Lighthouse, Develop, Urchin, Cutpurse, Herald, Ironmonger, JackOfAllTrades, Salvager, Count, Venture
If you allow me to change the title, thats for me : "Tricky Herald engine with Jack"
Here the Jack engine seems very interesting.
I would open ligthouse, jack. My first 5 i take count to trash the coppers (it seems the priority)
A lot of heralds, a salvager. Probably a 2nd jack, 2nd salvager. ironmongers
I think that can win over jack big money, but very dificult to play and you need to choose the good cards at good moment.
Thinking toward Jack-in-Engine: What about develop here? Not right away (I like mercenary for copper trashing) but a little later to trash those silvers into ironmonger/lighthouse or herald/lighthouse?
Thinking toward Jack-in-Engine: What about develop here? Not right away (I like mercenary for copper trashing) but a little later to trash those silvers into ironmonger/lighthouse or herald/lighthouse?
Thinking toward Jack-in-Engine: What about develop here? Not right away (I like mercenary for copper trashing) but a little later to trash those silvers into ironmonger/lighthouse or herald/lighthouse?
You should not buy urchins. From my plays when bot it accelerates jack by several turns with discards boosting 5->6 and 7-8
Urchin is purely for Merc trashing and that's it. If opponent sees you buying Urchin, they'll either buy a 3rd Jack or Lighthouses to make the attack not matter. I don't think it matters that it hurts if they don't have Jack in hand - the benefit on turns they do have it will outweigh it.
I'm not saying you don't want Merc, but it's definitely purely for the trashing if you do get it. I still think opening Develop and choosing between Count and Merc based on your turns 3/4 is better.
I noticed that JW never went for the Herald overpay to topdeck Gold or Jack in the lategame. Engine looks really tough for me here because Herald engines choke hard on VP and playing catch-up with Duchy gains is difficult. It doesn't seem likely that the engine will even consistently double-Province, so it has to try to consistently Province/Duchy, which means that the money strategy can't get much of a head start.
Very interesting to play this matches!
Playing 7 matches is not a lot but i would like to make a few comments on engine :
- the opening : i would say salvager/ligthouse or maybe salvager/silver.
I dont know clearly.
- count here is, for me,the key card.
Did you account for salvaging the Lighthouse instead of playing it?
Monsieur X and I played 7 games of this, with me playing Jack-money (with support from Lighthouse, Venture, and Ironmonger- probably bought too many Ironmongers) and him playing the engine.Here overpaying herald on turn 13 could get likely province on turn 14
We concluded that Lighthouse-Salvager is a nice 3/4 opening for the engine, because it has a high chance to get Count on the second shuffle, trashes down quickly, and keeps action density high for Herald.
I won 2 of the 3 games where he opened Salvager/Lighthouse. I won 2 of the 3 games he opened other things on 3/4. I lost the 1 game he opened 5/2 (Count/Lighthouse).
In order:
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140808/log.516ce511e4b082c74d7a526a.1407481538587.txt
Mr. X opens Jack-Lighthouse. I win.
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140808/log.516ce511e4b082c74d7a526a.1407482071939.txtperfect luck here
Mr. X opens Salvager-Silver. I win.
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140808/log.516ce511e4b082c74d7a526a.1407482749982.txtHere turn 14 topdeck two golds as previously said, otherwise on turn 15 I would buy salvager instead estate for chance to salvage duchy/province into province.
Mr. X opens Salvager-Silver. He wins.
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140808/log.516ce511e4b082c74d7a526a.1407483364734.txtHere turn 12 gold should definitely be duchy, I would be tempted to get duchy already at turn 10, mostly because you are behind when you did not get province yet so taking chances may pay off but probably its just unlucky game.
Mr. X opens Salvager-Lighthouse. He wins.
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140808/log.516ce511e4b082c74d7a526a.1407483878730.txtturn 13 topdeck venture it will likely be fifth province
Mr. X opens Salvager-Lighthouse. I win.
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140808/log.516ce511e4b082c74d7a526a.1407484468014.txtTurn 10 topdeck that gold jack instead second gold
Mr. X opens Count-Lighthouse. He wins.
http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/logprettifier.html?20140808/log.516ce511e4b082c74d7a526a.1407484989866.txtAlso perfect luck here
Mr. X opens Salvager-Lighthouse. I win.
I just calculated the chance that you hit $5 at least once on turns 3-4 with Salvager/Lighthouse vs. Salvager-Silver [assuming that you don't Salvage the Silver/Lighthouse]. Salvager-Lighthouse is about 67%. By comparison, Salvager-Silver is about 83.5% (Salvager can miss estate, so it is not as good as the standard double Silver chance of 91.2%: http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/06/21/opening-probabilities-part-ii/).
In general you buy too much treasures that could be used more effectively in midgame