(WIP)
Journeyman is an incredible variation on the terminal draw theme. Other cards Attack, or net more cards, or allow you to sift cards from your hand, or simply hang around until your next turn to do it again. Journeyman is up there with the best of them, but it requires some finesse to use. In the hands of the amateur player, Journeyman is no better than a Smithy. But to the player who knows their deck back to front, keeping exquisite track of their draws and purchases, Journeyman is pretty damn good.
What does it do?Journeyman essentially draws three cards that are not a specified card you don't want. That specified card gets skipped over, and all the copies of it are discarded once you've finished drawing. This is insanely powerful. Deck full of Curses? Traipse right over them. Out of Actions this turn? Skip right to your Treasures. It's almost a "fixed" Smithy - it draws exactly what you want.
But, you have to know exactly what you want.
How do I use it properly?One useful analogy for Dominion cards is to think of them as little computer programs, and as all programmers know, computers are stupid. They do exactly what you tell them to do, so if you tell them to do something dumb, they'll give you a dumb product. Journeyman, while powerful, requires you to have an intimate knowledge of your deck. That means keeping track of what cards you've already seen this shuffle, and keeping track of what cards you put into your deck. Optimally, you should be naming the current undesirable card of which the highest concentration remains in your deck. Let's look at several situations.
a) My deck is full of Curses. Well, name Curse, dummy!
b) My deck is full of Ruins. You're screwed. Try to guess which Ruins you have the most of, but Journeyman really doesn't like Looters (or Shelters, for that matter).
c) I only have one Action left. This is where your deck-tracking skills come into play - which Action do you have the most of left in your deck? You want to maximize the number of Treasures (or even Victory cards or Curses, to make your next turn better) coming into your hand. This card is not for the new player or the faint of heart - if you're playing in a low-+Action kingdom, you need to keep a very careful eye on what's in your deck (which advanced players should be doing anyway).
d) I have plenty of Actions left, and lots of Village cards. Honestly? Name Copper. You have lots of those little buggers in your deck (barring good trashing), and none of them are going to help you draw more cards. But be careful about doing this too close to a reshuffle, otherwise you'll find yourself starting your next turn with a deck full of Copper.
e) I'm going for a Big Money deck. At the beginning, name Estate, and as your deck starts to fill with Silvers and Golds, name Copper. Once you've gotten a few Provinces, start naming that instead.
f) I only have 3-5 cards left in my deck. Name something ridiculous, like the Queen of Hearts or something, so that you only draw three cards. Better to have crap than to have your Journeyman miss the reshuffle!
There are also a couple of more interesting instances. For example, if you have Tunnels, obviously name Tunnel - not only will you skip over "useless" cards, you'll be reeling in Golds as well, which you'll be more than happy to draw later on. Or, if you've managed to trash away all your junk, name your now useless trasher - you don't need that taking up space in your hand, and by this point you're usually comfortable drawing anything else in your deck.
For more advanced players, assuming good trashing conditions, keep in mind what is in your hand and what you need. If you played one Village and have three Journeymen in hand, it might be a good idea to name Journeyman (or another such card), to try to get directly to your Villages. Or if you have all your +Action cards in hand, name a non-drawing card instead. Also bear in mind that if you seem to have all your Curses/Ruins in your hand already, it might be better to name Copper, so you can draw some better stuff, and maybe actually buy something costing more than $3.
What other cards help my Journeymen?If you have the Actions to spare, any card that top-decks can synergize with Journeyman. If your Courtyard drew your Journeyman, put an Estate or Copper on top of your deck and name that. Did an opponent's Attack activate your Secret Chamber? Well, let's just put those Curses right on top there. But in general, Journeyman is so good at what it does, that it needs very little help.
Light trashing is a boon to Journeyman - Estate trashers like Hermit can allow you to name Copper with impunity, and later Province. Heavy trashing, on the other hand, turns your Journeymen into expensive Smithies, at least, until you start to green.
How do I stop my opponent's Journeymen?As mentioned above, Looters are very well equipped at stopping Journeymen, since Journeymen despise diversity. Similar to Hunting Party, Journeyman wants a deck with as little variation in "useless" cards as possible, so that there's as little choice possible for what to name. With five differently named junk cards being thrown into his deck, the Journeyman player will soon be very unhappy. And while discard Attacks in general usually won't be enough to stop a Journeyman player (Ghost Ship may actually help them), a Pillage can knock out a key Village from his hand, stopping his engine, or knock out his Journeyman, if he's going for a Big Money strategy.
In certain kingdoms, Swindler can be useful in stopping a Journeyman player. Swindler, in general, is a good Attack, and can stop a wide variety of decks, but this is not especially true for Journeyman unless there are cards in the kingdom that can be Swindled for your engine parts to increase the number of "dead" cards Journeyman will want to skip over. For example, if you're using Worker's Village as your Village, and there are Potion cards, you may find yourself running out of +Actions cards. And of course, Journeymen can be Swindled into Duchies, and Silvers can be Swindled into Swindlers. But in order for Swindler to really throw a monkey wrench into Journeyman's bad-card-skipping, there need to be suitably "useless" (to the Journeyman player) cards at most costs in the kingdom - usually unwanted terminals, as these can stall both an engine and a Big Money strategy.
ConclusionJourneyman is indubitably powerful, but not necessarily unstoppable. Keep track of what's left in your deck, and remember that if something is in your hand, it's not in your deck (i.e. don't name that card).
Synergies:*Homogeneous decks
*Engines
*Tunnel
*Top-deckers
*Light trashing
Anti-synergies:*Ruins
*Shelters
*Heavy trashing
