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Author Topic: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager  (Read 6769 times)

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Tasman1414

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Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« on: March 05, 2013, 02:12:10 am »
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This idea may have been spotted by someone already but I thought i might bring it up anyway.

The combo works for a few reasons:

- Most obviously, trashing silvers, golds, and other treasures (like counterfeit) to boost the power of foragers is generally not worth doing, except with counterfeit. Of course, this can also work with other TFB cards such as salvager, bishop, apprentice etc. What these cards can't do is:
- Counterfeit also trashes coppers non-terminally for a decent benefit (+$3), which is better than most TFB cards which trash them one at a time for +0.
- Both Counterfeit and forager are non-terminal trashers that give you virtual coins, which means you can thin your deck quite efficiently without losing actions, and while getting buying power. Deck thinning will be useful to play foragers more often when they get to be +$3 or occasionally even $4.
- They both provide the +buys when you have enough money to get multiple foragers, or extra coppers to trash.

However, this has some elements that are not so powerful, meaning it may not be the most successful strategy on the board:

- It will be difficult to get enough buying power to get silvers and golds and then trashing them early, while building the combo at the same time.
- Counterfeits aren't always easy to pick up when you're buying foragers instead of silvers.
- If you're playing two or more foragers in a turn, you probably have a thinned deck, which makes it hard to trash cards from your hand.

Despite these negatives, I think this combo could be useful, and worth thinking about.
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Awaclus

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2013, 03:06:51 am »
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- Counterfeit also trashes coppers non-terminally for a decent benefit (+$3), which is better than most TFB cards which trash them one at a time for +0.
Counterfeit trashes coppers for +$2.

Also, your opponents' Foragers will give them more $, too, if you trash your Silvers and Golds for Counterfeit.
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Tasman1414

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2013, 04:35:06 am »
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- Counterfeit also trashes coppers non-terminally for a decent benefit (+$3), which is better than most TFB cards which trash them one at a time for +0.
Counterfeit trashes coppers for +$2.

Right yeah i just meant since you're playing the copper for +$2 rather than just trashing it without playing it and Counterfeit is already worth $1 so thats $3.
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Awaclus

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2013, 05:06:59 am »
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Right yeah i just meant since you're playing the copper for +$2 rather than just trashing it without playing it and Counterfeit is already worth $1 so thats $3.
But you lose the copper, which is -$1: If you have ECCCC, that's $4, but if you have CfCCCC, that's $6.

Besides, most other TFBs give you something in addition to the benefit from the trashing, too - Salvager gives +buy, Remodel gives a $2 card (which isn't always beneficiary, but sometimes is), Bishop gives +VP, Upgrade cantrips, etc. These come at the cost of losing the copper from your hand, but they aren't the equivalents of nothingness. And then there's Moneylender and Spice Merchant that love trashing copper. Apprentice and Remake don't do much anything unless Conspirator is involved, but that's it.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2013, 05:08:13 am by Awaclus »
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Tasman1414

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2013, 05:54:38 am »
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Yeah, don't get me wrong I agree with you :) i just meant 3 more than trashing a copper with any other card like the ones you mentioned, but yeah you've got a point that they all give some kind of other benefit. The main point of Counterfeit in the combo is to trash higher value treasure cards.
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2013, 06:10:32 am »
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Would you call this a Combo? Having Counterfeit around makes Forager better, sure, just like having Great Hall around makes Trade Route Better, but if you're the one Counterfeiting that helps you in the same way as it normally would, and it additionally helps everyone who has Forager/s. You can benefit just as much from this interaction if you buy Foragers while your opponent buys Counterfeits. It's a good and interesting interaction, but I'm not sure I'd call it a combo.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2013, 10:05:25 am »
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On the topic of other TfB giving additional benefits like Salvager's +buy, both Counterfeit and Forager give +buy as well.

I also wouldn't consider this a combo, partially because both cards trash and you'll have to start buying Coppers or something to keep up, but also because the Counterfeit is strengthening your opponent's Forager. 

Counterfeit is great with Spoils though.  One of the rare times when Spoils is markedly better than Gold.
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cluckyb

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2013, 03:13:59 pm »
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Would you call this a Combo? Having Counterfeit around makes Forager better, sure, just like having Great Hall around makes Trade Route Better, but if you're the one Counterfeiting that helps you in the same way as it normally would, and it additionally helps everyone who has Forager/s. You can benefit just as much from this interaction if you buy Foragers while your opponent buys Counterfeits. It's a good and interesting interaction, but I'm not sure I'd call it a combo.

Yeah, I'm not sure how a Counterfeit helps more than just having more Foragers. Once you get your foragers up to +4 you need to trash Silvers to make your Counterfeit produce more coinage than a Forager which makes it a lot harder to fuel. An early counterfeit will help, but pretty soon you probably just want to feed it to your forager to beef it up and then focus on Foragers.

A Forager combo would be something like Wandering Minstrel. Two cards whose likes lineup (Forager is good at creating a deck without very many treasures in it while still giving lots of virtual coin, WM hates treasure and loves virtual coin) to create something more powerful. (I haven't actually tried this one yet, but in theory it should work as long as you can keep the Foragers fed. I know WM + PH is really strong if you have a decent trasher to get rid of all your treasure)
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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2013, 03:25:09 pm »
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But Wandering Minstrel doesn't hate treasure. Heck, if you have no treasure in your deck, then Wandering Minstrel is just a $4 Village!
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eHalcyon

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #9 on: March 05, 2013, 03:50:59 pm »
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Counterfeit does help by giving you a decent method of trashing Silver and Gold.  You probably don't want to just feed them to Forager directly because the benefit then is very small.  Counterfeit gives you more out of those.  And when you've cleared out most of your Copper and have put a Silver and Gold into the trash, you can feed Counterfeit to Forager to put it at +$4.

There is still the danger of helping the opponent, since their Foragers improve too.  But if they don't go Foragers, great for you.
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cluckyb

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #10 on: March 05, 2013, 04:14:19 pm »
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But Wandering Minstrel doesn't hate treasure. Heck, if you have no treasure in your deck, then Wandering Minstrel is just a $4 Village!

That filters out your green cards. Plus lets you reorder the actions so is probably better than Farming Village unless you get three green cards in a row. So much better than a $4 village, plus I don't get how Wandering Minstrel doesn't hate treasure. The point of WM is to filter crappy treasure and green cards. It hates crappy treasure, because all it does is slow down the other filtering. And it hates good treasure because it can't tell the difference.

I guess its true that its far more efficient to trash your gold via counterfeit (or any other TFB) than Forager. Its like salvager except it also ensures another treasure in the game.
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Taco Lobster

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2013, 04:21:53 pm »
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In regards to CF, I found that my evaluation of the card improved when I started thinking of it as a Moneylender + a Buy + an Action (kinda, given that CF doesn't require an Action).  Don't get me wrong - the ability to trash other non-Copper treasures on top of that is great, but conceptualizing it as an improved Moneylender got me to start playing with the card on a more regular basis.  If nothing else, I find it to be a useful source of Buy in most instances, given that most + Buy cards are terminals.
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Taco Lobster

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2013, 04:41:32 pm »
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Hmmm...actually, now that I think about it, + Buy is probably not as terminal as it once was, particularly given the other Dark Ages cards (Forager, Squire, and Market Square).  Prior to Dark Ages, I think only Pawn, Market, and Grant Market were non-terminal +Buys, but I'm probably missing something...
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #13 on: March 05, 2013, 04:44:11 pm »
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Workers Village, Contraband.
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Taco Lobster

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #14 on: March 05, 2013, 04:49:11 pm »
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Workers Village, Contraband.

Thanks!  I knew I missed something(s). 
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eHalcyon

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #15 on: March 05, 2013, 05:06:13 pm »
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Would you call this a Combo? Having Counterfeit around makes Forager better, sure, just like having Great Hall around makes Trade Route Better, but if you're the one Counterfeiting that helps you in the same way as it normally would, and it additionally helps everyone who has Forager/s. You can benefit just as much from this interaction if you buy Foragers while your opponent buys Counterfeits. It's a good and interesting interaction, but I'm not sure I'd call it a combo.

Yeah, I'm not sure how a Counterfeit helps more than just having more Foragers. Once you get your foragers up to +4 you need to trash Silvers to make your Counterfeit produce more coinage than a Forager which makes it a lot harder to fuel. An early counterfeit will help, but pretty soon you probably just want to feed it to your forager to beef it up and then focus on Foragers.

A Forager combo would be something like Wandering Minstrel. Two cards whose likes lineup (Forager is good at creating a deck without very many treasures in it while still giving lots of virtual coin, WM hates treasure and loves virtual coin) to create something more powerful. (I haven't actually tried this one yet, but in theory it should work as long as you can keep the Foragers fed. I know WM + PH is really strong if you have a decent trasher to get rid of all your treasure)

Part of WM's strength is in filtering away weak treasure and helping actions collide.  By definition, it does not hate treasure -- it is a solution to getting through the weak treasure that you already hate.  If you can get rid of your starting coppers another way (i.e. trashing), then WM has less of a purpose and another Village may be more useful.
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cluckyb

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #16 on: March 05, 2013, 05:38:34 pm »
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Would you call this a Combo? Having Counterfeit around makes Forager better, sure, just like having Great Hall around makes Trade Route Better, but if you're the one Counterfeiting that helps you in the same way as it normally would, and it additionally helps everyone who has Forager/s. You can benefit just as much from this interaction if you buy Foragers while your opponent buys Counterfeits. It's a good and interesting interaction, but I'm not sure I'd call it a combo.

Yeah, I'm not sure how a Counterfeit helps more than just having more Foragers. Once you get your foragers up to +4 you need to trash Silvers to make your Counterfeit produce more coinage than a Forager which makes it a lot harder to fuel. An early counterfeit will help, but pretty soon you probably just want to feed it to your forager to beef it up and then focus on Foragers.

A Forager combo would be something like Wandering Minstrel. Two cards whose likes lineup (Forager is good at creating a deck without very many treasures in it while still giving lots of virtual coin, WM hates treasure and loves virtual coin) to create something more powerful. (I haven't actually tried this one yet, but in theory it should work as long as you can keep the Foragers fed. I know WM + PH is really strong if you have a decent trasher to get rid of all your treasure)

Part of WM's strength is in filtering away weak treasure and helping actions collide.  By definition, it does not hate treasure -- it is a solution to getting through the weak treasure that you already hate.  If you can get rid of your starting coppers another way (i.e. trashing), then WM has less of a purpose and another Village may be more useful.

Like I said, I haven't actually tried WM + Forager yet, but I have done WM + Poor House with decent trasher floating around (forget which one it was) and it was fairly effective. In a deck with no treasure, what village is going to help more? You're already getting buy from the foragers, so don't need workers. You've got an engine, so walled won't help. Have already gone into why farming isn't as good. Shanty town is clearly a no go. Hamlet doesn't have enough stuff to discard.  Fortress is nice if you run out of stuff to trash, but I still think WM is better for letting you filter green stuff.
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ftl

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #17 on: March 05, 2013, 07:13:57 pm »
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If you've already trashed out all your treasure, then it probably doesn't matter what village you have - throw in any draw card, even a weak one like Moat, and you'll draw your whole deck no matter what the village is. The differences will be pretty minor, wouldn't they?  Well, you want to make sure the village is cheap, and if your draw is weak then you want a village which draws cards so not Native or Hamlet, but other than that, it won't matter.

There's a big difference between Minstrel and other villages in decks which have lots and lots of stuff to sift out - treasures, victory cards, etc. That's where it really makes a big difference.
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KingZog3

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Re: Combo: Counterfeit + Forager
« Reply #18 on: March 18, 2013, 06:37:21 pm »
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A better combo is Loan+Forager, as they can both be bought early, and Loan is not useful late in the game. The problem I've seen with straight Forager strategies is having enough stuff to trash. It's fine if you have a fortress in your hand, but otherwise you'll be buying coppers again to fuel your Foragers, and unless they're +$4 or +$5, it's probably not a great strategy. And because it helps everyone else, you better have most of the Foragers which mean more coppers to trash which means you'll need luck to pull up a good hand of Forgers+stuff to trash.

Also, even if you use Counterfeit to trash your Golds, you're still trashing Golds. You better get a lot of use out of those Foragers, otherwise you would have been better off just not trashing it. Actually, even if Forager is +$3, its just a Gold that requires trashing. You do get the buy I suppose, but I'd rather not base my game around only Foragers.
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