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Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Let's Discuss ... => Topic started by: schadd on December 29, 2016, 11:12:49 pm

Title: let's discuss guilds cards: advisor
Post by: schadd on December 29, 2016, 11:12:49 pm

(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/5/5e/Advisor.jpg)
"i am going to hit you"

  one may realize, after playing with advisor a time, that it is at its best when you don't have any especially good cards in your deck. this can be accomplished by having your entire deck be bad or by having it all be okay. you could also have your whole deck be really good but that's hard. the key here, then, seems to be trashing. or purchasing a bunch of bad cards, or gaining them with e.g. workshop.
  oo, in fact, workshop has a nice synergy because you can use it to get advisors in addition to your bad cards.


-how long does your opponent get to think about which card to choose before you're allowed to get angry?
-what kinds of changes, in general, might you make to your deck with advisor as draw compared to e.g. laboratory?
-surely advisor is not really good for bm. but, what kinds of conditions might make it good in a goodstuff deck?

Title: Re: let's discuss guilds cards: advisor
Post by: LibraryAdventurer on December 29, 2016, 11:48:24 pm

I just played a game with Advisor where about 2/3 of the action cards were terminal and there were no villages except for Lost Arts on something with +action. So I used Lost Arts on Advisor. I didn't win though. I lost by one when 3 piles went empty (Advisor, Artificer, and Building Blocks from my fan expansion).

I think you judge Advisor only partly by how many good/bad cards you have, and more by how much draw you have. The more draw you have, the better Advisor is because your other draw can pick up whatever gets discarded by Advisor.

Title: Re: let's discuss guilds cards: advisor
Post by: singletee on December 29, 2016, 11:54:39 pm

If your entire deck is bad cards then it is better to add good or okay cards to it so you can occasionally draw those instead of adding Advisors so you can draw more bad cards.

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-how long does your opponent get to think about which card to choose before you're allowed to get angry?

Depends on the revealed cards.

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-what kinds of changes, in general, might you make to your deck with advisor as draw compared to e.g. laboratory?

You have to have a way to draw that last card that the Advisors won't let you get. Or you could have a second copy of your deck's best card. Stuff like Warehouse and Dungeon and Cellar is good with Labs but is more good with Advisors. Your deck generally has to be more robust with Advisors since a savvy opponent will be pretty good at knowing what to discard.

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-surely advisor is not really good for bm. but, what kinds of conditions might make it good in a goodstuff deck?

I would say strong trashing but then you aren't playing a good stuff deck but an engine. Maybe if you can just gain tons and tons of otherwise useless cantrips so that Advisor becomes Lab. Harbinger could also mitigate missing your good cards.

Title: Re: let's discuss guilds cards: advisor
Post by: werothegreat on December 30, 2016, 12:44:46 am

The quality of each Advisor increases the more you have of them in your deck.  You start forcing your opponent to make decisions between letting you keep payload cards, or letting you keep your next Advisor and keep this engine chugging.

Title: Re: let's discuss guilds cards: advisor
Post by: McGarnacle on December 30, 2016, 08:14:52 am

I generally dislike non-attack player interaction, but for some reason I don't mind Advisor and Envoy. The key is that your opponent often doesn't discard your best card, because he doesn't know what you have in your hand.

Title: Re: let's discuss guilds cards: advisor
Post by: Chris is me on December 30, 2016, 08:21:53 am

Advisor is draw and draw is so good it's worth working around whatever problems it gives you. It's even nonterminal draw.

You have to trash. Ideally with multiple trashers so you don't constantly get denied access to your Trasher. I like Forager or Steward the most with this stuff. Beginning of turn trashers like Ratcatcher and Amulet aren't as cool since you can't take advantage of Advisor's "ability" to draw you junk. But I guess you want to trash a bit before you even go in on Advisor.

Cantrip payload or just cantrips in general help with cleaning up all the good shit at the end.

I dunno dude, it's Advisor. Get a bunch of em, and then complain that the draw on this board is shitty. That's the way to play it.

Title: Re: let's discuss guilds cards: advisor
Post by: Burning Skull on December 30, 2016, 05:59:24 pm

They combo with Harbingers!

Title: Re: let's discuss guilds cards: advisor
Post by: luser on January 01, 2017, 12:31:26 pm

Advice about judging advisor based on good/bad card ratio is bad mentality of weaker players. It doesn't matter in cases where advisor is good and when it could make difference advisor is questionable. Here is a my unpolished advisor article to fix these misconceptions:

Advisor in engine: Advisor is one of best sources of cheap draw. To evaluate engine viability you need to compare number of payload cards and number of draw cards you want in final deck. You want to be able of overdrawing deck as your goal is to reshuffle cards discarded this turn while opponent wants to prevent that by discarding best drawer from three. Discarding villages is usually worse as advisors provide nonterminal draw and one could have village in hand. Discarding other cards just helps with reshuffling discarded cards and once you reach it drawing rest of deck is easy (but as it setups next turn you don't have to do this.) Common problem is that beginners don't trust engine as often you need to commit yourself by buying more advisor few weak turns until engine starts working and not panic and switch to other strategy.

When there is other draw advisor acts as cheap laboratory if you don't want payload card for 4.

The word cheap in first sentence is quite important as buying one advisor per turn isn't impressive. You want to get lot of them with gainers or +buy and cost reduction like quarry or inheritance.

Trashing isn't necessary if there is other drawing card but makes job easier. Without junking start of turn trashers don't cause problems as you should open double amulet or get 2-3 ratcatcher as it doesn't matter if you trash copper or estate. What causes problem are count, junk dealer and forge as they are expensive to open with them and they could be repeatedly discarded or you shouldn't play advisors.