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Author Topic: Did I just get lucky?  (Read 1578 times)

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ChaosRed

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Did I just get lucky?
« on: October 04, 2011, 12:41:41 pm »
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I am not a good player. I know this.

The thing is, when I do win, a LOT of times, my opponent tells me I was lucky. It is just spite I think, but they really seem to resent losing to me. I think part of the problem is, I do generally gravitate to Silver when I can't figure out optimal strategy and I don't reach 6$. I often have 9 or more silver in my deck at the end of a game.

Here's a recent game, I was accused of getting lucky in:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111003-163838-460005bc.html

Seems to me, it was my opponent who made dumb purchases. An early Throne Room when most of his deck was still Copper and Estates, and too many Upgrades.

I played pretty sloppily, but don't think I got spectacular draws. I just played a little better (and he played pretty terribly I think). Here's the match in a nutshell for me, here's both of us at turn 15:

ChaosRed: 24 points : 3 Province, 2 Gold, 3 Nobles, 1 Upgrade, 1 Bridge, 9 Silver, 0 Estate, 6 Copper
bananabandana: 8 points : 3 Nobles, 2 Council Room, 4 Upgrade, 1 Bridge, 1 Horse Traders, 2 Throne Room, 5 Silver, 0 Workshop, 2 Estate, 6 Copper

My estates are all trashed, but I have a 16 point lead. How did he really expect to make a come back?  I probably have an average draw of 6$ or more on every turn after this. He's nowhere near a deck that can get him 9 points a turn that he needs to catch up. I wind up winning 3 turns later.

Is it because I just largely buy money that people think I luck out when I win? Or is there some truth to this? I only have a 50% win record, so I know I am not only average, I am average with players at my level (which at level 12 is really low). My opponent was like level 22 or something for this one, so he had more skill allegedly.

What was the better play in this game? I looked at Horse Traders a bunch of times, but I went with Bridge+Nobles+Big Money and it seemed to do okay. 6 Provinces by turn 18 seems pretty good given what was on the board. Tutor me if you can...but to me, it wasn't that I played so well, or got particularly lucky, my opponent made a lot of bad moves. It's like he anticipated the game going for another 6 turns and he'd have this massive engine. I just beat him to the punch.
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ackack

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Re: Did I just get lucky?
« Reply #1 on: October 04, 2011, 12:58:51 pm »
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Is it because I just largely buy money that people think I luck out when I win? Or is there some truth to this? I only have a 50% win record, so I know I am not only average, I am average with players at my level (which at level 12 is really low). My opponent was like level 22 or something for this one, so he had more skill allegedly.

I wouldn't lump all the games together. Look at it on a case-by-case basis.

In this game, you definitely played better than your opponent. Workshop is a bizarre opening here. Maybe he was going for some sort of Bridge to cheapen, Workshop to gain type plan. But there's a real paucity of extra actions to play that (if he's planning on Nobles, Thrones and Council Rooms to run that, that's just a bad idea.) I'd say that Bridge to open, a couple of Upgrades, and money is probably the way to play this one. I'd use one of your early 5s to buy a second Upgrade and probably skip Nobles early on, but other than that things look reasonable.

Finally, while level 22 is indeed quite a bit better than you, it's also pretty far from being good at Dominion. I wouldn't take the trash talk too seriously. added: it's worth noting, perhaps, that I don't think there are many people at all who are actually good at Dominion. I consider myself merely less bad than most, for example.
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Fangz

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Re: Did I just get lucky?
« Reply #2 on: October 04, 2011, 01:22:00 pm »
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I think this was just a weak deck overall. Not a lot of cheap good actions, no villages, etc. I suspect a big money + council room strategy would be the best, with an upgrade for some light trashing.

EDIT: I guess the luck you did get was to have an estate to trash with your single upgrade for 3 of the first 4 times it came up, so your upgrade never cost you a card on those occasions. But that's not massively lucky.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2011, 01:35:09 pm by Fangz »
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Epoch

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Re: Did I just get lucky?
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2011, 01:47:59 pm »
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I don't see any massive luck here.  It looks like your opponent tried to do something complicated with Actions, you chose a modified BM strategy.  And...  the something complicated with Actions was less good than modified BM.  We call that "a Province game," kids.
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timchen

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Re: Did I just get lucky?
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2011, 02:25:21 pm »
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Your opponent didn't play his game optimally. I am not sure, but with throne, bridge, draw and trashing, it is not impossible to pull a big turn around turn 15. How to achieve it seems hard here; maybe start with bridge/silver, upgrade to boot and later grab a workshop to boost. Buying silvers mid game is suicidal for this strategy.
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DG

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Re: Did I just get lucky?
« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2011, 02:25:59 pm »
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I think your only luck was that your opponent misread the kingdom a little. I suspect that sequence in which he was acquiring action cards could never match the sequence in which they needed to be used to provide the benefits he was hoping for. In other words, the throne/upgrade combination was seemingly the requirement and engine and product of his deck all at the same time.
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