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[Glooble]

I forgot to save the log (might post it when it comes up on council room), but I just played a game where my opponent tried to go mass Saboteur. He had lots of villages to avoid the clashing terminals and managed to sabotage me a lot. I went big money with Ventures and won 76 to 20. Yeah.

The best part was that when we got down to two colonies left I started using his Sabotuers to gain estates and Duchies, thus shoring up my lead.

I remember when I first started reading the blog I thought Saboteur was over-powered. Ha.

[Kuildeous]

Yeah, for Saboteur to be useful, it has to be used well. If you're busy trying to sabotage and not build up your own deck, you are going to lose, plain and simple.

Most of the time, I ignore Saboteur and just focus on building up my own deck. Sure, I might lose a Province here or there, but I'll also win. Now, if the opponent is skilled and the board is right, then a Saboteur strategy can be downright brutal.

[rinkworks]

When is the board "right" for Saboteur?  After learning here how weak Saboteur is, except in just the right situation, I'm now struggling to figure out what the right situation might be.

[Jack Rudd]

When is the board "right" for Saboteur?  After learning here how weak Saboteur is, except in just the right situation, I'm now struggling to figure out what the right situation might be.

When you can play it multiple times per turn - so that your opponent's deck is being torn down faster than he can build it back up.

King's Court - King's Court - Rabble - Saboteur is a fun combo in the endgame.

[DG]

When is the board "right" for Saboteur?  After learning here how weak Saboteur is, except in just the right situation, I'm now struggling to figure out what the right situation might be.

Sometimes you can look an opponent's deck, minus a few cards, and it seems a lot weaker. This might be because it has some key cards that cards that can't be replaced from a depleted pile or the black market. Knocking out a few minions might stop the minion draw chain and make all the cards bought to support it seem weaker too.

Something that you also have to consider is the underlying deck. Lets firstly consider an opponent who set aside all his estates onto the island mat and bought some silver. If you sabotage those silver the opponent will always still be able to spend 5 coppers next turn and buy something better, since that's the worst his deck can perform. Sabotage is going to be pretty weak. However, if you consider an opponent who has bought some familiars, a harvest, a loan, a potion, and taken some curses, then removing the harvest might leave the opponent with really poor draws that can't replace the harvest.

Another important consideration is how much damage you do to your deck by taking a saboteur. There's generally an 'opportunity cost' for the saboteur in that you could have bought a different 5 cost card (like a festival), and a playing cost in that it takes up a slot in hand without providing any coins and takes an action. Sometimes however these costs aren't so bad, typically in a deck where there are no extra buys or you can use something like a golem to play your actions.

As an example of all that I'll mention I game I played recently that started with both my opponent and I buying young witches and villages (the bane card). The village stack ran out and we both started buying rabbles. I then took a saboteur and could use it very regularly with all the drawing cards. The saboteur needed a few plays but eventually took out enough villages so that the bane protection was removed and the young witches dealt a lot of curses. The rabbles then clogged up my opponent's deck even more but he could still buy some duchies, the next step being that the rabbles left duchies on top of the deck for the saboteurs to trash. So all in all, the combination of cards was very effective and any tempo lost in the development of my own deck was irrelevant.

[Axe Knight]

I generally find that the card is helping your opponent in decks without good trashing.  A friend of mine is an extremely aggressive player who buys attack cards without fail.  Naturally, he loves the Saboteur.  In a game recently with King's Court and no trashing, he TR/Sab'ed me three times in the game, and all he hit were Silver, Menageries, and a few villages, all the while getting some of the crap (copper/estates/curses) in my deck out of the way for me.  There were far, far better things he could have TR'ed with more benefit to him.

Also, since they're forced to replace a card, they can easily keep taking estates, low cost non-terminals, or as in my case in one game recently, Duchies, to try to end the game early if they're ahead.  This is not a common situation, but I've seen it happen a few times. 

According to Council Room, it is ranked 6th in Action Cards in Win Rate Without, and 4th worst in Win Rate With.

[ackack]

When is the board "right" for Saboteur?  After learning here how weak Saboteur is, except in just the right situation, I'm now struggling to figure out what the right situation might be.

As mentioned, the biggie is when you can be playing it 1-2 times a turn. Generally this means situations where you can draw your entire deck reliably. If you have a functioning KC engine for other reasons, a Saboteur can often be a pretty good addition to that (KC'ed Saboteurs on a fairly regular basis are highly destructive.) There are also a couple of oddball situations where an early Sab can be quite productive. Here's a game where because I trashed early Mining Villages to get a Gold, I was now in a spot where the only two cards Sab could hit in my deck were Masquerade and Gold, which was quite painful.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110603-183829-8d81cd78.html

Note that Masquerade and Mining Village also facilitate multi-Sab turns later on.

[Raeven]

I was in a game recently where Saboteur became pretty devastating.  I don't remember the whole board, but basically two things played a big factor.  First, there were no +action or +cards action cards available (except cantrips).  Second, golem was on the board.  This meant that there were regularly 2 saboteurs being played per turn.  It was basically impossible to get anything going money-wise and victory cards were a guaranteed wast of time.  After some frustration, I tried to run out estates, but my opponent was able to get a couple of duchies at the end.

[ShuffleNCut]

I was reading some logs from high ranking players and stumbled across THIS gem.

I legitimately LOLed.

[drg]

Saboteur requires intelligence when to use it and when not to.  'mass saboteur' is not a strategy - you can harass your opponent(s), but you can't win, s they don't help you buy anything.  On the other hand, throwing one or two into a scrying pool/king's court (or any cycling deck with actions) chaining deck where they're played frequently and don't interfere much with your buying power is incredibly brutal.

[Davio]

Saboteur proved to be quite a nasty card in this setup:

cards in supply: Chancellor, Hamlet, Horn of Plenty, Market, Minion, Potion, Rabble, Saboteur, Secret Chamber, Steward, and University

We both went for Minion chains through Universities which were also used to empty the Markets and gain some Rabbles and Saboteurs.
Saboteur is really nasty when it messes with your Minion chain.

He trashed one of my Provinces early, so I took a Duchy. Not long after, I returned the favor.

The best part was my ending turn:

  — Davio's turn 16 —
   Davio plays a Hamlet.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
   ... discarding 1 card and getting +1 action.
   Davio plays a Rabble.
   ... drawing 3 cards.
   ... MattMicKing draws and reveals 2 Silvers and a University.
   ... MattMicKing discards 2 Silvers and a University.
   Davio plays a Market.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action, +1 buy, and +$1.
   Davio plays a Hamlet.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
   ... discarding 1 card and getting +1 action.
   Davio plays a University.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... gaining a Rabble.
   Davio plays a Saboteur.
   ... MattMicKing reveals a Market and trashes it.
   ... MattMicKing gains a Hamlet to replace it.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... getting +$2.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... discarding the hand.
   ... drawing 4 cards.
   ... MattMicKing discards the hand.
   ... MattMicKing draws 4 cards.
   Davio plays a Steward.
   ... getting +$2.
   Davio plays a University.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... gaining a Rabble.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... discarding the hand.
   ... drawing 4 cards.
   ... MattMicKing has 4 cards in hand.
   Davio plays a Market.
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action, +1 buy, and +$1.
   Davio plays a Saboteur.
   ... MattMicKing reveals a Province and trashes it.
   ... MattMicKing gains a Duchy to replace it.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... discarding the hand.
   ... drawing 4 cards.
   ... MattMicKing has 4 cards in hand.
   Davio plays a Market.
   ... (Davio reshuffles.)
   ... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action, +1 buy, and +$1.
   Davio plays a Minion.
   ... getting +1 action.
   ... getting +$2.
   Davio plays a Steward.
   ... getting +$2.
   Davio plays a Silver and a Copper.
   Davio buys a Province.
   Davio buys a Hamlet.
   Davio buys a Hamlet.
   Davio buys a Hamlet.
   (Davio draws: a Rabble, a University, a Hamlet, a Copper, and an Estate.)

Minions, Hamlets, and Markets are all gone.
Davio wins!

I vaguely remembered him trashing an Estate more than I did, so when I noticed there were only 3 Hamlets left, I decided halfway through my turn to have a go at it. I was behind at the moment, but I knew if all went right I could end it in fine style. After a lucky Saboteur, some looking through my deck and of course some shuffle luck I finally land on $14 with enough buys and end the game 1 point ahead.

It's a great feeling when these super turns really go your way, but you have to get lucky like I did. If the Saboteur would have trashed something else, I could only have bought a Province and maybe a Duchy and hoped he wouldn't get the same idea or hope I would be able to do the same the next turn. You can also see that with my first University, I choose a Rabble. I did that because I didn't yet have the plan to try to end it, this only came to me after the lucky Saboteur hit.

Entire game is here: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201107/12/game-20110712-071948-1b279c3c.html

[ShuffleNCut]

Rabble/Saboteur and Fortune Teller/Saboteur are legitimately not worse than passing the turn without looking at your hand.

[Superdad]

I was reading some logs from high ranking players and stumbled across THIS gem.

I legitimately LOLed.

Oh my. I'll have to remember to not outright dismiss Saboteur anymore.

Epic game is epic.

[Diving Pikachu]

If someone gets an edge with Black Market, Saboteur can really cut them down. Especially if it's their only village-type, or if they have the only Witch, Mountebank, or King's Court. Posession in a board without a $3◉ or $4◉ replacement is also a pretty target, since they lost out on the chance to buy a Province to get it, and you bump it down to a ~$4 card (or nothing, if it's one of those annoying 1-Alchemy boards that have been happening a lot since Cornucopia was implemented on Isotropic). And there is, of course, the fact that Sabotuers in a Possessed hand are dead weight to the Possessor.