Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: jotheonah on December 30, 2011, 12:39:37 am
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I've played a few games with our decidedly mediocre friend the Pearl Diver, and I was thinking about that pearl of wisdom (geez what is wrong with me tonight) that every card has at least a few situations where it shines. Where does Pearl Diver shine?
I find I don't mind having a few in my deck when King's Court is out because, a KC'd PD gives a village effect and lets you draw 3 cards, with an option of two cards to draw twice.
And today I was surprised to find it comboed nicely with Loan, giving me a way to make it a little more likely that a Copper was in the line of fire. And I imagine a similar effect could be gained with NV.
Has anyone found a time when Pearl Diver was a truly great card? I'm really curious.
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Pearl Diver will be significantly more useful if you can make good use of the less-desired cards in your deck (e.g. if you need an Estate for your Baron or copper for your Coppersmith). This way one of the flaws of Pearl Diver (having a crappy card on the bottom of your deck) becomes an asset.
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Any cantrip is turned into a Village variant with Throne Room or King's Court. And there are better cantrips to do that with. There's a reason why Pearl Diver costs $2.
Though now that I'm thinking about it, Pearl Diver could be a decent defense against Rabble chains. Since you know the top of your deck is crap, may as well dredge up what's on the bottom. Similar with Ghost Ship - you could put some crap from your hand on top of your deck, and see if your Pearl Diver finds anything better. Or even Sea Hag. Spy, and its variants? You would need other drawers in addition. It would still be crap against Fortune Teller, though.
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Pearl Diver also gets marginally better with lookout. In general, though, I see Pearl Diver as a card to grab with $2 if you have no terminal card draw, or with $3 if you have no terminal card draw and don't want silver in your deck and there isn't any other cheap, spammable card. I don't think it ever really shines, though.
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To cut a long story short, Pearl Diver is never a "truly great card". However, it is never a "truly terrible card" either. It's just a card to get if you have $2 and don't want anything else. Or when you need cantrips to get the cost of Peddler down or to activate Conspirator. Or to buy the stack of when you have 3 Goons in play. And hey, if you stop your Witch from missing the reshuffle, that's a bonus!
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The one time I know an opponent lost because they didn't buy pearl divers was a venture deck, on a similar basis to how the pearl diver works with a loan. Generally though the pearl divers work well with other drawing cards and decision cards. Upgrade and Minion are good examples. If you provide yourself with extra buys you can collect them as cheap enhancements to your deck. Sometimes cheap treasures are an obstacle in your deck and taking a pearl diver is superior on that basis alone.
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If you pull up a card from the bottom of your deck, you're getting somewhere between 20% and 100% of an extra use of that card over the course of the next shuffle due to the fact that it's now definitely not going to miss the shuffle (unless you draw all the way to the bottom of your deck but already had a discard)
If you decide not to pull up a card from the bottom of your deck, you don't really have to worry about what cards are going to miss the shuffle, because you already know it's not a good one. Cards missing the shuffle is my least favorite part of dominion, so pearl diver has a special place in my heart. That doesn't mean i always buy it or anything, but i do like it.
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Pearl Diver suffers from the same problem as Spy however: Once you hit a bad card, you're done.
And in a normal deck, there is a very real possibility that it's a Copper or an Estate.
In a good deck, you have to ask yourself why you bought that Pearl Diver to begin with...
It's an excess buy and Goons fodder, never a main buy.
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I've tried Pearl Diver/Conspirator and I've found it to be thoroughly underwhelming.
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Not this again...
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=252.0
edit: Although the reason I knew this existed is because I kept it in my "new replies to your posts" list until someone made another thread on Pearl Diver(which I had a feeling would happen since there isn't rules reminding people to search before they post >.>)
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I bought nothing rather than Pearl Driver in a game today. And it wasn't because I had a +cards card, I just was like: "Okay, so it does nothing, but it cannot hurt me, right? And maybe it will even put something good up on my deck...then again, it takes up a space in my hand...but I will ALWAYS get the card from it, so is there a good reason not to buy it? Well, there is a Tournament on the table...okay, I guess I would be pretty pissed off to draw Province with it and not stopping my opponent..." And that is for me a valid reason for not buying it.
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On the other hand it could fish up your Province from the bottom of your deck.
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On the other hand it could fish up your Province from the bottom of your deck.
Why in the world would you want to do that? If it stays at the bottom it misses the reshuffle meaning that it will stay in the discard after the reshuffle. Bring it up and you draw a province taking a spot in your hand twice as much as it would've beforehand. You just used a $2 card that is almost always worthless to hurt yourself. Doesn't that feel good?
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On the other hand it could fish up your Province from the bottom of your deck.
Why in the world would you want to do that?
Looks like you didn't read DrHades post to which jotheonah was responding. In a word: Tournament.
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On the other hand it could fish up your Province from the bottom of your deck.
Why in the world would you want to do that?
Looks like you didn't read DrHades post to which jotheonah was responding. In a word: Tournament.
Ahh. Actually I did but the context of reading that and not seeing a quote or "@DrHades" etc. made me think it was him coming up with a way to use Pearl Diver and announcing it. In that case, I fully agree. I've done it myself. However, you need to have the Tournament in your hand and must remember to play Pearl Diver before the Tournament to see if you can get a province.
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On the other hand it could fish up your Province from the bottom of your deck.
Why in the world would you want to do that?
Looks like you didn't read DrHades post to which jotheonah was responding. In a word: Tournament.
Ahh. Actually I did but the context of reading that and not seeing a quote or "@DrHades" etc. made me think it was him coming up with a way to use Pearl Diver and announcing it. In that case, I fully agree. I've done it myself. However, you need to have the Tournament in your hand and must remember to play Pearl Diver before the Tournament to see if you can get a province.
This is actually not true. You need a PD, a Tournament and another cantrip to make PD usefull like this. Imagine this situation:
I have PD, Tournament, C, C, C.
a) I play PD first, drawing Estate and the bottom card is Province. I don't want the Province on the top NOW, I will draw it without my Tournament!
b) I play Tournament first, drawing Province.
I think this is PD's deadly weakness - if you FIRST put the card and THEN get the +card, it would be a good card to play. I did not playtested this version, so I don't want to say that Donald X. should've made it this way, but the PD as it is is IMO one of the most useless cards ever made and I read it as "+1 card, +1 action" completely ignoring the ability...
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moving a province up from the bottom of your deck (where it's quite likely to miss the reshuffle) to the next turn isn't anything to sneeze at in a province game. Consider:
Turn 7: buy province, reshuffle. yay!(17card deck)
Turn 8: pearl diver, see province, move it up.
Turn 9: cut off opponents' tournament(s) & possibly get a prize
Turn 10: reshuffle&next opportunity to see that province
vs
Turn 7: buy province, reshuffle.
Turn 10: see province &possibly get a prize. Misses reshuffle eitherway.
Turn 13-14: reshuffle & next opportunity to see that province.
It's a much more convincing argument when it's not a "blank victory card" like province...say, platinum, for example.
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moving a province up from the bottom of your deck (where it's quite likely to miss the reshuffle) to the next turn isn't anything to sneeze at in a province game. Consider:
Turn 7: buy province, reshuffle. yay!(17card deck)
Turn 8: pearl diver, see province, move it up.
Turn 9: cut off opponents' tournament(s) & possibly get a prize
Turn 10: reshuffle&next opportunity to see that province
vs
Turn 7: buy province, reshuffle.
Turn 10: see province &possibly get a prize. Misses reshuffle eitherway.
Turn 13-14: reshuffle & next opportunity to see that province.
It's a much more convincing argument when it's not a "blank victory card" like province...say, platinum, for example.
Still, a very specific situation. In certain situations Pearl Diver shines, but in most you would probably rather have a Hamlet than a Pearl Diver.
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I'm a fan of pearl diver+farming village. If you dredge up an estate or a a curse, you can just use farming village to skip over it. Now this doesn't make a full strategy, but it doesn't hurt if you happen to get $2 in a hand or two.
Also, in this vein, it synergizes with cards like lookout and native village.