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[Graystripe77]

Hey guys! 

Here's another game I've played recently:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110808-164845-68a04926.html

The 5/2 start may have been a bit of an advantage here, plus the fact that she opened with a village. Any words on this?

[DG]

Courtyard and stash looks like a reliable combination for a simple but productive money deck. Anything fancy has to beat that.

I'm guessing that there is a viable mint/labs deck in there but you seemed to build it in the wrong order. Any mint needs to arrive early else the money arrives late and the provinces arrive late. Getting a gold (or stash) prior to the mint really helps or else you're minting silver. Labs increase the hand size enabling you trash more copper when buying the mint and cycle the mint faster. Islands might remove estates (slowly) so you get more treasures in hand. With that in mind, you shouldn't have drifted off into markets and worker's villages that didn't take you down the immediate path to the mint, since the mint was the key card. You probably found out that markets add very little to a deck full of copper and estates.

Once a mint arrives you can buy worker villages, more labs, mint gold, and you're off. Making a lab and market deck here without some treasure support will just clog as soon as you add any green cards, or just be slow if you clear out the greenery with islands.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

I agree with DG,  On the whole when playing a dedicated lab deck with some form of trashing adding a buy or two is a really important thing to do, but in this case I would have probably got a gold asap while also pounding the lab pile;  hopefully after the gold buy a hand will be lab-drawn with at least five, and perhaps more, coppers at which time the Mint is a superb buy.  I would rarely buy a Mint before the Gold (or Venture, a very decent Mint target).

When to buy the source of buy is a bit of a conundrum; the +buy is very important late game and it is nice to concentrate as much as possible on more important things earlier, but it is painful to draw a huge hand of treasure later and have to waste it.  In this specific case I think Worker's Village is certainly the right choice, as the $5 are obviously Lab buys.  So maybe any time early to mid-game if a $4 hand presents itself would be a good time.

I personally really like a Lab engine with one terminal and a source of +buy; In the BSW days a lab deck with one Mine and a Market or two was really strong.  Now the Lab deck is not really as viable as say an Alchemist or Hunting Party deck but in the right Kingdom, like this one, it can compete. 

[WanderingWinder]

There are LOTS of viable strategies here. I'm not sure that a lab deck is so clearly dominant - certainly I don't think it would be so hot at all if it weren't for the presence of mint, and I'm wondering how fast the Lab/Mint deck would actually be. Unfortunately, this isn't something we can simulate very well I don't think, because we can't get it to buy mint under the conditions we want. Probably this is the dominant deck here, though I think that if that opportune $4 doesn't pop up, I wouldn't really hesitate to grab market over worker's village at the right moment.
Other than this, I expect that courtyard/stash/island/money is a pretty strong deck here as well.

I do wish that you would put a little bit of your own commentary or analysis of the games up when you post them though. Mainly, when you're looking for advice, I want to know what your thought process is like.

[DStu]

There are LOTS of viable strategies here. I'm not sure that a lab deck is so clearly dominant - certainly I don't think it would be so hot at all if it weren't for the presence of mint, and I'm wondering how fast the Lab/Mint deck would actually be. Unfortunately, this isn't something we can simulate very well I don't think, because we can't get it to buy mint under the conditions we want. Probably this is the dominant deck here, though I think that if that opportune $4 doesn't pop up, I wouldn't really hesitate to grab market over worker's village at the right moment.
Other than this, I expect that courtyard/stash/island/money is a pretty strong deck here as well.

I do wish that you would put a little bit of your own commentary or analysis of the games up when you post them though. Mainly, when you're looking for advice, I want to know what your thought process is like.

I'm not sure with the mint and if it plays Golds from the hand if it has 5 Coppers and would buy a Mint. Anyway, while I wanted to find this out (it does) by looking at some sample game log, it seems to me that you just don't have the time for such fancy things against Courtyard/Stash. In 5 games I didn't find a line stating "5 Coppers" (or 6 or 7) for the Labplayer.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

Courtyard/Stash is a new one for me.  Why is this a great combo?

[Reyk]

Courtyard/Stash is a new one for me.  Why is this a great combo?

I guess any card drawer + stash is a strong(er) BM implementation. It's specifically good at 5-2 start.
Plus you have some more options such as putting back Silver when you only have 3 Stashes (or even less to get a stash for sure) or putting back a green card when you have 4 and the shuffle will follow.

[DStu]

Courtyard/Stash is a new one for me.  Why is this a great combo?

BM-Courtyard itself is as strong as BM-Smithy,BM-Envoy,BM-Vault, etc. The Stash is just mentioned because it is there and you obviously should by it over silver. I don't think it will do much, but at least you can assume that buying the last province might on average happen perhaps half a shuffle earlier, as with enough stashes this is guaranteed at the beginning of a shuffle instead of somewhen. And some tricks Reyk mentioned.

But I think we would make the same arguments if the Stash wasn't there.

Edit: In the simulator, my Courtyard/BM loses to Courtyard/Stash (with equal buy rules just prefer Stash over Silver  if possible) 38:50. But don't know how clever the Stashes are played.

[Geronimoo]

Edit: In the simulator, my Courtyard/BM loses to Courtyard/Stash (with equal buy rules just prefer Stash over Silver  if possible) 38:50. But don't know how clever the Stashes are played.

The simulator will cleverly always put all Stashes on top of the deck. So no Wishing Well shenanigans are possible...

[WanderingWinder]

Yeah, basically BM/Courtyard itself is strong, Stash will certainly be a help for it. @Geronimoo, unfortunately Courtyard is one of the situations where just putting them all on top is NOT necessarily the best thing to do, though it's somewhat difficult to program the correct play.

@DStu I'm not sure what you're saying. I *think* you're saying that the simulator will play basically all its treasure, including golds, even if you're buying mint, but I'm not sure.

[DStu]

@DStu I'm not sure what you're saying. I *think* you're saying that the simulator will play basically all its treasure, including golds, even if you're buying mint, but I'm not sure.

Yepp, that's what in the end I wanted to say about Mints and Golds.
When I started the post, I didn't know about this fact either and wanted to say that I tried to look it up but did not succeed.

What I also wanted to say (the whole time) was that when playing Lab/Mint against BM-CY/Stash, you will never* have enough time to have your deck in such a state that you a) want to buy a Mint (e.g. you already bought a Gold) and b) draw 5 Copper to your hand (with or without Gold) to buy a Mint and trash the Coppers.

* Never in the sense of "I tried 5 times and it didn't happen"

[Geronimoo]

You can quite easily make sure buying Mint doesn't screw up your deck (but you can't prevent the simulator from playing all his treasures automatically). Here's a bot that will buy Mint and use it to good effect (it clearly beats its counterpart that doesn't buy Mint).

Code: [Select]

<player name="COL - BM - Lab/Mint">
   <buy name="Colony">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Platinum"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Colony"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Platinum"/>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Mint">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Mint"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInPlay" attribute="Gold"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInPlay" attribute="Copper"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Gold"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInPlay" attribute="Platinum"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Laboratory"/>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>

The way to make sure you don't buy a devastating Mint is to use the "count in play"-condition.

[HockeyHippo]

I have 0 experience with Stash Courtyard so I won't even attempt to make a strategy for that.

If it were me, I would open Lab/Courtyard. However I wouldn't stop for Worker's Villages / Markets for a while. The +Buy will take some time to be useful and it will get in the way of getting to 6. At the start of the game with < 5 I would get Silver, with 5 I would get a Lab and with 6 a Gold. Until I have 2 Gold, then working for straight labs till I can draw my deck. Mint 5+ coppers and them probably grab a Worker's Village over Market because I would rather have the +Action to be able to pick up the Mint'd Golds in the same turn.

The tip I would give you is that you need to evaluate your deck and what you need at that time. Buying a Worker's Village at turn 3 was probably a bad choice since you only had 1 terminal action at that point and you had no need for the +Buy. A silver would have been a much better choice in my opinion. A worker's village is helpful to this deck, but not at that time.

[DStu]

I have 0 experience with Stash Courtyard so I won't even attempt to make a strategy for that.

Strategy is easy:
Start Silver (Stash at 5/2)-CY
Buy
Province at 8
(Duchy at 5 in endgame
 Estates at 2 in endgame)
Gold at 6
Stash at 5
Silver at 3
second Courtyard somewhen quite early

Play CY whenever you can, put back money you don't need at the moment or Courtyard if you draw one. Cluster the stashes at the top of the deck.

[Graystripe77]

Alright, thanks for the input, i will be putting in commentary next time as well.