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Author Topic: 5/3 Openings  (Read 20775 times)

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Just a Rube

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5/3 Openings
« on: June 03, 2013, 09:11:58 pm »
+2

So, now that we can open 5/3, how does that affect other cards? And when would you prefer 6/2 or 4/4?

A few thoughts, to start off:
-Mint. It's biggest problem as an opener is that you trash all your copper, and now you only have $2 left in your deck. Now you can open mint/silver (or something morally equivalent).

-Goons obviously wants to open 6/2 or 6/- if there is even decent support for it.

-If you're going Courtyard Big Money, do you want to open Courtyard-Gold, or is it better to save the token for later? Or even open Courtyard-Baker?

-Potion and another $4 (or save the coin so you guarantee to get that familiar)

What do you guys think?
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Robz888

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2013, 09:15:29 pm »
0

Yeah, that starting coin is going to be a game changer.

Think of all the weird double $4 openings you can do now, like double TMap, or double Young Witch, or double Sea Hag, or true double Jack right from the get go!
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ashersky

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2013, 09:23:00 pm »
+2

Yeah, that starting coin is going to be a game changer.

Think of all the weird double $4 openings you can do now, like double TMap, or double Young Witch, or double Sea Hag, or true double Jack right from the get go!

You forgot Double Scout.
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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2013, 09:55:47 pm »
0

I bet with familiar, you want to keep the token in case you get that 2p hand.

Double treasure map is probably still going to be bad. Because now it'll compete with the $5s. Will probably get a boost compared to like smithy-BM or something, but not against anything that's actually good.
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Titandrake

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2013, 09:56:56 pm »
0

Games with Witch/Mountebank/other power $5 will have less opening luck, because you can always get 5/3
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popsofctown

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2013, 11:28:38 pm »
+4

Yeah, that starting coin is going to be a game changer.

Think of all the weird double $4 openings you can do now, like double TMap, or double Young Witch, or double Sea Hag, or true double Jack right from the get go!
I would think Jack/Silver outperforms Jack/Jack, because the Jacks can collide and draw eachother.  And saving the coin for later means you can turn a 5$ Silver purchase into a Gold, which helps out a ton. 
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Fabian

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2013, 11:31:12 pm »
0

Yeah sign me up for Jack/Silver over Jack/Jack for sure. I even get an extra coin token for that first annoying $5 hand? Good stuff.
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Robz888

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2013, 12:16:16 am »
0

Yeah, I don't actually think Jack/Jack would be so hot. Well, maybe if your opponent is really going heavy for cursers or something.
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Davio

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #8 on: June 04, 2013, 03:00:16 am »
+1

At first I thought: Whew, equality, you can finally match someone's lucky 5/2 with your own, but then I read the Goons post.

Luckily, most nasty attacks are costed $5 instead of $6.

How about Treasure Map/Treasure Map? New nombo of the day or actually good? ;D
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heatthespurs

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #9 on: June 04, 2013, 04:03:27 am »
+1

How about Treasure Map/Treasure Map? New nombo of the day or actually good? ;D

The chance of hitting your two (non-drawing) openings together in Turn 3 or 4 is around 30%? (forget the exact figures...) So meaning you could in general have roughly one-third chance of getting 4 Golds by 2nd reshuffle. Seems too good to simply ignore...

That said, opening 4/4 also means skipping a 5-cost card as opening. So maybe the 5-cost card available defines whether it worths taking the risk of going TM/TM. Wharf/Fishing Village? umum....
« Last Edit: June 04, 2013, 04:06:49 am by heatthespurs »
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Davio

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2013, 07:09:46 am »
0

But the ramifications of hitting a T3/T4 TM/TM are pretty big if you're going BM after that.
In some cases, it could definitely be worth the gamble.

Say you're playing a high rated opponent, take the swinginess of TM/TM and hope it pays off. :)
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GendoIkari

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2013, 10:09:59 am »
+1

I definitely don't like that TM/TM is available now. The thing is, at 30.3%, it's not likely to be the optimal move, because twice as often as not, you've basically opened Curse/Curse. But a low-skilled player has that option, and if he does get his 30% luck, then suddenly he has a deck that will be very hard to beat. I'd be interested to see how fast a deck that gains 4 Golds turn 3 can get 5 Provinces. Probably really fast. Which means that you can end up in a situation where a low-skilled player has a 30.3% chance of beating a much better player without any actual skill needed.
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gman314

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #12 on: June 04, 2013, 12:21:14 pm »
0

Yes, a weaker player can win 30.3% of the time on the occasional board with both Baker and Treasure Map, but there are already more common boards where the approach is sufficiently obvious and P1 has just over 50% chance of winning regardless of skill difference. I don't think it breaks things too much.
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jomini

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #13 on: June 04, 2013, 12:26:07 pm »
+1

I imagine Tmap/Tmap will be fairly dominant in 4 player, 30% is better than equal skill at the "optimal" strategy. Of course like a lot of 4er, this makes things go crazy if other people join in (e.g. the old Moat is a better opening than Witch in 4er if everyone else has gone Witch).

In any event, suppose you only hit Tmap/Tmap on T7, is that really bad? I mean you are pretty close to even odds by T7. If you buy a province on T8 and a province every other turn from then gets you to 4 provinces on T14 and I imagine you have a duchy or two as well at that point. Having any remotely useful enabler is going to make this a pretty potent opening - say you just bought Tmap/Tmap and then Market squares until you hit. You might get a bonus gold when you trash the Tmaps and you might be able to buy Province/Duchy or Province/power 5 on your 4 gold turn. If you do slip behind a province, you can get to double duchy pretty easy there.


A few openings I expect to see:
Chapel/Hoard. Yeah using Hoard to buy an estate/gold is pretty bad ... but not when you are doing it on T3 and trashing 3 Estates as well.

Attack/Sage. Fast cycling, punishing deck destruction. Mountebank is of course preferred.

Scavenger/Attack. Lower odds of collisions and you can just keep pounding with 4 coin attacks like Militia and Hag. Scav/Scav might also be worth it - you can get a really reliable setup without having to skip out on buying economy.
Scav/Potion can be just nasty - letting you quickly cycle in the potion cost card or reusing the potion.

Hunting Party/Attack may be pretty nice. Swindler would be particularly nasty, but even Oracle or Urchin can be a quick setup for a punishing deck.

Workshop/power 5. Normally workshop is a terrible opening with strong 5's out - too hard to hit 5 reliably, but this may well enable you to stock up on easy villages while still hammering with a big attack. Engine builder's delight there.

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #14 on: June 04, 2013, 12:35:14 pm »
0

If you play against a noob, you can just tell them how bad tm/tm is, and they'll ignore it. At least if they know how good you are.
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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #15 on: June 04, 2013, 12:46:52 pm »
0

Yes, a weaker player can win 30.3% of the time on the occasional board with both Baker and Treasure Map, but there are already more common boards where the approach is sufficiently obvious and P1 has just over 50% chance of winning regardless of skill difference. I don't think it breaks things too much.

The weaker player will still have to recognize the TMap/TMap opening to get the 30% shot.  And isn't recognizing strategies, or lack thereof, really what makes a weaker player weaker?
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Robz888

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #16 on: June 04, 2013, 01:05:06 pm »
0

Well, these Baker coin starts are probably going to advantage first player anyway. And let's say it's a particularly pro-first player board to start with. Second player may want to bank on TMap collision decently often, then.
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Watno

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #17 on: June 04, 2013, 01:07:30 pm »
0

And it's not like the treasure maps would disappear from your deck if they don't collide on the first shuffle. If you buy nothing/cantrips, you have another 30% chance on the the nexst run through your deck.

I also think this will make village openings more common. The main reason for an early silver over village is that you need to hit 5.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2013, 01:09:28 pm by Watno »
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sudgy

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #18 on: June 04, 2013, 01:16:30 pm »
0

If you play against a noob, you can just tell them how bad tm/tm is, and they'll ignore it. At least if they know how good you are.

Whenever I'm playing against a noob and I tell them some strategy advice, they don't know if I'm trying to help them or giving them wrong advice and helping myself...   ::)
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   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm

Davio

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #19 on: June 04, 2013, 01:27:58 pm »
0

Well, these Baker coin starts are probably going to advantage first player anyway. And let's say it's a particularly pro-first player board to start with. Second player may want to bank on TMap collision decently often, then.
Yes, it is scary that P1 can always get a $5+ Attack card in the opening. IGG/X is always available, get that Curse in before the shuffle, people!

While I like the extra options this mechanic provides to the players, I'm scared about the effects it has on "pro" play and how much more it will swing the balance into P1's favor.

That being said, we have to agree that Dominion never intended to be a "pro game" (like Magic for instance). It turned out that way because people started to take it seriously and we were offered a very good online platform for it. If Iso never had existed and we could only play unranked games on BGG, I don't think this would be an issue at all. And of course all of the expansions have been designed without thinking that players will just play a single match and move on.

The effect of first player advantage is lessened in real life by making the player to the left of the winner go first the next game and you could get 3 games in with different cards in the same time as it would take for a regular worker placement. I still enjoy real life play the most, but unfortunately I rarely have the time for it and online is a decent surrogate.

All in all I think we have to accept that there will be cards which don't care a lot about the effect they have on pro games and the P1 advantage thingy. If they did, there wouldn't be any attacks! I'd rather have cards not care about that and be fun than care about it and be boring.
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Watno

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #20 on: June 04, 2013, 01:39:00 pm »
0

I really think swinginess is reduced by this. Being guaranteed $5 on the opeing turns is huge on many boards.
IGG on the very first turn is good, but to rare and insignificant to really matter.
The game acceleration helps P1, but i think the presence of many other crads accelerates the game way more.
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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #21 on: June 04, 2013, 01:45:13 pm »
0

That being said, we have to agree that Dominion never intended to be a "pro game" (like Magic for instance).
Magic was intended to be a "pro game"? Have you seen Alpha?

More on point, I am not so sure that this actually helps p1 so much. A little, probably yes, but you know, not nearly as much as a lot of existing cards. Heck, I think not that much over your run-of-the-mill card like, I dunno, village.

I'm pretty sure even having 2 maps collide on turn 3-4 won't just guarantee a win. I mean, it's nice, but I bet that there are a reasonable number of boards where I'll prefer my position *anyway*. Of course, there will be boards it's bananas, and in those cases, we have to remember that there's quite a good chance of getting it on the first or second reshuffle, and well, that's not such an unreasonable play, is it?

DStu

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #22 on: June 04, 2013, 02:41:32 pm »
0

Well, these Baker coin starts are probably going to advantage first player anyway. And let's say it's a particularly pro-first player board to start with. Second player may want to bank on TMap collision decently often, then.
Yes, it is scary that P1 can always get a $5+ Attack card in the opening. IGG/X is always available, get that Curse in before the shuffle, people!
Chances are good that it the only card that gives you the extra coin at the start, so you have (the potential for) higher first player advantage at ~5% of the games. Don't think that's such a bigh problem.
Also, it takes away the 5/2 vs 4/3 advantage in these games, that given you have an important $5 attack is probably larger.
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dondon151

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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #23 on: June 05, 2013, 11:07:09 am »
0

I'm not so sure that Goons/$2 is so amazing. I'd imagine that in most kingdoms, a $5/$3 is better for engine building. There are some kingdoms where Goons/$2 is strong, like probably:

Goons/Chapel
Goons/Lighthouse
Goons/FG (no engine)
Goons/Pawn?

But I will probably usually take a $5/$3 opening most of the time. In an engine game, the couple of VP tokens that you get from an early Goons is dwarfed by the megaturn. So opening Goons/$2 on most boards is like opening Militia/$2, which is not that great.

$6/$2 doesn't seem all that great. Off the top of my head, I would only consider BV/Chapel and Gold/Courtyard as other good openings.
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Re: 5/3 Openings
« Reply #24 on: June 05, 2013, 11:10:58 am »
0

Goons/Squire
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