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Author Topic: The New Golden Deck  (Read 21966 times)

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def

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Re: The New Golden Deck
« Reply #50 on: September 02, 2012, 09:23:14 am »
+1

I think this should be called the Golden Fortress Deck.  ;D

Or Fort Knox?
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SirPeebles

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Re: The New Golden Deck
« Reply #51 on: September 23, 2012, 11:55:31 am »
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Finally played a game with bishop and fortress.  Even with curses and ruins being sent my way, it was easy to set up.  Worst of all, the constant use of bishop incessantly pesters the opponent, and if their attention wanes they'll find themselves inadvertently trashing their cards.  This strategy is just dreadful.  Plus my opponent responded with a mini Fort Knox in response.  Clearly gaining fewer points per turn, yet not resigning either.
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blueblimp

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Re: The New Golden Deck
« Reply #52 on: September 23, 2012, 04:45:51 pm »
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The player that is ahead can buy out all of the Fortresses, emptying a pile. Then he can just start buying any 2 other cards one at a time and empty out those piles; granted there is a very small probability that he'll draw 4x Bishop plus dead card, unless the dead card is a cantrip, in which case, no problem - he can end the game by doing that easily.
The real risk is: what if Bishop and Fortress are the only $4's? Unless something strange happened, the leader is unlikely to have a 10 point lead. If you're buying dead cards at $3 or less and trashing them with Bishop, you lose a point each time you do it. That means if the leader does empty the pile without help, then he'll have lost his VP lead by the time the game ends.

(Your strategy seems sound for when there are either cheap cantrips or another $4 stack. Although when needing to empty 12 dead cards, there's about a 9% chance of getting the dreaded 5-dead draw before the game ends, and at that point you fall back by a whopping 9 VP. Still, a 91% chance to win is pretty good.)
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Venescas

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Re: The New Golden Deck
« Reply #53 on: September 23, 2012, 11:03:17 pm »
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While Bishop + Fortress is most assuredly stronger than Bishop+Chapel, it will also guarantee a no-win situation for both players in a mirror match. With an 8 card deck of 4 Bishops and 4 Fortresses, a player can churn 12Vp per turn without draining piles. In one turn, the deck can be modified to 3 Bishops and 4 Fortresses to start draining $3-$2 piles for 8Vp per turn. Problem is of course that if both players go for Bishop + Fortress, no one is going to back down from the 12Vp variation.

The only situation where I believe this deck could be beat (besides any other cards that can stuff the golden deck) is in a 4 player game where the other three start racing for the provinces quickly. That's 4 Provinces per player rather than 8 for the second player in a two player match. Even still, the amount of Vp amassed by the Bishop + Fortress player before that happens would probably be too much to overcome.

I suppose conceivably if two players in a three-four player match went for the same combo, the third (and fourth) player could empty the Bishops and Fortresses...but then what third pile could he/they empty while gaining sufficient points to overcome the former's setup period?

Simply put, Bishop + Fortress is quintessentially the best and worst non-attack combo in the game right now. I believe it's a strategy that cannot be turned down barring interference from certain attackers, but it's also one that no one can win with.   
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SirPeebles

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Re: The New Golden Deck
« Reply #54 on: September 23, 2012, 11:37:19 pm »
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not many attacks can take it out either.  Possession only helps your opponent.  It can recover from curses and ruins fairly easily and is unphased by discarding to three.  I suppose a minion could leave it with four bishops if it got REALLY lucky.  Pillage could discard the only fortress.  But both of those only delay a turn.  Saboteur and swindler can trash bishops, as can a lucky knight who hits two bishops.  Masquerade also takes it apart.
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blueblimp

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Re: The New Golden Deck
« Reply #55 on: September 24, 2012, 04:05:01 am »
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(Your strategy seems sound for when there are either cheap cantrips or another $4 stack. Although when needing to empty 12 dead cards, there's about a 9% chance of getting the dreaded 5-dead draw before the game ends, and at that point you fall back by a whopping 9 VP. Still, a 91% chance to win is pretty good.)
I miscalculated this, in some sense. I calculated the chance of drawing the 5 dead cards right away, but of course it's still bad if you play between 0 and 3 Fortresses and end up with a hand of 5 non-Fortresses. So, I'm not convinced this is at all likely to work out. (Although that said, even if you do fall behind in points, that might be okay since your opponent might not have good options for ending the game either!)
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