Topic: Must-Buy Cards? (Read 17771 times)

Epoch · « **on:** July 20, 2011, 07:33:05 pm »

Are there cards -- besides the obvious high-end treasures/VP cards -- that you feel like you will almost always buy if they're on the table, even without any particular support from the rest of the kingdom cards? Like, say, 85%+ of the time, regardless of the board?

I can't think of too many, besides the Cursing Attacks. Maybe Tournament.

hyku · « **Reply #1 on:** July 20, 2011, 07:43:54 pm »

I think goons is a must buy. If there are no village-type cards getting one is still better than a gold. And if there are villages, buying goons over gold is a no-brainer. I have yet to discover a way to beat goons without buying them yourself. Its such a must buy i really dislike the card. Does anyone know ways to beat a goons deck without getting goons?

philosophyguy · « **Reply #2 on:** July 20, 2011, 07:46:32 pm »

Ambassador, Chapel, and Sea Hag are definite "must buy" cards. Grand Market is almost a must-buy.

hyku · « **Reply #3 on:** July 20, 2011, 08:01:26 pm »

Quote from: philosophyguy on July 20, 2011, 07:46:32 pm

Ambassador, Chapel, and Sea Hag are definite "must buy" cards. Grand Market is almost a must-buy.

Chapel and sea hag aren't must buys when ambassador is on the board.
Chapel isn't a must buy if you going for a alchemist/lab draw engine with bank.
Sea hag isn't a must buy if there is a better cursing card like witch or mountebank.

WanderingWinder · « **Reply #4 on:** July 20, 2011, 08:14:22 pm »

It depends on how high your threshold is. If you're talking 100%, there is no card at all that is a "must buy". But for 85%, there are some. The strong $5 cursing attacks are what come to mind. Ambassador is probably even beyond these.
But you can get around chapel actually rather often, and sea hag as well.
Goons isn't close to being must buy - in non-colony games, it's USUALLY better than gold, but not always, and there are also several situations where you don't buy gold. Furthermore, when you need to hit $11, skipping goons for gold is the right play sorta often.

hyku · « **Reply #5 on:** July 20, 2011, 08:35:11 pm »

I'm trying to think of time when you wouldn't want at least 1 goons in your deck. The only deck/engine that I can think that would not want a goons would be a minion, and in that case, they wouldn't want to get gold either. Can you give me other examples that you are thinking of?

The other point is whether goons becomes a less valuable buy when playing a colony game. I think it retains its "must-buy-ness"
Colony games will generally last longer, which means that the goons will attack more (and therefore make the game last longer) and get more of those bonus victory points as you work you way up to $11.

I still see it as a must-buy (when you have $6) over a gold unless you are scared additional goons will cause you to draw them in the same hand.

WanderingWinder · « **Reply #6 on:** July 20, 2011, 08:49:06 pm »

One obvious example is a Hunting Party deck with another good terminal silver in it. Also, decks which have lots of good terminal $5 attacks and you don't want more terminal collisions.
But there's actually a lot of cases where you never get to buying gold OR any other $6 - Gardens decks, vineyards decks, duke decks, etc. But yes, usually goons is good. I absolutely love it, but only gain it 87.6% of the time.
Actually, there are only 5 cards I gain more than 85% of games they're in (province itself is 6th at an even 85%): Island, Caravan, Hoard, Goons, Fishing Village. All-in-all, not actually what I would think are most powerful, most must-buy, or even what I'd buy most exactly, though I would expect all these to be quite high.

guided · « **Reply #7 on:** July 20, 2011, 08:54:36 pm »

85%? Ambassador and Witch (in the absence of Mountebank). If both Witch and Mountebank are available I'll probably take one or the other with 85%+ frequency, though which to buy depends on the board. If only Mountebank is available? probably right around 85%, yeah.

edit: Well, my cr.com popular buys suggest some other things I gain at least 85% of the time: Fishing Village, Caravan, Mining Village, Familiar (just plum forgot about this one), Goons, Salvager, Warehouse. Mountebank is down around 82%. Other than Familiar I don't know that I'd put any of these in the same "must-buy" category as Ambassador and Witch. Fishing Village, Goons, and Salvager just tend to suit my playstyle. Caravan and Mining Village aren't so much "must-buys" as they are convenient do-no-harm cantrips to take with spare $4 buys. Warehouse is just a good general-use card that often eclipses Silver for spare $3 buys in the mid to late game. Tournament is on the list too but it's a very small sample size doubtless colored by the "ooh, shiny!" aspect of it.

So, final list: Ambassador, Witch, Familiar. Honorable mention to Mountebank.

hyku · « **Reply #8 on:** July 20, 2011, 09:10:47 pm »

Quote from: WanderingWinder on July 20, 2011, 08:49:06 pm

One obvious example is a Hunting Party deck with another good terminal silver in it. Also, decks which have lots of good terminal $5 attacks and you don't want more terminal collisions.

But will any of these deck beat a deck that uses the actions available to play goons rather than any other card? If you have a deck of hunting parties/labs that draw the whole deck is there any card better than playing a goons for your only action? Now obviously its not a completely fair question because that would mean holding off buying any terminal action till you can get $6. A militia is strictly worse than a goon but you can buy it much sooner and use it earlier. But if you could randomly decide a single card you wanted to be in your deck instantly, I think a goons would be an obvious choice followed by mountebank.

The strength of the a goons deck comes from its flexibility. It can stall the game or end it whatever the goons player wants. If hes winning, he can end the game by emptying the provinces. If he wants the game to go longer, he can just keep making his engine better and buy more cards and more goons and win with vps. If the other player was dumb enough not to go goons they are forced to try to buy 8 provinces. But buying that many green cards will stall your deck and make it very difficult to finish any pile before the gradual vp gain of a goons deck surpasses them. Not too mention having some 3 card turns will be very painful.

DG · « **Reply #9 on:** July 20, 2011, 09:49:13 pm »

I looked back quickly through my games to find an interesting alternative strategy to goons. I've no idea when I played it and I know nothing about my opponent but it's a fun one anyway. http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110201-165128-9ac294f7.html.

WanderingWinder · « **Reply #10 on:** July 20, 2011, 09:49:33 pm »

You don't need to sell me on Goons. It's one of my favourite cards - probably my second favourite. But it's really not so simple. For any of that second paragraph to be true, you need to be able to consistently have goons in your hand. And so to answer your question about what single card I'd want in my deck, it would probably be familiar, then witch, then mountebank, then possession, and then MAYBE goons (but maybe not... Golem? King's Court? Grand Market? Colony? Vineyards? Chapel? Ambassador? All possibly better. Maybe even wharf).
But the biggest point is that I don't think you understand the point of the Hunting Party deck, which is totally different from a lab-centered deck. The HP deck gets 1+ silver, exactly 1 gold, and 1 (or occasionally like 2) of a terminal silver or terminal-silver equivalent (bridge, or, in this deck, Horse Traders). It then buys a lot of Hunting parties, and sprints through the provinces, being able to reliably hit $8 every turn. Now is it worth it to wait and have Goons be your terminal silver? Well, it depends on what other terminal silvers are on the board.
So the curse-givers are more important, there are some specialized decks (let's not forget quick combos like Native Village/Bridge, some forms of native village/stash), non-province VP sources... it all adds up to around 15-20% of the time you don't want goons (given the opportunity cost). Of course, that still makes Goons one of the best cards in the game, just not unbelievably broken.

hyku · « **Reply #11 on:** July 20, 2011, 10:10:39 pm »

I'm actually not trying to sell you on goons. Quite the opposite, I'm trying to explain why i don't like it because its too good in my eyes. The curse givers are good, but once the curses are out they become dead/near useless. With good thrashing they are manageable. Curse givers are definitively priority one when there isn't an ambassador. But they fade out where goons remains very powerful all game. Maybe i dislike goons because I don't play them optimally and every time i try to win without goons it bites me in the ass.

Mean Mr Mustard · « **Reply #12 on:** July 20, 2011, 10:24:19 pm »

Chapel, Caravan and Tournament head my % to buy list on CR. Not qualifying this in any way, just sayin'.

WanderingWinder · « **Reply #13 on:** July 20, 2011, 10:47:14 pm »

Interestingly, I don't know how many good players would classify Caravan as a must-buy, even though it's high up on our +% lists - it's more that there are extremely few decks where caravan isn't good, even if it's not so often needed.

Axe Knight · « **Reply #14 on:** July 20, 2011, 10:55:24 pm »

This may be some overvaluing, but the only cards on my personal buy every time last are the three +2 Cards +1 Action---Lab, Alchemist, and Hunting Party. I think it's a combination of wanting them, and not wanting my opponent to have more than me.

guided · « **Reply #15 on:** July 20, 2011, 11:13:33 pm »

Quote from: hyku on July 20, 2011, 10:10:39 pm

I'm actually not trying to sell you on goons. Quite the opposite, I'm trying to explain why i don't like it because its too good in my eyes. The curse givers are good, but once the curses are out they become dead/near useless. With good thrashing they are manageable.

You overrate Goons and underrate cursing attacks, unless you're not talking about 2p games?

There's no amount of trashing that makes Witch or Mountebank manageable. "If instead of establishing an insurmountable lead in deck quality my opponent goes off and takes a nap while I spend 5 turns cleaning out my deck, I totally shrug off cursing attacks."

Goons is basically a Militia/Monument hybrid if you can't build a real multi-Goons engine fast enough to score lots of points before the game ends. Which makes it good but not by any means "must-buy". On boards that support multi-Goons engines (which are rarer than people seem to think since they require at least 3 cards, and preferably a 4th card for trimming) it can be a dominant strategy, but then again, Torturer plus any Village can all too easily be a dominant strategy with no other helper cards, and Torturer is hardly in the "must-buy" category because of how weak it is in the absence of Villages.

Thisisnotasmile · « **Reply #16 on:** July 21, 2011, 04:59:40 am »

Wow. I have 17 cards above 85% (16 if we exclude Silver). I'm sure this has been tainted by my early newbie days and also my recent Cornucopia "ooh shiny" days, but here's a quick run down of my personal "must" buys:

Hunting Party - 100% - I expect this will stay up the top for some time. I mean, it's a case of ooh shiny, but it's actually good enough to be here, just maybe not at the 100% level.
Tournament - 100% - Definite case of ooh shiny. This should drop soon but I expect it will stay high simply because I don't want my opponent getting all the prizes >_<
Caravan - 98% - It's never a bad buy with a spare $4.
Fishing Village - 98% - What can I say? I am an action whore.
Nobles - 97.2% - This is a good card, but I definitely overrate it. I remember a game I played when I was very new to the game against a player rated quite high at the time. I won and afterwards he said "I can't believe you won taking a Province when there were Nobles left". Since he was ranked high this made me think Nobles were really good and should always be bought before Province (even though I won). I played with this in mind for a long time. The recent $6+ cards list has made me realise this isn't always the case, but it's still a strong card in some decks.
King's Court - 96.1% - What can I say? I am an action whore. My win rate with is 1.38 ± 0.19 (compared to Isotropic's average of 1.02 ± 0.00) , so I am fine with whoring this.
Festival - 95.1% - Why is this here? Man, I suck.
Market - 89.8% - A bit better than Festival but this should not be here.
Hamlet - 89.7% - Ooh shiny. It's pretty good support in most decks but you've gotta waste a buy on a $2 card.
Menagerie - 89.7% - Ooh shiny. Good when it works and I guess I buy so many different cards that it does work, so it's good. But is it good to buy so many different cards to begin with? Probably not.
Grand Market - 89.2% - It's a good card but getting it takes some work. I'm not sure that 89.2% of GM boards give you the tools to get the work done quickly and efficiently, so I probably overbuy this.
Throne Room - 88.9% - What can I say? I am an action whore.
Sea Hag - 87.6% - Hey, if I'm gonna be able to build up my massive action stack, I need to slow you down first.
Worker's Village - 87.5% - Erm...
Bridge - 85.7% - Who doesn't love buying all of the remaining VP cards in a single turn? What do you mean Bridge is terminal... Haven't you seen all of my villages and KCs?
Shanty Town - 85.7% - FML.

theory · « **Reply #17 on:** July 21, 2011, 07:51:44 am »

I wouldn't fret so much about some of your %ages. Nobles is high for most people, and that's because you're often hitting $6 while just starting to buy Provinces. It's too early for Duchies, but too late for Gold, so why not the Nobles? Plus, as a self-described Action-chainer, it usually fits well into your decks unless you have a total lack of +Actions.

Walled Village - 100.0 - Yeah ... small sample size FTL
Familiar - 96.8 - And I still suck with it!
Chapel - 92.2 - Duh
Ambassador - 92.0 - Similar duh
Nobles - 91.2 - I have a weakness for Kingdom Victory cards in general
Great Hall - 90.7 - Combining my weakness for Kingdom Victory cards AND cheap non-terminals!
Tournament - 88.5 - It's not a bad card even if you don't intend to compete for Prizes
Mountebank - 87.8 - Grr!
Grand Market - 87.3
Witch - 86.4

Anon79 · « **Reply #18 on:** July 21, 2011, 08:19:26 am »

I notice that the vast majority of my 85%+ buys have a negative "effect with"... the ones that don't, excluding Gold and Silver, are:

Tournament (I'm lucky and often win Tournament vs Tournament matches, so sue me)
ISLAND (certainly not expecting this here!)
Mountebank

and that's it. Looks like I really need to stop automatically buying many of my favourite cards.

ARTjoMS · « **Reply #19 on:** July 21, 2011, 08:23:48 am »

Chapel - 100%
Ambassador -97,7%

Fishing village -92,1%

Grand market 58,8%; win rate with -1.08; win rate without - 1.24.
Nobles 40%; win rate with -1.17; win rate without - 1.24.
Are nothing like must buys.

DStu · « **Reply #20 on:** July 21, 2011, 08:32:12 am »

The ones with positve Effect With are Bold

Walled Village   100.0 small sample size FTL ^^, Effect With -1.02
Worker's Village   100.0 Effect With -0.88
Mountebank    94.9. Ok, here I'm not the only one
Wharf   93.2 Effect With -1.04, something I'm doing wrong...
Village   92.1 Effect With -0.63
Fishing Village   91.7 Effect With -3.80, we are starting to see a pattern in the villages...
Remake    91.7 Effect With +1.24
Hamlet    91.3 Effect with +0.6 . Seems to be the exception that proves the rule
Chapel    90.6
Mining Village   89.6 Effect With -something
Festival    89.4
Caravan    89.1 Effect With: 1.32 somehow surprised me. But Without also 0.92
Goons    88.9 Also not the only one
Menagerie   87.5
Ambassador   87.1 Should learn how to play it correctly.
Farming Village   86.7 negative Effect With. Someone surprised?
Bazaar    86.5
Great Hall   86.1
Market    86.1 Effect With: 2.31. This one also surprised me.
King's Court    86.0
Steward   86.0
Warehouse    85.1 Love it

All in all there seem to be too many on the lists, especially the Villages should go down. Perhaps im not playing BM+Smithy et.al. often enough..

guided · « **Reply #21 on:** July 21, 2011, 09:19:39 am »

I've got Chapel at only 82.5% with a positive "effect without" (0.04). Just saying. I don't think it's even in the must-buy category on boards where it's the only trasher.

DG · « **Reply #22 on:** July 21, 2011, 09:20:46 am »

So the most overbought card is the chapel perhaps? My purchase rate for chapel is 75% and I get a good win rate without it (1.43). I do tend to experiment though with alternative strategies whenever I see a chapel kingdom, something that other players don't really do.

ackack · « **Reply #23 on:** July 21, 2011, 09:30:10 am »

Quote from: guided on July 20, 2011, 08:54:36 pm

Other than Familiar I don't know that I'd put any of these in the same "must-buy" category as Ambassador and Witch. Fishing Village, Goons, and Salvager just tend to suit my playstyle. Caravan and Mining Village aren't so much "must-buys" as they are convenient do-no-harm cantrips to take with spare $4 buys.

A lot of those other cards are less destructive than Ambassador and Witch. But I think, say, Fishing Village is a legit must-buy by the standards of this thread. It fuels other nastier cards so effectively that it itself becomes rather nasty.

I agree that Chapel is slightly (although only slightly) overrated as a must-buy.

Thisisnotasmile · « **Reply #24 on:** July 21, 2011, 09:37:24 am »

I think the thing with these lists is that there are two things that make cards "popular" buys. One of those things is them being a "must" buy which is what this thread is about. The other thing that causes a card to be bought in a lot of games is if it's a "this isn't going to hurt my deck and I've got nothing better to spend this money on" card for when you don't quite get to the level of $ that you want. This will realistically happen at least once each game, so you end up buying things like Caravan, Market and Villages, even though that's not exactly what you were aiming for.

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