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[zahlman]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/08/game-20121108-054859-ce770fd1.html

So this seems like a pretty obvious Village-Wharf board, and I pick up a Trader in order to get Silver quickly... I end up taking 7 of the Wharves and 4 WV which really ought to be enough, but I still get beaten out. Is Envoy really that good here? He can presumably draw a lot given the Envoys and a bunch of Villages, but it seems like he played Wharf in preference to Envoy when given the chance...

[jsh357]

My gut says Wharf-BM or Wharf-Envoy-BM beats Village/Wharf here, though it is reasonably close.  You really only need 2 or 3 Wharves with money to make an effective deck: as you increase your money density, the Wharves becomes less likely to collide, so 7 is overkill and while you're taking the time getting that set up, Envoy/Wharf-BM can push ahead of it.  Note that he spent $47 and 11 buys on actions while you spent $55 and 12 buys.  Meanwhile, he was also able to amass 3 Golds, which definitely made a difference for him: you had less money to spend and bought more setup cards.  The Trader is not a terrible idea to pick up Silvers for Copper with your extra buys, though.  Also keep in mind he was first player, which gave him a pretty big advantage on this board from the get-go.

This game also illustrates how significant gaining a couple more cards can be.  Wharf is awesome, but it 'only' draws 2 cards for your next turn whereas Envoy draws you 4.

Anyway, I think the most significant difference is probably the Gold.  The decks are similar, you just chose to focus on Silver and couldn't get enough to compete.  I'm sure someone else can give a better analysis, but those are my thoughts.

[ehunt]

I think it's more a case of your openings and luck being roughly equivalent and him having first turn advantage (which is huge when there's tons of money and buys, as there are in this game). The other thing is that with wharf, sometimes one wharf megaturn leaves you having wharf megaturns for the rest of the game, but for whatever reason this snowball effect never worked out in your favor even though you won the wharf war.

I do think using trader to trash copper turn 14 is incorrect - you have a ton of extra buys for free silvers, and at this point your deck has quite a lot of wharves and could probably use the extra silvers to prevent a disaster hand like the one you draw the next turn. Of course the flip side is the silvers would make you less likely to link worker's villages and wharves, so maybe I am wrong. Certainly your next hand is unlucky either way.

[DG]

I think I've looked at this before with the simulator and wharf+trader is slightly better than just wharves+treasure. Instead of going quite heavily into villages there may be some advantage from using a lone walled village to help with draws in a treasure heavy deck.

For the game as played, buy a duchy on turn 11 instead of the wharf.

[RisingJaguar]

I think I've looked at this before with the simulator and wharf+trader is slightly better than just wharves+treasure. Instead of going quite heavily into villages there may be some advantage from using a lone walled village to help with draws in a treasure heavy deck.

For the game as played, buy a duchy on turn 11 instead of the wharf.

I'm okay with T11 Wharf, because with three wharves played and a reshuffle about to occur, wharves are needed in his deck.  T12 probably should have been a duchy if you wanted to continue that path. 

While T12 is a pretty big bummer not to have WV connect with wharves with 11 cards, I don't see the need to buy province on T11.  I would have liked more villages at that point with the reshuffle on its way (so 2 wharves + WV). 

I think the biggest difference between the normal village+wharf and this is that there is a treasure building mechanism in trader.  That makes things less likely to connect, which is fine as silvers/wharves are fine.  However, doing both silver building and looking to connect wharf/village is conflicting choices. 

Trader/wharf BM may be able to work, but you would lose a LOT of end game control to the wharf/village player.  Walled village would be nice in that sort of scenario for BM player. 

[CopperrCopper]

I like wharf/BM here with trader.  The best part of trader is to draw it dead and turn your extra buys into silver. 

[zahlman]

Here's another one along the same lines:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/09/game-20121109-143222-1d2cb22b.html

I still don't have any real understanding of what's going on. I get more of everything that ought to matter, and lose.

[GendoIkari]

Here's another one along the same lines:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/09/game-20121109-143222-1d2cb22b.html

I still don't have any real understanding of what's going on. I get more of everything that ought to matter, and lose.

At a very quick glance, I see that you have 8 terminals and only 4 villages; as well as 2 other actions that you could easily draw dead with all that terminal draw. My guess is that that's too much terminal.

[jsh357]

The Hoard (or at least the second one) is probably a misbuy given your game plan.  Buying extra victory cards will increase the amount of dead cards in your hands, which exacerbates the issue GendoIkari mentions.  Your opponent bought 5 Provinces and an Estate while you bought 2 Provinces, 2 Duchies and an Estate.  The opponent also has 8 fewer cards in the deck by endgame, so he's more likely to draw his Wharves and Villages in a good chain.

I think the Loan is a bad opening here for both players.  Copper isn't going to hurt a Wharf deck all that much on this board, as you are using Wharves to draw money.  Salvager is much better at the start than Worker's Village--trashing Estates is far more valuable than having an extra Action with no actions to play.  Also, this is a game where the Farming Villages are probably the better choice over Worker's; Wharves give you plenty of extra buys already while Hoard leads to more Victory cards Farming Village can sift through.

As for what I'd do on this board: Open Salvager/Silver, buy Silver and Wharf until 2 Wharves and a Farming Village, get 1 Hoard when possible aiming to trash a Duchy or Gold with the Salvager to jump to Provinces later, buying Wharves and Farming Villages on hands that cannot afford Gold or Province.  I'll maybe get an Expand late in the game (extra Gold can become Provinces) but that's not as necessary as it could be since Salvager is already in my deck.  I'll ignore Pearl Diver, Loan, Smithy and Mint.  Not sure if that's ideal play, but that's my gut.

[Mic Qsenoch]

At a very quick glance, I see that you have 8 terminals and only 4 3 villages; as well as 2 other actions that you could easily draw dead with all that terminal draw. My guess is that that's too much terminal.

The Wharves are durations, so the Terminal/Village Count is more like 5/3. And two of the Wharves weren't even in the deck until Turn 15. So I don't think that's the biggest problem (although it hurts consistency).

I still don't have any real understanding of what's going on. I get more of everything that ought to matter, and lose.

This sentence is not true at all, you get less of everything that ought to matter, because the only thing that does matter is victory points. The main problem I see in this game is that you are still building your engine when it's time to be buying green. The biggest offender here being the turn 15 double Wharf purchase. I guess you are afraid of a Triple Province buy from your opponent, so you are trying to dance around a bit, but the ultimate result is that you just fall too far behind in the Province race. It's easy to overthink these endgame victory dances.

I'd also echo the advice jsh gave (way too many Golds), although I'm not as sure about ignoring Loan. And I think Smithy can certainly have a place in this deck, if there's a spare $4 somewhere.

[cherdano]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/08/game-20121108-054859-ce770fd1.html

So this seems like a pretty obvious Village-Wharf board, and I pick up a Trader in order to get Silver quickly... I end up taking 7 of the Wharves and 4 WV which really ought to be enough, but I still get beaten out. Is Envoy really that good here? He can presumably draw a lot given the Envoys and a bunch of Villages, but it seems like he played Wharf in preference to Envoy when given the chance...

I am not sure what is best, but I am sure that Wharf+BM does better than 37 points in 17 turns.

[zahlman]

At a very quick glance, I see that you have 8 terminals and only 4 villages; as well as 2 other actions that you could easily draw dead with all that terminal draw. My guess is that that's too much terminal.

But 6 of them are Wharves. The intent is for half of them to be out as Duration, so I only need 4 villages for the other 5 terminals (the 3 new Wharves and the other two).

The Hoard (or at least the second one) is probably a misbuy given your game plan.  Buying extra victory cards will increase the amount of dead cards in your hands, which exacerbates the issue GendoIkari mentions.

But the point is exactly to play both Hoards at once to improve that ratio, which did work out.

I think the Loan is a bad opening here for both players.  Copper isn't going to hurt a Wharf deck all that much on this board, as you are using Wharves to draw money.

Now I'm really confused. Having Copper sitting around is fine in terms of what can be drawn, but buying a victory card to get 2 Golds alongside it is bad?

Also, this is a game where the Farming Villages are probably the better choice over Worker's

Definitely agreed, and didn't notice until later.

This sentence is not true at all, you get less of everything that ought to matter, because the only thing that does matter is victory points.

Oh, come on, you know what I meant. I have no idea how to figure out when to start greening, though. It seems like every time I'm the first to start greening on village-big draw boards, I choke on it and the other guy overtakes. Especially with something like Wharf which provides consistency for the next turn and +Buy.

And I think Smithy can certainly have a place in this deck, if there's a spare $4 somewhere.

Yep, got one on turn 3.

[chesskidnate]

Here's another one along the same lines:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/09/game-20121109-143222-1d2cb22b.html

I still don't have any real understanding of what's going on. I get more of everything that ought to matter, and lose.

I think some of the problem might have been your opening, because you weren't able to get your wharves early enough. I might've been tempted to open smithy/loan to get early trashing, be able to buy an early wharf, then start getting villages, a salvager, and more wharves but that might take too long to build up.

[Mic Qsenoch]

My Smithy comment was in response to jsh saying he would skip it entirely, I was defending your purchase of one.

The thing with the double Hoard, is that too many Golds prevents you from being able to play your Wharves, and you already had enough money for double Province turns so you didn't need all those Golds.

Sorry I was snarky about the "I get more of everything that ought to matter", but I think it reflects a bad way of evaluating games. Looking at how many of the "important" action cards each player has at the end of the game doesn't actually tell you very much about how strong the decks were throughout the game. Especially here since you didn't really have an engine with 6 Wharves, you had an engine with 4 Wharves. I think its important not to be focused on building the "best" engine, but rather on scoring more points than your opponent.

The big mistakes in the game were the Worker's Village opening and the double Hoard play. I think on the turn you buy two Hoards, one should be a Gold, or an engine piece.

[RisingJaguar]

Two small things:
1. I semi-agree with smithy in this game.  I'm a little against it because it competes with $4 but it does seem relatively important here (not the arguement I'm making).  However, if you are planning to have a smithy in your deck, you should have opened with it.  Take some extra time to plan what you will purchase at every price range at the start, you'll come to the decision that yes I want Salvager/smithy soon, then open with it. 
2. Loan generally is a decent opening with salvager as together they clear out the stuff you don't want.  However with Mint in play, with the wharves to draw out all your cards, that's probably the way you want to go.  So something like Salvager/silver, silver/silver to go towards a Wharf/BM start then transition to Mint if it calls for it (mostly yes).