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Author Topic: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils  (Read 174203 times)

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ftl

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #250 on: August 10, 2012, 01:06:24 am »
0

is there some kind of scout joke im not aware of?

Yes.

Scout was recently voted the worst $4 card in the latest iteration of Qvist's list (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3435.0) , and second-worst in the previous one (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1465.0). Some people like scout and have latched on to the joke of talking about it as if it's a super-powerful card; I'm not sure quite where this started, but it did. Hence, you find Robz constantly discussing how all the new Dark Ages cards "combo" with scout, and so on.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #251 on: August 10, 2012, 01:13:06 am »
0

is there some kind of scout joke im not aware of?

Yes.

Scout was recently voted the worst $4 card in the latest iteration of Qvist's list (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3435.0) , and second-worst in the previous one (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1465.0). Some people like scout and have latched on to the joke of talking about it as if it's a super-powerful card; I'm not sure quite where this started, but it did. Hence, you find Robz constantly discussing how all the new Dark Ages cards "combo" with scout, and so on.

Oh you, going on with the joke even though I've blown the cover on Scout's amazing power.

Qvist's list is just a very elaborate prank designed to make people underestimate the explosive Scout-enabled engine.  It's so obvious!
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PigFiend

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #252 on: August 10, 2012, 01:17:41 am »
0

It's not so hard to imagine Rats playing decently. How about opening Rats/Hermit?
Turn 3: Rat an Estate and gain a Rats. Buy a Conspirator.
Turn 4: Hermit a Rats out of the discard for +1 Card. Gain a Sage. Buy a Sage. (0 cards left in deck for fresh reshuffle.)

I doubt the first plan would work well.  You're just going to get a lot of Rats.

If you draw Rats before or in the same hand as Hermit after reshuffles, you'll have no more than 1 in the following reshuffle. And the Sages would likely keep that Rat population to 1 by finding either piece of Rats or Hermit. Luck might turn against you at some point, but I'm betting such a Conspirator deck would be fast enough to put the game in doubt before that happens.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #253 on: August 10, 2012, 01:20:06 am »
+1

It's not so hard to imagine Rats playing decently. How about opening Rats/Hermit?
Turn 3: Rat an Estate and gain a Rats. Buy a Conspirator.
Turn 4: Hermit a Rats out of the discard for +1 Card. Gain a Sage. Buy a Sage. (0 cards left in deck for fresh reshuffle.)

I doubt the first plan would work well.  You're just going to get a lot of Rats.

If you draw Rats before or in the same hand as Hermit after reshuffles, you'll have no more than 1 in the following reshuffle. And the Sages would likely keep that Rat population to 1 by finding either piece of Rats or Hermit. Luck might turn against you at some point, but I'm betting such a Conspirator deck would be fast enough to put the game in doubt before that happens.

I'm not sure what you mean to do with Sage and Hermit.  Rats will get in the way of Sage.  Hermit could shoot rats, I guess!  Or do you mean to play Rats only a couple of times and then stop?  Seems strange.

Sage+Conspirator might work better; skip Rats altogether?
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PigFiend

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #254 on: August 10, 2012, 01:39:50 am »
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I'm not sure what you mean to do with Sage and Hermit.  Rats will get in the way of Sage.  Hermit could shoot rats, I guess!  Or do you mean to play Rats only a couple of times and then stop?  Seems strange.
Sage+Conspirator might work better; skip Rats altogether?
The deck ought to be pretty trim, so if a Sage finds a Rats, it's a fair likelihood it's adding it to a hand that has Hermit or is before a hand with Hermit. Rats acts as a non-term trasher that can energize Conspirator in a pinch. Hermit's inability to trash Coppers is thwarted by keeping Rats in check (which also makes the ability read more like +1 Card which should help in reshuffle management). The Workshop effect helps amass Sages faster.
If you stall, lapse Hermit for an endgame Madman. Near endgame, don't be afraid to play two Rats to activate Conspirator.

I'll try this out and report what it's like after a small sample.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #255 on: August 10, 2012, 01:42:43 am »
0

I'm not sure what you mean to do with Sage and Hermit.  Rats will get in the way of Sage.  Hermit could shoot rats, I guess!  Or do you mean to play Rats only a couple of times and then stop?  Seems strange.
Sage+Conspirator might work better; skip Rats altogether?
The deck ought to be pretty trim, so if a Sage finds a Rats, it's a fair likelihood it's adding it to a hand that has Hermit or is before a hand with Hermit. Rats acts as a non-term trasher that can energize Conspirator in a pinch. Hermit's inability to trash Coppers is thwarted by keeping Rats in check (which also makes the ability read more like +1 Card which should help in reshuffle management). The Workshop effect helps amass Sages faster.
If you stall, lapse Hermit for an endgame Madman. Near endgame, don't be afraid to play two Rats to activate Conspirator.

I'll try this out and report what it's like after a small sample.

Well, it's an interesting idea for sure.  I still think Sage+Conspirator alone would be better.  Maybe throw in a Hermit too, to clear Estates and amass Sages.  I just don't think it would be necessary to clear the Coppers.  When trying to use Sages, I expect Rats are more detrimental than Copper that gets skipped over.
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CaptainNevada

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #256 on: August 10, 2012, 02:24:15 am »
0


Madman?  Squire?  What more do you need?  Something explicitly called a Village?


Shunned Village  (Action) $3
+2 Actions
Gain a Card from the Trash Costing $3 or less.

The idea being they live off the refuse of others.

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joel88s

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #257 on: August 10, 2012, 02:31:20 am »
+1

The fairly extensive skepticism thus far as to Rats being an effective card makes me think there will almost certainly be other cards in the set that react with them somehow to make them more viable, who knows maybe some mid-late game extermination-for-benefit procedure or something.

One thing I haven't noticed mentioned about Pillage: while the targeted discard is obviously the guts of the attack, the very fact of forcing everyone to reveal their hand could sometimes be really significant too. I know I've heard people at times wishing there was an effective late game card (i.e. not Beaurocrat) that could make others reveal their hands at a key moment. A Pillage at the end could not only impede your opponents from buying that last province, but also show you whether they have any chance of buying it anyway, which would obviously hugely improve your endgame decision making and could be the difference between winning and losing.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2012, 02:35:27 am by joel88s »
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grep

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #258 on: August 10, 2012, 02:35:12 am »
+1

Cats
$5 - Action
Trash any number of Rats from your hand. For each trashed Rats, +1 card and +1 action.
Any other player may reveal Cats from his hand. Is some of them do, gain Cats.
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joel88s

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #259 on: August 10, 2012, 02:38:53 am »
0

So they're letting their Cats out to come mate with yours?! Nice.
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Loschmidt

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #260 on: August 10, 2012, 02:58:18 am »
+5

Rats is my favorite Dominion card. Now you know that about me. You give your kingdom a rat problem. Sure, you get rid of some garbage, but now you've got Rats, and they don't get rid of themselves. Isn't the solution worse than the problem? Plus, let's not forget, there are twenty Rats, rather than the usual ten. That's right: today, you didn't get the whole story just looking at the pictures. Twenty Rats, even in two-player games. Just chewing your deck to pieces. Well secretly there's probably something you can do with them. Looking over the cards spoiled so far, they seem to be a combo with most of them, what's up with that.

Rats is the card I'm most excited about. And not just because Donald says its his favourite.

One of best parts of Dominion to me is the feel of your deck as the game progresses. Feeling it get heavy and bloated when you play a gardens game. Picking up the thin, light, crisp deck that has been well trimmed. That why I like things like things like sifters and diggers. I still remember back playing the original expansion-less Dominion, and the joy of playing an Adventurer and flipping over card over card digging for those precious treasures. How you physically manipulate and interact your deck corresponds to what kind of deck you're trying to build.

I can't wait for the first time I try to play Rats. I just know its going to be horrible! There are going to be Rats everywhere getting in the way of everything. I'm going to constantly be drawing Rats and getting nowhere and I'll absolutely love it :D
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eHalcyon

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #261 on: August 10, 2012, 03:00:31 am »
+5

Cats
$5 - Action
Trash any number of Rats from your hand. For each trashed Rats, +1 card and +1 action.
Any other player may reveal Cats from his hand. Is some of them do, gain Cats.

Hm.  Now I want the Rats to be replaced with Pigeons (which are Rats with wings, anyway).  Then Cats could, instead, be Bolivian Tree Lizards.  When those get out of control, you could introduce Chinese Needle Snakes to your deck.  And if those become a problem, get some Snake-Eating Gorillas.  SEGs can be trashed using Winter.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #262 on: August 10, 2012, 03:11:51 am »
+1

Cats
$5 - Action
Trash any number of Rats from your hand. For each trashed Rats, +1 card and +1 action.
Any other player may reveal Cats from his hand. Is some of them do, gain Cats.

Hm.  Now I want the Rats to be replaced with Pigeons (which are Rats with wings, anyway).  Then Cats could, instead, be Bolivian Tree Lizards.  When those get out of control, you could introduce Chinese Needle Snakes to your deck.  And if those become a problem, get some Snake-Eating Gorillas.  SEGs can be trashed using Winter.

I can't believe it took 11 pages for this simpsons reference to show up...
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #263 on: August 10, 2012, 04:37:02 am »
0

Pillage: ...looks like something that's going to be great for Big Money decks playing versus an engine.  Knock out your opponents' key card, and get a one-time cash infusion sure to be good for a Province or two. 
Sorry to quote something from way in the past, but I was too caught up in the Rats discussion to really mention this before. I had exactly the opposite reaction to reading Pillage. I thought (and still think) it will be better for engine vs BM. Engine can play the Pillage every turn, get the money right away, and replace the Pillage. BM can maybe play 2 Pillages? And since your money disappears, you choke way harder when greening.
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PitzerMike

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #264 on: August 10, 2012, 06:08:23 am »
0

Coolio. With rats on the board strategies centered around cards from the remodel family might finally be fast enough to compete. :D

Also I believe I am the first caravan on the forums - at least until I move on.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2012, 06:11:48 am by PitzerMike »
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axlemn

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #265 on: August 10, 2012, 06:21:04 am »
0

I like Rats a lot for the same reasons I like IGG.  But I don't hate Rats because it doesn't seem like it will turn every game into a Duchy rush.

Simply: you don't have to play Rats when you draw it.  And not playing your action is perfectly fine.  If you replaced a curse with a Rats, that's great! 

Here are some cards people missed that combo well with Rats:
Haven
Native Village

Islands isn't the only way to get cards out of your deck, hand, and discard. 

Megaturn strategies that can play all their actions before playing Rats. 

Also Scrying Pool, maybe. 

Can someone figure out how to go from a deck with 1 upgrade and 2 rats to a deck of exactly 10 upgrades next turn?  I'm not sure it's doable, but it seems like it.  I'm going to sleep, though. 
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Loschmidt

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #266 on: August 10, 2012, 06:56:57 am »
0

Rules clarification. If you play rats and you reveal a hand of all rats, do you trash a rat?
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Asklepios

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #267 on: August 10, 2012, 07:06:22 am »
0

Agree with the rats = tribbles comment. In fact, I recall on the worst card ideas thread someone proposed a tribbles card that was damn similar to rats, in that it self propagated like crazy.

I have to say, without the other cards in this set, it'd be hard to say rats are any good. +1 card just isn't a good enough trash for benefit to play the card with just a plain old trasher, I reckon. Even if you start using trash-for-benefit like Bishop and Apprentice and Trader, I still think you're slowing your tempo too much by committing to rats.

As for mixing it in with cards that have inbuilt trash for benefit, I'm still dubious. Gain the one-shot golds? You've still got to get them in your hand in a deck thats mostly rats. Gain an attack from Squire? Ok, you're attacking now, but you've still slowed yourself more than your opponent. Trash a Feodum? You've spent two $4 buys on gaining three silvers. Trash a Squire to gain a Cultist and then trash the Cultist to draw... more Rats? While you're messing around with this, three piles run out, and your opponent wins on estates.

No, so far, Rats is just a trap, as far as I can tell. Its a worse card than Scout.

Despite being 99% sure, however, there's a nagging voice at the back of my head telling me that Develop / Rats would be awesome...

No, no... it wouldn't.

But would it?
« Last Edit: August 10, 2012, 07:12:14 am by Asklepios »
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DStu

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #268 on: August 10, 2012, 07:25:13 am »
0

Again back to the rats:

It's discussed enough that they pretty much are no trashers in the sense, as they don't help you to clear up your deck, beside turning other cards into rats, and thus are very sitautional depending on e.g. trash for benefit. So in which situations could they be usefull?

a) Trash for benefit.
b) Watchtower to trash them as they come in.
c) Cursers:
Cursers with no trashing often turn into 3pile ending with Duchies. Spending $4 to turn Curses into Rats will give you maybe 3-5 VPs in the end, for a game on Duchies that can be usefull.
d) Scrying Pool. Actions>Coppers,Estates
e) Library. Actions>Copper, Estates when you draw them with Lib. If there's some way to maybe also get rid of the rats you don't need anymore from your hand (Oasis, Warehouse etc), I could see me preparing my deck for Library with rats.
f) Adventurer, Venture Actions>Copper,Estates.
g) Vineyards. Even if you maybe don't go for the mega-rats gain zillion of rats strategy, but if you gain 3 or 4 rats in the endgame, for Potions and some treasures you don't need anymore.. This could be a endgame move that might happen.  Or you have extra buys for Coppers that you can turn into rats.
h) "when you trash"-cards. I've heard there are some of them in Dark Ages.

I think that are enough potential interactions so that Rats might be usefull on boards that not necessarily have TFB cards...
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ehunt

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #269 on: August 10, 2012, 07:51:55 am »
0

Rules clarification. If you play rats and you reveal a hand of all rats, do you trash a rat?

No, I don't think so. You do as much of the card as you can. You can't trash a card that's not a rat, so you don't. The reason the "reveal" line is included in the card is to make cheating impossible (presumably).
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Squidd

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #270 on: August 10, 2012, 08:01:40 am »
+1

It occurs to me... We already have JoaT, who won't trash treasure. The other trashers we've seen from the new set are Hermit, who won't trash treasure, and Graverobber, who will only trash actions. And maybe in some games that just means you're stuck with your Coppers, but maybe sometimes you decide to risk Rats as a go-between? Or maybe the only other trasher is Swindler, and you decide you'd rather be swindled Rats-for-Rats (plus card) than Curse-for-Copper?

I'm not saying yet that these are good decisions, but they're decisions you might make.
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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #271 on: August 10, 2012, 08:11:35 am »
0

Pillage: ...looks like something that's going to be great for Big Money decks playing versus an engine.  Knock out your opponents' key card, and get a one-time cash infusion sure to be good for a Province or two. 
Sorry to quote something from way in the past, but I was too caught up in the Rats discussion to really mention this before. I had exactly the opposite reaction to reading Pillage. I thought (and still think) it will be better for engine vs BM. Engine can play the Pillage every turn, get the money right away, and replace the Pillage. BM can maybe play 2 Pillages? And since your money disappears, you choke way harder when greening.
Well, it's a one-shot, so it's not like the engine can play it ALL the time. I agree with you, though, that this will hurt big money quite a bit too. Well, I mean, what does it do to a BM hand? Probably nails either the one action or the best treasure. Now, almost no hand is going to be able to province in the face of that, but you probably grab, like, another support card (silver or another action, whatever), or a duchy or something. Engines, if you can nail that one +actions, then this is probably even a better effect. Or if you can get their only drawing card. But on the whole, I would guess this is somewhat less beneficial, perhaps, except.... Well, BM tends to be less dependent on a single turn than an engine, and engines, because they are slower to get up, are more dependent on the later turns than BM is, so even though pillage hurts your one BM turn more, on average, than your one Engine turn, it might still do more to harm the engine deck. Does that make sense? Also, the spoils are probably a little better for BM, and the using a terminal action with no benefit.... I'm not sure on that bit. But I think, and this might be totally wrong, but I think it's actually roughly balanced between the two, but a touch better for BM.

jotheonah

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #272 on: August 10, 2012, 08:19:56 am »
+2

BTW, I think I finally have a name for my Dominion-themed cover band: "Reveal A Hand of All Rats"
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werothegreat

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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #273 on: August 10, 2012, 08:21:13 am »
+3

BTW, I think I finally have a name for my Dominion-themed cover band: "Reveal A Hand of All Rats"

i.e.  "Just Resign Already"
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Re: Dark Ages Preview #4: Rats, Pillage, Spoils
« Reply #274 on: August 10, 2012, 08:26:02 am »
0

One of best parts of Dominion to me is the feel of your deck as the game progresses. Feeling it get heavy and bloated when you play a gardens game. Picking up the thin, light, crisp deck that has been well trimmed. That why I like things like things like sifters and diggers. I still remember back playing the original expansion-less Dominion, and the joy of playing an Adventurer and flipping over card over card digging for those precious treasures. How you physically manipulate and interact your deck corresponds to what kind of deck you're trying to build.

So, so true.  I've often thought that the therapeutic effect of manipulating cards in the way Dominion requires is a large part of what makes it addicting.  The strategic component is larger (especially recently rather than with Base only), or iso wouldn't have been a success.  But it's a large part just the same, and I think that inherent joy gets lost when we focus too much on power.  Good call on Adventurer.  Golem is similarly a joy for me.
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