Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: singletee on June 17, 2016, 12:24:21 am
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With the availability of Adventures online, I stumbled upon what appears at first to be a fast two-component Big Money strategy. (Good luck) (http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160606/log.0.1465197276302.txt) (Bad luck) (http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160606/log.0.1465202563668.txt) Overall the strategy is quick, reliable, and resistant to attacks. Here's how it works:
Open with Jack and Bonfire, trashing two of your Coppers. If you get 5/2, take Jack and be sad. If you get 5/2 and Baker or Borrow enables you to get $3 for Bonfire on the first shuffle, do it.
Then next thing you want to do is to thin your deck by trashing Coppers with Bonfire and Estates/Shelters with Jack. Buy Bonfire whenever you have 2 Coppers in play until you are thin. Unless you get all 3 Estates in 1 hand, you should be able to buy Bonfire on both turns 3 and 4. On turn 5, you should be trashing your last or second-to-last Estate and have several Silvers and at least $5 to buy with. Best-case scenario, which is fairly common, you end turn 5 with your deck consisting of 1 Jack, 1 Copper, 3 Silver, and 1 Gold. From there buy Province/Gold/Silver with Duchies as needed. With no attacks, you should get your 4th Province around turn 11 or so.
So what makes this better than DoubleJack? Notice how around turn 5 or 6 your deck has mostly Silvers and is nearly free of junk? Start buying engine parts instead of Gold. Turns out you weren't playing Big Money at all! You were trashing and building economy to prepare for your engine!
Ok, so back to Big Money. I made a bot (attached) using Geronimoo's sim. It buys Bonfire when it can up until turn 6 whenever it has 2 or more Copper in play. I added logic to buy another Jack when facing Cursing attacks. Otherwise, it's a standard Big Money strategy. Some simulation results of note:
Beats Cultist 57-42
Beats Rebuild 80-19
Beats FG/Council Room 54-42
Beats Fishing Village/Wharf 70-28
Loses to Young Witch/Tunnel 28-70
For these two, I am not sure how much cleverness has been programmed into the bot, so take them with a heaping load of salt.
Beats Hermit/MS 51-45
Beats Counting House/Travelling Fair 62-35
Has anyone else used this strategy? How did you do with it?
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I've played Jack Bonfire a couple of times. It's pretty strong and I won both times.
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Turns out you weren't playing Big Money at all!
http://i.imgur.com/76oQh9d.jpg
Another classic pairing of Jack+Copper trashing. I'm excited about seeing this combo come up--though not quite as excited as I am about the idea of Advance/Seaway/Rats.
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Powerful combo. This got me thinking about Amulet + Bonfire. I played around a little and it's similar, but not quite as strong.
Open with two Amulets. Trash your starting Estates with Amulets, then gain Silvers. Use the +1 coin option to hit important thresholds. Trash 6 Copper with Bonfire. Best case scenario (which, again, isn't uncommon) is a deck of 1 Copper, 2 Silvers, and 2 Amulets (one in play) after turn 5. With nothing else on the board, gain a Gold and a Silver and move into Province-buying phase on turn 7 (at the earliest). Like with Jack, you can add in action cards instead of Gold to improve consistency or amplify your payload. Amulet doesn't protect against handsize attacks like Jack, of course, but it handles junking attacks.
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In general, copper trashing becomes stronger if there is something else to trash estates as well (or something else to do with estates such as baron).
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Hermit plus Bonfire might actually work better than this in some cases. What you lack in draw you get in very reliable trashing and slightly better resistance to junking attacks. If there are $3 cost engine components, Hermit / Bonfire is very fast.
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Are the opposing bots also buying bonfire?
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Hermit plus Bonfire might actually work better than this in some cases. What you lack in draw you get in very reliable trashing and slightly better resistance to junking attacks. If there are $3 cost engine components, Hermit / Bonfire is very fast.
The problem with Hermit + Bonfire is that your Hermits go mad before you would like. In order to trash your starting Estates, you need to use some Hermit gains for additional Hermits, and then you wind up with a deck with no economy. There are probably boards where it works (when early Madmen are valuable), but it isn't a standalone strategy like Jack and Amulet.
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Hermit plus Bonfire might actually work better than this in some cases. What you lack in draw you get in very reliable trashing and slightly better resistance to junking attacks. If there are $3 cost engine components, Hermit / Bonfire is very fast.
The problem with Hermit + Bonfire is that your Hermits go mad before you would like. In order to trash your starting Estates, you need to use some Hermit gains for additional Hermits, and then you wind up with a deck with no economy. There are probably boards where it works (when early Madmen are valuable), but it isn't a standalone strategy like Jack and Amulet.
I completely forgot that buying Events doesn't count as something that stops Hermit's self trash ability. Whoops!
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Powerful combo. This got me thinking about Amulet + Bonfire. I played around a little and it's similar, but not quite as strong.
Open with two Amulets. Trash your starting Estates with Amulets, then gain Silvers. Use the +1 coin option to hit important thresholds. Trash 6 Copper with Bonfire. Best case scenario (which, again, isn't uncommon) is a deck of 1 Copper, 2 Silvers, and 2 Amulets (one in play) after turn 5. With nothing else on the board, gain a Gold and a Silver and move into Province-buying phase on turn 7 (at the earliest). Like with Jack, you can add in action cards instead of Gold to improve consistency or amplify your payload. Amulet doesn't protect against handsize attacks like Jack, of course, but it handles junking attacks.
I think you want to open Bonfire Amulet actually
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Powerful combo. This got me thinking about Amulet + Bonfire. I played around a little and it's similar, but not quite as strong.
Open with two Amulets. Trash your starting Estates with Amulets, then gain Silvers. Use the +1 coin option to hit important thresholds. Trash 6 Copper with Bonfire. Best case scenario (which, again, isn't uncommon) is a deck of 1 Copper, 2 Silvers, and 2 Amulets (one in play) after turn 5. With nothing else on the board, gain a Gold and a Silver and move into Province-buying phase on turn 7 (at the earliest). Like with Jack, you can add in action cards instead of Gold to improve consistency or amplify your payload. Amulet doesn't protect against handsize attacks like Jack, of course, but it handles junking attacks.
I think you want to open.Bonfire Amulet actually
How does that play out? When do you make your next two Bonfire purchases? What do you choose to do with your first Amulet play? Do you purchase a second Amulet? When? I figured that the double Amulet opening would ensure that the Copper trashing didn't get ahead of the Estate trashing and Silver gaining.
Edit: The best case scenario I can see with opening Amulet + Bonfire:
Turn 1: Buy Amulet.
Turn 2: Buy Bonfire: trash 2 Coppers.
Turn 3: Play Amulet: trash Estate. Buy Bonfire: trash 2 Coppers.
Turn 4: Duration Amulet: gain Silver. Buy Bonfire: trash 2 Coppers.
Turn 5: Play Amulet: trash Estate. Buy Silver (or other economy generating $3-cost).
Turn 6: Duration Amulet: trash Estate. Buy $5 card (or buy a $6 with help from Amulet - at the expense of trashing your final Estate).
Which is about the same place as the two-Amulet opening's best case, but minus an Amulet (which could be good or bad, depending on the kingdom). I believe it's a more brittle opening, though. Getting an Amulet and 3+ Coppers on turn 3 has a likelihood of 28.6%. Opening with Bonfire works better with Jack because of the smart draw-to-five (plus, Jack can draw the Silver he gains if you get real thin).
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Are the opposing bots also buying bonfire?
It seems like the opposing bots aren't buying Bonfire. What I think A Drowned Kernel is getting at is that comparing a strategy that uses cards A and B against a strategy that only uses cards C and D may not be that useful. The best strategy on board ABCD may involve using all four cards!
That said, Bonfire has great synergy with Jack, as Jack loves copper-trashing.