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Author Topic: A Discussion about Cutpurse  (Read 7858 times)

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Davio

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A Discussion about Cutpurse
« on: July 26, 2012, 07:04:03 am »
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Cutpurse is a card I may open with if it's going to be one of very few terminals, like in a money-based deck with, say, Hoard and Harem. Those decks where you would even consider getting a Chancellor.

Donald X. says this in the secret history about Cutpurse:
Quote from: Donald X.
Cutpurse: This started out as "Cards cost $1 less this turn, then $1 more until your next turn." That doesn't have the same timing as the other duration cards - it goes away at the end of the previous player's turn, rather than at the end of your turn. The developers didn't like that. I replaced it with "+$2, name a treasure card, each other player discards it." That was quite strong. You don't have to discard Gold very many times before you're sick of it. I reined it in by having it only hit Copper. It's still quite annoying if multiples get played against you early on.

Okay, so Cutpurse is too strong if the attacker can choose the Treasure to discard.

But what about simply: Each other player discards a Treasure card (or reveals his hand with no Treasure).

I don't think it would immediately boost the card to the higher $5 echelons, but it may lift it from the lower $4 regions to the mid or even high region. I wonder why the card wasn't designed this way and focused on Copper instead. Most of the times, the opponents would discard a Copper anyway.

Would a modification like this break the card or make it just slightly better?
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DG

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2012, 07:32:05 am »
+2

Four player games could become impossible.
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Donald X.

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2012, 07:37:21 am »
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But what about simply: Each other player discards a Treasure card (or reveals his hand with no Treasure).
Now read the Secret History entry for Bureaucrat.

Quote from: Donald X.
I had started with a 3rd expansion card, Bureaucracy: "+2 coins. Each other player puts a card from his hand on top of his deck." So it turns out there's a basic problem with discard-based attacks in Dominion. Consider "each other player discards a card." If that gets played once against you in a round, it tends to do nothing at all. Twice and it ranges from mildly annoying to annoying. Three times and it's devastating. It just nukes your turn. Now, you can get the effect three times by say having each opponent in a 4-player game play it once. You don't even need Villages and Throne Rooms. This effect naturally ranges from incredibly weak to incredibly broken.
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Davio

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2012, 07:46:19 am »
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Well, yes, but such a thing can also be said about Torturer, yet that card still made it.
I guess that's because it leaves the choice to the attacked player and a Curse is not that bad as players might think.

3 Noble Brigands from the other players can steal 3 of your Golds.
The multiplayer argument is somewhat weak to me.

You could always make it harder to stack by tweaking it to say: Each other player with 4(/5?) or more cards in hand discards a Treasure (or reveals a hand with no Treasure).
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Donald X.

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2012, 09:15:24 am »
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Well, yes, but such a thing can also be said about Torturer, yet that card still made it.
I guess that's because it leaves the choice to the attacked player and a Curse is not that bad as players might think.

3 Noble Brigands from the other players can steal 3 of your Golds.
The multiplayer argument is somewhat weak to me.

You could always make it harder to stack by tweaking it to say: Each other player with 4(/5?) or more cards in hand discards a Treasure (or reveals a hand with no Treasure).
Torturer is held in check by the option to take Curse. I don't see how Noble Brigand is relevant to this discussion.

I have had the experience. "Each other player discards a treasure" doesn't work. You can argue that in a two-player game where I can build a deck that manages to play three of those a turn, probably my opponent has built something that can deal with it in the meantime; that argument does nothing for the multiplayer case, which is completely real.

Yes, "each other player with 4-5 or more cards in hand" is one of the ways to fix it. That's how Militia got "discards down to 3." So then, instead of "Each other player discards a Copper (or reveals a hand with no Copper)," it could have been, "Each other player with four or more cards in hand discards a Treasure (or reveals a hand with no Treasure)." They will usually discard Copper. Why not just make it official and have a simpler card? The only reason to do it differently would have been if stacking Cutpurses had actually been a problem.
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Davio

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2012, 09:21:13 am »
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Well, I'm not one to argue with someone who has made a gazillion cards from the top of his head, 99.9% perfect as they are in my opinion.

Still, I was wondering how Cutpurse got to be like that, specific to Copper, and if there would be a way to make it hit other Treasures without breaking the card.

If any modification will either break the card or make it needlessly complex, then I'm fine with the way it is.
I wanted this discussion more of an informative nature than a "you made a bad card!" nature, because I don't think that's true.

It's because I was thinking about a spiced up alternative to Cutpurse and was wondering why the original was like it is.
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chwhite

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2012, 09:22:52 am »
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I don't think it would immediately boost the card to the higher $5 echelons, but it may lift it from the lower $4 regions to the mid or even high region.

Cutpurse is decently strong as it is.

I would have liked to see the card that IIRC Cutpurse originally was way back when- a Duration-Attack that hit everyone else's buying power by $1 until the start of your next turn- but I get that the playtesters had problems with a Duration-Attack.  Alas.
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DStu

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2012, 09:31:02 am »
+1

I would guess compared to Militia it is easy to get to strong. As it is, it is a decent opener, and against or with BM, it has the chance of bringing important $5,$6 or $8 hands below this treshold during mostly the whole game. Militia is mostly the same against BM.

Now if it would also target other treasures, you would mostly punish bad hands. The less money you have in hand, the higher the likelyhood that you lose $2 or even $3, especially in late game when you are full of green. Now consider you play engine against BM, and you manage to play 3 Cutpurses each turn, which is not really unlikely to be supported by a board. This surely blocks your opponent from Provinces, and very likely will leave them with at most $3 in hand, and you got all the time you need to finish your strong engine, without the danger of your opponent getting to many points.

So with this, I think you could at most let it attack 1 time per turn, so limit it with >4 cards in hand. I think this would be the worse card.
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ehunt

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #8 on: July 26, 2012, 10:42:25 am »
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Does anything feel better than king's courting a cutpurse when the opponent has three copper in hand?
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rinkworks

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #9 on: July 26, 2012, 11:02:42 am »
+1

Does anything feel better than king's courting a cutpurse when the opponent has three copper in hand?

King's Court-King's Court-Council Room-Cutpurse-Cutpurse, and the opponent discards six Copper?
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werothegreat

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2012, 11:05:07 am »
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Cutpurse is at its most annoying on Chapel boards.  It not only prevents you from buying better cards, it prevents you from trashing properly.
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AJD

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #11 on: July 26, 2012, 11:16:33 am »
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Cutpurse is at its most annoying on Chapel boards.  It not only prevents you from buying better cards, it prevents you from trashing properly.

It's only annoying in the short term, though—once you've trashed most of your copper, it becomes a lot less annoying.
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werothegreat

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #12 on: July 26, 2012, 11:23:18 am »
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Cutpurse is at its most annoying on Chapel boards.  It not only prevents you from buying better cards, it prevents you from trashing properly.

It's only annoying in the short term, though—once you've trashed most of your copper, it becomes a lot less annoying.

But it increases the duration of that short term, which can hurt you in the long term.
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shMerker

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #13 on: July 26, 2012, 11:34:13 am »
+8

Write this down; it will be on your mid-term.
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DWetzel

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #14 on: July 26, 2012, 02:51:25 pm »
+1

Does anything feel better than king's courting a cutpurse when the opponent has three copper in hand?

Watching them discard Throne Room-Coppersmith immediately afterwards?
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dondon151

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #15 on: July 26, 2012, 03:30:30 pm »
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Or playing Masquerade after your opponents have discarded all of their Coppers.
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Insomniac

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #16 on: July 26, 2012, 03:34:52 pm »
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Or playing Masquerade after your opponents have discarded all of their Coppers.

I'll pass an estate...better play B-crat first
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Donald X.

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #17 on: July 26, 2012, 06:27:50 pm »
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It's because I was thinking about a spiced up alternative to Cutpurse and was wondering why the original was like it is.
Cutpurse is like that because it's a direct descendant of "cards cost $1 less this turn and then $1 more until your next turn." I was worried it might be too much in multiples but decided it wasn't. I was at the time eager to make discarding attacks that were cumulative, to avoid tacking on "with four or more cards in hand" or some such each time, and to make them seem less similar to Militia. I did not find too many ways to make cumulative discard, so later ones go back to copying Militia.
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werothegreat

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #18 on: July 26, 2012, 09:24:04 pm »
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Or playing Masquerade after your opponents have discarded all of their Coppers.

I'll pass an estate...better play B-crat first

Play Bureaucrat, Cutpurse, then Torturer.  If they decide to discard, play Masquerade.
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DWetzel

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #19 on: July 27, 2012, 12:04:17 am »
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Or playing Masquerade after your opponents have discarded all of their Coppers.

I'll pass an estate...better play B-crat first

Play Bureaucrat, Cutpurse, then Torturer.  If they decide to discard, play Masquerade.



(apologies in advance if the animated GIF thing isn't cool)
« Last Edit: July 27, 2012, 12:06:13 am by DWetzel »
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clb

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Re: A Discussion about Cutpurse
« Reply #20 on: July 27, 2012, 12:30:35 am »
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No apologies - it's cool.  8)
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