Dominion Strategy Forum
Archive => Archive => Dominion: Adventures Previews => Topic started by: Minotaur on June 13, 2015, 06:34:09 pm
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Does anyone have some thoughts on Miser? I'm having a really hard time figuring out when and how to use it.
Sure, you could get Miser-Silver on a 3/4 start, but then what do you do? At least with Moneylender, you're looking at a pretty safe $5 hand that could easily be $6 sometime next shuffle. Miser is so backloaded that you might get something like 3-3 after the first reshuffle, but Miser will do poorly if you delay it. When and how do you offset how slow it is? When do you just ignore it? Is it worth risking a terminal collision if you can 4-4 with Baker or Borrow?
Clearly you would want to pick up a Miser or two on a Mountebank board in the absence of a better counter. Cleaning up after Cache or Treasure Trove is maybe an option, but 7 Coppers is already plenty and eventually you want to play it for money instead of trimming. Do you just get Cache/Treasure trove and 2-3 Misers and just try to rush for the $8 hands?
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If there are cheap cards you want in the kingdom like Native Village or Lighthouse Miser is obviously better since you can thin while getting stuff and have a payoff later on. You won't get Miser every game; like most cards it needs a kingdom that supports it, and in this case I think it's important for Miser to be able to take Copper without just making you stall.
The Mountebank defense plan sounds dubious to me. In general, I think it's a bad idea to add/accept any junk cards to your deck in order to trash them later unless your deck is already super consistent, and since the best time to trash Copper is when removing your initial Coppers, that doesn't gel too well most of the time. You probably just want to proactively mat Copper with Miser, not defensively trash. It's good as a source of economy late like Pirate Ship or Poor House.
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If there's no trashing, what can you get for $4 or less that's better against Mountebank? Only cantrips so you don't slow down your own?
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Miser is cross between a pirate ship and a moneylender. A miser will be fine when you want the copper trashing of a moneylender and the action based income of a pirate ship. Improved drawing will help a miser in the same way that it helps a moneylender or pirate.
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Miser is cross between a pirate ship and a moneylender. A miser will be fine when you want the copper trashing of a moneylender and the action based income of a pirate ship. Improved drawing will help a miser in the same way that it helps a moneylender or pirate.
As far as I understand it, Miser might be ok precisely because of what it doesn't have in common with Pirate Ship.
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What Miser does is really great, but it's really slow. If the game will take long enough that Miser will have time to work his magic and/or you can come up with a payload big enough to justify taking lots of time letting Miser thin you, then yeah go for it.
But it's really slow, and that makes it relatively weak.
As for the Pirate Ship comparison, it's a Pirate Ship that attacks yourself. Sometimes that's exactly what you want.
I mean, I wouldn't be using Miser for defense against Mountebank, that doesn't seem very good. You use it when there's no better way to get rid of Coppers. In a Mountebank game it seems more important to junk your opponent than to thin Coppers really slowly for a terminal money payload.
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In Mountebank games you want to spike (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png). Moneylender is a great spiker. Miser is not a spiker - it is a garden that slowly grows over the game, and then suddenly is winning all the county fairs with its vegetable crop.
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In Mountebank games you want to spike (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7d/Coin5.png/16px-Coin5.png). Moneylender is a great spiker. Miser is not a spiker - it is a garden that slowly grows over the game, and then suddenly is winning all the county fairs with its vegetable crop.
Gonna quote that on the wiki?
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Ok, so I'm still far from clear on how many of them you would want and when. I see the point that it's too slow to counter Mountebank and you want to hit a couple of early $5 hands in that kind of board anyway. But one question I still have is whether you want to risk a terminal collision to speed it up, or if you just want to play the single copy whenever it's convenient and keep the $4-5 in your pocket for the late game. Or is this kind of question mostly about shuffle luck and "depends on the board"? Is it ever worth spending $5-$6 on a Miser?
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Get Miser if there is an engine available that doesn't have any other way of trashing Treasures, but you'd want to get them anyway. Get Miser if there are Throne Room variants available that will let you Reserve Coppers and get +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png) on the same play. Miser is probably not a BM card, but I've never tried to play it as one.
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Sure there are boards where opening miser/miser seems fine. If it's the only trashing, there is a cheap village, and some draw and buy I could see using it to both thin and be payload. On a board with, say: miser, village, smithy, woodcutter and militia with not much else going on i might open miser miser.
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You'll need Baker on the board to open Miser/Miser. (or LC or something)
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
I don't have much to say about this card, except that I can compare it to Pirate Ship. It's clearly better than Pirate Ship, but still. I played a game recently where I played against Pirate Ship BM.
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150613/log.54109627e4b0750ebc1f6911.1434254697974.txt
I'm not going to lie, I played pretty badly, and I still beat this guy. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was close, and he made far more mistakes than I did, besides buying Pirate Ships. I don't know, I feel Pirate Ship is only good when there's just nothing on the board, and it's going to take a long time for the payoff to even be useful. And well, Miser might be more useful in some more scenarios, but I feel like it's going to be more or less the same thing.
If my opponent didn't play Pirate Ship but Miser here instead, would he win? Well, he trashed a lot of my copper for me with Pirate Ship, and he hit some of my higher money, but as the game went on, he kept playing Pirate Ship to attack when he should have just gained, as he ended up not hitting my money, due to a plethora of Green and Action cards. I believe the key to using Pirate Ship effectively is getting it up to about $4 or $5, and then just cashing it in every time. And that's easier for Miser, because YOU'RE getting thin doing it, not your opponent. So do I think Miser is better? Oh yeah, loads better. But again, does Miser win here against what I did? I don't really think so, but it could be possible. These questions must be examined.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
I don't have much to say about this card, except that I can compare it to Pirate Ship. It's clearly better than Pirate Ship, but still. I played a game recently where I played against Pirate Ship BM.
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150613/log.54109627e4b0750ebc1f6911.1434254697974.txt
I'm not going to lie, I played pretty badly, and I still beat this guy. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was close, and he made far more mistakes than I did, besides buying Pirate Ships. I don't know, I feel Pirate Ship is only good when there's just nothing on the board, and it's going to take a long time for the payoff to even be useful. And well, Miser might be more useful in some more scenarios, but I feel like it's going to be more or less the same thing.
If my opponent didn't play Pirate Ship but Miser here instead, would he win? Well, he trashed a lot of my copper for me with Pirate Ship, and he hit some of my higher money, but as the game went on, he kept playing Pirate Ship to attack when he should have just gained, as he ended up not hitting my money, due to a plethora of Green and Action cards. I believe the key to using Pirate Ship effectively is getting it up to about $4 or $5, and then just cashing it in every time. And that's easier for Miser, because YOU'RE getting thin doing it, not your opponent. So do I think Miser is better? Oh yeah, loads better. But again, does Miser win here against what I did? I don't really think so, but it could be possible. These questions must be examined.
I think you're oversimplifying Pirate Ship. The ability to trash your opponent's important Treasures is a major factor more or less every time the card is actually good. In this game, Horn of Plenty is the only important Treasure, and it doesn't sound very realistic to try to stop your opponent's HoP engine with Pirate Ship. And if you can't stop it, then it doesn't really matter how much money you can get out of your Pirate Ships because either you have all the payload you need from your own Horns or you lose anyway.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
I don't have much to say about this card, except that I can compare it to Pirate Ship. It's clearly better than Pirate Ship, but still. I played a game recently where I played against Pirate Ship BM.
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150613/log.54109627e4b0750ebc1f6911.1434254697974.txt
I'm not going to lie, I played pretty badly, and I still beat this guy. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was close, and he made far more mistakes than I did, besides buying Pirate Ships. I don't know, I feel Pirate Ship is only good when there's just nothing on the board, and it's going to take a long time for the payoff to even be useful. And well, Miser might be more useful in some more scenarios, but I feel like it's going to be more or less the same thing.
If my opponent didn't play Pirate Ship but Miser here instead, would he win? Well, he trashed a lot of my copper for me with Pirate Ship, and he hit some of my higher money, but as the game went on, he kept playing Pirate Ship to attack when he should have just gained, as he ended up not hitting my money, due to a plethora of Green and Action cards. I believe the key to using Pirate Ship effectively is getting it up to about $4 or $5, and then just cashing it in every time. And that's easier for Miser, because YOU'RE getting thin doing it, not your opponent. So do I think Miser is better? Oh yeah, loads better. But again, does Miser win here against what I did? I don't really think so, but it could be possible. These questions must be examined.
I think you're oversimplifying Pirate Ship. The ability to trash your opponent's important Treasures is a major factor more or less every time the card is actually good. In this game, Horn of Plenty is the only important Treasure, and it doesn't sound very realistic to try to stop your opponent's HoP engine with Pirate Ship. And if you can't stop it, then it doesn't really matter how much money you can get out of your Pirate Ships because either you have all the payload you need from your own Horns or you lose anyway.
I guess HoP is okay there.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
I don't have much to say about this card, except that I can compare it to Pirate Ship. It's clearly better than Pirate Ship, but still. I played a game recently where I played against Pirate Ship BM.
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150613/log.54109627e4b0750ebc1f6911.1434254697974.txt
I'm not going to lie, I played pretty badly, and I still beat this guy. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was close, and he made far more mistakes than I did, besides buying Pirate Ships. I don't know, I feel Pirate Ship is only good when there's just nothing on the board, and it's going to take a long time for the payoff to even be useful. And well, Miser might be more useful in some more scenarios, but I feel like it's going to be more or less the same thing.
If my opponent didn't play Pirate Ship but Miser here instead, would he win? Well, he trashed a lot of my copper for me with Pirate Ship, and he hit some of my higher money, but as the game went on, he kept playing Pirate Ship to attack when he should have just gained, as he ended up not hitting my money, due to a plethora of Green and Action cards. I believe the key to using Pirate Ship effectively is getting it up to about $4 or $5, and then just cashing it in every time. And that's easier for Miser, because YOU'RE getting thin doing it, not your opponent. So do I think Miser is better? Oh yeah, loads better. But again, does Miser win here against what I did? I don't really think so, but it could be possible. These questions must be examined.
I think you're oversimplifying Pirate Ship. The ability to trash your opponent's important Treasures is a major factor more or less every time the card is actually good. In this game, Horn of Plenty is the only important Treasure, and it doesn't sound very realistic to try to stop your opponent's HoP engine with Pirate Ship. And if you can't stop it, then it doesn't really matter how much money you can get out of your Pirate Ships because either you have all the payload you need from your own Horns or you lose anyway.
I guess HoP is okay there.
There aren't really any alternatives there.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
I don't have much to say about this card, except that I can compare it to Pirate Ship. It's clearly better than Pirate Ship, but still. I played a game recently where I played against Pirate Ship BM.
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150613/log.54109627e4b0750ebc1f6911.1434254697974.txt
I'm not going to lie, I played pretty badly, and I still beat this guy. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was close, and he made far more mistakes than I did, besides buying Pirate Ships. I don't know, I feel Pirate Ship is only good when there's just nothing on the board, and it's going to take a long time for the payoff to even be useful. And well, Miser might be more useful in some more scenarios, but I feel like it's going to be more or less the same thing.
If my opponent didn't play Pirate Ship but Miser here instead, would he win? Well, he trashed a lot of my copper for me with Pirate Ship, and he hit some of my higher money, but as the game went on, he kept playing Pirate Ship to attack when he should have just gained, as he ended up not hitting my money, due to a plethora of Green and Action cards. I believe the key to using Pirate Ship effectively is getting it up to about $4 or $5, and then just cashing it in every time. And that's easier for Miser, because YOU'RE getting thin doing it, not your opponent. So do I think Miser is better? Oh yeah, loads better. But again, does Miser win here against what I did? I don't really think so, but it could be possible. These questions must be examined.
I think you're oversimplifying Pirate Ship. The ability to trash your opponent's important Treasures is a major factor more or less every time the card is actually good. In this game, Horn of Plenty is the only important Treasure, and it doesn't sound very realistic to try to stop your opponent's HoP engine with Pirate Ship. And if you can't stop it, then it doesn't really matter how much money you can get out of your Pirate Ships because either you have all the payload you need from your own Horns or you lose anyway.
I guess HoP is okay there.
There aren't really any alternatives there.
I'm not the best in Dominion, but I don't see HoP gaining a lot of stuff here.
EDIT: There's copper, silver, Fishing Village, Scheme, HoP itself, Gold, and Hunting Grounds. That's actually pretty nice.
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I'm not the best in Dominion, but I don't see HoP gaining a lot of stuff here.
Yeah, well, except for Hunting Grounds and Provinces.
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On the board you are discussing HOP is definitely the thing you want to do, but I'd like to bring it back to miser! If alter isn't on that board I'm definitely opening with a miser, almost purely for the trashing!
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Get Miser if there is an engine available that doesn't have any other way of trashing Treasures, but you'd want to get them anyway. Get Miser if there are Throne Room variants available that will let you Reserve Coppers and get +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/6d/Coin.png/16px-Coin.png) on the same play. Miser is probably not a BM card, but I've never tried to play it as one.
I also would assume Miser gets much better with TR variants. Better than strong/fast trashing? Probably not. But if there's no or only slow trashing otherwise, and you have a way to speed up Miser, I would open with 1 and get 1-2 later, depending on the availability of villages. On a Baker board I would never open double Miser because the card is just way too slow for the risk of terminal collision to be worth it.
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The following is based on my experience, with all the benefits & limitations thereof, and as always is subject to change.
Miser, like Raze, is a bit of a specialized trasher. It obviously works best when there's not an obviously-better trasher available, or if there's something around throwing lot of coppers at you. Now, many trashers run into a problem in games where there are not curses\junking happening - you can get to a point where the trasher itself seems to be junk. Both Raze & Miser however get around this - Raze by having the ability to trash itself, and Miser by being worth money in the later game.
I have in fact seen it against Mountebank and the results were actually disappointing - it dealt with the coppers well but if you need a second card to ditch the curses, the second card can get the coppers too. Without the second card it was merely a "better than nothing" option.
It works well enough with Treasure Trove one has to wonder if it was intended. Like "Giant" it works well with Royal Carriage.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
In the 3-card kingdom "Scrying Pool, Worker's Village, Miser", I'm going to play with multiple Misers.
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Miser works well if you A) buy more than one and B) have actions. Clearly it's not the "best" at dealing with coppers, but it's a long term investment in terms of handling them. It also is greatly improved by being able to cycle. Buy the first miser to place the coppers on the mat, and at half way you start using them as money. Buying more than one to speed up the process is even better! It's gimmicky but that doesn't mean it can't be good in a big money deck.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
In the 3-card kingdom "Scrying Pool, Worker's Village, Miser", I'm going to play with multiple Misers.
Edge case.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
In the 3-card kingdom "Scrying Pool, Worker's Village, Miser", I'm going to play with multiple Misers.
Edge case.
In the 1-card kingdom "Miser", I'm going to open Miser-Silver and maybe get a second Miser on T8 or so.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
In the 3-card kingdom "Scrying Pool, Worker's Village, Miser", I'm going to play with multiple Misers.
Edge case.
No, it's a basic counterexample that should illustrate why I think the statement is bonkers.
Draw makes Miser better, not worse; other trashing may or may not want me to go Miser (it really depends on the other trasher and the rest of the board); and I doubt the presence of attacks has on average a big impact on whether I go Miser or not (on most Cultists boards you clearly don't want it, but in general attacks prolong the game, which makes Miser a bit better).
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
In the 3-card kingdom "Scrying Pool, Worker's Village, Miser", I'm going to play with multiple Misers.
Edge case.
No, it's a basic counterexample that should illustrate why I think the statement is bonkers.
Draw makes Miser better, not worse; other trashing may or may not want me to go Miser (it really depends on the other trasher and the rest of the board); and I doubt the presence of attacks has on average a big impact on whether I go Miser or not (on most Cultists boards you clearly don't want it, but in general attacks prolong the game, which makes Miser a bit better).
Huh.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
In the 3-card kingdom "Scrying Pool, Worker's Village, Miser", I'm going to play with multiple Misers.
Edge case.
No, it's a basic counterexample that should illustrate why I think the statement is bonkers.
Draw makes Miser better, not worse; other trashing may or may not want me to go Miser (it really depends on the other trasher and the rest of the board); and I doubt the presence of attacks has on average a big impact on whether I go Miser or not (on most Cultists boards you clearly don't want it, but in general attacks prolong the game, which makes Miser a bit better).
You could have said so right away, not everybody gets your references ;)
Now I see your point. Of course, Miser benefits from draw, as it increases your chance of still being able to buy something good after you Miser'd away a Copper from your hand. Also, I can't think of any type of deck that doesn' benefit from draw.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
In the 3-card kingdom "Scrying Pool, Worker's Village, Miser", I'm going to play with multiple Misers.
Edge case.
No, it's a basic counterexample that should illustrate why I think the statement is bonkers.
Draw makes Miser better, not worse; other trashing may or may not want me to go Miser (it really depends on the other trasher and the rest of the board); and I doubt the presence of attacks has on average a big impact on whether I go Miser or not (on most Cultists boards you clearly don't want it, but in general attacks prolong the game, which makes Miser a bit better).
You could have said so right away, not everybody gets your references ;)
Now I see your point. Of course, Miser benefits from draw, as it increases your chance of still being able to buy something good after you Miser'd away a Copper from your hand. Also, I can't think of any type of deck that doesn' benefit from draw.
Pstone, all I can think of.
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I think Miser is only clearly good in a game with no draw, no trashing, and no attacks. And well, that's pretty boring.
In the 3-card kingdom "Scrying Pool, Worker's Village, Miser", I'm going to play with multiple Misers.
Edge case.
No, it's a basic counterexample that should illustrate why I think the statement is bonkers.
Draw makes Miser better, not worse; other trashing may or may not want me to go Miser (it really depends on the other trasher and the rest of the board); and I doubt the presence of attacks has on average a big impact on whether I go Miser or not (on most Cultists boards you clearly don't want it, but in general attacks prolong the game, which makes Miser a bit better).
You could have said so right away, not everybody gets your references ;)
Now I see your point. Of course, Miser benefits from draw, as it increases your chance of still being able to buy something good after you Miser'd away a Copper from your hand. Also, I can't think of any type of deck that doesn' benefit from draw.
Pstone, all I can think of.
You've got it wrong — that type of deck still benefits from draw, it just doesn't benefit from Pstone.