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[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.