Print

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

[chwhite]

That's another thing. Why are people hating on Smugglers all the time. I get great stuff from them. Almost always get at least one, even two if the board is full of nice things.

Cause it sucks.  I get great wins all the time from my opponents falling into the Smugglers trap.

Well, I want to believe you, because I hate Smugglers.

I'd say that Smugglers is good with Minion, Grand Market, cheap alt-VPs like Gardens, SR, Duke, and Vineyards... and just about nothing else.  This is not a hard and fast rule, but it's pretty close to the truth.

Smugglers is not nearly as bad as the worst $4s, or the worst $5s, or 'Mute/PStone, or Adventurer.  But I do think it's likely the worst $3 (though you could make good arguments for Develop, Workshop, and Chancellor- they're all pretty close).

Or cartographer, mining village, nobles, bazaar, etc.  The big thing about smugglers is that it is like mine and remodel.  You need to be able to play it just about every turn.  On a board with spice merchant or warehouse, you call pull smugglers out pretty quick and keep slapping them down.  The only problem is, you need to be sure that there's *something* your opponent is gonna buy that will let you get more money.

(For reference, I'm 0.65 effect with, -0.56 effect without, and I buy the damn thing 79.7% of the time, compared to the average of 55.8%).

Okay, possibly Nobles.  Not those other things.  The big thing with Smugglers actually is, what are you not able to buy because you bought Smugglers instead of Silver, and end up with hands that are often worth $2 less (or more if it leads to terminal clashes)?

I mean, if there's a mirror match engine (or alt-VP) to be built, then sure I'll consider Smugglers.   More commonly as second player, of course.  However:

* if my opponent is pursuing a different strategy (pretty common)
* or I need to save my terminal slots for attacks that will hopefully hit my opponent and force them to not buy nice things (also pretty common)
* or if I'm going for most BM strategies, especially those like Masq and Jack where the key cards are bought on Turns 1 and 2 (again, pretty common)
* or if the engine is mostly built on Potion and/or Black Market cards (not too uncommon)

...then Smugglers is just not going to do that much for me!

I would say that instead of Mine and Remodel, Smugglers is like Workshop and Tribute.  It's a terminal gainer with uncontrollable benefits that rely on your opponent doing the right thing.  It has better range than Workshop, but at the price of control- and that's a high price to pay.

(FWIW, I'm 0.47 Effect With, 1.42 Effect Without, and buy it a mere 25.7% of the time.)

I like it as an extra Buy on a no +Buy board.  And sometimes if you start out hosed, you need to gamble on it to get ahead.

If it's a no +Buy board, chances are I'm either attacking hard or going BM-esque, and Smugglers is pretty bad in both those cases.

The second case is reasonable.  I can definitely imagine situations where you want a Smugglers even though you're likely to lose with it in your deck, and I can see that depressing its CR stats a smidge.  (Sort of like Saboteur.)

[Jedit]

The big thing about smugglers is that it is like mine and remodel.  You need to be able to play it just about every turn.  On a board with spice merchant or warehouse, you call pull smugglers out pretty quick and keep slapping them down.  The only problem is, you need to be sure that there's *something* your opponent is gonna buy that will let you get more money.

Going first is enough of an advantage in Dominion that if the game ends in a tie on the first player's turn, he loses.  Buying Smugglers is at best choosing to play your opponent's strategy but allowing him to go first. 

[rinkworks]

Going first is enough of an advantage in Dominion that if the game ends in a tie on the first player's turn, he loses.  Buying Smugglers is at best choosing to play your opponent's strategy but allowing him to go first. 

That's a hilarious way to put it.  But fair?  If I play a Smugglers and immediately gain a Gold, Minion, Laboratory, or whatever, that is indeed picking up what your opponent picked up quicker, which is a small disadvantage for you.  But now you've still got four more cards in your hand and can presumably buy something.  A Village to go with that brand new Torturer, say, or a Smithy to draw that brand new Gold.  It's not like Smugglers sacrifices your entire turn to do what your opponent just did.  It gives you a chance to slingshot past him just by virtue of the fact that you can gain with one card what your opponent perhaps needed his entire hand for.

I'm not arguing that Smugglers is a power card or something, but someone recently pointed out how we, as a community, tend to shift our feelings about one card or another as a group.  My sense is that the Smugglers pendulum is a hair on the low side.

[hobo386]

(Or cartographer, mining village, nobles, bazaar, etc.  )

Okay, possibly Nobles.  Not those other things.  The big thing with Smugglers actually is, what are you not able to buy because you bought Smugglers instead of Silver, and end up with hands that are often worth $2 less (or more if it leads to terminal clashes)?

I mean, if there's a mirror match engine (or alt-VP) to be built, then sure I'll consider Smugglers.   More commonly as second player, of course.  However:

* if my opponent is pursuing a different strategy (pretty common)
* or I need to save my terminal slots for attacks that will hopefully hit my opponent and force them to not buy nice things (also pretty common)
* or if I'm going for most BM strategies, especially those like Masq and Jack where the key cards are bought on Turns 1 and 2 (again, pretty common)
* or if the engine is mostly built on Potion and/or Black Market cards (not too uncommon)

...then Smugglers is just not going to do that much for me!

I would say that instead of Mine and Remodel, Smugglers is like Workshop and Tribute.  It's a terminal gainer with uncontrollable benefits that rely on your opponent doing the right thing.  It has better range than Workshop, but at the price of control- and that's a high price to pay.

I think you're arguing completely different angle than I am.  Of course smugglers sucks in Masq/BM.  Of course I'm most often buying it as second player (I play like 3/4 of games as second player these days).  Of course I won't buy it if my opponent is spamming alchemists (Having smugglers collide with an alchemy engine is actually pretty rare).  Of course I won't buy it if I have no spare actions and I really need to play my single swindler or whatever. 

And sure, it may be more like a workshop than a mine (but those follow the same rule of you needing to play it every turn that I was talking about), but in the same way, wouldn't you use a workshop to gain mining villages, or bazaars, cartographers, cities, or even hunting parties or markets?  I know I would do that in most kingdoms.  These all either give you more actions (so you can still use your attacks), give you money (so you can still build your deck if your opponent doesn't buy exactly what you want), or let you cycle through your deck more quickly so you can get at your smugglers again. If there's at least one or two decent cards like this, and you know your opponent is going to buy them, it's worth a shot, as long as you can access smugglers often enough.

And tribute, I'm just gonna laugh at.  Because tribute is probably my least favorite card in the game due to how luck dependent it is (barring severe help).  I swear even if I do it in a BM game, I either hit their two coppers, while they hit my gold/silver every time.  Smugglers, if they don't want to give me the card I want, they can't have it either.

[WanderingWinder]

Workshop lets you pick exactly what you gain. Smugglers leaves you at the whim of your opponent (and if he's really bright, he can often tell when you have it in hand - which is why it is imperative when you have it to NOT play it if it gets you nothing), for being able to get stuff a little more expensive. Of course, you sometimes get nothing at all. Advantage, workshop, by a pretty wide margin. And it's not the paragon of a great card anyway, much as I like it and know how to use it.

[hobo386]

Workshop lets you pick exactly what you gain. Smugglers leaves you at the whim of your opponent (and if he's really bright, he can often tell when you have it in hand - which is why it is imperative when you have it to NOT play it if it gets you nothing), for being able to get stuff a little more expensive. Of course, you sometimes get nothing at all. Advantage, workshop, by a pretty wide margin. And it's not the paragon of a great card anyway, much as I like it and know how to use it.

The problem with workshop is that most decks aren't based around 4$ cards though.  If you play smugglers properly, you will be playing it often enough that if your opponent changes his buy-strategy to avoid giving you good cards, he'll have to seriously hamper himself.  I'm not saying smugglers is always useful, but given the choice between smugglers and workshop, I'll take smugglers 95 times out of a hundred.  I'd say smugglers is probably around the midpoint on my personal $3 cards list.