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[AJD]

So, on another thread,

I've yet to play a board with KC that hasn't been an insane engine or megaturn game.

...and there followed some discussion about boards where King's Court is a bad investment because there aren't any other good engine pieces.

But what I'm interested in for this thread is boards where KC can be a good investment even without other engine pieces. Do they exist? Ordinarily KC isn't good in Big Money because you don't have enough Action cards to reliably line up your KC with one. So, you know, KC-Bridge is a great combo, but KC–Bridge–Big Money is not a winning proposition because you've got no good way of getting your Bridge and KC in the same hand, and when they're not, KC is a $7 Confusion.

KC-Wharf is probably fine for Big Money, but if you're doing that, you may as well make a whole draw engine out of it, nesting KCs to play multiple Wharfs a turn?

I'd like to nominate KC-Navigator as a decent Big Money combo, though (I mean, it can't really be called an engine): KC plus Navigator plus two Coppers or a Silver makes a province and three chances to try to ensure that your next hand has the combo in it as well, which in a deck with a decent number of KCs and Navigators could make pretty good odds. I played this combo once and won with it, though it was ages ago and I don't remember whether my opponent was playing well at all or not. What do you think?

And are there other good Actions to pair with King's Court for a non-engine strategy?

[DG]

Jesters can pair well with king's courts and perhaps swindlers too. You can find your deck overloaded with terminal actions, a tripled attack can be very strong, and you get 3x2 coins towards a province.

[Mr Anderson]

Any Curser, I guess.

[AJD]

Any Curser, I guess.

Maybe? I mean, like Bridge, it's great to have them in the same hand, but it's not really a strategy because how are you going to make that happen? In a game with Curses flying around, it's even easier for your KC to miss your good Actions.

[GendoIkari]

and when they're not, KC is a $7 Confusion.

I think it's awesome that we know enough about this game that we use non-existant cards to compare other cards to, and we pretty much all know the reference.

[Titandrake]

Maybe KC-Scavenger, putting back King's Court, Scavenger, Silver to buy a Province every turn. But you need two Scavengers (easy) and two King's Court (less so.)

[Just a Rube]

We probably need to define the parameters of the question: for these purposes, how are we distinguishing big money from engine?

By definition, anything using KC is playing multiple actions a turn (or at least, one action 3 times) which is automatically more complicated than something like BM+1 action. Where does it cross the line over into an engine?

[SirPeebles]

KC-KC-Scheme-Scheme-X

KC-Masq-Goons

Golden decks.

[shark_bait]

I'll play KC/BM after a short wait for my order of jumbo shrimp

To clarify, I don't see a rationale explanation for KC/BM due to the nature of the card.

[Mr Anderson]

Any Curser, I guess.

Maybe? I mean, like Bridge, it's great to have them in the same hand, but it's not really a strategy because how are you going to make that happen? In a game with Curses flying around, it's even easier for your KC to miss your good Actions.

But I think it is worth it, since a kinged Mountebank means that you are far ahead.

[jonts26]

Any Curser, I guess.

Maybe? I mean, like Bridge, it's great to have them in the same hand, but it's not really a strategy because how are you going to make that happen? In a game with Curses flying around, it's even easier for your KC to miss your good Actions.

But I think it is worth it, since a kinged Mountebank means that you are far ahead.

Just because the reward can be very high, doesn't mean it is necessarily worth the risk. Buying and then lining up a KC and mountebank with no support while being attacked with a MB yourself is an extremely low percentage play.

And for a real world example, just because you can win $100 million playing the lotto doesnt mean it's a sound financial decision.

[shark_bait]

Any KC/X/BM strategy would have to compete with BM/X.  With such a high opportunity cost for KC (Gold in BM), I don't see this strategy being competitive.  Especially when you need enough action density to hit it.  Most of the time, if your KC had just been a Gold, you would buy a Province anyways.  So I really don't see what KC can hope to add to a BM style strategy.

[Kirian]

Any KC/X/BM strategy would have to compete with BM/X.  With such a high opportunity cost for KC (Gold in BM), I don't see this strategy being competitive.  Especially when you need enough action density to hit it.  Most of the time, if your KC had just been a Gold, you would buy a Province anyways.  So I really don't see what KC can hope to add to a BM style strategy.

I have to agree with SB here.  Not only does BM-KC-X have to compete with BM-X, it's going to need some extra +Buy to take advantage of whatever is being tripled, whether draw or terminal Silver.  So that narrows the pool to X with +Buy, or strong attacks.  And now the question becomes, how often are you going to line up the two cards, and not otherwise have been able to buy a Province if the KC had been a Gold?

Of course, by the time you line up KC-Witch or KC-Mountebank, it's late in the game.  The whole exercise seems like one of frustration--or finding something that is better described as a combo than BM.  KC-Scheme and KC-Scavenger as described above are definitely combos, not actually BM.

[SirPeebles]

How about specifically KC-KC-Scheme-Scheme-Saboteur?

[jonts26]

How about specifically KC-KC-Scheme-Scheme-Saboteur?

I don't think its fair to call that big money.

[SirPeebles]

How about specifically KC-KC-Scheme-Scheme-Saboteur?

I don't think its fair to call that big money.

AJD isn't just asking for big money, not just non-engine.

[jaybeez]

If a deck that can play a KC'd Sab every turn isn't an engine then what exactly is an engine?

[Awaclus]

I'll play KC/BM after a short wait for my order of jumbo shrimp

To clarify, I don't see a rationale explanation for KC/BM due to the nature of the card.

I play King's Court/Black Market a lot of time.

[Schneau]

The only card I could see maybe being worth playing KC/BM with is Cultist. Since you can play Cultists you draw, you can pretty safely play KC/Cultist. Plus, KC might be somewhat useful with all of the Ruins you'll have, which will also lengthen the game.

Of course, it would have to be a pretty weak board otherwise to even consider this, and I don't even know if it beats Cultist-BM.

[AJD]

Any KC/X/BM strategy would have to compete with BM/X.  With such a high opportunity cost for KC (Gold in BM), I don't see this strategy being competitive.  Especially when you need enough action density to hit it.  Most of the time, if your KC had just been a Gold, you would buy a Province anyways.  So I really don't see what KC can hope to add to a BM style strategy.

I have to agree with SB here.  Not only does BM-KC-X have to compete with BM-X, it's going to need some extra +Buy to take advantage of whatever is being tripled, whether draw or terminal Silver.  So that narrows the pool to X with +Buy, or strong attacks.  And now the question becomes, how often are you going to line up the two cards, and not otherwise have been able to buy a Province if the KC had been a Gold?

So I mean, this is why Navigator was my example: KC-Navigator is only $1 better than Gold-Navigator, but gives you three chances to look for $8 for your next hand. Scavenger is good (in fact, better) for the same reason: playing KC-Scavenger both gives you lots of +$ and enables you to set  up your next turn to repeat the feat. You don't need +Buy or Attacks or non-terminals to get value out of King's Court; even relatively weak and inflexible effects like Navigator's filtering can become useful if you do them three times.

[jomini]

I've done it with some ultra-thin Big Money decks. My best was Chapel/Black Market/Kc. Opened Bm/Chap, bought 2 silvers, bought a Kc (deck was ChapCSSBm) and then Kc -> Bm twice until I pulled the Mountebank out of the Bm deck. Kc -> Mntbnk twice and his simple Bm (I think it was Catacombs) died a painful death. The basic idea here is that it is phenomenally faster to get the Mntbnk with the Kc and once you have it, you can get a Province swing in very little time. Giving the opponent -6VP and stuffing them with 12 junk cards is pretty big and buys a good bit of time to chapel down and buy a killer combo.

Another good shot was Kc/Mine/Chap. This was on a colony board, so Plat was big and two plays of Kc -> Mine is really all you need to stuff your deck with enough plats for 5 colonies. I did open Mine/Chap so this may not be typical, but trash, mine for a silver/buy a silver/trash, mine for a gold, buy a Kc, trash, Kc -> Mine for a 2 plats, buy a plat, Kc -> Mine for a Plat - buy colonies is pretty strong.



I've never tried, but I think Chap/Noble Brigand/Kc might be powerful on a BM board. You can poach a lot of gold/silver that way and just load your opponent with copper.


Never done it, but how does something like Chapel/Develop big money sound? If you have a good treasure at 5 (like say Venture or Stash) and something not terrible at 4 (say Spy) I might be able to see Dev (G -> Stash/Kc) then Dev (Kc -> Prov/G).

[dondon151]

In general, I think KC in money-ish decks greatly prefers terminal Silvers to terminal draw.

[Destierro]

If the board has king's court and draw (can even be just +2 cards), it'll usually be an engine. But on a board with no + draw, BM is usually better.

[dondon151]

A board with only KC and draw does not usually make an engine. You need light trashing, a cantrip, or terminal money (plus a +buy).

[loppo]

i've done some testing with KC / Scavenger last winter. This definitely is a thing if there is no engine available, and i've found this combo to be quite reliable.

You can set it up as fast as turn 7, when everything goes well. Usually you buy your first province turn 9 (avg. 9.25) and you get to 4 Provinces in 12.75 turns.

Once the Combo is set up, it breaks up in one form or the other in 20-25% of the games, and it takes you 1-3 turns to get back in line.

And every now and then <10% of the games you will fail to set up the combo at all. Attemting this on a 5/2 start seems to be a good recipe for desater as well.

Sample games:
the god draw
very fast
average game
breaking up and recover
breaking up and lose
failing

And yes playing this gets boring very fast.