Print

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

[Morgrim7]

Cache/Counting House: Came across this a little while ago, seems pretty good. Its Cache BM with Counting Houses to get al the Coppers. Pretty fast, too. Thoughts?
Request: Bishop. There probably has been an article for Bishop already, but oh well. The reason I ask is because of the diversity of the things it can do. Operate the Golden Deck. Quick VP grabber. Mild trasher. Wonderful opener. End game savior. And it is nice with Masquerade.

[Asklepios]

Tried the Counting House / Cache a few times solo and it seemed somewhat slow, even compared to BM, and definitely compared to BM + Cache.

I'd be curious to know what play rules you are using for this, as I may be doing it wrong.

My approach was to buy Silver till $5, then to get a Cache, then a Counting House, then one more Cache, then Counting Houses on every $5-7 hand after that, and copper on any $4 or less hands after the first cache.

I wonder if only one Cache is actually needed, or if the deck would benefit from buying estates on $2-3 hands seeing as Province speed is determined purely by when and how the oCunting Houses are drawn.

All in all, I'm seeing this as being too slow, but given your reports I'd be curious to know if I'm playing the combo wrong.

[Geronimoo]

I guess if you got stuck on $5 a few times where you bought a Cache, this will lead to Counting House being a decent buy. Buying Caches over Golds to make Counting House a better buy than Gold just seems too slow in most Province games. It'd to be killer in a (non-engine) Colony game though.

[Morgrim7]

Tried the Counting House / Cache a few times solo and it seemed somewhat slow, even compared to BM, and definitely compared to BM + Cache.

I'd be curious to know what play rules you are using for this, as I may be doing it wrong.

My approach was to buy Silver till $5, then to get a Cache, then a Counting House, then one more Cache, then Counting Houses on every $5-7 hand after that, and copper on any $4 or less hands after the first cache.

I wonder if only one Cache is actually needed, or if the deck would benefit from buying estates on $2-3 hands seeing as Province speed is determined purely by when and how the oCunting Houses are drawn.

All in all, I'm seeing this as being too slow, but given your reports I'd be curious to know if I'm playing the combo wrong.

I bought silvers until I got to five, then maybe three or four Caches, then a few Counting Houses, Then Caches and Duchies. Maybe it is.too slow.

[Jorbles]

I've definitely had good results with Cache/Counting House, but it's been in games with additional support for Counting House, cards like Hamlet, Mountebank, Inn and Cartographer all make this combo a lot more effective.

[HiveMindEmulator]

The general problem with Counting House is that while it technically has the potential to generate huge amounts of money (by drawing something like 9 coppers), in a standard Province game, it's never going to actually do that. If you draw 9 coppers and spend $14 on a Province, the Counting House really got you +$3, not +$9, since the last $6 were completely worthless. In that way, it is going to seem like a weaker version of Harvest in decks when you will typically draw it with $4 other cash, since its "value" caps out at +$4, and can be as low as +$0.

In a game where you have a couple Silvers and Caches, you're going to find that you typically do have enough money in hand that Counting House is just not going to be worth it.

The times that it is worth it tend to be Colony games, where you have larger $ targets to get to, and heavy attack games, where you have a lot of junk and aren't that likely to have a bunch of extra money in your hand, so that you actually get a real benefit (compared to other $5 cards) out of the large Counting House draws.

[shark_bait]

The times that it is worth it tend to be Colony games, where you have larger $ targets to get to, and heavy attack games, where you have a lot of junk and aren't that likely to have a bunch of extra money in your hand, so that you actually get a real benefit (compared to other $5 cards) out of the large Counting House draws.

Fitting that it's in the Prosperity expansion! 

[randomdragoon]

Bishop article:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/11/18/prosperity-bishop/

Also in Bishop counters Gardens:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/02/23/counter-of-the-day-10-bishop-v-gardens/

[blueblimp]

Bishop article:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/11/18/prosperity-bishop/

Also in Bishop counters Gardens:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/02/23/counter-of-the-day-10-bishop-v-gardens/

I'm a little surprised to see the Bishop article call it a light trasher. I actually don't consider it much of a trasher at all, since your opponent also gets to trash. As far as deck size goes, your deck size and your opponent's deck size decrease at the same rate. The only time this isn't true is if your opponent doesn't want to trash (e.g. Gardens, Chapel).

That said, my stats with and without Bishop are terrible.

[dondon151]

I'm a little surprised to see the Bishop article call it a light trasher.

It trashes cards, so it's a trasher...

[blueblimp]

I'm a little surprised to see the Bishop article call it a light trasher.

It trashes cards, so it's a trasher...

Well, fair enough, but the article lumps it in with cards like Salvager, Remodel, and Island, which have the effect of improving your deck without improving your opponent's deck, so that it's a net improvement for you. In the early game, Bishop plays are not a net improvement to your deck, because your opponent benefits equally.

[WanderingWinder]

I'm a little surprised to see the Bishop article call it a light trasher.

It trashes cards, so it's a trasher...

Well, fair enough, but the article lumps it in with cards like Salvager, Remodel, and Island, which have the effect of improving your deck without improving your opponent's deck, so that it's a net improvement for you. In the early game, Bishop plays are not a net improvement to your deck, because your opponent benefits equally.

POTENTIALLY benefits equally. But there's some cost for them doing that. Which may or may not be worth it.

[blueblimp]

I'm a little surprised to see the Bishop article call it a light trasher.

It trashes cards, so it's a trasher...

Well, fair enough, but the article lumps it in with cards like Salvager, Remodel, and Island, which have the effect of improving your deck without improving your opponent's deck, so that it's a net improvement for you. In the early game, Bishop plays are not a net improvement to your deck, because your opponent benefits equally.

POTENTIALLY benefits equally. But there's some cost for them doing that. Which may or may not be worth it.

If you and your opponent trash the same card, then the cost to them is the same as the cost to you. (Assuming that you're following roughly similar strategies. Obviously this doesn't apply if they are doing Gardens, etc.)

Consider for example a symmetric copper case:

You draw Bishop, 4x Copper. Your opponent draws Silver, 4x Copper. If you trash a copper with your Bishop and your opponent responds by trashing a copper too, then you have $4 to spend, your opponent has $5 to spend, and you got a VP token to compensate. If Bishop didn't have a trash effect, you'd have $5 to spend and your opponent would have $6 to spend. So you both lost $1 in the current hand and have the benefit of one fewer copper in deck. (Your opponent might choose to not trash a copper in order to buy a gold. But this is an option--they'd only choose to do it if it's better than being equal!)

A symmetric estate example:

You draw Bishop, 3x Copper, Estate. Your opponent draws Silver, 3x Copper, Estate. If you trash an estate with your Bishop and your opponent responds by trashing an estate too, then you have $4 to spend, your opponent has $5 to spend, and you got 2 VP tokens. Spending amounts this turn are unaffected by the trashing, and you both trimmed your deck equally (an estate less for both).

Asymmetric cases are where the Bishop player can get an edge, but in the early game I think it should balance out. (If one player trashes a copper and the other an estate, it's better for the estate-trashing player, no matter who played the Bishop.)

[WanderingWinder]

I'm a little surprised to see the Bishop article call it a light trasher.

It trashes cards, so it's a trasher...

Well, fair enough, but the article lumps it in with cards like Salvager, Remodel, and Island, which have the effect of improving your deck without improving your opponent's deck, so that it's a net improvement for you. In the early game, Bishop plays are not a net improvement to your deck, because your opponent benefits equally.

POTENTIALLY benefits equally. But there's some cost for them doing that. Which may or may not be worth it.

If you and your opponent trash the same card, then the cost to them is the same as the cost to you. (Assuming that you're following roughly similar strategies. Obviously this doesn't apply if they are doing Gardens, etc.)

Consider for example a symmetric copper case:

You draw Bishop, 4x Copper. Your opponent draws Silver, 4x Copper. If you trash a copper with your Bishop and your opponent responds by trashing a copper too, then you have $4 to spend, your opponent has $5 to spend, and you got a VP token to compensate. If Bishop didn't have a trash effect, you'd have $5 to spend and your opponent would have $6 to spend. So you both lost $1 in the current hand and have the benefit of one fewer copper in deck. (Your opponent might choose to not trash a copper in order to buy a gold. But this is an option--they'd only choose to do it if it's better than being equal!)

A symmetric estate example:

You draw Bishop, 3x Copper, Estate. Your opponent draws Silver, 3x Copper, Estate. If you trash an estate with your Bishop and your opponent responds by trashing an estate too, then you have $4 to spend, your opponent has $5 to spend, and you got 2 VP tokens. Spending amounts this turn are unaffected by the trashing, and you both trimmed your deck equally (an estate less for both).

Asymmetric cases are where the Bishop player can get an edge, but in the early game I think it should balance out. (If one player trashes a copper and the other an estate, it's better for the estate-trashing player, no matter who played the Bishop.)

Sure.
But imagine the case where I have bishop and 4 copper, you have silver and 4 copper. I obviously trash a copper, you... well, you can, but then you can't get your gold/goons/whatever. So in many cases you shouldn't. In which case you don't get a benefit. Whereas there's basically never a reason for you to not trash your own copper (I'm sure there are edge cases, but they're incredibly rare). In fact, as an opener, the evaluation of bishop largely comes down to whether or not this is an important factor.
The comparison to a hypothetical bishop-with-no-trashing is really irrelevant.