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[O]

Just played a game where I unwittingly tried to play this, not thinking about just how they antisynergized... Don't. Really really don't.

I mean it.

'Tis all.

[mDuo13]

You could potentially use this to your advantage in some cases. If you're already ahead, then Swindling your opponents' green cards is a good thing. Late game this is especially if there's a non-VP card you can replace them with, such as turning a Duchy into a Counting House, or a Province into a Peddler.

But as an early/midgame strategy, yeah, bad idea. Rabble and Jester works much better.

[Soupaman91]

What about Rabble + Tournament  ?

[jomini]

Rabble/tournament is actually not too bad, yeah they have their green in hand ... but they have all it one hand so on another hand they won't have it.

Rabble/swindler just destroys alternate VP strategies - gardens -> potions, fairgrounds -> golds, etc. are all big point knocks. It is also brutal in peddler games without any +buy (making it unlikely to buy out the peddler deck before going for provinces).

[dondon151]

At least it's not as bad as Bag of Gold + Loan.

[ycz6]

Chapel/Gardens, anyone?

[Titandrake]

I interpreted it as "If Rabble reveals a Curse, they put it on top and your Swindler does nothing." It's the issue of your opponent dictating what potential effects Swindler can have.

[jomini]

Curses only stick around in swindler games if you lack trashing, for instance if you open chapel/swindler or remake/swindler you will likely have few curses to hit. Alternate VP, on the other hand, sticks around and is a great to target with rabble/swindler.

[O]

Curses only stick around in swindler games if you lack trashing, for instance if you open chapel/swindler or remake/swindler you will likely have few curses to hit. Alternate VP, on the other hand, sticks around and is a great to target with rabble/swindler.

So:

---Alternate VP With trashing (so no gardens), that isn't overly disrupted by swindler alone (you wouldn't play duke with swindler, let alone swindler-rabble) which you would still pick when there's trashing and an engine potential (rabble-swindler requires + actions to be frequent).

Huge corner case.

[jomini]

Well look, you called this, "Biggest antisynergy ever"; it isn't. Gunning down fairgrounds with swindler/rabble is perfectly legit and extremely strong, with some setups, stronger than killing provinces to peddlers. Further, there are a lot of other ways to get a curseless setup - for instance watchtower trashing. If the curses mostly get junked as the come in, odds of hitting green on top are much better than purple. Likewise, jack games have few curses, but may allow for province -> peddler swindler. I mean seriously, in a long enough game the curses all revert to coppers anyways.

The point is, curses may not stick around. Heck, you may want to swindle curse -> curse just to end on piles. It isn't the end of the day for the swindler player, and this is far, far, far from the biggest antisynergy ever.

Now is this a bad combo? Sure, in the vast majority of games something else, like straight swindler/BM will be better (or some other rabble engine). But these things don't actively hate each other like some other bad combos (e.g. scrying pool/cache). There are things you can do with them that do work.

[O]

Well look, you called this, "Biggest antisynergy ever"; it isn't. Gunning down fairgrounds with swindler/rabble is perfectly legit and extremely strong, with some setups, stronger than killing provinces to peddlers. Further, there are a lot of other ways to get a curseless setup - for instance watchtower trashing. If the curses mostly get junked as the come in, odds of hitting green on top are much better than purple. Likewise, jack games have few curses, but may allow for province -> peddler swindler. I mean seriously, in a long enough game the curses all revert to coppers anyways.

The point is, curses may not stick around. Heck, you may want to swindle curse -> curse just to end on piles. It isn't the end of the day for the swindler player, and this is far, far, far from the biggest antisynergy ever.

Now is this a bad combo? Sure, in the vast majority of games something else, like straight swindler/BM will be better (or some other rabble engine). But these things don't actively hate each other like some other bad combos (e.g. scrying pool/cache). There are things you can do with them that do work.

Scrying pool engine enabled by Spice merchant, buy cache later as an enabler.
Chapel into an amazing engine that will quickly multiply your deck so much that Gardens are worth 6VP.
Pretty much any two cards can coexist in a deck under a set of pedantic circumstances.


If you can show me 2-3 examples of a game where you or someone else actually used your strategy (Rabble engine with swindler versus alternate VPs) and had that combo effect be a component of the win.. I might give it a shred of credability.

Also, you're right. It is not the biggest antisynergy ever. Rabble/Noble Brigand, Thief or PS is worse.