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[TheEmerged]

Hello and thank you for your time. 

For starters, some heavily abbreviated backstory.  Our local gaming group has recently been catching up on board\card games that came out when most of us were playing World of Warcraft and Skyrim.  Thanks to a bookstore going-out-of-business sale, I found a copy of Dominion cheap and picked it up.  I took it to a session where we were planning on a number of different games and ended up spending most of the time with Dominion.  Based on some comments by other board\card game players at work, I picked up the Prosperity expansion next (full cost).  Just for the record, Intrigue is probably next but likely a couple of months off.

My current skill level could probably be described as "Can often beat Big Money, but still usually playing Big Money + (insert here)."  I can't quite reliably get an engine going yet.

I have some particular questions about the card King's Court, which I seem to have some trouble getting to work right.  I've seen it work a few times, even spectacularly once (hand was King's Court, Mint, Platinum, Watchtower, Copper).  Most of the time, however, I'm seeing it either drawn solo (the only action card in the hand) or played on an engine-type action (Village\Workers Village\City\Vault).  I checked around the site & the wiki (which were a lot of help with other cards) but I seem to be missing some key detail here.

To Wit...

1> Am I missing something obvious about the type of deck that wants to buy it?  It's somewhat less than satisfactory in my probably-incomplete engine type decks (entirely possible I'm more of a "Village Idiot" than I realize), and seems to have an annoying tendency to be drawn solo in any other type of deck I'm trying it in.

2> How should this work with the ratio of action cards in the deck?  If the normal ratio is "just shy of 1 action card per 5 cards in deck, unless it's a cantrip", how should I be figuring KC into this?

3> I'm a touch confused about some of the rules regarding its timing.  I understand for example how it works with Goon (I'll get the +coin and +buy functions three times, but victory token effect only happens once because there's still only one Goon in play).  I'm pretty sure I got the "spectacular" example above correct (the Platinum remained in my hand, so each time the Mint copied it).  I'm faily certain that (for example) Expand I would have to use it on three different cards in my hand because the expanded card gets trashed each time.  But what about something like Mine?  Would I be able to start with trashing a Copper to gain a Silver, then trashing that Silver for a Gold, and then that Gold for a Platinum?  Or would that fall under the rule about other effects not resolving during the King's Court?

Thank you for your time.

[DG]

Basically all you assumptions are right. Once you can build better engine style decks you will not only get less 'dead' draws, you'll also have a choice of actions in hand to use with king's court for maximum benefit.

From question 2 I'll assume that you're not trashing many cards out from your deck. It is often easier to improve your draws by trashing out the rubbish rather than by adding more and more cards with diminishing effect.

[eHalcyon]

King's Court doesn't do anything on its own, which means strategy is very dependent on what else in the kingdom.  As a very general rule of thumb, it's best when you have high action density.  If you are consistently drawing it dead (in a hand with no other actions), then you are probably not getting enough actions or trashing out the junk.  Of course, you also need to have actions that you actually want to play multiple times.

Your problem is probably that you are still learning to build real engines.  KC is stellar in an engine, but not that great in a BM (Big Money) deck.  As a starting point, look for strong trashing (e.g. Chapel always, Mint if you can do it with 4+ Copper).  This should help you line up KC with other actions.  If you have a good way to increase hand size (Village+Smithy, for a very simple example) that can also help you put KC together with a payload.

You may also be having trouble identifying the best payloads.  You mentioned Mint-Platinum as your spectacular example.  That is indeed pretty cool, but you also have to be careful with that idea.  A powerful engine doesn't necessarily need any treasure at all, and KC-Mint doesn't help your current turn at all.  It'll often be better to use KC on a stacking attack like Mountebank, money cards like Grand Market or Monument, or draw cards like Smithy or Rabble (especially if you can get some extra actions beforehand and put together additional KC combos from your newly drawn big hand).  You mention playing it on an engine-y card like the various village cards, which is not that bad as long as you can do something with that afterwards.  That depends on the construction of the rest of your deck though.

And of course, don't forget about the ability to play KC on another KC.

If you get Intrigue, watch out for KC in combination with Bridge, Torturer, Minion, and especially Masquerade.

On your specific questions...

1. KC is definitely best in engines.  You just need some more experience in engine building, especially in getting the payload cards.

2. You definitely want a higher action density.  More cantrips are fine.  Even weak cards can be decent when played with KC.

3. KC-X is like playing X three times, except that it doesn't use up an action each time you play that X.  Just carry out the effects of X three times in succession, as if you had played a real copy of it from your hand.  Your Mint example works fine.  Yes, with Expand you would have to use it on three different cards from your hand (unless you have Fortress from the Dark Ages expansion).  You can Mine a Copper directly into a Platinum with the three plays you get of Mine.

I'm not sure what you mean by "rule about other effects not resolving during the King's Court".  All effects from card X are resolved before you play X again.

[Jake L]

The trick to playing KC games is usually to line up KC + KC + any draw card to start a chain of events that will set up a win.  For example, King's Court a King's Court, now you have three KC to play.  Use the first one on a Smithy, drawing nine cards with two active KCs left.  Use one on another KC you have just drawn, now you have four KC.  Draw nine off another Smithy and now you have drawn your deck and can KC more KCs and some very strong actions such as Goons or Monument or a Saboteur etc.

It is not easy to get to this state, however.  First you must have $7 for KCs and Silvers are not great for this style of deck.  Trashing, while important, usually slows your economy down a bit and makes the $7 goal take a bit longer.  You must be patient when building KC decks as you will often see an opponent get a pretty nice lead of Provinces before you go off, so make sure that the important cards at the end of your chain are actually good enough to win the game.

There is certainly an element of luck when attempting this deck style but I can assure you it usually pays off if the final actions can allow you to either A) buy a pile of Provinces and Duchies in one turn B) accumulate a huge amount of victory tokens or C) neuter your opponent's deck with cards like Knights, Saboteur, Witch or Pirate Ship.

[theJester]

To expand upon what others have said:

1> Am I missing something obvious about the type of deck that wants to buy it?  It's somewhat less than satisfactory in my probably-incomplete engine type decks (entirely possible I'm more of a "Village Idiot" than I realize), and seems to have an annoying tendency to be drawn solo in any other type of deck I'm trying it in.

2> How should this work with the ratio of action cards in the deck?  If the normal ratio is "just shy of 1 action card per 5 cards in deck, unless it's a cantrip", how should I be figuring KC into this?

Since these two questions are connected, I'll answer them together.

I'm not an expert Dominion player, but more I'm learning, the more I realize how important trashing is for building an engine. In King's Court's case, this is especially important, since your 10 starting cards prevent you from connecting KC with powerful action cards you want. Imagine you draw KC with three coppers and an estate: if you had trashed estates and coppers, you would have likely have drawn KC with action card you need.

So don't be afraid to trash aggressively. If you have many coppers in play, buy a Mint. If Moneylender is on a board, it's often recomendabble to buy it on turn 1 or 2 (since it trashes coppers and gives you money for it). Consider opening Loan to clear out your starting coppers. And above all, Chapel is almost an obligatory opening buy in vast majority of games it appears in. Lesser coppers and estates you have in your deck, the better are the chances you'll draw KC with an useful action card.

Secondly, don't overbuy your treasures, even Golds or Platinums. If you have enough virtual money (i.e. action cards that give you coins) coming from cards like Market, Peddler, Grand Market, Monument, Festival, Goons (or many others), then you don't need treasure cards at all. In such decks, action cards can take up to 80%+ of total cards in deck, or even 100% before buying victory cards.

If you don't have virtual money in your deck, then it's often enough to have small number of high-value treasures. If you can draw your entire deck each turn (which is often plausible, especially with KC+card drawer), then having 3 Golds in your entire deck (which you'll draw each turn) is enough to buy you a Province each turn. There's no need to continue buying Golds (unless you plan on buying 2 Provinces each turn)

I've seen it work a few times, even spectacularly once (hand was King's Court, Mint, Platinum, Watchtower, Copper).  Most of the time, however, I'm seeing it either drawn solo (the only action card in the hand) or played on an engine-type action (Village\Workers Village\City\Vault).  I checked around the site & the wiki (which were a lot of help with other cards) but I seem to be missing some key detail here.

King's Court can get way better (and more interesting) than that . KC-Laboratory gives you +3 actions and +6 cards; KC-Monument +6 coins and +3 VP tokens, KC-Smithy +9 cards. Above all, KC is deadly with certain attacks: KC-Witch gives your opponent 3 curses and lets you draw 6 cards, while KC-Mountebank burdens him with 6 junk cards. KC + Saboteur (card from Intrigue set) can really mess up you opponent's deck in quite a nasty way.

I wish you the joy of playing KC when you draw it in the right hand and realize how awesome it can be .

[Awaclus]

and especially Masquerade.

Is just plain KC/Masquerade that bad? I guess you can still trash your opponent's deck eventually, but he's still getting to play his turn so you would need to set that up pretty fast. It's absolutely brutal with Goons, though.

[eHalcyon]

and especially Masquerade.

Is just plain KC/Masquerade that bad? I guess you can still trash your opponent's deck eventually, but he's still getting to play his turn so you would need to set that up pretty fast. It's absolutely brutal with Goons, though.

Didn't want to get into it too much. It's not just Goons, but other discard attacks too, like Militia. Without the attack, the partial pin still hurts but you have a good way out -- play your own Masq.

[KingZog3]

and especially Masquerade.

Is just plain KC/Masquerade that bad? I guess you can still trash your opponent's deck eventually, but he's still getting to play his turn so you would need to set that up pretty fast. It's absolutely brutal with Goons, though.

Didn't want to get into it too much. It's not just Goons, but other discard attacks too, like Militia. Without the attack, the partial pin still hurts but you have a good way out -- play your own Masq.

Except the only real way to do the pin is to have a deck of cantrips/villages, then play KC Masq. That way you probably have something like a village to pass over. Not as good, but still means the partial pin is attainable.

[TheEmerged]

Thank you for the responses.  I did another 'test' run this morning (myself playing all four decks) to try and sort some of this out.  The kingdom was Chapel, Watchtower, Feast, Quarry, City, Mine, Mountebank, Vault, Expand, and a tenth one that escapes me right now.  Colony & Plat were in the supply as well.

If I came across as bad-mouthing the the card, that wasn't my intent.  I was just seeing a gap between the way people were talking about the card & how effective it *looked*, versus how little I'd seen it accomplish in play since it always seemed to come up bare or with something ineffective like Chapel or Watchtower.

RE: Comments regarding Mountebank.  See, this looks like it would be awesome, but I've yet to see this one land.  In this run one of the decks ended with 33 cards - including 5 MB's, a chapel, and two KC's.  Most of the time KC was drawn bare, and the other two times it was drawn with Chapel.

RE: Trashing.  I believe there's a good point here, but the ironic thing is I've seen KC drawn with a Chapel almost as much as I have any other combination.  I feel like half the time I'm buying too many chapels and the other half I'm not buying enough.  I may be back on the board for more advice here in the future.

RE: Engine.  Okay, so my instincts were partially right that I was looking for KC in the wrong kind of deck.  I had two of them in a deck with a lot of Cities this time and... at least twice, the deck had every card either in hand or in play.  Copy-paste that "I may be back" comment above here too (so far, I've only been able to reliably create engines with City).

RE: Timing\question 3.  It appears I was reading too much into a comment on the wiki about other effects not resolving until KC itself was resolved.  It was making me wonder if other cards weren't supposed to come into the hand until it was done.  Interestingly, the Expand example I mentioned actually came up during this test run.

Thanks again for the answers.

[sudgy]

RE: Comments regarding Mountebank.  See, this looks like it would be awesome, but I've yet to see this one land.  In this run one of the decks ended with 33 cards - including 5 MB's, a chapel, and two KC's.  Most of the time KC was drawn bare, and the other two times it was drawn with Chapel.

Just having Montebanks and KCs isn't enough, you usually want it with an engine.  If you are just going Montebank+BM, you aren't going to want KCs.

RE: Trashing.  I believe there's a good point here, but the ironic thing is I've seen KC drawn with a Chapel almost as much as I have any other combination.  I feel like half the time I'm buying too many chapels and the other half I'm not buying enough.  I may be back on the board for more advice here in the future.

You only need one chapel.  And if you feel you need more, you're doing it wrong.  You want to get a chapel on either turn one or two, and whenever it's in your hand, you trash all the coppers and estates you can.

[florrat]

So one thing I want to point out is that you have a misconception about how to connect King's Court with something else. If you want to connect a KC with a Mountebank is NOT to buy as much Mountebanks as possible. You want to buy 1 or 2 Mountebanks, but use King's Court + drawer to draw a large portion of your deck, so that you are (almost) guaranteed to have a KC and a Mountebank in the same hand. This will probably be illustrated better if you replace Feast in your Kingdom with Smithy. Then you can play KC-KC-Smithy to draw a lot of cards, and then play Mountebank on the next KC (or if you have a slightly less lucky hand something like City - KC-Smithy - KC-Mountebank) (in your kingdom this can be done as well with KC - activated city or KC - Vault, but less efficiently).

Also, about Chapel you (almost) never want more than 1 Chapel. However, you want that Chapel early (always turn 1 or turn 2) and trash fast and hard: the first hand with your Chapel you want to trash ALL coppers+estates in that hand (and your second hand probably as well, but then you have to make sure you still have $3 in your deck to be able to buy a Silver). Once your deck is small, it will be easier to trash away all coppers and curses you gain from Mountebanks, and much easier to connect key cards (like KC + Smithy) to draw a large portion of your deck and have a useful turn.

[TheEmerged]

You only need one chapel.  And if you feel you need more, you're doing it wrong.  You want to get a chapel on either turn one or two, and whenever it's in your hand, you trash all the coppers and estates you can.

It's more Curses, as I seem to have an amusingly consistent ability to have either Witch or Mountebank drawn when randomly drawing kingdom cards.  I haven't managed both yet, but it's likely just a matter of time.

[eHalcyon]

I don't think anybody thought you were bad-mouthing the card, and even if that were the case people wouldn't be personally offended or anything.  Don't worry about it -- this is a forum for questions and discussion.

Re: Mountebank, did you have other action cards?  You probably don't want 5 MBs, you probably want more than 2 KCs, and you want other cards to form the engine.  MB is a potential payload and you might get 2-3; 5 is probably a bit much.  With an engine, your goal is to draw through your deck quickly and play everything often.  With just one MB, a good engine with KC may still manage to play it three times every turn.

Re: trashing, this is always difficult for newer players to wrap their heads around.  If you are going to trash with Chapel, you buy it in an opening hand and you never buy another.  When you play it, you trash all 4 Estates/Coppers that you draw it with, no questions asked.  Now, there may be exceptions to these rules of thumb, but they are rare.  The real skill is figuring out when not to go Chapel, as well as figuring out how to continue building up the deck while trashing heavily.  Right now, you are probably not trashing aggressively enough in the early game.

Re: engine, City is actually a mediocre card.  In many games, it's a trap.  If you never empty a pile, City is no better than Village.  If you are playing with other new players and you all rush City, then yeah, City becomes strong.  But if only one player goes for City and the rest do other things, then by the time that one player empties the City pile the game will almost be over.  City is best when you can expect another pile to empty quickly.  This can happen with strong cursers or decent and cheap engine components on the board, for example.  Sometimes City is worth it if there is a powerful engine with no other source of +actions. 

On engine building in general, what you have to figure out is how you can catch up once the engine is built.  Usually this means something good to play repeatedly (attacks especially), an alternative source of points (Colony works) and a way to get a lot of points quickly (often +Buy so that the engine can pick up multiple VP cards every turn). 

If you want to test your skill, a good baseline is BM+X.  You can set up a dummy opponent and have them execute a simple BM+X strategy while you try your own.  In BM+X, you will buy 2-3 copies of X (from base and Prosperity I would suggest: Smithy, Council Room, Witch, Monument, Mountebank, Rabble, Vault) and otherwise prioritize: Province (if you already have one Gold), Duchy (if 3 or fewer Provinces), Gold, Silver, Estate (if only 1 Province left).  This isn't fully optimized and doesn't include consideration for Colony/Platinum, but it should suffice for now.

Re: timing, which comment?  Maybe we could explain it better.

[flies]

The kingdom was Chapel, Watchtower, Feast, Quarry, City, Mine, Mountebank, Vault, Expand, and a tenth one that escapes me right now.

anybody else guess what the tenth card was?  think hard now...

Anyway, one thing that's not obvious about this kingdom is the KC/feast interaction.  KC on a feast gains you 3 5-costs (or 2+ another feast).  So the engine should win here with or without colonies (colony -> longer game -> more time to build -> fiddly engines are more viable).  This is actually crucial because you need lvl 3 cities in order to get the buys you need to win.

There's also some even more esoteric stuff happening with vault here, because you can discard a bunch of stuff, then draw it back up with king'd cities, and then vault it away again.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20140328/log.5075b25251c30da02a09b898.1396032601411.txt

In this game i have less than optimal luck with chapel and almost lose the curse split (a king'd mountebank is a brutal thing).  but still I manage to come correct.

[TheEmerged]

RE: Tenth Card.  Boy, do *I* feel stupid right now...  I mentioned my tendency to overthink things, yes?

RE: "Timing" comment.  From http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/King%27s_Court
"You cannot play any other cards in between resolving the King's Court-ed Action card multiple times, unless that Action card specifically tells you to (such as King's Court itself does). "  My habit of overthinking things made me wonder what this meant for cards that would be coming into the hand while KC was still resolving.  I think it's a fault of mine, not the wording.

RE: "Dummy Opponent".  That's essentially what I've been doing.  During my test games Player One goes essentially "Aggressive Big Money", or BM + whatever attack card is available, while Player 3 goes "card drawing BM", like BM+Smithy.  I then try to do something creative with 2 & 4.

Tried a slightly different kingdom and I think I see where you folks are going with the repeated statements about how I wasn't trashing nearly enough.  I had one of the four decks get 7 colonies this time.  I also managed to pull a combo I'd thought about but never managed to get into play (KC + Goons + Watchtower + village-type), but it took longer to get going than I expected so even though it was generating 6-8 victory tokens a turn it ended up in third place.

RE: City.  I suspect this won't keep happening, but right now I'm typically seeing it bought pretty heavily.

Oh, and this was the first time I've seen more than a couple of Grand Markets bought.   Insert joke about trashing coppers here...

Thanks again for the advice.

[flies]

RE: City.  I suspect this won't keep happening, but right now I'm typically seeing it bought pretty heavily.

there's this interesting group-think that happens - especially in multiplayer.  one person buys a city, and then another, and all of a sudden it's a rush to get the cities.  in 2P this is less likely b/c the other player can just sit it out and let the opponent pick up a bunch of villages costing $5, whereas in 3P+ if two players go for it and you don't then you're in trouble (it takes much less time for two players to clean out the city pile than one, naturally).

[flies]

also: http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/11/12/combo-of-the-day-2-goonswatchtower/