Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[philosophyguy]

Would you ever want to open Potion/X and get a second Potion shortly thereafter? I can think of plenty of situations in which a late second (or more) Potion could be useful, such as a Vineyards rush, but are there decks that would benefit from an early second Potion?

I think it could be useful in a Apothecary/+buy deck (e.g., with Worker's Village) to get a quick Apothecary edge and have plenty of drawing power. Other situations might be a Scrying Pool/University setup. I don't know about Alchemists because I'm bad at playing Alchemist races. Anyone care to comment?

[WanderingWinder]

Yes, I do it fairly often in University/Vineyards stuff.

[chwhite]

Vineyard and Alchemist are the two cards that regularly cry out for multiple potions, some other Alchemy setups might benefit as well but it's pretty rare: it's probably not worth passing up a payload action so you can buy two Scrying Pools in one turn.  I don't quite have a great sense of how fast you want to get that second potion in those games, but I'm pretty sure that a second Potion on Turn 3/4 is virtually always a bad idea, and I generally avoid it before the third reshuffle too.

[guided]

Alchemist, Alchemist, Alchemist. Many times when playing an Alchemist deck, the very first thing you should buy the 2nd time you get $4 is a Potion.

I've done this a handful of times with decks that rely on having lots of Scrying Pools, and I've done it in Philosopher's Stone decks (which I tend to only play on Cursing boards to begin with). With Vineyards I tend to get the 2nd Potion later in the game rather than right away. I've never seen a situation where I found myself willing to pay the opportunity cost of buying a 2nd Potion just for Universities.

In many situations where you want a 2nd Potion, even if you want it early, it may be that getting a +Buy effect is an even higher priority.

[WanderingWinder]

To clarify, when I say University/Vineyards boards, I mean boards that include both of those cards.

[guided]

To clarify, when I say University/Vineyards boards, I mean boards that include both of those cards.

I've never gotten an early 2nd Potion on such a board, but now that you mention it, I can see the logic behind it. (I'm not an especially good Vineyards player to begin with.)

[Epoch]

A second Potion is, of course, much more valuable if you're going to get +buy as part of your deck.  And ESPECIALLY valuable if Vineyard is on the board and you're going to get +buy.  Like, a University/Wharf deck is often going to generate buys in excess of the pure money that you'll generate, and will also probably draw both of your Potions frequently at the end of the game -- so the ability to suddenly spike the Vineyards pile is really valuable.

That's quite a special case (Potion that you're going to use for other reasons, +buy, Vineyards), but it's really powerful when it comes up.