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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #25 on: February 23, 2018, 01:36:08 pm »
0

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?
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Gazbag

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #26 on: February 23, 2018, 01:39:10 pm »
+9

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?

If getting Shepherds leads your opponent into buying Bureaucrat then Shepherd is the real hand-size attack in this scenario.
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #27 on: February 23, 2018, 02:11:20 pm »
0

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?

If getting Shepherds leads your opponent into buying Bureaucrat then Shepherd is the real hand-size attack in this scenario.

Surely there's an edge case where it's a good idea. But yeah, probably only an edge case.
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AJD

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #28 on: February 23, 2018, 02:14:31 pm »
+3

Somehow I've gotten to the point where every time I see the word "edge case" I want to interpret it as meaning 'scabbard'.
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Gazbag

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #29 on: February 23, 2018, 02:22:45 pm »
0

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?

If getting Shepherds leads your opponent into buying Bureaucrat then Shepherd is the real hand-size attack in this scenario.

Surely there's an edge case where it's a good idea. But yeah, probably only an edge case.

I mean if the Bureaucrat is good anyway then yeah, but that's rare enough to be an edgecase I'd say.
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Chris is me

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #30 on: February 23, 2018, 04:16:52 pm »
0

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?

If getting Shepherds leads your opponent into buying Bureaucrat then Shepherd is the real hand-size attack in this scenario.

Actually I think there’s something to this, believe it or not, as long as you can deal with the Silver in some way. This really neuters a Shepherd start, and thus I think it’s gonna be viable a reasonable amount of time when playing against a deck primarily drawing with Shep.
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Gazbag

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #31 on: February 23, 2018, 04:35:43 pm »
0

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?

If getting Shepherds leads your opponent into buying Bureaucrat then Shepherd is the real hand-size attack in this scenario.

Actually I think there’s something to this, believe it or not, as long as you can deal with the Silver in some way. This really neuters a Shepherd start, and thus I think it’s gonna be viable a reasonable amount of time when playing against a deck primarily drawing with Shep.

Thing is, if there's a deck that can consistently play a bunch of Bureaucrats and deal with all the Silver you're probably building whatever that deck is and ignoring Shepherd regardless of the presence of  Bureaucrat.   
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Chris is me

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #32 on: February 23, 2018, 04:42:14 pm »
0

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?

If getting Shepherds leads your opponent into buying Bureaucrat then Shepherd is the real hand-size attack in this scenario.

Actually I think there’s something to this, believe it or not, as long as you can deal with the Silver in some way. This really neuters a Shepherd start, and thus I think it’s gonna be viable a reasonable amount of time when playing against a deck primarily drawing with Shep.

Thing is, if there's a deck that can consistently play a bunch of Bureaucrats and deal with all the Silver you're probably building whatever that deck is and ignoring Shepherd regardless of the presence of  Bureaucrat.

No? Shepherd is a real source of draw, it could be the only source on an otherwise strong board. It’s not just a cop out rush strategy.
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William Howard Taft

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #33 on: February 23, 2018, 04:51:39 pm »
0

Actually I think there’s something to this, believe it or not, as long as you can deal with the Silver in some way.

Maybe if you gain Changelings instead of Silver.
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Gazbag

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #34 on: February 23, 2018, 05:45:54 pm »
0

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?

If getting Shepherds leads your opponent into buying Bureaucrat then Shepherd is the real hand-size attack in this scenario.

Actually I think there’s something to this, believe it or not, as long as you can deal with the Silver in some way. This really neuters a Shepherd start, and thus I think it’s gonna be viable a reasonable amount of time when playing against a deck primarily drawing with Shep.

Thing is, if there's a deck that can consistently play a bunch of Bureaucrats and deal with all the Silver you're probably building whatever that deck is and ignoring Shepherd regardless of the presence of  Bureaucrat.

No? Shepherd is a real source of draw, it could be the only source on an otherwise strong board. It’s not just a cop out rush strategy.

I don't think it's realistic that a Shepherd as the only draw deck is robust enough to play all those Bureaucrats, and if it is then it probably doesn't care about the Bureaucrat attack.

My point was supposed to be that in theory it could work, but in practise it never will because there'll just be something better to do. Feel free to prove me wrong though!
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Chris is me

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #35 on: February 23, 2018, 05:57:18 pm »
0

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?

If getting Shepherds leads your opponent into buying Bureaucrat then Shepherd is the real hand-size attack in this scenario.

Actually I think there’s something to this, believe it or not, as long as you can deal with the Silver in some way. This really neuters a Shepherd start, and thus I think it’s gonna be viable a reasonable amount of time when playing against a deck primarily drawing with Shep.

Thing is, if there's a deck that can consistently play a bunch of Bureaucrats and deal with all the Silver you're probably building whatever that deck is and ignoring Shepherd regardless of the presence of  Bureaucrat.

No? Shepherd is a real source of draw, it could be the only source on an otherwise strong board. It’s not just a cop out rush strategy.

I don't think it's realistic that a Shepherd as the only draw deck is robust enough to play all those Bureaucrats, and if it is then it probably doesn't care about the Bureaucrat attack.

My point was supposed to be that in theory it could work, but in practise it never will because there'll just be something better to do. Feel free to prove me wrong though!

What? This doesn’t make sense. If it’s powerful enough to do it as the only draw, then of course it cares about the Breaucrat attack! Those are contradictory premises, because then it can’t draw anything.

All I’m saying is, I’d probably throw a Bureaucrat and a Counterfeit in at least some instances.
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Gazbag

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #36 on: February 23, 2018, 06:35:21 pm »
0

How does Bureaucrat rate as an anti-Shepherd attack compared to other hand-size attacks?

If getting Shepherds leads your opponent into buying Bureaucrat then Shepherd is the real hand-size attack in this scenario.

Actually I think there’s something to this, believe it or not, as long as you can deal with the Silver in some way. This really neuters a Shepherd start, and thus I think it’s gonna be viable a reasonable amount of time when playing against a deck primarily drawing with Shep.

Thing is, if there's a deck that can consistently play a bunch of Bureaucrats and deal with all the Silver you're probably building whatever that deck is and ignoring Shepherd regardless of the presence of  Bureaucrat.

No? Shepherd is a real source of draw, it could be the only source on an otherwise strong board. It’s not just a cop out rush strategy.

I don't think it's realistic that a Shepherd as the only draw deck is robust enough to play all those Bureaucrats, and if it is then it probably doesn't care about the Bureaucrat attack.

My point was supposed to be that in theory it could work, but in practise it never will because there'll just be something better to do. Feel free to prove me wrong though!

What? This doesn’t make sense. If it’s powerful enough to do it as the only draw, then of course it cares about the Breaucrat attack! Those are contradictory premises, because then it can’t draw anything.

All I’m saying is, I’d probably throw a Bureaucrat and a Counterfeit in at least some instances.

And I'm saying that's probably worse than not doing it because you're effectively adding 3 non-victory stop cards to your Shepherd as the only draw deck. It'll slow you down more than your opponent!
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Polk5440

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #37 on: February 26, 2018, 10:18:24 am »
+11

A very simple yet efficient deck for Shepherd is to just add a single Silver, Shepherds whenever you hit $4 and the best green card available otherwise.

Geronimoo has Shephard working in his simulator. This strategy as described loses to big money ultimate (39%-58%-3%). So, I am unconvinced about the claims in this article.
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markusin

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #38 on: February 26, 2018, 10:54:57 am »
+1

A very simple yet efficient deck for Shepherd is to just add a single Silver, Shepherds whenever you hit $4 and the best green card available otherwise.

Geronimoo has Shephard working in his simulator. This strategy as described loses to big money ultimate (39%-58%-3%). So, I am unconvinced about the claims in this article.

Is there a Shepherd / Big Money strategy that does beat BMU according to the simulator?
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Chris is me

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #39 on: February 26, 2018, 11:03:42 am »
+3

A very simple yet efficient deck for Shepherd is to just add a single Silver, Shepherds whenever you hit $4 and the best green card available otherwise.

Geronimoo has Shephard working in his simulator. This strategy as described loses to big money ultimate (39%-58%-3%). So, I am unconvinced about the claims in this article.

I totally believe this, but is Pasture also implemented properly?
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Polk5440

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #40 on: February 26, 2018, 11:52:36 am »
+2

Yes, Pasture appears to be implemented properly. For example, from a sample game:

Shepherd Simple(Plr 1) has 41 points and took 27 turns
   32 cards : [6 Copper, 1 Silver, 10 Estate (10▼), 7 Duchy (21▼), 1 Pasture (10▼), 7 Shepherd]

Big Money Ultimate(Plr 2) has 59 points and took 28 turns
   38 cards : [6 Copper, 10 Silver, 8 Gold, 4 Estate (4▼), 1 Duchy (3▼), 8 Province (48▼), 1 Pasture (4▼)]

Yes, there are simple Shepherd strategies that can beat BMU. Just not the one outlined in the OP. I quickly built one by buying Gold and Silver like I was playing Smithy-big money but using Shepherd instead for draw. Tweaking to buy Duchies/Estates earlier helped a little. But the results are nothing to write home about (loses to Smithy-big money quite handily). But I did not try too hard. There is space for OP to explore.
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faust

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #41 on: February 26, 2018, 12:03:06 pm »
+2

Yes, Pasture appears to be implemented properly. For example, from a sample game:

Shepherd Simple(Plr 1) has 41 points and took 27 turns
   32 cards : [6 Copper, 1 Silver, 10 Estate (10▼), 7 Duchy (21▼), 1 Pasture (10▼), 7 Shepherd]

Big Money Ultimate(Plr 2) has 59 points and took 28 turns
   38 cards : [6 Copper, 10 Silver, 8 Gold, 4 Estate (4▼), 1 Duchy (3▼), 8 Province (48▼), 1 Pasture (4▼)]

Yes, there are simple Shepherd strategies that can beat BMU. Just not the one outlined in the OP. I quickly built one by buying Gold and Silver like I was playing Smithy-big money but using Shepherd instead for draw. Tweaking to buy Duchies/Estates earlier helped a little. But the results are nothing to write home about (loses to Smithy-big money quite handily). But I did not try too hard. There is space for OP to explore.
If you add that Province should always be bought when possible, this increases Shepherd winrate to 58.27 %. I don't think it should be held against me that I didn't include this rather obvious bit in the OP.

But thanks for pointing this out to me. I just skimmed simulators and figured that Nocturne had not yet been implemented.

EDIT: Sorry, I saw that what I wrote in the article is not exactly what I implemented. The strategy should be:

- buy Province
- buy Shepherd if your deck contains < 20% Shepherds
- buy Silver if you have none
- buy Duchy
- buy Estate
« Last Edit: February 26, 2018, 12:11:39 pm by faust »
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JW

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #42 on: February 26, 2018, 12:15:38 pm »
+4

Presumably any reasonable big money strategy to compare a Shepherd strategy to should also buy estates sooner to account for Pasture being on the board.
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #43 on: February 26, 2018, 07:32:50 pm »
0

EDIT: Sorry, I saw that what I wrote in the article is not exactly what I implemented. The strategy should be:

- buy Province
- buy Shepherd if your deck contains < 20% Shepherds
- buy Silver if you have none
- buy Duchy
- buy Estate

How often does a Shepherd deck in these simulations get a completely dead hand?
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faust

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #44 on: February 27, 2018, 01:30:26 am »
0

EDIT: Sorry, I saw that what I wrote in the article is not exactly what I implemented. The strategy should be:

- buy Province
- buy Shepherd if your deck contains < 20% Shepherds
- buy Silver if you have none
- buy Duchy
- buy Estate

How often does a Shepherd deck in these simulations get a completely dead hand?
Looking at a sample game (where Shepherd loses to BMU, so it's probably subpar), there is once a hand that cannot even buy an Estate.
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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #45 on: February 27, 2018, 11:34:55 am »
+1

Looking at a sample game (where Shepherd loses to BMU, so it's probably subpar), there is once a hand that cannot even buy an Estate.

It seems like when I've played heavy-Shepherd games, it's not unusual to have one dead turn.
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trivialknot

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #46 on: February 28, 2018, 02:38:30 pm »
0

I also tried playing around with Shepherd in the simulator, and came to the same conclusions as Polk5440.

It seems that in a BMU strategy, you want 2 Shepherds early on.  By playing the strategy against itself, I was able to improve it by going for Provinces earlier (when money in deck >= $13, compared to BMU's $18), and Duchies earlier (when provinces in supply >= 5, compared to BMU's 4).  The target density of Shepherds was best at 1/7, and you don't prioritize it over Gold, or even Duchy.

The BM+Shepherd strategy loses to BM+Smithy by about 45/50%, and wins against the pure Shepherd strategy (as described in OP) by 55/40%.  Presumably each strategy could be further optimized in response to the opponent's strategy.  This seems fairly close to me, and I can believe that pure Shepherd is viable with some support.
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faust

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #47 on: February 28, 2018, 03:04:03 pm »
0

I played around with Baron/Shepherd. That one beats BM/Smithy rather handily (77% or something). Of course it's a quite strong synergy, but it shows that just a single terminal can help out the Shepherd deck a lot.
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Aleimon Thimble

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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #48 on: April 13, 2018, 10:54:25 am »
+1

I added your article to the Wiki. If you object to this, please let me know.

http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Shepherd#Strategy
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Re: Shepherd
« Reply #49 on: April 27, 2018, 11:38:03 pm »
0

It feels remiss not to mention Tunnel when talking about Shepherd. And not to mention Inheritance when talking about Pasture.

But this bit bugs me considerably:
in order to get started, you want to make sure to always start with a Shepherd in hand. Assuming a 5 card starting hand, that means that 20% of your deck should be Shepherds.
It's simply not true that 20% of your deck being Shepherds means that if you draw 5 cards you're certain one will be a Shepherd. All you're certain of is that you'll average one Shepherd per five cards.

As an example, if you have twenty cards, four of which are Shepherds, you only have a 72% chance of drawing a Shepherd.

That's not just mathematical nitpicking; it seems to me it strikes at the heart of the viability of a Shepherd engine. Especially as a hand with multiple Shepherds is also undesirable.

 I just played a tunnel shephard game.  it was amazing.
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