Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Burning Skull on August 31, 2015, 09:05:05 am

Title: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: Burning Skull on August 31, 2015, 09:05:05 am
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c8/Horse_Traders.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Horse Traders) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/8/89/Nomad_Camp.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Nomad Camp) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/7/7a/Procession.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Procession) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/b/bc/Mint.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Mint) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/d/d1/Hoard.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Hoard)
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/0/05/Smugglers.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Smugglers) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/e/e7/Swindler.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Swindler) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/7/74/Urchin.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Urchin) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/5/5e/Advisor.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Advisor) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c8/Caravan.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Caravan)
Code: [Select]
Smugglers, Swindler, Urchin, Advisor, Caravan, Horse Traders, Nomad Camp, Procession, Mint, Hoard
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150829/log.5085f5130cf270038ff92212.1440860062702.txt

I would like to discuss openings in that game (League match season 10).

Both Mic and Adam opened Urchin/Swindler here.
So. Let's look how opening Swindler affects turns 3 and 4.
Pros of opening Swindler:
Cons of opening Swindler:

So, that being said, I think the better opening here is Urchin/Urchin.
The only thing that stands for opening Swindler is that you will want it in your deck eventually, so might as well open it.

Thoughts?

Unfortunately I was not able to see it live, so no chat, so maby I'm repeating something someone said about it already.
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: Davio on August 31, 2015, 09:25:02 am
I think Urchin/Swindler is better because of the upsides of playing Swindler early and later.

Hitting a Mercenary and giving out a Curse is pretty sweet. :)
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: DG on August 31, 2015, 09:38:44 am
Swindler is more likely to give you two 4 coin hands.
You want a swindler fairly soon anyway and it might be easier to sequence your buys with the swindler already in you deck.
Bad draws after urchin/urchin might leave you dead in the water but swindler/urchin is more likely to yield something.
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: SCSN on August 31, 2015, 10:56:22 am
Quote from: Burning Skull on August 31, 2015, 09:05:05 am
you have about 1/6 chance of hitting opponent's Urchin/Swindler, thus slowing him down significantly

1/6 chance of slowing your opponent down significantly at the cost of a slight decrease in Merc gain probability is a terrific deal.

I would agree with Urchin/Urchin over Urchin/Fortune Teller here (because there are no good 5s), but Swindler is such a strong card and is especially good early here.

Quote
in 5/6 cases you will take a crappy card out of your opponent's deck and put it into his discard, thus speeding him up (it seems important!!!)

It's closer to being negligible than it is to being important.
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: liopoil on August 31, 2015, 11:04:58 am
Another question is if you want multiple mercenaries. If you do, then that is a small plus for double urchin, just because you are committed to buying another urchin next shuffle if you open with swindler, even if you hit $4 twice.
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: SCSN on August 31, 2015, 11:09:23 am
The only scenario in which I'm not adding another Urchin on T3 or 4 is if I hit 5xC for a Mint on one of those turns and $2 on the other, regardless of whether I open U/U or S/U.
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: AdamH on August 31, 2015, 11:20:18 am
This has come up for me before, and a lot of math was done then. Two relevant threads:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12401.0
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=12397.0
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: Burning Skull on September 01, 2015, 05:17:45 am
Quote from: DG on August 31, 2015, 09:38:44 am
Swindler is more likely to give you two 4 coin hands.

But you kinda want more (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)'s (Urchins) anyway on T3/T4? Or at least you are absolutely fine with more (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Coin3.png/16px-Coin3.png)'s instead of more (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png)'s here, because of Procession?

Overall, I've seen good points in here and in the threads Adam mentioned, but I'm not entirely convinced (remember, we are talking about that exact board).
The funny thing is if I play this board against someone from Swindler encampment, they'll just Swindle my Urchin away on turn three, and I'll never ever raise this discussion again :)
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: Beyond Awesome on September 01, 2015, 06:10:32 am
I would have opened Urchin/Urchin, especially with the lack of Village.
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: Dingan on September 01, 2015, 06:53:43 pm
When I'm playing against really super good players, I rely on luck more so than I normally do.  Swindler is one of the most luck-swingy cards (oh yay, I get to turn his Urchin into a Smugglers).  Maybe that's what these 2 players are doing because after all, they're both playing against really good players.
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: Chris is me on September 01, 2015, 07:50:05 pm
I think in the general case (ignoring the rest of the kingdom), Urchin / Swindler is better. This is largely because of the relatively small chance of significantly slowing down the opponent by trashing a power card combined with the value of a terminal Silver in the early game.

However, in this kingdom, you don't exactly have power $5 or $6 cards to pick up. You're going to probably want to bulk up on 3 and 4 cost cards, so the drawback of Urchin / Urchin leading to weak second shuffle buying power... just isn't much of a drawback, really. You can still pick up a Caravan or two, maybe a third Urchin if you hit $3. I'd rather get Mercenary faster.

The Procession buy by Adam is really what I think was critical here though. As a mechanism to gain Caravan quickly, while dispatching with now less useful $3 cost cards, it's hard to beat. Plus it's a village, sort of...
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: Davio on September 02, 2015, 02:43:37 am
With Swindler, you need to look at whether there are crappy alternatives to cards your opponent is likely to have. The crappier the alternatives, the better Swindler will be.

Here, the alternatives are pretty crappy. Because there are no villages as mentioned, you can just dish out terminals.
Copper/Mercenary -> Curse
Estate -> Estate (nothing to do about this)
Urchin/Silver -> Smugglers
Caravan/Procession -> Nomad Camp
Duchy -> Mint
Gold -> Hoard (late game)
Title: Re: Urchin/Urchin vs Urchin/Swindler
Post by: AdamH on September 02, 2015, 08:25:22 am
Just highlighted and uploaded the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmSENB-xzzo). Of course there were several things I didn't do very well. The chat seemed to like a different line of play that involved going straight for Golds and sort of skipping Procession. I'm not convinced that either one is better than the other right now.