Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dubdubdubdub]

Today I stumbled upon a beaut. This deck wasn't entirely planned to turn out like this; I was going for an Inn/Menagerie combo (love those); using Bishop for some trashing. Haggler was on the board.
What it turned into was a deck I could reliably draw each turn. Inn, Haggler, Bishop, Gold and Province were the only doubles in it. I could trash Gold and Province each turn for +9 vp, buying a Province and gaining a Gold. I'm definitely going to try to do this again (and faster) when I see the needed cards on the board!
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/02/game-20120402-095302-fd1ac36a.html

[shark_bait]

That's quite a great deck!  Keep in mind that you could substitute Haggler for Hoard and it would function the same.

[tko]

Could Warehouse function here in lieu of Inn with a Bishop/Warehouse opening?  (And the other components a Village (probably preferrably Hamlet), Menagerie, and either Hoard or Haggler)

[Deadlock39]

It seems like if you are working with 2xBishops, A Province, a Haggler (or Hoard), and a Gold, that the deck can't quite be "Golden".  I think it would always be possible to draw exactly those 5 cards, and not be able to play the rest of your money needed to buy the Province or your Villages to be able to play your actions. 

I had a almost golden deck the other day that had "2 Gold, 2 Bishop, 2 Caravan, 2 Farming Village, 1 Jack of All Trades, 1 Silver".  I was Bishop-ing a Gold and a Silver every turn while buying a Gold and gaining a Silver from the Jack.  The two Caravans increased my starting hand to 6, but I still had the possibility of a bad draw with my two Villages and not-in-play Caravan on the deck.  In the game itself, I had worse odds because my opponent was occasionally playing Minions and knocking my hand size down to 5.  If this had 2 more Caravans and no Minions attacking it, it would really be Golden.

Actual game if anyone is interested:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120401-091003-09b0212e.html

Anyway, that was a long winded build up to the point I was going to make about Caravan being an enabler for more complex golden decks since it can increase your starting hand size.

[Dubdubdubdub]

@Deadlock; you are obviously right. I couldn't actually draw it reliably. The game ended after two full turns after the deck was finished, though. If I'd like to improve on this, I would have to be faster and leaner. Just a single Province, for starters, and perhaps a Throne Room instead of a second Bishop (just assuming all these pieces are available).

And yes, Caravans are a great fix; better than Labs because you don't need to draw them in your initial hand. You just have to have played them last turn, which is no big deal.

Of course, one could improve on this even further, using King's Courts and trashing more than 2 cards. I have a feeling the current setup is contrived enough as-is, though

@shark_bait; yes: Hoard/Bishop seems like a really good combo anyway! Even without the 'Golden Deck'; just being able to trash an extra gold every turn is great. It's great with any trash-for-benefit, but using Bishop just keeps your deck reliable.

[Asklepios]

One nice thing to look out for is a deck that will trash a gold or more to benefit each turn, then gain them back through means other than buying.

Apprentice / Hoard, for example, is something which can often easily be set up, where you use the gold to draw +6 cards, then buy a Province gaining a gold.

Apprentice / Haggler is along the same lines.

Best of all is Apprentice / Border / Village / Haggler.

Use Haggler to buy a Province, then Haggle a Border Village, gain an Apprentice. Use the Apprentice to trash Border Villages / Apprentices sufficient to do it all again.

As for Bishop, setting up a turn where you can trash masses of gold continuously is a lot of fun. I think I flagged a game of this sort in game reports about a month back (I'll try and find it) but essentially I lost heroically while trying to play a conventional Bishops -> Provinces game, while my opponent built a deck that drew his whole deck, played several Bishops a turn and gained a load of gold each turn.

edit:

Here we are: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1918.0

and the linked game:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/05/game-20120305-112938-a21fcf0f.html

A game that I lost against a higher ranked and more skillful player, and made me think seriously about Bishop VP as a full route to victory rather than as just a tiebreaker. Looking back at this game it didn't even involve Hoard or any clever gaining tricks, just lots of drawing and gold trashing