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Author Topic: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)  (Read 40977 times)

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rrenaud

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #25 on: September 13, 2011, 09:01:23 am »
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If you know some kind of scripting language, I can give you an account on councilroom to do the mining village analysis.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #26 on: September 13, 2011, 12:35:20 pm »
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Wow, lots of replies. :) Here we go with the responses...

Genearl stuff:
I feel the ranking is a bit misleading because it mixes rank with category, which just has to be flawed by some degree.
Yeah, I know it's flawed, but I really did it for simplicity. They are loose rankings and that's why I didn't put a number before each card. But I think it's useful this way. If you're teaching someone what are the important things to look for in an opening, it's easier to think: amb/masq, curse, good trash, attack, vps, other trash) than to think (amb, masq, sea hag, remake, young witch, swindler, salvager, militia, steward...) or something. I had to make some concessions (as I mentioned with steward) for the sake of the article, but I think it makes for a better article arranged in this way.

I don't know why you restricted it to terminals, either - you could honestly just say cards overall, and I don't think you've missed any... though I might be forgetting something I guess.
I decided to restrict to terminals because you usually only buy one terminal. Non-terminals, like chapel, can be bought along with one of these cards. Comparing swindler to tournament, for example, is not important, since you can just buy both.

More specific:

You can get a feel for the opening terminals by looking at the Councilroom stats for a Silver/x opening:
http://councilroom.com/openings?card=Silver

So, your list is not bad. Basically it's (if you want to categorize):

1. Premium trashers
2. Mean attacks
3. Good trashers / VP token gainers
4. Weaker attacks / Carddraws / Weaker trashers
5. The rest (stuff like Bridge, Baron etc.)
A slightly different picture (not sure if it's better -- it includes the possibility of not pairing with silver, but doesn't account for level) can perhaps be gained from looking at win rate vs turn for turn 1-2. You'd think the rankings would be the same for both, but they're not, and that just goes to show you how noisy any esimation of rankings from this data is. But there you almost do actually see the first 3 tiers with significant gaps in between -- ambassador/masquerade, sea hag/young witch, remake/salvager. Then swindler just ahead of a muddled mess including militia, bishop, cutpurse, monument, envoy, steward and moneylender with differing order depending on if you look at turn 1 or 2. Then island.

More specifics:

I think Moneylender belongs up with Salvager and Remake in a "trash for benefit" tier, and I might in fact even put one or more of those cards above the curse attacks, but other than that, I agree with all of this.
I'm not a big fan of moneylender. I really like the effect of loan, since it's a non-terminal $3 card, but I never really consider getting moneylender ahead of an attack, while that consideration does exist with remake and salvager. That distinction prevents it from joining them.

Steward is an elite opening card, I promise you :) Definitely worthy of mention ahead of Young Witch (which I'd put much further down the list in general) as well as Salvager and Remake.
As I mentioned, the problem with the structure is that I can't just throw steward in the middle of the attack tier or something. It's either up with remake and salvager or down with moneylender. I went with down with moneylender. I guess you'd say up with remake, and I'm not sure I can argue with that. In fact, I considered it, and added in island to the bottom just so moneylender wouldn't be lonely, but I ultimately decided to just drop steward. Choosing between steward's trashing and an attack depends on the mid-game strategy you're going for as well as the non-terminal you go for, but I think attacking is generally stronger. If you get militia'd on your non-steward turn, you're going to have a hard time buying anything for a while...

Islands are not really great openers, promising a slow improvement for most decks. It's quite rare that you'd buy them as an opening card and they progress your deck better than any other Dominion card could do. The times when they do excel are probably just as rare as the occasions when a watchtower, workshop, woodcutter, conspirator, coppersmith, treasure map, moat, embargo, bridge, courtyard (and so on) are perfect for a deck.

I'd actually suggest that the pirate ship should be included in the strong openings unless multi player games are excluded. Although it seems situational the same can possibly be said of bishops, salvagers, and moneylenders.
Island is not a great opener. It's last on this list. I don't think it ever really "excels", but it's generally better than all the cards you list, which for the most part require specific strategies that involve the particular card. The point of including island is that in the absence of any really good openings, being ahead a couple points is great unless your opponent can find a way to buy an island along with a province. Otherwise, they eventually have to buy an island or duchy to catch up. And since you bought yours earlier and used it for a trash, you're ahead.

Pirate ship is a strategy, not a general opening.

You're drastically underrating monument, like everybody does.
Young Witch is about impossible to rank without knowing the bane. It's entirely not worth it with a good bane, probably not worth it with even a decent bane.
Ambassador (in 2-player) is generally a bit stronger than chapel. So is masq. Remake is barely, barely below them.
Salvager certainly isn't a tier 3. Actually, it might be the worst opener on the list.
But fairly good overall.
Where would you put monument?
Young witch's goodness definitely depends on the bane, but it goes with sea hag because of the structure of the article. Without a good bane, it's definitely miles ahead of the other attacks, so I feel it's fair to put it up there.
Salvager has a lot of complaints, so I guess it gets its own section in my responses...

Salvager stuff:

I'm very dubious that Salvager is a great opening.  It's a trash-for-no-benefit for Coppers, and it's a "trash for a one-use Silver" for Estates.  It's a terminal, and it won't get you to $5 unless you draw it with exactly 3 Coppers + 1 Estate, and won't get you to $6 with any combination of starting cards.

Salvager is a good card, don't get me wrong, but its utility doesn't come out until later in the game when you can either draw and play it more consistently, or where it's trashing higher-value cards.
Salvager buys like silver while trashing a copper about 2/3 of the time. This is a really good effect. The other third of the time it does just trash a copper, which is not good, but not the worst thing in the world, and you still keep the salvager, which you're going to want eventually anyway. My feeling is that you might as well buy it up front.

Remodel and salvager are mostly as useful as each other with different applications. It might be harder to misplay a salvager as you can usually salvage something.
I think salavager is *worlds* ahead of remodel. Remodel requires you to have a strategy that relies heavily on $3-$3 cards, since you're often turning an estate into a $4 and buying a $3. Salvager goes well into any strategy, as the money gets added into one big buy.

I should also mention that salvager is not ahead of remake because I think it's better. I swapped the order because I wanted to mention it in the remake blurb. I do, however, think it's on the same rough level. It's a trashing card I'd generally prefer over non-curse attacks. Given both are available, remake is usually going to be the choice, and I guess I should mention that...

I'll update the article with some of these considerations soon.
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guided

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #27 on: September 13, 2011, 12:50:01 pm »
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As I mentioned, the problem with the structure is that I can't just throw steward in the middle of the attack tier or something.
Then these aren't "tiers", this list was never a "ranking", and that's that :P What we have here is an example of form absolutely annihilating function!
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philosophyguy

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #28 on: September 13, 2011, 12:59:01 pm »
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I agree with guided's critique of the form/function problems with the article as currently written. Here's what I would suggest:

You've got the cards organized by what they do. Why not modify the article so that it's saying "Here are the things to look for in an opening terminal: trashing, cursing, etc. Among the trashers, here's a rough ranking. Among the cursers…" That way, you can put Steward and Moneylender with trashers, where they belong, while acknowledging their shortcomings in the individual rankings. You could introduce each section with a rough statement of how that category compares to others (e.g., trashing is almost always a top priority, but if your best option is Moneylender and there are attacks, then this is probably too slow).
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #29 on: September 13, 2011, 01:10:54 pm »
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As I mentioned, the problem with the structure is that I can't just throw steward in the middle of the attack tier or something.
Then these aren't "tiers", this list was never a "ranking", and that's that :P What we have here is an example of form absolutely annihilating function!

I disagree that form has annihilated function. I don't think hard rankings are particularly "functional" anyway. No one should really look at a ranking and just buy the highest card on the list, or then you're just a simulator bot or something. I think the article in its current form is *more* useful than a ranking because I feel that the form lends itself to easier synthesis for less experienced players. And having one or two cards out of place is not a huge deal, as had I made specific rankings, there would be similar arguments anyway. :)
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #30 on: September 13, 2011, 01:20:43 pm »
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As I mentioned, the problem with the structure is that I can't just throw steward in the middle of the attack tier or something.
Then these aren't "tiers", this list was never a "ranking", and that's that :P What we have here is an example of form absolutely annihilating function!

I disagree that form has annihilated function. I don't think hard rankings are particularly "functional" anyway. No one should really look at a ranking and just buy the highest card on the list, or then you're just a simulator bot or something. I think the article in its current form is *more* useful than a ranking because I feel that the form lends itself to easier synthesis for less experienced players. And having one or two cards out of place is not a huge deal, as had I made specific rankings, there would be similar arguments anyway. :)

I heartily disagree. Put chapel at the bottom, and it's only one card out of order, but it's ridiculous. You can't call them tiers or ranks if they aren't that, and based on your last few posts, it's clear that that's not what you think they are.
Salvager being better than remodel (which I definitely agree with) doesn't make it good.
And monument should go over the terminal silver attacks.

WanderingWinder

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #31 on: September 13, 2011, 01:26:55 pm »
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You're drastically underrating monument, like everybody does.
Young Witch is about impossible to rank without knowing the bane. It's entirely not worth it with a good bane, probably not worth it with even a decent bane.
Ambassador (in 2-player) is generally a bit stronger than chapel. So is masq. Remake is barely, barely below them.
Salvager certainly isn't a tier 3. Actually, it might be the worst opener on the list.
But fairly good overall.
I don't know why you restricted it to terminals, either - you could honestly just say cards overall, and I don't think you've missed any... though I might be forgetting something I guess.
There are quite a few non-terminals which are as good openers as the lower reaches of this list: Caravan, for one.

Caravan is the exact card I had in mind. I think you should rarely if ever open Caravan - it's better to open silver/silver in a money deck, and in most combo/engine decks you're probably worried about grabbing other engine cards. Well, maybe there are a lot of engine decks where you do want to open caravan, but I still don't think it's very elite.

HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #32 on: September 13, 2011, 01:52:39 pm »
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I heartily disagree. Put chapel at the bottom, and it's only one card out of order, but it's ridiculous. You can't call them tiers or ranks if they aren't that, and based on your last few posts, it's clear that that's not what you think they are.
Salvager being better than remodel (which I definitely agree with) doesn't make it good.
And monument should go over the terminal silver attacks.
They are roughly tiers, so I'm ok with calling them that. "Rankings" I used for lack of a better word. If you can think of a better one, I'd gladly change it.
Monument is probably sometimes better than attacks. For example, monument big money should be better than militia/cutpurse big money. But is it *usually* better than the attacks? I don't really think so.

Caravan is the exact card I had in mind. I think you should rarely if ever open Caravan - it's better to open silver/silver in a money deck, and in most combo/engine decks you're probably worried about grabbing other engine cards. Well, maybe there are a lot of engine decks where you do want to open caravan, but I still don't think it's very elite.
Caravan/silver may not be very good, but caravan/trasher or caravan/attack is. Caravan/ambassador ranks as the 4th best overall opening. But that's part of why I didn't get into ranking non-terminals. If I had to rank it, it would be pretty low. The really good non-terminals are tournament, lookout, loan, warehouse, and fishing village.
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Epoch

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #33 on: September 13, 2011, 02:03:13 pm »
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and won't get you to $6 with any combination of starting cards.

Copper-Copper-Silver-Salvager-Estate?

Silver is not a starting card.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #34 on: September 13, 2011, 02:36:40 pm »
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and won't get you to $6 with any combination of starting cards.

Copper-Copper-Silver-Salvager-Estate?

Silver is not a starting card.
But you have to buy something with your $3 before the first reshuffle...
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rrenaud

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #35 on: September 13, 2011, 02:53:15 pm »
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I would trust the openings data a lot more than the win rate by turn data for this.  The win rate by turn doesn't account for player skill at all, while the openings analysis models skill.
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Epoch

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #36 on: September 13, 2011, 02:54:07 pm »
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But you have to buy something with your $3 before the first reshuffle...

Well, one notes that you don't HAVE to.

But, more to the point, sure, Salvager can get you to $6 if you also assume you have a Silver.  And it could get you to $7 if you had a Gold!  And $8 if you had a Platinum!  And $21 if you draw Venture/Venture/Venture/Salvager/Estate, Salvage the Estate, draw Platinum with the first two Ventures and Bank with the third!

The work is being done by the other card, and it's weird to suggest that Salvager is a good way to get to $5 or $6 when Silver/Silver (or, of course, Silver/a $2-producing action) would get you there much more reliably.

Ultimately:  Salvager is a single-card-trasher-terminal that produces no notable benefit when you trash Coppers (or Curses, the other thing you're likely to want to trash in the early game), and a very mild benefit when trashing Estates.  It's just not a good opener.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2011, 02:56:37 pm by Epoch »
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ackack

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #37 on: September 13, 2011, 03:31:54 pm »
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The work is being done by the other card, and it's weird to suggest that Salvager is a good way to get to $5 or $6 when Silver/Silver (or, of course, Silver/a $2-producing action) would get you there much more reliably.

Ah, but with Silver/Silver, one of the other Silvers is doing a lot of the work! I think this critique is silly. You can indeed get $6 after the first reshuffle following a Salvager buy, even if it is less often than other possibilities. I think it's a pretty legitimate if not stellar opener, and it's almost always a fantastic card to have in your deck at some point. That's a big argument in favor of it - you'll probably want one at some point, you may not have time to grab it later, and early on it can chew through Estates for some gain.
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guided

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #38 on: September 13, 2011, 03:36:47 pm »
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Salvager is a good opener in many situations. It is rarely (if ever) an elite opener worthy of mention alongside, say, Masquerade or even Militia. The point is not to get $6; it is to get rid of an Estate while getting $5. The main thing that keeps it from "really good opener" status is that it has multiple disaster scenarios where you have it in hand at turn 3/4 but either can't get $5 or can't trash a bad card and retain $5. They key when opening Salvager is not to buy it unless you have some better plan than eventually just trashing Coppers with it. And in general, if you have Salvagers in your deck you should be merciless about trashing good cards with it to bootstrap up to bigger buys.
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Epoch

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #39 on: September 13, 2011, 03:41:07 pm »
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Ah, but with Silver/Silver, one of the other Silvers is doing a lot of the work!

You can produce $6 with just one Silver (Silver/Copperx4).  It's actually considerably more likely than producing $5 with Salvager and just starting cards (compare:  same odds of drawing Silver/Copperx3 as Salvager/Copperx3, obviously.  So the last card: there are 4 Coppers left, only 3 Estates -- more chance of the Copper than the Estates, ergo $6 more likely with Silver than $5 with Salvager).  Two $5's with Silver/Silver-equivalent is plausible, while it's simply implausible with Silver/Salvager.  It's a bad opening, guys.  Salvager is a fine card in the mid-late game.  It's a bad opener.

I think this critique is silly. You can indeed get $6 after the first reshuffle following a Salvager buy, even if it is less often than other possibilities. I think it's a pretty legitimate if not stellar opener, and it's almost always a fantastic card to have in your deck at some point. That's a big argument in favor of it - you'll probably want one at some point, you may not have time to grab it later, and early on it can chew through Estates for some gain.

That's a bizarre claim.  Why on earth would you "not have time to grab it later"?  It's one of your buys, on turn 1 or turn 8 -- the only question is whether you want it cluttering up your first few reshuffles.

EDIT:  And, to endorse what Guided said, if you were guaranteed $5 and an Estate trash in the early game, it would be... fine.  Not wonderful, but fine, and its late-game utility would probably make it a good buy.  The idea that you should consider Salvager, lacking the guarantee of Estate-trash-plus-$5, above Militia or Steward or Moneylender is crazy.  And really, you should only even consider it if you want to buy a $5 for your strategy: if you're concentrating on Golds or other $6+ cards, you should drop it like it's hot.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2011, 03:46:44 pm by Epoch »
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ackack

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #40 on: September 13, 2011, 03:50:18 pm »
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That's a bizarre claim.  Why on earth would you "not have time to grab it later"?  It's one of your buys, on turn 1 or turn 8 -- the only question is whether you want it cluttering up your first few reshuffles.

You've never had games where you miss 4 a lot and there are 5s and 6s you want to be buying? I've had numerous games where there was some card I wanted that was almost certainly not the best card to buy given the choices available to me, but that I would have been much happier had I had in my deck.

Salvager is a fine opener. I wouldn't claim it's the best opener, but it's probably just slightly worse than Moneylender and it's a muuuuuch better mid to late game card.

added: And while there are specific things for which Steward is better, I don't think it's a given at all that it is generically better than Salvager as an opener. Trashing and buying at the same time is really quite sweet. Steward generally gives buying or trashing, and as a pure trasher I don't think it's fast enough to make giving up all those buys a lock to be better, especially because (once again) Salvager is a vastly better card to have late.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2011, 03:54:49 pm by ackack »
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #41 on: September 13, 2011, 03:54:48 pm »
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You can produce $6 with just one Silver (Silver/Copperx4).  It's actually considerably more likely than producing $5 with Salvager and just starting cards (compare:  same odds of drawing Silver/Copperx3 as Salvager/Copperx3, obviously.  So the last card: there are 4 Coppers left, only 3 Estates -- more chance of the Copper than the Estates, ergo $6 more likely with Silver than $5 with Salvager).  Two $5's with Silver/Silver-equivalent is plausible, while it's simply implausible with Silver/Salvager.  It's a bad opening, guys.  Salvager is a fine card in the mid-late game.  It's a bad opener.
So you're arguing silver/nothing is a better opening than salvager/nothing? Who cares? Both are terrible openings. Buying two cards tends to be the better choice with a 4/3...

Quote
That's a bizarre claim.  Why on earth would you "not have time to grab it later"?  It's one of your buys, on turn 1 or turn 8 -- the only question is whether you want it cluttering up your first few reshuffles.
The question is if you think it's going to do more cluttering or helping in those turns, and I would argue that it's doing more helping. It's true that sometimes it will be sub-par (drawn with no estates), but more often it will be really good.
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Epoch

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #42 on: September 13, 2011, 03:57:42 pm »
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You've never had games where you miss 4 a lot and there are 5s and 6s you want to be buying? I've had numerous games where there was some card I wanted that was almost certainly not the best card to buy given the choices available to me, but that I would have been much happier had I had in my deck.

Of course I have.  But so what?  Buy Salvager for $5 or $6, if you think it's good enough.  It's not like the card retains the stigma of your having "wasted" money on it, and that somehow lowers its value in your deck.

If there are $5 or $6 cards that you want in your deck more than Salvager, to the point where you can never justify spending $5 or $6 on Salvager, then that's exactly an argument for not opening Salvager, because the benefit of not opening Salvager is that you're more likely to get early $5's and $6's.

The case for opening Salvager is a more complicated one: it's probably more like "the alternatives to Salvager (notably: Silver) will be big negatives in my deck by the mid-game, so even if I buy Salvager in the mid-game, I'll be stuck with those unwanted alternatives-to-Salvager."  Which is valid in some games, and is probably a good reason to open Salvager, since one of the things it actually IS good for is trashing, say, Silvers or $4 Actions (like Moneylenders or Barons which have outlived their usefulness) to boot-strap to, say, Platinums.  And, hey, you'll probably have 1-2 fewer Estates or Coppers, which is nice and all.

But don't do it to trash Estates for benefit.  The benefit isn't big enough.
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Epoch

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #43 on: September 13, 2011, 03:59:22 pm »
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So you're arguing silver/nothing is a better opening than salvager/nothing? Who cares? Both are terrible openings. Buying two cards tends to be the better choice with a 4/3...

You don't always draw your two opening buys together.  Silver/Silver(-equivalent) is miles more likely to produce two high-quality buys in turns 3/4 than is Silver/Salvager, and the hoped-for benefit of one fewer Estate is not worth the risk of being stuck at $4 or lower due to buying Salvager over the Silver equivalent.

And you seem to imagine that the case of "being drawn with no Estates" is the bad situation with Salvager, when in fact the bad situation with Salvager is everything besides "being drawn with exactly 1 Estate."
« Last Edit: September 13, 2011, 04:01:54 pm by Epoch »
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guided

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #44 on: September 13, 2011, 04:00:16 pm »
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EDIT:  And, to endorse what Guided said, if you were guaranteed $5 and an Estate trash in the early game, it would be... fine.  Not wonderful, but fine, and its late-game utility would probably make it a good buy.  The idea that you should consider Salvager, lacking the guarantee of Estate-trash-plus-$5, above Militia or Steward or Moneylender is crazy.  And really, you should only even consider it if you want to buy a $5 for your strategy: if you're concentrating on Golds or other $6+ cards, you should drop it like it's hot.
If Salvager came with a guarantee that you could trash an Estate at turn 3/4 for a $5+ buy, I think it would be a great opener on a really broad selection of boards where you're targeting a $5 card before the 2nd shuffle (which is a lot of boards of course!) - buuuuuut, that's neither here nor there since there's no such guarantee. As it is, I would definitely prioritize Militia or Steward or Moneylender over Salvager on the vast majority of boards. In particular, the presence of Militia would definitely downgrade Salvager to "terrible opener" status!
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Epoch

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #45 on: September 13, 2011, 04:10:28 pm »
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Oh, on a different note: it's weird not to see Smithy, Courtyard, or Envoy on the list of openers.  All are extremely solid stand-alone Actions (ie, single buys in a BMU deck), and are pretty decent openers for plenty of strategies that don't need to worry much about terminal conflicts, and like +Cards.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #46 on: September 13, 2011, 04:26:25 pm »
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EDIT:  And, to endorse what Guided said, if you were guaranteed $5 and an Estate trash in the early game, it would be... fine.  Not wonderful, but fine, and its late-game utility would probably make it a good buy.  The idea that you should consider Salvager, lacking the guarantee of Estate-trash-plus-$5, above Militia or Steward or Moneylender is crazy.  And really, you should only even consider it if you want to buy a $5 for your strategy: if you're concentrating on Golds or other $6+ cards, you should drop it like it's hot.
I think you're overrating steward and moneylender. Given the presence of salvager and steward, I'm taking salvager 80+% of the time. Slow trashing against salvager is generally a losing proposition, because salvager forces fast games (with its ability to trash gold/provinces to drain the province pile) where the slow trashing of steward isn't good enough to get an engine going in time.
And sure moneylender has a lower chance of miss, but the amount by which salvager is better when it hits plus the amount it is better late game makes salvager waaay better imo.

Oh, on a different note: it's weird not to see Smithy, Courtyard, or Envoy on the list of openers.  All are extremely solid stand-alone Actions (ie, single buys in a BMU deck), and are pretty decent openers for plenty of strategies that don't need to worry much about terminal conflicts, and like +Cards.
Yeah, I decided that these fall under the category of "buy them if it's your mid-game strategy" as I mentioned with smithy big money at the top. I did consider adding another tier with these 3 cards at the bottom, but I figured the list had gone far enough. Courtyard is probably the best of the three going into a strategy other than pure big-money because its lower cost lets you get it with a nice non-terminal $4 and it avoids some terminal collisions.
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chwhite

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #47 on: September 13, 2011, 04:35:02 pm »
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Given a setup with Salvager, Moneylender, and Steward (but no other trashing), chances are I'm opening Moneylender, getting a Salvager sometime in the next few turns, and ignoring Steward entirely.  Obviously it depends on the rest of the setup, this is just my default assumption.

Moneylender is a great target for Salvager in the late game.
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To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

ackack

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #48 on: September 13, 2011, 04:38:57 pm »
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Given a setup with Salvager, Moneylender, and Steward (but no other trashing), chances are I'm opening Moneylender, getting a Salvager sometime in the next few turns, and ignoring Steward entirely.  Obviously it depends on the rest of the setup, this is just my default assumption.

Moneylender is a great target for Salvager in the late game.

Yes, this sounds about right to me. Steward has its places, and I like flexibility, but if you're just using it to trash you're basically giving yourself Chapelesque crappy buying power with half the trashing efficiency.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Ranking the opening terminals (for 4/3 splits)
« Reply #49 on: September 13, 2011, 04:45:49 pm »
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Given a setup with Salvager, Moneylender, and Steward (but no other trashing), chances are I'm opening Moneylender, getting a Salvager sometime in the next few turns, and ignoring Steward entirely.  Obviously it depends on the rest of the setup, this is just my default assumption.

Moneylender is a great target for Salvager in the late game.
Salvager is also a great target for salvager :)
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