Print

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

[Superdad]

Has anyone else run accross something similar. Any village would do, but fishing village is the best one, since it doesn't replace itself and instead generates gold (on two turns) - making it ideal for minion. Moreover, because of the fact that it stays on the table, your next turn will be full of miniony goodness.

Here's a sample game log of the strategy:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110726-134340-6b8435fd.html

[Agrisios]

Has anyone else run accross something similar.

It's not a combo imho but a very typical minion deck with virtual money. Festival does it itself - villages for money producing terminals are of course welcome.

The game you link is honestly not a good example with opponent bying chapel at turn 6, pirate ship (!) against minion/fishing village/bridge and a chapeled deck and letting you buy 8 minions.

[Superdad]

Yes, but however he plays the board has nothing to do with the strength of the combo. It was still 4 provinces, 2 duchies and an estate by turn 12, and the deck was arguably speeding up (although it greened significantly on the 12th turn), and likely misplayed by myself in several instances.

This deck however is nothing like a minion money deck with festivals. That's a resilient money deck, this is an explosive combo deck. Most minion decks cycle themselves while playing excess minions or festivals before continuously reshuffling. This one does so but also plays bridges that it passes on the way by, while playing a "festival"-type card in fishing village that both generates more money and enables the bridges you pass on the way through your deck.

Typical minion decks hope to hit $8 regularly and pick up a province every turn from about turn 10ish onwards, and their strength is in the ability to resist stall by greening.

The bridge/fishing village/minion variant actually functions more like a combo deck, enabling multiple buys every turn, gaining speed exponentially through turns 7-12. They look similar on the surface but they are actually quite different functionally.

This deck actually functions more like a torturer/minion/village deck (a devastating combo deck), but instead of the endgoal of locking the opponent out of the game with torturers, it enables explosive bridge-turns. It's actually quite a bit different than a minion/virtual money deck.

[WanderingWinder]

Yes, but however he plays the board has nothing to do with the strength of the combo. It was still 4 provinces, 2 duchies and an estate by turn 12, and the deck was arguably speeding up (although it greened significantly on the 12th turn), and likely misplayed by myself in several instances.

This deck however is nothing like a minion money deck with festivals. That's a resilient money deck, this is an explosive combo deck. Most minion decks cycle themselves while playing excess minions or festivals before continuously reshuffling. This one does so but also plays bridges that it passes on the way by, while playing a "festival"-type card in fishing village that both generates more money and enables the bridges you pass on the way through your deck.

To your first point, it absolutely does! him fighting more for minions, in this case, would make a significant difference. In other decks, it's much more evident, i.e. any deck with HT is much more potent against minion, conspirator and minion decks love opponents' thieves, which really make them more viable, someone who's thieving themselves loves the opponent's trashing... there are numerous reasons why your opponent's deck affects your strategy.
But I also agree with Agrisios, that this isn't much different from a normal minion strategy, which, BTW, isn't so hot if there are no other money-producing cards that you can play like this. This happens to be a strong iteration of such a deck, but not so much that I would call it a combo. But to each his own.

[DStu]

I would also say it's not really a combo but the extreme edge of a possible Actionchain->Bridge strategy. Certainly Minion+Actions is a good way to draw lots of cards. Probably one of the best if you want to go Bridge and don't need the treasures you draw. But I wouldn't guess that the game is fundamentally different if you replace Minion by Rabble or Smithy.

[Superdad]

It would have affected the game yes, but the board was pretty flexible. For example, if he was fighting more for minions, the quad-minion purchase turn would have instead been something like Minion, Bridge, Bridge, FV. The deck would have still accelerated similarly. It would have cycled less, but each cycle would be stronger (and the chance for bridge collisions would be slightly higher) - but overall, not fundamentally that different.

I think the bigger effect would be that an early couple province purchases may have forced me to green sooner instead of continue developing the engine.

And I agree, substituting any draw card, and this deck doesn't change (dynamically) much at all.

Another nice accent card here was hamlet... mitigating colliding bridges and dumping blanks (treasure/vp) during each minion cycle for some effect.

[Agrisios]

I think the bigger effect would be that an early couple province purchases may have forced me to green sooner instead of continue developing the engine.

I disagree. You can savely ignore early province purchases from weak opponont's decks. Especially with this kind of deck as there is even Throne here. To come behind from 0-5 Provinces in one final turn shouldn't be a problem. But that is like Stu said more bridge specific and quite well known.