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Author Topic: Request: Baker  (Read 20391 times)

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Compynerd255

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Request: Baker
« on: September 11, 2013, 02:12:53 pm »
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I know that there's a lot of discussion about Baker's Coin Token ability on the forums, but the wiki article does not yet have a strategy article on Baker. Do you think that someone who's played with Baker a lot could try writing one?

My main thought for such an article is that the most powerful aspect of Baker is it's extra Coin token. If used in the opening, it can turn a 5/2 into a 5/3 or 6/2, or a 4/3 into a 5/3 or 4/4. This permits a lot of new, powerful (almost broken, in some cases) openings:
6/2
- Chapel / Gold (Chapel / Silver on steroids)
- Goons
- Border Village
5/3
- Ensure purchase of $5 card on opening buy (chance does not decide whether you are stuck without the Witch)
- $5 curser / $3 cantrip
- Lab / Silver (or other $3)
- Scheme / $5 action to scheme
4/4
- Double Treasure Map
- DoubleJack

I haven't looked into what strategies you can take by saving the Coin Token - probably the same as other cards that grant them.
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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2013, 04:23:56 pm »
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For BM strategies (like double-jack) I suspect it's better to save the coin token either until you hit $5 when you wanted Gold, or $7 when you wanted Province. Two JOATs in a deck of 12 cards seems like you'd have about even chance of collision.
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DG

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2013, 05:50:03 pm »
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The baker is extremely simple but coin token strategy is extremely complicated. It would be possible to write an article on coin tokens but the spending of coin tokens will still frequently depend upon turn by turn value judgements for the kingdom cards.
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Compynerd255

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2013, 08:40:40 pm »
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For BM strategies (like double-jack) I suspect it's better to save the coin token either until you hit $5 when you wanted Gold, or $7 when you wanted Province. Two JOATs in a deck of 12 cards seems like you'd have about even chance of collision.
That's a good point - I would want JOAT, but probably not two JOAT. Baker/Treasure Map seems like a pretty dang good combo, though, as does Baker/Chapel with a 5/2 split.

The baker is extremely simple but coin token strategy is extremely complicated. It would be possible to write an article on coin tokens but the spending of coin tokens will still frequently depend upon turn by turn value judgments for the kingdom cards.
Do you still think that the extra coin token available on the opening buy is worth discussing, or would that be part of general coin token strategy?
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heron

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #4 on: September 11, 2013, 09:16:14 pm »
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I'm pretty sure Treasure Map/Treasure Map is a poor opening.
You have like a 30% chance of collision, and a 70% chance of wasted opening buys. Maybe it's good in 4p.
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Tables

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2013, 10:59:27 pm »
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I'm pretty sure Treasure Map/Treasure Map is a poor opening.
You have like a 30% chance of collision, and a 70% chance of wasted opening buys. Maybe it's good in 4p.

You don't need the TMs to collide on the first cycle for it to be good. Second cycle collision still makes it good.

Edit: A quick simulation: Opening TM+TM then playing BM wins around 57/40 against BM opening Silver+Silver. So obviously it's going to depend on the board whether TM/TM is typically going to be good or not, but that's not too shabby as a basemark.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2013, 11:03:30 pm by Tables »
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werothegreat

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2013, 01:25:16 am »
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I think in general you definitely want to use your initial Coin token, rather than saving it.  How you use it for your opening will, naturally, depend on the constitutional nationstate in question.
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Awaclus

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2013, 02:52:02 am »
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I think in general you definitely want to use your initial Coin token, rather than saving it.  How you use it for your opening will, naturally, depend on the constitutional nationstate in question.
Except for Familiar boards, you might want to open Potion/$3 and save your token in case a 2P hand happens.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #8 on: September 12, 2013, 08:38:02 am »
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I think in general you definitely want to use your initial Coin token, rather than saving it.  How you use it for your opening will, naturally, depend on the constitutional nationstate in question.
Except for Familiar boards, you might want to open Potion/$3 and save your token in case a 2P hand happens.

I dunno.  Potion/Potion could lead to double Familiars...
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werothegreat

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #9 on: September 12, 2013, 09:23:55 am »
+8

I think in general you definitely want to use your initial Coin token, rather than saving it.  How you use it for your opening will, naturally, depend on the constitutional nationstate in question.
Except for Familiar boards, you might want to open Potion/$3 and save your token in case a 2P hand happens.

I dunno.  Potion/Potion could lead to double Familiars...

Or two Potions and three Estates in your hand.
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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #10 on: September 12, 2013, 09:48:26 am »
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I think in general you definitely want to use your initial Coin token, rather than saving it.  How you use it for your opening will, naturally, depend on the constitutional nationstate in question.
Except for Familiar boards, you might want to open Potion/$3 and save your token in case a 2P hand happens.

I dunno.  Potion/Potion could lead to double Familiars...

Or two Potions and three Estates in your hand.

Is that any worse than Potion/Silver/Estate/Estate/Estate in a Familiar game?
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werothegreat

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #11 on: September 12, 2013, 09:50:06 am »
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I think in general you definitely want to use your initial Coin token, rather than saving it.  How you use it for your opening will, naturally, depend on the constitutional nationstate in question.
Except for Familiar boards, you might want to open Potion/$3 and save your token in case a 2P hand happens.

I dunno.  Potion/Potion could lead to double Familiars...

Or two Potions and three Estates in your hand.

Is that any worse than Potion/Silver/Estate/Estate/Estate in a Familiar game?

There might be Scrying Pool.  Or Poor House.  Or really anything that costs less than $3.
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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #12 on: September 12, 2013, 10:22:56 am »
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I think you want to be spending the extra Coin in the opening a LOT. That's just because of the cascading nature of Dominion where early advantages carry on a long way. The value of coins diminishes towards the middle game, because adding 1 component to 10 isn't nearly as critical as adding 1 component to 1 other. In the end, the value of coin tokens increases again because Colonies/Provinces are waaay better than Duchies/Estates (barring obvious exceptions).

Overall, the on-play of Baker is comparable to Market, quite a bit worse throughout the crucial middle game (missing the +Buy is hurtful) and a bit better in the end game.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #13 on: September 12, 2013, 11:21:31 am »
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Your opening buys are often less about buying your keys cards, and more about building the scaffold to reach those key cards.  That opening coin token is sometimes enough to significantly bypass that scaffold and go right for some key cards.
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Awaclus

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #14 on: September 12, 2013, 11:32:17 am »
+9

I think in general you definitely want to use your initial Coin token, rather than saving it.  How you use it for your opening will, naturally, depend on the constitutional nationstate in question.
Except for Familiar boards, you might want to open Potion/$3 and save your token in case a 2P hand happens.

I dunno.  Potion/Potion could lead to double Familiars...

Or two Potions and three Estates in your hand.

Is that any worse than Potion/Silver/Estate/Estate/Estate in a Familiar game?
Yeah, because if you've got Potion/Silver/Estate/Estate/Estate on a Baker board, you'll still be able to get that Familiar, because you didn't have to use your token to open Potion/Silver.
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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #15 on: September 12, 2013, 12:32:45 pm »
+2

Anecdotal evidence has told me that when I ignore Baker, I usually lose.
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WheresMyElephant

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #16 on: September 13, 2013, 03:57:59 pm »
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Do you still think that the extra coin token available for the opening buy is worth discussing, or would that be part of general coin token strategy?
I think it's just way too big of a subject to do any justice to it with a single article (and Baker games are too rare to write the enormous series of articles that would be required.)

To name a similar situation, you couldn't ever really write a single article about how to choose the best opening when you have a 4/3 split. Aside from a few basic opening principles like "trashing is good," this topic belongs to the hundreds of individual card articles and individual Kingdom breakdowns and so forth. How to deal with the Baker coin is basically the same question, except three times as huge: "How do I choose the best opening out of all the available 4/4 and 5/3 openings, plus the 4/3 openings with a bonus Coin token saved for later?" Even if the writer had as much experience playing 5/3 openings as 4/3 openings, which they don't, where would they start?
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Compynerd255

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #17 on: September 13, 2013, 05:10:47 pm »
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Do you still think that the extra coin token available for the opening buy is worth discussing, or would that be part of general coin token strategy?
I think it's just way too big of a subject to do any justice to it with a single article (and Baker games are too rare to write the enormous series of articles that would be required.)

To name a similar situation, you couldn't ever really write a single article about how to choose the best opening when you have a 4/3 split. Aside from a few basic opening principles like "trashing is good," this topic belongs to the hundreds of individual card articles and individual Kingdom breakdowns and so forth. How to deal with the Baker coin is basically the same question, except three times as huge: "How do I choose the best opening out of all the available 4/4 and 5/3 openings, plus the 4/3 openings with a bonus Coin token saved for later?" Even if the writer had as much experience playing 5/3 openings as 4/3 openings, which they don't, where would they start?
Fair enough - openings are far too wide a topic to be covered in a single article. I just think that if we did want to say anything about openings, the most appropriate place would be a Baker article, since that's the only time that comes up. And while you can't cover the subject in depth, you can say some general things:
- If you get a 5/2, you can now get a $6 as an opening buy.
- You're now guaranteed a $5 in the opening, no matter what. That's really good if that $5 happens to be a curser.
If you want to cite more specific examples, we could write those as combo articles. For instance, the Treasure Map / Baker combo article is definitely worth writing about, because the only reason Donald X. priced TM at $4 is so you couldn't ever open double TM - but now, with the Baker, you sure can!
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eHalcyon

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #18 on: September 13, 2013, 05:15:27 pm »
+4

Here is the Treasure Map/Baker combo article:

With the coin token from Baker, you are able to open TM/TM from a 3/4 opening.  This is still not that great an opening.  However, if you are up against a much better player, you may luck into a dominating position.  Jackpot! ;)



(Seriously though: maybe it's worth opening in some situations with mroe than 2p, where high risk high reward is pretty good, and also in cases where TM is already decent, e.g. with Warehouse.)
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werothegreat

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #19 on: September 14, 2013, 10:14:26 pm »
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Here is the Treasure Map/Baker combo article:

With the coin token from Baker, you are able to open TM/TM from a 3/4 opening.  This is still not that great an opening.  However, if you are up against a much better player, you may luck into a dominating position.  Jackpot! ;)



(Seriously though: maybe it's worth opening in some situations with mroe than 2p, where high risk high reward is pretty good, and also in cases where TM is already decent, e.g. with Warehouse.)

I think the best enabler for TM is TR-Armory.  But that does in itself involve finagling the collision of two $4 cards.
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Warfreak2

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #20 on: September 14, 2013, 10:34:28 pm »
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The best enabler for TM is probably Chapel/Ironworks.
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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #21 on: September 15, 2013, 12:17:28 am »
+32

The best enabler for Treasure Map is another Treasure map.
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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #22 on: September 16, 2013, 11:15:13 am »
+3

The best enabler for Treasure Map is another Treasure map.

Solid Gold.
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SirPeebles

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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #23 on: September 28, 2013, 09:43:33 am »
+2

Spending $6 on a Stonemason with Watchtower or Royal Seal.
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Re: Request: Baker
« Reply #24 on: September 28, 2013, 08:29:42 pm »
+3

A key $6 card (mainly thinking Goons here, maybe Altar too since trash->Baker is very appealing) is a reason not to spend the initial token on T1/T2 if you had a 4/3 split to begin with. It's pretty rare to hit $6 on T3/T4, but hitting $5 is normal, so that token is likely to get you the Goons when you wouldn't have otherwise.
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