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[chwhite]

Chancellor is one of the most unloved cards in Dominion.  It's bought less than any other Kingdom card on Isotropic, a mere 13 percent of the time, only Diadem is picked up less often and Prizes don't count.  It's a terminal silver with an ability that looks like it takes an expert to use well, but even experts don't like it much, as evidenced by its #1 spot in the Worst $3 Cards list. And even as I've tried to defend it from time to time, I have to admit it is in fact one of the weakest cards around, more or less completely silly in the presence of good trashing, and prone to providing not much help.

But surely we can find examples of Chancellor working?  Surely there are boards beyond just the Chancellor/Stash combo where going for Chancellor is worth it, where it actually provides that early tempo boost that helps you win?  Let's see some examples.

I'll start with a game from a couple days ago: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110919-225154-6ecb98d6.html

My thinking was: hey, Mountebank is the key card here, and Cities will be nice since the Curses are probably running out.  And there's not much trashing.  So hey, pick up a Chancellor for the early tempo boost and try to exploit the variance.  My first Chancellor doesn't do much, as it falls on Turn 4.  But then it comes up on Turn 5, right after the reshuffle, and I go Mint instead of Gold for the one-shot trashing (important with Mountebank!).  Turn 9 is also a good example of Chancellor working out, and I absolutely credit the use of these two normally-substandard cards, Chancellor and Mint, with giving me the tempo advantage necessary to grab most of the Cities, and the game's only Colony.

...

So.  When have you all used Chancellor to good effect?

[DG]

Chancellor-potion-familiar is probably the most straightforward example you can find.

[Epoch]

I can't claim that this game was ever particularly close (pro-tip:  Don't open Pirate Ship when Sea Hag is on the board!), but knowing as I did that what I wanted was to play Sea Hag as often as possible in the early game, and not to buy multiples of it, I opened Sea Hag/Chancellor and used the heuristic of "provoke a reshuffle if I've already seen my Sea Hag this shuffle."

My opponent resigned when he had 7 Curses and I had 0.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110401-135536-14fc98a0.html

This game, I actually think I used it pretty well:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110817-164947-bbd3c398.html

We both opened Hunting Party/Nothing, and I figured that HP would let me get Chancellor early a lot, and thus make more powerful its ability to cycle the deck.  Indeed, it seemed to work out well, letting me get to my early Hunting Parties and Hoards quickly and thus develop a massive Gold lead (9 Gold at end of the game after trashing one last turn!).

[Titandrake]

I've had some limited success with Chancellor in a Minion game. Opened Caravan/Chancellor and then quickly began buying Minions. The early tempo helped quite a bit, and Chancellor allowed me to discard the deck once I had enough Minion money, increasing Minion draw chance.

[Anon79]

Feeling puzzled at Epoch's second game... Hunting Parties by themselves cycle the deck and pretty much don't need Chancellor's power, no...? *reads on* Especially if the first two uses of the Chancellor don't discard the deck...? *reads on* *KC-Chancellor* *looks at rest of board* Fine, Chancellor has a use there, but he just got lucky that he's the only $-action besides Bishop in this treasure-heavy kingdom.

[Epoch]

Feeling puzzled at Epoch's second game... Hunting Parties by themselves cycle the deck and pretty much don't need Chancellor's power, no...? *reads on* Especially if the first two uses of the Chancellor don't discard the deck...? *reads on* *KC-Chancellor* *looks at rest of board* Fine, Chancellor has a use there, but he just got lucky that he's the only $-action besides Bishop in this treasure-heavy kingdom.

The first two uses of Chancellor I didn't bother using its ability because my draw pile was already depleted, so, you know, call that marginally bad luck.  I would've used it both times, but it literally didn't do anything.

But the third time (turn 7), I did use it, and it cycled my KC into my hand immediately.  The fourth time (turn 8 ), I used it, it put two Golds (and a Province, unfortunately) into circulation in my deck instantly.  Honestly, I should've used it on turn 9 as well, I don't know why I didn't.  EDIT:  Oh, my draw deck was already depleted again, so no-op.

I think that the turn 7 and turn 8 cycles gave me a big tempo boost over my opponent, over and above the money Chancellor provided.

[ChaosRed]

It's not really "love" I have to admit, but I'd like to see fan variants exploit the condition of having no cards in your discard pile. I'd like to try and devise a variant of that myself. This way, immediately reshuffling has another purpose, in that it cleans out your discard pile and provides a "combo" to the card that provides a bonus for being in that condition.