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Author Topic: very short strategy article  (Read 37400 times)

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Cave-o-sapien

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #100 on: February 26, 2018, 07:24:48 pm »
+3

Treasure Map's another card where you want Nomad Camp's on-gain ability. Although it's not always easy to buy a $4 card on the turn you activate your Treasure Maps.

Treasure Map is another card whose topdecking is a drawback.

It needs an annuity option, where you get 1 Gold per turn over the next 4 turns. Even better if it works like Crypt, and they just come to your hand without hitting your deck.
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pacovf

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #101 on: February 26, 2018, 07:27:14 pm »
+10

Treasure Map's another card where you want Nomad Camp's on-gain ability. Although it's not always easy to buy a $4 card on the turn you activate your Treasure Maps.

Treasure Map is another card whose topdecking is a drawback.

In retrospect, it would have been cute (and sometimes stronger) if Treasure Map put the Golds at the bottom of your deck. You found the X! You've still got to dig for that gold.

(unless you are the one with the loaded gun)
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markusin

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #102 on: February 26, 2018, 08:01:22 pm »
+1

Treasure Map's another card where you want Nomad Camp's on-gain ability. Although it's not always easy to buy a $4 card on the turn you activate your Treasure Maps.

Treasure Map is another card whose topdecking is a drawback.

In retrospect, it would have been cute (and sometimes stronger) if Treasure Map put the Golds at the bottom of your deck. You found the X! You've still got to dig for that gold.

(unless you are the one with the loaded gun)

Perfect! They'll even miss the shuffle!

But yeah, according to the secret history, Treasure Map had to go through a few changes to make it stronger to get what we have today. As is, the topdecking of the Gold is nice for the strategies that have trouble lining up the treasure maps in the first place.
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Donald X.

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #103 on: February 26, 2018, 08:26:22 pm »
+3

Anyway Nomad Camp is of course intended to be Woodcutter with a bonus. Most players do not regularly draw their deck, even if they'd like to. Sometimes you are lamenting not having +Buy, and Nomad Camp gets it into your next hand. But when you're drawing your deck and decide oops now you need +Buy, putting Nomad Camp on top hurts your chance of drawing your deck next turn, since it's a "stop card." And some players draw their deck often enough that therefore overall Nomad Camp looks worse than Woodcutter to them.
To be fair I also think that back when you made Nomad Camp engines occured a bit more rarely in games than today. Or is that just my distorted perception due to Adventures and the second editions featuring less terminals?
I wasn't thinking, "how will things go for Dominion players at large when this expansion gets released." We were playing engines a lot in Hinterlands testing, due to Margrave especially. But, that wasn't a factor either. As with so many things, Nomad Camp was some card, it went over fine, no more thought went into it.
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crj

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #104 on: February 27, 2018, 10:43:41 am »
0

Nomad Camp looks like Woodcutter with a bonus, and so has to cost more than $3... because there are some people who hate strictly better cards! I got to use the term the way I like to.
Actually, a Nomad Camp at $3 wouldn't be strictly better in the Magic sense, would it? The top-decking isn't optional and can be a drawback.

For example, opening Chapel/Nomad Camp would increase the risk of Chapel missing second shuffle from 17% to 18%.
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weesh

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #105 on: February 27, 2018, 12:27:33 pm »
0

Nomad Camp looks like Woodcutter with a bonus, and so has to cost more than $3... because there are some people who hate strictly better cards! I got to use the term the way I like to.
Actually, a Nomad Camp at $3 wouldn't be strictly better in the Magic sense, would it? The top-decking isn't optional and can be a drawback.

For example, opening Chapel/Nomad Camp would increase the risk of Chapel missing second shuffle from 17% to 18%.

If the nomad camp costs 3$ and top decking were optional, it would be strictly better.
But the case that you don't want to top deck it is common and reasonable enough that it's fair to call them incompatible for a strictly better comparison.

However, the 17% to 18% chance of chapel missing the first shuffle is firmly in the territory of edgecase, and would not having bearing on a strictly better comparison.
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pacovf

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #106 on: February 27, 2018, 01:01:37 pm »
0

However, the 17% to 18% chance of chapel missing the first shuffle is firmly in the territory of edgecase, and would not having bearing on a strictly better comparison.

Nooooo why did you have to say that
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crj

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #107 on: February 27, 2018, 01:03:58 pm »
+1

For example, opening Chapel/Nomad Camp would increase the risk of Chapel missing second shuffle from 17% to 18%.
I picked that example because it's easy to analyse and incontrovertibly true, not because it's the most significant potential downside to Nomad Camp's top-decking being mandatory.
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GendoIkari

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #108 on: February 27, 2018, 01:50:29 pm »
+3

Nomad Camp looks like Woodcutter with a bonus, and so has to cost more than $3... because there are some people who hate strictly better cards! I got to use the term the way I like to.
Actually, a Nomad Camp at $3 wouldn't be strictly better in the Magic sense, would it? The top-decking isn't optional and can be a drawback.


Correct, but Donald already mentioned perception. The average person who buys Hinterlands would have seen that card and thought of the top-decking as a bonus, and would have gotten mad that it was better than Woodcutter but cost the same.
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #109 on: February 27, 2018, 02:04:25 pm »
0

Treasure Map's another card where you want Nomad Camp's on-gain ability. Although it's not always easy to buy a $4 card on the turn you activate your Treasure Maps.

Treasure Map is another card whose topdecking is a drawback.

In retrospect, it would have been cute (and sometimes stronger) if Treasure Map put the Golds at the bottom of your deck. You found the X! You've still got to dig for that gold.

(unless you are the one with the loaded gun)

And it would have given an actual use for Pearl Diver!
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crj

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #110 on: February 27, 2018, 06:58:28 pm »
0

Correct, but Donald already mentioned perception. The average person who buys Hinterlands would have seen that card and thought of the top-decking as a bonus, and would have gotten mad that it was better than Woodcutter but cost the same.
For me, the cards which at first glance seem obviously overpowered or obviously underpowered are some of the most thought-provoking and interesting.

While more casual players may not feel the same way, I'd have expected most people who've collected expansions as far as Hinterlands to be in agreement.
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Donald X.

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #111 on: February 27, 2018, 08:14:24 pm »
+2

Correct, but Donald already mentioned perception. The average person who buys Hinterlands would have seen that card and thought of the top-decking as a bonus, and would have gotten mad that it was better than Woodcutter but cost the same.
For me, the cards which at first glance seem obviously overpowered or obviously underpowered are some of the most thought-provoking and interesting.

While more casual players may not feel the same way, I'd have expected most people who've collected expansions as far as Hinterlands to be in agreement.
Card that looks overpowered or underpowered, not the same as card that looks strictly better/worse than another. Not the same.

I am not aware of a block of Dominion players who hate cards simply for looking strong/weak, though individual cards may have groupthink issues that cause players to hate them. But there is in fact a block of Dominion players that hates hates hates strictly better cards.

When Hinterlands came out, people didn't complain that Haggler was too strong, that Mandarin was too weak. But they screamed about Noble Brigand looking too much like a strictly better Thief (yes despite being able to say, but Thief can steal Platinum etc.).
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #112 on: February 27, 2018, 10:50:09 pm »
+1

Correct, but Donald already mentioned perception. The average person who buys Hinterlands would have seen that card and thought of the top-decking as a bonus, and would have gotten mad that it was better than Woodcutter but cost the same.
For me, the cards which at first glance seem obviously overpowered or obviously underpowered are some of the most thought-provoking and interesting.

While more casual players may not feel the same way, I'd have expected most people who've collected expansions as far as Hinterlands to be in agreement.
Card that looks overpowered or underpowered, not the same as card that looks strictly better/worse than another. Not the same.

I am not aware of a block of Dominion players who hate cards simply for looking strong/weak, though individual cards may have groupthink issues that cause players to hate them. But there is in fact a block of Dominion players that hates hates hates strictly better cards.

When Hinterlands came out, people didn't complain that Haggler was too strong, that Mandarin was too weak. But they screamed about Noble Brigand looking too much like a strictly better Thief (yes despite being able to say, but Thief can steal Platinum etc.).

I wasn't here for that, but considering how awful Thief was it seems odd to me that anyone would complain about a better version of it.

About Mandarin, though, did people complain that Count was a strictly (way, way) better version of it without the on-gain?
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Donald X.

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #113 on: February 28, 2018, 01:38:16 am »
+4

About Mandarin, though, did people complain that Count was a strictly (way, way) better version of it without the on-gain?
Not that I recall; you can do your own research. There's no reason for strictly-better-haters to hate Count for one-upping Mandarin; they don't hate cards being better, just strictly better, and Mandarin full-on does a thing Count doesn't do. There's no Count / Capital deck.
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dominator 123

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #114 on: February 28, 2018, 10:11:16 am »
+1

Would Nomad Camp at $2 have been fine? Maybe this will make people go ooh a card better than Woodcutter... wait why is this cheaper? Oh, the top-decking is a drawback? Never would have thought of that!

It's like how the mandatory putting back of a card in Secret Passage may seem like a benefit to some until you compare it to Laboratory.
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"Strictly Better" compares only effects and not cost, change my mind

Kirian

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #115 on: March 01, 2018, 12:47:04 pm »
+2

I feel like something missing in this perennial discussion is the question: why do we need this particular term at all?

There is no use for a phrase that means "option X is better than option Y under all circumstances."  I'm not sure there's a use for that in real life; you can nearly always find an edge case.

I see two uses of this phrase commonly:

X is strictly better than Y, if you ignore cost.
X is strictly better than Y, if you ignore edge cases.

The first can be useful if all you're doing is comparing costs.  All other things being equal, would you rather have a single Goons or a single Militia in your deck?  Obviously a Goons; it has the same effects as Militia, plus other positive effects.  Therefore, Goons must cost more than Militia.  While I suspect this might be useful for Donald when creating cards, and can be useful for comparing power levels, it has little utility when playing the game.  The only use I can imagine is something making a decision between, say, Village and Worker's Village when you have $4, or things like that.

In the second sense, this is a theoretically more powerful tool, but it effectively requires a definition of all the possible edge cases.  So just... toss this out.  It's a garbage phrase that is of no use except debating its use.  It's like a sign that says "DO NOT TOUCH THIS SIGN."  Like, why even put the sign there? 

"X is usually better than Y" is just fine for discussing strategy.  Perhaps even "almost always."  Then you can include things like "unless" or "especially".

Warehouse is usually better than Cellar, unless you have a large hand.
Worker's Village is almost always better than Village unless you need unique cards or to end the game.
Count is almost always better than Mandarin unless you're using Mandarin's on-gain ability.

Heck, you could even expand on those opinions.  It might require more writing or defending your position.

----

As to the OP though:  I tend to agree Boons range from basically nothing to really really good, depending on situation.  The draw 2, discard 2 sucks if it causes a reshuffle (and the Cartographer one), and of course the gain a Silver can be actively harmful, but almost everything else is good.  So yeah, Bard is almost always better than a hypothetical terminal Silver with no bonus.  Is it better than other terminal Silvers?  You'll have a harder time convincing me of that.
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weesh

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #116 on: March 01, 2018, 01:03:54 pm »
+1

I feel like something missing in this perennial discussion is the question: why do we need this particular term at all?

The term is useful in magic. For instance:
"have you seen card X?  it's like Y, but strictly better because it also gains you energy"
or
"it's wild that cancel is so oppressive in this meta, when it's strictly worse than counterspell.  I didn't realize counterspell was so strong."

It's very fair to ask what it's value is in dominion, since there are no examples under the actual definition.

There is no use for a phrase that means "option X is better than option Y under all circumstances."  I'm not sure there's a use for that in real life; you can nearly always find an edge case.

I see two uses of this phrase commonly:

X is strictly better than Y, if you ignore cost.
X is strictly better than Y, if you ignore edge cases.

You also are confusing the definition.  It has never meant "...under all circumstances" and has always meant "...if you ignore edgecases".
That last part is critical, because the phrase is just about unusable, as you have surmised, if it was as strict as "under all circumstances".

The actual definition, that ignores edgecases, is actually useful for short handing information, when it is used correctly.  See my examples above.

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Kirian

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #117 on: March 01, 2018, 01:36:14 pm »
0

There is no use for a phrase that means "option X is better than option Y under all circumstances."  I'm not sure there's a use for that in real life; you can nearly always find an edge case.

I see two uses of this phrase commonly:

X is strictly better than Y, if you ignore cost.
X is strictly better than Y, if you ignore edge cases.

You also are confusing the definition.  It has never meant "...under all circumstances" and has always meant "...if you ignore edgecases".
That last part is critical, because the phrase is just about unusable, as you have surmised, if it was as strict as "under all circumstances".

The actual definition, that ignores edgecases, is actually useful for short handing information, when it is used correctly.  See my examples above.

Except is has never meant that on this forum.  Not in over seven years.  Edge cases abound; it's one of our hobbies here, and it has always accompanied the term "strictly better" because the edgecases are so numerous.
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faust

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #118 on: March 01, 2018, 01:39:47 pm »
0

Except is has never meant that on this forum.  Not in over seven years.  Edge cases abound; it's one of our hobbies here, and it has always accompanied the term "strictly better" because the edgecases are so numerous fun.
FTFY
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FemurLemur

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #119 on: March 01, 2018, 01:47:31 pm »
+2

About Mandarin, though, did people complain that Count was a strictly (way, way) better version of it without the on-gain?

Back to the "Perception is key" idea: my reaction at the time was that Count was really unique. Between the whole "Choose one bad effect, Choose one good effect" thing, and having a card that straight up said "Trash Your Hand", it didn't occur to me that it might be a better Mandarin. In fact, when the full set of spoilers came out, I distinctly remember thinking that it was one of the craziest cards of the set. Though I was only lurking back then, and I don't recall other people's reactions to Count outside of some IRL friends who also thought it was bananas, FWIW.
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Commodore Chuckles

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #120 on: March 01, 2018, 02:19:13 pm »
+2

Honestly, I think the only real use for "strictly better" is when critiquing people's fan cards i.e. "This made-up card is no good because it's strictly better/worse than this other actual card."
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crj

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #121 on: March 01, 2018, 02:54:12 pm »
+5

It really does feel like these forums need a term for "disregarding the cost, better in every respect in all but utterly pathological circumstances", though. And maybe also another weaker term for "all but abnormal circumstances".

I think most people would be happy to say that a good card isn't suddenly a bad card just because their opponent holds King's Court and Possession. Unless the card interacts with Possession as egregiously as something like Ambassador or Masquerade, we can ignore Possession as pathological.

In the weaker category, "abnormal" circumstances, I'd include things like preferring a Ruined Library to a Smithy because you don't want to trigger a reshuffle.

Shorthand terms would be useful, even if they couldn't be given rigorous meanings.
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faust

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #122 on: March 01, 2018, 03:35:11 pm »
+2

Honestly, I think the only real use for "strictly better" is when critiquing people's fan cards i.e. "This made-up card is no good because it's strictly better/worse than this other actual card."
Funny, I always thought the main use of the term was to discuss it in threads like this.
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FemurLemur

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #123 on: March 01, 2018, 03:42:33 pm »
+1

Honestly, I think the only real use for "strictly better" is when critiquing people's fan cards i.e. "This made-up card is no good because it's strictly better/worse than this other actual card."

I've used it another way before when teaching. "Bridge and Highway make cards cheaper. If you play enough of them, Mining Village becomes strictly better than regular Village".  Other than my example and yours, I can't think of any other ways I would use it.
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blueblimp

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Re: very short strategy article
« Reply #124 on: March 01, 2018, 06:30:20 pm »
+3

About Mandarin, though, did people complain that Count was a strictly (way, way) better version of it without the on-gain?

Back to the "Perception is key" idea: my reaction at the time was that Count was really unique. Between the whole "Choose one bad effect, Choose one good effect" thing, and having a card that straight up said "Trash Your Hand", it didn't occur to me that it might be a better Mandarin. In fact, when the full set of spoilers came out, I distinctly remember thinking that it was one of the craziest cards of the set. Though I was only lurking back then, and I don't recall other people's reactions to Count outside of some IRL friends who also thought it was bananas, FWIW.

This illustrates why having a "strictly better" concept is useful. It's good for estimating the strength of new cards by relating them to cards you already understand. Knowing "Count is strictly better than Mandarin, apart from the on-gain effect" tells you something because you already have some idea how Mandarin plays.

Unlike "usually better"/"almost always better" or whatever term, you can determine what's "strictly better" reasonably unambiguously by just reading the card. Although it's true that Mountebank is almost always better than Scout, you don't really know that until you've played with them. On the other hand, I can look at Hunting Grounds and Smithy and know that I'd always prefer a Hunting Grounds in my deck, because Hunting Grounds's text is a strict improvement on Smithy's text.

What this term is called doesn't matter that much--the point is that is _is_ a useful term (for some people), and it _does_ mean something that isn't easily captured by waffle terms like "almost always better".
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