Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Let's Discuss ... => Topic started by: schadd on July 28, 2016, 06:54:54 pm

Title: empires: royal blacksmith
Post by: schadd on July 28, 2016, 06:54:54 pm
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/cb/Royal_Blacksmith.jpg)
alright i finished your royal dil- heyyyy! did you just bring a copper in!?


it is a bigger version of another card that doesn't like coppers. you probably shouldn't buy it like at all until turn 5ish. but when there is a thing that is super good to play a bunch of asap then royal blacksmith is a strong pill. i would say the difficult thing with this and city quarter is less of what effect it has on your deck (trash your coppers please! for this one of course but also cq) but how do you evaluate that debt, even? like, i can choose to buy this card at any time that i want as long as i don't have any of those dang debts. and there's a weird curve of how good it is by how much money you have—at $7 and $8 (with no buy) it is probably one of the best options but then at $5 and $6 you're sacrificing a particularly good buy this turn and also taking away a stinky amount of money from next turn (you are p likely to end up with like $1 or $2 next turn) buuutt theeennn at $4 it's nice because you have a nice likelihood of getting exactly $0 next turn which is perhaps counter-intuitively a convenient amount of money to have. and there's always the option to buy it at $0, like if you bought something else in addition. and 8 debt is 8 debt, and i'd rather have my deck improve sooner than later, but it seems scary for some reason. and of course the strengths at each cost that i described vary depending on how much money you can make each turn.


-do all monarchies ultimately fail because of their willful ignorance of the usefulness of coppers?
-how often do you buy it at $0? is there some reason that one shouldn't pick up a royal blacksmith or city quarter when one needs it at $0, other than, wow, 8 debt. how am i gonna dig myself out of that hole.
-is this better than embassy or something?
Title: Re: empires: royal blacksmith
Post by: ced on July 29, 2016, 01:03:10 pm
My one game so far with Royal Blacksmith was an engine board with Amulet and Spice Merchant for trashing. That's basically the perfect board for it, really - you have fast copper trashing, +buy to pick it up, and you can gain a few Silvers for some economy for it to draw. Unfortunately, both my trashers missed the shuffle and I ended up a little while later buying the Blacksmith with four coppers still in my deck. This was a mistake, as it became difficult to get rid of those last few coppers. There was actually also an Embassy in the kingdom, which I should have bought before the Blacksmith.

So, in kingdoms with Copper trashing, you should still look to buy other draw before the Blacksmith to cycle back to trashers without discarding coppers, then go back and pick up Blacksmith to draw your deck. If there's also a powerful attack (particularly a junker), you might want to go Blacksmith early anyway so you can get back to it quickly (possibly not as good an idea with Mountebank, though).

Is this good without Copper trashing? I guess you could pre-emptively discard coppers with Warehouse, Royal Blacksmith to draw everything else, then a bunch of cantrips to get the coppers back. 4 Magpies is enough to draw all 7 coppers, that's probably the easiest thing, but Wishing Well could do work too. Maybe just a big engine with lots of cheap cantrips and a couple of Blacksmiths would do it.
Title: Re: empires: royal blacksmith
Post by: Chris is me on July 29, 2016, 01:07:09 pm
One unique thing about Royal Blacksmith versus other Debt cards is that in the wrong situation, buying and playing it can actually make it harder to pay off debt, if you have to discard too many Coppers with it. You shouldn't buy it too early without a good plan for what to do with / about those missing Coppers. Don't shuffle them back in without completely drawing your new deck!
Title: Re: empires: royal blacksmith
Post by: Dingan on July 29, 2016, 03:58:19 pm
Combos with Counting House    * walks away... *
Title: Re: empires: royal blacksmith
Post by: JThorne on July 30, 2016, 10:27:04 am
Quote
Combos with Counting House    * walks away... *

You might consider walking away a bit faster to avoid flung tomatoes.

Kind of reminds me of the kids that tried to tell me what a great combo Beggar and Moneylender was.
Title: Re: empires: royal blacksmith
Post by: werothegreat on July 30, 2016, 11:41:58 am
Quote from: JThorne on July 30, 2016, 10:27:04 am
Quote
Combos with Counting House    * walks away... *

You might consider walking away a bit faster to avoid flung tomatoes.

Kind of reminds me of the kids that tried to tell me what a great combo Beggar and Moneylender was.

I was playing a game with a guy who bought Estates to trash to Sacrifice.
Title: Re: empires: royal blacksmith
Post by: trivialknot on July 30, 2016, 11:49:18 am
Quote from: werothegreat on July 30, 2016, 11:41:58 am
Quote from: JThorne on July 30, 2016, 10:27:04 am
Quote
Combos with Counting House    * walks away... *

You might consider walking away a bit faster to avoid flung tomatoes.

Kind of reminds me of the kids that tried to tell me what a great combo Beggar and Moneylender was.

I was playing a game with a guy who bought Estates to trash to Sacrifice.
Hey, if buying Temples to trash to Temple is good, then so is buying Estates for Sacrifice.
Title: Re: empires: royal blacksmith
Post by: trivialknot on July 30, 2016, 12:02:54 pm
Right, so on topic.

Playing with Royal Blacksmith revealed some unexpected pitfalls.  You really want to trash those copper, but once you start using Royal Blacksmith, it becomes difficult because coppers keep on getting discarded.  Second pitfall: if you shuffle your deck midturn, you get a face full of copper.

Quote from: schadd on July 28, 2016, 06:54:54 pm
-how often do you buy it at $0? is there some reason that one shouldn't pick up a royal blacksmith or city quarter when one needs it at $0, other than, wow, 8 debt. how am i gonna dig myself out of that hole.
It's worth it to buy debt cards at $0 just so you can say, "It might have looked like I dudded, but it was part of my plan all along!"
Title: Re: empires: royal blacksmith
Post by: Limetime on July 30, 2016, 10:09:42 pm
Doctor and lookout make coppers in discard a utility.