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[werothegreat]

Stop right there, hooligan!

-How does this compare to Junk Dealer?
-Do you want to pick up this or a curser/looter first?
-How many do you usually want?
-When do you switch over to buying Cartographers, if ever?

[Roadrunner7671]

Which card did this replace?

[Chris is me]

Buying it early is absolutely essential. Any later than the second shuffle and it's almost a waste of time. It won't consistently hit junk then.

You probably want two, if you can, but that is often hard to pull off.

This actually works a lot better with Cartographer, so I would get a Sentry than a Cartographer.

Junk Dealer is better in general. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't actually played with Sentry more than once. But Sentry is nice.

[faust]

Yeah; this card is suspectible to junking attacks in the midgame since it cannot consistently clear those. It is already not easy to consistently hit Curses with Ratcatcher. Sentry limits the scope of possible target even more. You can deck-track a bit, but that only gets you so far.

I like this comparison. Sentry is effectively a same-turn double Ratcatcher.

I think one of these should be plenty. I imagine that there is usually a better card to get by the time you hit $5 the second time.

[Donald X.]

Which card did this replace?

It's not really like that. Seven cards replaced six in each set, and only a few have direct connections.

[Davio]

If you neither trash nor discard, you just played a $5 Pearl Diver. 

I think this is a great utility card you will get in most games, but nothing too fancy.

[Roadrunner7671]

Which card did this replace?

It's not really like that. Seven cards replaced six in each set, and only a few have direct connections.

Alright, cool. Thanks!

[J Reggie]

Which card did this replace?

Scout. Every single 2nd edition card replaced Scout. Even the ones in the base set.

[singletee]

Which card did this replace?

Scout. Every single 2nd edition card replaced Scout. Even the ones in the base set.

Except Patrol, that one replaced Coppersmith 

[JW]

Strong trasher. If it's your only trasher, you'll generally want two unless you can open with it. It's weak against mid-game cursers unless you're already drawing your deck. However, a good way to draw your deck is to trash down quickly, which you can do by picking up multiple Sentries. In general, you'll want multiple Sentries before your first Cartographer.

[Beyond Awesome]

Buying it early is absolutely essential. Any later than the second shuffle and it's almost a waste of time. It won't consistently hit junk then.

You probably want two, if you can, but that is often hard to pull off.

This actually works a lot better with Cartographer, so I would get a Sentry than a Cartographer.

Junk Dealer is better in general. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't actually played with Sentry more than once. But Sentry is nice.

Getting two is not hard. That's like saying it's hard to get two Junk  Dealers or Upgrades. As for power level, it is comparable to JD and yes I have played with it more than once.

[Marcory]

It totally combos with Watchtower. When you get incoming junk, you can top-deck it for your Sentry! 

But in all seriousness, it does counter Sea Hag, Oracle, Rabble, Fortune-Teller, and other top-deck attacks quite well.

[xyz123]

How does it counter Sea Hag? It will draw the curse.

[J Reggie]

How does it counter Sea Hag? It will draw the curse.

Not if your opponent played Relic!

[Chris is me]

Buying it early is absolutely essential. Any later than the second shuffle and it's almost a waste of time. It won't consistently hit junk then.

You probably want two, if you can, but that is often hard to pull off.

This actually works a lot better with Cartographer, so I would get a Sentry than a Cartographer.

Junk Dealer is better in general. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't actually played with Sentry more than once. But Sentry is nice.

Getting two is not hard. That's like saying it's hard to get two Junk  Dealers or Upgrades. As for power level, it is comparable to JD and yes I have played with it more than once.

It's not hard to get two - it's hard to get two before the second one stops adding significant value to the deck (before the third shuffle)

JD and Sentry are basically the same except that Sentry can trash twice as many cards early and has less control later since it doesn't use your hand. JD does reduce your handsize but it offsets the lost economy of the Copper you trashed anyway.

More than once I've gotten to drawing my deck or almost drawing it before being done with JD trashing, so I'd really prefer a JD on boards with both.

[JThorne]

Junk Dealer is a much better trasher. Heck, even Doctor is a better trasher, because it trashes on buy, and it looks three cards deep when trashing on play instead of just two. And Doctor is known to be relatively weak on play. Both Doctor and Sentry suffer from "bad thinner" syndrome. They work ok until your deck starts getting thin, at which point you're much more likely to have your junk in hand, which is what makes trashers that work from your hand so much better.

That said, Sentry's topdeck control/prediction can be the most useful thing about it. On boards with a use for topdeck control, it's great. On boards with no other trasher, it's okay. On boards with another trasher and no use for topdeck control, it's skippable.

[Roadrunner7671]

Which card did this replace?

Scout. Every single 2nd edition card replaced Scout. Even the ones in the base set.

Scout cannot be replaced!

[Chris is me]

Junk Dealer is a much better trasher. Heck, even Doctor is a better trasher, because it trashes on buy, and it looks three cards deep when trashing on play instead of just two. And Doctor is known to be relatively weak on play. Both Doctor and Sentry suffer from "bad thinner" syndrome. They work ok until your deck starts getting thin, at which point you're much more likely to have your junk in hand, which is what makes trashers that work from your hand so much better.

That said, Sentry's topdeck control/prediction can be the most useful thing about it. On boards with a use for topdeck control, it's great. On boards with no other trasher, it's okay. On boards with another trasher and no use for topdeck control, it's skippable.

Doctor being terminal does a great deal to limit its effectiveness as a trasher, and I don't think it can be understated how much better off Sentry is by being a cantrip (not to mention being able to know what cards are trashable). Sentry can be used to thin while doing other things, where Doctor in the early game requires your terminal spot and later on requires active discarding.

[4est]

If we're comparing Junk Dealer and Sentry, I'd agree that purely as a trasher, Junk Dealer is stronger than Sentry.  Unless you can get Sentry before your first shuffle, it becomes very difficult to line up your junk within just the two card range Sentry looks at.  Additionally, Junk Dealer's ability to trash from your hand usually gives more flexibility and potential targets to trash than Sentry does.  I've had multiple games where I play Sentry with a Copper or Estate in hand only to reveal two action cards (which I put back, hooray)--if I'd had a Junk Dealer instead, I could have at least trashed something from my hand and had +$1.  Yes, when you do flip two junk cards with Sentry and trash them, it's amazing, but that's remarkably rare--if you don't buy Sentry until after your first shuffle, it might happen once in a game if you're lucky.

As a trasher, I think I'd only choose Sentry over Junk Dealer on a 5-2 split, as the chances of trashing two cards with it are highest if you can get it right away.  Otherwise, if I can't hit $5 until turn 3 or 4, I'd go with Junk Dealer for a more reliable trasher that can provide some economy.

That said, once you're into the mid to late game, I do think Sentry becomes much stronger than Junk Dealer as it doesn't force you to trash, which makes JD a liability sometimes.  Instead, Sentry acts as a half-Cartographer, filtering your green cards from the top of your deck, while leaving the actions you want on top, and perhaps trashing the occasional Curse that pops up.  True, Sentry won't be the star of the show late game, but it also won't be a dead card in a hand full of provinces and actions like JD can become.

[Limetime]

If we're comparing Junk Dealer and Sentry, I'd agree that purely as a trasher, Junk Dealer is stronger than Sentry.  Unless you can get Sentry before your first shuffle, it becomes very difficult to line up your junk within just the two card range Sentry looks at.  Additionally, Junk Dealer's ability to trash from your hand usually gives more flexibility and potential targets to trash than Sentry does.  I've had multiple games where I play Sentry with a Copper or Estate in hand only to reveal two action cards (which I put back, hooray)--if I'd had a Junk Dealer instead, I could have at least trashed something from my hand and had +$1.  Yes, when you do flip two junk cards with Sentry and trash them, it's amazing, but that's remarkably rare--if you don't buy Sentry until after your first shuffle, it might happen once in a game if you're lucky.

As a trasher, I think I'd only choose Sentry over Junk Dealer on a 5-2 split, as the chances of trashing two cards with it are highest if you can get it right away.  Otherwise, if I can't hit $5 until turn 3 or 4, I'd go with Junk Dealer for a more reliable trasher that can provide some economy.

That said, once you're into the mid to late game, I do think Sentry becomes much stronger than Junk Dealer as it doesn't force you to trash, which makes JD a liability sometimes.  Instead, Sentry acts as a half-Cartographer, filtering your green cards from the top of your deck, while leaving the actions you want on top, and perhaps trashing the occasional Curse that pops up.  True, Sentry won't be the star of the show late game, but it also won't be a dead card in a hand full of provinces and actions like JD can become.

I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards

[Chris is me]

If we're comparing Junk Dealer and Sentry, I'd agree that purely as a trasher, Junk Dealer is stronger than Sentry.  Unless you can get Sentry before your first shuffle, it becomes very difficult to line up your junk within just the two card range Sentry looks at.  Additionally, Junk Dealer's ability to trash from your hand usually gives more flexibility and potential targets to trash than Sentry does.  I've had multiple games where I play Sentry with a Copper or Estate in hand only to reveal two action cards (which I put back, hooray)--if I'd had a Junk Dealer instead, I could have at least trashed something from my hand and had +$1.  Yes, when you do flip two junk cards with Sentry and trash them, it's amazing, but that's remarkably rare--if you don't buy Sentry until after your first shuffle, it might happen once in a game if you're lucky.

As a trasher, I think I'd only choose Sentry over Junk Dealer on a 5-2 split, as the chances of trashing two cards with it are highest if you can get it right away.  Otherwise, if I can't hit $5 until turn 3 or 4, I'd go with Junk Dealer for a more reliable trasher that can provide some economy.

That said, once you're into the mid to late game, I do think Sentry becomes much stronger than Junk Dealer as it doesn't force you to trash, which makes JD a liability sometimes.  Instead, Sentry acts as a half-Cartographer, filtering your green cards from the top of your deck, while leaving the actions you want on top, and perhaps trashing the occasional Curse that pops up.  True, Sentry won't be the star of the show late game, but it also won't be a dead card in a hand full of provinces and actions like JD can become.

I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards

You'd be surprised just how rare hitting 2 good cards is in that scenario, when you include things like Sentry missing the shuffle, other card draw, etc. into the equation.

[AdrianHealey]

This can be calculated fyi :p

[JW]

I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards

You'd be surprised just how rare hitting 2 good cards is in that scenario, when you include things like Sentry missing the shuffle, other card draw, etc. into the equation.

Neither Sentry missing the shuffle or other card draw (unless you draw all or all but 1-2 cards of your deck) impacts the average number of junk cards that Sentry hits in a deck of 10 junks and 4 non-junk. If you have 10 junks and 4 non-junk (not counting the Sentry that you are playing), you hit 0 junk 6.6% of the time, 1 junk 44.0% of the time, and 2 junk 49.5% of the time, for an average of 1.43 junk cards.

[4est]

I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards

You'd be surprised just how rare hitting 2 good cards is in that scenario, when you include things like Sentry missing the shuffle, other card draw, etc. into the equation.

Neither Sentry missing the shuffle or other card draw (unless you draw all or all but 1-2 cards of your deck) impacts the average number of junk cards that Sentry hits in a deck of 10 junks and 4 non-junk. If you have 10 junks and 4 non-junk (not counting the Sentry that you are playing), you hit 0 junk 6.6% of the time, 1 junk 44.0% of the time, and 2 junk 49.5% of the time, for an average of 1.43 junk cards.

I'm not super good at calculating the statistics of all this so these numbers are helpful (this does take into account that when you play Sentry, you'll have four other cards in your hand, plus the one you draw, right?).  I'll add that the above numbers of course assume you've purchased your Sentry on turn 3 or 4 (and purchased, let's say for simplicity's sake, silvers on turn 1 and 2), and then play it on turn 5 when your deck consists of 10 junks and 4 non-junk.  If you miss playing Sentry on turn 5 or 6, then you'll be hitting your second shuffle and have 10 junks and 6 non-junks in your deck, reducing the chances of flipping two junk significantly.  Basically my point is that if you're gaining a card each turn (that you want to keep), each turn that you don't play Sentry, your chances of trashing two junks decrease dramatically.

I'd be curious to see more simulator data on this!

[Chris is me]

I would say it's pretty hard to get sentry to miss while you have 10 junks and 4 good cards

You'd be surprised just how rare hitting 2 good cards is in that scenario, when you include things like Sentry missing the shuffle, other card draw, etc. into the equation.

Neither Sentry missing the shuffle or other card draw (unless you draw all or all but 1-2 cards of your deck) impacts the average number of junk cards that Sentry hits in a deck of 10 junks and 4 non-junk. If you have 10 junks and 4 non-junk (not counting the Sentry that you are playing), you hit 0 junk 6.6% of the time, 1 junk 44.0% of the time, and 2 junk 49.5% of the time, for an average of 1.43 junk cards.

Of course Sentry missing the shuffle impacts the ratio of junk cards in your deck - that's ridiculous. If it misses the shuffle there are up to five other good cards in the deck, because your turn 5 and 6 purchases are included. Other card draw increases the speed of which this third shuffle come by, increasing the ratio of good to bad cards in the deck.

I'll have to do some simulation, but the odds of Sentry bought on the second shuffle trashing two cards more than once are definitely south of 75%, and more than twice well south of 50%

[Accatitippi]

I've done some pencil-and-paper math and if you only buy non-drawing cards and one Sentry on T3 or 4, the likelihood of trashing x cards on your first play of Sentry seems to be:
0 cards: 17%
1 card: 42%
2 cards: 41%

I cannot guarantee that these are right, but the fact that they sum up to 100 seems encouraging.

[Chris is me]

So I've mostly written a simulator (by hand!) that just buys Silver or Sentry every turn and plays all the Sentry it can each turn. Before I run it 10,000 times or whatever to see how many cards it trashes per play, I just wanted a few opinions on constraints:

1. How many turns should I run per game? (Ten?)
2. How many Sentry to buy? (Two?)
3. Always topdeck Silver or always discard Silver? (Topdeck?)

So far early results seem to indicate it is rare to trash 2 cards with Sentry more than once.

[JW]

1. How many turns should I run per game? (Ten?)
2. How many Sentry to buy? (Two?)
3. Always topdeck Silver or always discard Silver? (Topdeck?)

So far early results seem to indicate it is rare to trash 2 cards with Sentry more than once.

If you're looking for how quickly Sentry trashes when you focus on trashing, you should buy 2 Sentry and once you have the maximum number of Sentry you'll buy, you should discard Silver.

A comparison to Junk Dealer has come up in this thread, so one comparison might be to how many junk cards the (buy the same number of) Junk Dealer strategy trashes over the same number of turns.

[4est]

So I've mostly written a simulator (by hand!) that just buys Silver or Sentry every turn and plays all the Sentry it can each turn. Before I run it 10,000 times or whatever to see how many cards it trashes per play, I just wanted a few opinions on constraints:

1. How many turns should I run per game? (Ten?)
2. How many Sentry to buy? (Two?)
3. Always topdeck Silver or always discard Silver? (Topdeck?)

So far early results seem to indicate it is rare to trash 2 cards with Sentry more than once.

I'd say ten turns should be plenty to look at.  Barring sloggy games with lots of junking, you should be shifting from deck thinning to engine building by that point, and less concerned with trashing multiple cards.  It seems for the purposes of this discussion, we're mostly interested in the early game trashing ability of Sentry.

You could try testing both one or two--I wonder if adding that second one really increases your chances of trashing two cards on play, my guess is that it doesn't.

I'd say topdeck silver, since especially in the early game, playing your silver for economy will usually be better than cycling it.

It would be interesting to see the difference in trashing efficiency between getting Sentry before the first shuffle vs. before the second.

I also like JW's idea to compare with Junk Dealer (e.g. on average, will two Sentries trash more or fewer junks than two JDs?).

[soudek01]

Something that bothers me about Sentry is when you play it and draw a junk card. If I had played Junk Dealer instead, I could trash that recently drawn junk, but with Sentry, drawing junk just means that it's more likely that the 2 revealed cards won't be junk. I'm not sure how much this affects Sentry's effectiveness, but non-the-less, it's always a little sad to draw junk and then only trash one, or zero cards.

[mameluke]

Still, many other cards in Dominion function the same way. It's sad to draw an Action card with Herald and then reveal a copper, rather than the other way around. And potentially the saddest thing in all of Dominion is to play Tournament and draw a Province.

[faust]

Something that bothers me about Sentry is when you play it and draw a junk card. If I had played Junk Dealer instead, I could trash that recently drawn junk, but with Sentry, drawing junk just means that it's more likely that the 2 revealed cards won't be junk. I'm not sure how much this affects Sentry's effectiveness, but non-the-less, it's always a little sad to draw junk and then only trash one, or zero cards.

That's purely emotional though; if the junk card was second or third in your deck, you would be very happy to play Sentry over Junk Dealer, but since you draw 5 cards at once afterwards, it's easier to miss this.

[Chris is me]

Some quick stats from my super basic simulator, 100,000 games of Sentry Silver BM played out to 10 turns, with only two Sentry ever bought, and any non junk cards topdecked in the same order they were found:

84% of games had at least one instance of Sentry trashing two cards. 45% of games had at least two instances of Sentry trashing two cards. 14% of games had at least three instances of Sentry trashing two cards (note how this correlates with the roughly 16.6% odds of a 5/2 open).

The average number of cards trashed per game, however, was just 5.019. I'll compare this to the number of trashes two JDs gets at some point.

[dedicateddan]

Sentry is a Junk Dealer/Cartographer split card.

It's all upside every time it's played and the effect is best in decks with a mix of good and bad cards (and green)!

It's close in power level to Junk Dealer, although useful in different situations.

With both available, I might open with a Sentry and then pick up a Junk Dealer afterward.

[Chris is me]

The average number of cards trashed per game, however, was just 5.019. I'll compare this to the number of trashes two JDs gets at some point.

Back of the envelope: If you buy Junk Dealer #1 on turn 3-4, play it once on turn 5-6 while buying a second, and play each twice on turns 7-10 (finding a junk card to trash each time), the two JD strategy will trash 5 cards through turn 10. That's a little slower to pick up JDs than you can expect on average, but assumes that the JDs don't miss the shuffle. So I'd guess that the 2 JD strategy will trash more than 5 but less than 6 cards on average through turn 10.

That kind of supports my point - Sentry, once you account for it's sped up cycling, doesn't actually trash any faster than JD, but has much more trouble with those last 5 cards.

I'd still probably get one of each on a board with both, but in general I think JD is "better" as a pure trasher.

[werothegreat]

Sentry likes Secret Passage.