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Author Topic: empires: legionary, the legendary  (Read 3082 times)

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schadd

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empires: legionary, the legendary
« on: July 25, 2016, 06:49:50 pm »
+2


the sword actually goes on for another twenty feet. that's how it puts you at two cards


it's militia+, featuring the most scariest attack you've ever seen! except donx pointed out that it's not really that much worse than militia. you discard a card that's the middle of the pack for your hand, and then draw one that'll be, on average, the middle of the pack from your deck. in practice it's a little different because of having controllable pairings of cards and also masquerade but it can only be so much worse. the other thing that this card does that defies precedent is straight-up giving 3 bucks on play for $5. what! but also that's not really that exciting, which is something we've figured out. in fact, +$3 without needing an action isn't even really that good for $6, and +$3 as an action card is like a smithy that draws three coppers. but legionary does another thing, in addition to its money thing. we just talked about it.


-how much more offensive is it than militia, really? and is the +$3 outrageous as well?
-what do you think about gating effects behind gold? does it usually mean, okay, pick up a gold while you're there sweetie, or does it push you in some direction, at some point
-how neat is it thematically? is a legionary a better version of a militia, and do legionaries only bother to do anything after augustus flashes his wallet?
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AdrianHealey

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Re: empires: legionary, the legendary
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2016, 07:31:51 pm »
+1

A good legionary means you have $6 and your opponents down to three cards. I see a real possibility for soft pins.
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Seprix

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Re: empires: legionary, the legendary
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2016, 12:19:48 am »
0

Legionary and Rabble is a brutal pseudo pin.
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FishingVillage

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Re: empires: legionary, the legendary
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2016, 02:06:25 am »
0

A person in my group already wanted a soft ban on Legionary the first time it hit the table and was played. Having Wedding on the board probably didn't help either. The attack is strong, but it requires having a Gold in hand, and Legionary itself is $5. I think I can tolerate it.

I do think Legionary's attack is worse than Militia's in general though. With Militia, you drop to 3 cards but you can plan around that and you (usually) won't be harassed any further. With Legionary, you drop to 2 cards, which is pretty difficult to build a plan around, then you get a random card which may or may not help with whatever you were planning to do with 2 cards in hand. It can even work against you in some cases, such as if you're still working on trashing via Steward/Remake, leave a bad card in your hand, then end up drawing a card you don't want to trash.

Or maybe you decide to ditch the Steward/Remake/linchpin in the first place, then draw into a bad card. Hooray, you've basically got a completely useless turn. Which hopefully shouldn't be happening over 50% of the time (because half of your deck is better than the other half), but it can happen, and you might get some bad feels as a result.

Basically it feels like you will need to work around only having 2 useful cards that plays nice with the rest of your deck. That seems pretty brutal, but again the attack requires having a Gold to make it happen.

Once upon a time I played around with a custom card named Assassin that was "+1 Card / +1 Action / Each other player discards a card, then draws up to 3 cards in hand". Everyone hated it. Assassin doesn't immediately drag players down to 2 cards like Legionary does but it will eventually. I expected people to at least be bothered by Assassin but didn't realize how deeply despised it would be.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2016, 02:17:21 am by FishingVillage »
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Chris is me

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Re: empires: legionary, the legendary
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2016, 11:48:39 am »
0

Legionary pairs with a LOT of other attacks to make shitty turns for your opponents if you can build an engine to do it. I really like the "requires a Gold" penalty to cause trouble. -Card token (if you can play it before Legionary that's better), Bureaucrat (lol), Sea Hag, Spy, etc, basically anything that can make the top card of their deck worthless will basically ruin the turn of the person playing it.

It's probably a good enough attack that you would use it in a money variant, where you hopefully have a lot of golds anyway.

Ultimately it's not the easiest discard attack to use though, so it is a bit limited in its utility and it won't choke the early game as hard as Militia does which is probably a good thing.
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JThorne

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Re: empires: legionary, the legendary
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2016, 12:20:54 pm »
+1

I submit that Legionary is a weaker attack than Militia. Militia always works, even in a one-card hand. You could get Tortured twice, discard both times and still Militia your opponent just for spite. It may not be the best move, but it's possible. You can always open Militia, and it slows down the early game, often making it painfully slow to get to $5

Legionary, on the other hand, is actually its own counter. Since you have to pair Legionary with a Gold in-hand, it only really works reliably if there are engine parts in the kingdom for drawing, sifting and otherwise controlling your hand. If such engine parts exist, that significantly mitigates Legionary's attack, since victims can keep Village/Draw/whatever and still have a good chance of kicking off.

And to make matters worse, having played a few games against it in just such a kingdom with engine parts available, I can say that it does suffer from Margrave Syndrome. I have been saved from a dud hand many, many times by the play of a Legionary. This doesn't happen with Militia.

I'm not saying it's bad. Like many discard attacks, it's often game-defining and it's rarely skippable. However, on a board without engine parts, I would hesitate to try Legionary/BM, and on a board with engine parts, and with both Militia and Legionary available, I would sooner open Militia and have just a single Militia in my engine rather than waiting to hit $5 and using a Legionary for the discard attack.
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ThetaSigma12

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Re: empires: legionary, the legendary
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2016, 12:54:00 pm »
+1

Well, you don't have to reveal the gold. You can always play the legionary for spite and just not reveal a gold.
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drsteelhammer

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Re: empires: legionary, the legendary
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2016, 01:36:42 pm »
0

I'm not saying it's bad. Like many discard attacks, it's often game-defining and it's rarely skippable. However, on a board without engine parts, I would hesitate to try Legionary/BM, and on a board with engine parts, and with both Militia and Legionary available, I would sooner open Militia and have just a single Militia in my engine rather than waiting to hit $5 and using a Legionary for the discard attack.

I don't think the question is clear whether you want Militia over Legionary on boards where they are both present. To me it feels heavily depending on the board. If your opponent has three caravans in play, the Legionary will probably just sift an extra card. If KC is your village, goodluck ever starting with KC KC Draw, whereas militia does pretty much nothing against that.

I like your point about it being its own counter, there is merit to that. It definitely punishes the player who underbuilds which I like.
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