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[werothegreat]

So for a while I just ignored Oracle.  To me it seemed like a Spy that didn't even give +Action.  It seemed pretty weak.  But with the release of Catacombs, I've been re-assessing that.  Because Oracle and Catacombs function pretty much exactly the same way, except Oracle messes with your opponent's deck.  I actually played a game the other day where both were in the kingdom, and I ended up getting both of them, to my benefit.

Really, this, to me, is part of a larger paradigm shift for me where I'm trying not to think of cards as "bad," which, while perhaps not intentionally, often sinks into our heads when we rate cards, because cards at the bottom of the list will invariably be thought of as not good.  Scout and Counting House are not bad cards, and they can shine brilliantly in the right situation.  They're just not amazing cards.

So what I try to remember when looking at a kingdom is to not think "Oo, that's a good card, oo that's a bad one" but to think "How can I make these cards work together?"

Here's a game I played against a bot: http://dominionlogs.goko.com/20120924/log.5057ee40f93b9113b758b6b5.1348505874535.txt

Spy, normally ignorable, came in very handy as the only cantrip on the board, allowing me to King's Court it for draw and Actions, and thus play (or King's Court) multiple Barons (read: one Baron and a Band of Misfits pretending) per turn.  It did also help that the bot ignored Lighthouse for too long, and I was able to Rabble it into oblivion.

And this is why I like the Dominion Strategy articles - it emphasizes "how can I make this work?"

[Robz888]

Perhaps "bad" is the wrong way to put it. If by "bad" you mean never worth purchasing, there are no bad cards in Dominion (well, Adventurer comes close...).

To me, a bad card is simply one that I seldom purchase compared to other cards at the same price. So while I do think Scout and Counting House are "bad" cards, they are still worthwhile in some number of games, just not as often as other cards. Sure, there are correct ways to use them, sometimes.

Oracle, however, is not a bad card by either definition. I can't remember exactly where I placed it in the rankings, but certainly in the top half of the $3s. And the $3s are a pretty competitive group of cards.

[Taco Lobster]

I had the same reaction to Oracle as well, and have only recently come around to it. 

These days, I'm prone to the opposite problem.  I've been in the bad habit lately of taking second/third tier cards (woodcutter, scout, etc) over a Silver in my opening, which is just plain wrong 99% of the time, because I manage to convince myself that they are good in that board despite being generally sub-par.  Dark Ages has also sent me into an engine frenzy, and I keep trying to make decks without purchasing treasures, which is often not the correct choice.

[werothegreat]

I love making Treasure-less engines.  That requires virtual coin, though, which, thankfully, will usually pop up in good engine kingdoms.

That was a lot of commas in a row.

[Kahryl]

Oracle has helped me in a lot of games so far. On some boards it is better than Smithy. I don't think I've ever lost a game where I've decided to go Oracle.

I still hesitate to get it even if it'd be good, though, because it is agony to play on Isotropic. Decide whether to discard -> pick the order -> decide opponent's -> opponent orders. What makes it worse is that most of the time I have Oracle as part of a DRAW ENGINE (it rocks for this because you are usually desperately hoping for the next +action or +draw card you need, and get four chances to find it).

[KingsSkort]

I disagree a bit. It's tautologically true that it would be a good thing to evaluate each and every card on the board and evaluate how it could improve your strategy. However, it's also extraordinarily difficult to do so and has very marginal benefits. For people who aren't extremely good, you'll probably have better results by eliminating as many cards as possible that are either bad (scout) or generic (lab) and focusing on finding the best way to use the remaining power cards. There are 90 2-card combos on a dominion board, and an additional 240 3-card combos. You just can't fairly evaluate all of them. However, if you can decide that half the cards are almost never critical, you can pare yourself down to 10 2-card combos and 10 3-card combos. Much easier to do. More important, you're very rarely going to lose because you didn't see the weird chancellor combo. You'll lose a lot because you chose a slightly inferior "normal" combo to what your opponent picked.

[werothegreat]

I disagree a bit. It's tautologically true that it would be a good thing to evaluate each and every card on the board and evaluate how it could improve your strategy. However, it's also extraordinarily difficult to do so and has very marginal benefits. For people who aren't extremely good, you'll probably have better results by eliminating as many cards as possible that are either bad (scout) or generic (lab) and focusing on finding the best way to use the remaining power cards. There are 90 2-card combos on a dominion board, and an additional 240 3-card combos. You just can't fairly evaluate all of them. However, if you can decide that half the cards are almost never critical, you can pare yourself down to 10 2-card combos and 10 3-card combos. Much easier to do. More important, you're very rarely going to lose because you didn't see the weird chancellor combo. You'll lose a lot because you chose a slightly inferior "normal" combo to what your opponent picked.

Lab may be generic, but it's quite powerful.

[KingsSkort]

I'm not saying you can't buy lab, just that it's a card whose presence or absence is less likely to control what the best combo is. So when you're selecting an overall game plan, you can safely(ish) set lab aside, or maybe just keep in your head that there are generic handsize-increasers around. Once you have a strat, you can decide whether and how you should add labs to it.

[werothegreat]

Also, thinking just in terms of 2-card combos seems... silly.  I prefer to think of it as a potential 10-card combo.  I prefer to see what role each card will fill in my strategy.  Ok, there's Ghost Ship and Smithy for draw, I'll pick up one or two Ghost Ships, since the effect doesn't stack, and do the rest via Smithy, and I'll need that Pawn early for the +Buy, so I can get some Villages to play multiple draw cards per turn so I can get that Bank as soon as possible...  As opposed to attempting to run permutations of each card to each other card(s) in your head, which, as you pointed out, would be silly.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I agree with KingsSkort to a certain extent. Focusing on generally "good" cards to come up with a strategy is actually going to take you a long way (probably at least level 30) if you're just starting. It's very easy to try to do too many things to bring out the best in all the cards in the kingdom and do all the neat tricks you saw in game logs and even the puzzles subforum, and then just not have enough of a focused strategy to actually do any of them. If you start by looking at which cards are likely to be the most important and then consider how all the lesser cards can help support these options, you'll have a better shot at coming up with a coherent strategy. And having a coherent strategy -- even if it's not the best or optimal strategy -- is really the most important step in getting better. Working around these strategies to see where the support cards shine can teach you a lot.

I think the next step beyond this (the kind of getting from level 30 to level 40 step) is thinking about what card characteristics you need, and looking for them among the cards. Geronimoo's first game article is a good example of that. If you want to build an engine, you want some combination of:
1. A way of getting multiple cards per turn (Market/Remodel)
2. An attack to slow your opponent down while you build up (Militia)
3. A way of drawing a lot of cards (Village/Smithy chain)
4. A way to trash (Remodel)
Of these cards, only Militia and maybe Smithy are considered "strong", but you get a pretty good engine from the sum of the parts. If you only think in terms of "strong" cards, you may miss strategies like this.

[Kirian]

I love making Treasure-less engines.  That requires virtual coin, though, which, thankfully, will usually pop up in good engine kingdoms.

That was a lot of commas in a row.

Here, have a chameleon.

Oracle has helped me in a lot of games so far. On some boards it is better than Smithy. I don't think I've ever lost a game where I've decided to go Oracle.

I still hesitate to get it even if it'd be good, though, because it is agony to play on Isotropic. Decide whether to discard -> pick the order -> decide opponent's -> opponent orders. What makes it worse is that most of the time I have Oracle as part of a DRAW ENGINE (it rocks for this because you are usually desperately hoping for the next +action or +draw card you need, and get four chances to find it).

Wait until we see it on Goko!

[werothegreat]

I love making Treasure-less engines.  That requires virtual coin, though, which, thankfully, will usually pop up in good engine kingdoms.

That was a lot of commas in a row.

Here, have a chameleon.

I'm not sure I get the reference.

[brokoli]

I disagree a bit. It's tautologically true that it would be a good thing to evaluate each and every card on the board and evaluate how it could improve your strategy. However, it's also extraordinarily difficult to do so and has very marginal benefits. For people who aren't extremely good, you'll probably have better results by eliminating as many cards as possible that are either bad (scout) or generic (lab) and focusing on finding the best way to use the remaining power cards. There are 90 2-card combos on a dominion board, and an additional 240 3-card combos. You just can't fairly evaluate all of them. However, if you can decide that half the cards are almost never critical, you can pare yourself down to 10 2-card combos and 10 3-card combos. Much easier to do. More important, you're very rarely going to lose because you didn't see the weird chancellor combo. You'll lose a lot because you chose a slightly inferior "normal" combo to what your opponent picked.

But it beaks all the fun of Dominion IMO. I prefer to play a weird engine involving chancellor than something like Wharf-Big money...

[Kuildeous]

I love making Treasure-less engines.  That requires virtual coin, though, which, thankfully, will usually pop up in good engine kingdoms.

That was a lot of commas in a row.

Here, have a chameleon.

I'm not sure I get the reference.

I'm old enough to get the reference.

I thought about making my own snarky comment. Mine would have been along the lines of, "I only see three commas in there, unless you have a chameleon."

[Drab Emordnilap]

I love making Treasure-less engines.  That requires virtual coin, though, which, thankfully, will usually pop up in good engine kingdoms.

That was a lot of commas in a row.

Here, have a chameleon.

I'm not sure I get the reference.

It comes and goes, to be fair.

[eHalcyon]

I love making Treasure-less engines.  That requires virtual coin, though, which, thankfully, will usually pop up in good engine kingdoms.

That was a lot of commas in a row.

Here, have a chameleon.

I'm not sure I get the reference.

It comes and goes, to be fair.

Yes?