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Author Topic: Obstacles: Beyond the Five Deck Types  (Read 28045 times)

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FemurLemur

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #25 on: September 18, 2017, 07:59:31 am »
0

Mainly, the problem with this is that the number of "moving pieces" doesn't really make any difference from a strategic perspective, it's just a superficial attribute, and the same is true for whether you're using alt-VP or basic Victory cards. In other words, have you ever lost a game and concluded that you could have won that game if only your strategy had had some more moving pieces?

Similarly, have you ever lost a game and said "If only I had gone more Big Money, I would have won"? It sounds to me like you're taking issue with the 4 deck types laid out by WanderingWinder more than my interpretation of them. It's true that my interpretation doesn't answer many strategic questions for you, but that also wasn't really my goal. I feel like your 7 questions already do a fine job of that. The 4 deck types are really more useful for explaining what a player's strategy was, but not necessarily how effective their strategy was. It's a matter of classification more than objective assessment of strengths. Once you've determined what deck types you and your opponent used/are using, you look at the Kingdom and decide whether the cards really lend themselves to those deck types or if they're being countered (for example, is it really reasonable for me to expect to Rush when there are Cultists on the table and no trashers? This is where your 7 questions come in)

Also, I have actually lost matches and thought "I should have had less moving pieces like my opponent did" or even thought after a match that I would have done better if I had added a couple more moving pieces to support my previously purely Big Money deck. I'm not arguing that there's some magic sweet spot on the BM/Engine scale or Rush/Slog scale that one should be shooting for (and I don't think WanderingWinder ever argued there was). What's best is entirely dependent on the Kingdom. The efficacy of one's moving pieces is determined by how well they solve the fundamental issues of building a deck such as only having 1 Action, only having 1 Buy, etc.

This isn't about the strength of cards or the strength of effects.

I'm not saying or implying that it's about that. I think we're just experiencing a miscommunication.

so the part about 5 cards is necessary because different strategies have different solutions to it.

What I'm saying is that "You only have 5 cards" is a less generalized version of the real issue, which is that you might draw bad cards. Increasing the number of cards you draw is just a way to increase the probability of getting to the good cards in your deck (which is mathematically represented using the Hypergeometric Function). When I said "I don't necessarily care how many cards I have so much as I care about my ability to pay for things", my point was that, if I draw 3 Golds, I literally couldn't care less about the supposed problem of "You only draw 5 cards". It's like, yeah, I only drew 5, but so what? I drew what I needed, and now I can get a Province. The real issue, to me, is best generalized as the fact that you can't control what your 5 cards will be. But the actual number of cards is an arbitrary issue. It's not like there's any Victory card in Dominion that says "You may only buy this if you have at least 8 cards in hand" (though maybe that would be a cool card).

To give an example: Warehouse doesn't actually increase the number of cards in my hand. So would you look at Warehouse and say it doesn't solve the supposed issue? I would say it does: If I use Warehouse to sift through my deck and get to the cards I want, then I really don't care about the fact that I now only have 4 cards in hand. The number of cards in hand doesn't strictly matter. It's the probability that you will get your good cards that you care about, and increasing handsize is just one of many ways to resolve that issue. Phrasing it as "How will you resolve the problem that you only draw 5 cards?" is assuming the solution in the question.

but so far I haven't been able to think of a strategy where the solution to buys can't just be generalized as "you match your buying power with the number of buys you have available to be able to buy the things you need".

That's not the only solution to Buys. You can work around them by splitting your focus between Treasures and Gainers (thus eliminating the need for extra Buys but still increasing the rate at which you can acquire cards). Coin tokens and Overpay are also a solution to not having extra Buys.
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Awaclus

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #26 on: September 18, 2017, 08:38:49 am »
+1

Similarly, have you ever lost a game and said "If only I had gone more Big Money, I would have won"? It sounds to me like you're taking issue with the 4 deck types laid out by WanderingWinder more than my interpretation of them. It's true that my interpretation doesn't answer many strategic questions for you, but that also wasn't really my goal. I feel like your 7 questions already do a fine job of that. The 4 deck types are really more useful for explaining what a player's strategy was, but not necessarily how effective their strategy was. It's a matter of classification more than objective assessment of strengths. Once you've determined what deck types you and your opponent used/are using, you look at the Kingdom and decide whether the cards really lend themselves to those deck types or if they're being countered (for example, is it really reasonable for me to expect to Rush when there are Cultists on the table and no trashers? This is where your 7 questions come in)

I'm not really taking issue with WW's types. Big money is a deck type, it has certain solutions to the obstacles (which I explain in the article). Wandering Winder didn't explain those in his article, but the deck type itself is useful because it still has them.

I have actually played games where I concluded that I could have won if I had played big money instead of whatever I lost with. Not "more" big money though; the concept of there being a continuum between big money and engine with all sorts of strategies with different numbers of moving parts in between was invented by you and I never heard of it before today. As far as I'm concerned, as soon as you mix big money and engine, you're guaranteed to lose against someone who just plays big money or just plays engine.

Also, I have actually lost matches and thought "I should have had less moving pieces like my opponent did" or even thought after a match that I would have done better if I had added a couple more moving pieces to support my previously purely Big Money deck. I'm not arguing that there's some magic sweet spot on the BM/Engine scale or Rush/Slog scale that one should be shooting for (and I don't think WanderingWinder ever argued there was). What's best is entirely dependent on the Kingdom. The efficacy of one's moving pieces is determined by how well they solve the fundamental issues of building a deck such as only having 1 Action, only having 1 Buy, etc.

Are you sure that, in those cases, the important thing was the number of moving parts you had in your deck, not the abilities of the exact cards you had in your deck and ended up not needing very much or the abilities of the exact cards you didn't have and would have needed?

I'm not saying or implying that it's about that. I think we're just experiencing a miscommunication.

Oh. It sounded like you were saying that a lot of newbies fail to see how strong +buy is, but I guess it wasn't about that.

What I'm saying is that "You only have 5 cards" is a less generalized version of the real issue, which is that you might draw bad cards. Increasing the number of cards you draw is just a way to increase the probability of getting to the good cards in your deck (which is mathematically represented using the Hypergeometric Function). When I said "I don't necessarily care how many cards I have so much as I care about my ability to pay for things", my point was that, if I draw 3 Golds, I literally couldn't care less about the supposed problem of "You only draw 5 cards". It's like, yeah, I only drew 5, but so what? I drew what I needed, and now I can get a Province. The real issue, to me, is best generalized as the fact that you can't control what your 5 cards will be. But the actual number of cards is an arbitrary issue. It's not like there's any Victory card in Dominion that says "You may only buy this if you have at least 8 cards in hand" (though maybe that would be a cool card).

The fact that you only draw 5 cards doesn't mean that you're supposed to draw more than 5 cards. It just means that you only draw 5 cards. Five Coppers isn't enough to buy the Province, so if you want your five cards to be able to buy a Province, your average card needs to be better than Copper, and if you want Copper to be the average card, you need to be able to draw 8 of them. Being able to control what those cards are is a separate issue covered by obstacle #6.

To give an example: Warehouse doesn't actually increase the number of cards in my hand. So would you look at Warehouse and say it doesn't solve the supposed issue? I would say it does: If I use Warehouse to sift through my deck and get to the cards I want, then I really don't care about the fact that I now only have 4 cards in hand. The number of cards in hand doesn't strictly matter. It's the probability that you will get your good cards that you care about, and increasing handsize is just one of many ways to resolve that issue.

Warehouse solves the problem by increasing the quality of cards in your hand, i.e. you get to a good enough turn even though you only started with 5 cards in your hand.

Phrasing it as "How will you resolve the problem that you only draw 5 cards?" is assuming the solution in the question.

It's not assuming the solution, it's assuming the part in the rules of Dominion where it says that you get to draw five cards at the end of each turn. That's what you get, so that's what you have to be able to deal with. How you deal with it is up to you, which is why the way in which you answer the obstacle classifies the strategy you're playing.

That's not the only solution to Buys. You can work around them by splitting your focus between Treasures and Gainers (thus eliminating the need for extra Buys but still increasing the rate at which you can acquire cards). Coin tokens and Overpay are also a solution to not having extra Buys.

Not having extra gains isn't really the issue here; most decks don't need extra gains anyway. The issue is leftover money. You deal with it by not having it.
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FemurLemur

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #27 on: September 18, 2017, 10:54:42 am »
+1

I'm not really taking issue with WW's types. Big money is a deck type, it has certain solutions to the obstacles

Do they though? If I tell you I played an Engine, do you immediately know what my specific solutions to the obstacles were? I don't think any of the 4 deck types actually imply one and only one answer to each of those questions.

As far as I'm concerned, as soon as you mix big money and engine, you're guaranteed to lose against someone who just plays big money or just plays engine.

Just to be clear: "Guaranteed to lose" is not the same thing as "Does not exist". If I say "A player could even trash their Provinces with Chapel!" you wouldn't then say "No they can't, because as far as I'm concerned they're guaranteed to lose." A bad strategy does not equal a nonexistent strategy. I'm not saying that one should play an even mix of BM and Engine, just that they are inversely correlated, and one theoretically could do it.

Furthermore, can you really say that all of your Big Money decks are purely Big Money with not even the slightest hints of an Engine? You never pick up a Smithy or a Governor or a JoaT to supplement your money? I suspect you would argue that that's still just Big Money. So then where would the cutoff be? If I pickup a Lab to supplement my Smithy/BM, is it still BM? Exactly how many Action Cards must I be running to qualify as an Engine? As far as I'm concerned, the only proper way to resolve such questions is to consider it on a spectrum, where Engine and BM are inversely correlated. And really, that doesn't contradict your argument that the two should not be mixed. If they're inversely correlated, it's not a stretch to argue that perhaps there are very few (or no) cards which support a mixture of BM and Engine. I'm just arguing that such a deck, however terrible, can be created.

Also, I have actually lost matches and thought "I should have had less moving pieces like my opponent did" or even thought after a match that I would have done better if I had added a couple more moving pieces to support my previously purely Big Money deck. I'm not arguing that there's some magic sweet spot on the BM/Engine scale or Rush/Slog scale that one should be shooting for (and I don't think WanderingWinder ever argued there was). What's best is entirely dependent on the Kingdom. The efficacy of one's moving pieces is determined by how well they solve the fundamental issues of building a deck such as only having 1 Action, only having 1 Buy, etc.
Are you sure that, in those cases, the important thing was the number of moving parts you had in your deck, not the abilities of the exact cards you had in your deck and ended up not needing very much or the abilities of the exact cards you didn't have and would have needed?

The above quote does lead me to believe that we're actually thinking in similar terms on a practical level, and we're just getting hung up on the more abstract level. Just to make sure I'm making my thoughts clear: what I'm trying to get across is that I feel the definition of an Engine is the number of moving parts, regardless of whether the engine works or not. You can construct a crappy engine. It happens. It's still an engine, it's just that the engine you set up fails to properly address the 7 questions you posed in this article. So my underlying interpretation of WW's deck classifications is not that they give you any strategic insight- that's what your 7 questions do. Like I said before, my interpretation is that WW's classifications tell you what is being attempted, not how effective the attempt is.

So I have had situations where I felt that I had too few moving parts relative to the 7 questions you're asking. Or in other words, situations where I look at the Kingdom and say "In this situation, an Engine actually handles the primary challenges of deck building better than my Big Money approach did, so more moving parts would have paid off more effectively here"

I'm not saying or implying that it's about that. I think we're just experiencing a miscommunication.
Oh. It sounded like you were saying that a lot of newbies fail to see how strong +buy is, but I guess it wasn't about that.

This is my fault. What I was trying to say at the end of my original reply was that, tangentially, it's a little bonus that by splitting the "Only have 5 cards" apart from the "Only have 1 Buy", new players psychologically are forced to consider the weight of that problem. But I explained it very poorly. I'm not trying to say that the goal of the article is/should be to help new players understand the value of +Buy (or any other mechanic), but rather that it's just a nice little bonus if that happens. I'm also not trying to say that that's my primary reason for arguing for splitting that question in two, but again, I could see how you thought that, because I explained it horribly. The fact that it will help new players is mostly irrelevant, so I honestly should have just left it out. It was just a last minute thought that popped into my head. Pretty much just an ADD moment.

Being able to control what those cards are is a separate issue covered by obstacle #6.

Totally, and that was what I meant in my original reply when I said something along the lines of "You've already covered this elsewhere". Like I said, the fact that I only draw 5 cards is a less generalized version of the real issue, which is that I need to somehow get enough buying power to buy that Province (or whatever else is gonna win me the game). My handsize only matters to me sometimes. The fact that I need some form of increase to my economy matters to me all the time. I know we're on the same page on this because:
The fact that you only draw 5 cards doesn't mean that you're supposed to draw more than 5 cards
But I guess all I'm really telling you is that some readers are going to read it that way. They will think that they somehow need to increase their hand size (maybe it's the reader's fault for assuming, but I'm just saying, they're gonna do it whether it's a fallacy or not), when in reality, as we both understand, that's only one solution. All I'm proposing to you here is that:

1) The phrasing "You need a good economy" or "You need a way to draw your good cards" gets the job done in a more generalized way
2) What I just proposed overlaps with previous #'s from your original article, and is therefore redundant
3) This is unrelated to the +Buy issue.

That's not the only solution to Buys. You can work around them by splitting your focus between Treasures and Gainers (thus eliminating the need for extra Buys but still increasing the rate at which you can acquire cards). Coin tokens and Overpay are also a solution to not having extra Buys.
Not having extra gains isn't really the issue here; most decks don't need extra gains anyway. The issue is leftover money.

No, I didn't say not having extra gains is the problem, I said it was an example of a solution to not having +Buy.

Problem: I want to 3-pile, but I worry I'll have a lot of money and no +Buy
Possible Solution: Pick up Ironworks instead of so many Silvers/Golds, then you will have a bit of a lower money density and will still be picking up a lot of cards.

That's all I'm getting at.


You deal with it by not having it

But it seems like you think that's one solution, and it's not. There are many ways to not have leftover money. You could get +Buy, you could use Plaza to convert them to Coin Tokens, or you could dump them into Overpays.



I probably didn't make this as clear in my original reply as I would've liked, but it really is a good article. The fact that we're mostly disagreeing on abstract interpretations of deck classifications and pedantic stuff is kind of a testament to that. I think it will be valuable to a lot of players. I just disagree on certain specific phrasings, and thought I'd chime in with my 2 cents.
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faust

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #28 on: September 18, 2017, 11:43:32 am »
+1

Exactly how many Action Cards must I be running to qualify as an Engine?
This question shows that what Awaclus tries to tell you did not really get across. How many action cards you play per turn has no impact on what kind of deck you are running. I can probably build a deck from nothing but Bank, Travelling Fair, Expedition, that never plays any Actions and is still pretty clearly an engine. Likewise, I could theoretically play a Big Money deck in which I never buy any Treasures (maybe due to Bandit Fort), just using stuff like Mystic.

I guess the term "Big Money" is not ideal as it conveys a false image of what makes such a deck.
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FemurLemur

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #29 on: September 18, 2017, 12:54:57 pm »
+3

Exactly how many Action Cards must I be running to qualify as an Engine?
This question shows that what Awaclus tries to tell you did not really get across. How many action cards you play per turn has no impact on what kind of deck you are running. I can probably build a deck from nothing but Bank, Travelling Fair, Expedition, that never plays any Actions and is still pretty clearly an engine. Likewise, I could theoretically play a Big Money deck in which I never buy any Treasures (maybe due to Bandit Fort), just using stuff like Mystic.

I guess the term "Big Money" is not ideal as it conveys a false image of what makes such a deck.

I feel that taking my question out of context only shows that you're assuming my position. Notice, I didn't say Engine = Actions (or that BM = Treasures). I said, in my example, at what point after adding supporting Action Card after supporting Action Card does the BM stop being BM and starts to be an Engine?

Your example of an Actionless-Engine fits my definition of an Engine just fine: that it has multiple moving pieces. Likewise, your Bandit Fort example does not violate my definition of pure Big Money: that it has no moving pieces. If I were to trash all of my coppers and just live off of Markets, it fits my definition of a pure BM. So from my perspective, it sounds like you're not understanding my argument.


What I'm asking is, if one is going to argue that there is no BM/Engine spectrum, then what is the objective definition of the two of them, such that I cannot build a deck which blurs the line and qualifies as both? The way I see it, if the camp that says BM and Engine are discrete things is unable to come up with a well-defined description of them, and I have a better defined (probably measurable) definition that argues for them being on a continuous spectrum, then it's the preferable way of looking at things.

People want to point out the decks that don't fit into one of WW's categories, but that to me is not an argument for there being infinitely many categories, or for there even necessarily being a couple we're missing. It's an argument that we're being too literal with the examples/concepts that WW first observed. Decks have varying degrees of Preferred Pace (Slog/Rush) and Interaction Complexity (BM/Engine). That is a classification that works. Constantly adding more and more classification types seems unnecessary to me right now (although I'm happy to being proven wrong here). Like adding more axioms when you could just formalize the existing ones better to prove things.


One final thing I'd like to mention, not directed at Faust, but just anyone who might be skeptical about the fact that my idea seems different from WW's: whether or not my interpretation is what WW had in mind (it's probably not) when he wrote the article doesn't have any impact on its validity. I'm only saying this because I anticipate that somebody is thinking it as they read this, and I guess Awaclus kinda hinted at it earlier.

Newton didn't have Relativity in mind when publishing his theory of gravitation. That fact doesn't invalidate Einstein's theory. (Please don't read too much into this statement. I know I am not an "Einstein of Dominion". It was the best analogy I could think up, and yes, it has the potential to come across as pretentious as hell. I promise I'm not that self-important, and I don't think that my argument is the Dominion equivalent of Relativity. Feel free to send you mockery this way and we'll have a good laugh at my own expense)
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trivialknot

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #30 on: September 18, 2017, 01:58:17 pm »
+5

I read the article again, and I think it has improved since I last gave feedback.  The transitions and summaries are smoother, and I like the change from un-numbered list to numbered list.

The article still doesn't mention attacks.  I think possibly the way to address this is by saying that attacks modify some of the obstacles, or produce totally unique obstacles.  For example, Militia modifies "you start turns with 5 cards" to "you start turns with the best 3 out of 5 cards".  Haunted Woods and Enchantress create obstacles that are totally unique.

The paragraph on big-money/engine hybrids has been improved, but suffers slightly from the fact that you never say in the article what exactly defines the engine's solutions to the obstacles.  There are also some obvious counterpoints that could be made (e.g. with CoTR you don't draw villages dead, limited supply sometimes makes pure engine impossible).  But maybe this is the best you can do without spending a lot more space on it.

I didn't read the whole back and forth between Awaclus and FemurLemur, but my feeling is that if you have a different idea for how to classify deck types, you can write your own article.  Saying that you have your own ideas for how to classify decks is not a good critique of someone else's framework.  Yes, we all have ideas for how to classify decks.
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FemurLemur

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #31 on: September 18, 2017, 02:15:47 pm »
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I didn't read the whole back and forth between Awaclus and FemurLemur, but my feeling is that if you have a different idea for how to classify deck types, you can write your own article.  Saying that you have your own ideas for how to classify decks is not a good critique of someone else's framework.  Yes, we all have ideas for how to classify decks.

My perspective on deck classifications is not a critique of Awaclus' work. I like Awaclus' article, and the critiques I did have of it are completely separate from the classification debate. My perspective on classification is only meant to contribute to the conversation which was already ongoing when I joined in. The one involving Seprix, AJD, Awaclus, and a couple others.

You probably didn't see it in the wall of text I posted, but I told Awaclus that the fact that we're mostly disagreeing on abstract classifications and pedantic stuff is a testament to the fact that it's a valuable article as-is.

You're totally right, that wouldn't be a good critique. Rest assured, it is not meant as a critique, it's meant as interesting discussion. He can publish his article right now without giving this classification thing another fraction of a thought, and that's cool with me ;)
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Awaclus

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #32 on: September 18, 2017, 03:10:27 pm »
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If I tell you I played an Engine, do you immediately know what my specific solutions to the obstacles were?

Yes. They were a generalized version of this: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17572.msg719842#msg719842

Just to be clear: "Guaranteed to lose" is not the same thing as "Does not exist". If I say "A player could even trash their Provinces with Chapel!" you wouldn't then say "No they can't, because as far as I'm concerned they're guaranteed to lose." A bad strategy does not equal a nonexistent strategy. I'm not saying that one should play an even mix of BM and Engine, just that they are inversely correlated, and one theoretically could do it.

They are not inversely correlated, because they are not opposites of each other. They don't even exist on the same axis.

Furthermore, can you really say that all of your Big Money decks are purely Big Money with not even the slightest hints of an Engine? You never pick up a Smithy or a Governor or a JoaT to supplement your money? I suspect you would argue that that's still just Big Money. So then where would the cutoff be? If I pickup a Lab to supplement my Smithy/BM, is it still BM? Exactly how many Action Cards must I be running to qualify as an Engine? As far as I'm concerned, the only proper way to resolve such questions is to consider it on a spectrum, where Engine and BM are inversely correlated. And really, that doesn't contradict your argument that the two should not be mixed. If they're inversely correlated, it's not a stretch to argue that perhaps there are very few (or no) cards which support a mixture of BM and Engine. I'm just arguing that such a deck, however terrible, can be created.

You can run 239487523194085723049857230948750923 Action cards in your big money deck. Being big money or being engine doesn't have anything to do with the number of Action cards — the number of Action cards is a superficial attribute so we don't have to pay any attention to that. It's a big money deck if its solutions to the obstacles are the ones I posted in the article, and it's an engine deck if its solutions to the obstacles are the ones faust posted in the first reply. If they are something different, then it's neither. You can't create a mixture of the two because the some of their solutions are mutually incompatible.

The above quote does lead me to believe that we're actually thinking in similar terms on a practical level, and we're just getting hung up on the more abstract level. Just to make sure I'm making my thoughts clear: what I'm trying to get across is that I feel the definition of an Engine is the number of moving parts, regardless of whether the engine works or not. You can construct a crappy engine. It happens. It's still an engine, it's just that the engine you set up fails to properly address the 7 questions you posed in this article. So my underlying interpretation of WW's deck classifications is not that they give you any strategic insight- that's what your 7 questions do. Like I said before, my interpretation is that WW's classifications tell you what is being attempted, not how effective the attempt is.

If you don't address the 7 obstacles, you don't have a strategy. All of WW's 4 deck types are inherently strategies, which is why I use the terms deck type and strategy interchangeably. You shouldn't see WW's article and my article as two separate issues, you should see my article as an update to his article.

So I have had situations where I felt that I had too few moving parts relative to the 7 questions you're asking. Or in other words, situations where I look at the Kingdom and say "In this situation, an Engine actually handles the primary challenges of deck building better than my Big Money approach did, so more moving parts would have paid off more effectively here"

A pure big money deck handles the challenges of deck building perfectly. If you play big money and lose, the problem isn't that you didn't have enough moving parts in your big money deck, the problem is that there was something better than big money available and you should have built that instead.

1) The phrasing "You need a good economy" or "You need a way to draw your good cards" gets the job done in a more generalized way

I don't think it does it in a more generalized way. The fact that you only draw 5 cards applies universally, because that's actually what it says in the rules. You can't get more generalized than that. On the other hand, you don't necessarily need a good economy, as rush decks prove, so that's not as generalized, and I think that "drawing your good cards" doesn't really describe what big money is doing by amassing a large number of good cards but only drawing some of them each hand.

Problem: I want to 3-pile, but I worry I'll have a lot of money and no +Buy
Possible Solution: Pick up Ironworks instead of so many Silvers/Golds, then you will have a bit of a lower money density and will still be picking up a lot of cards.

That's all I'm getting at.

In which case the solution to the fact that you only have 1 buy available is that you don't get the extra economy that you don't need. The Ironworks in this case is more of a solution to #7.

But it seems like you think that's one solution, and it's not. There are many ways to not have leftover money. You could get +Buy, you could use Plaza to convert them to Coin Tokens, or you could dump them into Overpays.

I don't think the exact method of achieving your goal that is not having leftover money is relevant to characterizing your strategy. Either way, you're achieving that goal, and achieving that goal is the solution to the obstacle.
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Awaclus

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #33 on: September 18, 2017, 03:23:30 pm »
0

I feel that taking my question out of context only shows that you're assuming my position. Notice, I didn't say Engine = Actions (or that BM = Treasures). I said, in my example, at what point after adding supporting Action Card after supporting Action Card does the BM stop being BM and starts to be an Engine?

The point at which it stops being BM is the point at which it no longer has the 7 solutions I wrote in the article. The point at which it starts to be an engine is the point at which it has the 7 solutions faust wrote. The reason why there isn't a continuum is that there isn't a continuum between "You keep the average card quality high enough that 5 cards are enough to make the most use out of that one buy" and "I acquire cards that make sure I can draw more cards and gain more cards". If you're doing the former, there's no reason why you would have to do the latter to any degree, and vice versa.

What I'm asking is, if one is going to argue that there is no BM/Engine spectrum, then what is the objective definition of the two of them, such that I cannot build a deck which blurs the line and qualifies as both? The way I see it, if the camp that says BM and Engine are discrete things is unable to come up with a well-defined description of them, and I have a better defined (probably measurable) definition that argues for them being on a continuous spectrum, then it's the preferable way of looking at things.

However, we're not unable to come up with a well-defined description of them. I already came up with the definition for big money, then faust came up with two more specific example definitions for slightly different engines. Furthermore, our descriptions are based on how those decks actually play out, not on superficial things, which is why they are the preferable way of looking at things.

If there's a different framework that:
  • applies universally, even to deck types we haven't discovered yet
  • is based on strategically relevant attributes

Then I'd love to look into it, but so far it looks like mine is the only one that does both, and while we have my framework that does both, I don't see a reason why we also need a different framework that only does one.

People want to point out the decks that don't fit into one of WW's categories, but that to me is not an argument for there being infinitely many categories, or for there even necessarily being a couple we're missing. It's an argument that we're being too literal with the examples/concepts that WW first observed. Decks have varying degrees of Preferred Pace (Slog/Rush) and Interaction Complexity (BM/Engine). That is a classification that works. Constantly adding more and more classification types seems unnecessary to me right now (although I'm happy to being proven wrong here). Like adding more axioms when you could just formalize the existing ones better to prove things.

I can come up with a dozen of classifications that "work". It's an Optimal Chapel Strategy deck if it has 1 card at the end of the game, and it's a Celestial Chameleon deck if it has more than 300, and there's all sorts of stuff in between. That's also a classification that works, but it's entirely useless.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2017, 03:24:45 pm by Awaclus »
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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #34 on: September 18, 2017, 03:34:31 pm »
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The article still doesn't mention attacks.  I think possibly the way to address this is by saying that attacks modify some of the obstacles, or produce totally unique obstacles.  For example, Militia modifies "you start turns with 5 cards" to "you start turns with the best 3 out of 5 cards".  Haunted Woods and Enchantress create obstacles that are totally unique.

The paragraph on big-money/engine hybrids has been improved, but suffers slightly from the fact that you never say in the article what exactly defines the engine's solutions to the obstacles.  There are also some obvious counterpoints that could be made (e.g. with CoTR you don't draw villages dead, limited supply sometimes makes pure engine impossible).  But maybe this is the best you can do without spending a lot more space on it.

I like the idea of attacks being another obstacle, but I also don't like the idea of them being one of the main obstacles because they aren't always present. I haven't figured out how to solve this yet.

I didn't want to spend the whole article just listing the solutions everything and its mom has, just an easy example (big money) and another example to make the point about "combo decks". I guess if it really doesn't work out, I can remove the part about big money/engine hybrids. How bad is it, exactly?
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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #35 on: September 18, 2017, 04:14:03 pm »
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If I tell you I played an Engine, do you immediately know what my specific solutions to the obstacles were?
Yes. They were a generalized version of this: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17572.msg719842#msg719842

You said "yes", but then you linked me to an answer which is a definitive 100% "no". I can't just say "Engine" and have you understand what that deck's solution to the 7 obstacles are, as evidenced by the fact that you and Faust discussed 2 completely different yet equally enginey engines, each with different solutions to the 7 obstacles.

I mean, Faust literally said "So would you say that "engine" actually is a term that encompasses multiple similar, but not identical, strategies?"

So no, not one thing, and not one unique set of solutions to the obstacles.

Furthermore, can you really say that all of your Big Money decks are purely Big Money with not even the slightest hints of an Engine? You never pick up a Smithy or a Governor or a JoaT to supplement your money? I suspect you would argue that that's still just Big Money. So then where would the cutoff be? If I pickup a Lab to supplement my Smithy/BM, is it still BM? Exactly how many Action Cards must I be running to qualify as an Engine? As far as I'm concerned, the only proper way to resolve such questions is to consider it on a spectrum, where Engine and BM are inversely correlated. And really, that doesn't contradict your argument that the two should not be mixed. If they're inversely correlated, it's not a stretch to argue that perhaps there are very few (or no) cards which support a mixture of BM and Engine. I'm just arguing that such a deck, however terrible, can be created.
You can run 239487523194085723049857230948750923 Action cards in your big money deck. Being big money or being engine doesn't have anything to do with the number of Action cards — the number of Action cards is a superficial attribute so we don't have to pay any attention to that.

This is the same misrepresentation Faust used a bit ago. It seems like you're deliberately ignoring the definition of Engine I have used multiple times, in favor of this "You're saying Action cards = Engine" thing, just to be able to knock down the straw man easier.

It's a big money deck if its solutions to the obstacles are the ones I posted in the article, and it's an engine deck if its solutions to the obstacles are the ones faust posted in the first reply.

Your article never claims "This is the definition of Big Money". It says "This is how Big Money overcomes the obstacles". Furthermore, neither your definition of BM or Faust's 2 differing definitions of Engines are all-encompassing or rigid. So can they really be called definitions? I considered them examples of Big Money and examples of Engines when I read this. I didn't realize (and I would guess others didn't realize either) that you were aiming to say that all Engines must fall into one of those two types.

So then, for example, the article says that with BM, "All the high-quality cards you buy are good on their own". So if I buy one card that isn't good on its own, it's no longer BM? I think most people would disagree with you on that. This is the slippery slope I was trying to establish earlier. There is no black and white point at which the BM stops being BM just because I add in one more card which isn't good on its own. Having cards which are good on their own (ie "no moving pieces") makes something more BM, and having cards which are not good on their own makes it more of an Engine.

Additionally, the article says this about BM: "Also, green cards will take a while to show up because your deck is fairly big and you’re not cycling through it very fast". So if I cycle through my BM deck fast it's no longer BM? Again, I think most would disagree with your definitions here. If I throw a Warehouse or Smithy into my BM, it doesn't magically become not-a-BM. You're acting like BM and Engine can't possibly be on a spectrum because they have rigid definitions, but then your definitions upon further examination are not at all rigid and don't hold up to scrutiny or common examples.

If you don't address the 7 obstacles, you don't have a strategy

Says who? What definition are you using of "Strategy"? Because any definition I have ever seen of the word allows for the Strategy to be ineffective. I could plan to win by 3-pilling the Estates, Ruins, and Poachers. It's a terrible strategy, but it's still a strategy.

A pure big money deck handles the challenges of deck building perfectly.

This is almost too bizarre of a claim to even respond to. It should be obvious why this isn't true. If pure BM handled all challenges posed to it perfectly, nobody would even build Engines in the first place.

If you play big money and lose, the problem isn't that you didn't have enough moving parts in your big money deck

Which is not what I said

the problem is that there was something better than big money available and you should have built that instead.

Which is exactly what I said, unless you ignore the fact that I have stated that "more moving parts is what defines an Engine, and less is what defines BM", as you and Faust have done.

1) The phrasing "You need a good economy" or "You need a way to draw your good cards" gets the job done in a more generalized way
I don't think it does it in a more generalized way. The fact that you only draw 5 cards applies universally

It doesn't though, because in many games this problem goes completely ignored. What never gets ignored is the fact that you need a good economy. You said that Rush decks don't have an economy, and that just leads me to believe that we're not even using the same definition of "economy" (I'm noticing a trend here).

But it seems like you think that's one solution, and it's not. There are many ways to not have leftover money. You could get +Buy, you could use Plaza to convert them to Coin Tokens, or you could dump them into Overpays
I don't think the exact method of achieving your goal that is not having leftover money is relevant to characterizing your strategy. Either way, you're achieving that goal, and achieving that goal is the solution to the obstacle.

But it feels like you're losing sight of the reason we're even talking about +Buy. You originally made it sound like you were considering removing the "You only have 1 Buy" thing from the 7 obstacles, and the reason you gave (as I understood it) was that there's only ever really one solution to that problem. As we have just established, this is not the case. I can name at least 3 (since we're disagreeing on the Gainer thing), but you're still acting like those 3 are just 1.
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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #36 on: September 18, 2017, 04:31:36 pm »
+2

I like the idea of attacks being another obstacle, but I also don't like the idea of them being one of the main obstacles because they aren't always present. I haven't figured out how to solve this yet.
That makes sense.  The simple solution might just be to mention it and say that you won't discuss it further.  It also works fine as is.

I didn't want to spend the whole article just listing the solutions everything and its mom has, just an easy example (big money) and another example to make the point about "combo decks". I guess if it really doesn't work out, I can remove the part about big money/engine hybrids. How bad is it, exactly?
I don't think it's bad.  But the argument could be made clearer and narrower in scope.  Here's how I'm envisioning the argument should go:

-Consider obstacle #6 ("You don’t always draw cards in the order you would like") in a kingdom with village and smithy.  Like with most card synergies, village/smithy synergize only when drawn in the right order.
-Big Money's solution is to avoid too many villages/smithies, so cards are good in any order.
-Engine's solution is to get lots of villages/smithies so they can be paired easily, especially since pairing them draws you more cards.
-Here, the "hybrid" strategy is to get some villages/smithies, but not enough to pair them easily.  And this just fails to address obstacle #6.

It's implied that maybe some engine/BM "hybrids" may be possible if they find some other way to address the problem, but you definitely don't need to list out exceptions.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2017, 04:33:04 pm by trivialknot »
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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #37 on: September 18, 2017, 04:31:59 pm »
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I feel that taking my question out of context only shows that you're assuming my position. Notice, I didn't say Engine = Actions (or that BM = Treasures). I said, in my example, at what point after adding supporting Action Card after supporting Action Card does the BM stop being BM and starts to be an Engine?
The point at which it starts to be an engine is the point at which it has the 7 14 solutions faust wrote.

Fixed that for you.

However, we're not unable to come up with a well-defined description of them. I already came up with the definition for big money, then faust came up with two more specific example definitions

I don't know what an "example definition" is, but the fact that you think that two conflicting answers qualifies as "well-defined" is telling.

Your examples are not all-encompassing, and they are not really even objective. The obstacles are great for players to think about. But how one answers them is not a definition, or anything even closely resembling a definition.


If there's a different framework that:
  • applies universally, even to deck types we haven't discovered yet
  • is based on strategically relevant attributes

Then I'd love to look into it, but so far it looks like mine is the only one that does both, and while we have my framework that does both, I don't see a reason why we also need a different framework that only does one.

Clearly yours doesn't, as you couldn't generalize "Engine" down to one definition. Once somebody mentions a third type of Engine that doesn't fit the mold, I assume the 14 bullet points will become 21.


That's also a classification that works, but it's entirely useless.

What, you mean like the difference between a "Trashing Megaturn Engine" and a "Sifting VP Removal Engine"?

Meanwhile I'm using one definition which actually helps a person compare two different decks.
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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #38 on: September 18, 2017, 04:46:05 pm »
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You said "yes", but then you linked me to an answer which is a definitive 100% "no". I can't just say "Engine" and have you understand what that deck's solution to the 7 obstacles are, as evidenced by the fact that you and Faust discussed 2 completely different yet equally enginey engines, each with different solutions to the 7 obstacles.

I mean, Faust literally said "So would you say that "engine" actually is a term that encompasses multiple similar, but not identical, strategies?"

So no, not one thing, and not one unique set of solutions to the obstacles.

Again, that's because faust is describing the strategies in more detail, I'm abstracting them more. If you ignore the details, those two strategies are still the same.

This is the same misrepresentation Faust used a bit ago. It seems like you're deliberately ignoring the definition of Engine I have used multiple times, in favor of this "You're saying Action cards = Engine" thing, just to be able to knock down the straw man easier.

Well, that's what you really seemed to imply.

Your article never claims "This is the definition of Big Money". It says "This is how Big Money overcomes the obstacles". Furthermore, neither your definition of BM or Faust's 2 differing definitions of Engines are all-encompassing or rigid. So can they really be called definitions? I considered them examples of Big Money and examples of Engines when I read this. I didn't realize (and I would guess others didn't realize either) that you were aiming to say that all Engines must fall into one of those two types.

This is from the article:

Quote
“Deck type” or “strategy” is an elegant answer to all of the obstacles. All the different decks with the same answers are the same type of deck.

So it basically does claim that those are the definitions of those deck types.

I'm not saying that all engines must fall into one of faust's more specific types. I'm saying that all engines must fall into the one, more abstracted type.

So then, for example, the article says that with BM, "All the high-quality cards you buy are good on their own". So if I buy one card that isn't good on its own, it's no longer BM? I think most people would disagree with you on that. This is the slippery slope I was trying to establish earlier. There is no black and white point at which the BM stops being BM just because I add in one more card which isn't good on its own. Having cards which are good on their own (ie "no moving pieces") makes something more BM, and having cards which are not good on their own makes it more of an Engine.

It doesn't say that, it says "All the high-quality cards you buy are good on their own, have very little or no negative synergies with other cards in your deck and/or synergize with almost all the other cards in your deck". So yes, if you buy one card that isn't good on its own, doesn't have very little or no negative synergies with other cards in your deck and doesn't synergize with almost all the other cards in your deck, it's no longer BM. The only reason why BM works is because it doesn't buy cards like that. If you buy a bunch, but try to play the deck as though it was BM, you end up with something that doesn't have a solution to all the obstacles, and thusly isn't a strategy.

Additionally, the article says this about BM: "Also, green cards will take a while to show up because your deck is fairly big and you’re not cycling through it very fast". So if I cycle through my BM deck fast it's no longer BM? Again, I think most would disagree with your definitions here. If I throw a Warehouse or Smithy into my BM, it doesn't magically become not-a-BM. You're acting like BM and Engine can't possibly be on a spectrum because they have rigid definitions, but then your definitions upon further examination are not at all rigid and don't hold up to scrutiny or common examples.

Throwing a Warehouse or Smithy into your BM doesn't magically make it cycle very fast.

Says who? What definition are you using of "Strategy"? Because any definition I have ever seen of the word allows for the Strategy to be ineffective. I could plan to win by 3-pilling the Estates, Ruins, and Poachers. It's a terrible strategy, but it's still a strategy.

Says me. I'm using this definition of "strategy":

Quote
“Deck type” or “strategy” is an elegant answer to all of the obstacles. All the different decks with the same answers are the same type of deck.

If you haven't seen that definition of "strategy" before, then that makes me wonder why you're commenting on an article you haven't even read.

This is almost too bizarre of a claim to even respond to. It should be obvious why this isn't true. If pure BM handled all challenges posed to it perfectly, nobody would even build Engines in the first place.

That's not true. How well a strategy addresses the obstacles isn't strictly connected to how well that strategy will do in practice. As I said in the article, BM and Hermit/Market Square handle the obstacles equally well, but the latter is still stronger in practice.

Which is exactly what I said, unless you ignore the fact that I have stated that "more moving parts is what defines an Engine, and less is what defines BM", as you and Faust have done.

This is exactly what you said:

Quote
So I have had situations where I felt that I had too few moving parts relative to the 7 questions you're asking.

This is not exactly what you said:

Quote
If you play big money and lose, the problem isn't that you didn't have enough moving parts in your big money deck, the problem is that there was something better than big money available and you should have built that instead.


It doesn't though, because in many games this problem goes completely ignored. What never gets ignored is the fact that you need a good economy. You said that Rush decks don't have an economy, and that just leads me to believe that we're not even using the same definition of "economy" (I'm noticing a trend here).

It doesn't get completely ignored. If you could draw 2387452093756290348765239845 cards at the end of each turn, you wouldn't have to worry about your average card quality being high enough to afford Provinces, you could just buy one Copper and that would be good enough. But that's not the case, you only get 5 and that's what you have to learn to live with.


But it feels like you're losing sight of the reason we're even talking about +Buy. You originally made it sound like you were considering removing the "You only have 1 Buy" thing from the 7 obstacles, and the reason you gave (as I understood it) was that there's only ever really one solution to that problem. As we have just established, this is not the case. I can name at least 3 (since we're disagreeing on the Gainer thing), but you're still acting like those 3 are just 1.

As we have just established, that is indeed the case. I can name only one thing, but you're acting like that 1 is 3.
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Awaclus

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #39 on: September 18, 2017, 04:54:41 pm »
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Your examples are not all-encompassing, and they are not really even objective. The obstacles are great for players to think about. But how one answers them is not a definition, or anything even closely resembling a definition.

They are objective. Faust could say that an object is 1003.0 millimeters long and I could say that it's 1.0 meters long and we would both be objectively correct even though our answers would be slightly different on the surface. This is the same thing.

You have admitted that the obstacles are strategically relevant and that your classification isn't. Why is it that you insist that your classification should be used and the obstacles shouldn't be used for classification?

Clearly yours doesn't, as you couldn't generalize "Engine" down to one definition. Once somebody mentions a third type of Engine that doesn't fit the mold, I assume the 14 bullet points will become 21.

I could do that, but so far I've been relying on everyone's ability to look at faust's two different engines and see how to generalize them into a set of solutions that encompasses both, because that really isn't very difficult.

That's also a classification that works, but it's entirely useless.

What, you mean like the difference between a "Trashing Megaturn Engine" and a "Sifting VP Removal Engine"?

Meanwhile I'm using one definition which actually helps a person compare two different decks.

No, the difference between a "Trashing Megaturn Engine" and a "Sifting VP Removal Engine" is rather subtle and I don't think you need to be paying attention to it unless you're currently in a game, building one of those.

My Optimal Chapel Strategy/Celestial Chameleon Deck spectrum also helps a person compare two different decks. Helping a person compare two different decks isn't very useful. Helping a person understand why they work is.
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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #40 on: September 18, 2017, 06:00:41 pm »
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I'm not saying that all engines must fall into one of faust's more specific types. I'm saying that all engines must fall into the one, more abstracted type.
Well then maybe you should've linked me to that instead of to Faust's two specific types before trying to say that I'm the one using a useless definition. By chance, where is this extremely useful "more abstracted definition"?

I could do that, but so far I've been relying on everyone's ability to look at faust's two different engines and see how to generalize them into a set of solutions that encompasses both, because that really isn't very difficult.
Ahhhh, ok, so it turns out you haven't defined it yet. We're still waiting on that. You're shifting the goalposts here when pressed to actually define Engine. Convenient how you get to keep arguing that you have a working definition even though you don't. If it's not even very difficult, then why do I have to basically pull your teeth to get you to define it? The fact is, you're saying out of one side of your mouth that you have a rigid, well-defined definition, but then out of the other you're speaking in vague, subjective terms. When pressed on this, you just criticize my own classification instead of providing your own definition.



That's not true. How well a strategy addresses the obstacles isn't strictly connected to how well that strategy will do in practice
Oh, well in that case then your entire point about "A pure big money deck handles the challenges of deck building perfectly" was a giant red herring, given that it was in response to me saying:

So I have had situations where I felt that I had too few moving parts relative to the 7 questions you're asking. Or in other words, situations where I look at the Kingdom and say "In this situation, an Engine actually handles the primary challenges of deck building better than my Big Money approach did, so more moving parts would have paid off more effectively here"
And that was in response to you asking me about how well the hindsight of my classifications help me do in practice. Thanks for derailing us for no reason other than to argue for argument's sake




You have admitted that the obstacles are strategically relevant and that your classification isn't. Why is it that you insist that your classification should be used and the obstacles shouldn't be used for classification?
Looks like you answered your own question. The obstacles aren't classifications. My classifications are classifications though. And in other news, A = A, I am what I am, a Rose is a Rose, and a definition has to actually be defining.

What you said is basically: 'You've already admitted that my doughnut tastes good and your wedding ring doesn't. Why is it that you insist that your wedding ring should be used and the doughnuts shouldn't be used for wedding rings?'
How well your obstacles work strategically has no bearing on whether or not they are better classifiers than my classifiers




But it feels like you're losing sight of the reason we're even talking about +Buy. You originally made it sound like you were considering removing the "You only have 1 Buy" thing from the 7 obstacles, and the reason you gave (as I understood it) was that there's only ever really one solution to that problem. As we have just established, this is not the case. I can name at least 3 (since we're disagreeing on the Gainer thing), but you're still acting like those 3 are just 1.
As we have just established, that is indeed the case. I can name only one thing, but you're acting like that 1 is 3.
I refuse to believe that you're enough of a novice player that you can't tell the strategic difference between a coin token and +Buy. You're just trying to be contrarian. I have never been more done with a more pointless conversation.
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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #41 on: September 18, 2017, 06:49:15 pm »
+6

I refuse to believe that you're enough of a novice player that you can't tell the strategic difference between a coin token and +Buy. You're just trying to be contrarian. I have never been more done with a more pointless conversation.

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #42 on: September 18, 2017, 06:51:11 pm »
0

Ahhhh, ok, so it turns out you haven't defined it yet. We're still waiting on that. You're shifting the goalposts here when pressed to actually define Engine. Convenient how you get to keep arguing that you have a working definition even though you don't. If it's not even very difficult, then why do I have to basically pull your teeth to get you to define it? The fact is, you're saying out of one side of your mouth that you have a rigid, well-defined definition, but then out of the other you're speaking in vague, subjective terms. When pressed on this, you just criticize my own classification instead of providing your own definition.

  • You use a combination of trashing, draw and other methods to cycle through all of the starting cards every turn
  • You use the fact that you're cycling through your deck every turn to keep building in a positive feedback loop, resulting in a deck that is more reliable and/or has more payload, allowing you to green effortlessly
  • You acquire cards that draw more cards and optimize your economy to match with the +buys available
  • You acquire enough splitters to play all the terminal Actions in your deck that you have to play
  • Since you're cycling through the entire deck every turn, it only takes one turn to use the new cards and you might be able to even gain and play the cards on the same turn
  • You maintain the correct balance between different engine components and cards that aren't engine components to minimize the odds of dud turns
  • Your resulting deck is extremely flexible and can opt to go for whatever greening tactics that counters the opponent the best

Look at faust's lists, then look at this, then ask yourself the question: was it really so difficult to get this from them?

Oh, well in that case then your entire point about "A pure big money deck handles the challenges of deck building perfectly" was a giant red herring, given that it was in response to me saying:

So I have had situations where I felt that I had too few moving parts relative to the 7 questions you're asking. Or in other words, situations where I look at the Kingdom and say "In this situation, an Engine actually handles the primary challenges of deck building better than my Big Money approach did, so more moving parts would have paid off more effectively here"
And that was in response to you asking me about how well the hindsight of my classifications help me do in practice. Thanks for derailing us for no reason other than to argue for argument's sake

You're holding my framework to a much higher standard than your own here. Mine is strategically relevant, but doesn't tell you automatically which strategy is the strongest on any given board. Yours isn't strategically relevant at all. You're trying to claim that they're the same because neither of them tells you which strategy is the strongest, but as it turns out, it still stands that mine is strategically relevant and yours isn't.

Looks like you answered your own question. The obstacles aren't classifications. My classifications are classifications though. And in other news, A = A, I am what I am, a Rose is a Rose, and a definition has to actually be defining.

What you said is basically: 'You've already admitted that my doughnut tastes good and your wedding ring doesn't. Why is it that you insist that your wedding ring should be used and the doughnuts shouldn't be used for wedding rings?'
How well your obstacles work strategically has no bearing on whether or not they are better classifiers than my classifiers

The obstacles are classifications and I still don't understand why it is so important to you that the classifications have to be entirely useless to everyone involved.

I refuse to believe that you're enough of a novice player that you can't tell the strategic difference between a coin token and +Buy. You're just trying to be contrarian. I have never been more done with a more pointless conversation.

Oh, I can tell the difference all right. You can use coin tokens to create a stockpile, you can't use +buys for that. For the purpose of matching your economy with your +buys, they both achieve the same thing: that.
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Bomb, Cannon, and many of the Gunpowder cards can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way

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FemurLemur

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #43 on: September 18, 2017, 07:53:28 pm »
0

I refuse to believe that you're enough of a novice player that you can't tell the strategic difference between a coin token and +Buy. You're just trying to be contrarian. I have never been more done with a more pointless conversation.

Hi, you must be new to f.ds! Have you checked out the forum games?

I've lurked as a guest for years, primarily looking at fan cards, predictions, and strategy discussions. I'm new to posting though.

I have not checked out the forum games. Should I?

Out of curiosity, do you ask if I'm new because of the "refuse to believe you're that much of a novice" comment, or the "being a contrarian" comment?
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Phil

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #44 on: September 18, 2017, 07:55:04 pm »
+5

Out of curiosity, do you ask if I'm new because of the "refuse to believe you're that much of a novice" comment, or the "being a contrarian" comment?

Awaclus' thing is being pedantic and contrarian.  I don't post much here either, but... yeah, it's the sort of thing you tend to pick up quickly, hence the joking reference to you being new here. :)
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FemurLemur

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #45 on: September 18, 2017, 08:11:08 pm »
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Out of curiosity, do you ask if I'm new because of the "refuse to believe you're that much of a novice" comment, or the "being a contrarian" comment?

Awaclus' thing is being pedantic and contrarian.  I don't post much here either, but... yeah, it's the sort of thing you tend to pick up quickly, hence the joking reference to you being new here. :)

Thought that might be the case, but I didn't wanna assume what he meant. I recognized Awaclus' profile pic as "that argumentative guy". But given that I'm new to posting, I figured I may have misjudged him based on a flawed memory, and thought I'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

...On a completely unrelated note, is there a way to blacklist users? Just asking for research purposes  ::)
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markusin

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #46 on: September 18, 2017, 08:33:14 pm »
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If I tell you I played an Engine, do you immediately know what my specific solutions to the obstacles were?

Yes. They were a generalized version of this: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=17572.msg719842#msg719842

Hey, that post from faust got me thinking. Does it make sense to define the "strength" of a board as how efficiently and effectively one can solve the obstacles you laid out.

Say, one board's solution to Problem 1, 5, and 6 is "Prioritize getting a couple of Sentries". You take that same board, add one particular event to it, and the solution to Problem 1,5, and 6 becomes "Buy Donate". Would it make sense to call the Donate board "stronger"?
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Seprix

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #47 on: September 19, 2017, 12:05:33 am »
+3

Out of curiosity, do you ask if I'm new because of the "refuse to believe you're that much of a novice" comment, or the "being a contrarian" comment?

It was just you arguing with Awaclus, which is a thing newer people do and a thing older members just ignore.
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markusin

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #48 on: September 19, 2017, 12:16:38 am »
+4

Out of curiosity, do you ask if I'm new because of the "refuse to believe you're that much of a novice" comment, or the "being a contrarian" comment?

It was just you arguing with Awaclus, which is a thing newer people do and a thing older members just ignore.

I was so tempted to make a joke about the percent range of new members that get into arguments with Awaclus.
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infangthief

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Re: The Infinite Number of Fundamental Deck Types
« Reply #49 on: September 19, 2017, 02:18:56 am »
+1

For example, Militia modifies "you start turns with 5 cards" to "you start turns with the best 3 out of 5 cards".  Haunted Woods and Enchantress create obstacles that are totally unique.

I think this is the way forward. And I think if you generalise the existing obstacles a bit more then they cover other attacks too.

For example, obstacle #1 could be 'you have junk' - that includes the starting deck (always) and opponent's junking (sometimes). It would also include 'self-junking' (by which I mean coppers you bought for Goons VP, buying an embargoed card, and cards you bought that have outlived their usefulness), but I think there's no need to complicate the article with that.

Similarly, top-deck inspection attacks make obstacles #5 and #6 worse, discard attacks make obstacle #3 worse etc.

But yes, you don't want to complicate the article, so just some mention of attacks is probably sufficient.
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