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Omastar68

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Comparing power cards
« on: June 06, 2017, 06:08:25 pm »
+2

A lot of the times it's obvious you want to open something like Chapel, Ambassador, or Remake, but what about when several cards like those are present? Remake/Chapel seems like a bad opening, and idk if you should then forget about Chapel. And with no obvious anti-synergies like Hermit, cards like Apothecary that like Copper, or Watchtower, is Ambassador a good buy even over cards that can trash more or for a benefit?

I guess it always depends on the board, so what about this:

Raze
Chapel
Ambassador
Steward
Remake
Remodel
Salvager
Lost City
Altar
Expand

Maybe a silly example since Shuffle IT is never gonna give you so much trashing(I think.) But certainly you'll see more than one strong trasher often, and besides wondering which ones of the big guns like Chapel, Remake, Steward and Ambassador to get on boards like these, I'm really curious to hear what someone much more experienced thinks about more middling trashers like Remodel and Expand. Would they have no place on this board for instance?

I think trashing is so vital that I mostly care about what people think for that, but I'm also a bit unsure on other similar cards that have an effect you generally want. Like I know Mountebank>Soothsayer and Cultist greater>Witch, among others, but what about Cultist or Torturer? And if there's no village, Cultist-BM or Torturer-BM? With no buy I feel like Torturer, but not at all sure. Again assume there's nothing else stronger or other factors that make a big difference, i.e. Vineyards, Scrying Pool, Quest(maybe,) Wolf Den, etc.

Any other alike cards are up for discussion as well. Really anything about Dominion, I love this game and spend a ton of time playing. Key points would be when to get Baker, if you use the token for it, that kind of thing. Also if there's plentiful +action but not much draw(say Moat is the biggest,) is getting Mine asap important? Assume that there's nothing like Highway, Rebuild, or Mountebank that'd likely make it no, and there's also no particular synergy for it, like Plats, good alt-treasure, throne room and variants, etc. This imaginary game doesn't have tons of junking so that it might turn into a slog, and neither is it gonna be over really fast.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2017, 09:30:49 am by Omastar68 »
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JThorne

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2017, 10:21:38 pm »
0

You might want to check out the Qvist rankings. I'm not sure the 2016 rankings are complete, but the 2015 rankings are here:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14011.0

Since they're grouped by cost, that makes it a little more difficult, but at least you can get a feel for how the community rates the cards. For example, you'll see Cultist above Torturer on the $5s. It's non-terminal for other cultists, doesn't give the junk to hand where it can be paired with a trasher, and doesn't have an escape clause. No contest. Even though Torturer is a draw-3, if there's a village on the board, you're sometimes better off playing village/cultist-chain/village/cultist-chain. Think of each chain as though it was a single terminal draw "package."

It's harder to compare $2 and $4 cards like Chapel and Remake directly, but I'm pretty sure that everyone would agree that Chapel is by far the more powerful card. If you see them together, you skip Remake the majority of the time. I know what you're thinking. Estates become Silvers. Eww. Forget that. Take the Chapel chainsaw to your deck and lose the starters.

Remodel is emphatically NOT a trasher. Expand is not a trasher. These aren't even considered middling trashers.

The purpose of a trasher is to thin your deck, and upgraders do neither. Any card that upgrades "up to" an amount more requires you to gain a card, meaning your deck will never get thin. Some upgraders that say "exactly" an amount more, however, can be extremely useful. Upgrade itself can get rid of all of your coppers if there is no Poor House in the kingdom and will thin your deck nicely.

The title of your thread is "comparing power cards" but then you list a kingdom with several decidedly non-power cards on it. Warehouse, Remodel, Salvager, Lost City, Altar and Expand are definitely not power cards. They're all good sometimes and they all have their place, but they're not cards that make alarm bells go off when you see them.

So definitely do some reading.

As far as comparing power trashers goes, I'd rate the trashers in this order:

Donate
Chapel
Steward
Remake

It gets a little muddled after that.

Temple?
Plan?
Bonfire?
Junk Dealer?
Count?
Trading Post?
Forge?

I'll give Mercenary props, but you can't just buy one, so it's a whole different thing. Ambassador is also one of the most powerful cards in the game, but it's hard to get thin with it because you can pretty much guarantee that your opponent is handing you junk as fast as you're handing it back.

The key is the ability to trash multiple cards with each use, ideally gaining nothing. You can get thin with trash-ones like Trade Route and Salvager, but you usually have to buy two; if you're doing trash one/buy one each shuffle, it's hard to get thin.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2017, 10:23:32 pm by JThorne »
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Omastar68

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2017, 01:00:12 am »
0

It's harder to compare $2 and $4 cards like Chapel and Remake directly, but I'm pretty sure that everyone would agree that Chapel is by far the more powerful card. If you see them together, you skip Remake the majority of the time. I know what you're thinking. Estates become Silvers. Eww. Forget that. Take the Chapel chainsaw to your deck and lose the starters.

Remodel is emphatically NOT a trasher. Expand is not a trasher. These aren't even considered middling trashers.[/quote[

No, that makes sense Chapel is pretty great. And with upgrading cards my thinking was you're you'd be getting something that's better than nothing, so not actually reducing the size of your deck wouldn't really be an issue(edge cases like Wall ofc.) But that's not always the case, and trasher is the wrong word anyways.

Quote
The title of your thread is "comparing power cards" but then you list a kingdom with several decidedly non-power cards on it. Warehouse, Remodel, Salvager, Lost City, Altar and Expand are definitely not power cards. They're all good sometimes and they all have their place, but they're not cards that make alarm bells go off when you see them.

So definitely do some reading.

As far as comparing power trashers goes, I'd rate the trashers in this order:

Donate
Chapel
Steward
Remake

Yes, that's misleading. The title was really just about the main ones like Chapel, for the kingdom I threw in some other cards that I wonder about. Warehouse doesn't fit the trashing theme at all so I'll change that. Thanks for your opinion of the trashers, the top two are certainly what I'd expect. Not sure about Steward vs. Remake, but I doubt it'll usually hurt very much to open one over the other anyways.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2017, 01:01:20 am by Omastar68 »
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drsteelhammer

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2017, 04:26:59 am »
+1

Ambassador gets you thin. usually only one of the players, though. (who will win)

remake is also super powerful, maybe even better than Chapel if there is a strong, spammable $3.

Also, thin= amount of stopcards, not amount of cards. so remodel can thin your deck, it's just awful at doing it.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2017, 04:45:48 am »
+2

Remake's power is definitely the most situational of the strong trashers. It's really good when you can turn Estates into something better than Silver (i.e. engine components). On the other hand, it's really awful with Poor House.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2017, 05:19:44 am »
+3

I'm pretty positive that Cultist-BM trounces Torturer-BM, regardless of availability of +buy. Torturer is pretty mediocre if you can't play several in a row.

In the board you propose, I think you cannot ignore Ambassador. Warehouse is nifty. Other than that, uh, I'm not sure. A Lost City/remodel-shenaningans Engine could be the way to go.
I think it depends on how you come out of the Amb war: if you're ahead you may have the leeway to build a solid deck with Lost Cities, money, and Remodel for milling. Don't trash your Ambassador, you need it to play Copper table tennis.
If you're behind you might still stand a better chance at winning than in the average ambassador game, but honestly I don't know what I'd do in the situation.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2017, 05:31:35 am »
+3

Any other alike cards are up for discussion as well. Really anything about Dominion, I love this game and spend a ton of time playing. Key points would be when to get Baker, if you use the token for it, that kind of thing.
Generally, you get Baker when you hit $5 and there's no card that is more important. You don't usually want to open with it, especially not on a 3/4 split.

Also if there's plentiful +action but not much draw(say Moat is the biggest,) is getting Mine asap important? Assume that there's nothing like Highway, Rebuild, or Mountebank that'd likely make it no, and there's also no particular synergy for it, like Plats, good alt-treasure, throne room and variants, etc. This imaginary game doesn't have tons of junking so that it might turn into a slog, and neither is it gonna be over really fast.
It is pretty much never important to get Mine asap. The only board where Mine might be a key card is if there's no other Copper trashing, engine potential, limited sifting and Gold is the best payload.
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Omastar68

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2017, 09:41:33 am »
0


Also if there's plentiful +action but not much draw(say Moat is the biggest,) is getting Mine asap important? Assume that there's nothing like Highway, Rebuild, or Mountebank that'd likely make it no, and there's also no particular synergy for it, like Plats, good alt-treasure, throne room and variants, etc. This imaginary game doesn't have tons of junking so that it might turn into a slog, and neither is it gonna be over really fast.
It is pretty much never important to get Mine asap. The only board where Mine might be a key card is if there's no other Copper trashing, engine potential, limited sifting and Gold is the best payload.
[/quote]

Ok, I know people say Mine isn't that great and I can kinda see that. Mainly I was wondering this because Mine helps more the more shuffles you have left, so the earlier the better. I'd actually expect sifting to help, though the rest makes sense. But sifting would help you see your Mine faster. idk. I've heard Mine-BM is bad and that makes sense, and an engine would rather buy a Gold and hopefully draw it, or get more engine pieces. So Mine doesn't really have much use in the majority of kingdoms it's in, yes?
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2017, 10:06:26 am »
+2

If you want Mine, you do generally want it sooner rather than later, just because of how slow it is. It's just really rare that you both really want Mine and you don't have a more urgent priority at $5.

I'll post my thoughts on the board later, but I think you open Stewart / Amb and you play a sort of junk + money thing, since you don't really have extra Buys. Stewart is the best tool for that job. Getting thinner faster with Chapel doesn't really help.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2017, 10:54:02 am »
0

I'll post my thoughts on the board later, but I think you open Stewart / Amb and you play a sort of junk + money thing, since you don't really have extra Buys. Stewart is the best tool for that job. Getting thinner faster with Chapel doesn't really help.
You do have extra gains, with the help of your opponent's Ambassador.
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JThorne

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #10 on: June 07, 2017, 11:04:57 am »
+1

Quote
play a sort of junk + money thing, since you don't really have extra Buys.

Well, there's Salvager. If I got thin enough quick enough, had Lost Cities and control, I'd be tempted to buy a curse with the +Buy from Salvager if I could play Ambassador-Curse every turn, returning zero, and if I was using any Gold for economy, I might sneak in Salvaging a Gold for a bigger points buy late (or Salvaging the Ambassador; same profit.) Salvaging Provinces also mills just as well as Remodel.

Then again, that may take too long to set up, and it's tough to draw deck with Lost Cities unless you're REALLY thin. I do find myself going for a deck like that sometimes when I have a lead on a less experienced opponent and thinking I probably wouldn't get away with it against a better player.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #11 on: June 07, 2017, 11:26:22 am »
+2

I would be tempted to play with Altar + Expand for payload.  I'd probably try to have Altar x2 and one Expand, to get up to 12 VP on the last turn.  With this approach, I would ignore Ambassador.  If the opponent opens with an Ambassador or two, I would want to open Chapel + Remake (Remaking the Chapel after one or two plays).  Otherwise, I would open Remake + Warehouse.  Remakes and early buys should provide 2-3 Silvers and 1-2 Warehouses.  Then, you spike Altar and start turning Coppers (and Remake) into Lost Cities.  Buy another Altar and Expand, and then you can trash your Silvers, too.  Expand Lost Cities into Provinces.  Eventually, gain Duchies with Altars.

It's not obvious this is the dominant strategy; I'd want to play it out.

The takeaway is that there is no clear answer to which power trasher is best.  It's best to consider your payload first: what do you want your deck to do in the mid and late game?  How will you win the game?  Then, figure out the fastest way to build to that payload.  This is something that you'll get a better feel for with experience.

Remodel, Altar, and Expand are primarily payload cards.  They help you gain engine components, and VP cards later.  They can also help get rid of your starting cards, but that isn't their usual primary function.  Ambassador is good at thinning, but is super strong because it junks at the same time.  Steward is slower than Chapel, but it is useful after trashing, and could be better than Chapel if there are villages and good $2 cards to pick up on Steward trashes.  Remake is slower than Steward, but it can gain economy or engine pieces while trashing, which is a powerful tempo advantage.  Chapel is the straight-up fastest trasher (other than Donate), and is going to be best if there is payload that can grow explosively from a 4-5 card hand.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #12 on: June 07, 2017, 12:00:55 pm »
+3

It is a pity Masquerade was removed from the game in the second edition. Was such a good trasher!

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #13 on: June 07, 2017, 12:23:42 pm »
0

Ok, I know people say Mine isn't that great and I can kinda see that. Mainly I was wondering this because Mine helps more the more shuffles you have left, so the earlier the better. I'd actually expect sifting to help, though the rest makes sense. But sifting would help you see your Mine faster. idk. I've heard Mine-BM is bad and that makes sense, and an engine would rather buy a Gold and hopefully draw it, or get more engine pieces. So Mine doesn't really have much use in the majority of kingdoms it's in, yes?

Yeah, I guess that's accurate. Mine is also nice when you can gain Silver easily; it can turn them into Golds. You use your buys on engine components and let the Silver-gainer and Mine take care of your economy. If you have some sort of remodel or TfB to use on excess Golds, so much the better.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2017, 12:24:43 pm by LastFootnote »
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #14 on: June 07, 2017, 03:49:43 pm »
+1

Ok, I know people say Mine isn't that great and I can kinda see that. Mainly I was wondering this because Mine helps more the more shuffles you have left, so the earlier the better. I'd actually expect sifting to help, though the rest makes sense. But sifting would help you see your Mine faster. idk. I've heard Mine-BM is bad and that makes sense, and an engine would rather buy a Gold and hopefully draw it, or get more engine pieces. So Mine doesn't really have much use in the majority of kingdoms it's in, yes?

Yeah, I guess that's accurate. Mine is also nice when you can gain Silver easily; it can turn them into Golds. You use your buys on engine components and let the Silver-gainer and Mine take care of your economy. If you have some sort of remodel or TfB to use on excess Golds, so much the better.

Mine is usually worth picking up if there aren't any other terminal s, such as the First Game setup.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #15 on: June 07, 2017, 04:28:36 pm »
+4

I've picked up a Mine a couple of times recently on two similar boards to trash coppers into CoTRs, which in both cases was the only way to thin. Felt good!

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #16 on: June 07, 2017, 06:17:56 pm »
+1

I've picked up a Mine a couple of times recently on two similar boards to trash coppers into CoTRs, which in both cases was the only way to thin. Felt good!

Mine can be really good w/ alt-treasure for sure. Fool's Gold is a big one, and I think of Crown and Charm. Treasures that make themselves obsolete or just worse than Gold at some point, like Potion and Quarry sometimes. Really any alt-treasure helps for more options. It'd be interesting to see a board w/ 2+ good treasures where you actually shouldn't buy a Mine.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #17 on: June 07, 2017, 07:15:18 pm »
+3

Ok, I know people say Mine isn't that great and I can kinda see that. Mainly I was wondering this because Mine helps more the more shuffles you have left, so the earlier the better. I'd actually expect sifting to help, though the rest makes sense. But sifting would help you see your Mine faster. idk. I've heard Mine-BM is bad and that makes sense, and an engine would rather buy a Gold and hopefully draw it, or get more engine pieces. So Mine doesn't really have much use in the majority of kingdoms it's in, yes?

Yeah, I guess that's accurate. Mine is also nice when you can gain Silver easily; it can turn them into Golds. You use your buys on engine components and let the Silver-gainer and Mine take care of your economy. If you have some sort of remodel or TfB to use on excess Golds, so much the better.

Mine is usually worth picking up if there aren't any other terminal s, such as the First Game setup.

"usually" is definitely the wrong word, most terminals that don't cost 5 beat Mine most of the time. If there is trashing, sometimes even no Terminal beats Mine.
I've picked up a Mine a couple of times recently on two similar boards to trash coppers into CoTRs, which in both cases was the only way to thin. Felt good!

Mine can be really good w/ alt-treasure for sure. Fool's Gold is a big one, and I think of Crown and Charm. Treasures that make themselves obsolete or just worse than Gold at some point, like Potion and Quarry sometimes. Really any alt-treasure helps for more options. It'd be interesting to see a board w/ 2+ good treasures where you actually shouldn't buy a Mine.

Atleast in 90% of those boards you should nt buy Mine.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #18 on: June 07, 2017, 07:24:08 pm »
+1

The problem with rating trashers is simply that even disregarding super game-specific differences, they all vary widely in strength depending on whether its functionally a BM game or functionally an engine game. Perhaps it's well known but i guess it's worth pointing out that in the absence of engines, Jack is going to beat most of these options straight up.

Feel free to correct me on this but:

Jack Silver > Jack Chapel > Chapel ? (Jack silver and Jack Chapel kinda close)
Jack Silver > Jack Amb (I usually double up on Jack vs ambassador)
Jack Silver > Remake Silver
Jack Silver > Steward Silver/Jack

Jack donate > Donate? (not sure but I imagine this to be the case. Never had Jack + Donate in a BM donate game. if you open 3-4 and not 4-3 I also am far less sure).

Amulet behaves similarly to Jack but I don't have enough experience with it to know how powerful amulet BM is vs the others. I'd imagine still stronger.
Hermit is probably slightly weaker than amulet.


Also, mine is terrible. Really really terrible. It might be the second worst card still in the game, after transmute.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #19 on: June 07, 2017, 07:33:37 pm »
+4

It is a pity Masquerade was removed from the game in the second edition. Was such a good trasher!
Uh ... It ... wasn't? It was just reworded to avoid pins?
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #20 on: June 07, 2017, 08:16:27 pm »
0

Quote
Jack is going to beat most of these options straight up.

I'm skeptical. Jack BM works only by virtue of the silver flood and making you immune to most junking and handsize attacks. The problem is he can't trash copper, and in an Ambassador game, if your opponent sees you playing Jack BM, shouldn't he prioritize giving you Copper, even when he has an Estate in hand? You have to draw hands of SSSCC to buy Provinces, which is going to be a lot harder with 14 Coppers than with 7.

If I was going to start comparing Jack to anything, it would to compare it to other BM-enablers, which is a whole different discussion. It is definitely noteworthy that Chapel-BM isn't a thing, but that Chapel can make even mediocre engines good because it's so fast.

This thread started by comparing trashers, and Jack isn't a trasher. Ok, perhaps I'm being a purist; I only count something as a "trasher" if it thins your deck, which Jack doesn't do. Best case, he upgrades a junk card to a Silver. Hermit, likewise, not a trasher; the card gain isn't optional, so your deck never gets thinner.

This can be a surprisingly big deal. Most newer players can be taught to look for trashers, but they immediately see "trash a card" and think "trasher" and that can be a big mistake.

it's a little like treating Bandit Camp like a Village when for deck-drawing purposes, it behaves a lot more like a Necropolis with +$3 attached. But I digress...

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #21 on: June 07, 2017, 08:28:12 pm »
+1

It is a pity Masquerade was removed from the game in the second edition. Was such a good trasher!
Uh ... It ... wasn't? It was just reworded to avoid pins?

I thought maybe it was a joke about how nobody had mentioned Masquerade in this thread up to that point.
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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #22 on: June 07, 2017, 08:32:23 pm »
0

Quote
Jack is going to beat most of these options straight up.

I'm skeptical. Jack BM works only by virtue of the silver flood and making you immune to most junking and handsize attacks. The problem is he can't trash copper, and in an Ambassador game, if your opponent sees you playing Jack BM, shouldn't he prioritize giving you Copper, even when he has an Estate in hand? You have to draw hands of SSSCC to buy Provinces, which is going to be a lot harder with 14 Coppers than with 7.

If I was going to start comparing Jack to anything, it would to compare it to other BM-enablers, which is a whole different discussion. It is definitely noteworthy that Chapel-BM isn't a thing, but that Chapel can make even mediocre engines good because it's so fast.

This thread started by comparing trashers, and Jack isn't a trasher. Ok, perhaps I'm being a purist; I only count something as a "trasher" if it thins your deck, which Jack doesn't do. Best case, he upgrades a junk card to a Silver. Hermit, likewise, not a trasher; the card gain isn't optional, so your deck never gets thinner.

This can be a surprisingly big deal. Most newer players can be taught to look for trashers, but they immediately see "trash a card" and think "trasher" and that can be a big mistake.

it's a little like treating Bandit Camp like a Village when for deck-drawing purposes, it behaves a lot more like a Necropolis with +$3 attached. But I digress...

this is a bit weird when my primary point was that the evaluation of trashers changes depending on whether its a BM game or not.

Amb vs Jack he should "prioritize" giving you the most cards for ambassador, which is how ambassador generally runs anyways. Giving them one copper over one estate seems extremely silly: you're -1 coin, he's +1 coin after that if that copper hits a jack and how many shuffles is he really going to have to deal with that copper?  And the estate is far better to pass over if that card misses the Jack anyways..

That being said I'm happy to run doubleJack against your amb as many times as you want, your SSS-CC isn't quite relevant when Jack can buy golds so quickly..

And treating bandit camp as a necropolis with +3 attached falls into the classic F.DS mistake I see all the time: a large portion of the time your engine is not drawing your whole deck. Even if it is, it likely wasn't originally.  Even if you were originally, the Spoils is put into your discard and the card you're drawing is still at the same proportions to be an engine card.  So these obtuse analogies don't end up being that useful in practice.

Jack is a trasher. In some games, Jack is meh because you don't want the secondary benefit from Jack as silver. But that doesn't change the fact that Jack removes unwanted cards from your card via trashing. They are separate points and combining them only serves to confuse, not illuminate.
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #23 on: June 07, 2017, 08:39:27 pm »
+2

Does the presence of Platinum make Mine more or less attractive? I feel like I had a game recently where Gold was gained cheaply (Soothsayer? Courtier? I don't recall) and Mine was a nice, in-place method to turn those into Platina. There were actions and buys aplenty, and this was probably a "win more" case, but it still felt like a worthwhile use of $5 at the time.

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werothegreat

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Re: Comparing power cards
« Reply #24 on: June 07, 2017, 08:48:17 pm »
+3

Does the presence of Platinum make Mine more or less attractive? I feel like I had a game recently where Gold was gained cheaply (Soothsayer? Courtier? I don't recall) and Mine was a nice, in-place method to turn those into Platina. There were actions and buys aplenty, and this was probably a "win more" case, but it still felt like a worthwhile use of $5 at the time.

I would say yes.  + is certainly better than +.
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