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Author Topic: Tricky engine board : how would you play it ?  (Read 2057 times)

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brokoli

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Tricky engine board : how would you play it ?
« on: September 07, 2017, 08:22:18 am »
+1

Just had this interesting game :

Apothecary, Tunnel, Familiar, Masquerade, Mill, Ranger, Artificer, Haggler, Royal Carriage, Expand

Event : Travelling fair
Landmark : Aqueduct

How would you play it ?
I won with a lot of apothecaries and a few royal carriage using one tunnel I activated a few times with mill / artificer to gain gold. But I'm not very satisfied by my play : I think there is potential for a more efficient engine, using ranger for more draw, and maybe even masquerade ?
« Last Edit: September 07, 2017, 08:25:43 am by brokoli »
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Chris is me

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Re: Tricky engine board : how would you play it ?
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2017, 08:46:31 am »
+4

Potion/Masquerade opening into Familiar plays to get started.

You want economy pretty early here, since your "Village" is calling Royal Carriage on cantrips (most likely Familiar). You want to junk quickly too, so Potion / Masq ensures Potion doesn't miss the shuffle while also getting trashing going immediately.

I'm hesitant to say you want an early Tunnel and discarder to get you Golds, just because you're not going to have that much deck control for awhile and it'll be hard to line those up, but you do really want Royal Carriages fast. A Mill or two is going to be extremely helpful on this board to help hit price points, so you probably get that on the 2nd $4 after Potion.

A lot of this depends on how the first few turns play out with trashing and junking - try not to lose complete control of your deck during the Cursing portion of the game and then work something out with your gainers and alt VP to put a high scoring engine together late.
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aku_chi

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Re: Tricky engine board : how would you play it ?
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2017, 08:58:05 am »
+7

I think the Potion cost cards are too good too ignore, but I'm not positive.

I would open Masquerade + Potion on a 3/4 or 4/3.  On 5/2, I'd open Travelling Fair for topdecked Masquerade + Potion.  On 2/5, I'd be sad, and probably open with nothing + top-decked Masquerade.  I'd intend to get a grand total of two Masquerades.  Other sub-$5 non-Potion hands should be Mill or nothing - Silver shouldn't be necessary.  With my Potion buys, I think I'd start with one Apothecary and then switch to Familiar if I could buy it and there was a decent chance it would hand out another Curse; I'd grab Apothecaries otherwise.  It should be common to use Travelling Fair to topdeck the purchased Potion-cost card.  On non-Potion $5+ hands, I'd start with a couple Royal Carriages for action splitting, then I'd pick up a Haggler.  With Potion hands, I'd switch to buying $5s after 2-3 Apothecaries.  With Haggler, I'd plan to pick up Gold + Royal Carriage, then Province + Expand, and then look to buy Province + Gold and Expand Gold -> Province each turn.  It's possible to build more, with Artificer/Mill + Tunnel, and Ranger, but I think the faster Province grab I described would win.

If you did want to avoid Potion (which isn't crazy), I'd open Masquerade + Mill, grabbing a second Masquerade and additional Mills on sub-$5 buys.  I'd get a couple Royal Carriages and a Haggler, just like above.  But then, I'd pick up Royal Carriage + Ranger a couple times for additional draw.  Then transition to the Province + Expand + Gold thing.  In the best case scenario, it's faster than playing with Potion, but I think it'll be a challenge to play all the terminal draw reliably with so few cantrips (just Mill).
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shark_bait

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Re: Tricky engine board : how would you play it ?
« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2017, 09:27:58 am »
+4

I would consider starting Apothecary over Familiar as the first Potion card buy. 

With a Masquerade also present you have a reasonable chance of spiking an early $7 for Expand which can replace Estates for Royal Carriage.  Your early tempo will be just so much faster with the Apothecary cycling.  Familiar provides no economic advantage and your chances of getting $4 or less are quite high.  The single Curse is also trivial early on with Masquerade present.

I would advocate to get your deck rolling and then throw in a couple of Familiars.  With Royal Carriage you can rapidly use those few Familiars dish out curses quickly.  You deal out 2 Curses the turn after buying your first Familiar and assuming you cycle your deck and get a 2nd on the next turn you should be able to put out 4  Curses the next turn.  That volume might be enough to stall your opponent for a few turns and let you build an advantage into the endgame.
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brokoli

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Re: Tricky engine board : how would you play it ?
« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2017, 04:21:01 pm »
+1

Very interesting comments, thanks !

I completely ignored familiar in this game. It seemed to me that the card is obsolete here due to masquerade and good apothecary cycling. But Shark_bait has serious arguments to prove me it's untrue.

About masquerade, is the trashing ability useful with apothecary (digging for coppers) and expand (expanding estates ?) on the board ?
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Chris is me

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Re: Tricky engine board : how would you play it ?
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2017, 04:25:44 pm »
0

It's pretty rare that you actually skip trashing Coppers because of Apothecary, or Estates because of Expand. They're still cards you don't want in your starting hand, and they still get in the way.

Masquerade is fundamentally a single card trasher, so that's not powerful enough to bypass nonterminal junking that doesn't really hurt you to get.
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aku_chi

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Re: Tricky engine board : how would you play it ?
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2017, 04:29:31 pm »
0

Royal Carriage also makes Familiar more attractive.  While their are Curses left, you can use all your Royal Carriages to maximize your opponent's pain.  When they run out, you can switch to applying the Carriages to Apothecary, or payload like Expand.
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