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Author Topic: Win with an all-blue deck  (Read 4191 times)

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jonaskoelker

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Win with an all-blue deck
« on: March 18, 2018, 05:21:42 pm »
+2

Challenge: win the game using only blue cards.

Rules:
  • The kingdom should be full-random-possible (0-2 events/landmarks, only Colony if 1+ Prosperity pile, etc.)
  • You may only play cards if they have type Reaction
  • You may only gain cards if they have type Reaction*
  • When the game ends, all cards in your deck must have type Reaction
  • The game must end in a victory for you

* To be exact: check the contents of your deck whenever the implicit stack is empty, i.e. whenever you can't do (or are done doing) reactions and there are no still-unresolved effects. If the cards have been added between the present and most recent such point in time don't currently have type Reaction, you lose the challenge.

For example, if you buy a Cache, you lose the challenge after having gained two Coppers, but no earlier, and then only if one or more of the three cards are in your deck.

Variant 2:
  • The kingdom should be full-random-possible (0-2 events/landmarks, only Colony if 1+ Prosperity pile, etc.)
  • Apart from one exception of your choice, you may only play cards if they have type Reaction
  • When the game ends, all cards in your deck proper (not including mats, etc.) must have type Reaction
  • Colony must be in the kingdom, and at the end of the game all colonies must count towards your score (i.e. either be in your deck or on a mat, or set aside, or some such shenanigans)
  • At the end of the game, there must be at least one Hovel in your deck

Games are played against one opponent who does nothing. Solutions should work even with worst-case shuffle luck.

As of the time of writing, the blue cards are the following:





Code: [Select]
Moat, Secret Chamber, Diplomat, Watchtower, Horse Traders, Fool's Gold, Tunnel, Trader, Beggar, Market Square, Hovel, Caravan Guard, Faithful Hound
Note: in the first variant you're not allowed to play copper. I think naming 'copper' as the exception in variant 2 makes it unsolvable, but I don't have a proof.

This challenge is due to Adam Horton. He never fully spelled out a set of rules. Variant 2 is my pedantification of what he said informally, and the first puzzle is inspired by variant 2. I posted one of my solutions close to where he posted the challenge, so to avoid spoilers I will defer posting a link for a little while.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2018, 04:26:42 pm by jonaskoelker »
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Ghacob

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2018, 07:22:59 pm »
+1

Variant 1:

Kingdom: Caravan Guard, Tunnel, another Reaction, 7 other cards, Alms, Donate
A slow Alms to the finish. Since we just need to break 3 points, the majority of our time will be slowly draining 3 piles, rather than worrying about score.
Alms for Caravan Guards, Donate everything but the Caravan Guards, use Caravan Guards to pay off the debt, Alms for the rest of the Caravan Guards, all of the Tunnels, and a third reaction pile (note that any of them will do as they all cost 4 or less!)

Fool's Gold would inarguably make this faster (immediately pay off debt and still buy a card with 4 of them, finishing a whole turn before the Caravan Guard train), but we're workin' with all the conceptual time in the world, why not sit down and relax an extra turn?
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jonaskoelker

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2018, 01:34:53 pm »
0

Variant 1: [ spoiler ] solution omitted [/ spoiler ]

Yep, that works. I think there's also a solution that doesn't use Tunnel.

Variant 3: Like variant 1, but Tunnel may not be in the game (neither in the kingdom, supply, black market deck, on a mat or up your sleeve).
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GendoIkari

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2018, 04:55:02 pm »
+1

Advanced mode:

You cannot play cards; you can only use their reactions.
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jonaskoelker

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2018, 05:59:57 pm »
0

Advanced mode: You cannot play cards; you can only use their reactions.

Given that your opponents never do anything, this might take an infinite arbitrary amount of time ;D
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GendoIkari

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2018, 08:05:08 pm »
0

Advanced mode: You cannot play cards; you can only use their reactions.

Given that your opponents never do anything, this might take an infinite arbitrary amount of time ;D

Probably not! You just have to rule out the “when attack” reactions. Several other things can still be activated through buying events and the things that those do.
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hypercube

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2018, 10:36:15 pm »
+1

Variant 3: Like variant 1, but Tunnel may not be in the game (neither in the kingdom, supply, black market deck, on a mat or up your sleeve).

As above but omit Donate and include Ritual. Use Trader/Watchtower to tediously clean your deck of the starting cards and to trash Curses from Ritual.
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Ghacob

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2018, 12:58:24 am »
+1

Variant 2:

Non-Reaction card: Island
Kingdom:
Shelters: Yes. Colonies: Yes. Events: Donate, Alms. Kingdom Cards: Secret Chamber, Watchtower, Caravan Guard, Market Square, Villa, Cultist, Island, Faithful Hound
The setup is nigh identical. Using Alms to gain these cards, Donate to trash the non-reactions, and the gained Guards to pay back Debt,we grow to a deck of 10xCaravan Guard, 9xMarket Square(we don't need 10 buys, but why not?), Watchtower, Secret Chamber, Hovel. Note that this means that after playing all of our cantrips, we will always have only Watchtower, Secret Chamber, and Hovel in our hand. (Now secretly we could have bought the first 7 Colony/(Alms for) Island pairs had we not gained Watchtower, but why not gain them all the fancy way?). Note too that we are specifically playing all of our Caravan Guards in one turn, leading to a current monetary total alternating between $0 and $10. We still don't have quite enough money for what we need yet (a way to gain and then set aside the final colony within a singular turn), as such, we turn to our favorite blue dog to walk, Faithful Hound, and boy is are they going to need some walking. For our next 9 gains (whether they be using our dollars or our ever present friend, Alms), we're going to buy a Faithful Hound in our buy phase, and then in our next action phase (post-cantrips, when we have a hand of Watchtower, Secret Chamber, Hovel, and Hounds) use Secret Chamber to discard all of our Faithful Hounds, slowly adding them to all successive starting hands. Now with a guaranteed $20 (every other turn) and as many buys as we could desire, we're ready to begin gaining colonies. The final turn cycle, which we repeat 8 times, is as follows:

Setup turn:
Hand Consisting of 9xFaithful Hound, and at least two cantrips, with no more than 3 non-cantrips in deck
Use Market Square and Caravan Guard until no more remain in hand, leaving a hand of:
9xFaithful Hound, Watchtower, Secret Chamber, Hovel
Secret Chamber the Hounds, setting all of them aside
Cleanup, Draw 5 cards, then put 9xFaithful Hound in your hand

Colony Turn:
All 10 Caravan Guard give you $1 ($10 so far)
Play Market Square until no more remain in hand, leaving a hand of:
9xFaithful Hand, Watchtower, Secret Chamber, Hovel
Secret Chamber the Hounds and the Hovel, setting aside the Hounds ($20 total)
Buy Colony, topdecking it ($9 remaining)
Alms Island, topdecking it ($9 remaining)
Buy Cultist, trashing it , drawing Colony and Island ($4 remaining)
Buy Villa, trashing it, giving us +1 Action and returning us to the Action phase ($0 remaining)
Island away the Colony
Cleanup, return 9xFaithful Hounds to hand


Fun notes about this solution:
We could optimize this heavily by not gaining the Watchtower as early as we did, as previously mentioned, allowing us to both Island away the first 7 Colonies faster as well as safely buy multiple Faithful Hounds per turn
Additionally, we can avoid a few Faithful Hound gains by using spare Market Squares instead of Cultist to draw Island + Colony on the Colony turn. Note that with a deck of 3 stop cards and Market Squares, we will always be able to have an empty deck with two cantrips in hand
« Last Edit: March 20, 2018, 01:01:42 am by Ghacob »
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jonaskoelker

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #8 on: March 22, 2018, 09:18:40 am »
0

GI>> Advanced mode: You cannot play cards; you can only use their reactions.
Me> Given that your opponents never do anything, this might take an infinite arbitrary amount of time ;D

Probably not! You just have to rule out the “when attack” reactions. Several other things can still be activated through buying events and the things that those do.

Did you mean your proposed restriction in addition to the others or instead of (some of) them? The events you can buy without playing any cards (including treasures) are Alms, Borrow, Quest, and with the help of Borrow you can Save.

With Quest, I think-but-I'm-not-sure that you can discard a 5-card hand, reveal Tunnel and gain Gold. Even if the prohibition on gaining non-reactions is lifted, you're not allowed to play the Gold under your rules, so it doesn't help much. You can also discard the hounds to get a 6-card hand and gain Gold that way.
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jonaskoelker

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2018, 08:35:31 am »
0

I promised to post my inspiration for this puzzle "in a while". Approximately 2.4 whiles have passed.



The blue card challenge is mentioned at 3:25 and 4:07 and 5:26 and 13:30, each time for ~10s.

My solution is posted in a comment on youtube.

This video is also where I got the idea for the Poor House challenge, which I went on to post. (It's mentioned before 3:23. I'm not sure whether I credited Adam or not in that thread.)
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Turtlegods

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #10 on: May 15, 2018, 05:13:02 pm »
0

Compared to Ghacob's solution, I feel like these are cheating--but they work!

Variant 1 & 3 can be solved in the same fashion:
Tower, Alms, Watchtower, Trader, the rest of the kingdom is arbitrary.
Use Watchtower/Trader to trash the entire deck and then empty any three reaction piles for 30 points.
I wanted to do something with Keep but I don't think I can with only two landmark/events and no ability to play coppers or have coppers in the deck at the end of the game...


Variant 2 (technically a solution to 1 & 3 as well):

Needed cards: Watchtower, Caravan Guard, Trader, Salt the Earth. 
Play coppers to gain 1 Watchtower, 4 Caravan Guards, and 1 Trader. Trash deck (except Hovel) and proceed to trash all Colonies through Salt the Earth. It's a 7 card golden deck and therefore immune to shuffle luck.
Variant: use alms instead of copper to gain necessary components.

« Last Edit: May 15, 2018, 05:16:24 pm by Turtlegods »
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jonaskoelker

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2018, 08:49:32 pm »
0

Compared to Ghacob's solution, I feel like these are cheating--but they work!
[...]
Variant 2 (technically a solution to 1 & 3 as well):
The Colonies don't count towards your score at the end of the game (they're not in your deck nor on your mats), hence it is not a solution to variant 2. Apologies if I have not been clear about the criteria.

I wanted to do something with Keep but I don't think I can with only two landmark/events and no ability to play coppers or have coppers in the deck at the end of the game...

Keep, Alms, Fool's Gold seems like it accomplishes something, though probably it just accomplishes a tie (your FGs vs. their Copper)
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majiponi

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Re: Win with an all-blue deck
« Reply #12 on: July 04, 2018, 11:28:28 am »
+1

Does this work?

Kingdom: Fool's Gold, Caravan Guard, Market Square, Tunnel, Watchtower, Cemetery, Mint
Events: Alms, Expedition

Alms for Watchtower
Alms for 3 Cemeteries, revealing Watchtower to trash
Alms for 10 Fool's Golds, 8 Market Squares
Expedition to earn $11
buy 7 Colonies
Expedition to draw everything
play 8 Market Squares, 10 Fool's Golds
buy Mint to gain it, revealing Watchtower to trash
buy Colony
buy 7 Expeditions

Everything is in hand proper (not in my deck). Hovel is in deck. Replace Colony to Tunnel for variant 1.
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