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[amalloy]

I played a kingdom recently that had me completely stumped as to the right approach:

I know Jack and Chapel are both strong cards, and I usually can do okay when I open Chapel, but I don't have enough experience with Jack to know what goes well with it (or how to play such decks). Chapel/Jack felt like too-aggressive trashing, and I didn't think I could put together enough of an engine to justify opening Chapel, but other than that I really had no idea what to do. As you can see from the log my early buys didn't really go together well at all (Shanty town, Jack, Silver, Feodum, Upgrade); I was just sorta buying things I could afford and hoping for the best. At some point I realized I was getting a lot of silvers and could probably make Feodum work, but I don't know if that really made sense.

So, what should I have done and why? Somehow I collected 4 Provinces and some hefty Feodums, but I don't understand why it worked out, or if what I did was even a viable plan or just very lucky draws or something.

[sudgy]

Just looking at the kingdom, I would probably go for something with Feoda using Jack, Bureaucrat, and maybe Taxman for the Copper-->Silver trashing, and throw some shanty towns in as well to play multiple of each of those.

If that doesn't work, double jack always is okay.

Note, this isn't on your game, just on the kingdom.

[eHalcyon]

I think I would open Chapel-Jack and aim for Feodum and Province.  Chapel is nice to get rid of the Copper, which Jack can't do.  After clearing those out, you can trash Chapel to Jack.  The trimming from Chapel also lets you play Jack more often, pumping up Feodum.  Province should be within reach thanks to all the Silver you get.  Probably a second Jack would be good, maybe even a third.  Shanty Town is a fine Village because Jack can draw anyway.  Not sure how early to go for Feodum though.

Taxman is not so great because you only want Silver, there is other Copper trashing, and Jack can draw back up from the Cutpurse effect anyway.

[Awaclus]

Jack isn't trashing, well it's trashing, but it isn't trashing trashing, because it doesn't make your deck thinner. Jack/Chapel is a very good opening.

[dondon151]

I thought doubleJack beats Chapel/Jack on average...

[eHalcyon]

I thought doubleJack beats Chapel/Jack on average...

Really?  But does that factor in Feodum?

[dondon151]

Really?  But does that factor in Feodum?

No (regarding Feodum). It's highly probably that I'm misremembering, but I remember someone posting a Chapel/Jack game awhile back and then someone else jumped in with sim results.

[Warfreak2]

I can't imagine Feodum would make Chapel better than just Provinces. Copper doesn't stop you from buying Feodum, and if you're buying more green cards (you'll also want Provinces), leaving those Coppers to pad out your deck is a good thing.

[dondon151]

I think the point is that with Chapel/Jack, you want to buy a Feodum early on (probably turns 3-4) and then trash it for the Silvers. Later on you buy more Feodums if you need the VP.

[Warfreak2]

But Jack can trash Feodum too. Maybe we need simulators, but I still can't imagine that Feodum makes the Chapel a better addition to the deck.

[Mic Qsenoch]

You are a lot more likely to line up your Feodum for trashing if you've used Chapel to thin your deck. You will be able to gain more Silvers as well because you will play your Silver gainers more often. It also gives you a decent chance of playing multiple Silver gainers a turn on this board with Shanty Town for + actions. I can't say which approach is better, but those are some of the advantages of Chapel.

[DG]

Looking at the logs I don't think the opponent played the chapel right and that could be misclicks. Otherwise I think chapel-jack into a silver/foedum/province deck should be (nearly) as good as anything else.

Double jack is a good standard but there's usually something else in a kingdom that can be put with a jack. There are plenty of options in this kingdom.

[werothegreat]

I thought doubleJack beats Chapel/Jack on average...

Are the two strategies necessarily mutually exclusive?  You can open Chapel/Jack and pick up another Jack.

[soulnet]

With Shanty Town, I would even get more than 2 Jacks eventually. Is not really an engine with all the Silver, but it will get you to Provinces and leave Feodum worthing a good number, possibly more than Duchies, which is a nice turn-to when PPR comes. Taking Feodum to 6 VP to fight Provinces seems hard, but 4 VP (12 Silvers) should be easily doable. I woud not buy Silver until the end, to pump up Feodum. If the only terminal is Jack, Shanty Town is (almost) always at least a cantrip, thus better than Silver.

I would open Chapel/Jack, then go on to buy ST and trash everything but Silvers, Shanty Towns and Jacks. I don't like trashing Feodum for Silvers early, if that Feodum was a Jack, it seems it would be better because its likely to be played 3 times or more.

[WanderingWinder]

I thought doubleJack beats Chapel/Jack on average...

Are the two strategies necessarily mutually exclusive?  You can open Chapel/Jack and pick up another Jack.

He means optimal-numbers-of-jacks-without-chapel vs optimal-numbers-of-jacks-after-chapel.



The one without chapel won if there was nothing else on the board, but it was 50-45 or something IIRC.

[ConMan]

http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20130917/log.505fb44f0cf2dfcf7c289d67.1379462122398.txt

I had a go at this, opening Chapel/Jack, and had some annoying shuffle luck in places - the Chapel collided with a Jack the first two times around, and both Jacks collided on a later shuffle - but as a whole the strategy worked pretty well. On second thoughts, I'm coming around to soulnet's point of view that an early Feodum might be a trap, except that it will never be a bad thing for it to collide with either of the trashers, whereas having an extra Jack increases the chance of terminal collision. I think it may be a very situational decision.

[soulnet]

I had a go at this, opening Chapel/Jack, and had some annoying shuffle luck in places - the Chapel collided with a Jack the first two times around, and both Jacks collided on a later shuffle - but as a whole the strategy worked pretty well. On second thoughts, I'm coming around to soulnet's point of view that an early Feodum might be a trap, except that it will never be a bad thing for it to collide with either of the trashers, whereas having an extra Jack increases the chance of terminal collision. I think it may be a very situational decision.

Just to clarify, my point on the early Feodum being a trap assumed you were going to load up on Shanty Towns and Jacks, so terminal collision is not really a big problem.

[ConMan]

I had a go at this, opening Chapel/Jack, and had some annoying shuffle luck in places - the Chapel collided with a Jack the first two times around, and both Jacks collided on a later shuffle - but as a whole the strategy worked pretty well. On second thoughts, I'm coming around to soulnet's point of view that an early Feodum might be a trap, except that it will never be a bad thing for it to collide with either of the trashers, whereas having an extra Jack increases the chance of terminal collision. I think it may be a very situational decision.

Just to clarify, my point on the early Feodum being a trap assumed you were going to load up on Shanty Towns and Jacks, so terminal collision is not really a big problem.

I was assuming a Chapel/Jack opening, hopefully picking up a Shanty Town on the first reshuffle, and then a second ST and Jack would probably come next. The luck could very easily go against you on the first couple of shuffles and land you with a few terminal collisions.

[flies]

upgrade isn't a bad option here if you should happen to have $5-7, 3 jacks, and it's not too late.  Removes copper and reduces handsize for jack, both of which help get to $8, and it turns silver into feodum.  Upgrading feodum into duchy will be a +points play in most cases.

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130922/log.5075b25251c30da02a09b898.1379873759837.txt

34 points by turn 14, opening jack/chapel.  (Note the ideal turn 5 where i was able to draw my whole deck.)

Do people have thoughts on trashing feoda?  My sense is that you probably want to trash the first one you get, but that's playing against bots who seem to prefer island to feodum.

Basically, my program would be thus: open chapel/jack (or upgrade/chapel on 5/2).  Get two ST and 3 jack, potentially the odd upgrade before switching to green.  Do not buy gold.  Trash one feodum early if the opportunity presents itself and your opponent isn't contesting them.