. But Making Fun is getting replaced. Get out of here, Moneylender!

-How good of a trasher is Moneylender? Is it weaker or stronger now?
-Is this card better or worse than Miser?
-Any reason to put tokens on Moneylender?

[DG]

You borrow from the moneylender, so you get 3 coins as capital and he gets the valuable copper as interest repayment. It's fine for a game where you can spend silver to buy gold and still keep your silver.

[Awaclus]

I basically just came here to complain about that one time when I opened Moneylender/Silver and drew Moneylender, Silver, Estate, Estate, Estate.

[Jack Rudd]

I was thinking you might put your +Action token on Moneylender for use in a Minion deck, but of course that's just silly: you do far better by just putting the token on Minion instead. So no, you normally don't want to put your tokens on Moneylender. I suppose an exception might be if you think Moneylender is a 4 you want to open with even if you draw 5/2, and so you Seaway it, but it seems a bit of an edge case.

[pacovf]

Moneylender was my favourite card back in the times of Base only. I always tried to ignore Chapel when Moneylender was on the board. Let's just say the results were mixed... I still think it's a good card though, but you have to be careful with it being terminal, and it will take a long time to get rid of the last few coppers if you can't consistently draw your deck.

Also ninja'd by Awaclus.

[JW]

Moneylender is a good trasher because it provides good economy while trashing copper. It's not a great trasher because it only trashes copper, it's terminal, and it only trashes one card at a time.

It's usually weaker than Spice Merchant because Spice Merchant is more flexible and because Spice Merchant's +2 cards, +1 action option is usually better than a terminal $3 from Moneylender (except on your second shuffle where Moneylender/Silver is quite a bit better at hitting $5 than Spice Merchant/Silver). It's better than Miser because Miser gives no economy while trashing copper.

The very existence of Moneylender signals to perceptive new players that trashing Copper is frequently a benefit, since Silver at $3 doesn't take an action and provides the same amount of additional economy as a Moneylender that trashes a copper.

[werothegreat]

Moneylender is stronger than Miser in the early game, and in shorter games.  Miser is stronger in longer games, and the late game.

I don't envision any scenario where putting a token on Moneylender is the play to go with, unless Seaway is the only and you open /.

[theJester]

I think it's an awesome card. It trashes weak Coppers and gives you money while doing so - it's good enough to be at least decent opener in most of games it appears it. And yes, there are other better trashers I'd take over Moneylender - cards such as Remake, Forager or Steward. On the other hand, I remember that Chapel/Moneylender was one of my favourite openings in base-only games: it was risky, but potentially quite rewarding.

I'll note one other that that someone mentioned somewhere earlier on this forum: Moneylender is in fact very cleverly designed card. However, the fact that trashing Coppers is usually beneficial to your deck is not immediately apparent to beginners, so Moneylender spices up the deal by adding +3$. Once beginners get hooked up to Moneylender, they start to realize that, apart from getting 3$, trashing Coppers component of Moneylender is also useful in itself.

[ConMan]

It's a really good card. It's especially good when you have another card that can trash your Estates but not your Copper, like Hermit or JoaT. It's pretty rare that you'd buy Copper just to feed him, but I suppose it might happen very occasionally. Or if you've got Goons, then you can clear out the excess Copper.

[AdrianHealey]

It's a really good card. It's especially good when you have another card that can trash your Estates but not your Copper, like Hermit or JoaT. It's pretty rare that you'd buy Copper just to feed him, but I suppose it might happen very occasionally. Or if you've got Goons, then you can clear out the excess Copper.

I once princed a moneylender as a response to mountebank. I won.

[amoffett11]

Looking back at when I first starting playing Dominion (back when Chapel was only for Witch games to trash curses), Moneylender's name can be a little deceiving.  In life, borrowing money is bad.  There's a negative connotation there.  Like the event Borrow:  you get an extra $1, but there's a cost there, you get 1 less card.  So Moneylender, I'm getting $3, but what is it costing me?  I lose a copper.  Now I need to think about this:  Is it worth losing this copper?  I can't get it back.  Well, unless I buy another.  Maybe I should get a Market, so that I can play Market, play Moneylender, and then buy something + buy another copper to replace the one I lost.  These are things I would think about. 

Then all of a sudden you realize that you're getting $3, and that crummy copper is out of your deck.  What other cards does this apply to?  Maybe I need to go and take a look at that crappy $2 curse-trasher...

[Chris is me]

I'm really glad Moneylender and Mine are in the same set - at first Mine just seems absolutely always better but Moneylender teaches you the value of even slight thinning and spiking 5/6.

[jomini]

Putting tokens on Moneylender is exceedingly rare. I would absolutely Lost arts Moneylender in a Tac deck without another source of virtual coin; something like Beggar/Moneylender/Tac/Lost Arts would make a lot of sense for running a double Tac deck. Depending on what else was out, I could see adding any of the other vanilla tokens to Moneylender except +coin. I could also see some possibilities for 4er Amb wars (e.g. turn him into a cheap Gold)

Another obvious options is if it is the only way to get +buy thanks to Seaway, then absolutely; when you need it Ruined Market is worth it.

I might also put the +buy on it from Teacher if I already had or strongly plan to put the other tokens on other piles. The other Teacher options could go on Moneylender if they were of marginal value and the other actions in deck were already powered up.

Ferry on Moneylender would strictly be something tactical to surprise a 3-pile (e.g. Plan on Moneylender, spend $16 on Stonemasons to clear out the last 4 Smasons and 8 Moneylenders).

Plan? Maybe something weird like Wt/Quarry in hand and using Plan to allow me to junk curses (the Wt pile would, of course, already be empty).

As trashing goes, Moneylender has gotten a bit easier in my estimation. We can now draw our decks a bit sooner and Moneylender competes well on boards with strong $5 splits - something like Bazaar/Goons. Not having to lower your odds (much) of hitting $5 can make Moneylender to superior to competitors (e.g. Spice Merchant) in some cases, most compellingly when he will be your only terminal for a long time. Obviously, he is extremely strong with limited draw (e.g. Menage) and can work well with influxes of copper (e.g. Treasure trove).

[MatthewCA]

My experience with moneylender has been mostly positive, but only in early game when you are flush with copper, when you start to run out of coppers, it's time to ditch him though, preferably with a remodel for gold gaining purposes.