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[JustANewPlayer]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-173750-0443614b.html

I would have gone for Walled Villages and Traders more aggressively, but I remembered reading somewhere on this site that Gardens changed the game, so I went for it. Then again, I also read you should never buy Copper, but I took a gamble. It paid off, but did I play well or was I just lucky?

[WrathOfGlod]

Its a decent gardens board but when playing a garden strategy you should focus your deck more strongly
Envoy is an especially bad card here because you have very few good cards in your deck to play so hitting at least two at once is unlikely.
Also your deck will be large so you probably won't hit 2 actions at once too often so walled village is a bit of a waste (not awful to get one since it stays until you need it).
In general you want to only be buying woodcutters,gardens,estates and coppers and to always use every buy in this deck. I'm unsure if trader>woodcutter here, but it probably depends on what your opponent is doing (trader can play a late game better woodcutter is better at getting gardens).

[Anon79]

Trader and Woodcutter together aren't bad. If you draw both in the same hand, so much the better - use Woodcutter's extra buy on Copper, reveal Trader, presto cheap Silver.

So I would start Trader + Woodcutter on 4/3, then react differently (going for slightly different Gardens strategies) depending on whether opponent is splitting Gardens with me (4-4), or just denying me some (likely 6-2) but going for Provinces.

[WanderingWinder]

Trader is quite a better enabler for gardens than woodcutter, I think. Much trickier to play, though.

[Asklepios]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/28/game-20120128-173750-0443614b.html

I would have gone for Walled Villages and Traders more aggressively, but I remembered reading somewhere on this site that Gardens changed the game, so I went for it. Then again, I also read you should never buy Copper, but I took a gamble. It paid off, but did I play well or was I just lucky?

That was one long game, considering the set available.

Several cards work for the Gardens engine, though Ironworks is the best, and Workshop isn't bad. Woodcutter is a bit inconsistent as you won't always hit $4 quick enough to finish the game before Province points become important. Horse Traders is probably more consistent than Woodcutter, for example. The fastest Gardens victory likely comes from Ironworks/Great Hall/Gardens, which is ungodly fast and can easily end a game before your opponent has got 2 provinces.

Generally, the key to playing Gardens is speed, getting your deck to 40+ cards as fast as possible and simultaneously emptying three piles. Generally you'll be buying Gardens, one key card, and likely estates.

Having said that, I'd have been tempted in this set to play for Alchemists with this set, running off one Woodcutter, two potions, money, and as many alchemists as you can buy. Its not as fast as the most efficient garden strategies, but then I don't think the most efficient garden strategies were available this game. If I were to play for gardens, it'd have been just with a two trader opening. Trade your estates early, buy gardens if you can, silver if you can't , and if you can't make silver, copper, hopefully with a Trader reaction to make it silver.

Having said that, that approach is a difficult one, as you need to keep track of your deck carefully and stay aware of the pace of the game to know whether province or gardens is better, to see how far away the three-pile is, etc. Much easier to go for the Alchemist route.

As a final, very dull option, a solid strategy here would have been two Envoys plus big money. That strategy is relatively consistent at least.

Regardless, Walled Villlages have almost certainly no place in any deck in this set. There's not enough strong terminals to make the time lost buying a village worthwhile.

[ftl]

Gardens was definitely the right call here, so by making that choice you definitely played better than your opponent, I say.

Typically, an 'enabler' for gardens is any cheap card (<4 cost) that lets you gain cards or get +buy. This lets you bloat up your deck, make gardens worth a lot. Woodcutter and trader both fit. Also, in a gardens game, copper is a good card - if you have a hand full of copper, you can buy gardens, which is what you're going to be using for most of your points. So you should always pick up copper. (You were one card away from having your gardens worth 5 vp - if you picked up one more copper somewhere along the way, you'd have had 7 more points!)

I'm not going to go into the details of how best to play Woodcutter/Gardens or Trader/Gardens - but what I WILL mention is that you have to make the decision to go for those strategies, and then really go for them. The envoys, for example, don't help you here! You're trying to get 3 or 4 coins to get to gardens. If you have a stuffed up-enough deck that you can't get to $3 in 5 cards, then drawing 5 cards with Envoy and then having one of them discarded is likely to get you a handful of green and not much more. And if you don't have the envoys, you don't really need the walled villages.

Those buys where you got envoys and walled villages should probably have been traders, woodcutters, or gardens.

[Anon79]

Having said that, I'd have been tempted in this set to play for Alchemists with this set, running off one Woodcutter, two potions, money, and as many alchemists as you can buy. Its not as fast as the most efficient garden strategies, but then I don't think the most efficient garden strategies were available this game.
(...)
Much easier to go for the Alchemist route.

Gardens was definitely the right call here, so by making that choice you definitely played better than your opponent, I say.

Best of 5 gogo.

Seriously, I think some of the advice given, while well-meaning, will be quite lost on the OP. So he asks on this board "did I play well or was I just lucky", to which "Workshop is a better enabler than Woodcutter for Gardens" doesn't really fly does it? Because while we vets know how Woodcutter/Gardens works, how to play it, and how it isn't on an elite level of Gardens enabler, the OP's game suggests that he doesn't. (e.g. open Woodcutter/Garden and then buy Woodcutter on $5, that can't be right!)

To the OP, I'd say this: when going for a Gardens strategy, the advice "don't buy copper" should generally be disregarded; usually Coppers are bad because they stop you drawing $8 in one hand, but in a Gardens strategy you shouldn't be doing that.

Each Gardens enabler plays differently, and you need to be comfortable with how they function. While most seek to empty out the three piles of Gardens, Estates, and itself, some enable you to grab a few Duchies along the way (notably Ironworks) while some others usually can't. Also, for the $3 enablers of Woodcutter and Workshop, you usually don't open Garden/X but rather X/X and then go for the Gardens Turn 3 onwards (or even later). "Even-ing out" your enabler and Gardens purchases is usually a bad idea.

Trader/Gardens is a whole new story, because not only does your enabler cost $4 (which means you can't open with 2 Traders), you don't usually want to empty the Trader pile (although Silver(!) pile is possible especially if your opponent also has Trader). Also, a high concentration of Silvers means that not only can you buy some Provinces, you might even find after a few turns that you can actually get your fair share of Provinces even if you lose the Gardens-split? I think very few of us are expert in Trader/Gardens at this moment and some experimentation is still possible.

But back to Woodcutter/Gardens, which is what you played: primarily you want a few Woodcutters to start. Then you start greening by buying up nothing but Gardens (Coppers with extra buys) until the Gardens deck is exhausted. When that is done, you evaluate to see whether rushing out the Estates + one other pile wins you the game, or whether you need to actually switch out and try for a few Duchies too. This makes a difference when you have $5 and two buys: should it be Woodcuter + Estate, Estate + Estate, or Duchy + Copper? The decision depends on how well your opponent's deck is going, whether he is going for the same strategy, whether he has the capability to end the game soon, etc.

But generally you don't have the luxury of dipping into other stacks like Walled Villages or Envoys. As explained by other posters, they are near useless in any dedicated Gardens deck (other than adding to deck size), and simply giving your opponent more time to get Golds, Provinces and Duchies while you are unable to end the game on 3-piles.

Whatever strategy you do adopt, try to play it to the best of its ability first and not get into the finer points of whether Woodcutter/Gardens or Trader/Gardens or Woodcutter/Trader/Gardens is better. Once you can play all 3 of the strategies competently, you will be able to form your own opinion on the matter.

[Asklepios]

Well said.

I think a good way to get a feel for it is to play solo games on isotropic with the "cards required" box used.

I'd try out:

Ironworks, Gardens.
Workshop, Gardens.
Woodcutter, Gardens.
Trader, Gardens.
Alchemist.

While you're there, also try out:

University, Vineyard.
Ironworks, Vineyard.

Note how long it takes you to get to a point where you'd have won the game. In Province games that means 4 provinces, normally, and 5 provinces to be sure. In Gardens games that normally means emptying three piles, though bear in mind that when you go live, the presence of your opponent may up to double that speed. A common mistake I see is for players to spend too long buying enablers, and to wait too long to buy the green cards, likely based on their single player practise. When you practise, its quick and consistent to buy 10 copies of your enabler first. When you're up for real, you normally want to buy 2 enablers and thats it. This is especially true of Vineyard games, I find, and against weaker players I'll often have started buying Vineyards several turns before the other player as they'll still be buying Universities...

[WanderingWinder]

Alchemist is worse than big money unless it has a lot of help. Or if colonies are out.

[Tahtweasel]

WW, I think you're a little bit more biased against Alchemist than you should be. My jaw dropped when you didn't go for it in the game we had recently with Outpost in it.

[WanderingWinder]

WW, I think you're a little bit more biased against Alchemist than you should be. My jaw dropped when you didn't go for it in the game we had recently with Outpost in it.

I generally flatly ignore outpost. Which was my real problem there. The two (bad) cards work well together. Also, Forge is really good for alchemist, too. Finally,  it was a colony game. So yeah, it was lights out there. And a misplay by me. That doesn't mean alchemist isn't terrible.

Edit: But what I said two posts up is just true....

[RisingJaguar]

...

Two tidbits on Vineyards.
You can spend a bit more time on enablers here because if there are decent enough actions, chances are these enablers will allow you to do a lot more damage (draw your deck, attack, gain lots of money).  Also these enablers also increase your potential of vineyards.  As opposed to gardens/workshop for example, having multiple workshops isn't so helpful as you can only play one. 
Vineyards probably needs to have a larger element which is some sort of +buy.  It ends up being much too slow if you don't have +buys. There's nothing worse than having $6P+ and almost forced to buy just one vineyard.  The +buy allows you to build your deck (for points and still be able to accumulate vineyards just as fast. 
These two differences aren't vital to gardens (although +buys help in a different way)

[Asklepios]

...

Two tidbits on Vineyards.
You can spend a bit more time on enablers here because if there are decent enough actions, chances are these enablers will allow you to do a lot more damage (draw your deck, attack, gain lots of money).  Also these enablers also increase your potential of vineyards.  As opposed to gardens/workshop for example, having multiple workshops isn't so helpful as you can only play one. 
Vineyards probably needs to have a larger element which is some sort of +buy.  It ends up being much too slow if you don't have +buys. There's nothing worse than having $6P+ and almost forced to buy just one vineyard.  The +buy allows you to build your deck (for points and still be able to accumulate vineyards just as fast. 
These two differences aren't vital to gardens (although +buys help in a different way)

I'd agree with that, but if there's a strong enough action card generator, then I'd still be tempted by vineyards. That is, use Ironworks or University to generate lots of action cards, then spend the buys on either potions or vineyards, and use the action generation to three-pile the game as quickly as possible. You don't need to empty the Vineyard pile to win with Vineyards, you just need to keep track of your points total and end the game at the right time.

[JustANewPlayer]

Well said.

I think a good way to get a feel for it is to play solo games on isotropic with the "cards required" box used.

I'd try out:

Ironworks, Gardens.
Workshop, Gardens.
Woodcutter, Gardens.
Trader, Gardens.
Alchemist.

While you're there, also try out:

University, Vineyard.
Ironworks, Vineyard.

Note how long it takes you to get to a point where you'd have won the game. In Province games that means 4 provinces, normally, and 5 provinces to be sure. In Gardens games that normally means emptying three piles, though bear in mind that when you go live, the presence of your opponent may up to double that speed. A common mistake I see is for players to spend too long buying enablers, and to wait too long to buy the green cards, likely based on their single player practise. When you practise, its quick and consistent to buy 10 copies of your enabler first. When you're up for real, you normally want to buy 2 enablers and thats it. This is especially true of Vineyard games, I find, and against weaker players I'll often have started buying Vineyards several turns before the other player as they'll still be buying Universities...

I've been practicing some of these, but I ran into a problem: How should I decide the third pile to empty? True, in an actual game my opponent would be buying things as well, which would influence my decision, but what if they notice my strategy and start playing Big Money? Are there any guidelines for this?

[ftl]

I've been practicing some of these, but I ran into a problem: How should I decide the third pile to empty? True, in an actual game my opponent would be buying things as well, which would influence my decision, but what if they notice my strategy and start playing Big Money? Are there any guidelines for this?

Well, Gardens is one pile you want to empty, no matter what your opponent is doing.

It may be convenient to be able to empty the pile of whatever the enabler is, because typically you would have bought a few of them anyway, and you're bloating your deck with lots of stuff so it's good to have more.

Estates can also be a reasonable last pile to empty, since they're cheap and you can buy them even with a really bloated deck full of gardens.

In the case of a Vineyard game, pick some cheap cantrip instead.

Those are the obvious things to consider, without any other knowledge of what's in the set; obviously, if the opponent gets some other pile low, then you can use that and finish it off.