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[shraeye]

Baron, Chancellor, Grand Market, Haggler, Horn of Plenty, Mandarin, Mining Village, Mountebank, Silk Road, Tournament

Here is the board.  TheMunch is convinced that every time Baron is on the board (including this time) it is the proper opening.  It's his favorite card (tied with goons and hoard).  I opened Mining Village/Silver.  My girlfriend opened Tournament/Silver.  TheMunch opened Baron/Silver.

What is correct?

TheMunch eventually won, because he had many GrandMarkets and played a SilkRoads/Estates heavy strategy (got some provinces too), which beat out the Province strategy that me/girlfriend went for. 

Let's say (because y'all are best at this) that we're playing two player instead of three player.  What is best here?

ACTUALLY, if anyone can speak to three-player strategies, that is more impressive.

[TheMunch]

Baron every time!

[AntiLogical]

Well, Baron's +$4 (assuming Estate is discarded, or course) is pretty nice with Tournament (for that $8 Province and Prizes), and/or with Grand Market (with that pesky no copper clause).

Out of curiousity, who got which prizes, and did that make any notciable difference? (Followers being the only discard attack, although Mountebank on a no-trashing board (HoP self-trashing for Victory cards doesn't count) is probably more of a pain.)

[Morgrim7]

Yeah, baron here is good. you want Mountebank.

[TheMunch]

Well, Baron's +$4 (assuming Estate is discarded, or course) is pretty nice with Tournament (for that $8 Province and Prizes), and/or with Grand Market (with that pesky no copper clause).

Out of curiousity, who got which prizes, and did that make any notciable difference? (Followers being the only discard attack, although Mountebank on a no-trashing board (HoP self-trashing for Victory cards doesn't count) is probably more of a pain.)

No one got any prizes.  The player that opened tournament ended up not picking up more tournies after getting the first 2 provinces.  While those 2 provinces were picked up early, both other players having a Mountebank really hurts the chances of those colliding.  I ended up going straight for the grand market stack.  By the time Grand Markets were gone I felt it was time to win the game so all the buys went to silk road/estates to get myself up over 20 victory cards (I got to 21).

[Robz888]

Baron is not as essential as TheMunch seems to think, but here it is arguably the correct opening. Down the line, it will help you pick up Estates if you are going for Silk Roads, which seems reasonable, given that Mountebank is going to destroy a Province-seeking deck here.

Baron/Silk Road is also a big fan of Followers, but connecting Provinces to Tournaments in a three-person Curse-intensive game is no easy feat.

[shark_bait]

Baron/Silver/GM is also very good.  Just sayin'

[TheMunch]

Baron/Silver/GM is also very good.  Just sayin'

Thats what I did.

[DG]

ACTUALLY, if anyone can speak to three-player strategies, that is more impressive.

As it's a three player you can expect the deck to deteriorate due to mountebanks after turn 5, but the curses won't empty particularly quickly. The mountebank attack is effective against everything here except silk roads. Even the grand markets become less important. Normally the baron would fail badly after an initial flourish but in this case the baron can gain estates painlessly to set up silk roads. Some sort of duchy/silk road/estate finish would seem most sensible once everyone buys their mountebank.

[dondon151]

Here is the board.  TheMunch is convinced that every time Baron is on the board (including this time) it is the proper opening.  It's his favorite card (tied with goons and hoard).

Clearly this is not the case if Shelters are in the starting deck.

[Beyond Awesome]

TheMunch will be very disappointed once he starts playing with Dark Ages.

[eHalcyon]

As others have mentioned, Baron is nice on this particular board because of Silk Road (likes Estates) and Mountebank (makes strategies like Tournament less viable).  I believe Baron is also pretty good with Grand Market as the +$4 goes a long way towards a copperless $6.

But that's this particular board.  I think there are plenty of games where Baron is weak.  Without SR here, I don't think Baron would be worth it against Mountebank.  If SR were gone I would probably open Silver/Silver to gun for Mountebank.  Tournament is also less of a pressing need because of Mountebank.

By the way, if you want to try to luck into something awesome, HoP+Mandarin is available.  No support to get it started, but it would be quite fun.  Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP --> Gain Mandarin, top deck all 5 treasures, buy Province, repeat.  But again, there's no support for taht here.

[Rabid]

By the way, if you want to try to luck into something awesome, HoP+Mandarin is available.  No support to get it started, but it would be quite fun.  Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP --> Gain Mandarin, top deck all 5 treasures, buy Province, repeat.  But again, there's no support for taht here.

Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP is only 4 different cards so you can't gain Mandarin.
You need either Platinum , hoard, or royal seal to make this work.

In theory (I have not played much 3p at all) Baron should a better opening in 3p than it is in 2p. Especially if you are last, as it is high variance.

[eHalcyon]

By the way, if you want to try to luck into something awesome, HoP+Mandarin is available.  No support to get it started, but it would be quite fun.  Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP --> Gain Mandarin, top deck all 5 treasures, buy Province, repeat.  But again, there's no support for taht here.

Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP is only 4 different cards so you can't gain Mandarin.
You need either Platinum , hoard, or royal seal to make this work.

In theory (I have not played much 3p at all) Baron should a better opening in 3p than it is in 2p. Especially if you are last, as it is high variance.

Oops... Counting fail.

/slinks away quietly...

[Fragasnap]

By the way, if you want to try to luck into something awesome, HoP+Mandarin is available.  No support to get it started, but it would be quite fun.  Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP --> Gain Mandarin, top deck all 5 treasures, buy Province, repeat.  But again, there's no support for taht here.

Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP is only 4 different cards so you can't gain Mandarin.
You need either Platinum , hoard, or royal seal to make this work.

THere, um, are a couple other cards that could make this work too, but I probably shouldn't Scavenge for such Ill-beGotten ideas. I'll just have to Stash my thoughts away--though now that you've got me started, I guess you'll have to wait to see what I'm Scheming. Though maybe I have Ventured too far, but I'll certainly Cash this in, because I can Bank on that.
And it wouldn't take a Philosopher to figure this out before I Die-ahem.

[Davio]

Contraband with GG Greg as your opponent.

[DWetzel]

By the way, if you want to try to luck into something awesome, HoP+Mandarin is available.  No support to get it started, but it would be quite fun.  Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP --> Gain Mandarin, top deck all 5 treasures, buy Province, repeat.  But again, there's no support for taht here.

Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP is only 4 different cards so you can't gain Mandarin.
You need either Platinum , hoard, or royal seal to make this work.

THere, um, are a couple other cards that could make this work too, but I probably shouldn't Scavenge for such Ill-beGotten ideas. I'll just have to Stash my thoughts away--though now that you've got me started, I guess you'll have to wait to see what I'm Scheming. Though maybe I have Ventured too far, but I'll certainly Cash this in, because I can Bank on that.
And it wouldn't take a Philosopher to figure this out before I Die-ahem.

I would have thought of this, but I was distracted by my harem.

[Powerman]

Chancellor - Tournament FTW

[zahlman]

Baron, Chancellor, Grand Market, Haggler, Horn of Plenty, Mandarin, Mining Village, Mountebank, Silk Road, Tournament

Here is the board.  TheMunch is convinced that every time Baron is on the board (including this time) it is the proper opening.

It isn't, but this is a very good board for Baron because

- Silk Road gives you an alt strategy for a deck that ends up with a lot of Estates in it
- +$4 in virtual coin early is good when there are $6 or $7 cards on board since it greatly improves your chance of spiking one early, even if it's not that great a boost to your economy later on. It's especially important for GM where you can't buy it with your starting Coppers.
- Mountebank is also huge here because it's a double-junking attack in a kingdom with no trashing at all (except the self-trashing of Mining Village and Horn of Plenty) and no draw cards. You want to maximize your chance of getting at least $5 ASAP. Super critical, like, pass-up-an-early-GM-for-the-first-Mountebank critical. Having a "standard" curser on board also implicitly weakens Tournament because the Followers prize is not as good if the Curse stack can be run out first.
- Especially multiplayer, Tournament is as much or more about getting one Province quickly as it is about getting a bunch of Tournaments to line them up with. Blocking your opponents who don't have a Province yet really hurts their economy.

I opened Mining Village/Silver.

Opening with a Village and Silver is inconsistent; the Village can't do anything for you until you have at least two more Action cards. The only time I'd recommend this is if there's only one Village in the Kingdom, and it's going to be really necessary later. Or if it's going to be only moderately necessary, but it's Fishing Village. At least you get real economy out of that. Yeah, you can trash Mining Village for +$2; but you could have just bought another Silver, and then you get to keep it after playing it for +$2.

But that's this particular board.  I think there are plenty of games where Baron is weak.  Without SR here, I don't think Baron would be worth it against Mountebank.  If SR were gone I would probably open Silver/Silver to gun for Mountebank.  Tournament is also less of a pressing need because of Mountebank.

Does Silver/Silver hit $5 faster than Baron/Silver on average?

[ftl]

Mining Village/Silver is actually pretty nice for spiking early. If you trash it immediately, it's like a one-shot grand market, definitely better than a silver because of the +1 card.

Baron is slightly better but slighty swingier.

[Davio]

You have to be pretty unlucky not to hit at least $5 with Silver/Baron.
This only happens if you draw C-C-C-C-B on T3 or T4.
You can always draw C-C-C-C-E and C-C-C-E-E on T3/T4, but if you do this, T5 will be a guaranteed $5 with S+B and Coppers and/or Estates.

Baron is indeed a great opener, but its problem, much like Moneylender, is of course the middle and end game when they run out of targets. If you don't mind chugging down a few Estates when Baron misses and moreover this is part of your plan, then it's undeniably a good card.

[Morgrim7]

Yeah, definitely open Baron/Silver here to get Mountebank early.
Mining Village is an option here, but if you are going to end up hitting Grand Market, Baron helps you get to them early.