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[onigame]

Yeah, yeah, I know, never buy Copper.  But sometimes I feel near the endgame where I'm drawing 4 Victory cards and $1, that maaaybe I should be buying another Copper instead of passing.  Certainly if my deck is >80% green, buying Copper actually increases the average play power of a card in the deck, right?

Anyone ever done any rigorous analysis here?

[Holger]

Yeah, yeah, I know, never buy Copper.  But sometimes I feel near the endgame where I'm drawing 4 Victory cards and $1, that maaaybe I should be buying another Copper instead of passing.  Certainly if my deck is >80% green, buying Copper actually increases the average play power of a card in the deck, right?

Anyone ever done any rigorous analysis here?

I don't think I've ever had a deck with >80% green.  But sure, in this case Copper would usually be a good buy.
With pure BM, Copper is a good late-game buy as soon as you average at most 3 VP per turn and can't get an Estate, because it gives you Duchies more reliably.
Depending on the kingdom, you may gain it later or never (in most engine games) or earlier (e.g. with Gardens).

[spineflu]

i mean, ideally you'd wanna mitigate that before you'd ever have to be buying copper.
I'd say a good rule is, on a given pass through your deck, if you dud twice due to green/purple (not attacks or something), you should look to increase your economy.

[Erick648]

I’m by no means the best player on here, but if you’re even considering buying Copper in a non-alt-VP game, isn’t that a sign that you’re greening too early?  If I’m spending a turn buying a building component rather than VP, I’d rather do it with my pre-greening deck (i.e. by greening a turn later) than with a green-heavy deck.  And while I can understand having dud hands in an otherwise good deck, I have trouble believing that any deck that can benefit from Copper (deck money density <$1/stop card) has a good chance of ever buying the last Province (hand money density >$1.6/stop card).

[pubby]

As a rough rule, if you're looking to buy cards that cost more than $5, buying copper is terrible. So it's fine in cheap alt-vp games, but terrible for emptying provinces.

[Chris is me]

In a normal game, if you have four green cards in your hand at once, you've either already won, or it's a weird alt VP slog. In a relatively normal board where you trash and buy components and end on Provinces... 4 is half of them. Say you have two Province and two Duchy in your hand. Cool, you are probably about to win with the big hand you have next turn. If it's a slog, then sure I guess buy Copper, but those games are so few and far between it shouldn't really even be worth thinking about for most players.

[onigame]

Well, here's a slightly more detailed example.

You're playing a 2-player game. The score is tied; you have 2 Provinces and 2 Duchies and your opponent has 3 Provinces. You both have all starting Estates (if that matters). You're player 1.  Your hand generates $7 with two extra buys.  Your draw pile is empty.  What will you buy?

• Duchy
• Duchy, Estate
• Duchy, Estate, Copper
• Duchy, Copper, Copper
• Gold
• Gold, Copper
• Gold, Copper, Copper

(Presumably not the Gold but I list it here for completeness)

[LastFootnote]

Not to be unhelpful, but it depends on what else is in my deck and what else is in my opponent's deck. I might very well buy Gold if their deck is in a worse state than mine. I'm about to shuffle, after all.

[onigame]

Not to be unhelpful, but it depends on what else is in my deck and what else is in my opponent's deck. I might very well buy Gold if their deck is in a worse state than mine. I'm about to shuffle, after all.

True enough, but the point of my question isn't about the Duchy vs. Gold decision, it's about whether buying the Coppers ever makes sense.

But if you want something more concrete to think on, let's say this is just BM+Market.

[Holger]

Not to be unhelpful, but it depends on what else is in my deck and what else is in my opponent's deck. I might very well buy Gold if their deck is in a worse state than mine. I'm about to shuffle, after all.

True enough, but the point of my question isn't about the Duchy vs. Gold decision, it's about whether buying the Coppers ever makes sense.

But if you want something more concrete to think on, let's say this is just BM+Market.

In that situation, your deck certainly makes more than $5 on average and thus it's clearly wrong to buy Copper as it reduces your chance to get another Province later (and thus your chance of winning, as three-piling is practically unfeasible).