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[Kuildeous]

Not every game has Forge in it.

Blasphemy!

[Warfreak2]

With Bridges/Highways on the board, it's typically the case that the things you want to buy immediately are more Bridges and Highways, even if their cost is reduced to $0 now. In such a situation, you might find yourself overpaying for a $0 Doctor.

[jonts26]

I only read part of this thread, but did anyone mention a possible interaction with minion (or any cycling engine). Sometime in the mid game of a minion engine you'll be cycling your deck and have all your junk in the discard and a good amount of cash to burn. If it's the type of Minion engine to stall when greening, sacrificing a turn to trash a ton of junk might be reasonable.

[WheresMyElephant]

With Bridges/Highways on the board, it's typically the case that the things you want to buy immediately are more Bridges and Highways, even if their cost is reduced to $0 now. In such a situation, you might find yourself overpaying for a $0 Doctor.

I was thinking something like this; if you play enough Bridges that everything you want is free,  then you have a lot of money left to blow on Doctor.  The problem though seems the same as with many late Doctor buys: how and why are you getting this fairly big Bridge turn prior to thinning your deck? Why are you relying on your engine to go off before you've thinned it?  Did you do a one time Inn buy, or something? It's especially strange with Bridge (somewhat less with Highway) because if you're planning on a mega turn you don't have this situation of "My deck works now but I have to make room for Provinces so I can keep going while I green," which in principle might justify a late Doctor buy in some other finely tuned engines.

Beyond that, I suspect the overpriced Doctor is comparable to $7 cards like KC, which also might be in the same situation of being the only non-free card you buy in a turn. It helps and all but it feels pretty weird to call it synergy.

[markusin]

Perhaps it's true that the on-buy effect is not designed to be great in many situations. There are times where you know you have mostly junk in the rest of your deck due to having played lots of sifters or something, but then it's likely that the junk is all in the discard pile and and using the on-buy effect causes a reshuffle that all your good cards miss.

Overall, using this card to its full potential requires good deck tracking and management. That's always interesting.

[Qvist]

Another cool and interesting card. Again, most of the things might have already been said.

I think it can best compared to Chapel. It's a great trasher in the first couple of turns, but gets really weak really fast.
Buying and Overpaying it on a 5/2 is really great as you may hit 2 Estates and can get a Doctor/$4 opening with 2 Estates already out of your deck. You might draw it even on turn 2 and trash 3 Coppers, so you have already trashed half of your starting cards, this is way faster deck thinning than with Chapel.

Other than that, it doesn't seem so strong. Trashing cards that aren't in your hand is great, no doubt about that because you can trash and still have probably enough money to buy a Silver or better. Naming a card at least has no drawback hitting 3 Colonies (at least that's how I understand it). But you really have to know what to name what makes it hard to guess in the mid-game. You're probably most naming Coppers, or Curse in a cursing game. If you couldn't find one, you at least don't have a Loan-like disadvantage in discarding good cards and just have a little bit of deck inspection, but all for the cost of an action.

The overpaying is great at the beginning, but I'm not sure when I want to pass a Gold or even a Province just to trash a few cards. If you have a lot of money in hand that means that you have a lot of bad cards left in your deck, that's true, but I rather buy a Warehouse (granted that it's in the kingdom) to cycle through my bad cards than getting a mostly dead card in my deck to just trash a little bit. I mean on-buy trashing is not only for the cost of money, also for the cost of getting one card in your deck, that isn't that useful. This means you have to trash at least 2 cards to make it worth it which means that you have to pay at least $5. Not being able to look at all the cards that you overpay for makes it even less powerful if you pay $5 and draw a Gold first. I don't think that the overpaying is that useful after turn 5, but having the possibility is great and something you have to at least consider.

[Watno]

I don't think this has been mentioned yet: The problem with buying this when having lots of money in a midgame hand, that might be because you have most of your deck in hand, which will likely include lots of the junk you want to trash.

[-Stef-]

I don't think this has been mentioned yet: The problem with buying this when having lots of money in a midgame hand, that might be because you have most of your deck in hand, which will likely include lots of the junk you want to trash.

In comes Storeroom to save the day. More cash & junk in discard.

OK storeroom is just one card, but he has some friends.

[soulnet]

One thing that was not mentioned (I guess) is that trashing from deck instead of hand (or instread of hand + discard like Hermit) is that, appart from letting you do something useful with your current hand, it cycles a lot, an in particular, it cycles your early trasher. I think Doctor can easily be faster than Chapel for deck thinning in the right circumstance (if you start buying drawers, especially non-terminals, Chapel will become better and Doctor worse, but if your starting buys are things like attacks or Durations that stay out a long time, Doctor may be better, as it has more opportunity to trash your remaining starting cards).

If you trash your three Estates quick, a couple of passes of naming Copper should be enough to clear your deck. So you can be absolutely done with trashing by T5 or T6, without the help of your drawing.

[SirPeebles]

Imagine opening Procession/Doctor, and then thinning out half your deck while replacing Doctor with Fortress on turn 3.

[Witherweaver]

Has anyone thought about how a Doctor/Squire opening with Familiar on the board compares with other options to get an early familiar?  With a 2/5 opening you have a 1/3 chance on turn 2 of trashing the squire you bought on turn 1.  Then you actually have a chance (14%?) to draw it on turn 3.  So 4.7% chance to play the Familiar on turn 3.

If you miss it, you can start playing Doctor and naming Squire, and get really annoyed when you draw both.

[werothegreat]

I just realized the thematic connotations here:

How much you pay for the doctor's visit depends on how bad your malady is, i.e., how much junk you have in your deck.

[SirPeebles]

I just realized the thematic connotations here:

How much you pay for the doctor's visit depends on how bad your malady is, i.e., how much junk you have in your deck.

I wouldn't say that.  You could have a ton of junk in your deck, but not be able to afford the Doctor's aid.  Rather, the more you pay the Doctor, the more assistance you're given.

[sudgy]

I only read part of this thread, but did anyone mention a possible interaction with minion (or any cycling engine). Sometime in the mid game of a minion engine you'll be cycling your deck and have all your junk in the discard and a good amount of cash to burn. If it's the type of Minion engine to stall when greening, sacrificing a turn to trash a ton of junk might be reasonable.

And you can play it (if you have some village) too to trash more stuff.

[gman314]

Doctor has to give you some reward for overpaying for it, to entice you to buy it. Ha, that's truly hilarious! With Scout, you commonly overpay for it by $6 or $7 money just to make sure you win the Scout split. No extra benefit necessary.

I would really like to see a log of Robz overpaying for Scout by $6 or $7. Also on my log wishlist, a game where the Scout split matters. Heck, a game where the Scouts run out would be sufficient.

Also, Robz, I'm holding you to what you said. I hope never to see any logs where you buy Doctor.

[StrongRhino]

I just bought a Doctor for 7 in a game where I proxied up Guilds cards, and through deck tracking I managed to trash 3 Estates. Then I played it a single time later to trash 2 coppers.

[ftl]

Would Inn/doctor be a combo? Buy inn when your deck is empty, have all your bad cards in the discard and all your good cards in hand next turn, buy a doctor and trash all the junk.

[Davio]

Would Inn/doctor be a combo? Buy inn when your deck is empty, have all your bad cards in the discard and all your good cards in hand next turn, buy a doctor and trash all the junk.

Doctor trashes from the top of your deck, not your discard.
Well, you probably knew that, but it's hard to get every good card in hand and have a deck of mostly junk!

[ipofanes]

I just realized the thematic connotations here:

How much you pay for the doctor's visit depends on how bad your malady is, i.e., how much junk you have in your deck.

I wouldn't say that.  You could have a ton of junk in your deck, but not be able to afford the Doctor's aid.  Rather, the more you pay the Doctor, the more assistance you're given.

This should rather be in RSP but it is a truism that the more medicine opens to market laws the more resources are allocated to where they are needed least (cases in point: cosmetic surgery and botox vs prevention of malaria).

[ftl]

Would Inn/doctor be a combo? Buy inn when your deck is empty, have all your bad cards in the discard and all your good cards in hand next turn, buy a doctor and trash all the junk.

Doctor trashes from the top of your deck, not your discard.
Well, you probably knew that, but it's hard to get every good card in hand and have a deck of mostly junk!

Well, I was thinking of a good inn purchase - your deck is mostly empty, everything's in the discard. You buy inn, shuffling all the good stuff into an empty deck. So next turn you get a turn where you draw all your good stuff first, and and have all the junk afterwards - seems like a good setup for a doctor purchase. Does take two turns though.

[brokoli]

I like the idea of Inn / Doctor, it could be quite good in a +action/+draw deck.

[Warfreak2]

The problem with having a big discard pile full of junk and then buying a Doctor is that you will trigger a reshuffle, so unless you can spend $10+ on that Doctor (and really, how are you producing so much with only action cards), you will trash a few cards from the top but then not see your action cards again for 2+ turns.

Besides, if your Inn superturns produce a lot of money, why not leave some Cellars/Warehice in your junk deck, buy VP, then cycle through to your next Inn superturn.

[thirtyseven]

10 in the supply + 1 randomizer = 11 Doctors. Donald X. is a Doctor Who fan.

[jonts26]

10 in the supply + 1 randomizer = 11 Doctors. Donald X. is a Doctor Who fan.

Name a card, reveal the top 3 cards of your deck? Costs $3. Half-life 3 confirmed.

[Gveoniz]

10 in the supply + 1 randomizer = 11 Doctors. Donald X. is a Doctor Who fan.

Name a card, reveal the top 3 cards of your deck? Costs $3. Half-life 3 confirmed.

Cost $3+, Half-life 3 and on all confirmed