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Author Topic: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?  (Read 7513 times)

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Chase Adolphson

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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #25 on: March 13, 2018, 06:37:03 pm »
0

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

What about reaching for a power $6?  Artisan with spammable $5s on the board, Border Village for a $5, Hireling or Altar?

Hireling is actually a really inefficient card that you should avoid in most games regardless of Cursed Gold, and Border Village doesn't make much of a difference until later. For Altar and Artisan, it's not so obvious. Powerful (and spammable) $5s is one factor that makes them more attractive, nonterminal cycling/trashing or Gear for $3 is another.


Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.
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ConMan

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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #26 on: March 13, 2018, 06:44:59 pm »
+1

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

What about reaching for a power $6?  Artisan with spammable $5s on the board, Border Village for a $5, Hireling or Altar?

Hireling is actually a really inefficient card that you should avoid in most games regardless of Cursed Gold, and Border Village doesn't make much of a difference until later. For Altar and Artisan, it's not so obvious. Powerful (and spammable) $5s is one factor that makes them more attractive, nonterminal cycling/trashing or Gear for $3 is another.


Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.
Probably not that strong, especially in the absence of trashing. Assuming that you haven't got an engine going, then once per shuffle the Hireling's extra card draw is exactly cancelled out by the junk card in your deck (and if you never play the Cursed Gold again, you technically have two junk cards in your deck, so you can raise that to twice per shuffle).
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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #27 on: March 13, 2018, 06:57:26 pm »
+1

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

What about reaching for a power $6?  Artisan with spammable $5s on the board, Border Village for a $5, Hireling or Altar?

Hireling is actually a really inefficient card that you should avoid in most games regardless of Cursed Gold, and Border Village doesn't make much of a difference until later. For Altar and Artisan, it's not so obvious. Powerful (and spammable) $5s is one factor that makes them more attractive, nonterminal cycling/trashing or Gear for $3 is another.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.
Probably not that strong, especially in the absence of trashing. Assuming that you haven't got an engine going, then once per shuffle the Hireling's extra card draw is exactly cancelled out by the junk card in your deck (and if you never play the Cursed Gold again, you technically have two junk cards in your deck, so you can raise that to twice per shuffle).

The cursed gold is in your deck regardless.
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weesh

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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #28 on: March 13, 2018, 07:23:06 pm »
0

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.
Probably not that strong, especially in the absence of trashing. Assuming that you haven't got an engine going, then once per shuffle the Hireling's extra card draw is exactly cancelled out by the junk card in your deck (and if you never play the Cursed Gold again, you technically have two junk cards in your deck, so you can raise that to twice per shuffle).

Let's assume there is trashing. 
Is the hireling still weak?  In the early phases of the game, the hireling will draw you ~2 cards per shuffle, and there is still only 1 curse per shuffle.  and hireling will increase the odds of a quick collision of your trasher with the junk cards, and not require an action to do so like terminal draw would.  Depending on the kingdom, seems like that could be a strong option.  What am I missing?

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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #29 on: March 13, 2018, 10:49:51 pm »
+1

Certainly if you have no method of trashing the curse I would say it's almost always not.

And if you do have a method of trashing the Curse, you want two of those methods in your deck before the second shuffle so you can get rid of your Estates.

What.

Drawing your action cards dead is, in fact, super bad. And the whole point of going through your deck fast is so that you can play your buys earlier... which you can't, because you're drawing them dead.

That's not how it works. This is just the same thing as Tribute — it isn't an attack because the odds and negative effects of skipping a good card are cancelled out by the odds and benefits of skipping bad cards and getting to the good cards faster. The fact that you're cycling your deck though does make you draw your good cards (most importantly the Pooka itself) more often and so does trashing Coppers.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

It would be if it was a good card at all in the first place, but it isn't.
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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #30 on: March 14, 2018, 01:37:58 am »
0

What.

Drawing your action cards dead is, in fact, super bad. And the whole point of going through your deck fast is so that you can play your buys earlier... which you can't, because you're drawing them dead.

That's not how it works. This is just the same thing as Tribute — it isn't an attack because the odds and negative effects of skipping a good card are cancelled out by the odds and benefits of skipping bad cards and getting to the good cards faster. The fact that you're cycling your deck though does make you draw your good cards (most importantly the Pooka itself) more often and so does trashing Coppers.

It only makes you draw your Pooka more often because you are guaranteed to not draw it dead (and still, you would have to consider the increased chance of it missing the shuffle). You won't be playing any other card more often, assuming you are using Pooka for dead draw. Well, technically cards you buy will be shuffled into your deck sooner, but the frequency with which you will see them won't increase past that.
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Awaclus

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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #31 on: March 14, 2018, 01:44:41 am »
0

Well, technically cards you buy will be shuffled into your deck sooner

Exactly.
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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #32 on: March 14, 2018, 01:57:18 am »
0

Ok. But then say you are seeing your good cards sooner, not more often.
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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #33 on: March 14, 2018, 02:48:06 am »
+2

7-cost cards are pretty rare, though. My main frustration with the 7-2 is that there's often a 5-cost card I'd love to open with, but then that means I'm playing the Cursed Gold as essentially Cursed Copper. That's totally the right move given the board, but it still means I'd prefer to have 6-3 or 5-4 and the chance to get a better card on my other initial turn.
Inheritance FTW  :)
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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #34 on: March 14, 2018, 06:09:18 pm »
0

The cursed gold is in your deck regardless.
That much is true, but that doesn't mean that buying the Hireling is going to be a great option. If you ignore the CG that turn and use your coins to buy Silver, you can use that towards buying the Hireling on the next shuffle, which will be of similar overall utility to doing it the other way around, but won't cost you a point. And that's assuming that Silver/Hireling is the best you can do on the board, in which case heaven help you.
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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #35 on: March 14, 2018, 06:28:02 pm »
+1

Hireling kind of sucks for all the reasons mentioned, but I do want to add that Hireling gets MUCH better the earlier you play it. Playing it by the second shuffle is a lot better than playing it before the 4th or 5th.
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weesh

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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #36 on: March 14, 2018, 07:19:27 pm »
0

The cursed gold is in your deck regardless.
That much is true, but that doesn't mean that buying the Hireling is going to be a great option. If you ignore the CG that turn and use your coins to buy Silver, you can use that towards buying the Hireling on the next shuffle, which will be of similar overall utility to doing it the other way around, but won't cost you a point. And that's assuming that Silver/Hireling is the best you can do on the board, in which case heaven help you.

Case 0: There's no decent trasher. Hireling/Silver/Curse seems good to me. Without trashing, it going to be a long time before you are reliably cycling through your whole deck, and hireling draws at least 2 cards per shuffle, giving value well in excess of the lost value due to the curse.  You want it ASAP, because silver/silver isn't going to get you to 6$ before you can get value out of the Hireling

Case 1: There's a reasonable trasher (sifter?) at 3$ or less.
Case 1a: the trasher is terminal. I can see being underwhelmed by hireling/trasher.
Case 1b: the trasher is non-terminal. hireling/trasher/curse seems way stronger than silver/trasher.  Because neither silver/silver, nor silver/trasher are going to get you to 6$ very fast if you are intent on treating cursed gold as dead.

Case 2: There's a trasher at 4-6$.
Case 2a: if the trasher is strong, trasher/silver/curse is probably better than hireling/silver/curse
Case 2b: if the trasher is slow but reasonable, trasher/silver/curse feels bad, but hireling/silver/curse will probably be worse.  Even silver/silver beats those.

So basically, hireling is going to be satisfying if there is no good trasher at all, or if there is a good cheap non-terminal trasher like forager.
There might be as many as 10 cards that make the hireling good, and maybe 16 good trashers that are better than hireling, and maybe a handful of other non-trashers that make up for adding a curse to your deck.

The default case 0 is that hireling is good and reasonable!
How many exceptions are there?
maybe there are 20 trashers that support the trasher/silver and trasher/silver/curse openings...
maybe there are 15 (spitball!) non-trashing 4+$ cards that are worth the curse MORE than hireling is. 
How often is one of those 35 cards, out of about 300, in a kingdom where only 8 kingdom cards are up for grabs after pooka/hireling?

odds of none of the 35: (265/300 * 264/299 * 263/298 .... ) = 36.6%
So more than a third of the time that hireling/pooka are together, hireling will be strongly viable on a 6/3 split.

Alright, what did I fuck up?
« Last Edit: March 14, 2018, 08:14:43 pm by weesh »
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Chase Adolphson

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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #37 on: March 14, 2018, 08:02:40 pm »
0

Certainly if you have no method of trashing the curse I would say it's almost always not.

And if you do have a method of trashing the Curse, you want two of those methods in your deck before the second shuffle so you can get rid of your Estates.

What.

Drawing your action cards dead is, in fact, super bad. And the whole point of going through your deck fast is so that you can play your buys earlier... which you can't, because you're drawing them dead.

That's not how it works. This is just the same thing as Tribute — it isn't an attack because the odds and negative effects of skipping a good card are cancelled out by the odds and benefits of skipping bad cards and getting to the good cards faster. The fact that you're cycling your deck though does make you draw your good cards (most importantly the Pooka itself) more often and so does trashing Coppers.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

It would be if it was a good card at all in the first place, but it isn't.


WHAT!!!!!!!! Hireling is awesome
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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #38 on: March 15, 2018, 12:28:13 am »
+1

Certainly if you have no method of trashing the curse I would say it's almost always not.

And if you do have a method of trashing the Curse, you want two of those methods in your deck before the second shuffle so you can get rid of your Estates.

What.

Drawing your action cards dead is, in fact, super bad. And the whole point of going through your deck fast is so that you can play your buys earlier... which you can't, because you're drawing them dead.

That's not how it works. This is just the same thing as Tribute — it isn't an attack because the odds and negative effects of skipping a good card are cancelled out by the odds and benefits of skipping bad cards and getting to the good cards faster. The fact that you're cycling your deck though does make you draw your good cards (most importantly the Pooka itself) more often and so does trashing Coppers.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

It would be if it was a good card at all in the first place, but it isn't.


WHAT!!!!!!!! Hireling is awesome

No it's not, it's a slow Lab that costs $6.
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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #39 on: March 15, 2018, 12:03:17 pm »
+1

7-cost cards are pretty rare, though. My main frustration with the 7-2 is that there's often a 5-cost card I'd love to open with, but then that means I'm playing the Cursed Gold as essentially Cursed Copper. That's totally the right move given the board, but it still means I'd prefer to have 6-3 or 5-4 and the chance to get a better card on my other initial turn.
Inheritance FTW  :)

Inheritance is terribly overpowered at the start. Take Trade as a baseline - killing two estates for $3s is costed at $5 + something for aligning your junk with $5.  A 7/2 here is trading netting three $4 and trashing 2 junk cards. Every time this has come up my opponent has gotten the $7 and this basically a gift of around three free turns - particularly as half the time they will also get killer T2s. For example Ironmonger lets you open $7/8, Caravan lets you open $7/5/9 (needs a useful terminal silver $5), and even Pawn lets you hit $7/6 and cycle through all but two cards. There are extremely few cases where $7/2 Inheritance opening is worth less than three free turns. I do not think there is a generally more powerful opening in the game (edge cases like Ball (Lurker x2) -> Donate -> Possession being stronger but being exceedingly rare).

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Re: Cursed gold opening. 7/2, 6/3, or 4/5?
« Reply #40 on: March 15, 2018, 12:12:29 pm »
0

No it's not, it's a slow Lab that costs $6.

It's still slow and expensive (which makes it slower), but it's a Lab that you're guaranteed to draw every turn.

It certainly doesn't compare very favorably to Den of Sin.
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