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[gman314]

This board has all sorts of great engine cards: King's Court, Wharf and Conspirator all jump out. However, there are two things missing: Trashing, which isn't that important and straight +Action. Despite that, I am able to build an engine which squeaks out a win.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201302/11/game-20130211-220341-b9028824.html

Even though I won, I really don't know if Big Money might have been sufficient here. Wharf is good for Big Money and Courtyard is also great. But Colony games tend to turn the advantage to engines. Does anyone else have an opinion?

[Morgrim7]

Ermm...KC, Wharf, Conspirator...yeah, that screams engine. Even if theres no trashing. Wharf is just so good.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Wharf engines don't really need trashing. The reason you want trashing is to:
1. Cycle faster. But Wharf cycles fast enough anyway.
2. Avoid drawing dead hands where you can't do anything. But with (KC'd) Wharves in play, you have big enough starting hands that it's not really a problem.

[dondon151]

It's not really an engine as much as it is getting the KC-Wharf train started.

[WanderingWinder]

The biggest push to engine here is colony.

Wharves are amazing for engines, but they're also really good for money.

[Morgrim7]

Given the KC, however, I think that a KC/MegaWharf deck with some Conspirator action is the way to go here. Conspirator=Grand Market here.

[carstimon]

I'm not sure how to set this up.

For example, you went for
Turn 3: Courtyard with $3
Turn 6: Silver with $5
At first I thought those should have been silver/wharf, but the courtyard would be a little better for hitting $7; and given your turn 3 buy, your turn 6 buy was correct (too many terminals).  Actually, looking back, I still would've gotten a wharf turn 6. You had:
2 silver, 1 wharf, 1 courtyard, 1 militia
Sure, you have a lot of terminals but wharf was missing the shuffle, and courtyard can put militia back if they crash.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I'm right here; I think this kind of thing is hard to set up and one turn can make a big difference because every turn you start with an 11 card hand is important.

[gman314]

I'm not sure how to set this up.

For example, you went for
Turn 3: Courtyard with $3
Turn 6: Silver with $5
At first I thought those should have been silver/wharf, but the courtyard would be a little better for hitting $7; and given your turn 3 buy, your turn 6 buy was correct (too many terminals).  Actually, looking back, I still would've gotten a wharf turn 6. You had:
2 silver, 1 wharf, 1 courtyard, 1 militia
Sure, you have a lot of terminals but wharf was missing the shuffle, and courtyard can put militia back if they crash.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I'm right here; I think this kind of thing is hard to set up and one turn can make a big difference because every turn you start with an 11 card hand is important.

Yeah, my purchases were kind of all over the place because I wanted lots of targets for the KCs I planned to have, but I also wanted some money so that I could get the KCs in the first place. I think if I were to play this again, I'd go for some more money from the start. Probably still open Militia, get 2-4 Wharves and otherwise basically money until I get a KC. Then, I'd get a bunch of Conspirators and maybe more Wharves.

[eliegel34]

There is definitely an engine on this board.  The biggest problem is getting it started.  You can probably see that KC/Wharf/Conspirator can make a strong engine.  The problem is with no cantrip cards, Conspirator is a terminal Silver until you get the engine running. 

I think the best way to mitigate that is to open Silver/Silver.  King's Court is quite expensive at 7, so you will need some silver to get to it.  The question then becomes what terminal is most important in the early game.  The choice is between Wharf/Conspirator/Militia.  Conspirator doesn't do anything for you at the beginning.  Militia may slow down your opponent from getting to King's Court, but I think Wharf is going to be the most useful. 

I think this game is somewhat of a race to play King's Court on Wharf first.  Once that is done once, the engine should be able to roll.  Despite being really slow to set up, the engine is really strong.  In a sample game below, I was able to get 74 points in 14 turns. 

I think against money adding a Militia once things are set up would really slow them down, but I doubt you would need to to win.  In the engine mirror, Militia shouldn't make much of a difference as you will both be starting with 10-15 card hands.  In the engine I would probably try and race down Conspirator and King's Court while trying to get 4-5 Wharfs.  I suspect the Engine mirror would 3 pile pretty quickly, so you really have to be careful with that. 

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201302/13/game-20130213-225718-e24bc728.html

[dondon151]

I would advise against not getting a Militia because the possibility of knocking an opponent hand from $5 or $7 is too good.

[eliegel34]

I have pretty mixed feelings about whether or not you want Militia early.  Obviously forcing your opponent off of a 5 or 7 hand is huge.  I think you have to start getting Wharf as early as possible though, and I'm not sure which I would play in the collision.  I guess my biggest reason not to is that it seems like the extra terminal can hurt your chances to hit $5/7 almost as bad as your opponent.  I think not getting as my Wharfs because of the extra terminal is not an option since large hands are critical to the engine. I suspect it is pretty close whether you want an early Militia or not. 

[ehunt]

Kc + wharf + action that produces money.

It would be an "engine" board even if the conspirator were chancellor! Although here the word engine is misleading. The point is that you want to kc a wharf before your opponent does.