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[gman314]

This is my first attempt at an article; suggested by http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4982.0 EDIT: There wasn't actually a suggestion for an Explorer article, but I thought there was. So, here is the article anyways!

Feedback encouraged!

Explorer

Explorer really has two different abilities: the first is that it can gain a Silver, the second is that it can gain a Gold. Of course, the second ability is strictly better than the first, which is why it’s a conditional benefit. But even when you get it with a Province, it’s basically just +$3, right? Wrong. A straight +$3 card would probably cost $5 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4914.msg116206#msg116206). So, if Explorer is only +$3 at the best of times, it looks pretty silly at $5. The power of Explorer is that it gives you $2-3 every time you go through your deck. And, the money is in hand, which just makes it awesome! You get the benefit right away!

Comparing Explorer to other cards
There are two cards which seem quite obvious as comparisons for Explorer. The first is Mine. Mine is the only other card (I think) which gains you cards In Hand. Similarly, Mine adds $1 to your deck every time you go through it (without extra treasures, that is) while Explorer adds $2 or $3. The other difference being that while Explorer adds extra cards to your deck, Mine only replaces cards, which means that in a long enough game you'd see your Mine more than you'd see your Explorer. But, Mine runs out of useful things to do (when you run out of Copper or Silver in your deck) before Explorer which is good until the Gold and Silver both run out.Another reason that Mine really is an apt comparison for Explorer is because neither of them are particularly great $5s. What makes these cards weaker? The simple fact that getting a whole pile of money won’t be competitive most of the time. On most boards, some sort of engine should be able to dance all over Big Money and that’s exactly what all your treasure leads to. You generally don’t want much treasure in an engine if you can avoid it, and while Mine just refines what you have, Explorer adds cards to your deck.

The other comparison for Explorer is Tournament. This is because both want you to match them with a Province. However, they play very differently because of the difference between Gold and Prizes. That being said, ideas from Tournament do carry over to Explorer, particularly deck drawing and the value of trashing, as will be discussed below.

Types of Explorer Decks

However, Explorer’s role, and the type of deck you stick it in, really depends on which of its abilities you use it for most of the time. The most basic ability of Explorer is to gain Silver. This ability is generally looked down upon simply because Silver isn’t really that great (http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/01/17/beyond-silver/). Silver gets you to $5/$6 and then your $5s and Golds get you to Provinces. And in a Colony game, Silver doesn’t get you very far at all. Unless...

The Alt-VP approach

In most alt-VP strategies, money is good. Even Silver! Even if you never get a Province, you need some money to keep your strategy going. You’re filling your deck with green and so you need to add some money to actually keep buying your Green.  But you want to use your buys on your alt-VP and the Silver is unlikely to run out. So, use Explorer to gain Silver instead of buying it! Since you get in your hand, there's not a downside to having the Explorer this turn, because the Explorer means you get to both gain and play the Silver. With the extra Silver from a few Explorers, you can keep your Gardens/Silk Road/Duke/Feodum strategy going strong.

The Big Money approach

Another case where boatloads of money is a good thing is Big Money. Just play your Explorers for Silver and when you get lucky, get a Gold. Just as with alt-VP, the power of gaining Silver outside the buy phase helps you green. Worth mentioning here is the opening of Explorer/Chapel. Get rid of your deck, get some Silver, get a Province and get a whole pile of Gold. But, this is just a special case of the next case which is....

The Engine Approach

Finally, we have the very strange case of Explorer in an engine of some sort. Just like Tournament, Explorer is at its best when you can get it with a Province. So, you want to set up some good drawing or trashing. But won’t the Gold just clog up the engine? Yes, but without virtual coin, you might need Gold in your engine. However, Explorer is a little too slow to set that up. But there are other reasons you might want some Gold in your engine. You may have a fragile engine which needs Gold to help it green, as it sputters and turns into a weak deck. The Gold can help you transition to a sort of BM deck as you finish. As a specific example, consider a TfB engine. These decks rely on having good cards to trash, but if the game goes on long enough you may run out of appealing targets, or your deck may only have $8. In particular, Apprentice says hi. Not only does it love to trash Gold, but it also helps you pair the Gold with an Explorer.A little Explorer can get you a Gold every turn which your TfB can use to keep you in the game.

The other case of an Explorer engine is the general case of Explorer-Chapel. In many Chapel openings, it's possible for your engine to accelerate ahead of your cash flow. You find yourself drawing your deck with 3 Buys, 5 extra Actions and hardly any money. Solution: Buy an Explorer! It builds the money into your engine! You gain money on your action phase so you can keep buying Engine parts or Provinces, and it's in hand, so you added +$2 or +$3 to your current turn! And if you keep drawing your deck, you're gaining nothing but Gold! It's spectacular!

And a final note on that automatic engine-creation card: King's Court. Setting up KC-Explorer is not a great move on its own, because playing it decreases the chance that future KCs will hit useful stuff. That being said, if you're drawing your deck, the 3 Golds probably won't totally knock out your engine and will help you to deal with the green you're adding. Or, if you have TfBs, adding 18 in value to your deck is just spectacular.

Attacks

As always, something needs to be said about what attacks do to the card. The damage of Cursers depends on what you're trying to do. If you're relying on matching with a Province, you're going to have a bad time if there's Curses in the game. But if it's a slog where your deck is full of Curses and you can't seem to hit $6 no matter what you do, you may want the Silver from Explorer. This really applies to any case where the pace of the game is just knocked down, which can also happen if there's too many Militias or Minions flying around. Hand size decreasers only hurt as much as they hurt the type of deck you're building, because Explorer probably isn't really the key card, but rather a helper. If you're trying for some sort of Explorer/Warehouse combo, a Militia hurts because it hurts Warehouse. Alternatively, a Library engine can easily withstand Militia. Probably the most damaging attacks for Explorer are Thief, Pirate Ship and Noble Brigand because of all that money you have. With them you definitely have to think carefully about buying Explorer.

A fun note about Possession: If a player possesses an Explorer, the Possessing player gains the treasure, but not in hand. So, the primary value of Explorer (gaining in hand) is lost.

Works with:
Most Alt-VP (Gardens, Silk Road, Feodum, Duke)
Big Money
TfB engines
Big draw engines which need treasure
Trashing
Non-terminal draw
Sifters

Conflicts with:
Opponents' cursers (sometimes)
Faster strategies
Colonies
Most engines
Cards which provide +$
Menagerie/Harvest/Fairgrounds
Handsize attacks (Sometimes)

[jotheonah]

Nice first article!

I think you should emphasize a little more that it (like Mine) gains the money to hand; that's key to making it not worthless.

Personally, I find myself using Explorer in games where I accidentally built an engine that's gotten ahead of itself - it's drawing itself and producing plenty of buys, but I've neglected to include enough money or virtual money. Having a money-gainer built into the engine can really keep the speed up.

[gman314]

Good point on emphasizing the to hand. That definitely helps the card a lot. I should also definitely mention that it helps with a too-fast engine. I've seen it done, but had forgotten to put that in.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Nice article. Glad people are getting back into writing these things. A couple points:
1. The Chapel/Explorer opening is a special case of the more general idea of using Explorer to refill economy when you can draw a large portion of your deck. If you build an engine that draws the whole deck but has no money, it's easier to fill in the money via Explorer than actually spending money (and buys) on the Treasures.
2. I don't think Explorer is actually bad in junky curse games. Sure you'll never gain Golds with it, but that's not the point. Your deck quality is going to be really poor, so stuffing Silver is a much bigger upgrade than it usually is.

[DG]

To my mind the explorer gains treasure. The gained treasure goes into hand so you can spend it that turn. That's it. In any situation where you've trashed down your deck the explorer can refill it with treasures at a fair pace. The explorer can sustain a deck that is purchasing green cards every turn.

Hand size is important for explorers, especially if you're trying to match up provinces and explorers to gain gold. You need to be aware of the quality of your deck if you're playing a warehouse to create a 4 card hand of {province, explorer, gold, silver}

[WheresMyElephant]

 

Nice article. Glad people are getting back into writing these things. A couple points:
1. The Chapel/Explorer opening is a special case of the more general idea of using Explorer to refill economy when you can draw a large portion of your deck. If you build an engine that draws the whole deck but has no money, it's easier to fill in the money via Explorer than actually spending money (and buys) on the Treasures.
2. I don't think Explorer is actually bad in junky curse games. Sure you'll never gain Golds with it, but that's not the point. Your deck quality is going to be really poor, so stuffing Silver is a much bigger upgrade than it usually is.

I don't think gman had in mind those games where everyone's deck is completely destroyed by Curses, and it's totally impossible for anyone to buy Provinces or even Gold. I'd think there are a lot of middle ground cases (think for instance YW+mid-level Bane in 2P; or games with some trashing) where Curses are relevant and could be annoying enough to interfere with Explorer finding Provinces, but where you're still trying to maintain some semblance of a normal deck and buy Provinces.

Maybe this could be made clearer? "Weak Cursing" isn't really part of the Dominion lingo the way that "weak trashing" is, but I'm sure the idea could be conveyed.

[jsh357]

KC/Explorer is pretty good, especially if you can get the Province in hand, but I guess it's not generally going to be the best KC combo on the board.  I've done it a few times with good results, though. 

[jomini]

A few other points:
Explorer is very useful on some trash for benefit boards. By giving you a gold into hand, you can set up some trash for benefit shenanigans that can be quite useful. For instance, village -> explorer/gain a gold -> remodel allows you to gain a province without using your buy phase (allowing a 2 province/turn engine without +buy), gaining the gold in hand rather than in deck from something like mint, tunnel, market square, etc. makes it much better for pairing up explorer, village, province, and remodel. Another strong TfB is apprentice, using the apprentice to burn the gold let's you draw wicked big hands & do all manner of crazy stuff. Salvager and Bishop also can make very nice use of a steady stream of golds.

Silver is not that bad for a simple province game with no +buy (or other gain). Yes you need 4 silvers or 3 silvers & 2 coppers to get a province, but with some draw (after you have increased deck size with some treasure gain) or some sifting, this isn't too hard to do. Things like cartographer/explorer can get to provinces without ever grabbing a gold. As a bonus, sifting can let you pair the explorer with provinces more easily (though often this is NOT the best move as explorer + province gives you only 3 coin this turn while explorer + silver gives you 4) and allow you to get rid of surplus provinces for something more useful.

[Robz888]

As Donald has said (in a thread I can't find right now, but I remember it because it was such a great quote): "Explorer is fine. Why do people even complain about Explorer? They can't all be like the best $5 card ever."

On that note, Explorer isn't the best $5 card ever, but it's fine. A card that said +$2, gain a Silver, while hardly being something to get excited about, would be okay every now and then. The possibility of Gold gives it a boost, though not a dramatic one, since the cases where you are drawing your whole deck and reliably doing Explorer/Province are pretty niche. I mean, very often those draw your whole deck engines want to do something else than gain Gold (like Curse or Goons you into oblivion, or something). That doesn't make it bad, just not your first choice, normally.

I like to think of Explorer as belonging to the "gain a nice Treasure" family of cards, which include Jack-of-All-Trades and Bureaucrat, but really, Explorer's closest cousins are without a doubt Hoard and Haggler. The comparison to Haggler is really where you see Explorer's limits. Haggler gives you a lot more flexibility than Explorer, for the same benefit (+$2), and hey, it can gain Gold too (arguably more easily).

[AJD]

Explorer is an okay counter to Possession (or at least, it's in the family of cards that are less useful on Possessed turns than regular turns).

[Robz888]

I always think of Explorer with Tournament, but they aren't really a combo. It's not like Explorer helps you connect your Tournaments, really. It's just a card that also wants an early Province. So they intersect without comboing, I suppose.

[jotheonah]

KC-KC-Explorer-Remodel-Province would be a neat trick hand if you could set it up.

[popsofctown]

Explorer is very nice with an Apprentice engine.

[gman314]

Explorer is very nice with an Apprentice engine.

That is exactly what I was thinking of when I made the more general comment on TfB engines.

I always think of Explorer with Tournament, but they aren't really a combo. It's not like Explorer helps you connect your Tournaments, really. It's just a card that also wants an early Province. So they intersect without comboing, I suppose.

I should actually emphasize both the comparison between the cards, and the fact that they're really a nombo. Matching up Explorers with Provinces hurts your chances of matching up Tournaments (or other Explorers) with Provinces.

[gman314]

Article edited to change some formatting and take advice into account.

[Asklepios]

King's Court is a card that works badly with Explorer, generally, I'd say. Several reasons for this:

1) The more you activate Explorer, the less likely King's Court is to draw with it. Also, it makes King's Court less likely to draw with other action cards. Or to put it more simply, King's Court is mostly an engine card, Explorer is mostly a money card.
2) Explorer is great at getting you to $8 on a consistent basis, but weak at getting you the megahands that let you buy multiple provinces in a turn. In any game where you're not planning to buy multiple provinces/colonies in a turn, King's Court needs to be looked at very carefully to see if its actually better than gold / province.

I'd agree that the real benefit of Explorer comes in alt-VP games.

I'd also add that Explorer works well in games that have the pace knocked out of them. Mountebank, Sea Hag, maybe Cutpurse - these cards slow down a game a lot. In these games, getting Explorer means more medium-strength hands in the long slog, and a dilution of the curses and coppers. Its unusual for Explorer to not get you at least a $5 hand as well, so it can help get those critical Duchies in those sort of games.

[jomini]

King's Court is a card that works badly with Explorer, generally, I'd say. Several reasons for this:

1) The more you activate Explorer, the less likely King's Court is to draw with it. Also, it makes King's Court less likely to draw with other action cards. Or to put it more simply, King's Court is mostly an engine card, Explorer is mostly a money card.
2) Explorer is great at getting you to $8 on a consistent basis, but weak at getting you the megahands that let you buy multiple provinces in a turn. In any game where you're not planning to buy multiple provinces/colonies in a turn, King's Court needs to be looked at very carefully to see if its actually better than gold / province.

I'd agree that the real benefit of Explorer comes in alt-VP games.

I'd also add that Explorer works well in games that have the pace knocked out of them. Mountebank, Sea Hag, maybe Cutpurse - these cards slow down a game a lot. In these games, getting Explorer means more medium-strength hands in the long slog, and a dilution of the curses and coppers. Its unusual for Explorer to not get you at least a $5 hand as well, so it can help get those critical Duchies in those sort of games.

Kc/Explorer is actually really good late addition in a remodel engine or such. If you can draw your whole deck (easy with most any Kc/Engine) then you really can just steal a huge number of VP really quick by burning three golds for something (e.g. remodeling them into three provinces, salvaging them into 18 coin). Dropping 18 value into hand is nothing to sneeze at, even if it wrecks your engine the next turn, explorer can really fill out a Kc engine quickly.

The big caveat, of course, is that you have to already have a province in your deck (or be able to easily get one from something like remodel), but for a 5 coin buy, you can snag some seriously strong potential quickly.

[gman314]

Another edit done to take into account the last two posts.

Does anyone know what Possessing an Explorer would do? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the Possessing player would gain the treasure and so the value of gaining in hand would be totally lost.

[ftl]

yes, that is correct. (Same with Mine!)

[TWoos]

Does anyone know what Possessing an Explorer would do? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the Possessing player would gain the treasure and so the value of gaining in hand would be totally lost.

I would strongly suspect that the Possessing player would gain the treasure, but into their discard pile, not their hand.

[LastFootnote]

I'm pretty sure that the Possessing player would gain the treasure and so the value of gaining in hand would be totally lost.

Correct.

[theory]

I'm putting this up on Wednesday.  It's a nice examination of an underappreciated card.

[Robz888]

I'm putting this up on Wednesday.  It's a nice examination of an underappreciated card.

But you have to edit it to begin with Donald's quote. You gotta.

"Explorer is fine. Why do people even complain about Explorer? They can't all be like the best $5 card ever."

[theory]

You underestimate me.

[DStu]

I'm putting this up on Wednesday.  It's a nice examination of an underappreciated card.

"Explorer is fine. Why do people even complain about Explorer? They can't all be like the best $5 card ever."

I think it's because when you look on the card, you think that the right play is to get it you to gain you lots of Gold. Then you try that, then it doesn't work out, and then you think Explorere is bad.
Took me some time until I realised that just gaining Silvers in hand is often enough to buy an Explorer.