Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: werothegreat on April 15, 2015, 11:23:52 am

Title: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: werothegreat on April 15, 2015, 11:23:52 am: Woops! Almost forgot this week! Apologies, I've been a bit ill the past couple days. Without further ado, let's talk about... Doctor!

(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/b/b2/Doctor.jpg)

Remember, the goal of these is to spark discussion, and possibly encourage the writing of a strategy article! I'll start us off, as usual, with a few questions:

* How often do you open Doctor?
* How often do you overpay on Doctor?
* How does Doctor compare to other multi-card trashers?
* What cards work well with Doctor?
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: enfynet on April 15, 2015, 11:38:47 am: Doctor, Doctor, Trash cards I chose
I got a good hand to overpay you

(http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/images/smilies/loco.gif)
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: werothegreat on April 15, 2015, 11:40:06 am: Also: why has no one yet picked the username "Doctor Masterpiece"?
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: Awaclus on April 15, 2015, 11:46:14 am: * How often do you open Doctor?

Whenever no better trashing is available, and whenever I have 5/2.

* How often do you overpay on Doctor?

Always.

* How does Doctor compare to other multi-card trashers?

It can be faster than any other trasher, but it's more unreliable than most on a 4/3 opening. It's also almost entirely useless after it has served its purpose as a trasher.

* What cards work well with Doctor?

Throne Room and Procession.
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: -Stef- on April 15, 2015, 11:50:10 am: Doctor is a very reasonable trasher on average, and almost always swingy. On a 5/2 opening it's a bit of a crime not to open doctor. Skipping the $2 turn alone makes it magical.
The strength of doctor depends greatly on how much the kingdom rewards you for trashing down. Except for the 5/2 opening, I don't like taking doctor over a Remake or Chapel.
It's nice if you can inspect the deck first, but don't overestimate the impact here. In theory Cartographer is also nice but probably too expensive to work out. Warehouse is more likely to work, because your deck will be small quickly.

A common misplay I see people make is not to use the doctor midturn later in the game. Even if you're not going to trash, it still lets you rearrange the top of your deck, which easily could improve your current turn. It's a very small thing but why not profit from the otherwise dead card.

Doctor - Slightly better trasher for your current turn, but the price is reliability.
I only need to miscount a little bit to make that 10 words.
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: DG on April 15, 2015, 12:39:26 pm: I prefer a slightly later doctor, with overpay, than a hopeful doctor on a 4/3 opening. Those openings can and do go badly wrong.

The overpay aspect makes quarry one of the best partner cards for doctor.
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: Mic Qsenoch on April 15, 2015, 12:54:29 pm: Quote from: DG on April 15, 2015, 12:39:26 pm
I prefer a slightly later doctor, with overpay, than a hopeful doctor on a 4/3 opening. Those openings can and do go badly wrong.

This approach works best when there's a reasonable line of play that ignores Doctor entirely, so that the choice to go for Doctor is only made when it is very favorable.

Although there are nightmare outcomes with the early Doctors, whenever trashing is mandatory I prefer earlier because of the real difficulty of making the overpay and regular plays effective once the decks are even a little less homogenous.

Later Doctors can be helped by discard effects / top of deck stuff to help Doctor target.
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: Zappie on April 15, 2015, 05:59:49 pm: so with quarry and doctor you open quarry on 4/3? and on 5/2?
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: jsh357 on April 15, 2015, 06:12:50 pm: Quote from: Zappie on April 15, 2015, 05:59:49 pm
so with quarry and doctor you open quarry on 4/3? and on 5/2?

On 5/2 you probably take the Doctor anyway, though I guess it depends on how quickly you need that trashing (probably quickly enough to justify opening Doctor).
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: liopoil on April 15, 2015, 06:31:19 pm: Doctor is one of my favorite trashers, and I think it's speed is really underrated. Often chapel and remake are better, but I mean, those are the elites, and sometimes doctor even shines over them. In my experience deck tracking is more often useful than deck manipulation. (Remember your shuffle luck, don't bother making it!). And, uh, it combos with watchtower, yeah, because you can trash the doctor with watchtower because you used other watchtowers to get so much money that you did all the trashing you want with your overpay. Yeah, that happens all the time. Also it combos with fool's gold.
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: werothegreat on April 15, 2015, 06:38:21 pm: Yeah, what was with all those posts about Doctor combos that didn't make any sense? Someone kept trying to add Doctor/Venture to the wiki...
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: AdamH on April 16, 2015, 07:47:45 am: Quote from: liopoil on April 15, 2015, 06:31:19 pm
(Remember your shuffle luck, don't bother making it!)

Blasphemy! Do both! Some of my funniest Dominion memories are about remembering shuffle luck that I either made (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G048NJQ1we0) or didn't make (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6sFOdazHa8).
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: Chris is me on April 16, 2015, 09:33:10 pm: Doctor is one of the best trashers, and is a generally underrated card. Its swinginess is really what holds it back, but it's just so nice to trash your deck directly.

With any competent deck tracking in the early game, you can use it to somewhat consistently clear 2 cards out of your deck, with minimal impact on your current turn. The opportunity cost of most other Trashing cards is that it makes your current turn pretty bad, or nonexistent. The only real opportunity cost of Doctor is that it's a terminal action.

The overpay is huge, particularly on opens. If you hit $4 first, opening Doctor overpay is a reasonable move on some boards. You have a 40% chance of hitting an Estate; if you do, you've only got two left, and this makes the decision to name Copper or Estate on your next few shuffles generally much easier. If you don't hit Estate, you still get to trash a Copper and force a shuffle, though you'll either get a hand that can buy silver or a hand that can play Doctor reliably with $2 left, which is a bit awkward. ...Usually, there are better openers than this, depends on how much you need a thin deck.
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: Beyond Awesome on April 16, 2015, 11:32:58 pm: Doctor is pretty swingy. On 5/2 it is often almost always the correct choice to buy. But, honestly, on a 4/3 you should also consider cards such as Forager, Steward, and Urchin over it. If Junk Dealer is on the board, you might want to try and just get a bunch of junk dealers. I mean, Doctor is good. It can be an awesome opener, but is swingy, and the other trashers simply add more reliability.

Man, you know what would be really crazy is the 7/2 opening. You have a very strong chance of trashing all of your starting estates.
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: rspeer on April 17, 2015, 12:06:52 am: Quote from: Beyond Awesome on April 16, 2015, 11:32:58 pm
On 5/2 it is often almost always the correct choice to buy.

Would you say that 90% of the time, it works every time?
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: Chris is me on April 17, 2015, 07:44:30 pm: Quote from: Beyond Awesome on April 16, 2015, 11:32:58 pm
Doctor is pretty swingy. On 5/2 it is often almost always the correct choice to buy. But, honestly, on a 4/3 you should also consider cards such as Forager, Steward, and Urchin over it. If Junk Dealer is on the board, you might want to try and just get a bunch of junk dealers. I mean, Doctor is good. It can be an awesome opener, but is swingy, and the other trashers simply add more reliability.

Man, you know what would be really crazy is the 7/2 opening. You have a very strong chance of trashing all of your starting estates.

Honestly, in that specific edge case where the board contained Doctor, Junk Dealer, and no other Trashers, and I opened 5/2, and there wasn't anything weird like Mountebank in the game - I would probably open Doctor overpay, then later buy a Junk Dealer that I can trash my remaining Estates and Doctor with. Doctor is just so helpful early in the game to get some early momentum.
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: werothegreat on April 18, 2015, 10:17:24 pm: How does Doctor compare to the newly revealed other Adventures trashers?
Title: Re: CARD OF THE WEEK #4: Doctor
Post by: Gherald on April 18, 2015, 10:55:49 pm: Raze is only about as good as an Apprentice for coppers, curses, and estates -- which certainly isn't very good. But it's less swingy and more precise than Doctor, so that's one thing in its favor.

Ratcacher, although slower, is probably better than Doctor on the whole. You'd much rather have a couple Ratcachers in your deck than 1 Doctor, and 2 Doctors isn't often better than 1 Doctor so you'll prefer 2 Ratcachers over that as well. It's just a 1 Ratcatcher by itself that isn't quite enough to be significant.

Amulet is just way better than Doctor.

I don't feel like evaluating the trash events and token yet, may as well wait till I've played with such things. But they look nice enough.