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[WanderingWinder]

For some reason everyone seems to ignore the fact that Taxman top-decks the upgraded treasure. I think this eschews the impact on the current hand. No one bitches about leaving Watchtower in hand for the top-deck effect on buy even though doing so directly impacts the current hand.

You really shouldn't leave your watchtower in hand very often to topdeck, especially early, unless there's a terminal collision or it wouldn't have drawn you anything. Yes, there are exceptions, but most often, you don't want to do that.

Also, in an engine, topdecking a treasure is BAD.

[Schneau]

To me, the closest existing card to Taxman isn't Mine or Cutpurse or Noble Brigand, but Bureaucrat. Taxman often leaves a Silver on top of your deck and slightly hurts your opponent's turn, whether this one or next one; Bureaucrat is the same. The main difference is that Taxman trashes a Copper from your hand while doing so, which hurts this hand and helps future turns (if you don't want Copper). It's also different in that it can upgrade other Treasures besides Copper. The attacks, especially during the beginning, are actually quite similar. So, I think I'd give Taxman a slight edge over Bureaucrat in most games, where the ability to choose the Treasure to upgrade and the Copper trashing may slightly outweigh hurting the current hand. But, I'd say they're very close.

(Plus, that makes Taxman very appropriately named  )

[pingpongsam]

Put Taxman and Market Square plus another trasher like Apprentice as well as Platinum/Colony in any set minus the obvious goto cards such as Goons or Torturer and watch as every player goes for a Taxman/Market Square strategy. Try not doing it yourself and see how well you fare.

[SCSN]

Put Taxman and Market Square plus another trasher like Apprentice as well as Platinum/Colony in any set minus the obvious goto cards such as Goons or Torturer and watch as every player goes for a Taxman/Market Square strategy. Try not doing it yourself and see how well you fare.

I'm not too sure what you're getting at, but Apprentice/Market Square is a power combo that crushes anything involving a Taxman.

[TheMirrorMan]

A nice one with the Forager - Taxman opening. Of course it does not help that my opponent has 5/2 ...

http://dominionlogs.goko.com/20140221/log.50785f090cf28ed55d9d72bf.1393000416132.txt

[pubby]

Going to necrobump this thread with some data from simulation.

Here is the likelihood that you can hit a money amount at least once on turn 3 or 4 using Taxman as first player, compared to your opponent's chances as second player.

Code: [Select]

+--------------------------------------+
| Opening            |  $5 |  $6 |  $7 |
|--------------------------------------|
| P1 Taxman / Silver | 68% | 30% |  7% |
|--------------------------------------|
| P2 Silver / Silver | 74% | 27% |  5% |
|--------------------------------------|
| P2 T.Silv / Silver | 77% | 28% |  5% |
|--------------------------------------|
| P2 T.Silv / T.Silv | 60% | 13% |  0% |
+--------------------------------------+Notice how Taxman is more likely to hit $6 or $7 than their opponent.

[theright555J]

From my read of that chart, Taxman/silver gains about 3% chance of 6-7 and is a low probability spike anyway, however gives up close to 8-9% chance of hitting 5. On most boards it is more important to hit an early 5 than 6 or 7 (altar or forge may be notable exceptions), so to me the risk outweighs any benefit most of the time.

[Titandrake]

Oh, actually has anyone done a Taxman/Venture sim yet? There's a nice amount of synergy between the two, since Venture lets you use the topdecked treasure immediately and Taxman improves general treasure quality.

I don't think it's a power combo, but it has potential to at least be decent.

[jomini]

Oh, actually has anyone done a Taxman/Venture sim yet? There's a nice amount of synergy between the two, since Venture lets you use the topdecked treasure immediately and Taxman improves general treasure quality.

I don't think it's a power combo, but it has potential to at least be decent.

While there is some synergy, I don't think it would amount to "nice". Taxman needs to double tap cards to make Ventures, and you will start in slightly slower on buying the Ventures. Because Venture flips Taxman and you need to line up Silver/Copper with the Taxman. You just aren't that likely to gain many Ventures off Silver -> Venture without killing a buy. I mean if I taxman a Silver -> Venture and am left with $3, what am I going to buy? Silver?. Given that it also lacks +buy, I'm looking at a slow increase in money density and my payout at the end is just one VP card a turn. I'm just not seeing this as being nice. He trashes coppers to Silver and Silvers to Ventures, good, but when Venture is good his utility drops from cycling past him and the need to compete on Venture. When you do play him, you likely lose a $1 (Silver -> Venture, draw the new Venture with one in hand is a direct loss of $1. Copper - Silver can be neutral (if you'd Venture to a copper instead) or lose $1 or more (if copper -> silver breaks a Venture chain it could theoretically cost $14)

Where I find Taxman to be good are in places with lots of draw & draw potential. If I'm not mirrored then limited draw like Wt and Menage both benefit a lot in that drawing the top deck can be "free" (mirrors may well help the "attacked" player more). Taxman is also nice when I don't have to burn a real buy on it. E.g. I'm doing Iw to setup an engine. Rather than spending $6's on golds, I can get the Taxman, play him and rapidly build value. As a $3 value gainer he can work well in decks that cash out with scaling TfB (Forge, Butcher, Bishop, etc.), particularly if there is a viable chain of gain Silver -> Tax to gold -> trash Gold for benefit. I like to think he is better with potion decks, allowing for fun things like early double Pot buys and later Pot -> Gold "thinning" (also the fun of taxing a Pot, buying a cheap Pot card & a new Pot is hilarious), but I'm not sure that this is actually that useful.


One fun thing is that he can change optimal strategy without ever being bought. He works well at crippling money decks by discarding silvers and golds, so engine gets more breather room against money decks, particularly in the late game. Of course other players see this often and don't go money (taking a weaker engine). Engine against engine often means I need to contest the splits on village or draw more ... so I don't buy him early and late game it would take too long to get a real payout (he is, afterall, completely useless as an attack once your opponent can deck draw +1) to get him later.

Taxman does get better with strong $2 and $3 choices, but in general my experience is that he is best in engines, and best bought in the mid game where you don't start each turn after him with a reduced chance of hitting village+draw.

[LastFootnote]

Oh, actually has anyone done a Taxman/Venture sim yet? There's a nice amount of synergy between the two, since Venture lets you use the topdecked treasure immediately and Taxman improves general treasure quality.

I don't think it's a power combo, but it has potential to at least be decent.

While there is some synergy, I don't think it would amount to "nice". Taxman needs to double tap cards to make Ventures, and you will start in slightly slower on buying the Ventures. Because Venture flips Taxman and you need to line up Silver/Copper with the Taxman. You just aren't that likely to gain many Ventures off Silver -> Venture without killing a buy. I mean if I taxman a Silver -> Venture and am left with $3, what am I going to buy? Silver?. Given that it also lacks +buy, I'm looking at a slow increase in money density and my payout at the end is just one VP card a turn. I'm just not seeing this as being nice. He trashes coppers to Silver and Silvers to Ventures, good, but when Venture is good his utility drops from cycling past him and the need to compete on Venture. When you do play him, you likely lose a $1 (Silver -> Venture, draw the new Venture with one in hand is a direct loss of $1. Copper - Silver can be neutral (if you'd Venture to a copper instead) or lose $1 or more (if copper -> silver breaks a Venture chain it could theoretically cost $14)

I don't think Titandrake said anything about gaining Ventures with Taxman. Use Taxman as usual (Copper --> Silver --> Gold), then use Venture to play the Treasure you just topdecked.

[theright555J]

double Pot buys and ...  taxing a Pot, buying a cheap Pot

Hey, are you from Colorado or Washington, or on some other state legislature??  Sounds like government at work here 

[jomini]

I don't think Titandrake said anything about gaining Ventures with Taxman. Use Taxman as usual (Copper --> Silver --> Gold), then use Venture to play the Treasure you just topdecked.

Yeah but that doesn't work well either.

Say my hand is TaxmanVentCCE. I Tax C-> S, top deck it. So I play CCVent(S). Net money at the end of the turn: $5. Now suppose I just don't Tax. Then I go CCCV(something). Unless I have no other treasure in my deck, I will hit as much ($5) or more if don't play the Taxman. Venture has two effects: it "draws one card" but also sifts past non-treasures. When Venture is good you want as much of that non-random sifting as you can manage (assuming that you aren't worried about sifting past actions).

Where Taxman has synergy is that it does increase the money density by making subsequent Ventures likely to draw something worth more. This helps, but pretty much every copper trasher also does this.

[Titandrake]

If you just count the money you're getting it's nothing special, but you're ignoring the Taxman attack.

You're right in that if you play Taxman with Venture in hand, you guarantee hitting current amount in hand + $1, and if you don't play Taxman, you guaranteed current amount in hand + $1 or more. The theory I was considering is that it lets you do an incremental Copper/Silver discard attempt on many turns while downplaying one of the weakest parts of Taxman, which is forcing you to lose a treasure this turn to only gain one for the next.

[Polk5440]

Not a sim, but here is a game where I employed a Taxman/Venture strategy (sorry, log prettifier not working). I tried to use Taxman to do two things: 1) Get a gold 2) Turn silvers into Ventures to get a long chain going. Then when bloated with green, 1 Venture in hand may be all that is needed to hit $8.

This deck was only as fast as it was because of additional trashing (I opened Trading Post; Remake was an option). And even then, it's not super duper amazing -- just good enough.

So, not the most spectacular combo ever, but worth keeping in mind, I think.

[jomini]

If you just count the money you're getting it's nothing special, but you're ignoring the Taxman attack.

You're right in that if you play Taxman with Venture in hand, you guarantee hitting current amount in hand + $1, and if you don't play Taxman, you guaranteed current amount in hand + $1 or more. The theory I was considering is that it lets you do an incremental Copper/Silver discard attempt on many turns while downplaying one of the weakest parts of Taxman, which is forcing you to lose a treasure this turn to only gain one for the next.

Yeah, but how does the attack synergize with Venture? I mean it makes it harder for the opponent to hit $5, but that is true for any $5.

For $4, I expect something more than a gimped Cutpurse. Not to mention the fact that as I buy more Ventures, I will see that Taxman less and less (particularly as I DON'T want to play him on Venture).

Taxman increases money density, just like Mine. Unlike Mine it makes it harder to hit $5 this turn.

Now is there some synergy? Yeah, Venture likes high money density and C -> S is good for it. But much better is C -> nothing with a bonus that helps you buy a Venture. Being able to buy a province off just one or two Ventures lets you green a lot faster so I'd take an awful lot of copper trashers before Taxman in my Venture deck (e.g. Salvager, Moneylender, Spice Merchant, Counterfeit, Upgrade, Forager, Masquerade, Bishop, etc.); particularly on the boards where Venture is more likely to be good (e.g. Colonies) I don't want to do the slow creep up to my average Venture being worth $4; I want my average Venture play to hit $9 asap and then jump to Colony purchases.

[Titandrake]

So what?

It seems like your argument is that there are other cards that have better synergy than Taxman does. That's true. It also doesn't matter.

My point is what I said in that quote: Taxman and Venture are an interesting pair, because Venture helps shore up the weaknesses of Taxman and Taxman helps improve money density for Venture, while giving you an attack on the side. It doesn't matter than Mine is better for this than Taxman. It doesn't matter that Moneylender and Counterfeit are better at improving money density for Venture than Taxman is. These are all good points, but they're good points in a thread about Venture, not a thread about Taxman.

If you're under the impression I think this is a powerful combo, I've already said it isn't. It's cute, that's it. Since Taxman topdecks treasures, and Venture plays treasures from the deck, it seemed like it had potential. Based on Polk's game, it usually isn't going to be worth it, and it'll probably be worth it in games with almost nothing else going on.

[eHalcyon]

This is reminding me of the Counterfeit+Venture thread, except jomini has switched hats.

[Titandrake]

Oh my goodness why did you change your avatar to a picture someone else has used before.

AHHHHHHHH

[Gherald]

We have long known Mine is a weak card at $5, and only somewhat good as an engine payload you play almost every turn.

Superficially, Taxman looks weaker than mine. You have to wait until your next turn to get the benefit.

And yet, that can be a strength. We know that, without an engine, the turn on which we play our Mine/Taxman is going to be a weak turn.  Mine basically counts as a +1$ copper unless there's Platinum involved, and Taxman is even worse in that it subtracts money from your hand.  Right?

But think about that next turn. With Taxman suddenly you're guaranteed a Silver or Gold plus whatever your next 4 cards were. That's when you buy a nice $5 or $6 that you maybe couldn't have afforded before

So in some ways, Taxman has a mini Tactician effect.  (Haven is the more direct parallel, but haven doesn't immediately and permanently improve your buying power)

Frankly, I think Taxman is a better card than Mine. When there's no other good treasure trashing on the board I am more likely to buy a Taxman than a Mine, and not just because of the price point.

[eHalcyon]

Oh my goodness why did you change your avatar to a picture someone else has used before.

AHHHHHHHH

Only for this.  It'll change back soon!

[Chris is me]

The comparisons to Mine are useful, but they don't tell the whole story, as the thing that makes Taxman interesting is the attack. In some ways it's a lot like Cutpurse, without the immediate cash value, but it also attacks Silver or Gold.

So Mine has some problems. It's decent early game, and the benefit it gives you lasts for the duration of the game (more money density). It's slow to resolve, and as the game goes on it gets progressively less useful as your money is mostly upgraded. It's a terminal Copper the turn you play it which isn't that great.

Taxman doesn't fix all of those problems, but it addresses some of them a little bit and it's specifically a lot more useful later in the game than Mine. So as a $4, you get to start using Taxman a lot sooner, which actually helps a lot. It's an attack, so while you're taking weaker turns by using Taxman over, say, Smithy, your opponents are also a bit stunted to compensate. In many situations, enabling a bigger next turn is better than a bit of help this turn with no attack, but in return your deck cycling is slower.

The real strength of Taxman is that it can still be good in the middle to end game, particularly against an opponent playing with Treasures as the main source of income. If you're careful about deck tracking, both your own and your opponents, you can trash Silver or even Gold to neuter your opponent's turn, if you think it will do more damage to their turn than it's doing to your turn. If you have a $7 hand near the end of the game, you're already buying a Duchy, so you might as well Taxman the Silver for the attack. This isn't a GREAT attack, but it's got a bit of niche utility. I think the biggest factor in determining if Taxman will be useful is evaluating how strong the attack will be near the end of the game.

[Awaclus]

The real strength of Taxman is that it can still be good in the middle to end game, particularly against an opponent playing with Treasures as the main source of income. If you're careful about deck tracking, both your own and your opponents, you can trash Silver or even Gold to neuter your opponent's turn, if you think it will do more damage to their turn than it's doing to your turn. If you have a $7 hand near the end of the game, you're already buying a Duchy, so you might as well Taxman the Silver for the attack. This isn't a GREAT attack, but it's got a bit of niche utility. I think the biggest factor in determining if Taxman will be useful is evaluating how strong the attack will be near the end of the game.

Specifically against an opponent playing a big money strategy. It doesn't really matter if that Gold is in their hand or discard pile if they're just going to play a bunch of Villages and Smithies and draw it anyway.

But it's true that the attack can be pretty relevant. I think that Taxman is usually worth it only in a scenario where you have semi-powerful engine components, maybe some trashing too, but not really any good payload options other than basic Treasures. Those kinds of kingdoms can oftentimes result in games where one player is going for the engine while another player is playing big money, and Taxman is super good for the engine player in that case, because you can play it every turn to trash a Gold, topdeck a Gold, and then draw that Gold with something to more or less guarantee that the big money player gets all of his good hands hit by a powerful attack.

[jomini]

This is reminding me of the Counterfeit+Venture thread, except jomini has switched hats.

=)

I'm fairly precise on a lot of stuff. "Venture lets you use the topdecked treasure immediately"

Is an active downgrading of Venture. You sacrifice all your sifting potential and cap your potential cash draw for the dubious privilege of inflicting some possible penalty on your opponent.

Compare this to Cutpurse. There your opponent is down $1 and you are up $2 for a net of $3 towards you while it has no synergy with Venture you will hit at least $4 off Venture/Cutpurse. If you Taxman a copper? Well you both are down $1 and you get a whopping $3 out of your hand.

When Venture is dominant, Counterfeit is among the strongest copper trashers and certainly makes the largest relative jump from all boards to Venture dominant boards in terms of strength (e.g. Remake is strong but it is always strong). When Venture is dominant, Taxman is less likely to be played, it degrades the cycling aspect of your Ventures, it gets flipped often by Ventures, and it offers little to nothing for the end game. I'll take it over nothing on a Venture dominant board, but it has relatively little synergy.

[eHalcyon]

Counterfeit is always strong too, about as much as Remake is always strong.  I think you are right about Taxman+Venture, but Titandrake is pointing out small synergies the same way you were with Counterfeit+Venture (minus the Copper trashing synergy, which was already given before you joined that thread). 

But man, I have no desire to get into all that again.  I just thought the similarities in discussion were funny.

[DG]

This is reminding me of the Counterfeit+Venture thread, except jomini has switched hats.

=)

I'm fairly precise on a lot of stuff. "Venture lets you use the topdecked treasure immediately"

Is an active downgrading of Venture. You sacrifice all your sifting potential and cap your potential cash draw for the dubious privilege of inflicting some possible penalty on your opponent.

You don't sacrifice anything if you gain a venture on top of the deck. There is no 'sifting' from playing a venture, only cycling, and the quality of the draw deck remains unchanged. There is some extra shuffle/deck control from the choice of gaining a venture or gold on top of the deck. (all assuming you have a venture in hand).