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WanderingWinder

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WWAG #2
« on: December 10, 2012, 11:00:01 pm »
+2

Yeah, that stands for WanderingWinder Annotated Game. Is this at all catchy, or am I just a total dork? (Don't worry, I know I'm a total dork. I'm okay with that).

Anyway, here's a very interesting set form an interesting recent game that I played. I am gonna full annotate this one, anonymously unless my opponent requests otherwise (though he may not even remember it was him at this point). Hopefully you guys will like the new format I will try on the annotations, but we'll see. I can always change it up for late ones. Also, SPOILER ALERT: I lose this game, ending up with half of the points of my opponent.

Anyway, here's the set:
cards in supply: Bank, City, Gardens, Grand Market, Jack of All Trades, Jester, Masquerade, Potion, Scrying Pool, Torturer, and Vineyard

philosophyguy

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2012, 11:36:26 pm »
0

No enablers for Gardens, so it won't be a rush.

City-Torturer is possible but expensive and so slow to set up. Scrying Pool is a soft counter to Torturer, and Masquerade can pass Curses back.

Jester is useful for picking up engine parts, and is the only terminal Silver action.

So the engine is Masquerade/Potion into Jester and Scrying Pool, picking up GMs and Cities to play more Jesters. But, I don't think this is fast enough in a Province game since the only +Buy comes from GM, which is going to be slow.

Big Money would be JoaT or JoaT/Masquerade into Torturer, picking up a couple of GMs and maybe a Bank or two.

I'm guessing the money strategy, but I don't know. I'll be interested to see the consensus.
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Robz888

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2012, 12:03:51 am »
+3

Just for future reference, I personally consent to have my name, comments, etc., explicitly featured in an annotated game or any other such game discussion.
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() | (_) ^/

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2012, 12:13:56 am »
0

Just for future reference, I personally consent to have my name, comments, etc., explicitly featured in an annotated game or any other such game discussion.

Ditto (not that I ever have interesting games).
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Robz888

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #4 on: December 11, 2012, 12:14:44 am »
0

About the game...

I see a few basic strategies.

1) Torturer + City + Scrying Pool and eventually a few Grand Markets. This strategy has great long-term potential, because you will run out the Curses, you can try to run another pile, and then you stage this ridiculous comeback. You are going to have a Potion, so Vineyards AND Provinces is actually a viable endgame for you. Your opening here is probably Masquerade/Potion. Masquerade gives you cycling and trashing to set up Scrying Pool.

Your problem here is this is going to be so slow. No virtual coin tied to cheap actions, no extra buys? Good luck buying enough Cities and Torturers (and Scyring Pools!) to get this going fast enough.

2) Do it without Scrying Pool. Well, it's faster, but this seems like a mistake. There are 2 hard counters to a Torturer engine anyway: Masquerade and Jack. And by the time you are playing three Torturers a turn, your opponent will have like half the Provinces.

3) Screw it, Big Money + Masquerade. Well, okay, but why not Masquerade/Scrying Pool, no Torturer? You pick up a Jester (Cities optional), and aim for GMs. And then you do have Vineyard potential.

4) Jack + Gardens. I don't think this is the best strategy available.

Either 1 or 3 look best to me. I am going to tentatively say, go for 3) Masq/Scrying Pool, Jester, be situational about Cities, go GM, and then go Vineyards or Province (or both) as please you.

So if I'm correct, Torturer may actually be a trap here.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #5 on: December 11, 2012, 12:22:44 am »
0

No enablers for Gardens, so it won't be a rush.

City-Torturer is possible but expensive and so slow to set up. Scrying Pool is a soft counter to Torturer, and Masquerade can pass Curses back.

Jester is useful for picking up engine parts, and is the only terminal Silver action.

So the engine is Masquerade/Potion into Jester and Scrying Pool, picking up GMs and Cities to play more Jesters. But, I don't think this is fast enough in a Province game since the only +Buy comes from GM, which is going to be slow.

Big Money would be JoaT or JoaT/Masquerade into Torturer, picking up a couple of GMs and maybe a Bank or two.

I'm guessing the money strategy, but I don't know. I'll be interested to see the consensus.

You're forgetting there are Vineyards and Gardens. For a BM strategy to win, it's going to have to piledrive the Provinces, since the engine has plenty of sources of points. Jack with +Cards isn't bad at that, but it's going to take long enough (esp with Torturer to attack it) that an engine has plenty of time to take off. I'd say open Masq/Silver to shoot for a couple quick GMs so you can buy 2-3 engine pieces per turn. It shouldn't really take that long to build the engine.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2012, 12:24:46 am by HiveMindEmulator »
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ftl

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2012, 02:40:51 am »
0

With Vineyards around, any BM-to-provinces game is going to be completely screwed by an engine that foregoes provinces entirely and builds up mega-vineyards. If you go BM+Masq or BM+Jack, there's really not much you can do to end the game once the opponent gets a massive scrying pool/city/torturer/GM stack going. IF and only if my opponent goes BM+X to provinces, skip provinces entirely and build up >6-point vineyards via Grand Market, City, Torturer. And probably make you eat most of the curses too, since in the endgame matching them up to masq will be hard.

So, definitely engine.

The draw power around comes from either Scrying Pool or City/Torturer. Torturer is the attack, so you definitely want it. Grand market is the +Buy, so you definitely want those; and they also snowball like hell. So I think that makes me think that I want the potion late rather than early, to get GMs as early as possible.

So that would be my guess. Open masq-silver. Start amassing cities and torturers. You'll need a second silver and a Gold, probably, and then you'll hopefully be able to start matching them up with your fledgling engine to get Grand Markets. Possibly get a second Masq for faster trashing?
...or maybe open Jack/Masq? Fast trashing AND silver-gaining to get GMs. ...but it's two terminals so then you'll have to get more cities before even starting on torturers. Gah.

If your opponent went for BM+X, go for heavy vineyards. If your opponent is matching you in engine, then cities will activate and you'll end by three-piling on whatever is running low.
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ftl

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #7 on: December 11, 2012, 02:51:06 am »
0

Man, the opening is tough though. I don't think you want potion as an opening, I think either Masq/Silver or Jack/Silver, or maybe Masq/Jack, aiming for GMs and city/torturer.
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jonts26

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2012, 04:09:22 am »
0

With masq, the first one or two torturer plays become less significant, so it's not a strong play until you can chain a lot of them. Which means you need a lot of cities first. And o get lots of these cards, you need money and buys and hey there's a grand market.

I'd open masq/silver, looking to get some more gold/silver first so I can start dipping into GM's fast. I am going to want a potion eventually but probably not till I have a GM or have good enough money density to expect one in the next turn or something. With masq thinning the deck, pools and GM's will start to cycle and accelerate. Then I can go for cities and torturers. At this point, I can go either province or vineyard, or garden if its needed, depending on the state of the game. But I imagine if I win the GM split and have at least maybe 4 cities, I have this game in the bag.
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Davio

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2012, 06:06:57 am »
0

This set screams Vineyards to me, but how to go best about acquiring them?

Maybe we can work backwards.

GM is critical because of the +Buy and Jester if nice if you can get some good cards out of it.
How to get to GM? To play multiple money providing terminals, we need expensive Cities and expensive Jesters, so maybe another route?

I think I would open Jack/Masq. Yes, they are going to collide, but I would want to get 3 Silvers asap and trash my crap as well. Jack and Masq both are decent enough at getting $5 which I would initially spend on Cities so my terminal collision would be less of a problem. An early $4 may go to Potion as I want one eventually to go with Scrying Pools and of course need them for Vineyards.

Torturer seems less impressive to me. There are good counters to it so the attack is less hurtful. In a game like this they're little more than simple Smithies. You could buy one if you think you have enough Cities, but of course, if the City pile is already running low, City may be better.

BM + something seems bad to me, I mean, you need to gobble down 8 Provinces as the Vineyards player doesn't need them at all and can supplement his points with Gardens if needed.
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Qvist

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #10 on: December 11, 2012, 06:17:50 am »
0

With masq, the first one or two torturer plays become less significant, so it's not a strong play until you can chain a lot of them. Which means you need a lot of cities first. And o get lots of these cards, you need money and buys and hey there's a grand market.

I'd open masq/silver, looking to get some more gold/silver first so I can start dipping into GM's fast. I am going to want a potion eventually but probably not till I have a GM or have good enough money density to expect one in the next turn or something. With masq thinning the deck, pools and GM's will start to cycle and accelerate. Then I can go for cities and torturers. At this point, I can go either province or vineyard, or garden if its needed, depending on the state of the game. But I imagine if I win the GM split and have at least maybe 4 cities, I have this game in the bag.

Exactly the same I would have done here, although even a Jack/Masq opening would be possible. Another possilibilty would be Masq/Silver, get a City with $5 and buy another Masq on the way. This would help you to trash even faster and line your Silvers/Golds up for the GMs.

Davio

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #11 on: December 11, 2012, 06:34:23 am »
0

Well, the bad thing about a Masq/Jack opening is that even if they don't collide, one of them is wasted in a reshuffle; you'd for instance have Jack on T3 and trash an Estate, but also draw a card. Now there are 6 cards left in your pile. If you play Masq on your T4 it means you have to reshuffle to draw card #7.

With this in mind, Masq/Silver with Jack on the reshuffle or Jack/Silver with Masq on the reshuffle might be better, but the details to me are very unclear.

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lespeutere

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #12 on: December 11, 2012, 07:41:33 am »
0

Well, the bad thing about a Masq/Jack opening is that even if they don't collide, one of them is wasted in a reshuffle; you'd for instance have Jack on T3 and trash an Estate, but also draw a card. Now there are 6 cards left in your pile. If you play Masq on your T4 it means you have to reshuffle to draw card #7.

With this in mind, Masq/Silver with Jack on the reshuffle or Jack/Silver with Masq on the reshuffle might be better, but the details to me are very unclear.

But then you'll have 6 cards on your drawing pile, one of which is jack again. Chances are pretty high (5/6) it's one of the first 5, such that you can just empty your drawing pile that turn.
So, I pretty much agree with you guys: maybe as p1 I'd go masquerade/silver, as p2 masquerade/jack.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2012, 07:43:29 am by lespeutere »
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brokoli

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2012, 08:44:51 am »
0

I think Jester is a key card here, it can be very powerful with vineyards, but it requires that both players go for engine.
My plan would be : open Masqu/potion, buy scrying pools, jesters and 2-3 cities, a Grand market for +buy (useful with vineyards), then vineyard everytime you draw your potion.

I would completely ignore Jack, which is not very good for SP engines. Torturer seems pretty bad too, since masquerade is one of the best defense to cursers and there are already cities & jesters for $5, and Scrying pool for draw. I would take gardens only at the end of the game, for 2-3 points.
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DG

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #14 on: December 11, 2012, 09:01:16 am »
+1

Controlling the deck size seems important here as gardens should only come into at the death, so perhaps masquerade/silver followed by masquerade and city would work. Perhaps that isn't much improvement on masquerade/potion.

It's a reactive set anyway with the torturers, jesters, masquerade, and alt vp so it's pretty hard to see far into the mid game.
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dondon151

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #15 on: December 11, 2012, 09:38:39 am »
0

I really don't think SPs are a good idea here except as a consolation prize when you've picked up a Potion but aren't comfortable going into Vineyards yet. An SP strat essentially lives and dies by how soon it can get to the GMs, and just going Masq/Jack can get there 2-3 turns faster.
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philosophyguy

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #16 on: December 11, 2012, 10:17:52 am »
0

Ok, I've been swayed away from my money vote. I now think the engine is going to win; I'm not sure if the better engine is City-Torturer or Scrying Pool-based. I'm really bad at playing SP games without rushing the Pools at the start, so having Grand Market as such a key card makes this hard for me to evaluate.
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DG

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #17 on: December 11, 2012, 10:23:08 am »
+1

So what cards are you wanting to buy on turns 3 and 4 when you open masquerade/jack? How likely are you to get the required draws and what's plan B?
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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #18 on: December 11, 2012, 11:04:22 am »
0

Oh, I wasn't thinking about jester too. It works really well with scrying pool to get better cards faster. Maybe get a city with first $5 and then a jester.
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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #19 on: December 11, 2012, 01:09:29 pm »
0

At first, I was inclined to agree with DG.

But then I gave it some more thought and tried some single player first turns, and now... I think I want to open Jack/Masquerade.

next reshuffle:
Yes, my first reshuffle will be ugly. But that doesn't really matter - I really want a second and am ok with even a third masquerade.
As long as I can destroy an estate I'm fine with playing Jack, but otherwise I prefer playing Masquerade. Having 4 (or 3) terminals in my deck obviously means I need some Cities now.

After that I'll transform into some kind of power deck that actually depends on what my opponent does. I don't want to green quickly. I'm actually aiming to end it on provinces or piles.
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Robz888

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #20 on: December 11, 2012, 01:12:24 pm »
0

I really don't think you care about Torturer here. You aren't going to cause your opponent any immediate pain. By the time you have multi-Torturer up and running, your opponent could already have a really great deck. If you're opponent is drawing his whole deck by then--and with SPool, he could be--Masquerade can easily handle the Curses then, anyway. So Torturer is just a glorified Smithy here, and I don't think there's so much of a place for it. Jester/City has got to be better.
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RisingJaguar

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #21 on: December 11, 2012, 01:26:49 pm »
0

My random thoughts:
Jester's interaction is (or at least I want it to be) a pretty big component of the game.  The problem is that the trashing terminals are needed at the start, and villages are at $5 meaning it will be awhile before this comes into play.  Grabbing it too late, when a pile has likely depleted, ruins its value as well. 

However way you decide to build the engine, whoever gets there first should easily win.  Too many of these cards scream snow-ball effect (Jester, GM, vineyard, maybe cities?). 

At first I thought scrying pool was the way to go, but I think it can be skippable.  There's a logical progression with opening Masq/JoaT for trashing while still maintaining a palatable economy.  The next step would be to grab cities when possible and more masqs.  With no +buy in sight, no reason to grab a potion really.  By the time your deck can grab its first GM, the deck can likely survive without it, as it should have thinner deck with the ability to get some sort of draw going (masq/cities).   
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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #22 on: December 11, 2012, 01:28:55 pm »
+1

I also suggest the title be Super WanderingWander Annotated Games, because one they will be super. 

But also just to be called SWAG. 
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WanderingWinder

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #23 on: December 11, 2012, 01:33:02 pm »
0

Those of you who are saying it depends on how your opponent plays: how? Obviously you can't cover everything, but give general gameplans of what you will do against other general reasonable strategies.

DWetzel

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Re: WWAG #2
« Reply #24 on: December 11, 2012, 02:56:16 pm »
+1

I find this interesting, because I'd open Masq/Potion without a second thought, and I'm still not convinced it's wrong.  Plan is to pick up a SP in the next shuffle and either a Jester or (more likely) one Silver.  Then I should be able to hit a Jester next time through (consolation prize: another Masq).  I may not get the first City or Grand Market, but I can effectively thin my deck of the stuff I really don't want and skip over the stuff I only kinda don't want.  Then Jester/SP will do some work (where the opponent is sort of guessing with their Jesters) and let me virtual-buy my way back to parity with a deck with a lot more control because of the SPs.

To address the above question, I think this works quite well against Masq/Jack; you getting rid of your estates super early is not going to be super-helpful, and ultimately this IS an engine deck; I'm worried about getting too many silvers early.
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