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[Jack Rudd]

"G is for Golem, who fishes for actions."

How is this card best worked into a deck?
Is the combo with Tactician ever worth pursuing?
How many Golems do you typically want?

[AdrianHealey]

How is Golem a combo with tactician?

'Fuck you, discard your hand now'.

I mean, it's cool when you have draw *after* tactician that sets up more cards, but it kind a sucks when it doesn't.

[Jack Rudd]

I once had a game with Golem and Tactician where I managed to play Tactician twice in one turn. I think King's Court may have been involved.

[Marcory]

I played a Goons-Golem game on Isotropic once. With all of my Golems, it didn't matter if I bought Coppers (and I had Chapels to somewhat control them anyway), so the game ended on piles with Copper being one of the piles.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20130211-125036-760debf4.html

[DG]

The Goko bots play the watchtower-tactician combo with golem, except they play the watchtower and tactician in that order.

[werothegreat]

Golem reveals Tactician and Lab.  Play Tactician, then Lab.

[singletee]

One of these days I'm going to write a Golem article, because I don't think we have a proper one and Golem is really cool. I see many people not using it to its full potential.

How is this card best worked into a deck?

The action-digging effect works a lot like Hunting Party. Bypass your junk and find your actions. Golem also acts as a splitter, but you do want a decent number of +Action cards to avoid the dreaded Golem Into Two Terminals. If you have a lot of draw in your deck, you will want a lot of action cards to support Golem (certainly more than 2 non-Golem actions per Golem) because you will be drawing actions into your hand and out of the Golem Zone (your deck).

There is another type of Golem deck you can build, but I rarely find it strong enough to play. In this type, you get two actions you want to play every turn (like Goons and Torturer), and then just buy Golems and money. You will of course want 2 copies of a "key action" that happens to be a Duration.

Is the combo with Tactician ever worth pursuing?

Almost never. If you play a Lab/Menagerie/Minion after the Tactician, you end up with a 2/3/4 card hand. Not great unless your deck quality is very high. The payoff on the Tactician turn is also worse than you'd think. You get to start with a 10-card hand, but that means a lot of the actions you want to play end up in your hand, instead of in your deck where Golem can hit them. It's better to just get more Golems and more good Actions.

How many Golems do you typically want?

Depends on the board. I find 3 tends to be a good number usually. By the time you get 3 Golems and enough actions to support them, your deck should be strong enough to green without trouble.

You can get Potion and Golem quite early, as long as you have the economy to hit $4P and a few decent actions for it to hit. What's important is not so much how good your economy is now, but how good it will be when you draw the potion. Likewise, it's not so important how many action cards you have now, but how many you will have when you draw the Golem.
In this game, I buy potion on turn 4. Baker, Ironmonger, and Masquerade are all good actions that provide economy so that I have a good shot at hitting $4P when my potion comes up.
In this game, I buy potion on turn 3, when the only action in my deck is a Fortune Teller. But by the time I see that potion, buy a Golem with it, and draw the Golem, I've bought two Minions and a Scheme.

[Mavy2k]

I have played far more 4p games than 2p games with Golem and in those it is quite often a trap card.
Golem is undeniably a powerful card, but setting things up is slow.
You have to get a potion, you need some cards that you want to hit with Golem, you need some payload in your deck and you should be able to reliably hit $4P.
That is quite a lot and a very simple big money strategy is often faster.

What works pretty well is transitioning from Familiar to Golem, getting the Potion just for Golem seems hardly worth it.

[Kirian]

Another thing of note is that opening Potion/X when Golem is the only Potion card on the board is almost always a bad idea.  Even if you manage to spike 4P in the second shuffle, you're not going to have a lot of actions for Golem to play yet.  And spiking 4P is unlikely--worse than 3P, and how many times have we all cursed upon getting 2P?

[werothegreat]

Golem definitely gets better when there are other Potion cards, but it's certainly powerful enough on its own.  You just have to be willing to get that Potion.

[wachsmuth]

I once played a Scrying Pool/Golem deck. Those cards have really weird interactions. Golem was the only village, so I had to play Golem before I drew my deck to play the payload (Merchant Guild). But I also had to ensure that I hit non-terminals mostly. But not Scrying Pool, because then I risked drawing my deck. It was weird, but because the payload was explosive enough, it worked.

[Jack Rudd]

I once played a Scrying Pool/Golem deck. Those cards have really weird interactions.

It's kind of like Bank and Venture. Scrying Pool is best when a very high proportion of your deck is Actions, and Golem is best when the average Action in your deck is very powerful.

[Accatitippi]

and how many times have we all cursed upon getting 2P?

Zero. You don't curse when you get 2P, that's the problem.

[Triumph44]

I've seen a bot crush me with Golems + 2 Torturers where those are the only actions he buys (I think were I to try this deck, I might buy 3 Torturers).   I do think that deck can work with no trashers.  I think Golem+Goons is much more unwieldy - not only do you only get your opponent down to 3 cards, but presumably you are buying 3 things every time you Golem+Goons.  Your deck is going to get very thin right away, and without the reshuffle mechanism that Golem + 3 Torturers has (if one of the 2 Torturers Golem fishes for is one of the final 6 cards in the deck, I'm going to trigger a reshuffle where all my other Golems that were passed over are in the new deck), it's going to get very difficult to consistently Golem for the Goons. 

Like everyone said, the key to Golem is having powerful actions - my regular opponent loves Golem but will often buy weak actions that make it hard to take full advantage of what Golem offers.

[jsh357]

I feel like I rarely have a plan when I get this. I just try and make sure I have a decent density of +Action cards. Somehow it ends up being good. It's my wife's favorite card.

[drsteelhammer]

I feel like I rarely have a plan when I get this. I just try and make sure I have a decent density of +Action cards. Somehow it ends up being good. It's my wife's favorite card.

Action density seems not crucial to me? Sure, you want some action cards that you want to play, but unlike other splitters Golem does not care so much about the relation of actions/non actions.

It is my favourite alchemy card which is one of my favourite sets.

[singletee]

I feel like I rarely have a plan when I get this. I just try and make sure I have a decent density of +Action cards. Somehow it ends up being good. It's my wife's favorite card.

Action density seems not crucial to me? Sure, you want some action cards that you want to play, but unlike other splitters Golem does not care so much about the relation of actions/non actions.

It is my favourite alchemy card which is one of my favourite sets.

The + is important. It's density of cards that give +Action (among all the actions you have) so you can continue your chain.

[drsteelhammer]

I feel like I rarely have a plan when I get this. I just try and make sure I have a decent density of +Action cards. Somehow it ends up being good. It's my wife's favorite card.

Action density seems not crucial to me? Sure, you want some action cards that you want to play, but unlike other splitters Golem does not care so much about the relation of actions/non actions.

It is my favourite alchemy card which is one of my favourite sets.

The + is important. It's density of cards that give +Action (among all the actions you have) so you can continue your chain.

Oh look. there is a +! That makes more sense.

[Davio]

Golem definitely gets better when there are other Potion cards, but it's certainly powerful enough on its own.  You just have to be willing to get that Potion.

If I have any kind of deck and I could somehow add a free Golem, that's almost always going to beneficial.

So it's all about the opportunity cost, which is pretty steep if there are no other Potion-costers.

[Triumph44]

Golem definitely gets better when there are other Potion cards, but it's certainly powerful enough on its own.  You just have to be willing to get that Potion.

If I have any kind of deck and I could somehow add a free Golem, that's almost always going to beneficial.

So it's all about the opportunity cost, which is pretty steep if there are no other Potion-costers.

It's weird because while Golem doesn't specifically nombo with any Alchemy potion-cost actions, it doesn't really combo great with any of them either.  Alchemist and Scrying Pool have an awkward mix.  Familiar, great, but if you have 4P you should probably buy another Familiar instead of a Golem (although this is obviously situational).  Apothecary kinda combos with it - it can get the Potions and Coppers that Golem leaves behind.  And I suppose Golem helps you find more Possessions.  But to me if you're buying Potion cost cards, you're probably buying the other ones more and dropping in a Golem. 

I did forget about University which it does work well with, and Transmute which I have no idea if they go together, I can't imagine building a Transmute/Golem deck.

And of course Vineyard seems to go well with it.

Maybe I'm just not good with this card.

[Witherweaver]

and Transmute which I have no idea if they go together, I can't imagine building a Transmute/Golem deck.

[werothegreat]

Remake is even worse.

[ehunt]

Familiar, great, but if you have 4P you should probably buy another Familiar instead of a Golem (although this is obviously situational).

I think you should usually pick up a Golem over a second Familiar -- sometimes, your Golem will play your Familiar for you anyway in which case it's just as good; failing that, the cycling still helps you play your Familiar more often, and, most importantly, Golem is a fantastic card in a curse-filled misery-deck once the Curse pile is empty.

[Triumph44]

Familiar, great, but if you have 4P you should probably buy another Familiar instead of a Golem (although this is obviously situational).

I think you should usually pick up a Golem over a second Familiar -- sometimes, your Golem will play your Familiar for you anyway in which case it's just as good; failing that, the cycling still helps you play your Familiar more often, and, most importantly, Golem is a fantastic card in a curse-filled misery-deck once the Curse pile is empty.

Yeah, this makes sense.  You won't get the ideal turn unless you already have 2 Familiars but you should be able to play the Familiar(s) you have more often.