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Author Topic: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token  (Read 3659 times)

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grrgrrgrr

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Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« on: February 14, 2020, 12:44:29 pm »
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This top 10 consists of the best cards to use your +Card token on, be it through Teacher or through Pathfinding. I will make similar top 10s for the other Teacher tokens in the future. Feel free to post your disagreements in this topic. Hope this will spark a good discussion.

The +Card token is probably the most versatile of the tokens, as it works on about everything. The only truly awful candidates are cards that don't see play later on, or draw-to-X cards (and even then, +1 Card on Minion is still pretty solid). That being said, cantrips that are already somewhat spamable are generally the preferred targets.

This is my list for now. Write-ups will follow in the future.

1. Governor
2. Magpie
3. Hamlet
4. Pawn
5. Border Guard
6. Market Square
7. Port
8. Ironmonger
9. Plaza
10.Laboratory
« Last Edit: February 17, 2020, 01:38:05 am by grrgrrgrr »
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segura

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2020, 12:56:43 pm »
+3

Usually cantrips that cost less than $5 are more easily available and the preferred choice for the +1 Card token. Like all terminal drawers, Cultists wants the +1 Action token.
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jomini

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2020, 11:04:33 pm »
+1

It depends on the board.

More importantly it depends on the state of your deck and when you can get the token.

For instance, Teacher often has moments were you want to dump it on whatever will let your draw deck that turn and get Teacher shuffle back in sooner. Say Teacher bottom decks and you draw 2 Rats. Putting +cards on Rats can let you play Rats more safely and shuffle through the deck that turn rather than just dropping +cards on your village and forgetting it. Drawing your deck 3 turns in a row rather than having a busted deck that takes three turns to draw is easily a win. More marginal cases are, of course, harder to pin down; but like with Prince Teacher may merit moving the token. And, of course, it goes without saying if the game is ending soon you should just be dumping that sucker on whatever keeps you afloat until next turn (e.g. 1st Teaching is +action on some terminal draw, 2nd is facing a pileout threat from either mass Soldiers or a few Disciples).

Pathfinding can, likewise, have some situational cases. The most obvious is with Villa. Dumping $8 to draw your purchases and play them immediately can be just insanely powerful. I have never done it, but it is not beyond reasonable outcomes to buy Pathfinding twice in a turn allow for a card explosion from Villa drawing into a stocked discard (e.g. something like Processing a bunch of cards, not having more draw cards to get into the discard, buying Pathfinding and Villa to get to the discard and continue the the turn, then Pathfinding something like Scheme for next turn).

I have seen far too many people add +1 card to whatever makes most since in the long term and ignoring the fact that they might not get a long term. Likewise I seen fewer people add +1 card to whatever is drawn on Teacher's first turn and regretting it.

After all, if you lose a card split 7:3, that maybe should not be your Path target even if Village is better than Smithy in general.

Likewise, maybe Oasis is not that hot, but you have Mine/Capitalism out and can turn it into a a very powerful sifter that you can mass gain quickly.

Ignoring all that, the next question is what do I gain out of +1 card. Yeah it increases your search space, but I would argue that going from 7 to 8 (Avanto) is nowhere near as good as 4 to 5 (i.e. my preferred candidate - Tr), particularly as Avanto rarely has trouble with trashing so both raw draw and draw density are not that important in Avanto decks (I can think of a lot of times when I would skip Pathfinding in an Avanto deck). In general, live draw is better than dead (Village over Smithy), and reliable benefit is worth a hefty premium (e.g. Scheme over most anything else). Effects you cannot get otherwise (e.g. any cantrip on a board with no other net positive draw) can be exceedingly powerful (e.g. Path Pearl diver so you can gain a bunch and then play a copper, silver, and gold along with a Necropolis and two Terminals). Some cards get a lot stronger with more deck knowledge - Band of misfits or Overlord work much better when you can pick your action knowing if the 5th card is going to need a village or can be a more useful cantrip.

Ultimately, you want reliability and just to get the +1 card benefit a lot. Sometimes this makes for weird choices (e.g. Fortress is massively strong on a Prssn board, even if you lose the Fort split). Other times it is trivially easy (e.g. your deck has only one action).

Remember, at the end of the day, getting the +1 card token tends not to happen quickly so be sure to account for how many you have of stuff, how many are playable immediately after you get the token down, how many you will add how quickly to your deck in the coming turns, and how many you may lose from your deck (e.g. Swindler) or your opponent gain (e.g. Jester).
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nasmith99

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2020, 11:56:15 pm »
+5

Border Guard has to be in this conversation. It's second only to Magpie IMO.
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pubby

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2020, 10:40:58 am »
+3

Probably not scholar
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bitwise

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2020, 12:00:52 pm »
+1

Probably not scholar
If we want a bottom 10 list:

1. Any one-shot
2. Diplomat
3. Menagerie
4. Poor House
5. Library
6. Jack of All Trades
7. Cursed Village, Watchtower, Scholar

Speaking more seriously, if you find that you have about equal amounts of Village and Smithy, which would you prefer to put the token on?
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2020, 12:19:41 pm »
+6

3. Menagerie

Even though it anti-synergises, a $3 Lab+ is not bad. Far from the bottom 10 I would have thought.

Quote
Speaking more seriously, if you find that you have about equal amounts of Village and Smithy, which would you prefer to put the token on?

Village.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2020, 05:03:16 pm »
+2

If we want a bottom 10 list:

1. Any one-shot
2. Diplomat
3. Menagerie
4. Poor House
5. Library
6. Jack of All Trades
7. Cursed Village, Watchtower, Scholar

Speaking more seriously, if you find that you have about equal amounts of Village and Smithy, which would you prefer to put the token on?

No way, Cursed Village + Pathfinding actually makes a great combo!
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grep

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #8 on: February 16, 2020, 01:12:29 am »
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I like putting +Card token on cheap +Actions which you can easily gain in numbers, preferably with a +Buy. Pawn and Hamlet are the best, followed by Market Square
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Donald X.

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #9 on: February 16, 2020, 01:30:21 am »
+1

I like putting +Card token on cheap +Actions which you can easily gain in numbers, preferably with a +Buy. Pawn and Hamlet are the best, followed by Market Square
Those and Border Guard are certainly great. And unlikely Magpie and Port, they may not be contested.
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grrgrrgrr

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #10 on: February 16, 2020, 02:53:17 pm »
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Thanks for the input. I definitely should have included Border Guard, Pawn and Hamlet, and I have probably overrated Sauna/Avanto, Cultist, Baker, Groundskeeper and Grand Market.

I still consider Governor as a nr 1. Governor is an extremely centralizing force. If it is boosted by the +1 Card token, it will be so strong that it doesn't care about anything other than something like a chapel, and a +1 card Governor will outpace the vast majority of the Pathfinding/Teacher boosted engines. The pathfinding token will almost never fail to be useful, as a Remodeler and a Gold gainer are much better when they are cantrips. And the megaturn will be a lot more efficient when the Governor draws 4 cards.

I've put the Sauna/Avanto combo at #2 because I've used the +Card token on it in a game with junking (by Mountebank if I recall correctly) where Sauna and Avanto initially struggled to connect and trash anything. Then the Teacher arrived to put the +1 card token on the sauna/avanto pile and all struggles were completely gone. I was consistently able to draw everything and all junk was gone in one turn.
Although Sauna/Avanto are usually good enough at drawing the deck without any help, they still need the deck to be compact. However, when the Saunas become Labs and the Avantos become Hunting Grounds, this struggle is eleminated almost completely. That being said, they do prefer the +$ token most of the time.

Although Cultists indeed prefer the Action token most of the time, they never fail to be an amazing target for the +1 card token. This is mostly because Cultists are ridiculous cards you want many off, but when you put the +1 card token on it, they become an excellent drawing machine that can draw the entire deck at the expense of one action. A #4 position is probably overselling it though, as they do need external Village support if the deck gets more actions you wanna play each turn.
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grrgrrgrr

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #11 on: February 16, 2020, 02:55:53 pm »
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Probably not scholar
If we want a bottom 10 list:

1. Any one-shot
2. Diplomat
3. Menagerie
4. Poor House
5. Library
6. Jack of All Trades
7. Cursed Village, Watchtower, Scholar

Speaking more seriously, if you find that you have about equal amounts of Village and Smithy, which would you prefer to put the token on?

I would not include Poor House, as a mass-Poor House deck usually has no treasures at all.
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markus

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2020, 04:12:28 pm »
+8

I looked at the sample of logs that I have since the release of Renaissance (about 70 games with Peasant and each pile).
There's a bit of variation between Teacher adding +Card and Pathfinding. The Teacher list is dominated by Villages, Governor is only near the top on the Pathfinding list.
Here are the top 30 sorted by Pathfinding targets (it counts each time the token gets placed on the pile by either player):


Eventually, I can also post the stats for the other tokens.
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grrgrrgrr

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #13 on: February 17, 2020, 01:51:30 am »
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Updated the list. My old list was:

1. Governor
2. Sauna/Avanto
3. Magpie
4. Cultist
5. Tournament
6. Groundskeeper
7. Plaza
8. Grand Market
9. Baker
10. Port

Interesting list btw, Markus. I'm not too keen on Market being so high, but I definitely understand it though. Market is likely to be the best target for the +Card token on the vast majority on the boards. It is still useful enough to warrant a purchase, but week enough that the +Card makes for a serious improvement.

Governor holds an odd place, but it is very likely to be the best +1 Card target on pretty much any board it appears on by a comfortable margin. The only thing that holds it back from being the most used target is the fact that Peasant tends to be too slow, and Pathfinding still takes an opportunity cost. But it still scores extremely high for a not-too-cheap non-cantrip on the Markus' Pathfinding list, and that says enough imo.
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DG

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #14 on: February 17, 2020, 01:52:31 pm »
+1

Unfortunately, we may reach a dull conclusion from this analysis.

You want lots of these good cards in your deck.
As you have lots of them in your deck, you should put a token in them.
Therefore you should put lots of these cards in your deck.

The one observation I will make is that cards that can win games without many other cards in support ( cultist, governor, market) fit a strategy of buying lots of one card.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2020, 03:59:35 pm by DG »
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tim17

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #15 on: February 18, 2020, 01:24:36 pm »
+1

If we want a bottom 10 list:

1. Any one-shot
2. Diplomat
3. Menagerie
4. Poor House
5. Library
6. Jack of All Trades
7. Cursed Village, Watchtower, Scholar

Also Tactician (though I once attempted to design a board where the optimal strategy involved putting +Card on Tactician)
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bitwise

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #16 on: February 18, 2020, 01:28:40 pm »
+4

If we want a bottom 10 list:

1. Any one-shot
2. Diplomat
3. Menagerie
4. Poor House
5. Library
6. Jack of All Trades
7. Cursed Village, Watchtower, Scholar

Also Tactician (though I once attempted to design a board where the optimal strategy involved putting +Card on Tactician)
Tactician with a +Card token on it lets you Throne Room it though, so there's that.
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crj

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Re: Top 10 best recepients for the +Card token
« Reply #17 on: February 18, 2020, 10:28:14 pm »
+2

I once used Royal Carriage + Pathfinding + Tactician + Coppersmith to devastating effect as a counter for Mountebank. It was so powerful I didn't even bother buying a Mountebank of my own to retaliate with.
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