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Author Topic: "Gilding the Lily" Recommended Kingdom -- Can you make Adventurer useful?  (Read 4072 times)

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GeronimoRex

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I had the chance to play Guilds last night for the first time. A friend and I opened the box and played through the three Base/Guilds Recommended Sets:

Arts and Crafts: Stonemason, Advisor, Baker, Journeyman, Merchant Guild / Laboratory, Cellar, Workshop, Festival, Moneylender
Clean Living: Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker, Doctor, Soothsayer / Militia, Thief, Moneylender, Gardens, Village
Gilding the Lily: Plaza, Masterpiece, Candlestick Maker, Taxman, Herald / Library, Remodel, Adventurer, Market, Chancellor

Obviously, it's pretty well agreed that Adventurer is one of the weakest cards for it's price in Dominion, but I usually have some faith that cards in the recommended kingdoms are carefully selected to have some interesting interactions and to showcase certain game strategies. However, on seeing the "Gilding the Lily" setup, my friend and I were surprised by Adventurer. In an effort to make it useful, we agreed to recost Adventurer as $5 for that game, to see if lowering the price would make it useful.

Both of us took different strategies and, even at $5, neither of us could find a reason to buy Adventurer. After the game, we discussed it, and still couldn't find any synergy between Adventurer and any of the other cards on the board. You could argue that Taxman/Adventurer could be useful, since Adventurer would pick up the top-decked coin, but in that game, so would Plaza, Herald, Library, Market -- all of which seem more useful all around, especially factoring in their cost. All of which (except Market) also have the value of being non-terminal. And since you need +Actions from Plaza to play Taxman/Adventurer, odds aren't great to get all three into your hand at the same time.

It's also strange to me that Masterpiece is on that board. Since Masterpiece is a copper except when you overpay for it, theoretically, you could flood your hand with silver, and hope that Adventurer would usually draw two Silvers, except that to do that, you would first have to build up a enough economy to overpay for Masterpiece, at which point, if you have that much economy, you probably don't want to be buying Adventurers, especially since there is no fast-trashing to get rid of Coppers.

Any guesses as to why, at this stage in the experience and life-cycle of Dominion, Donald X. would include Adventurer in this recommended setup? As I said, even at $5 cost, neither of us bought Adventurer on this board. I'm just looking for a strategy we missed?
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LastFootnote

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I'm fairly certain that Masterpiece/Adventurer is the intended combo. Whether it's viable is open to discussion.
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shMerker

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What I would try is using Taxman to lose some coppers and then Plaza/Adventurer chains with some Candlestick Makers thrown in for the +buy. Maybe also overpay for a Herald if the right opportunity presents itself.

That's if I had to use Adventurer. I'm pretty sure the same deck works better with Library in place of Adventurer.
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ftl

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Plaza/Candlestick Maker/Library seems like it would be a good idea. Remodel to turn estates into Plazas AND coppers into candlestick makers.
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Stealth Tomato

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Plaza/Candlestick Maker/Library seems like it would be a good idea. Remodel to turn estates into Plazas AND coppers into candlestick makers.

Yeah, that deck is going to be crazy powerful, especially since it can green in a megaturn rather than gradually with the Coin tokens and +Buys.
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GeronimoRex

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Plaza/Candlestick Maker/Library seems like it would be a good idea. Remodel to turn estates into Plazas AND coppers into candlestick makers.

After the game, that's basically what we decided the optimal strategy was for the board -- both arrived at variations of that combo, but neither of us got there optimally. I opened Taxman/CM and didn't get enough use out of the Taxman to make it worth it -- ended up being a dead card in my hand most of the game.

Not enough experience with Guilds -- we misread Plaza, and kept misplaying it due to a lack of careful read-through. Mechanics don't work quite the way we thought they did.

The great part about the Library/Plaza/CM engine is that you are better off NOT trashing your coppers... Plaza can discard them for coins, which clears them out of your hand for Library to do it's work... and potentially pick them back up again for more coins. And I'd pick up the Butcher over the Remodel -- gives you the option to turn Estates into CMs and pocket the coins or break even and turn them into Plazas.

Perfect deck for this scenario, that shouldn't take too long to set up, would be something like:

7 Coppers
3 Plazas
3 Libraries
1 Doctor
3 Candlestick Makers (though any number would work).
* Markets -- any number of Markets is a plus, but non-essential.

Let's say your hand has 3 Coppers a Library and a Plaza, nothing in your discard.

Play Plaza, draw a card (CM), discard 3 Coppers for 3 Coins
Play CM for 1 Coin
Play Library, draw 7 cards (C,C,C,CM,CM,Plaza,Library,Doc)
Play Plaza, draw a card (C), discard 4 Coppers for 4 Coins
Play CM, CM for 2 Coins
Play Library, draw 6 cards -- the 2 cards left in the deck (P,L), shuffle the 7 Coppers in your discard into your draw pile, and then 4 Coppers.
Play Plaza, draw a card (C), discard 3 Coppers for 3 Coins
Play Doctor, trash a Copper into a Copper, take 2 coins.
Play Library, draw 7 Coppers.

End of your turn, if I'm counting this right, you've gained 15 Coins into your hand and have 7 in hand to spend on 4 buys; I'd probably kick in two coins to pick up another Plaza/Library to help guarantee the engine activating, or maybe Plaza/Library/CM to get up to a potential of 5 buys. Or if feeling aggressive, you could overpay by 1 Coin, grab a province, and plan to grab 4 more the next time the engine fires.

It's a crazy engine, with high odds of hitting and storing ~15 coins/turn and has the potential for a huge lead without cluttering with Green.

Would love to see it modeled to see how fast it can set up, even with mediocre shuffle luck.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2013, 05:38:56 pm by GeronimoRex »
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Rabid

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Plaza only lets you discard 1 treasure card each time you play it.
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dondon151

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The great part about the Library/Plaza/CM engine is that you are better off NOT trashing your coppers... Plaza can discard them for coins, which clears them out of your hand for Library to do it's work... and potentially pick them back up again for more coins. And I'd pick up the Butcher over the Remodel -- gives you the option to turn Estates into CMs and pocket the coins or break even and turn them into Plazas.

The kingdom doesn't have Butcher. Even then I'd still pick up Remodel because you're not wasting the Remodeling increments by going from $0 -> $2 and $2 -> $4, plus you can open with it on 4/3. In an engine mirror I highly doubt that you'll end up changing all of your Coppers to CSMs anyway (since you should open Remodel/CSM).

If you have engine vs. money, repeatedly using Taxman on a Silver is a brutal attack.
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Stealth Tomato

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Perfect deck for this scenario, that shouldn't take too long to set up, would be something like:

7 Coppers
3 Plazas
3 Libraries
1 Doctor
3 Candlestick Makers (though any number would work).
* Markets -- any number of Markets is a plus, but non-essential.

I wouldn't waste my time on Market--Candlestick Maker is very nearly strictly better in that deck, so I'd buy two of those (or one Plaza) instead.

Doctor also isn't in the kingdom, and I'd prefer Remodel to it anyway. Start with Estate -> Plaza, later Copper -> Candlestick Maker.
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