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Author Topic: The Decline of My Dominion Skills  (Read 11566 times)

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Epoch

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Re: The Decline of My Dominion Skills
« Reply #25 on: September 29, 2011, 05:42:34 pm »
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Would I have been better off with Chapel, Mine and BM I wonder? I probably wouldn't have with two terminal cards and treasure (much of it spam from my opponent), but as we slogged it off, passing our junk to one another...it felt like it would have been.

Chapel is a really bad response to Masquerade being on the board, because with Masquerade, it's actually pretty important not to get down to a super slim, very powerful deck -- or, at least, not get there before you opponent does.  You don't want to have your 5 card deck passing one of its 5 (good) cards to your opponent and receiving a Copper or an Estate.  That's when Masquerade really isn't just "+2 Cards, you may trash 1 card."
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WanderingWinder

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Re: The Decline of My Dominion Skills
« Reply #26 on: September 29, 2011, 05:44:09 pm »
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Chapel is not strong with BM. Masq is. (chapel also not great with mine, 'cause you don't have many cheap treasures to bump up).
Masq is absolutely great against chapel, as your opponent's thinner deck works against him.

ChaosRed

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Re: The Decline of My Dominion Skills
« Reply #27 on: September 29, 2011, 05:52:10 pm »
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My thought on Chapel/Mine was, "have my good card" sometimes, I'm lean enough to recover. It's rare I'd give up a gold (which is what I'd value most) and once Chapel was no longer useful, spam the Chapel to him. Let me dial up a simulator...I'm sure you guys are right...but I think my hate for the card is making me think that density can survive, when clearly every article I've read and all the comments here are saying I have to get on the Masquerade wagon or die.

EDIT - Basic simulations bear out that BM+Masquerade will defeat BM+Mine, BM+Chapel easily. I can tune BM+Chapel to about a 30% victory, but no higher. You spend too much energy trashing the junk, or drawing junk, while Masquerade slowly tunes itself to optimal strength.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2011, 06:07:23 pm by ChaosRed »
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: The Decline of My Dominion Skills
« Reply #28 on: September 29, 2011, 07:44:14 pm »
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I've tried a Masquerade opening twice now and got my ass kicked, its too damn slow to work?

Oh no... Masquerade is AMAZING.  I would say its just under "elite" opening status

Elites I would say would be: Mountebank, Witch, Torturer, Ambassador, Sea Hag, Trading Post, Wharf, Chapel


See: http://councilroom.com/openings?card=Silver

Masq / Silver is a level 4 opening... everything 5 or above involves 1 (or more) of the elites - except for: Tournament / Masq.
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Anchen

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Re: The Decline of My Dominion Skills
« Reply #29 on: September 29, 2011, 08:05:15 pm »
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By the end of the game, I'd draw 3 pawns...and two other non-minions. I think I had 7 minions and 7 pawns and as the deck grew (it all had all my copper and one silver)...it would often get stuck, not drawing a minion (sometimes just drawing a Pawn). I am wondering if I should have held out for Lab. Pawn was bought because it was cheap and it added a 1$ when Minion was in hand, and drew a card when it was not and didn't terminate. Anyway, I bought too many Pawns. I wanted the +buy too obviously, I think the card is very complementary, I just didn't quite get the ratio right.

Last few turns, I was getting to 4$...and it was frightening, that's like "doom" during the end-game. I recovered...I often knew when a big chain was coming, simply by counting what had come before.

I need to solitaire some games and learn how to balance Minion, although I won the game, I know I stumbled a few times. For example, at one point I thought all 6 Minions had been chained, I did this two turns before realizing, I had a 7th in my deck. So I wasn't even counting right, which I think is critical to playing Minion right. Other times, I was clicking "+2" at the end of the chain, when in fact, there was +4 sitting there to get drawn into my hand, I had cycled through everything else (its a bit challenging noticing reshuffles in electronic play by the way, you have to pay attention).

You guys here are all helping me greatly...this is what makes Dominion a great game, there's different ways to approach a board and not only learning what works, but how to make it work, is a large part of the fun.

A few words on Minion since it is one of my favorite cards.  Trashing helps a lot with Minion.  You want to especially get rid of coppers (keeping a few bigger coin is ok as they tend to be a good ending spot in your chain).  Greening as people mentioned can slow your engine down and curses especially are rough.  Pawn is a fine card though to add into Minion, as well as things like treasuries, peddlers, festivals, bazaar, market, lighthouse etc.  Last thing I'd like to mention is, try to know how many minions are in your deck.  When you minions you tend to discard treasures and green cards.  If you are close to reshuffling and most of your minions are out, you should consider just taking what money you can and not drawing 4 more cards.  If you trigger a reshuffle with say 10 cards in your discard, all of which are treasure and greens, draw 4 of those, and have no minions left available to draw, you just guaranteed your next hand won't have any minions in it.  I've done this before and you feel pretty stupid when it does.  A similar situation can happen with hunting party sometimes where you wind up with all your unique cards in hand, no library, and a bunch of coppers and estates and provinces you passed over in your discard.  You play a last hunting party or other draw card, reshuffle your deck, draw a copper, buy a province...and realize the next 2 hands are just going to be coppers and estates you discarded while all your hunting parties and such go into your discard until your next reshuffle.
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fencingmonkey

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Re: The Decline of My Dominion Skills
« Reply #30 on: September 30, 2011, 10:34:40 am »
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I thought about Dominion a lot while reading this:
http://www.cracked.com/article_19303_6-reasons-professional-poker-way-harder-than-it-looks.html
One point he keeps coming back to is that in order to get better you have to lose a lot, because you're playing against more skilled opponents. My Isotropic score has been dropping like a stone recently and I'm trying not to let it get to me. Some of what I'm doing is just bad play, some of it has been discussed earlier (not wanting to "play the Swindler game" and losing as a result), but some of it has just been playing at a different pace. I just got stomped in a Market/Grand Market/Tactician game because there were a few times where I had to choose between Province and GM and I chose wrong. But now I've got a better feel for the pace of that particular Kingdom and so (hopefully) I'll play better the next time I see that setup.
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Brando Commando

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Re: The Decline of My Dominion Skills
« Reply #31 on: September 30, 2011, 11:06:07 am »
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To the OP: My only note is that I find it very strange that many people at, say, level 7 (where you're at) never ask me why they just lost. I ask higher-ranked players pretty much every chance I get why I just lost. It's like a free game critique.

I thought about Dominion a lot while reading this:
http://www.cracked.com/article_19303_6-reasons-professional-poker-way-harder-than-it-looks.html
One point he keeps coming back to is that in order to get better you have to lose a lot, because you're playing against more skilled opponents.

And this. It reminds me of two things: 1) a commercial from the 90s where Michael Jordan, in voiceover, talks about all the baskets he's ever missed, games he's lost, free throws he's whiffed, etc. and 2) a great interview with Ira Glass where he talks about how most people stop trying to improve at something in that long plateau where they are mediocre...and that's exactly where you have to double-down and press on.

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Buggz

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Re: The Decline of My Dominion Skills
« Reply #32 on: September 30, 2011, 11:22:34 am »
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One point he keeps coming back to is that in order to get better you have to lose a lot, because you're playing against more skilled opponents.
In poker there's a story about the 6th best stud player in the world. His problem was that he was consistently playing against the other five.
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