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[WanderingWinder]

This is a thread I am starting for people (well, me, but I would love to see other people post things as well) to post nice little tactical strokes, as opposed to strategic ones. Tactics are an enormous part of the game, but not one which is so often focused on. There's going to be theoretical examples, and there's going to be specific bits from games, too.
Anyway, without further ado, let's bust into examples.

Example 1: Theoretical.
The board is terrible and you're playing BM/Oracle (let's assume the rest of the kingdom cards are so bad you never ever want them). You open oracle/silver. Turn 3, your hand is E/E/E/C/O.
A.Your oracle turns up copper/copper. Should you keep them or pitch them?
B.Your oracle turns up silver/copper. Again, keep or pitch?

Example 2: Practical.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/02/game-20121202-220853-3cb74c10.html
Looking at this game from my point of view (I WILL post games where I make mistakes - this may be one! - as well as nice finesses from my opponent (there's one in a video yesterday which let Rabid crush me...); this is what I have at the moment).
You're playing a highway/golem/woodcutter deck, maybe looking for possession at some point. Your opponent is playing somewhat similarly, though he already has a possession, as well as an envoy, but no woodcutters yet. Opponent's turn 16. You're holding Estate/Estate/Copper/Woodcutter/Potion. You 'lead' by 4 duchies and 3 estates, with 2 provinces each (so 4 left). You've lost the highway split 4-3 but have 3 golems and 3 woodcutters to your name (and very little else in terms of economy). Opponent plays highway, highway, then golem into highway/envoy. Envoy draws Potion/Possession/Copper/Copper/Copper. What do you have him discard?

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Answers(?)
1. A.  Keep them! This way, you have 3 this hand, which is all you want, and you ensure 6 next hand - again, all you want!
B.pitch them. You know you're drawing copper copper after, and since you want to buy a $3, this is fine. Thus, you want the increased cycling - it pumps the estates into your deck faster, but the oracle, silver and your purchase (I think another silver?) as well. Note that if you wanted to grab a $5 on the board, keeping would guarantee that you could get it on the next turn, so you'd sit.


2.The clearest thing here is that you give him possession. If he plays it, which he can of course, you're pretty happy. Whether copper or potion is less clear. There's a very good chance he has enough to buy province or possession, but the question is which you'd like him to have less, and at this point, I think that is province - I may be wrong though...

[gman314]

General tactics question: How far do you go to activate Menagerie? What kind of things are worth doing to your hand in order to activate a Menagerie?

[dondon151]

1. Average value of your deck is greater than what you will discard from your hand: activate
2. You can buy your desired cards and would like then available immediately on the next reshuffle, and you have < 3 cards available in draw pile: don't activate
3. You can pick up duplicates easily from your discard pile (e.g. Apothecary or terminal draw): activate
4. If you have > 3 Menageries in hand but know you can draw through your deck and trigger a reshuffle: discard down to 2 Menageries and activate

In general I just go for it, especially since case 1 applies when there's light or no trashing. Discarding Menageries from hand is a bit harder to want to do, but sometimes you'll get an unlucky shuffle where all of your Menageries are stuck in the top half of your deck and case 4 also happens to apply.

[Davio]

General tactics question: How far do you go to activate Menagerie? What kind of things are worth doing to your hand in order to activate a Menagerie?

In case it arises: Don't forget to play all your money with Black Market.

[jotheonah]

Unless he has multiple Potions, vetoing his Potion guarantees he can't buy another Possession. Vetoing a Copper, on the other hand, just makes it less likely he can buy a Province. So I actually think the right play might be to kill the Potion.

[Davio]

Unless he has multiple Potions, vetoing his Potion guarantees he can't buy another Possession. Vetoing a Copper, on the other hand, just makes it less likely he can buy a Province. So I actually think the right play might be to kill the Potion.

Even with a veto'd Copper, your opponent only needs $3 in his remaining 4 cards to be able to buy a Province and that's not that hard, but not that easy either.

Given that assumption, I would veto Copper. I mean, as WW is already greening heavily, his opponent's Possession becomes less and less useful and even if he gets one now, it'll have to make another pass through his deck to get to it. This way we can look at Possession as a sort of smugglers for Duchies. Would we rather let our opponent have a Smugglers or a possible Province? I'm going to say Smugglers here.

[flies]

great topic.  it's hard to find ways to talk about general tactical tips, i guess.  Whether to reshuffle is a question that comes up a lot, but there's not really that much to say about it.

[quasi]

This is a broad subject, but definitely an important one.  Probably every card has tactical decisions associated it.  Here are a couple off of the top my head.  I think the concept of tactics is maybe broader than this, but I'm interpreting the question as

What decisions are important with respect to playing the cards that you already have, as opposed to ones that you will get

For me, the classic card is Wishing Well.  This is like a complicated optimal stopping problem.  Someone can probably write a lot about it, but this is the tip of the iceberg for me. 

1.  Optimal Play Order of Wishing Well You have Wishing Well and other cantrip type-cards.  Do you play the wishing wells first, last, in the middle?  You could play them earlyish, and wish for your most common card, i.e. copper.  But if you have other card drawers, as you draw through your deck, your posterior distribution for the remaining cards gets lower in variance, and in the extreme case, you always know your last card.  Or do you play it last, wishing for a particularly important card?  Your expected +card goes down, but that's not the whole story.

2.  In general, play cards that require decisions last  This is a trivial observation, but players mess it up for no reason.

3.  Trigger a reshuffle  The first question is whether a reshuffle is good or bad for you.  If you have a lot of bad cards in hand, it's good.  If you've played through an engine and discarded a lot of bad stuff, it is very very bad.  In more intermediate cases where a shuffle is more moderately bad, consider the tradeoff.  I'd generally play a Witch even if it triggers a reshuffle.

4.Masquerade + Discard If your opponent makes you discard to three cards and there's masquerade, save a bad card.

5.  What to discard  In a game with torturer, militia, etc, never (ok usually don't) discard your engine pieces if you're building an engine.  Always discard your treasure first.

6.  When to play gainers This maybe violates my definition.  If you have a strong engine, you should realize the opportunity to gain cards for play the same turn.  Picking up another torturer via upgrade and playing it that turn can change the course of a game.  So don't just save them until the end after you've played three labs for zero cards.

More if I think of them.  Great topic btw.

[greatexpectations]

managing shuffles is probably the best example of tactics, but there are a few other common ones i think would count as well. quasi beat me to the punch with a few.

1. steward, remake, ambassador, and upgrade all make for interesting turn 3-6 tactical decisions. decisions will be heavily influenced by A. your strategy, specifically where it falls on the BM vs, engine spectrum and B. how quickly you need to hit the $5 or $6 price point.

steward/cccc...gold or trash? i think i'm trashing most games, you bought that steward for a reason. maybe not if tournament is around.
ambassador/ccce...two copper or one estate? i think sending 2 cards over 1 is the correct move 99% of the time turns 3/4, but less so after that.
upgrade-->cccce...upgrade estate or copper? i think you should thin out your copper over estates unless A. doing so prevents you from getting a must have card this turn B. you really need the economy of estate-->silver to hit $5 or $6 again C. there is an action card (pref non terminal) at the $3 price point.

2. passing on buys, especially thoughtless buys like silver (especially in ambassador games) or cantrips when you are playing a draw engine. the net benefit of the card is often not worth the risk.

3. keeping track of your opponents deck in BM games so that you can break PPR. know how many gold they have left and how recently their last shuffle was so that you can estimate their chances of hitting $11/$8/$5 next turn.

4. executing your strategy vs. blocking your opponents. you need to estimate the cost/benefit of whether the loss of tempo for you to gain a card is worth the degree to which it could harm your opponent. cities, fools gold, hunting party, and occasionally villages are good examples for action cards. buying province/colony vs alt vp is another good scenario.

5 timing for starting greening. you need to factor in A. how well your engine is performing B. how many points your opponent has acquired C. the status of supply piles and D. where you are at with regards to the reshuffle/how fast you are cycling your deck.

6. playing your cards in a careful order. it often doesn't matter, but there are some cases where it can be huge. hunting party, menagerie, wishing well, all come to mind. carefully playing cards so your opponent has a tougher envoy or contraband choice. playing goons/militia before bishop, vault, or tournament.

[WanderingWinder]

For me, the classic card is Wishing Well.  This is like a complicated optimal stopping problem.  Someone can probably write a lot about it, but this is the tip of the iceberg for me. 

1.  Optimal Play Order of Wishing Well You have Wishing Well and other cantrip type-cards.  Do you play the wishing wells first, last, in the middle?  You could play them earlyish, and wish for your most common card, i.e. copper.  But if you have other card drawers, as you draw through your deck, your posterior distribution for the remaining cards gets lower in variance, and in the extreme case, you always know your last card.  Or do you play it last, wishing for a particularly important card?  Your expected +card goes down, but that's not the whole story.

Play wishing well last. Well, actually, as close to the reshuffle as possible without triggering one. This actually INCREASES your expected card draw, so long as you keep track of what it is that is left in your deck.

[greatexpectations]

WW, not sure if/how much you have added to the wiki but i think that this is a perfect article candidate. we can detail a variety of different situations (as i attempted to do) and provide detailed examples and case by case discussion like you did in the OP.

[quasi]

Yeah actually when I think about you should probably play it last.  If you're wishing for the same card no matter what, it doesn't affect your expected card draw*.  But you can leverage some gain by choosing your card based on what is most common in your deck.  Even so, should you be optimizing that way, or should you instead be wishing for the one Mountebank you have.

*posterior is a martingale 

[Kuildeous]

This seems counterintuitive to me. Could you explain this a little more?

I had always figured that Estate should be trashed before Copper because if you drew that card, then the Estate would be dead while the Copper would not (barring Estate-centric cards like Baron). And for a TfB card like Upgrade, I would gladly trash the Estate before the Copper. It hadn't even occurred to me that trashing Copper first would be advantageous.

[HiveMindEmulator]

i think you should thin out your copper over estates

This seems counterintuitive to me. Could you explain this a little more?

I had always figured that Estate should be trashed before Copper because if you drew that card, then the Estate would be dead while the Copper would not (barring Estate-centric cards like Baron). And for a TfB card like Upgrade, I would gladly trash the Estate before the Copper. It hadn't even occurred to me that trashing Copper first would be advantageous.

I agree with you. Usually I'd rather have $3 card + Copper in my deck than Estate. But if it's more important to just have less total cards in the deck, then there is a benefit to removing the Copper, since it leaves your deck one card thinner.

[Kuildeous]

Ah yes, that is true. If your goal is to have a thinner deck, then you could indeed Remake/Upgrade Copper (barring Poor House). I'm not sure that I would choose to thin the deck more than gaining a Silver, but that's a different discussion topic. I see the truth in that statement.

[greatexpectations]

This seems counterintuitive to me. Could you explain this a little more?

I had always figured that Estate should be trashed before Copper because if you drew that card, then the Estate would be dead while the Copper would not (barring Estate-centric cards like Baron). And for a TfB card like Upgrade, I would gladly trash the Estate before the Copper. It hadn't even occurred to me that trashing Copper first would be advantageous.

if upgrade is your primary/only source of trashing then it is usually important to play it more often. and i gave counterexamples where i think upgrading the estate is usually better. basically, what it comes down to is weighing the importance of cycling your deck faster versus the added buying power. personally, cycling a deck is more important most of the time, especially early in the game. but what you need to look at is the value added of turning an estate into a silver versus the benefit of cycling. consider an upgrade/- open.

you draw upgrade/ccce and then draw a copper when you play the upgrade. presumably buying a silver either way and then buying a silver next turn too. you reshuffle and you have:
estate--> silver - 13 cards, total spending power of 13.
copper-->nothing - 12 cards, total spending power of 10.

your spending power is quite similar (.92 vs 1 per card) but you drop  a card from your deck too. this enables slightly faster shuffling and also reduces the chances that you lose the upgrade in the reshuffle.

now hey, maybe this is a silly move some time. im sure we could simulate some cases and i very well could be wrong. but what i will challenge is the default tactic of blindly upgrading estates into silver instead of trashing copper first. it might be the correct move sometimes, but there are going to be cases where i don't think it is.

[() | (_) ^/]

The time for Swindling an opponent's Estate into a $2 action or treasure is a LOT sooner than people think.  Not sure if that is strategy or tactics -- but mid-to-late game Swindling is generally poorly played, IMO.

[dondon151]

now hey, maybe this is a silly move some time. im sure we could simulate some cases and i very well could be wrong. but what i will challenge is the default tactic of blindly upgrading estates into silver instead of trashing copper first. it might be the correct move sometimes, but there are going to be cases where i don't think it is.

I get the impression that even an expert player like -Stef- preferentially trashes Estate -> Silver over Copper -> nothing most of the time.

The problem with just trashing Coppers is that your deck only gets marginally faster, and at that point in the game it only means seeing your Upgrade slightly sooner - but trashing only one card from your deck means that you're not really even seeing the Upgrade a turn earlier most of the time.

More importantly, though, your deck takes a huge hit in buying power and loses the ability to pick up $5s and sometimes even $4s that will build your engine. You say that the average spending power is quite similar, and that is undeniably true (although I think you fudged up the Copper -> nothing, since you should have 6 Copper and 2 Silver for $10 in a deck of 12 cards). However, we have to consider discrete hands instead of average buying power, and there is a huge difference between drawing CCCEE and CCCSE on your next shuffle. You may even be able to pick up more Upgrades, compensating for the minor loss in cycling that resulted from trashing Estate -> Silver instead of Copper -> nothing.

[Beyond Awesome]

This seems counterintuitive to me. Could you explain this a little more?

I had always figured that Estate should be trashed before Copper because if you drew that card, then the Estate would be dead while the Copper would not (barring Estate-centric cards like Baron). And for a TfB card like Upgrade, I would gladly trash the Estate before the Copper. It hadn't even occurred to me that trashing Copper first would be advantageous.

if upgrade is your primary/only source of trashing then it is usually important to play it more often. and i gave counterexamples where i think upgrading the estate is usually better. basically, what it comes down to is weighing the importance of cycling your deck faster versus the added buying power. personally, cycling a deck is more important most of the time, especially early in the game. but what you need to look at is the value added of turning an estate into a silver versus the benefit of cycling. consider an upgrade/- open.

you draw upgrade/ccce and then draw a copper when you play the upgrade. presumably buying a silver either way and then buying a silver next turn too. you reshuffle and you have:
estate--> silver - 13 cards, total spending power of 13.
copper-->nothing - 12 cards, total spending power of 11.

your spending power is quite similar (.92 vs 1 per card) but you drop  a card from your deck too. this enables slightly faster shuffling and also reduces the chances that you lose the upgrade in the reshuffle.

now hey, maybe this is a silly move some time. im sure we could simulate some cases and i very well could be wrong. but what i will challenge is the default tactic of blindly upgrading estates into silver instead of trashing copper first. it might be the correct move sometimes, but there are going to be cases where i don't think it is.

This is why I think Junk Dealer is a better card than Upgrade. It also gives you +$1 each time it trashes.

[dondon151]

This is why I think Junk Dealer is a better card than Upgrade. It also gives you +$1 each time it trashes.

Upgrade is superior when there are other $3s on the board, and I'd wager that an opening Upgrade is also better for BM.

[Beyond Awesome]

This is why I think Junk Dealer is a better card than Upgrade. It also gives you +$1 each time it trashes.

Upgrade is superior when there are other $3s on the board, and I'd wager that an opening Upgrade is also better for BM.

Most likely true, unless if you are playing with Shelters, in which case, you really want Junk Dealer over Upgrade.

[-Stef-]

Wishing Well is actually one of my favorite cards, and has a lot of subtle plays hidden in there.
I can't think of any advice that holds in every situation; some general ideas nevertheless:

• I almost always wish for the most frequent card in my deck, which is very often a copper.
• Given several cantrips, I almost always play the wishing well next-to-last. That way I can still get the non-copper to use this turn.
• Suppose I play a strong combo deck with lots of conspirators, and halfway my turn my hand is 3 coppers, and a wishing well. I play the well and it gives me a village. I usually now wish for a card that would break the turn, probably still copper. More in general: in strong decks I often wish for the card I don't want to have.
• Clearly, if I have a guaranteed draw either now or later, that breaks all other rules. I could be two cards away from a reshuffle now, or maybe I will be a bit later this turn, or maybe there's an apothecary or cartographer in my deck coming soon.

And just to point out all these rules can be broken:

I remember playing a game IRL where my opponent opened swindler-silver and I opened wishing well-remodel. No desirable $5 cards in the set. On his turn 3 he bought something for $4, and on my turn 3 I had CCCEW. Playing the wishing well got me another copper. I now wished for the remodel in stead of the usual copper or estate. It wasn't actually on top, but I wanted this wishing well to fizzle, because I didn't want my rebuild to miss the reshuffle caused by his swindler on turn 4. At first I wanted to wish for province, but remodel was ok too.


Edit: I got confused with remodel-rebuild indeed. Thanks. Still confused by Dutch card names from time to time.

[Beyond Awesome]

Wishing Well is actually one of my favorite cards, and has a lot of subtle plays hidden in there.
I can't think of any advice that holds in every situation; some general ideas nevertheless:

• I almost always wish for the most frequent card in my deck, which is very often a copper.
• Given several cantrips, I almost always play the wishing well next-to-last. That way I can still get the non-copper to use this turn.
• Suppose I play a strong combo deck with lots of conspirators, and halfway my turn my hand is 3 coppers, and a wishing well. I play the well and it gives me a village. I usually now wish for a card that would break the turn, probably still copper. More in general: in strong decks I often wish for the card I don't want to have.
• Clearly, if I have a guaranteed draw either now or later, that breaks all other rules. I could be two cards away from a reshuffle now, or maybe I will be a bit later this turn, or maybe there's an apothecary or cartographer in my deck coming soon.

And just to point out all these rules can be broken:

I remember playing a game IRL where my opponent opened swindler-silver and I opened wishing well-rebuild. No desirable $5 cards in the set. On his turn 3 he bought something for $4, and on my turn 3 I had CCCEW. Playing the wishing well got me another copper. I now wished for the rebuild in stead of the usual copper or estate. It wasn't actually on top, but I wanted this wishing well to fizzle, because I didn't want my rebuild to miss the reshuffle caused by his swindler on turn 4. At first I wanted to wish for province, but rebuild was ok too.

How did you open Wishing Well/Rebuild?

[GendoIkari]

Wishing Well is actually one of my favorite cards, and has a lot of subtle plays hidden in there.
I can't think of any advice that holds in every situation; some general ideas nevertheless:

• Given several cantrips, I almost always play the wishing well next-to-last. That way I can still get the non-copper to use this turn.

I'm confused by this... had you played the wishing well last, you still would have drawn that non-copper... it would have been the card that Wishing Well automatically drew. What advantage was there is playing Wishing Well second-to-last instead of last? The total number of cards drawn, and which cards were drawn, is the same either way (if Wishing Well misses). But playing Wishing Well last (not counting re-shuffle situations) leads to slightly better odds of drawing 2 cards with it.

[LastFootnote]

Wishing Well is actually one of my favorite cards, and has a lot of subtle plays hidden in there.
I can't think of any advice that holds in every situation; some general ideas nevertheless:

• I almost always wish for the most frequent card in my deck, which is very often a copper.
• Given several cantrips, I almost always play the wishing well next-to-last. That way I can still get the non-copper to use this turn.
• Suppose I play a strong combo deck with lots of conspirators, and halfway my turn my hand is 3 coppers, and a wishing well. I play the well and it gives me a village. I usually now wish for a card that would break the turn, probably still copper. More in general: in strong decks I often wish for the card I don't want to have.
• Clearly, if I have a guaranteed draw either now or later, that breaks all other rules. I could be two cards away from a reshuffle now, or maybe I will be a bit later this turn, or maybe there's an apothecary or cartographer in my deck coming soon.

And just to point out all these rules can be broken:

I remember playing a game IRL where my opponent opened swindler-silver and I opened wishing well-rebuild. No desirable $5 cards in the set. On his turn 3 he bought something for $4, and on my turn 3 I had CCCEW. Playing the wishing well got me another copper. I now wished for the rebuild in stead of the usual copper or estate. It wasn't actually on top, but I wanted this wishing well to fizzle, because I didn't want my rebuild to miss the reshuffle caused by his swindler on turn 4. At first I wanted to wish for province, but rebuild was ok too.

How did you open Wishing Well/Rebuild?

I'm guessing Stef actually meant Wishing Well/Remake or Wishing Well/Remodel, but I could be wrong.