Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: ChessWhiz on March 17, 2015, 04:35:03 pm
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I played a recent game on Goku, and would like some thoughts from better players.
Link: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150317/log.54ca512ae4b071f7c86a2cb2.1426623144820.txt
Kingdom: Duchess, Vagrant, Smugglers, Philosopher's Stone, Horse Traders, JackOfAllTrades, Militia, Horn of Plenty, Minion, Forge
Questions:
- I opened Jack and skipped Smugglers altogether. Mistake? What's the best opening?
- I skipped Smugglers because I already had two terminals, but maybe I need one instead of Militia. Thoughts?
- I always think that Minion is strong, but on this board with no engine, is it still strong? Minion/Forge for thinning?
- Turn 6 I bought Forge because I didn't want Gold to be smuggled. So many terminals, but it worked ok.
- I start greening really early, and it worked in the game. Does Forge make this possible, or was I lucky and/or opponent mistakes?
Thanks for any advice!
EDIT: I know I shouldn't post a game where I win easily, but I'm really curious about best play here.
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(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/3/38/Jack_of_all_Trades.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/JackOfAllTrades) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/a/a0/Militia.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Militia) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/2/20/Horn_of_Plenty.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Horn of Plenty) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/4/47/Minion.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Minion) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/d/d7/Forge.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Forge)
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/d/df/Duchess.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Duchess) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/3/3f/Vagrant.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Vagrant) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/0/05/Smugglers.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Smugglers) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/3/32/Philosopher's_Stone.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Philosopher's Stone) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c8/Horse_Traders.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Horse Traders)
Perhaps some good players are brave enough to ignore Minion here, but not me.
Here I open HT (for easy $5 hands) and perhaps Smugglers (esp. if my opponent does) in order to try and win the Minion split.
Forge is optional, but if you have an early $7+ yeah I'd get it and use it to help control the endgame.
After the first silver or two don't be afraid to buy Vagrants with $3, and to skip Jack altogether, although I don't think 1 Jack is terrible here
Ignore Militia and get a second HT instead.
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I think this is just Jack + Minion.
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I didn't notice until after the game that Militia attack is useless when the opponent can use Minion against it.
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I didn't notice until after the game that Militia attack is useless when the opponent can use Minion against it.
Also Jack counters it, and Horse Traders. Militia is beyond useless here.
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I opened Jack and skipped Smugglers altogether. Mistake? What's the best opening?
I'm not a great player, but here's how I would approach it:
If you open Jack that signals that you're going for mostly a money strategy. You're probably going to pick up some Minions along the way, but it's not going to be a huge engine.
If you open Smugglers it's because you expect your opponent to be going for tons of Minions, and you want them too. You wouldn't open smugglers if you expected your opponent to play big money.
If you open Horse Traders it's because you want to hit $5 a lot to buy Minions, and will eventually want the +Buy because you're going to be building a minion engine. The reaction is nice here, but you aren't buying Horse Traders for that aspect.
Personally, I would play double Jack with a few Minions thrown in. An engine player might win but I don't think by much.
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The only fast engine card here is HoP, but there is no way to increase hand size beyond 5. And you can't play a slow engine because the attacks don't bother Jack.
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I thought Minion was bad if Horse Traders was around? Is this wrong?
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I thought Minion was bad if Horse Traders was around? Is this wrong?
HT neuters the attack, but Minion is strong even without the attack and HT helps you reliably buy Minion.
The bigger question is whether Minion can race Jack.
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I thought Minion was bad if Horse Traders was around? Is this wrong?
It's more like Horse Traders is good against Minion. Thing is, it's also good WITH minion, so you often want both. Here, there's no villages, so that can change some things.
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Yeah, HT can cancel some attacks, but in the absence of even better sources of draw Minions remain quite strong for money and cycling.
And yes, in general with some villages around HT goes well with Minion. Village -> HT to discard for coin and buy -> Minion to start over with 4 new cards.
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The only fast engine card here is HoP, but there is no way to increase hand size beyond 5.
Horse Traders.
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Also Vagrant.
I'm not sure if HT is worth going for when Jack is around. It's handy to have in hand vs. Minion, but if both terminals collide, you'd usually want to play Jack in this kingdom.
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I think this is just Jack + Minion.
Aren't Minion and Jack kind of cross-purposes, though? Jack fills your deck with Silver, whereas Minion wants to get most of its money from other Minions.
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I think this is just Jack + Minion.
Aren't Minion and Jack kind of cross-purposes, though? Jack fills your deck with Silver, whereas Minion wants to get most of its money from other Minions.
Minion doesn't have to be played only in 'the minion deck'.
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I think this is just Jack + Minion.
Aren't Minion and Jack kind of cross-purposes, though? Jack fills your deck with Silver, whereas Minion wants to get most of its money from other Minions.
The reason why you often want lots of Minions with other Minions and not a lot of Treasure cards is that Minion's coin option has synergy with draw-to-X and Minion's draw-to-X option is, well, draw-to-X. Jack happens to be draw-to-X as well, and for that reason, you definitely want Minions for $5 when you're going for Jack/big money.
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I think this is just Jack + Minion.
Aren't Minion and Jack kind of cross-purposes, though? Jack fills your deck with Silver, whereas Minion wants to get most of its money from other Minions.
Minion doesn't care where you get money from, but it rarely actually wants most of the money coming from Minions. You simply can't get that many. That only works if you're playing uncontested Minions on something. Usually if you're using Minions for cycling, you want money from other actions. Excess Minions produce money
Here, however, it's a little backwards. You want to use Minions for money and Jack to draw. But if your hand is bad, you can use the Minions to cycle instead.
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I think werothegreat is right, a deck with 5 minions and only 1 or 2 silvers for coin is pretty common. Having extra silvers clogs up the minion cycle.
Here with Forge as the only trasher that kind of purity is iffier to pull off, but it's still debatable whether Jack's extra silvers are helpful, hurtful, or a wash.
I'm on the fence as to whether 1 Jack is a good buy here, and I think my Plan A would be No-Jack with 2 HTs.
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The only fast engine card here is HoP, but there is no way to increase hand size beyond 5.
Horse Traders.
Horse Traders only helps you get your hand size above 5 if you're counting the excess Horse Traders you'll be unable to play anyway. It doesn't help you get a bunch of cards in play for HoP, which is what matters in the context you're talking about.
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I think this is just Jack + Minion.
Aren't Minion and Jack kind of cross-purposes, though? Jack fills your deck with Silver, whereas Minion wants to get most of its money from other Minions.
The deck I would play is Jack + BM, with Minion as "a slightly better Silver for $5". If you draw it in hand with a Jack, you can get the $2 and a card, making it vaguely like a Grand Market. If you draw it without a Jack (or with insufficient money, or whatever), you can mulligan for a better 4-card hand. If you play Jack, drawing Minion, it's worse than Silver, of course, but on average that will happen less than the other scenarios.
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Jack should be much better than Horse Traders for Big Money, even in the face of these attacks that HT may defend slightly better against. Jack+Minion isn't really a "Minion Deck" but rather a Jack deck with Minion as support.
On the other hand, Jack and Minion can surely go in the same deck. All of those things that you don't think Jack can go in the same deck as, well Jack is flexible. An example from my article of this is this game:
Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8qOjZJCDRg) Game log (http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20140325/log.5085f5130cf270038ff92212.1395799900680.txt)
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I agree. It's amazing how flexible Jack-Minion is when Spice Merchant, Worker's Village, Market Square, Scrying Pool, and Tournament are in the kingdom.....
::)
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I agree. It's amazing how flexible Jack-Minion is when Spice Merchant, Worker's Village, Market Square, Scrying Pool, and Tournament are in the kingdom.....
::)
Well a lot of people will just dismiss Jack when playing a deck centered around Minions (like people in this thread). Even if all you do in that deck is change your Estates into Silvers, it's still probably worth it to open Jack. I also don't think that anti-synergies with parts of what Jack does should be a reason not to go for Jack without considering everything else that's out there, so I brought it up.
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Name one reasonably-knowledgeable person who ever considered Jack-Spice Merchant an anti-synergy and reason to not go for Jack =P
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I learned:
- Jack can work well with Minion, by choosing the $2 and using Jack to redraw.
- Smugglers can help win the Minion split, but it's not necessarily crucial here.
- Horse Traders can be a great way to hit $5 hands.
- Forge can be a pretty ungainly way to trash, especially with no +cards engine.
- Jack is Always Good™.
Thank you, everyone, for the helpful replies!
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Name one reasonably-knowledgeable person who ever considered Jack-Spice Merchant an anti-synergy and reason to not go for Jack =P
I don't know of any, Jack+Spice Merchant is surely a thing. I was talking about Jack+Minion (mostly talking about making a Minion deck with Jack in it, as opposed to a Jack deck with Minion in it).
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We were talking about that, yes - and then you linked to a different game which is a completely dissimilar situation.