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[Schneau]

Pretty good article, but you forgot the unbeatable combo:  KC/KC/KC/KC/Scheme/Scheme/Scheme/Scheme/Beggar/Beggar/Trader with Feodum on the board!

By my calculation, you can fit one more Beggar in there by not playing Trader King's Courted!

[popsofctown]

It is pretty decent against Jester, which prefers to hit your really good cards or your really bad cards; Silver is in the middle ground which gives your opponent the least advantage.

This is the second time I've encountered the notion that Silver is the worst thing to hit with Jester, and that's ludicrous.  Gaining a Silver is more powerful than trashing a Copper.  Official cards provide a terminal Silver that trashes Coppers for 4$ and a terminal Silver that gains Silvers for 5$, and I don't think that's a mistake.

[LastFootnote]

It is pretty decent against Jester, which prefers to hit your really good cards or your really bad cards; Silver is in the middle ground which gives your opponent the least advantage.

This is the second time I've encountered the notion that Silver is the worst thing to hit with Jester, and that's ludicrous.  Gaining a Silver is more powerful than trashing a Copper.  Official cards provide a terminal Silver that trashes Coppers for 4$ and a terminal Silver that gains Silvers for 5$, and I don't think that's a mistake.

Agreed. I'd much rather hit Silver with my Jester than Copper.

[dondon151]

This is the second time I've encountered the notion that Silver is the worst thing to hit with Jester, and that's ludicrous.  Gaining a Silver is more powerful than trashing a Copper.  Official cards provide a terminal Silver that trashes Coppers for 4$ and a terminal Silver that gains Silvers for 5$, and I don't think that's a mistake.

That's true, but some engines that use Jester don't want to take extra Silvers.

[gman314]

I'll disagree with the Beggar/Gardens thought.  This should be exceptionally powerful!  Open Beggar/Beggar and then buy priority is Garden>Beggar>Estate>Copper.  I know that this is really general and you can optimize when to start buying estates as opposed to Beggers.  The key is that each play of Beggar nets you 3 cards.  That is HUGE in a Gardens game.  Also you only need a single copper with a Beggar to have $4 to purchase a Garden.  With all the copper flowing through your deck, that won't be hard.

Yeah, I also disagree with brokoli on this.  I have even had success opening Beggar/Gardens and rushing the Gardens pile since Beggars are so cheap and you're virtually guaranteed to get more.

Totally agree on the Beggar-Gardens point. My friend opened 5-2 in a 4-player IRL game and got Cache/Beggar going into gardens. He only got 4 VP Gardens and didn't do particularly well, but I don't think it was a bad strategy. The rest of us were all playing around with Bishop and buying and trashing his Gardens which weakened it. Also, he succeeded in gaining between 1/2 and 2/3 of the Copper pile.

[Schneau]

I added a paragraph about Gardens/Beggar strategy referencing the simulations done by DStu.

[DStu]

Gardens may be Beggars most powerful combo. Unlike just about any other board, it may be optimal to buy a straight Victory card on turn 1 or 2 with the opening Gardens/Beggar. This allows you to get a jump on the Gardens pile to almost guarantee an even split of the Gardens, if not a split in your favor. According to simulations performed by DStu, just buying Gardens / (Estate when Gardens are low) / Beggar / Copper wins against a basic Workshop / Gardens bot 80% of the time. When your opponent is not rushing the Gardens, you should buy Duchies once the Gardens are gone to help 3-pile and get more VP. This wins against a DoubleJack bot 75% of the time.

Just some notes here. First, buying Duchies is also a good idea agsints WS/Gardens, this wins 100% of the time (samplesize 2000).
I think Beggars/Gardens works not because it is faster, but because it has a faster start, and has more options later in the game (e.g. buying Duchies). So against another Gardens strategy, you win because of your start (you win the split), and because you can do better once the Gardens are gone. It can't force a fast end of the game, but does quite well against BigMoneys as it scores high points when it has time.
I think it has more problems than WS/Gardens against engines.  When there is a strong potential mega-turn engine, you give them a lot of time to just build it up and finish with all the Provinces and maybe some Duchies. Because you need at least 25 turns to finish the game. OK, you should have more than half of the points (exclude: Goons) earlier, but an engine that fires aroung T15-18 should beat this.

[ehunt]

Gardens may be Beggars most powerful combo. Unlike just about any other board, it may be optimal to buy a straight Victory card on turn 1 or 2 with the opening Gardens/Beggar. This allows you to get a jump on the Gardens pile to almost guarantee an even split of the Gardens, if not a split in your favor. According to simulations performed by DStu, just buying Gardens / (Estate when Gardens are low) / Beggar / Copper wins against a basic Workshop / Gardens bot 80% of the time. When your opponent is not rushing the Gardens, you should buy Duchies once the Gardens are gone to help 3-pile and get more VP. This wins against a DoubleJack bot 75% of the time.

Just some notes here. First, buying Duchies is also a good idea agsints WS/Gardens, this wins 100% of the time (samplesize 2000).
I think Beggars/Gardens works not because it is faster, but because it has a faster start, and has more options later in the game (e.g. buying Duchies). So against another Gardens strategy, you win because of your start (you win the split), and because you can do better once the Gardens are gone. It can't force a fast end of the game, but does quite well against BigMoneys as it scores high points when it has time.
I think it has more problems than WS/Gardens against engines.  When there is a strong potential mega-turn engine, you give them a lot of time to just build it up and finish with all the Provinces and maybe some Duchies. Because you need at least 25 turns to finish the game. OK, you should have more than half of the points (exclude: Goons) earlier, but an engine that fires aroung T15-18 should beat this.

 can you elaborate on buying duchies beats workshop/gardens, maybe in a separate thread? i have never heard this before!

[Lekkit]

I played a Duke board with Beggar pretty recently. After a while you start to get a bunch of $4s without Beggars. However, I did manage to win pretty handily after the game ended on Provinces and I "only" got 7 of the 12 Duchies, and something like 3 or 4 Dukes. Now, in a mirror match up and with only two players, I think this will be one of the most dominating combos on a Duke board. You can basically start to buy Duchies at turn 3-4.

[Voltgloss]

I played Beggar/Gardens in a RL three-person game recently.  Won the game with eight Gardens worth 7 VP apiece.  A few thoughts therefrom:

- The strategy laughs at discard and junker attacks.  The board had both (Witch, and Urchin/Mercenary).  Discarding was rarely painful to me because (1) I usually had green to discard without penalty; and (2) it gave me the option to trigger Beggar's reaction.  Now, most of the time I didn't trigger the reaction (because I preferred adding three cards to my deck instead of two), but it was of tremendous help when I drew a hand with two Beggars in it.  And the Cursing?  I had ten Curses by game's end... but they only cost me 2 VP all told, because their presence made all eight of my Gardens worth an extra VP.

- I had a somewhat surprising third enabler:  Horn of Plenty.  I bought three Horns of Plenty with my first few $5's and used them almost exclusively to scoop up Beggars while buying Gardens.  [Note: the only source of "traditional" +Buy on the board was Tactician.]  The game ended with Gardens, Beggars, and Curses piling out.

- Opponent #1 had a well-firing engine using Tactician to leverage draw-entire-deck megaturns, greased by Mining Villages and playing Witch and Mercenary pretty much every turn.  She was scooping up Provinces and had Province-Duchy turns at least twice.  Yet the simple Beggar/Gardens/HoP strategy came out on top.  [Opponent #2 had trouble with her deck because Opponent #1's constant Mercenary-ing kept wrecking her hands.]

[HiveMindEmulator]

Gardens may be Beggars most powerful combo. Unlike just about any other board, it may be optimal to buy a straight Victory card on turn 1 or 2 with the opening Gardens/Beggar. This allows you to get a jump on the Gardens pile to almost guarantee an even split of the Gardens, if not a split in your favor. According to simulations performed by DStu, just buying Gardens / (Estate when Gardens are low) / Beggar / Copper wins against a basic Workshop / Gardens bot 80% of the time. When your opponent is not rushing the Gardens, you should buy Duchies once the Gardens are gone to help 3-pile and get more VP. This wins against a DoubleJack bot 75% of the time.

Just some notes here. First, buying Duchies is also a good idea agsints WS/Gardens, this wins 100% of the time (samplesize 2000).
I think Beggars/Gardens works not because it is faster, but because it has a faster start, and has more options later in the game (e.g. buying Duchies). So against another Gardens strategy, you win because of your start (you win the split), and because you can do better once the Gardens are gone. It can't force a fast end of the game, but does quite well against BigMoneys as it scores high points when it has time.
I think it has more problems than WS/Gardens against engines.  When there is a strong potential mega-turn engine, you give them a lot of time to just build it up and finish with all the Provinces and maybe some Duchies. Because you need at least 25 turns to finish the game. OK, you should have more than half of the points (exclude: Goons) earlier, but an engine that fires aroung T15-18 should beat this.

 can you elaborate on buying duchies beats workshop/gardens, maybe in a separate thread? i have never heard this before!

I think he means Beggar+Gardens+Duchy > WS+Gardens, not that Duchy > WS+Gardens.

It's also a good point that Beggar+Gardens will not be as good against mega-turn engines as WS+Gardens. Although it's probably better in any Garden mirror, it does struggle to end the game fast if your opponent ignores Gardens. But then again, you may be able to add in whatever +buy source your mega turn opponent is getting...

[DStu]

Gardens may be Beggars most powerful combo. Unlike just about any other board, it may be optimal to buy a straight Victory card on turn 1 or 2 with the opening Gardens/Beggar. This allows you to get a jump on the Gardens pile to almost guarantee an even split of the Gardens, if not a split in your favor. According to simulations performed by DStu, just buying Gardens / (Estate when Gardens are low) / Beggar / Copper wins against a basic Workshop / Gardens bot 80% of the time. When your opponent is not rushing the Gardens, you should buy Duchies once the Gardens are gone to help 3-pile and get more VP. This wins against a DoubleJack bot 75% of the time.

Just some notes here. First, buying Duchies is also a good idea agsints WS/Gardens, this wins 100% of the time (samplesize 2000).
I think Beggars/Gardens works not because it is faster, but because it has a faster start, and has more options later in the game (e.g. buying Duchies). So against another Gardens strategy, you win because of your start (you win the split), and because you can do better once the Gardens are gone. It can't force a fast end of the game, but does quite well against BigMoneys as it scores high points when it has time.
I think it has more problems than WS/Gardens against engines.  When there is a strong potential mega-turn engine, you give them a lot of time to just build it up and finish with all the Provinces and maybe some Duchies. Because you need at least 25 turns to finish the game. OK, you should have more than half of the points (exclude: Goons) earlier, but an engine that fires aroung T15-18 should beat this.

 can you elaborate on buying duchies beats workshop/gardens, maybe in a separate thread? i have never heard this before!

I think he means Beggar+Gardens+Duchy > WS+Gardens, not that Duchy > WS+Gardens.

Yes, that's what i meant. Sorry, lost this thread.

It's also a good point that Beggar+Gardens will not be as good against mega-turn engines as WS+Gardens. Although it's probably better in any Garden mirror, it does struggle to end the game fast if your opponent ignores Gardens. But then again, you may be able to add in whatever +buy source your mega turn opponent is getting...

Maybe sometimes possible, but nevertheless hard I would say? Unless it's the card you pile out (Hamlet?), every +buy-card you get is an additional buy. And add 2 buys because you are piling kingdom instead of Estates.  And unless you get them early, it's hard to use them often, because your deck is that large, so I doubt that this will end the game much faster.
Edit: Of course, against an engine, buying something like Workers'Village or Hamlet can also be great denying when they are the only Villages, and as the engine also buys this card, you don't need to get 10 of them. And maybe the Beggar has some advantages also with this against the WS/Gardens, because an engine can not only leave one say Wharf on the pile and be quite sure that you will never manage to get it, but there is the real danger that you can grep say two of them relatively fast.

[Schneau]

Thanks for posting this article Theory!

[enquerencia]

I just played a game on goko against a bot (because multiplayer still isn't fun on goko and sometimes I actually enjoy playing against a robot, and goko's robots aren't that bad, even compared to Androminion's, which are also not terrible.  For bots), with these cards

Beggar, Loan, Lookout, Workshop, Bishop, Feodum, Island, Contraband, Treasury, Nobles

The copper pile ran out way earlier than I would have thought.  My basic strategy, because I opened 5-2, was to open contraband/beggar.  I figured that was essentially two golds.  One that puts three coppers in my deck and one that wouldn't let me buy gold.  But when I hit six on turn three with the contraband in play i bought a nobles.  The thing the bot never caught onto, and which a real person would have, is that in a deck with a lot of copper, the plus three cards nobles gives you is essentially a gold.  So I bought out the Nobles, and then suddenly copper was gone (I bought more beggars when I couldn't afford Nobles, or Duchies once the Nobles were gone and I wasn't seeing my Contraband very often), and the game three piled on coppers, Nobles, and Duchies. 

I was surprised at how well this worked, and I don't think I would have tried it if not for this article. 

I also wouldn't be surprised if someone had a strategy on this board that would beat it very fast (my game took 27 turns, and I know that isn't fast).  I was most surprised that coppers actually ran out, and that it happened in less than 25 turns (the bot also bought a beggar, for some reason), and that it didn't feel at all like a slog.  I was buying victory points the whole time, and had 4 Provinces (which probably contributed to the game taking 27 turns, as I should have focused on the three piles I wanted to drain; but since copper surprised me, I didn't realize I was going to end on three piles).

[aaron0013]

[SirPeebles]

Does it really anti-synergize with Venture and Adventurer?  You can get lots of free Silver, which can help out both when you don't have good Copper trashing.  In an attack heavy multiplayer game, you are likely to active the Reaction often.

[eHalcyon]

Does it really anti-synergize with Venture and Adventurer?  You can get lots of free Silver, which can help out both when you don't have good Copper trashing.  In an attack heavy multiplayer game, you are likely to active the Reaction often.

The on-play anti-synergizes.  If you are buying the card just for the reaction... well, that doesn't sound like a great plan to me.

[jomini]

Buying just for the reaction is a great plan in some circumstances. For instance, I will totally buy a Moat just for the reaction if my opponent is doing a big Council Room/Militia engine. If I'm fishing for a Kc x2/Bridge x3 combo life is a lot easier when I can keep the bonus cards from the Cr and ignore the militia. Top decking a Watchtower (say in a thin engine with Courtyard) is great for killing in bound curses.

Likewise, you may well reach a game state where you can bank on the reaction. Your opponent has chapel and has only Kc/Militia for money or he is relying on Tr->Spy as a village, yeah you can buy Beggar to flood silver.

As for Beggar and Venture/Adventurer ... well Adventurer I think is going to pretty much always be crap on Beggar board. It competes with gold and you need 7 Silver before it pays out more. Venture, on the other hand is an improved silver in virtually all cases and attacks can make a pretty reliable 2.5 coin. For the last pass or two through the deck, well downgrading the Gold-ish ventures to Silver-ish ventures is a lot cheaper than remodeling golds to provinces, but we don't balk at all about doing the latter.

[eHalcyon]

I was speaking specifically of the question of Beggar and Adventurer/Venture though.  I just don't think it would make sense to buy Beggar with the purpose of using its reaction to get Silvers for Adventurer/Venture.  I'm not sure if there is ever a case to buy Beggar itself specifically for the reaction anyway.  Maybe against an onslaught of Saboteurs or Knights?

But Moat, absolutely.  Pretty often if you buy Moat, it's for the reaction.  Watchtower too, in almost as many cases.

[SCSN]

I was speaking specifically of the question of Beggar and Adventurer/Venture though.  I just don't think it would make sense to buy Beggar with the purpose of using its reaction to get Silvers for Adventurer/Venture.  I'm not sure if there is ever a case to buy Beggar itself specifically for the reaction anyway.  Maybe against an onslaught of Saboteurs or Knights?

But Moat, absolutely.  Pretty often if you buy Moat, it's for the reaction.  Watchtower too, in almost as many cases.

Do you really think the Beggar reaction is bad in cases where you're virtually guaranteed to hit it every time? As for instance against a Minion or Scrying Pool engine; or the cases Jomini mentioned, or an attack-heavy multiplayer game? You do have the handsize reduction thing, except against handsize reduction attacks where you have nothing to lose; but even still that's an absolute ton of Silver for $2.

Edit: It's actually strange to me to say you wouldn't buy Beggar "specifically" for the reaction, since unlike Moat, you have to choose between playing the Action or the Reaction each turn. If you have a Beggar and you're predictably getting attacked most turns, do you plan to discard the Beggar most of the times you're able to? If so, it sounds like you bought Beggar primarily for the Reaction after all. if not, it sounds like you're just saying the Beggar reaction ability is total crap.

The thing with Minion and Scrying Pool is that if they're good, you want to go for them yourself and in that case you don't want a ton of Silver in your deck, whereas if they suck your opponent is likely to skip them as well (assuming you play someone decent).

I do like Beggar's reaction against Knights, and I used it once against a Militia on a Feodum board.