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[AdamH]

Hi.

So I've thought about this for a while, and I think I want to get some other opinions on this.

Let's say there's a board where you want to build an engine, and the trashing available is Steward. The plan is to trash as quickly as possible and build up your engine.

In the early game, what do you suppose the best way to trash quickly is? I have a simplistic analysis and an example, but I'm sure there's a lot I'm not considering.

Many would say opening Steward/silver is the smart thing. My thought is: why not Steward/Steward? If the Stewards collide, well, you're probably trashing anyways so the silver most likely wouldn't have helped you buy anything that turn. If they don't collide, then you're trashing twice as fast. I'm having trouble seeing how this could be worse than steward/silver, unless the engine you wanted to build really doesn't want a second Steward.

The example I can think of was a game I played (no log, sorry, it was a real-life game) with King's Court, Steward, Spy, Colonies, and no +Buy. I wanted to KC two Stewards each turn for $12 to buy a colony, and the spies were there to help draw cards and sift through green cards. Basically I was guaranteed a colony if my initial hand of 5 cards had a KC and a Spy in it, and if not, then I bought another spy instead. The deck ended up like this to start: 4xKC, 2xSpy, 2xSteward.

I also welcome critiques of my engine for this game, but that's not really the heart of the topic here. My opponent opened 5/2 and ended up going with a Venture/Bank strategy that I didn't beat by very much.

On this particular board, there was Quarry, so I actually opened Quarry/Steward because I wanted to get a KC as fast as possible so I could play KC->Steward. I thought this would end up being faster than opening Steward/Steward. However, if Quarry was not on the board, I think Steward/Steward would have been the best opening.

What do the people here who are better at Dominion than me think? I'm sure I'm missing plenty. Thanks!

[Davio]

I always have doubts about Steward whether it's better to:
- trash aggressively and always to get the deck as dense as possible as soon as possible
- trash moderately, but use +$2 or Cards sometimes to buy drawing cantrips like Lab

[Kahryl]

Every time you trash using a steward, you end up with 2 cards to actually play.  Without silver, you can't GET silver with a Steward in hand.  So if your doubleSteward DOESN'T collide they have a good chance of carpenter-anting you into poverty.

Having silver makes it friendlier to trash while improving your deck.  Steward-silver-copper-copper-estate is a great draw, Steward-copper-copper-copper-estate is a painful dilemma.

[AdamH]

Davio - this is my personal opinion, but whenever I want to trash down to a very trimmed deck, I feel like every turn I could be trashing and I'm not costs me at least two more turns as a result. That's just me, but that's my approach to things.

Kahryl - you are correct, in that there are cases where silver/steward is better when they collide. I would think, though, that having them not collide is more likely than that one case where they do collide, or am I incorrect? Even then, is there still an argument that even if they were the same likelihood, that the benefit gained from the extra trashing is more than what you lose by not being able to trash/buy in the same turn? I'm asking because I don't feel like I have the answer to that question...

[WanderingWinder]

Davio - this is my personal opinion, but whenever I want to trash down to a very trimmed deck, I feel like every turn I could be trashing and I'm not costs me at least two more turns as a result. That's just me, but that's my approach to things.

Kahryl - you are correct, in that there are cases where silver/steward is better when they collide. I would think, though, that having them not collide is more likely than that one case where they do collide, or am I incorrect? Even then, is there still an argument that even if they were the same likelihood, that the benefit gained from the extra trashing is more than what you lose by not being able to trash/buy in the same turn? I'm asking because I don't feel like I have the answer to that question...

The point is that if they don't collide right away, and you're trashing trashing trashing, that makes them much more likely they'll collide later. Meanwhile, you're never getting cards to improve your deck until you stop trashing. Like, how do you ever get to that KC?

[AdamH]

obviously at some point you have to buy a silver and use the stewards for money (unless you can snag a Festival or something). I mean, the answer to that question is highly dependent on what kind of engine you're building... if your engine involves any kind of village, then it seems like this is awesome...

I just feel like sometimes opening steward/steward can be better sometimes, but when I'm faced with the decision of actually clicking the button or picking up the card, this nagging voice inside me says "what would the people at DS think?" and I wuss out and open Steward/Silver.

So the answer to this question is "it depends on what kind of engine you're building"?

[ratxt1]

if you want to have two stewards eventually in your deck (a lot of decks don't) steward/steward does seem like an opening to consider. if the stewards don't collide the steward is strictly better than silver (for that reshuffle at least). If they do though you lose a silver buy (except for the unlikely hand of 2 stewards and 3 estates). I believe that the loss of a silver is not really overcome by the slightly faster trashing you might get.