I got the first six logs of our match:
game 1
game 2
game 3
game 4
game 5
game 6
game 1This game was an Ambassador war. It didn't contain an Ambassador war, it was an Ambassador war, the loser of the war lost the game.
We both opened double Ambassador. I drew ACCCE, and struggled about whether to return coppers or estates. I've been told several times by better players that I should return double copper, but I just can't grok it, so I returned an Estate. nomnomnom returned double copper, and probably not coincidentally obliterated me in the war.
I just really can't get it... Returning two coppers wrecks your own economy so much and makes your Ambassadors collide, how can it be worth it? Next time I'm just going to do it on faith though.
game 2While Ambassador made game 1 very first player advantaged, game 2 seemed to dampen first player advantage imo, because imo the opening choices were rock/paper/scissors. With 5/2, HorseTraders>Minion>Masquerade>HorseTraders. A Minion opening allows you to get a great Minion stack going, and you can use your terminal action on a Masquerade picked up after the first reshuffle so you have some trashing. Such a strategy is probably faster than Masquerade BM.
That loses to a HorseTraders opening, though, because the Horse Traders can collide with that first Minion and subsequent Minions. And Minions/Masquerade is going to lose out to Minions/Horsetraders in the long term, I'd expect. And it can be really difficult to pick up a Horse Traders without forgoing a Minion later on, and HorseTraders is most valuable early on. Note that Horse Traders is great at picking up Minions.
However, Horse Traders loses to a Masquerade opening, because on this board you need to get some amount of utility out of the reaction to make Horse Traders worth it. Masquerade/BM beats Minion/HT more easily than it beats Minion/Masquerade.
I chose to open Horse Traders, probably because I had a psychological aversion to getting counterd by a HT. Minion probably would have been a better opening, it would get countered by HT but I could live with that. nomnomnom wisely took paper for my scissors and played Masquerade/BM after I opened HT. It paid off.
game 3Haggler, like Hoard, is pretty good with Big Money strategies and pretty tolerant of Provinces. For that reason, perhaps, nomnomnom decided to play a Big Money strategy. I disagreed, because Nobles always tilts a board towards Engines, and Nobles is outstanding with Throne Room. nomnom started getting Provinces but he couldn't buy enough to end it. With Nobles in the game, even a fifth Province probably wouldn't be enough.
game 4Is a big money game with divergent strategies better or worse than an engine mirror? I don't have an answer to that, but anyway, this was a Big Money game with divergent strategies. I believed Rabble to be a stronger BM card than Merchant Ship. It turns out, the "Ranking the Big Money/X terminals" thread agrees with me, by a slim 4 slots. I still think Rabble was better, but devil's advocate could say that from the second seat, the attack is less powerful, and Remodel is easier to buy for lategame tactics with a Merchant Ship strategy since it doesn't have to worry about drawing Remodel dead, and Merchant Ship collides with stuff less than non-duration terminals.
game 5nomnom got first seat in an Ambassador war again. I bought a Lookout, which I'm not sure whether it helps or hurts. I drew AACCE, and felt compelled to return the Estate rather than the coppers because Lookout was weakening my economy so much (normally I would have little trouble returning two coppers without regrets, because 2 coppers doesn't buy anything anyway). The fact that I had to do that makes me feel like even with Peddlers around Lookout was a bad idea because if it forces me into bad decisions like that what was the point.
nomnom gets lots of Peddlers, keeping his deck a slim beast. Mine was of course a mess. As a wild act of desperation, I buy a Swindler to try to turn a Province into the last Peddler. I was simply that far behind. That doesn't work out at all, but it mercifully hastens my end.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/15/game-20121215-044846-526ef48f.htmlI looked at this board and was very unsure what I wanted to do. I joked to omnom that no matter what I picked it would be wrong. I decided to do a "draw until you have X cards in hand" deck, transitioning into a Crossroads explosion deck. I open Festival/Crossroads, and but a Jack during the second run through my deck. The Jack actually misses the reshuffle, so by the time I actually play Jack, I'm so close to transitioning to my Crossroads deck that I don't even want to trash an Estate! Omnomnom scared me to death by opening with an Herbalist, but he did a mix of Alchemy cards instead of the Philo stone/Herbalist deck I feared. Would Herbalist/Philo Stone outrace what I did on this board? I think it does.
Anyway, I win this one somewhat decisively, playing one of my favorite archetypes. Which is what made me super nervous, because I was afraid I had chosen it out of nepotism rather than a good assessment.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/15/game-20121215-050922-7e107fce.htmlnomnomnom plays a Swindler.
... replacing pops's Courtyard with an Estate.
... replacing pops's Hunting Party with a Duchy.
... replacing pops's Copper with a Curse.
... replacing pops's Copper with a Curse.
... replacing pops's Copper with a Curse.
... replacing pops's Copper with a Curse.
With that kind of Swindler accuracy, as player 2, I feel like I'm entitled to say I earned this last one. nomnomnom went for a double tactician deck that uses Mining Villages and Swindlers to ruin my deck while continuing to buy card. I didn't think that was worth the trouble, and went for a fast (well, it would be fast if he didn't attack it) Hunting Party/terminal deck. It starts out as a Hunting Party/Courtyard deck, but nomnom swindles both my opening purchases into green cards. The silver lining was that now the Estate formerly known as Courtyard had the same name as my other Estates, so I could ignore it with Hunting Parties and became free to select a new terminal. I selected Bishop, so that I could remove the uniquely named Duchy from my deck. I later do end up doing villages so I can swindle nomnom's stuff. I turn his villages into terminal Noble Brigands, damaging his terminal/village ratio. When he trashes his Mining Villages for Provinces in the homestretch, his deck stalls really really hard and can't end the game before Bishop plods on to build a strong lead.
Towards the end of the game, I have to make an agonizing decision whether to buy the penultimate Province, and decide to do so. It is so hard to buy a vulnerable penultimate province in game seven of a tournament set, even when it seems like the right thing to do!!
Overall omnom played really well. He never did anything terrible. I feel I genuinely outplayed him in the games I won, and that he did the same in the games he won.