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[Dingan]

Simple question ^

I remember a discussion in one of these podcasts (can't remember which one, or when, but it was in there somewhere) where they talked about when Butcher is ignorable. Spoiler alert: Almost never. I'd even claim Butcher is less ignorable than, say, many other power cards such as Cultist, Rebuild, Masquerade, etc.

So then Page and Peasant. In the thousands of games I've played with these, I can probably count on one hand the times I've ignored Page and felt it was the right decision. Well actually, I can't count them at all, because I can't remember them. That's how rare they are. Maybe I'm still learning them, but that's my current understanding of them -- they're just that powerful and versatile.

So when are Page and Peasant ignorable? When there are already a lot of engine components? Fast big money games? Games with Cultist and no thinning? Any specific game reports of times it was good to ignore them? Just curious.

[Burning Skull]

I remember ignoring Peasant on a KC Bridge board with a way to get there fast.

and that's about it probably

[Awaclus]

Page is pretty ignorable a lot of the time. Peasant not so much, you can basically only ever ignore it in edge cases such as the one described by Burning Skull.

[cascadestyler]

Page is almost useless in a board with no decent terminals or attacks (though one must remember to check if Warrior fits this bill).

[tailred]

I think the most common scenario would be quick, strong combo decks like ch tf, lurker hg, or hermit ms.

[Awaclus]

Lurker/HG might not be the best example there, because you can actually beat Lurker/HG by gaining a couple of Lurkers and using them to gain a bunch of free Hunting Groundses that your opponent is leaving in the trash and building an engine out of them, and the Travellers can help you do that.

[aku_chi]

You should be very skeptical of the Peasant line's value on a board with zero non-terminal actions.  Even with terminal draw, you need to stock up on that card, then manage to get and call a Teacher for +action before your deck does anything decent.  And even then, it will be a very limited engine.  If the terminal draw is Torturer or Wild Hunt, it's probably still worth it, but not so much otherwise.  These games are rare, but I've encountered a couple of them and ignoring Peasant seemed like the right thing to do.

Page is less ignorable, but it's not uncommon for Champion to be a non-factor.  If the game is fast enough, there won't be time for Champion to pay off.  Also, if the key cards are non-terminal and not in the $3-$4 price range (take the opponent's action-phase cost reduction into account!), you might not need a Champion even if the game goes longer.  Governor satisfies all of these conditions, and Page is definitely optional most of the time it's in the kingdom with Governor.  But, sometimes the treasure from the Page line helps a Governor deck out, so you pick one up anyway.

Here's an example of a game that's too fast for Champion (thanks, Stonemason!).  I mistakenly played it like a longer game, but Rabid correctly identified the game's speed.  Skip to 38:10 for the game:

[DG]

Travellers can be slow to cycle and a game can be mostly won or lost before they make an impact.

[majiponi]

Market Square and Hermit. See Mr. Sangatsu's movie.
http://sp.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm21055970

Or, boards with Witch and no trasher. Or boards with Knights.

[jomini]

What do Page and Peasant give you? Both give you the +action to build engines, both contribute economy, and both provide mild attacks. What is different?

Peasant's attack is more reliable, albeit often weaker, and peasant's economy is much more action based (Disciple quickly ramps up even weak action-cash; soldier can reach crazy heights but needs a lot of draw/action to support it, Teacher needs a lot of duplicate cards).

Page's payload comes from treasures. This makes page a lot weaker for making engine - you only want so many silvers/gold. Page can give you Labs, but almost always you bag at least one silver and that takes two turns to get there.

This drastically changes when each is skippable.

Easily to stock up on action cards? That just makes Peasant stronger - you can pick better cards to Disciple more easily, you can afford to start chaining Soldiers ($2, $5, $9) with surplus draw & actions, and of course that makes you Teacher tokens multiplicatively more powerful (hey I now have 13 buys). In contrast, Champion is the only Page line that really synergizes heavily with actions. And that is worthless if you can easily manage +action (e.g. CotR, Scheme, Lost Arts) this makes Page much more skippable.

No trashing/sifting? Page is much more skippable. Teacher can turn even lousy draw into good draw (e.g. Moat & Pawn can become Lab in the same game; which makes it easy to draw deck); Champion really needs terminal draw to matter and has trouble with adding more stop cards to the deck. Worse, when you do have expensive terminal draw you run into trouble massing it and not flipping the Page line. Getting a bunch of half-curses really slows down the Champion burn.

No +gains? Page is much more skippable. Peasant always can score bulk points if the game lasts long enough. Page needs something in the kingdom to fill out its potential (Remodel, +buy, Harem).

Killer attacks? Neither are really skippable.

Viable rush? Both may be skippable. Beggar/Gardens, Iw/Silk road, Rebuild, Hermit/Msqr, Donate fun (e.g. Fortress/Develop), and the like can win out before the the long term payout happens.

Lurker/HG might not be the best example there, because you can actually beat Lurker/HG by gaining a couple of Lurkers and using them to gain a bunch of free Hunting Groundses that your opponent is leaving in the trash and building an engine out of them, and the Travellers can help you do that.

Trashing 10 Hgs is game ending with 2 Estate buys. I have not done all the math but do you really have that many turns before the game ends?  End game state is 11 green, 7 coppers and some number of Lurkers when you start triggering estates. Assuming I have just 6 Lurkers, I have > 1.25 lurker plays per turn. This empties Hg on T14 and you can certainly nab two estates in this time frame. Worse, if you buy Lurkers you remove the option of preventing end game by buy two Hgs to prevent on-trashing to estates as you can pile Lurkers quicker.

Champion is not going to make Hg safe to play until around T8 - T12. Even with village support, you have to play the shuffle triggering game wisely.

End point states for a Lurker rush are 35 vs 3 (0). So we are talking at scoring at least 26 points quickly. This puts you up to $21 payout. Certainly doable, but not on all boards. For a lot of boards you can expect one traveller to miss a shuffle ... this all seems to be very high variance.

Aku:
Pure terminal boards are not a death knell for Peasant, even without killer cards. Peasant itself is a non-terminal pile. Disciple on a new non-terminal makes for the ability to stack in new terminals; Teacher can then add other tokens to give you even more yields. Generally these are boards where you want something like every 3rd gain to be a Peasant so you can stack disciples. This works particularly well with good trashing like Steward (which also makes a nice Lab). Sure these boards are less Peasant friendly, but Peasant is just so flexible - he attacks, he sifts, he villages, he gains, and he increases payload.

[teamlyle]

Once I skipped Page on a board where the only terminal was Butcher and there were 3 different villages. I still regretted it... my opponent used Heroes to gain Gold and Butchered it into Province 

[Awaclus]

Once I skipped Page on a board where the only terminal was Butcher and there were 3 different villages. I still regretted it... my opponent used Heroes to gain Gold and Butchered it into Province 

Well, the biggest drawback of Page is that whereas the Peasant line cards give you benefits for the current turn that range from acceptable to great, the Page line forcibly gains you a bunch of stuff of questionable utility instead. Butcher turns the stuff into something more useful so it makes Treasure Hunter and Hero a lot less bad.

[aku_chi]

Pure terminal boards are not a death knell for Peasant, even without killer cards. Peasant itself is a non-terminal pile. Disciple on a new non-terminal makes for the ability to stack in new terminals; Teacher can then add other tokens to give you even more yields. Generally these are boards where you want something like every 3rd gain to be a Peasant so you can stack disciples. This works particularly well with good trashing like Steward (which also makes a nice Lab). Sure these boards are less Peasant friendly, but Peasant is just so flexible - he attacks, he sifts, he villages, he gains, and he increases payload.

I'm aware that in the long run, you can make an engine out of a Peasant + terminal actions board.  But, in the long run, the Provinces are gone.  So, it's only worth pursuing Peasant if there is sufficient alternative VP and/or a brutal attack waiting at the end of the tunnel.  I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.  Show me such a board, and I'll let you know how fast I can get half the VP!

Well, the biggest drawback of Page is that whereas the Peasant line cards give you benefits for the current turn that range from acceptable to great, the Page line forcibly gains you a bunch of stuff of questionable utility instead. Butcher turns the stuff into something more useful so it makes Treasure Hunter and Hero a lot less bad.

Hero is a good card.

[weesh]

has anyone tried travelers with bans on turning in for champion/teacher?

I don't use travelers very often, because they are game warping on so many boards, but I love the mechanic. 
I think I'd veto them less often if you were going for things easier to get and less powerful.  Every time I turn in a disciple, I feel a bit sad. 

If the travelers are brought back, I'd like to see fewer steps, and thus, less power on the final cards. 

Also, TIL: there are two acceptable spellings for traveller/traveler. 

[Awaclus]

Hero is a good card.

I wouldn't buy it for $5 very often.

[markusin]

Hero is a good card.

I wouldn't buy it for $5 very often.

I think I would. It's not that much worse than Courtier with a dual-type around, unless you really need Courtier's +buy.

[jomini]

Aku:

Sure, but the number of all-terminal boards with no high point Alt-VP, no high chip count cards, and no "killer attacks" is a pretty small set of boards unless you are playing very non-random kingdoms. Something like 1/4 - 1/3rd of cards are non-terminal, this drastically increases the percentage of cards which are alt-VP, chips, or killer attacks. Say that your additionally excluded cards make up 15% of the remaining cards; then only about 20% of such boards will lack an enabler (~1 - .85^9).

And it is not just strong attacks that work. Mass gaining (e.g. Stonemason, Develop, Duplicate), strong trashing (for rapid mass Disciple), and turn increases (Possession, Outpost, Mission) can all make the engine pay out quickly.

[Awaclus]

Hero is a good card.

I wouldn't buy it for $5 very often.

I think I would. It's not that much worse than Courtier with a dual-type around, unless you really need Courtier's +buy.

It's that much worse than Haggler.

[markusin]

Hero is a good card.

I wouldn't buy it for $5 very often.

I think I would. It's not that much worse than Courtier with a dual-type around, unless you really need Courtier's +buy.

It's that much worse than Haggler.

I typically use Hero (as in deliberately not exchange one) to gain a Gold mid turn that I later draw in the same turn while giving +$2. Haggler doesn't do that, but Courtier does while giving +$3, hence why I went for the Courtier comparison.

Edit: but yeah Haggler can do the same thing with a one turn delay, and Courtier can stop giving Gold if you want to. Hero can gain Platinum though.

[Gazbag]

To be fair, I rarely buy Merchant Guild because it's that much worse than Bridge.

Being serious though, Hero is good because of Champion, it's super easy to massively overdraw your deck once you have Champ set up and Hero is a very efficient way to jam a bunch of money your deck at that point.

[AJD]

When they were accidentally shipped in the Intrigue box and so you don't have any copies of the cards to exchange them for.

[Awaclus]

Being serious though, Hero is good because of Champion, it's super easy to massively overdraw your deck once you have Champ set up and Hero is a very efficient way to jam a bunch of money your deck at that point.

That's not true. Just because you get Champion set up doesn't mean you're suddenly going to get a bunch of terminal draw out of nowhere. While it is "easy" to massively overdraw your deck with a Champion in play, you can usually get there at least as fast by deckbuilding intentionally and taking advantage of the positive feedback loop nature of Dominion instead of getting yourself stuck with the very disappointing Page line cards while your opponent has cards that actually do something.

[markusin]

Being serious though, Hero is good because of Champion, it's super easy to massively overdraw your deck once you have Champ set up and Hero is a very efficient way to jam a bunch of money your deck at that point.

That's not true. Just because you get Champion set up doesn't mean you're suddenly going to get a bunch of terminal draw out of nowhere. While it is "easy" to massively overdraw your deck with a Champion in play, you can usually get there at least as fast by deckbuilding intentionally and taking advantage of the positive feedback loop nature of Dominion instead of getting yourself stuck with the very disappointing Page line cards while your opponent has cards that actually do something.

Typical deckbuilding often includes getting Villages, which take up your buys. Going for Page means you might need to buy fewer Villages. It's not a given that deckbuilding is easier without Page.

With very fast trashing, Page line gets replacement treasures more conveniently (that is, with fewer buys). In such cases, multiple Pages (each costing $2) can work out to become Warriors/Heroes.

In other cases though, there are engines enabled by Peasant that fall apart with Page because of the extra treasure gains and inflexibility with a line that provides weak virtual money and no +buy.

[Gazbag]

Being serious though, Hero is good because of Champion, it's super easy to massively overdraw your deck once you have Champ set up and Hero is a very efficient way to jam a bunch of money your deck at that point.

That's not true. Just because you get Champion set up doesn't mean you're suddenly going to get a bunch of terminal draw out of nowhere. While it is "easy" to massively overdraw your deck with a Champion in play, you can usually get there at least as fast by deckbuilding intentionally and taking advantage of the positive feedback loop nature of Dominion instead of getting yourself stuck with the very disappointing Page line cards while your opponent has cards that actually do something.

This a foolish way to approach the game, you should evaluate these things on a kingdom by kingdom basis. Sometimes Hero is going to be the most efficient way to add payload to your deck, sometimes there will be something better. Calling cards "disappointing" and insinuating that they don't do anything is just going to make you lose games as you miss the interactions that make them strong. Even cards as weak as Mandarin and Counting House shine in certain kingdoms.

[Awaclus]

Typical deckbuilding often includes getting Villages, which take up your buys. Going for Page means you might need to buy fewer Villages. It's not a given that deckbuilding is easier without Page.

You have to buy Villages anyway, otherwise your deck will suck until you get to Champion. The main reason to go for Page is that there isn't anything at $3 that would significantly boost your early game tempo (or there is but you're already getting it and you don't want another one), in which case getting a Champion delayed by four shuffles might be the best value you can get at that price point.

This a foolish way to approach the game, you should evaluate these things on a kingdom by kingdom basis. Sometimes Hero is going to be the most efficient way to add payload to your deck, sometimes there will be something better. Calling cards "disappointing" and insinuating that they don't do anything is just going to make you lose games as you miss the interactions that make them strong. Even cards as weak as Mandarin and Counting House shine in certain kingdoms.

Oh no, I got edge cased!

[crj]

You have to buy Villages anyway, otherwise your deck will suck until you get to Champion.

If the trashing and/or cycling is strong enough, you can get to Champion pretty quickly. I've opened Page/Guide before now, and only worked on buying payload when it didn't interfere with upgrading. That went fine.

Another indicator in favour of the Page line is a board with strong attacks and weak defences. Getting that Champion down absolutely as quickly as possible can be better than either retaliating or fixing the damage - especially in a multiplayer game where the other players will continue to hit one another.

[ThetaSigma12]

I find Teacher most ignorable when Peasant isn't in the kingdom.

[Awaclus]

You have to buy Villages anyway, otherwise your deck will suck until you get to Champion.

If the trashing and/or cycling is strong enough, you can get to Champion pretty quickly. I've opened Page/Guide before now, and only worked on buying payload when it didn't interfere with upgrading. That went fine.

In terms of turns, yes, but in terms of shuffles it still takes just as many shuffles and your opponent is also shuffling faster in those games. Also, if you spend the early game buying cards like Guide, you'll end up with a deck that just has cantrips and Treasures by the time you get Champion, which is super inefficient because then the Champion doesn't really do anything.

[DG]

Another indicator in favour of the Page line is a board with strong attacks and weak defences. Getting that Champion down absolutely as quickly as possible can be better than either retaliating or fixing the damage - especially in a multiplayer game where the other players will continue to hit one another.

Not necessarily. Junkers can do all their damage before a champion gets into play. Some attacks can trash the travellers.

Has anyone mentioned events like lost arts yet? These can be a more efficient way of getting things done than champion and teacher.

[Holunder9]

Just because you get Champion set up doesn't mean you're suddenly going to get a bunch of terminal draw out of nowhere.

True. You also have to buy some extra Pages and make them into Warriors.

The Page line might be overall a bit weaker (anything else is pointless hyperbole) than the Peasant line but it helps tremendously that the first two steps of the line are non-terminal whereas in the Peasant line they are terminal. So the path to that direly needed terminal draw is relatively easy.

[Robz888]

I never ignore Peasant.

I rarely ignore Page.

[Cave-o-sapien]

Has anyone mentioned events like lost arts yet? These can be a more efficient way of getting things done than champion and teacher.

Right or wrong, I think i'd be too tempted by DOUBLE TOKENS with Lost Arts to ignore Peasant.

[markusin]

Typical deckbuilding often includes getting Villages, which take up your buys. Going for Page means you might need to buy fewer Villages. It's not a given that deckbuilding is easier without Page.

You have to buy Villages anyway, otherwise your deck will suck until you get to Champion. The main reason to go for Page is that there isn't anything at $3 that would significantly boost your early game tempo (or there is but you're already getting it and you don't want another one), in which case getting a Champion delayed by four shuffles might be the best value you can get at that price point.

I didn't mean to imply you skip villages entirely on Page boards, but as you approach Champion you can lean harder towards the non-village engine components because you know that soon Actions will be a non-issue.

[DG]

Right or wrong, I think i'd be too tempted by DOUBLE TOKENS with Lost Arts to ignore Peasant.

The problem is that you have to apply lost arts after the teacher token so it can lose a lot of tempo compared to just buying lost arts.

[Cave-o-sapien]

Right or wrong, I think i'd be too tempted by DOUBLE TOKENS with Lost Arts to ignore Peasant.

The problem is that you have to apply lost arts after the teacher token so it can lose a lot of tempo compared to just buying lost arts.

True, true. It would be a lot more feasible if it worked in reverse.

[Kirian]

Obvious silly case: They're in the Black Market.

[theblankman]

Obvious silly case: They're in the Black Market.

Edge case to the edge case: Peasant in the Black Market, no +Buy on the board.

[ThetaSigma12]

Obvious silly case: They're in the Black Market.

Edge case to the edge case: Peasant in the Black Market, no +Buy on the board.

Add Museum to boot.

[cascadestyler]

The Page line has to be a great example of why cards are sometimes really hard to evaluate. People tend to go for it when it's there, and then build decks that will be amazing once Champion is out. Problem is, these decks are actually pretty terrible until the Champion fires. When I play a Page game, I tend to find myself feeling particularly at the mercy of RNG, as a traveller skipping the shuffle, or a Warrior hitting your own traveller (nothing more angering than paying more attention to cycling/sifting than your opponent in order to promote your line faster then having your Hero hit by his Warrior) is pretty destructive and mostly out of your control. Games with good sifting/cycling make it more interesting because then you're at least more in control of your own destiny. Either way, your deck is pretty sucky until that moment when Champion fires, when it becomes incredible. That makes the Champion look uber-powerful, but actually it's not remotely valid as an argument to that end, because there's no comparison with what you might have been able to do had you just built a normal deck. As a result, it's just really hard to evaluate the actual strength of the Page line, and Champion in particular. I have a feeling that it's a lot weaker than everyone thinks, but we're just so grateful when our Champions finally get out that we forget all the sacrifices we made to get there.

[crj]

What about the option of buying multiple Pages and leaving all but one at Warrior? That both gives you some insurance against losing a Traveller to opponent's Warrior, and increases the chance you'll stymie opponent's path to getting their Champion.

Especially with multi-player games, the availability of those intermediate travellers can get pretty congested!

[DG]

Nobody has mentioned the other big problem in playing for a champion: lack of payload when you get there. It doesn't really matter how many cards you can play if you are just scoring one province each turn and your opponent starts with a good lead.

[msw188]

I'm pretty interested in this question.  I remember first seeing Champion and thinking "Wow!", then after playing a couple times wondering how helpful it really was given how late you tend to get it.  Then I read about going for the 'multiple Warriors' route and it sounded powerful again.

It seems like a very difficult question.  I'm particularly intrigued by this line of reasoning:

You have to buy Villages anyway, otherwise your deck will suck until you get to Champion.

If the trashing and/or cycling is strong enough, you can get to Champion pretty quickly. I've opened Page/Guide before now, and only worked on buying payload when it didn't interfere with upgrading. That went fine.

In terms of turns, yes, but in terms of shuffles it still takes just as many shuffles and your opponent is also shuffling faster in those games. Also, if you spend the early game buying cards like Guide, you'll end up with a deck that just has cantrips and Treasures by the time you get Champion, which is super inefficient because then the Champion doesn't really do anything.

As a novice, I don't think the outcome is very clear from the outset.  I mean, imagine a scenario where P1 loads up on Pages and Guides / other sifters.  Meanwhile P2 ignores Page and builds an engine a bit more conventionally, sprinkling in Villages and payload as he goes.  Are the extra buys spent on Villages really that much more efficient than the extra buys spent on the Guides, given that at the end P1 can just leave the useless Guides on the tavern mat out of the way, while P2 requires his (vulnerable to Warrior) Villages for his engine to work?  There will probably be a couple turns when P1 has to add some worthwhile economy/payload while P2 already has his payload firing, but during those turns P1 is playing multiple Warriors and maybe ruining P2's deck.  Is the early advantage of P2 enough?  P1 is now immune to attacks and can't be 'slowed down'; his engine sputters only when he chooses to add green.  P2 runs the risk of his engine sputtering due to the attacks of P1, and may lose control.  Can P2 afford redundant buys due to the losses from P1's attacks?  It doesn't sound that much different to me than the clear early economy advantage of Big Money being nullified by the eventual control of a mid-to-late game Engine.  P2's quicker path to deck-control may be nullified by P1's eventual destruction of P2's deck control, leaving P1 with the true control of the late-game.

[brokoli]

I recently lost a game when I did my best to get champion asap, using Changeling to get pages that turns into warior (side note : treasure hunter + changeling is really good). Warrior was the only draw, so it was pretty important.
Thing is, my opponent (lower level than me) played a more conventional Big Money thing, buying provinces early, one province per turn, and getting several heroes.
At the last 3 turns of the game, I had a very good deck that played a bunch of warriors, trashing his remaining silvers. The problem is that my opponent was flooding his deck with gold from his heroes, so trashing silvers eventually helped him. Even when attacking him with legionnary, he kept having 3 gold hand, and bought provinces while I was desesperately buying duchies… yes, because I forgot to say the major thing here : there were no +buy, so having hand that produce $16+ didn't help.

After the game I realized I could have Stonemason Gold into double duchies, but didn't think about that during the game.

So, in this particular case, Champion was not so great, though if I played more carefully and thought about the stonemason thing, I could have won rather easily.

[Awaclus]

As a novice, I don't think the outcome is very clear from the outset.  I mean, imagine a scenario where P1 loads up on Pages and Guides / other sifters.  Meanwhile P2 ignores Page and builds an engine a bit more conventionally, sprinkling in Villages and payload as he goes.  Are the extra buys spent on Villages really that much more efficient than the extra buys spent on the Guides, given that at the end P1 can just leave the useless Guides on the tavern mat out of the way, while P2 requires his (vulnerable to Warrior) Villages for his engine to work?  There will probably be a couple turns when P1 has to add some worthwhile economy/payload while P2 already has his payload firing, but during those turns P1 is playing multiple Warriors and maybe ruining P2's deck.  Is the early advantage of P2 enough?  P1 is now immune to attacks and can't be 'slowed down'; his engine sputters only when he chooses to add green.  P2 runs the risk of his engine sputtering due to the attacks of P1, and may lose control.  Can P2 afford redundant buys due to the losses from P1's attacks?  It doesn't sound that much different to me than the clear early economy advantage of Big Money being nullified by the eventual control of a mid-to-late game Engine.  P2's quicker path to deck-control may be nullified by P1's eventual destruction of P2's deck control, leaving P1 with the true control of the late-game.

Well, you absolutely shouldn't get the idea that Page is bad. It's a good card, and if I'm unsure, I personally find it safer to buy it than to ignore it.

It's just that many cards, such as Masquerade, are really explosive in how much they accelerate your deck. Drawing two cards and trashing a card means that your deck is going to be very significantly better next shuffle, which then allows Masquerade to draw even better cards, perhaps even allows you to play that Masquerade more often, and then the shuffle after that will be even better, etc. In the meantime, a lot of the Page line cards do little to nothing for your current turn and only improve your deck by a little bit. When you finally get to the Champion, the Champion has a very strong effect, but the cumulative effect of your opponent's Masquerade might have already been stronger at that point.

Obviously you can also buy both Masquerade and Page, which is probably a good move a lot of the time, I just chose Masq as an example to demonstrate the point because it's one of the most explosive cards.

If you want, you can try my Tempo Challenge to hopefully get a better understanding of this concept.

[msw188]

I did see the Tempo Challenge, and I think those kinds of challenges are a great idea!  I guess I'm just saying that I don't think tempo applies very well here.  The problem is the attack.  It feels reasonable that on a lot of boards, ignoring Page leads to more efficient deck-building and getting a good deck up-and-running faster.  So yeah, better tempo.  But the Champion - multiWarrior combo seems as though it would ruin this.  Is building a better deck quickly really better if it gets dismantled after only a handful of turns?

All of this leads me to a probably too-broad hypothesis: Page is only ignorable when the Warrior-attack is ignorable.  So maybe something like Lighthouse every turn, or decks with no necessary 3-4-cost cards (excluding cost reducing, etc).  I think someone earlier said something like this already, so I guess I'm just agreeing with an earlier post.

EDIT: It was aku_chi's post with the video that already said a lot of this that I think I agree with.

[crj]

I've opened Page/Guide before now[...]

in terms of shuffles it still takes just as many shuffles and your opponent is also shuffling faster in those games

I've just put my finger on what bugged me about this response: apart from circumstances such as helping you recover from discard attacks, in general Guide is more useful the less uniform your deck is. Having a Traveller you want to advance at all costs is about as non-uniform as a deck can be.

[Awaclus]

I've opened Page/Guide before now[...]

in terms of shuffles it still takes just as many shuffles and your opponent is also shuffling faster in those games

I've just put my finger on what bugged me about this response: apart from circumstances such as helping you recover from discard attacks, in general Guide is more useful the less uniform your deck is. Having a Traveller you want to advance at all costs is about as non-uniform as a deck can be.

Not really. Having a Masquerade that you want to play at all costs is just as non-uniform.

I did see the Tempo Challenge, and I think those kinds of challenges are a great idea!  I guess I'm just saying that I don't think tempo applies very well here.  The problem is the attack.  It feels reasonable that on a lot of boards, ignoring Page leads to more efficient deck-building and getting a good deck up-and-running faster.  So yeah, better tempo.  But the Champion - multiWarrior combo seems as though it would ruin this.  Is building a better deck quickly really better if it gets dismantled after only a handful of turns?

All of this leads me to a probably too-broad hypothesis: Page is only ignorable when the Warrior-attack is ignorable.  So maybe something like Lighthouse every turn, or decks with no necessary 3-4-cost cards (excluding cost reducing, etc).  I think someone earlier said something like this already, so I guess I'm just agreeing with an earlier post.

EDIT: It was aku_chi's post with the video that already said a lot of this that I think I agree with.

In practice, it's very rare for the Warrior attack to be a significant factor. In order to get Warriors, you need to play Treasure Hunters, and that makes it more difficult to play multiple Warriors on the same turn. If your opponent does go for an early Champion to build the Warrior type of deck and you need to answer it somehow, you can even buy a Page later on to upgrade into a Champion, that way you don't lose as much tempo as your opponent does but you still get the immunity against the attack almost in time (which makes it a bad idea for your opponent to attempt the Warrior thing in the first place).

[aku_chi]

In practice, it's very rare for the Warrior attack to be a significant factor. In order to get Warriors, you need to play Treasure Hunters, and that makes it more difficult to play multiple Warriors on the same turn. If your opponent does go for an early Champion to build the Warrior type of deck and you need to answer it somehow, you can even buy a Page later on to upgrade into a Champion, that way you don't lose as much tempo as your opponent does but you still get the immunity against the attack almost in time (which makes it a bad idea for your opponent to attempt the Warrior thing in the first place).

If I saw my opponent ignoring Page and it was a board where the Warrior attack would hurt a lot, I'd look to advance three Pages up the chain: one to Champion and two to Warrior.  If extra Silvers were really debilitating, I'd settle for one Warrior.  Then I'd grab extra Pages whenever the opportunity cost was low.  With 3 Pages and 2 Warriors, Warrior can trash up to 9 cards per turn.  It only takes a couple turns for that to be crippling if the opponent is relying on a $3 or $4 card.  The Warrior attack can be even more brutal with cost reduction, of course.  This usually doesn't happen, because the opportunity cost of advancing one Page up the line to Champion is so low.

I also want to point out that even in games when Champion is ignorable (which are pretty rare), it still might be worthwhile to get Page.  Sometimes, you want the treasures from Treasure Hunter and (especially) Hero - like with Governor.  Sometimes you just want a bunch of cantrips (like in the Scrying Pool game I posted).  So, the cases where you should never gain a single Page are exceptionally rare.

[Awaclus]

In practice, it's very rare for the Warrior attack to be a significant factor. In order to get Warriors, you need to play Treasure Hunters, and that makes it more difficult to play multiple Warriors on the same turn. If your opponent does go for an early Champion to build the Warrior type of deck and you need to answer it somehow, you can even buy a Page later on to upgrade into a Champion, that way you don't lose as much tempo as your opponent does but you still get the immunity against the attack almost in time (which makes it a bad idea for your opponent to attempt the Warrior thing in the first place).

If I saw my opponent ignoring Page and it was a board where the Warrior attack would hurt a lot, I'd look to advance three Pages up the chain: one to Champion and two to Warrior.  If extra Silvers were really debilitating, I'd settle for one Warrior.  Then I'd grab extra Pages whenever the opportunity cost was low.  With 3 Pages and 2 Warriors, Warrior can trash up to 9 cards per turn.  It only takes a couple turns for that to be crippling if the opponent is relying on a $3 or $4 card.  The Warrior attack can be even more brutal with cost reduction, of course.  This usually doesn't happen, because the opportunity cost of advancing one Page up the line to Champion is so low.

Yeah, exactly. When you threaten to do serious damage with your Warriors, your opponent can counter you by buying Page at that point, which doesn't cause them to lose as much tempo as your earlier Page did by virtue of happening later in the game.

I also want to point out that even in games when Champion is ignorable (which are pretty rare), it still might be worthwhile to get Page.  Sometimes, you want the treasures from Treasure Hunter and (especially) Hero - like with Governor.  Sometimes you just want a bunch of cantrips (like in the Scrying Pool game I posted).  So, the cases where you should never gain a single Page are exceptionally rare.

I'd rather say that the cases where you want the mid level Page line cards are the exceptionally rare thing. They're just not very good cards outside of special scenarios and they're especially inconvenient because of how slow it is to acquire them. I actually think Treasure Hunter is more often than Hero the highest level card you want from the Page line for that reason.

It's a good point that Page is a cantrip though. Actually I think that's a lot more relevant than the Treasure gainers. Just having the choice to turn the Page into something else is good enough to make it better than nothing in the usual cases where buying nothing is the second best option.

For Peasant though, the mid level cards are a lot more useful. Disciple is pretty often the main reason to go for Peasant, and Soldier (the Soldier split, even) is also somewhat often important.

[crj]

in general Guide is more useful the less uniform your deck is. Having a Traveller you want to advance at all costs is about as non-uniform as a deck can be.

Not really. Having a Masquerade that you want to play at all costs is just as non-uniform.

OK. Maybe: ...as non-uniform as a deck should be.

If you want to play Masquerade at all costs, you can buy a second Masquerade instead of a Guide. Ditto a second Ambassador. If you want to play Hero at all costs, well, that's a little trickier.

[Awaclus]

in general Guide is more useful the less uniform your deck is. Having a Traveller you want to advance at all costs is about as non-uniform as a deck can be.

Not really. Having a Masquerade that you want to play at all costs is just as non-uniform.

OK. Maybe: ...as non-uniform as a deck should be.

If you want to play Masquerade at all costs, you can buy a second Masquerade instead of a Guide. Ditto a second Ambassador. If you want to play Hero at all costs, well, that's a little trickier.

Why would you want to play Hero at all costs if your entire deck consists of Guides and Treasures?

[crj]

You wouldn't want to. But equally, it's not realistic to suppose that's all your deck would contain. While you're buffing your Traveller, life goes on.

[Awaclus]

You wouldn't want to. But equally, it's not realistic to suppose that's all your deck would contain. While you're buffing your Traveller, life goes on.

It's not all that your deck would contain, but it's probably a better idea to buy a Masquerade or an Ambassador than a Guide anyway.

[crj]

Hmm. It's a pity that it would be so hard to provide a neutral and sensible model for the rest of the kingdom and the rest of the gameplay, but it would be fascinating to see a simulation of how opening Page+Guide and picking up Masquerade/Ambassador after first shuffle compared with opening Page+Masq/Amb and picking up Guide after the first shuffle.

The back of my envelope suggests that Guide saves you about 0.75 turns per shuffle, so buying it before the first shuffle gets you Champion 0.75 turns sooner. And having Champion in play can give you an extra play of Masq/Amb each turn so in the long run you're only costing yourself 0.25 of a play of Masq/Amb by buying Guide on T1/T2.

I'm pretty sure that holds for Masquerade, anyway. Ambassador is more complicated, because:

• Thinning by two cards per play is a bigger deal than Masquerade's one.
• Getting a card via another player's Ambassador will hurt your advancement towards Champion; exchanging a card via another player's Masquerade doesn't.
• But conversely, with Ambassador out and about, getting to Champion ASAP is all the more important

[luser]

Wow, the page is so overrated here. Looks like when its bad both players make the same mistake of going for page and don't realize the mistake.

Board with a junker and no trashing and you will lose before you could play champion. More often than not I wouldn't open a page on such board 3/4 opening. It doesn't protect you vs junking as before you could play champion curses are out. If money is the correct call silver gives better tempo than a meaningless champion. Trying to buy terminals to build champion deck usually doesn't work, with long shuffles you will have a lot of turns with terminal collision and opponent will get decisive VP lead. For engine you really something like cotr/fishing village to get going and then you don't need champion later.