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[pauley_walnuts]

Hey all, I’ve been lurking for a while, but I wanted to contribute this combo that I just discovered today. I searched the forum and blog, and couldn’t find it.

The combo is somewhat similar to the Bishop/Chapel golden deck, but involves using the Apothecary to get your buying power and Scheme to top-deck the Apothecaries. Once the deck has been set up, usually after turn 8 or 9, you can draw your whole deck, trash the Province for VP tokens, and buy a replacement Province.

Here’s a sample game: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/29/game-20120229-092520-07d9ba4b.html

I didn’t see the combo on this particular kingdom immediately, but after refining it, I found that it can be as fast as Bishop/Chapel. Three Apothecaries, three Schemes, and a Bishop are enough. You can even trash your potion and still draw your whole deck with two Provinces.

Here’s a solitaire game: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/29/game-20120229-133555-430b6e85.html

While this combo is not immune to all attacks, it does protect you from hand-size reductions as long as you can keep the three Apothecaries in your hand.

[ecq]

I like it.  The Copper Deck.  How well does it do without Scheme?  I know that's not perfectly reliable, but is it good enough?

Also, the turn that gains the final Province should trash the most expensive card you can spare that's not a Province.  If your Potion is still hanging around, it's the obvious choice.  The final turn nets 9 VP if you trash the Potion vs 5 VP if you trash the Province.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

I suppose the combo of Apothecary and Bishop could behave similarly to Apothecary/Native Village and Bishop/Chapel.  Instead of cycling through tucking away VPs under the NV you would instead eat them with the Bishop.  Like the golden deck, this would allow you to maintain tempo at a slight loss of VP.

Now, I can see that this combo is functionally sound, but whether it is fast enough is another question that I can not answer without further study.  My gut tells me the Bishop would accelerate the opponents ramp-up in enough cases for this combo to be too slow to compete against a competent plan on many boards.

I'll look into it.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

Okay, fooling around in solitaire, I played four games with Apothecary/Bishop.  It behaves better than I had thought, gaining four Provinces by 12-13 and eight by 17-18.  Not too shabby.  It also seems remarkably consistent as long as you can gain about four Apothecaries while trashing the three starting Estates by about turn 8-9.  Indeed, it seems to be the best of both worlds when compared to Golden deck and Apo/NV.

This combo isn't going to be beating the fastest decks but it is consistent and never gets clogged up by Provinces; it can power through the last half of the Province stack just as fast as it did the first half.

Bravo.

[WanderingWinder]

Schemes obviously help, but how necessary are they really?

[RisingJaguar]

Schemes obviously help, but how necessary are they really?

I would think its very important.  With a deck of 8 (or 7 coppers), a province, a bishop and 3 apothecary.  I would think it would be difficult to draw all cards out with just 3 apothecaries consistently (and be a little easier on grabbing the final card on top?).  EDIT: I mean get them in a position to draw on your deck.

It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it definitely loses golden deck-esque status.  Maaaaaaybe you can get away with 2 schemes but I haven't tried to really know. 

Sounds like workshop/trade route would be a nice pairing to start with potion. 

[greatexpectations]

man, i totally underrate apothecary.

wishing well might be a good replacement for scheme.  bishop might not benefit the other player as much because you presumably won't open with it.  not trashing until turn 5/6 means the opponent likely won't see a benefit in their deck until turn 7/8.

anyone have any bots on this? 

[pauley_walnuts]

Yes, I don't think the Bishop would provide that much of a benefit to the other player since I wouldn't buy it until at least turn 5. Also, if your opponent opens with Bishop, it will definitely speed up the Apo/Bishop/Scheme engine.

I too am curious to see if the engine can work without Scheme. I found that it is harder to set up, and I feel that it has the risk of not drawing the whole deck.

[ecq]

2-card combos are much nicer than 3-card combos, though.  They just come up more.  It seems like you'd need more Apothecaries without Scheme, but maybe not many more since the deck is so small.

For this and the Golden Deck, has anyone tried buying and trashing Gold / Peddlers instead of Province?  For Peddlers it's the same VP per turn and Gold it's one less.  You're forcing the other guy to green while consistently raking in 4-5 tokens per turn.  Many kingdoms can't keep up with that rate of VP gain while greening (though I guess the presence of Bishop helps).  It seems like the biggest advantage to these decks is long-term consistency and racing Provinces doesn't seem to leverage that.

[pauley_walnuts]

2-card combos are much nicer than 3-card combos, though.  They just come up more.  It seems like you'd need more Apothecaries without Scheme, but maybe not many more since the deck is so small.

Agreed. Mean Mr Mustard did mention that he can pull off the combo without Scheme as long as four Apothecaries are acquired. I don't know how consistent it is to get to that 4 Apos to reach your ideal deck composition.

[Jorbles]

2-card combos are much nicer than 3-card combos, though.  They just come up more.  It seems like you'd need more Apothecaries without Scheme, but maybe not many more since the deck is so small.

For this and the Golden Deck, has anyone tried buying and trashing Gold / Peddlers instead of Province?  For Peddlers it's the same VP per turn and Gold it's one less.  You're forcing the other guy to green while consistently raking in 4-5 tokens per turn.  Many kingdoms can't keep up with that rate of VP gain while greening (though I guess the presence of Bishop helps).  It seems like the biggest advantage to these decks is long-term consistency and racing Provinces doesn't seem to leverage that.

While that strategy might sometimes be strategically correct you probably have to get into Provinces at some point otherwise you won't be able to end the game. (Three pile game where one of the piles is Gold? Takes forever.) If your opponent is playing perfectly they won't end the game for themselves on a loss which means they'll also start mucking around with Bishops to try and catch up even if it's impossible hoping for you to make a mistake. Snooze fest.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

I wouldn't get caught up in the scheme aspect; I didn't test with it because three-card combos are too rare to fuss about and unlike other combos that use some generic components these three cards are irreplaceable.

I have had moderate success with Apo/NV and this seems to be a bit better, even without scheme.  If this combo isn't as good as the Golden Deck, it is close enough to consider using depending on the Kingdom.  It does not require Silver or Gold, or an eighth Copper; the Bishop seems to perform the role of Native Village but it is a bit more consistent in that it still works with the Estate or Province in hand rather than on top of the deck.  Once the deck has seven Copper, one Bishop, three or four Apothecaries and no Estates it works great.  Yes, you may miss once or twice, unlike Golden, but it is easier to set up because you do not have to acquire the treasure or trash down to five.

[pauley_walnuts]

I messed around solitaire for a bit, and MMM is right. Just the two of them can still be pretty fast: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/01/game-20120301-121054-49930bff.html

[Mean Mr Mustard]

<a href=http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/01/game-20120301-220029-cd6e73a8.html>As good as it gets?</a>