Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Let's Discuss ... => Topic started by: Seprix on April 02, 2016, 10:25:50 pm

Title: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: Seprix on April 02, 2016, 10:25:50 pm: (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/b/b7/Chancellor.jpg)

A face not even a mother could love.

-How good is this card? Early game? Late game?
-How often do you want to trigger the discard effect?
-Any reason to want more than one?
-With the advent of Events, is there cool new stuff you could do, like top deck things or tokens?

inb4 Awaclus says Scavenger is just loads better. Which it is.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: Marcory on April 02, 2016, 11:44:14 pm: As has been said elsewhere, no doubt, the problem with Chancellor is not its effect but is opportunity cost. If you have space in your deck for a Terminal Silver, then there's probably something better to buy instead. And if you have limited space for terminals in your deck, then you want a Curser or Smithy-variant instead of this.

But if you have space for a Terminal Silver and there's nothing better, then Chancellor seldom hurts. For example, if you're going for a non-terminal power $5 like Governor or Stables or Rebuild or Hunting Party, opening Silver-Chancellor is better than Silver-Silver, because it will get you to your Turn 3/4 (or 5/6) buys faster. And for strategies that prefer Terminal Silver to Treasures (like double Tactician or Minion or with Chapelled decks against a Thief variant), then there's no harm in using Chancellors if they're all the Action-based coin available.

Chancellor does get worse once you start greening, so eventually you'll want to stop playing it, unless its coin is an integral part of your engine.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: jsh357 on April 02, 2016, 11:46:00 pm: It suffices when you are desperate for power cycling early, like with potion cost cards. It can do the same tricks as other cards that cycle the whole deck, just not as well and with no nice bonus like scavenger or messenger have. Not a very good card, but debatably not the worst $3 card either.

Travelers are another nice edge case. Well, page anyway. Look, I'm grasping at straws here. Rebuild! Yeah!
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: Doom_Shark on April 03, 2016, 12:48:12 am: I've never bought more than one, but it's nice for cycling when you're chaining Smithy variants. Especially when you're engine hasn't taken off yet. And gets you're draw power shuffled back in on those off chances where you have a few cards left after all you're chaining. Nice for early game to get you're new stuff shuffled back in, too. And yes, I would rather have scavenger. And I will mention bots absolutely hate chancellors. At least enough to give them to you when they swindle silver.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: Beyond Awesome on April 03, 2016, 02:06:46 am: If you have no other terminals, this card is okay. He works especially well with potion cost cards. But if their is any other terminal you want, usually this card just sucks.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: faust on April 03, 2016, 06:31:29 am: Quote from: Marcory on April 02, 2016, 11:44:14 pm
Chancellor does get worse once you start greening, so eventually you'll want to stop playing it, unless its coin is an integral part of your engine.

There's no reason to stop playing it; the cycling effect is optional.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: wachsmuth on April 03, 2016, 06:44:16 am: I think this card is underbought. It is a very weak card, but in the situations mentioned above it is quite nice, and I think many people ignore it incorrectly those situations.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: Awaclus on April 03, 2016, 07:01:32 am: Quote from: Seprix on April 02, 2016, 10:25:50 pm
inb4 Awaclus says Scavenger is just loads better. Which it is.

But that's not an inside joke, or if it is, I'm not inside it.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: McGarnacle on April 03, 2016, 08:40:47 am: The positive things I was going to say about Chancellor (like faster cycling) have already been said, so I'll just say more negative things. :)

So many cards, like Nomad Camp, Scavenger or Navigator, are terminal silvers with lots of other nice bonuses. Chancellor is so vanilla that it is eclipsed by any of the above cards if they are in the same kingdom.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: Seprix on April 03, 2016, 11:25:26 am: Quote from: Awaclus on April 03, 2016, 07:01:32 am
Quote from: Seprix on April 02, 2016, 10:25:50 pm
inb4 Awaclus says Scavenger is just loads better. Which it is.

But that's not an inside joke, or if it is, I'm not inside it.

inb4 means 'in before'. There wasn't much of an inside joke thing to it.

I actually very much like this card; I think it is heavily under bought and ignored to the degree of Scout when it is not even close to that bad.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: AdrianHealey on April 03, 2016, 11:50:25 am: Chancellor was promly better as a $4 treasure. :p

I removed it from my dominion box;
Just not worth the trouble kn a scarce universe
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: Awaclus on April 03, 2016, 11:53:16 am: Quote from: Seprix on April 03, 2016, 11:25:26 am
Quote from: Awaclus on April 03, 2016, 07:01:32 am
Quote from: Seprix on April 02, 2016, 10:25:50 pm
inb4 Awaclus says Scavenger is just loads better. Which it is.

But that's not an inside joke, or if it is, I'm not inside it.

inb4 means 'in before'. There wasn't much of an inside joke thing to it.

I know what inb4 means. "Warehouse is better than Cellar" is an inside joke, "Scavenger is better than Chancellor" is, AFAIK, not, which is why I posted the former but not the latter.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: Max on April 03, 2016, 01:09:44 pm: I used this as a counter to a 5/2 Witch opener. I bought a Silver/Chancellor. Turn 3 I bought the witch and had my whole deck in my discard. Is this the most effective strategy? Probably not, but I did win the curses split because of being able to cycle my deck whenever chancellor appeared after the witch.

I can't remember what else was in the Kingdom - it mustn't have been great for me to have bought the chancellor. I remember winning though.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: tripwire on April 03, 2016, 11:16:48 pm: I agree that Chancellor is a pretty meh card. That being said, I think it's a really important card to have in the base set. Cards like this help new players recognize various principles about deck builders. I remember when I first read chancellor and thinking "wtf?" But its existence forced me to acknowledge the value of putting your deck into your discard. In other words, Chancellor helped me recognize the value of cycling.

There's actually a lot of cards like this in the base game, and I think that's part of what helped make Dominion as big a hit as it was. Think of all the times people have described seeing Chapel for the first time and thinking, "well I guess this can be okay if I get a lot of curses." These cards teach people how to become better players because their existence forces players to confront various elements unique to deckbuilders. And since deckbuilders didn't really become a big thing until after Dominion, the existence of cards like Chancellor was even more important at that time.

As a result, I'm very thankful for cards like Chancellor even if they have ultimately proven to be on the weak side.
Title: Re: Let's Discuss Base Set Cards: Chancellor
Post by: schadd on April 04, 2016, 06:13:29 pm: chancellor is trash ass and also fishing village/chancellor is a pretty good opening