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Author Topic: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry  (Read 13570 times)

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Accatitippi

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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #25 on: November 29, 2016, 09:03:26 am »
+2

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. :)
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Chris is me

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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #26 on: November 29, 2016, 10:58:23 am »
+3

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.
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JW

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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #27 on: November 29, 2016, 11:45:00 am »
+1

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.
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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #28 on: November 29, 2016, 11:54:26 am »
+1

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?).
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soudek01

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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #29 on: November 29, 2016, 01:28:49 pm »
0

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.
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mameluke

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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #30 on: November 29, 2016, 02:08:19 pm »
0

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.
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faust

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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #31 on: November 29, 2016, 02:33:16 pm »
+1

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.
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Chris is me

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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #32 on: November 29, 2016, 03:16:11 pm »
+5

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.
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dedicateddan

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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #33 on: November 29, 2016, 04:18:14 pm »
+1

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.
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Chris is me

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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #34 on: November 29, 2016, 04:50:47 pm »
+1

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.
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Re: Let's Discuss Second Edition Cards: Sentry
« Reply #35 on: November 29, 2016, 08:01:32 pm »
+2

Sentry likes Secret Passage.
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