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[Robz888]

It’s probably hubris to choose Governor as the subject of my second forum article--because the Governor is quite a tricky customer--but I feel pretty confident with the card, and I see a lot of players make basic mistakes with it that can be avoided. So, here is an article about Governor. (Disclaimer: I am not saying that I am the definitive authority on Governor. I intend this article to be a jumping-off point for further Governor discussion.)



Governor should be called Jack-of-All-Trades, because it does so many different things for you. (And Jack should be called Governor, because it exerts dictatorial control over your deck.) As the most interactive card in Dominion, Governor presents a fundamental challenge: How do I make this card benefit me more than my opponent? Note that the dilemma doesn’t make Governor bad; in fact, it’s a powerful and versatile card that rarely gets ignored. But if you’re not careful about your choices, you will undoubtedly help your opponent more than you help yourself.

Governor is one of those self-synergy cards--indeed, it does basically everything you could want from a card, except attack your opponents--so you typically want as many of them as possible. Governor is seldom passed up entirely, but there are a couple of $5 cards that you would want before your first Governor. These include the $5 cursers, and maybe something like Haggler, so you can buy Gold and gain Governors.

But once you’ve gotten mandatory purchases like Witch out of the way, you usually want lots and lots of Governors. More Governors mean more Gold, more draw, more remodeling, and ultimately, more Provinces.

There are 2 important things to keep in mind as you build your Governor deck: 1) Governor loves money but hates Copper, and 2) Governor is non-terminal in all its functions, so you can afford at least 1 strong terminal.

Clearing out Coppers is very important. Later on, Coppers will stand between your Governors and the Golds they want to Remodel, and all the extra Silvers from your opponent’s Governors means you will never lack cash, anyway. So Moneylender and Spice Merchant are great, because they rid you of Coppers without crippling your purchasing power--and you need to buy Governors fast. (Moneylender yields more net cash, but Spice Merchant moves through your deck faster and can serve as an important source of +buy later, so they are both great.) And mass Copper trashers like Chapel are great (a 5/2 start with Governor and Chapel is basically as fast a game of Dominion as you could ever have), but a well-timed Mint is also excellent.

As for your terminal, it should obviously be a discarding Attack if one is available. You will also desperately want an extra +buy to mitigate the risk of drawing a huge hand without any Governors.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that Governor works quite well with other cards that accomplish the same functions. Hoard can gain you Gold, and Laboratory and Stables can give you draw. Of course, these things compete at the same price level as Governor, and you don’t really want them unless the Governors are out, and if the Governors are out, it’s almost certainly about time to Green, so the window of opportunity there is slim. However, Governor goes very well with other cards that accomplish its remodel function, namely Remodel and Expand. (And later, if your opponent uses the trashing ability, these 2 cards are conveniently priced to convert into victory points for you).

So when do you do what? Let’s look at Governor’s 3 different functions.

You Get a Gold; Your Opponent Gets a Silver

When you first begin acquiring Governors, this is the first thing you should do with them. Governor decks want to be brimming with Gold so that later you can remodel a bunch of them into Provinces all at once. The Silvers will boost your opponent’s purchasing power, but they also get in his way if he is trying to build a low-treasure engine. Of course, given the availability of Governor, trying to construct a low-treasure engine is probably a losing move anyway. In all likelihood, your opponent is also pursuing Governors (and giving you a fair amount of Silver, too), in which case the free Silvers are mostly a welcome addition to the deck, but will get in the way of connecting Governors and Gold.

How much Gold do you want? It depends, but remember--ideal play would be turning each and every one of them into a Province, and using any leftovers to buy the last Province or a Duchy. This means you are going to be using Governor to gain a Gold at least 4 times, but probably (hopefully) more. This is one of many reasons why you will want as many Governors as you can get your hands on.

You Get +3 Cards; Your Opponent Gets +1 Card

Here is where most Governor-related mistakes are made. Remember that Council Room, which also gives your opponent +1 Card, is a decent-ish $5, rather than a great $5. Using multiple Governors for multiple cards is even more worrisome, because though you may make good use of your huge hand, your opponent also has a huge hand to make use of--and he got his for free. Wharf is the best $5 non-Attack precisely because you get to start your next turn with 2 extra cards. With Governor, you can accomplish that for your opponent by default. In fact, the +cards function of Governor is where the relative benefit to your opponent is undoubtedly greatest.

Thankfully, there are ways to mitigate this benefit. If you intend to end the game (or have a good chance at it) by drawing cards, then your opponent will never actually reap the benefit. (And because of this, the final Governor turn is often a go-for-broke, all-or-nothing, end-the-game-or-die scenario.) But an easier way to fix this is to simply play a discard Attack at the end of your turn. Keep in mind that this doesn’t entirely solve the problem: Your opponent still gets to hold onto his best 3 cards out of however many you gave him, and if he’s smart, these will include a Governor and discarder of his own. But at least he doesn’t get to start with an 8-card hand.

Often times, you will find yourself betting on drawing the discarder with your Governor. This is one reason Governor is really a difficult card--it demands expert memory of what’s left in your deck. You might mitigate the risk here by doubling up on your discarder. You would do that anyway if it’s Goons, but in the case of Militia, consider a second or third. Remember that the additional Silvers from your opponents Governors will more speedily dilute your Action density.

Eventually, you want to play Governor for cards in order to draw many more Governors and Golds, and squeeze several Provinces out of your turn. And you do that by utilizing the final function of Governor.

Trash a Card and Gain a Card Costing Exactly $2 More; Your Opponent Trashes a Card and Gains a Card Costing $1 More

In the end, Governor is a fancy Remodel that goes to great lengths to put the cards you want to remodel into your hand. But if you’re using this function of Governor to do anything but gain Provinces, you are probably making a mistake. Trashing Coppers and Estates is a huge misuse of your Governors. You missed the opportunity to gain a Gold, and you gave your opponent a free trash. Early on, an exactly +$1 trash is situationally better than an exactly +$2 trash, because a +$1 trash just kills Coppers outright, and turns Estates into Silver. Governor is an elite $5 card. You insult it by using it to clear out your riffraff.

Using Governor to remodel Silvers into more Governors is a more sensible use of the power, so long as you have enough cash to buy another one without the Silver, or you didn’t have enough to buy one even with the Silver.

So what do you do with Governor’s remodel ability? Trash your Gold into Provinces, that’s what. The great thing here is that whereas you need $16 and another buy to snag 2 Provinces, you only need 2 Governors and 2 Golds--or 1 Governor and $11, including at least 1 Gold--to make 2 Provinces. Border Villages and Hoards, but also Nobles, Harems, and Farmlands, are also good contenders for remodeling, given their availability. And your Silvers can become Duchies.

You need to watch out for your opponent’s $4s and $7s, though. Caravans, Farming Villages and Spies get turned into last minute Duchies. King’s Courts and Expands (both cards that work extremely well in Governor decks) become Provinces. Fortunately, you trash before your opponent gets the option to do so, meaning if you can both get the last Province, you get it first.

Putting It All Together

Much of the difficulty of Governor arises from predicting when you need to go for Provinces. A strong enough Governor deck can grab 3 or even 4 Provinces in one fell swoop, or the last 2 Provinces and enough Duchies to end it. But you only want to give your opponent the benefit of a huge hand if he will never get to play it. The timing is tricky.

Let’s say you’ve bought a bunch of Governors and gained a bunch of Gold; your opponent just snagged his first Province. Your hand is Governor-Gold-Silver-Silver-Copper (a decently likely hand). You could 1). Buy a Province and gain a Gold, 2). Remodel a Gold into a Province and buy a Duchy, 3). Draw for more cards.

If you choose the third option, you absolutely must draw another Governor, or a source of +buy. If you draw Gold-Gold-Estate, you have actually decreased your options since your starting hand--because you no longer have Governor--while boosting your opponent’s hand. This is why Governor strategies necessitate keeping careful track of what’s left in your deck. If you are unlikely to draw more Governors with more Gold, don’t bother hitting the card option.

It’s also critical to keep track of the score, because in a Governor game, the penultimate Province is certainly not the second-to-last Province. If you leave your opponent 2 Provinces, there is a good chance he can end the game.

When you either suspect it’s the last turn or need to make it so in order to have a good chance of winning, go for broke. Use a Governor or 2 for plus cards. Hopefully, you will draw more Governors, some Gold, and some +buy. Take a minute and think about how to maximize your points: Perhaps you buy 2 Provinces and Governor a Silver into a Duchy.

There’s one more special accomplice to Governor worth mentioning: Watchtower. Since you will be gaining a lot of Silvers and Golds, Watchtower can put them on your deck, and you can buy more Governors sooner. Governors can go on top of your deck, too. Watchtower gives a burst of speed to an already quick deck, and can give you the advantage in a Governor showdown.

It's worth mentioning that Governor is still strong in Colony games. The remodel function is weaker, because you won’t be gaining many Colonies, but the opportunity to grab a Province off a Gold here and there is nice. The Gold-gaining can keep your deck afloat, and the +card effect is arguably stronger for you than normal, because 1 extra card for your opponent is less likely to push him into Colony territory than into Province territory.

Lastly, if you want to build a typical action-draw deck with virtual money, Governor is not for you. But Governor is a strong enough card that it's presence will render the vast majority of engine strategies obsolete. Besides, your opponents Governors will really hurt you if you don't want treasure.

One more thing: Don't draw a 4/3 opening against your opponent's 5/2 opening if Governor is available. This is not the path to greatness.


Works with:
Other Governors
Gold
Farmland
Border Village
Discard Attacks
Watchtower
Copper Trashers
Possession (Give your opponent a giant hand first, then Possess him and remodel all his Gold into Provinces)

Doesn’t work with:
Non-Treasure engines
Your opponent's $4 and $7 cards
Most alternate VP strategies, particularly Silk Road and Gardens (because the prices of these cards make them easier for your opponent to gain off your Governor remodels than vice versa)

Edit 1: Added Farmlands and Possession to "Works with"
Edit 2: Fixed the order of who trashes first in the remodel scenario

[Morgrim7]

Discarding attacks, Ideally Margrave (especially for the +Buy) correct? +1 Really nice article.

[Robz888]

Discarding attacks, Ideally Margrave (especially for the +Buy) correct? +1 Really nice article.

Thanks! Margrave is more expensive than Militia and not as a good as Goons, and it competes at the same price as Governor, and it draws cards you can't play... so I don't know if it's the ideal discarder, but you are correct about the +buy so that gives it a huge boost, yes. I would say that Governor + Discard attack is so strong that picking up the discarder is pretty much mandatory, no matter which one it is.

[timchen]

Can Governor+Money beat double Jack?

[ehunt]

Can Governor+Money beat double Jack?

yes, easily the odds are with governor + money for first player and probably even for second against double jack. (we're assuming the double jack player buys no governors?)

[Jfrisch]

governor very rarely helps your opponent more than it helps you. This is a far overstated worry. If you use governor for cards you are getting a double lab, while your opponent is getting a single. If you're opponent finds a single lab more valuable than you find a double lab you must have made a fairly massive error. (i.e. don't draw if you have no +buy/golds in hand you need to remodel).
you mention discard attacks but one, in my mind, bear's particular mention. Governor with ghostship is absurdly strong. Absolutely tremendously absurdly strong. Rather than getting a very strong 3 card hand and discarding a bunch of junk, (the equivalent of 2 warehouses) ghostship forces your opponents to top deck all there junk, or kill there current hand. Essentially giving you a double lab and your opponent a secret chamber reaction! militia/goons/margrave are fine, but nowhere near as dominating as ghost ship.
You mention but don't focus one of the strongest issues with governor's remodel ability. That is, 4 cost (7 cost too, but those are much harder to get into hand and occur less frequently). In particular on your final blowout turn, ordinarily your opponent can't take advantage of the remodel ability, making it absurdly powerful. However if there are strong 4 costs or even decent 4 cost they will likely be able to turn a few of them into duchies. A few late game duchies is a tremendous benefit.
I'm also unconvinced that governor is a poor addition to non-treasure engine. The draw ability and late game endgame ability are still very strong. And if you are playing a non-treasure engine, your opponent likely is as well, so gold vs silver is still pretty nice.

Thank you for creating an article on this card though, governor is a really interesting card that people frequently underestimate in their speech. (if not, perhaps, there play)

[Stringer Bell]

Very well written article, perfect for those of us who are beginners to the language and vocabulary that is used around the forums. I often find myself choosing between the Gold and drawing the cards, never knowing exactly which is the right play, so this will really help a lot.

[O]

Perhaps Governor-Ghost Ship is the most cruel of the discard attacks, though maybe not the "best".

[Geronimoo]

Well written article! But now I still don't know if I should always buy Governors over Gold, sometimes buy Governor over Gold or never Governor over Gold. And don't say "it depends"

Can Governor+Money beat double Jack?

yes, easily the odds are with governor + money for first player and probably even for second against double jack. (we're assuming the double jack player buys no governors?)

How did you get those odds? I'm pretty sure that if there's a choice to buy only Jacks or only Governors, then I'd pick Jack in a heartbeat. The question doesn't really address a problem in a real game. You're going to want Jacks AND Governors because they work together quite nicely, but I guess it's more a question about tempo!? This is hard to compare because Governor helps the opponent's tempo as well.

[qmech]

Great overview!

Well written article! But now I still don't know if I should always buy Governors over Gold, sometimes buy Governor over Gold or never Governor over Gold. And don't say "it depends"

This is the main question I was hoping for an answer to as well.

[-Stef-]

Nice article.

It sums up about everything I understand about governors, which isn't too much.
I usually just buy a lot of them, then some more, and then even more. It's like with the minions.

I pick governor over gold, unless I am very certain gold is better, which is basicly never.
Does that count as "no it depends"?
your possible endgame move gets exponentially stronger if you have more governors.

Farmland is really nice with governor. You mention it, but I think it deserves to be on top of the 'works with'.
remodel a silver you got from your opponent into another governor, and in the endgame get a province for it.

Well, not on top. Right after 'more governors'. Governor is good, more governors is better, 7+ of them = you win. I have a hard time imagening a board where I'd ignore this card.

[AJD]

Remember: Your opponent gets the effect before you do.

...I'm pretty sure this isn't true?

Also, you might want to add Possession to the "works with" list.

[Robz888]

Well written article! But now I still don't know if I should always buy Governors over Gold, sometimes buy Governor over Gold or never Governor over Gold. And don't say "it depends"

Can Governor+Money beat double Jack?

yes, easily the odds are with governor + money for first player and probably even for second against double jack. (we're assuming the double jack player buys no governors?)

How did you get those odds? I'm pretty sure that if there's a choice to buy only Jacks or only Governors, then I'd pick Jack in a heartbeat. The question doesn't really address a problem in a real game. You're going to want Jacks AND Governors because they work together quite nicely, but I guess it's more a question about tempo!? This is hard to compare because Governor helps the opponent's tempo as well.

I suspect you are going to always want Governor over Gold. I'm trying to imagine a situation otherwise. If for some reason you have a bunch of Governors (4-5) of them, but very few Gold, and you are about to reshuffle, then maybe. But it's hard to get in that situation--what were you doing with your Governors?

As for Jack and Governor... you would probably want to open Jack, grab maybe 1 Governor, and roll. The extra Silvers from your Jack and from your opponent's Governors are going to make the typical Gold-into-Province Gold-into-Province by-something triple turn of Governor, uh, probably not work.

[Robz888]

Nice article.

It sums up about everything I understand about governors, which isn't too much.
I usually just buy a lot of them, then some more, and then even more. It's like with the minions.

I pick governor over gold, unless I am very certain gold is better, which is basicly never.
Does that count as "no it depends"?
your possible endgame move gets exponentially stronger if you have more governors.

Farmland is really nice with governor. You mention it, but I think it deserves to be on top of the 'works with'.
remodel a silver you got from your opponent into another governor, and in the endgame get a province for it.

Well, not on top. Right after 'more governors'. Governor is good, more governors is better, 7+ of them = you win. I have a hard time imagening a board where I'd ignore this card.

Agreed! That's the thing. Governor is very, very, very strong--the strongest thing on the board, really, in most situations. When it's not the strongest thing, you probably still want it eventually. I'm trying to come up with a board where I would ignore Governor completely. They are few and far between, I think. That's why I mentioned non-treasure engines. I was thinking Peddlers, or some Highway + buy engine, or maybe Double Tactician. But even then, Governor could help you if you lay off the Gold function and use it sparingly (though your opponent's Governors will flood your deck with Silver). And basically if you don't contest Governors, you're probably dead.

[Robz888]

Remember: Your opponent gets the effect before you do.

...I'm pretty sure this isn't true?

Also, you might want to add Possession to the "works with" list.

For the second thing, will do. For the first thing: I guess I should have double checked this, but that's how I remember it working. Also, the text of the card supports your opponent getting it first. You get the version in parentheses, and the parentheses come after.

[kn1tt3r]

Remember: Your opponent gets the effect before you do.

...I'm pretty sure this isn't true?

Also, you might want to add Possession to the "works with" list.

For the second thing, will do. For the first thing: I guess I should have double checked this, but that's how I remember it working. Also, the text of the card supports your opponent getting it first. You get the version in parentheses, and the parentheses come after.

Well, maybe your oppenent gets it earlier technically, but in practice he can profit from it later of course.

The key thing is, however, that it's not just 2 Labs for you, 1 Lab for your opponent. The point is that you play your Double-Lab during YOUR turn. You spend YOUR turn playing it. Your opponent can then spend his turn to play his own hand, but he's already got YOUR played action for free without doing anything. And that's just huge. 

[Geronimoo]

I started a simulation contest a while ago to determine the best way to play Governor in absence of other actions. I received only one entry (from WW) which proved only a tiny improvement and the Governor was still getting crushed by a lot of other mediocre single card strategies like Merchant Ship making me doubt the Governor is really a power card. It probably is, but not on its own (eg Governor/Chapel is sick, but Governor/nothing seems weak).
The simulation challenge is still open and I invite anyone who thinks he can play Governor well to come up with a good set of play rules that I can implement.

[LastFootnote]

Agreed! That's the thing. Governor is very, very, very strong--the strongest thing on the board, really, in most situations. When it's not the strongest thing, you probably still want it eventually. I'm trying to come up with a board where I would ignore Governor completely. They are few and far between, I think. That's why I mentioned non-treasure engines. I was thinking Peddlers, or some Highway + buy engine, or maybe Double Tactician. But even then, Governor could help you if you lay off the Gold function and use it sparingly (though your opponent's Governors will flood your deck with Silver). And basically if you don't contest Governors, you're probably dead.

I suspect you are going to always want Governor over Gold.

I know it's neither here nor there in terms of this article, but this to me is the hallmark of poor card design. It's a card you always want and usually want as many of as possible. You even usually buy it over more expensive cards.

Most overpowered cards can't just be fixed by bumping the cost, but in this case I think Governor should cost $6. That way you've got meaningful choices to make when you have $5 and even if you usually take Governor over Gold at $6, at least you sometimes have to think about it.

As for this article (very well-written, by the way!), I'd be really interested if you do come up with some good scenarios where ignoring Governor is the best call.

[AJD]

Remember: Your opponent gets the effect before you do.

...I'm pretty sure this isn't true?

Also, you might want to add Possession to the "works with" list.

For the second thing, will do. For the first thing: I guess I should have double checked this, but that's how I remember it working.

Here's the CouncilRoom log I checked:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120304-153217-c10dbd94.html

E.g.,

AJD plays a Governor.
... getting +1 action.
... AJD trashes a Gold.
... AJD gains a Province.
... Bac0n trashes a Copper.
... There's nothing for Bac0n to gain.

Also, the text of the card supports your opponent getting it first. You get the version in parentheses, and the parentheses come after.

I don't think that's obvious. Consider "Each player gains a silver (gold)" as an instruction which all players follow simultaneously; that means it starts with the current player, who reads it as 'gold', and then everyone else in turn order, reading it as 'silver'.

[Grujah]

from faq:

Description: You always get +1 Action. Then you
either draw three cards and each other player
draws a card; or you gain a Gold and each other
player gains a Silver; or you may trash a card from
your hand and gain a card costing exactly $2 more
and each other player may trash a card from his
hand and gain a card costing exactly $1 more. Go
in turn order, starting with yourself; this may matter
if piles are low. The gained cards come from the
Supply and are put into discard piles; if there are
none left, those cards are not gained. For example
if you choose the second option and there is only
one Silver in the Supply, the player to your left gets
it and no-one else gets one. For the third option,
you only gain a card if you trashed a card, and only
if there is a card available in the Supply with the
exact cost required. If you do trash a card, you
must gain a card if you can. You cannot trash a
Governor you played to itself, as it is no longer in
your hand when you play it (though you can trash
another copy of Governor from your hand)

[DG]

I was just typing something very similar to Geronimoo, wondering where the results of his challenge were, and he's posted while I was looking for them. Good timing. Governors + treasure seems fine on 5/2 but slowish on 4/3, certainly not dominant. Surely you're looking to match the governor actions to the other cards in the kingdom (and the respective decks) rather than force the governors through alone on a predictable one track strategy where opponents can maximise the advantage of the gifts?

[mnavratil]

Most overpowered cards can't just be fixed by bumping the cost, but in this case I think Governor should cost $6. That way you've got meaningful choices to make when you have $5 and even if you usually take Governor over Gold at $6, at least you sometimes have to think about it.

I think Governor might actually get marginally MORE powerful at $6, since then it becomes possible to trash a governor to gain a province.

[Robz888]

from faq:

Description: You always get +1 Action. Then you
either draw three cards and each other player
draws a card; or you gain a Gold and each other
player gains a Silver; or you may trash a card from
your hand and gain a card costing exactly $2 more
and each other player may trash a card from his
hand and gain a card costing exactly $1 more. Go
in turn order, starting with yourself; this may matter
if piles are low. The gained cards come from the
Supply and are put into discard piles; if there are
none left, those cards are not gained. For example
if you choose the second option and there is only
one Silver in the Supply, the player to your left gets
it and no-one else gets one. For the third option,
you only gain a card if you trashed a card, and only
if there is a card available in the Supply with the
exact cost required. If you do trash a card, you
must gain a card if you can. You cannot trash a
Governor you played to itself, as it is no longer in
your hand when you play it (though you can trash
another copy of Governor from your hand)

Oops! Okay, I am definitely wrong. Will fix that.

[ehunt]

I started a simulation contest a while ago to determine the best way to play Governor in absence of other actions. I received only one entry (from WW) which proved only a tiny improvement and the Governor was still getting crushed by a lot of other mediocre single card strategies like Merchant Ship making me doubt the Governor is really a power card. It probably is, but not on its own (eg Governor/Chapel is sick, but Governor/nothing seems weak).
The simulation challenge is still open and I invite anyone who thinks he can play Governor well to come up with a good set of play rules that I can implement.

I wanted to enter the contest, but lack the patience and computational skill.

Basically: if I have fewer than six governors, I want to gain governors unless there are fewer than six provinces. We have a function called "expected number of governors gained this turn," which I will abbreviate as E. It eats Dominion hands and returns the number of governors. To compute E, since there's no + buy and I can't get anything but silver and governors, I say: does the hand have five money, does the hand have a governor + silver pair, does the hand have seven money and a governor + silver pair, etc.

If I have fewer than six governors and at least six provinces remain, when I see a hand, I compute the probability that E(my hand - governor + three cards from the remainder of my deck) > E(my hand). If this probability is greater than 3/4, I use a governor to draw three cards. If not, I use a governor to gain a gold.

For example: with governor governor silver copper copper, I will draw three cards if I suspect I will draw 3 money in them or a governor and a silver in them with high probability, and I will gain a gold and remodel silver to governor otherwise.

After six governors to achieve, the aim is to draw the whole deck and remodel gold to province; I compute a function P for governor draws, replacing the role of silver-remodel-to-governor with gold-remodel-to-province and repeat the same process.

The tricky business is computing P and E. The problem is: if I expect the governor to draw me more governors, how do I compute these functions? I need to do something recursive but am not a CS expert.

[Robz888]

I started a simulation contest a while ago to determine the best way to play Governor in absence of other actions. I received only one entry (from WW) which proved only a tiny improvement and the Governor was still getting crushed by a lot of other mediocre single card strategies like Merchant Ship making me doubt the Governor is really a power card. It probably is, but not on its own (eg Governor/Chapel is sick, but Governor/nothing seems weak).
The simulation challenge is still open and I invite anyone who thinks he can play Governor well to come up with a good set of play rules that I can implement.

Well, I think that Governor needs some support to be truly awesome. The thing is, there are so many cards that work with Governor, and few or none that make it bad. The presence of a discard attack automatically makes Governor the best thing on the board. Moneylender, Spice Merchant, Chapel, Mint, Expand, Remodel, Watchtower, Border Village, and Farmland are all tremendous boosters.

So while I can imagine Governor by itself as being something sort of not great, there is a wide variety of things that make Governor even better. (Which is why Governor is the true Jack!)

[LastFootnote]

Most overpowered cards can't just be fixed by bumping the cost, but in this case I think Governor should cost $6. That way you've got meaningful choices to make when you have $5 and even if you usually take Governor over Gold at $6, at least you sometimes have to think about it.

I think Governor might actually get marginally MORE powerful at $6, since then it becomes possible to trash a governor to gain a province.

Ooh, good call.

[mnavratil]

I started a simulation contest a while ago to determine the best way to play Governor in absence of other actions. I received only one entry (from WW) which proved only a tiny improvement and the Governor was still getting crushed by a lot of other mediocre single card strategies like Merchant Ship making me doubt the Governor is really a power card. It probably is, but not on its own (eg Governor/Chapel is sick, but Governor/nothing seems weak).
The simulation challenge is still open and I invite anyone who thinks he can play Governor well to come up with a good set of play rules that I can implement.

I wanted to enter the contest, but lack the patience and computational skill.

Basically: if I have fewer than six governors, I want to gain governors unless there are fewer than six provinces. We have a function called "expected number of governors gained this turn," which I will abbreviate as E. It eats Dominion hands and returns the number of governors. To compute E, since there's no + buy and I can't get anything but silver and governors, I say: does the hand have five money, does the hand have a governor + silver pair, does the hand have seven money and a governor + silver pair, etc.

If I have fewer than six governors and at least six provinces remain, when I see a hand, I compute the probability that E(my hand - governor + three cards from the remainder of my deck) > E(my hand). If this probability is greater than 3/4, I use a governor to draw three cards. If not, I use a governor to gain a gold.

For example: with governor governor silver copper copper, I will draw three cards if I suspect I will draw 3 money in them or a governor and a silver in them with high probability, and I will gain a gold and remodel silver to governor otherwise.

After six governors to achieve, the aim is to draw the whole deck and remodel gold to province; I compute a function P for governor draws, replacing the role of silver-remodel-to-governor with gold-remodel-to-province and repeat the same process.

The tricky business is computing P and E. The problem is: if I expect the governor to draw me more governors, how do I compute these functions? I need to do something recursive but am not a CS expert.

I think I have a similar way of actually playing governor. The only difference is I view my current hand in points only. If I have <8 money in hand and a governor I try to figure my odds of drawing enough for a province. If I feel the odds are good I will take the draw, otherwise the gold. Similarly, if I already have $8, or a gold and governor, I try to figure my odds of drawing a combination that would result in an extra province, or at least an extra duchy.

The whole thing gets even trickier when you try to account for your opponents deck. Have they seen most of their governors/golds already this shuffle? How likely is it that the +1 card for them gains them an extra province? That sort of thing.

I find that this all results in me taking the +cards option much more than other people (right or wrong).

[WanderingWinder]

Governor, governor, governor. One of the least-understood cards, I think. Certainly by me, but also I think in general.
The consensus is very much as Robz888 points out in the article, but... I am not at ALL convinced that this is even very close to the right way to play. Indeed, I think as just a big money enabler, it's not that great at all. You use it largely for gold/silver, and well, those silvers you give them are pretty useful. Especially if there's some other 5-cost that's nice for them. Or a 4-cost even, as a defensive trash for points. Those are huge by the way. They make all kinds of alternate-victory cards very relevant. Particularly, you look at silk road, gardens, island - ways to trash your zillion extra silvers defensively.
But, look at how governor for big money compares against more conventional BM strategies. Well, you're giving them silvers, which is actually a big deal - it lets them get more of their terminals, which they may indeed need to do in order to compete with you, but if they're paying attention, they will do. They use your silvers to quite an advantage, particularly since Gov player is using lots of time buying governors, which only help you to get things that help you to get provinces for most of the game. The other player is buying cards which directly get them to provinces. Ad indeed, I am not nearly so sure that you should always prefer governor to gold, for these decks anyway. Perhaps the first one or two, but.... Really, for governor player to win these games, they really need multi-province turns. And usually, because to get this, you need to use lots of card-draw, they'll be able to nail a province for sure. Which means you need multiple multi-province turns and/or 3+province turns. Also, because these games tend to be shorter, you should green sooner. In fact, I find the games are often so short, that it's not so worth it. For big money, it's just a mediocre card, maybe even at best. But it does lead to shorter games, so one or two turns of shuffle luck can mean quite a bit more. I guess the big thing is, look at how many governor plays you have to do to get enough golds, then you need to be able to draw enough to get golds AND governors in your hand, AND have enough money to buy another province at the end...
However, there's more here. It's potentially quite good in engines. You can use the trash option to get some decent components at the right price points. Indeed, it's sort of like develop in that it's in some ways quite dependent on what's available at different price points. I guess swindler here also has some similarity. But more, the cards option is potentially very strong. There are a number of cases where you can use it with RELATIVE impunity. I mean, the first one is the discard attack as is stated, though you do want to be a little wary here (also, note that moat is a REALLY good defense to this - you're having me draw so many cards before attacking me, I have a good chance of drawing my moat. And even if I don't play it... it's defending like 5 of my cards now, instead of 2; well worth it), as a best 3 cards out of 8 or something is a lot better than 3 out of 5. But another situation is where you're playing against library/watchtower/jack - the cards don't help them much. More commonly, you're playing against someone who's drawing their whole deck anyway - no big deal then, if you make them do it a little faster. Still more commonly, they have no source of extra buy/gain. Sure, now you're guaranteeing them a province on their next turn. But if you can mega-turn, well then who cares? So what this option loves, and the card itself loves to some extent, are ways to mega0turn. Plus buys and gains that aren't limited to by cost (so with highway also works, but I'm largely thinking of HoP here), cards that love handsize (forge is nice, bank if you've got buys) - some way of making an engine, you're good. Also, in such games, you often have mirrors, right. And in this case, the gain option is more powerful - you can use the golds, to remodel if nothing else, much better than they can use the silvers. What will they do with the silver? I guess remodel it into governors. So, it's weird, governor sorta works better in non-mirrors, sort of how tribute works best in mirrors.
But I guess the thing I'd say most is that, while you're right to be somewhat wary of using cards too much, as that's a pretty nice benefit to your opponent, I think people may have learned that lesson too well, though maybe the top top players less so.

[verikt]

I don't know if you're 100% right about never buying lab over governor. I just had a game where I bought a lab after my third governor because I wanted the draw without giving it to my opponent. I dunno if it was the right move, and I don't remember if I won or lost either.
 I've also used gov to remodel plats in colony games. Depending on how easy it is to get plat, mine, mint, develop-peddler come to mind it can come in handy.

[ednever]

Funny on the governor backlash that seems to be trickling in. I think the backlash is wrong.

Building a good governor simulator is really hard. But if you can keep track of your and your opponent's deck, I think Govenor single card beats just about everything else (certainly merchant ship).

I buy Govenors over gold just about every time - you should have a ton of gold from the gs anyway, and the value of extra Govenors on your last mega turn is worth the purchase on its own. I don't think I've ever had a find turn where I wished a Govenor was a gold (of I did I would just +3 cards and almost guarantee myself another gold plus two more cards)

For times not to buy Govenors:
The only one I can think of might be an igg rush. Especially if there was alt vp like gardens (or border village... Bv is great for governor, but I suspect the ability to respond to Govenor remodels with igg->bv->duchy (or igg) would accelerate the igg strategy more than the governors)

Other cursors mess up g pretty badly too. Enough that you likely want to contest the curse war, but likely not so much that it changed moving into Govenors as phase two.

Ed

[blueblimp]

Building a good governor simulator is really hard. But if you can keep track of your and your opponent's deck, I think Govenor single card beats just about everything else (certainly merchant ship).

The simulator of course can keep track of the decks perfectly, though. It's probably hard to write the rules, but I imagine if someone played a few sample games of Governor vs whatever (say Merchant Ship), then posted the logs with comments, it shouldn't be too bad to write something reasonable.

It's believable to me that there could be some Governor groupthink going on in games: your opponent gets it, so you feel pressured and get it too... but maybe you would have been better off just ignoring it.

[WanderingWinder]

Who's willing to back up their words with some obviously-won't-count-toward-the-scoreboard-because-we're-specifying-cards-in-the-kingdom isotropic games? I am.

[greatexpectations]

simulation is difficult, so as WW suggested why not play it out.

i think that governor's strength needs to be at least partially credited to the fact that both players always seem to race for them. this might be part of the problem with poorer than expected simulations. with your opponent feeding you silver, trashing your copper, and increasing your hand size you can easily gain more gold and governors and ramp up your deck.  without that assistance or some fast trashing, well, things are going to be a bit slower.

fwiw, according to the popular buys page, governor is the fastest card out there by nearly 2! full turns. it is a clear outlier, and i suspect that is largely because of the great benefits to your opponent. 

[Jfrisch]

I'm convinced that the lab option is underplayed. The benefit to your opponent is no doubt strong. (a free lab is always nice). But you are getting twice that benefit. Essentially everybody gets a lab, then you get a second lab. Since lab is a 5$ card, as long as you have a way to take advantage of big turns this should be fine.

[theory]

I'm convinced that the lab option is underplayed. The benefit to your opponent is no doubt strong. (a free lab is always nice). But you are getting twice that benefit. Essentially everybody gets a lab, then you get a second lab. Since lab is a 5$ card, as long as you have a way to take advantage of big turns this should be fine.

But assume you both have a single Governor.  You used your Governor on drawing 3 cards, so you get to play with 7 cards.  On the other hand, he gets to use his Governor on something else, so even though he's only playing with 5 cards + the Governor, he has that Governor and can remodel the Gold.

[blueblimp]

I'm convinced that the lab option is underplayed. The benefit to your opponent is no doubt strong. (a free lab is always nice). But you are getting twice that benefit. Essentially everybody gets a lab, then you get a second lab. Since lab is a 5$ card, as long as you have a way to take advantage of big turns this should be fine.

Getting a lab without needing to draw a lab is better than lab, though. That's why Alchemist costs 3P instead of 5: you don't need to worry as much about drawing it. The article's comparison to Wharf is also good.

[blueblimp]

Who's willing to back up their words with some obviously-won't-count-toward-the-scoreboard-because-we're-specifying-cards-in-the-kingdom isotropic games? I am.

I'm bad with Governor lately, but I'd like to see someone else give this a shot.

[WanderingWinder]

Just played a handful of games with O. It's a pretty limited sample, but it was roughly on par with BM/Smithy, a bit of an edge over BM/Merchant ship. I think smithy was actually a little better, but I'm not about to play 100 games for no reason on it. In either case, I think mixing in some governors to your smithy deck, at least if you hit $5 at the right/wrong moment, is important.
Furthermore, you should draw cards as governor player fairly often here (as O in fact did).

[Jfrisch]

@theory
I'm a bit confused about your point. Clearly there is an opportunity cost in choosing one option over another. Clearly you want to choose the option that will create the greatest disparity in benefit to you vs benefit to your opponent. I'm responding to the particular worry about card draw. people seem to feel that it is somehow a very dangerous option to take when really, unless you are stupid about it (i.e. drawing extra cards when you have a significantly weaker deck than your opponent/when you already have achieved what you want this turn) it's really not that bad. Now early game I very frequently will prefer the gold, and at the end of a mega-turn the trashing ability can come in handy. But if your hand would do much better with a few more cards, go for cards. People seem to have this irrational fear that because they are giving there opponent a better hand as well, (lab is strong!) they should really avoid this option.
A gold vs a silver isn't that great a trade-off for a lot of the game. And, unless you are going for VP, there isn't a ton of marginal benefit a lot of the time over remodeling to exactly 2 vs exactly 1. Card is very often the best option but, because they are helping there a opponent more then with the other options. People are often afraid to use it.

(for some reason, this fear isn't as present with councilroom... which is really weird to be considering with councilroom you are trading a dead draw card for a live draw for your opponents...)
@Blueblimp
I don't think you're accurate. Alchemist is better than lab because you can play it more frequently because of the potion trick.  With governor, any increase in the frequency with which it's played directly corresponds to you getting to play it more.

[O]

Just played a handful of games with O. It's a pretty limited sample, but it was roughly on par with BM/Smithy, a bit of an edge over BM/Merchant ship. I think smithy was actually a little better, but I'm not about to play 100 games for no reason on it. In either case, I think mixing in some governors to your smithy deck, at least if you hit $5 at the right/wrong moment, is important.
Furthermore, you should draw cards as governor player fairly often here (as O in fact did).

I noticed during these that governor has a pretty high chance of winning if it hits 5/5 on turns 3/4, and probably a marginally losing record when it doesn't. I felt like I hit 5/5 25% of the time, but am too lazy to calculate the probabilities to see if this is below or above average.

[blueblimp]

@Blueblimp
I don't think you're accurate. Alchemist is better than lab because you can play it more frequently because of the potion trick.  With governor, any increase in the frequency with which it's played directly corresponds to you getting to play it more.

Here's why I think the strength of Alchemist is in its reliability and not often you play it.

In my experience, it's only worth going for Alchemist if you can expect to draw almost your entire deck. Otherwise, you have a decent chance of missing the Potion, unless you get two (or more!) Potions, but then you're spending a turn to gum up your deck with a semi-dead card.

If you're drawing your whole deck, then it's obvious how often you play Alchemist/Lab: once per turn. You can't play either more that that, so they seem to have similar effects, yet Alchemist is better for drawing your deck. Why?

I claim it's because the greater reliability of Alchemist allows it to draw more. Imagine you are trying to draw your deck with 5 Labs. Assuming no other cards that draw more than 1, the greatest number of non-drawing cards you can have is 10. But if you try to use 5 Labs to draw 10 cards like this, it's not going to work very often, because if one of your Labs is among the bottom two cards of your deck after you shuffle, then you will fail to draw your deck.

On the other hand, Alchemists have no problem drawing the theoretical maximum number of cards. If you have 5 Alchemists, you can support 10 non-drawing cards guaranteed, since you are certain to hit your Potion every time and be able to top-deck the Alchemists. When building an engine, it's a huge benefit to have this kind of certainty.

[WanderingWinder]

You guys realize that alchemist is worse than lab, right?

[blueblimp]

You guys realize that alchemist is worse than lab, right?

It's better once you have them (obviously, since it's a Lab you can sometimes top-deck), even though the cost is annoying.

Actually even considering the cost, I think I'd prefer Alchemists for a nicely-trimmed engine, just because the top-decking is so useful. If I can't trim my deck, then sure Lab is better.

[O]

I wonder how much better Alchemist would be over Lab if it was priced at 5$ (but maintained the potion-to-topdeck)

[ehunt]

You guys realize that alchemist is worse than lab, right?

Man, alchemist is the whipping boy of these forums recently. Perhaps he needs his own article. (Not by me. My strategy is not to buy him.)

[blueblimp]

I wonder how much better Alchemist would be over Lab if it was priced at 5$ (but maintained the potion-to-topdeck)

Wouldn't this make Alchemist worse, since the Potion would be useless for buying Alchemists?

[Morgrim7]

I wonder how much better Alchemist would be over Lab if it was priced at 5$ (but maintained the potion-to-topdeck)

Wouldn't this make Alchemist worse, since the Potion would be useless for buying Alchemists?

No, because it is the same as lab already. And you are not obliged to buy a Potion.

[olneyce]

You guys realize that alchemist is worse than lab, right?

Man, alchemist is the whipping boy of these forums recently. Perhaps he needs his own article. (Not by me. My strategy is not to buy him.)

Your strategy is to not buy anything because you have quit Dominion forever.

[blueblimp]

I wonder how much better Alchemist would be over Lab if it was priced at 5$ (but maintained the potion-to-topdeck)

Wouldn't this make Alchemist worse, since the Potion would be useless for buying Alchemists?

No, because it is the same as lab already. And you are not obliged to buy a Potion.

Sorry, I meant that Alchemist at $5 is probably worse than Alchemist at $3P, because the Potion doesn't help you buy them.

[O]

I wonder how much better Alchemist would be over Lab if it was priced at 5$ (but maintained the potion-to-topdeck)

Wouldn't this make Alchemist worse, since the Potion would be useless for buying Alchemists?

No, because it is the same as lab already. And you are not obliged to buy a Potion.

Sorry, I meant that Alchemist at $5 is probably worse than Alchemist at $3P, because the Potion doesn't help you buy them.

....I don't think so.

[WanderingWinder]

I wonder how much better Alchemist would be over Lab if it was priced at 5$ (but maintained the potion-to-topdeck)

Wouldn't this make Alchemist worse, since the Potion would be useless for buying Alchemists?

No, because it is the same as lab already. And you are not obliged to buy a Potion.

Sorry, I meant that Alchemist at $5 is probably worse than Alchemist at $3P, because the Potion doesn't help you buy them.

Alchemist at 5 is better than lab at 5, which is better than alch at 3p...

[blueblimp]

I wonder how much better Alchemist would be over Lab if it was priced at 5$ (but maintained the potion-to-topdeck)

Wouldn't this make Alchemist worse, since the Potion would be useless for buying Alchemists?

No, because it is the same as lab already. And you are not obliged to buy a Potion.

Sorry, I meant that Alchemist at $5 is probably worse than Alchemist at $3P, because the Potion doesn't help you buy them.

Alchemist at 5 is better than lab at 5, which is better than alch at 3p...

Well I still don't see why you think Lab is always better than Alchemist. I can agree that Lab is good more often than Alchemist is, but when Alchemist is worthwhile, it's better than Lab, for the reasons I gave in my previous post. (It's more reliable when you want to draw your whole deck every turn.)

Edit: So... in the situations where Lab is better than Alchemist, you likely would never buy a Potion for top-decking, so the cards would be the same at $5. In situations where Alchemist is better (which granted are fewer), then you would buy the Potion, which means it's good to get some use out of it.

[Robz888]

But I guess the thing I'd say most is that, while you're right to be somewhat wary of using cards too much, as that's a pretty nice benefit to your opponent, I think people may have learned that lesson too well, though maybe the top top players less so.

Maybe people have learned this, and maybe they learned it too well. The other big Governor mistake, though, is one I see ALL the time, and I'm quite convinced it's a mistake. And that is using your Governors to trash Coppers and Estates, rather than to gain Gold. You should use your opponent's Governors to trash Coppers and Estates, sure, but your own Governors really only want to remodel, uh, Silvers into Governors (and Duchies), and the $6 cards into Provinces.

[Robz888]

I'm also unconvinced that governor is a poor addition to non-treasure engine. The draw ability and late game endgame ability are still very strong. And if you are playing a non-treasure engine, your opponent likely is as well, so gold vs silver is still pretty nice.

Yeah, but given Governor, is your opponent going to let you build a non-treasure engine? Because if he gets Governor, your plan goes out the window. And really, it's tough to imagine a board where neither player goes for Governors at all, and some engine is available. Like, some Curse obliteration game, or Ill-Gotten Gains, okay, you might not ever acquire a bunch of Governors. But you don't really have a great non-treasure engine cooking either. In which case the Governor is still going to be quite helpful, by gaining you Gold, possibly even trashing a Curse or eeking a Duchy out of a Silver or something, or drawing you enough cards to string together the money for a Province.

[Robz888]

And if you can't tell, I'm just getting back online now after my laptop died today.

Side note: Alchemist deserves all the hate it gets and more. Though I still lose to it periodically.

[WanderingWinder]

But I guess the thing I'd say most is that, while you're right to be somewhat wary of using cards too much, as that's a pretty nice benefit to your opponent, I think people may have learned that lesson too well, though maybe the top top players less so.

Maybe people have learned this, and maybe they learned it too well. The other big Governor mistake, though, is one I see ALL the time, and I'm quite convinced it's a mistake. And that is using your Governors to trash Coppers and Estates, rather than to gain Gold. You should use your opponent's Governors to trash Coppers and Estates, sure, but your own Governors really only want to remodel, uh, Silvers into Governors (and Duchies), and the $6 cards into Provinces.

That is (generally) terrible. But I haven't seen anyone do this, almost ever.

[WanderingWinder]

I'm also unconvinced that governor is a poor addition to non-treasure engine. The draw ability and late game endgame ability are still very strong. And if you are playing a non-treasure engine, your opponent likely is as well, so gold vs silver is still pretty nice.

Yeah, but given Governor, is your opponent going to let you build a non-treasure engine? Because if he gets Governor, your plan goes out the window. And really, it's tough to imagine a board where neither player goes for Governors at all, and some engine is available.

So here I disagree with you. Your opponent goes governor, doesn't stop you from building an engine, really. I mean, their silvers are going to clog you a bit, but not THAT much really. They can't gain THAT many silvers. And them using the draw really will help you more if you're building an engine (unless you're already drawing your whole deck), so that hurts their ability to play Money-Governor, sorta significantly. I mean, it needs to be a decent engine. But I think that these are viable decently often, and by no means do such engines 'go out the window' just because your opponent picks up some governors themselves. And I can't see why they would really. I mean, the thing is, non-treasure engines aren't non-treasure because they need to avoid treasure like the plague; they're non-treasure because you have 4 other important things to get and don't have time to build more treasure.

[Morgrim7]

Just played a game with Governor that ended with a long remodeling spree...*sigh* I love those games.

[blueblimp]

But I guess the thing I'd say most is that, while you're right to be somewhat wary of using cards too much, as that's a pretty nice benefit to your opponent, I think people may have learned that lesson too well, though maybe the top top players less so.

Maybe people have learned this, and maybe they learned it too well. The other big Governor mistake, though, is one I see ALL the time, and I'm quite convinced it's a mistake. And that is using your Governors to trash Coppers and Estates, rather than to gain Gold. You should use your opponent's Governors to trash Coppers and Estates, sure, but your own Governors really only want to remodel, uh, Silvers into Governors (and Duchies), and the $6 cards into Provinces.

There are some situations where using Governor on a Copper or an Estate isn't completely silly, although maybe still not optimal:

• Fool's Gold games. Remodeling a Copper into a Fool's Gold seems reasonable even though it gives benefit to your opponent. You're playing a worse version of Remodel/Fool's Gold, but Remodel/Fool's Gold is pretty good.
• Massable $4's, like Worker's Village, Caravan, and to a lesser extent Tournament. If you really really want to win that WV split, then this could help.
• After a discard attack. Then your opponent is unlikely to take advantage of the counter-upgrade. (And for that matter, any other situation where your opponent won't want to counter-upgrade, like after top-decking a bunch of good cards.)

[jomini]

I believe governor and tournament should go really well together - use the governor to gain gold & an early province, and more governors. After that, remodeling estates to tournaments gives you a much better shot at snagging prizes; the prize of followers is just brutal if you have a governor engine.

[lespeutere]

I can't imagine a board where I'd want gold over governor.

Watch WW's video 027 vs. rod- (though rod makes mistakes, for sure). Whenever I see governor I remind myself of this game and rethink my assessments.

[shark_bait]

Sorry to Necro this thread, but by some random stroke of chance, Governor has been featured in numerous games lately for me and all of them went exceptionally well for me.  I figured I'd put down some of my key thoughts on how I used Governor effectively.  It should be noted that in all these games Governor was used for trash Gold => Province.

1.)  DON'T BLINDLY SEE GOVERNOR AND PLAN ON BUYING AS MANY AS POSSIBLE

     -  I really can't stress that enough.  Although Governor was the linchpin to each game.  The reason I won the games was due to using Governor effectively within the given kingdom. 

e.g.  One of the Kingdom's had Mint.  Normally people say it is generally better to gain Gold at the start.  In this game, I was able to go +Card on a couple of Governors to facilitate a massive Mint trash which led to a more streamlined deck.

e.g.  Another game contained Haggler and Throne Room.  I detoured from the Tradition route of getting Governors and picked up an early Haggler so that I could do things like buy Governor, gain TR. 

2.)  Value discard based attacks.

     -Two of the games contained discard attacks (Militia and Margrave).  Get these cards and use them.  But remember that even when you use this tactic, they get their best 3 cards of however many you gave them.  Oftentimes if they are running a similar strategy they will make it through their deck no matter what.  But early game before that is happening, it is a very powerful tactic.

3.)  Know the value of each card in your deck

     -In one game I trashed my Militia for a Governor on my opponents last turn to gain the last Governor.  I knew that he was getting through his deck no matter what and that I could probably end it on my next turn with the extra Governor.

4.)  When KC is present - Plan on ending the game in a single turn

     -In normal Governor games, the Province gaining is usually spread out over a couple turns giving you time to react.  When KC is around, the game will end on a single turn due to KC's extreme power.  With that said, prepare to get to KC as fast as possible.  Mild trashing like Steward is not quite as important early.  You want to Prioritize Governor/KC and then get the trasher so that you can draw your deck and then KC the trasher.  A powerful move with Governor/KC is to trash your Silvers (gained from opponents Governors) and turn them into more Governors, and then play them on the same turn. 

[ConMan]

I am now wondering - how would a Governor/JoaT/Feodum game go? Would much support for Feodum be needed to be the dominant strategy, especially if the opponent goes for a Governor rush?

[dondon151]

I am now wondering - how would a Governor/JoaT/Feodum game go? Would much support for Feodum be needed to be the dominant strategy, especially if the opponent goes for a Governor rush?

Probably? Remember that you need 18 Silvers for Feodum to be equivalent to Province in VP. An opponent Governor will probably only give you about 6 of those Silvers. Trashing Feodum with JoaT sounds cool in theory but could be dangerous in practice because there aren't very many Feodums in the supply. I suppose the Governor player can also steal Feodum with remodeling Estate -> Feodum.

On the plus side, you do have a lot of defensive remodeling options. Feodum -> Duchy is particularly good if you've kept track of how many Silvers are in your deck and Silver -> Feodum is a good one as well.

[ConMan]

Yeah, I did think that Silver -> Feodum and Feodum -> $5-cost would at least make your opponent think twice about doing the remodel option on Governor, even if he hadn't given you (m)any silvers from it. I wondered whether it's worth buying your own Governors, but then you'd presumably avoid the Silver/Gold option in favour of trashing, probably Estate -> Feodum or similar. Or you could choose Governor as your $5 to go to from Feodum, but still the question remains of what you do with it?

I'm trying to think what support would be just enough to make it work, and of course the problem then is you wind up with an extremely complex, and hence probably fragile, strategy. Border Village? Some other trasher? Graverobber/Rogue?

[Polk5440]

I have a hard time imagining a board where I'd ignore this card.

This is the worst thing about Governor.

[ipofanes]

Remember: Your opponent gets the effect before you do.

...I'm pretty sure this isn't true?

Also, you might want to add Possession to the "works with" list.

Isn't that rather "conflicts with"?

[ipofanes]

And if you can't tell, I'm just getting back online now after my laptop died today.

Side note: Alchemist deserves all the hate it gets and more. Though I still lose to it periodically.

I played a kingdom with Golems, Alchemists, Fishing Villages and Bridges against my son yesterday which ran slower than I had expected. The ratio of Fishing Villages to Bridges was quite low in my deck, so I was facing the tough question of whether to top-deck the Alchemists even if I could, or rather hope to draw them with Golem in order to net the all-important actions.

[ipofanes]

Ending the game physically would not be the only incentive to use the draw option for Governor. If I have the prospective to end the turn with a 5-3 split, and my opponent would have to get the last Province, four Duchies, and an Estate to turn the game around (especially with no +buys in the kingdom), I'd be jumping the gun.

[Qvist]

I have a hard time imagining a board where I'd ignore this card.

This is the worst thing about Governor.

Interesting that you quote that right at the time as I had an interesting game where I bought 9 of 10 kingdom cards. And the one I didn't bought was Governor. I could have probably played this better by trashing earlier and such things, but I didn't need the Governor because I had enough draw with Rabble and cantrips and I don't want any Gold.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20130108-190902-123f117c.html

[HiveMindEmulator]

Remember: Your opponent gets the effect before you do.

...I'm pretty sure this isn't true?

Also, you might want to add Possession to the "works with" list.

Isn't that rather "conflicts with"?

It's definitely a "works with". You just play all your Governors for cards which allows you to draw you Possession, then you play it, and get to spend all the other cards in your big hand, and then their big hand as well.

[WheresMyElephant]

Remember: Your opponent gets the effect before you do.

...I'm pretty sure this isn't true?

Also, you might want to add Possession to the "works with" list.

Isn't that rather "conflicts with"?

It's definitely a "works with". You just play all your Governors for cards which allows you to draw you Possession, then you play it, and get to spend all the other cards in your big hand, and then their big hand as well.

Yeah, I guess the counterargument is that the opponent with Possession can abuse your Governor for +Cards guilt-free? But that doesn't work because you have a Possession too; you are the one who's going to be playing that hand of his. In fact you are playing Possession reliably, practically every turn, while your opponent who passed up Governor probably only gets to play his Possession once every few turns.

[Robz888]

It's been several months since I wrote this article. I have to say that in the time since then, my opinion of this card (which was high to begin with) has only increased. It's just dirty strong. It's not an attack, and it's not Wharf, but man, it's just as essential a $5 card as Hunting Party or Tactician, if not moreso. I'll be interested to see where it ends up on the rankings this time around, but I find it to be a necessary purchase like 90% of the time, and probably heavily involved in the dominant strategy maybe 80% of the time. (Those are just numbers I'm coming up with off the top of my head; it sure feels like that, though.)

[WanderingWinder]

I think my opinion is slightly lower than yours, but I do have it just outside the top 10. Looking again, I think this might be a touch high. But probably top 15 anyway.
I also think that the draw option is just so much better than we were giving credit for at that point, and it's really much more an engine card than a money card.

[Robz888]

I think my opinion is slightly lower than yours, but I do have it just outside the top 10. Looking again, I think this might be a touch high. But probably top 15 anyway.
I also think that the draw option is just so much better than we were giving credit for at that point, and it's really much more an engine card than a money card.

For me, something resembling Witch, Mountebank, Wharf, Minion, Torturer, Cultist, Ghost Ship, Governor, Margrave, Hunting Party/Tactician, Apprentice (not exactly, but something like that), so I guess I have Governor a little better than you do. I have to admit, I can think of at least one or maybe 2 of your videos where you ignored Governor (mistakenly, I thought at first) only to come out with a win. So I could be wrong.

I definitely agree with you that everyone--including me, when I wrote this article--was overly afraid of the draw option, which is just like so awesome. Governor is Super Laboratory With Options, that's how I look at it. Really, it's the enormous flexibility the card gives you to plot a winning deck.

If I were to revise this article, I would also underscore the importance of picking up $4 cards (or $3 cards if Silk Road is available, or whatever), to do defensive trashing. Picking up a Spy never felt so right.

[OgreMkV]

I too find governor to be more situational, although I rarely use it for the remodel function (something I need to fix).  If there aren't +buy and discard attacks on the board, then I ignore governor a lot of the time.  Again, maybe I should rethink that.

Honestly, the main reason I like governor was that it enabled my first 150+ point game.  Governor, Border Village, Goons.  That should be enough said.  At the end, I had five goons and was regularly drawing my entire hand and playing them.  My last buy was province, province, estate, copper, copper, copper, for a 42 point turn.

[Robz888]

I too find governor to be more situational, although I rarely use it for the remodel function (something I need to fix).  If there aren't +buy and discard attacks on the board, then I ignore governor a lot of the time.  Again, maybe I should rethink that.

Governor likes +buy, sure, but lack of +buy is still a good reason to go Governor. Governor has no problem remodeling multiple Golds into Provinces, so in a way you can get around the fact that you don't have +buy.

[SirPeebles]

I too find governor to be more situational, although I rarely use it for the remodel function (something I need to fix).  If there aren't +buy and discard attacks on the board, then I ignore governor a lot of the time.  Again, maybe I should rethink that.

Honestly, the main reason I like governor was that it enabled my first 150+ point game.  Governor, Border Village, Goons.  That should be enough said.  At the end, I had five goons and was regularly drawing my entire hand and playing them.  My last buy was province, province, estate, copper, copper, copper, for a 42 point turn.

If you're on Goko, you should try out the Prosperity adventure mode.  So many ridiculous Goons boards.  I got over 600 points in one of them without much fuss.