(11) dondon151 wins the set against
(22) Slyfox, 4-2Set rules: PCE on, dondon151 gets first player in game 1 (higher location in bracket).
We agreed to veto mode and identical starting hands but I forgot to check it for the first game. Both of us got some sort of 4/3 split though, so we continued onwards. I delegated game proposal to Slyfox afterwards so that I wouldn't keep fudging up the game setting.
Game 1: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/15/game-20121215-070913-7c3d28f5.htmlBureaucrat, City, Fool's Gold, Harvest, Herbalist, Ill-Gotten Gains, Noble Brigand, Steward, Wharf, and Wishing Well
dondon151 42 - 24 Slyfox
Wharf-FG with fluff on the sides. Slyfox opened with a Steward to thin Coppers and Estates, but I thought that it would be too slow: Steward makes it harder to get Wharf, can become more or less dead later on, and getting Wharf later puts one at risk of losing the FG split. I could have won the FG split but decided to just get more Wharves instead. Slyfox didn't regain the momentum lost by early trashing and I won this one handily.
Game 2: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/15/game-20121215-071934-2a87c98f.htmlChapel, Colony, Counting House, Governor, Hamlet, Ironworks, Island, Pawn, Platinum, Thief, Torturer, and Wishing Well
dondon151 (resigned) -
13 SlyfoxChapel into Hamlet/Torturer was an obvious strategy, with possibly Thief to throw a wrench in one's plans. For some reason I panicked a little bit when Slyfox gained Island with his IW and I just went into a straight IW/Island rush. This was a terrible, terrible decision that I instantly regretted, and though I won the Island split 5-3, Slyfox just needed to grab any sort of VP in addition to the 3 Curses that he gave me in order to win. I had hoped that my opponent would pass on the VP buy on his last turn (letting me pile out the Hamlets for a win), but I couldn't expect that out of a high-leveled opponent, and with a deck that could not possibly go anywhere else, I resigned.
Game 3: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/15/game-20121215-073642-f1b4aa64.htmlCouncil Room, Golem, Horn of Plenty, Laboratory, Outpost, Potion, Tournament, Tunnel, University, Vault, and Workshop
dondon151 47 - 17 Slyfox
We opened 5/2 and I strongly considered going Vault/Tunnel. However, the megaturn potential here was pretty strong, if not unwieldy. We both open Potion/nothing and University into Labs; however, Slyfox gained a Vault early on and bought a second Potion and a Tunnel, which I think were mistakes. First player advantage in addition to the University decisions allowed me to win the Lab split. I started drawing huge hands and picking up Golems and HoPs, whereas Slyfox bought, in my opinion, too many Universities. My turn 14 culminated in a 5-Province megaturn and the rest of the game was more or less a formality.
Game 4: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/15/game-20121215-075952-5c857246.htmlBishop, Farming Village, Farmland, Hunting Party, Loan, Mountebank, Quarry, Scheme, Tactician, and Talisman
dondon151 45 - 28 Slyfox
This was a slog of a game, but still fairly interesting. I planned on getting Mountebank with my first $5 and then hitting the HPs, but the possibility of a double Tactician engine that used Bishop for VP weighed on my mind the entire game and made me adverse to an HP-Mountebank deck. Ultimately I think I made the correct decision by focusing on the HPs (winning the split 6-4 despite being player 2) and getting earlier Farming Village and Gold. Quite frequently both Slyfox and I topdecked Tacticians with Scheme, but we never played them, which I think was a mistake.
Game 5: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/15/game-20121215-081132-e755c70f.htmlCartographer, City, Colony, Embassy, Festival, Fishing Village, Fool's Gold, Hoard, Mint, Platinum, Sea Hag, and Workshop
dondon151 35 -
53 SlyfoxSea Hag was a must, and this would play out to be a long game because of Colonies. Slyfox opened FV, which I thought was not as good of an opening as Silver because there weren't good terminals to chain and because Embassy can draw FV dead but not Silver. I picked up a Cartographer on the reshuffle whereas Slyfox got a second Sea Hag. Here is where I think the fallacy of my Silver opening showed, because I ended up losing the Curse split 3-7 and the Cartographer didn't help me at least make the split 4-6 (which I would not have minded if I only had 1 Sea Hag to Slyfox's 2). I ended up drawing a lot of bad hands in the earlygame where I should have bought FGs but bought nothing instead, and Slyfox gets to Platinum and Colony first. Still a surprisingly close game despite the Curse disparity.
Game 6: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/15/game-20121215-081854-71b6af3e.htmlCouncil Room, Counting House, Gardens, Herbalist, Highway, Ill-Gotten Gains, Mine, Smithy, Swindler, and Warehouse
dondon151 32 - 14 Slyfox
I had hoped for a more exciting possibly-the-last-game kingdom. This was definitely not it. IGG-Gardens wins the day; Slyfox mysteriously doesn't open with Swindler, my Swindlers hit one of his Gardens, and we would have split the Gardens 4-4 anyway because Slyfox had trouble hitting $4 due to the Curses, letting me grab a couple more IGGs. Curses pile out unevenly due to Swindler, but I didn't care because my deck was in a better shape, plus I got a lucky shuffle where all of my good cards clumped at the top and allowed me to get 2 Provinces. Knowing that I had a bunch of crap at the bottom, I slowly piled out the 6 remaining Estates instead of the 2 remaining IGGs while Slyfox could do nothing but watch.
Much thanks to Slyfox for the series and for the enlightening conversation that we had afterwards.