Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: brokoli on December 02, 2012, 08:51:49 am
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Related to this (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5495.0).
Saboteur : I love this card and I hope I'm not the only one. Sab could've been boring if it was powerful, fortunatelly it isn't. Donald's words disappoints me, I really think this card is fine and I don't understand why people hate it more than Mountebank or Witch.
Precisely, I'm surprised not to see Mountebank-Witch in the list. They are overpowered and just kill any kind of fun engine the game can have. They lengthen the game a lot and make it boring. I don't see this problem with Sea Hag, Torturer or Young witch : Sea Hag is not really good for BM (unlike witch-mountebank), Torturer is an engine-card so it is still interesting, and Young witch always have a bane.
Personally, another card I really don't like is Alchemist. What's the point ? You are essentially playing each turn Alchemist-alchemist-alchemist-alchemist-play treasures-buy alchemist-put all alchemists on top and repeat...
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Precisely, I'm surprised not to see Mountebank-Witch in the list. They are overpowered and just kill any kind of fun engine the game can have.
If a board where Witch/Mountebank is worth going for, often times the fun engine is "Build an engine to play your attack more often.
And what does overpowered really mean, when everyone has equal access to the card? Do you think they should cost 6?
And if you're concerned about them slowing down games, Sea Hag is a much bigger offender for that. It starts cursing sooner and hurts both player's economies, since it doesn't provide any resources.
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My least favorite card is probably Governor. It's just too strong. It tries to balance things that are too powerful by giving opponents bonuses, which just speeds up the game too much. I think it's a great example of how it's a often bad idea to nerf a strong card by giving opponent bonuses.
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My least favorite card is probably Governor. It's just too strong. It tries to balance things that are too powerful by giving opponents bonuses, which just speeds up the game too much. I think it's a great example of how it's a often bad idea to nerf a strong card by giving opponent bonuses.
I think this was to fit the Puerto Rico theme as a promo card. I've never played Puerto Rico, but my understanding is that each turn when you choose something, all other players get some small benefit too. It's a great mechanic for a board game like that, as a way to keep players engaged when it's not your turn.
I think the bigger "problem" with Governor is that its three choices synergize way too nicely into a strategy all in itself. That tends to lead to relatively boring yet quick rush games.
A similar card is IGG. I feel that the IGG Duchy rush is an unintended consequence of emptying two piles at once.
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Related to this (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5495.0).
Saboteur : I love this card and I hope I'm not the only one. Sab could've been boring if it was powerful, fortunatelly it isn't. Donald's words disappoints me, I really think this card is fine and I don't understand why people hate it more than Mountebank or Witch.
Precisely, I'm surprised not to see Mountebank-Witch in the list. They are overpowered and just kill any kind of fun engine the game can have. They lengthen the game a lot and make it boring. I don't see this problem with Sea Hag, Torturer or Young witch : Sea Hag is not really good for BM (unlike witch-mountebank), Torturer is an engine-card so it is still interesting, and Young witch always have a bane.
Personally, another card I really don't like is Alchemist. What's the point ? You are essentially playing each turn Alchemist-alchemist-alchemist-alchemist-play treasures-buy alchemist-put all alchemists on top and repeat...
Overpowered: Like, because they are more powerful? SOMETHING has to be most powerful. I guess you are arguing for outliers, but there are a couple of issues: 1. These cards are actually ignorable a non-negligible percentage of the time. They really are. Moreover, they do NOT totally stop you from going for engines. In fact, they *help* certain kids of engines, though they of course hurt others. Like... every other card, basically.
Finally, I reject the non-evidenced position that the only thing fun about the game is playing engines. If this were true, the whole game is designed badly, because you can do more to make big money strategies weak. But I think the game is designed quite well (not that there aren't *some* flaws)
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I feel that the IGG Duchy rush is an unintended consequence of emptying two piles at once.
I mean, I dunno... the on-gain curser didn't have to be a Copper-like treasure.
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I feel that the IGG Duchy rush is an unintended consequence of emptying two piles at once.
I mean, I dunno... the on-gain curser didn't have to be a Copper-like treasure.
Hmm, if it had been a Victory card, it wouldn't have emptied two piles at once when it ran out. Not that I'm advocating that specific change.
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Hmm, if it had been a Victory card, it wouldn't have emptied two piles at once when it ran out. Not that I'm advocating that specific change.
I've thought of that, but then you'd usually run out of curses. Assuming that most games have 3 or 4 players.
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Minion is probably my most hated card. Any card where you just have to race to get as many as possible is annoying, but combine that with a decent attack and the propensity for long turns and you've got something that isn't all that fun to play.
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My least favorite cards are Tournament, Governor, and Margrave. Don't really need to explain the first one.
Generic Governor games are the most boring and unbalanced-feeling games in Dominion after the first couple of times. I liked the idea of the card at first, but it seems like it's just way too good a lot of the time when not much else is going on and very easy to fall behind the Governor leader. It's one of the few cards I will purposefully veto unless I know Colonies might appear, in which case Governor usually becomes more balanced and I'm perfectly fine with it. This is really nitpicky, but I also don't personally enjoy games that only last ~11 turns as you can't really get a good deck going in that time. Not saying I need an engine every game, as a close BM game can be fun too, but Governor just takes away the potential for many boards to be entertaining. I cringe whenever I have $5 and it's the best option available.
Discarding to Margrave on Isotropic is incredibly annoying, especially if you are using a touchpad. (I don't mind the card otherwise. I realize this is a stupid reason to hate on it) There's a lot of AP involved for the opponent as well. In person, it usually runs smoothly enough though.
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My most hated would have to be Torturer . Why? Because it screws up my mind T_T
2nd most hated is probably Mountebank Why? Because I can hate it.
Most hated non-attacker is Chancellor. Why? Because I can't love it, like it, use it, abuse it, let alone buy it. The only thing left is hating it.
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Ghost Ship. I, possibly irrationally, hate it more than life itself.
It just bogs down games, self-contributes to bogging down games, snowballs fairly well (if someone gets an early lucky one, you're going to be hard-pressed to recover if you can't luckily get one soon yourself), and offers no useful decisions.
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1. These cards are actually ignorable a non-negligible percentage of the time.
Non-negligible ? Ok, we have gardens, trader, lighthouse, masquerade... but even, Witch and mountebank are too often dominant, really.
they do NOT totally stop you from going for engines. In fact, they *help* certain kids of engines, though they of course hurt others. Like... every other card, basically.
What kind of engines ? I don't see...
And when witch is on the board, most of the time you'll play double-witch big money. And all funny strategies you could have played are killed by this damn curser.
I mean, witch-mountebank games are interesting sometimes, but they tend to be dominant almost every games they appear on, and that's not fun. I think dominion really needs more defenses for these attacks.
Finally, I reject the non-evidenced position that the only thing fun about the game is playing engines. If this were true, the whole game is designed badly, because you can do more to make big money strategies weak. But I think the game is designed quite well (not that there aren't *some* flaws)
Ok, but about witch... how often can you play a village-witch engine ? I regret above all the lack of strategic depth in this card... and it creates mirror games.
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*sees someone arguing about an attack being bad for the game*
http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/12/27/your-guide-to-beating-attacks/ (http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/12/27/your-guide-to-beating-attacks/)
Honestly, though, I see no reason to conclude that Witch is OP. There are rarely times where someone can go double Witch against an opponent going Ambass/Ambass for example.
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I think you're viewing engines too narrowly. Of course engines are slowed down by cursing, but a reasonable deck that can get Curses + other cards into hand and trash them without too much penalty will eventually overtake Witch-BM.
Personally, Duke is one of my least favorite cards. In Duke game, losing the Duchy split 5-3 means that you've basically lost the game.
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Black Market is my least favorite card. I don't like the fact that only one copy of each card is available. But even more than that, I HATE being able to play Treasures outside of the buy phase. I view Action-Buy-Cleanup as fundamental to the game and it bothers me that Black Market messes so much with that clean delineation.
I also don't like most of the Alchemy cards (esp. Familiar and Possession), but when playing in person, I like it a lot better when we play 5 cards from Alchemy, 5 from another set. Then, I don't mind so much. Potions are just not worth the hassle, and are not that fun for me.
I don't like that a lot of the attacks (Witch, Sea Hag, Ambassador) are go-to cards so often more so than disliking the cards themselves. Pirate Ship is one of my favorite attacks because it's not a go-to card nearly as often.
I don't mind Treasure Map and similar cards very much at all. Cards with more variance are fine with me as long as they are not go-tos. I used to love Tournament and Governor, but lately, because it is so hard to find alternate strategies that defeat them, like them less and less. There is still a lot of strategy in how to optimally implement Tournament and Governor, but it would be nice to have more kingdoms where buying them at all is a trap.... hmmmm.... sounds like something to work on for the kingdom design challenge!!
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1. These cards are actually ignorable a non-negligible percentage of the time.
Non-negligible ? Ok, we have gardens, trader, lighthouse, masquerade... but even, Witch and mountebank are too often dominant, really.
Well, how often is too often, and how dominant is dominant? It's a matter of taste, but it's not so much about specific cards countering them. You bring up some good examples here, but... I would say you don't want to buy any given curser in let's say 30% of games. Now, about half of these are because there's another curser available that's better, but apart from this, you have rushes, slogs, some soft counters, and really strong engines which can trash through. Not to mention dozens of other strategies that shrug curses off (really fast things, or also something like chancellor/stash which is REALLY impervious to cursing).
they do NOT totally stop you from going for engines. In fact, they *help* certain kids of engines, though they of course hurt others. Like... every other card, basically.
What kind of engines ? I don't see...
And when witch is on the board, most of the time you'll play double-witch big money. And all funny strategies you could have played are killed by this damn curser.
Really not the case. Most of the time implies >50%, and I would say the number is closer to 30%.
I mean, witch-mountebank games are interesting sometimes, but they tend to be dominant almost every games they appear on, and that's not fun. I think dominion really needs more defenses for these attacks.
Well, fun is of course a matter of opinion, and you certainly don't have to play the game, like the game, play the game without the attacks, whatever. But I would like to say that it's possible to play engines and do wacky things with these cards, and even not do too badly in the process. And I think it's actually even quite fun to beat these simple things with some good refinement.
Finally, I reject the non-evidenced position that the only thing fun about the game is playing engines. If this were true, the whole game is designed badly, because you can do more to make big money strategies weak. But I think the game is designed quite well (not that there aren't *some* flaws)
Ok, but about witch... how often can you play a village-witch engine ? I regret above all the lack of strategic depth in this card... and it creates mirror games.
Village-witch engine? About never. How often can you play Village-moat? There's not enough card-draw there. However, you CAN certainly transition from witch into some kind of engine, and get some utility.
Anyway, mostly popping in to get an example game in where in the face of mountebank, I go engine. Not that I ignored mountebank, but going to engine after was very good for me. http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/02/game-20121202-132633-6554669f.html
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Precisely, I'm surprised not to see Mountebank-Witch in the list.
I just covered the cards ARTjoMS put on the poll. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=63.0
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According to the favourite card list, my least favourites were:
Hunting Party 152.5
Witch 152.5
Sea Hag 152.5
Familiar 152.5
Mountebank 156
Ill-Gotten Gains 156
Jack of all Trades 156
(Number is position)
Now, of those, I think I rated Hunting Party too high, and Familiar too low. Hunting Party really surprised me that it wasn't right near the bottom, it's such a dire card to play. In real mechanics, it's not much better than Philosopher's Stone (srsly), and in play it's part of the dominant and boring strategy so often that it's just incredibly un-fun. The rest of them are vaguely near the bottom, or not far enough away that I care.
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I've come to appreciate Jack more as a card that's occasionally pretty darn good for engine-building. It's a great BM enabler, but no one has Masquerade on their least favorite lists...
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1. These cards are actually ignorable a non-negligible percentage of the time.
Non-negligible ? Ok, we have gardens, trader, lighthouse, masquerade... but even, Witch and mountebank are too often dominant, really.
they do NOT totally stop you from going for engines. In fact, they *help* certain kids of engines, though they of course hurt others. Like... every other card, basically.
What kind of engines ? I don't see...
I've lost more than once to some engine-maniac who ignored the Witches for first to trash and build up an engine, just to buy the Witches later, beat me 6-4 in the Curse split and has a clean deck and an engine at this point in contrast to my double-WitchMoat with 6 Curses in the deck.
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Precisely, I'm surprised not to see Mountebank-Witch in the list.
I just covered (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=63.msg1027#msg1027) the cards ARTjoMS put on the poll. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=63.0
FTFY
Edit: FTFM
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I don't hate Ambassador nearly as much as I used to, but I still don't particularly care for the card. It many games, it simply introduces a "pre-game" tug-of-war, with the player who wins that battle going to on to smother their opponent.
I do, however, find it quite satisfying to correctly skip Ambassador and win on the few games where it's best to leave it alone.
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MOAT!
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Province. I can't tell you how many games I've lost because my opponent got more of these than I did.
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Province. I can't tell you how many games I've lost because my opponent got more of these than I did.
Yepp, basically all you have to do is get some money and Provinces...
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Provinces Smovinces, what about Platinum?!!? I mean that is so hard to even buy but when you do it is like "BLAM BABY I JUST GOT $5 from 1 card!!!" I don't even know how many games I've lost due to my opponent getting more Platinum out of his Smithies!
edit: And dondon has 1 respect for every day of the year o.O congrats.
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Provinces Smovinces, what about Platinum?!!? I mean that is so hard to even buy but when you do it is like "BLAM BABY I JUST GOT $5 from 1 card!!!" I don't even know how many games I've lost due to my opponent getting more Platinum out of his Smithies!
edit: And dondon has 1 respect for every day of the year o.O congrats.
+1 to him. 2012 is a leap year.
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Sorry, no hating on cards from me. I lose on my own often enough that a swingy card isn't significant. I lost a game the other night because I was juggling a sick son and a should-not-have-been-awake daughter while playing. I bought a Lab instead of a Duchy and lost because I didn't see there were only 2 coppers left (4-player mountebank).
I will say that a 5-player estate/copper/silver slog in the face of massive Saboteur with no other $2 or $3 cards is not my favorite game. :)
The cards in Alchemy have to be good enough when they're the only Alchemy card out, and if they are then you may draw your Potion without quite enough money. The general solution is not to do this kind of thing in Dominion expansions, but in spin-offs instead, where you can ensure that there's always plenty of whatever, and then balance the cards for that situation.
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Also it adds a decision that's sometimes interesting, and puts cards in your deck that you didn't want but which might be useful anyway. It does add luck, and especially hurts when they hit your $5 early, say while hitting someone else's Estate, but it also adds skill. You see people blow it on that decision so often; the funniest case is where they hit Silver and cannot bear to give you a Swindler for it.
Question the first: Is this sort of thing (the first paragaph) a leading candidate for the DOminion 2.0 that isn't really promised, but is rumored to be more likely than an additional expansion?
Question the second: when would you ever feel comfortable swindling someone's silver into a swindler? I would think they would have to be terminal-heavy and already have a swindler or two for it to be a good idea. Any other thoughts? You have 10 Market Squares in your deck and there are no kingdom cards at $6 and $8?
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Question the first: Is this sort of thing (the first paragaph) a leading candidate for the DOminion 2.0 that isn't really promised, but is rumored to be more likely than an additional expansion?
Question the second: when would you ever feel comfortable swindling someone's silver into a swindler? I would think they would have to be terminal-heavy and already have a swindler or two for it to be a good idea. Any other thoughts? You have 10 Market Squares in your deck and there are no kingdom cards at $6 and $8?
1: Well yes and no, I mean it's not like I'm planning anything that people will compare to Alchemy. But if you make Dominion-with-a-board, for example, and some cards interact with the board, those cards are like cards that cost a potion - except, you always care about the board. That may seem weird but really, if I made a Dominion expansion with a board, you would see it; some games you would ignore that card because it was the only card out that did stuff with the board. But make a spin-off instead and you're fine.
2: When you are Swindling somebody, that helps them become terminal heavy. Are there games with Swindler where you have $3 at some point and buy Silver instead? I am betting there are.
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So I mentioned my distaste for Governor games earlier. This game here was very therapeutic for me. My opponent trashes four Golds to Provinces, I think I'm down, and I get a killer Horn of Plenty megaturn to beat out GenericGov in one greening turn.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/03/game-20121203-161323-32b15630.html
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Question the first: Is this sort of thing (the first paragaph) a leading candidate for the Dominion 2.0 that isn't really promised, but is rumored to be more likely than an additional expansion?
Question the second: when would you ever feel comfortable swindling someone's silver into a swindler? I would think they would have to be terminal-heavy and already have a swindler or two for it to be a good idea. Any other thoughts? You have 10 Market Squares in your deck and there are no kingdom cards at $6 and $8?
1: Well yes and no, I mean it's not like I'm planning anything that people will compare to Alchemy. But if you make Dominion-with-a-board, for example, and some cards interact with the board, those cards are like cards that cost a potion - except, you always care about the board. That may seem weird but really, if I made a Dominion expansion with a board, you would see it; some games you would ignore that card because it was the only card out that did stuff with the board. But make a spin-off instead and you're fine.
2: When you are Swindling somebody, that helps them become terminal heavy. Are there games with Swindler where you have $3 at some point and buy Silver instead? I am betting there are.
The example you give does seem to bear a resemblence to Kingdom Builder - cards that make you care what is going on with the board and how you interact with it (maybe the reverse of what you said).
I do buy silver over Swindler often. But buying silver doesn't help my opponent. Perhaps this will result in an epiphany for me - maybe I play too paranoid/conservative and the thought of empowering my opponent to trash my cards is unnerving. I guess I get to be the comedic relief where I cannot bear to give out a Swindler. I will have to give it a try.
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Question the first: Is this sort of thing (the first paragaph) a leading candidate for the Dominion 2.0 that isn't really promised, but is rumored to be more likely than an additional expansion?
Question the second: when would you ever feel comfortable swindling someone's silver into a swindler? I would think they would have to be terminal-heavy and already have a swindler or two for it to be a good idea. Any other thoughts? You have 10 Market Squares in your deck and there are no kingdom cards at $6 and $8?
1: Well yes and no, I mean it's not like I'm planning anything that people will compare to Alchemy. But if you make Dominion-with-a-board, for example, and some cards interact with the board, those cards are like cards that cost a potion - except, you always care about the board. That may seem weird but really, if I made a Dominion expansion with a board, you would see it; some games you would ignore that card because it was the only card out that did stuff with the board. But make a spin-off instead and you're fine.
2: When you are Swindling somebody, that helps them become terminal heavy. Are there games with Swindler where you have $3 at some point and buy Silver instead? I am betting there are.
The example you give does seem to bear a resemblence to Kingdom Builder - cards that make you care what is going on with the board and how you interact with it (maybe the reverse of what you said).
I do buy silver over Swindler often. But buying silver doesn't help my opponent. Perhaps this will result in an epiphany for me - maybe I play too paranoid/conservative and the thought of empowering my opponent to trash my cards is unnerving. I guess I get to be the comedic relief where I cannot bear to give out a Swindler. I will have to give it a try.
The point is that you Swindled your opponent's Silver. That Silver is trashed now. It's gone. You are now obligated to provide your opponent with a free $3 card from the supply. You could ask yourself, which card would your challenger choose to purchase right now, if given the opportunity? If there are times when you would purchase Silver over Swindler, then this is likely the case for your worthy foe as well. Is this one of those times? If so, you ought to toss on over a Swindler.
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Question the second: when would you ever feel comfortable swindling someone's silver into a swindler? I would think they would have to be terminal-heavy and already have a swindler or two for it to be a good idea. Any other thoughts? You have 10 Market Squares in your deck and there are no kingdom cards at $6 and $8?
Ehh, there are many such cases where you don't have to be terminal heavy to want to give a swindler:
1. I bought out all the peddlers. You get a swindler, now how often are you really going to play it knowing you've got a, say, 1 in 4 chance of giving me a free province?
2. I've run loan and the curse pile is empty, I give you a swindler and you may give me 1 VP (curse to copper) and I may even, finally, be able to trash a junk card from my engine.
3. We both bought 3 swindlers thanks to early swindling of swindlers. This means that I can push the pile down to 9 coin/3 buys to empty it.
4. I've emptied out the only 5 coin kingdom pile in the game (minion, venture, whatever) and the game is getting close to the end; again how often do you want to give me a free-ish duchy?
5. In addition to Market Square, several reactions can make swindler a no-go. If I have a top decked watchtower every turn, you will thin my deck for me. If I always top deck Horse Traders, you will often give me 6 card hands.
6. You are playing with menege or hunting party; 2 swindlers can be much worse than leaving around a single silver/single swindler. Likewise, forcing you to spend a buy on getting a silver in a Fairgrounds engine deck can be strong.
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All these edge cases aside, the later it is in the game, the more likely I am to give my opponent a Swindler. Swindler best on the first few turns when you're likely to hit Copper. If your opponent hits your Province with a Swindler, that's bad for them a lot more often than it is for you, especially if it was the last Province and they have $8 to spend.
A general rule for me is, if we've started greening, giving my opponents Swindlers is good. (Obviously there are boards where this is not the case.)
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But even more than that, I HATE being able to play Treasures outside of the buy phase. I view Action-Buy-Cleanup as fundamental to the game and it bothers me that Black Market messes so much with that clean delineation.
But that's the best part of Black Market! It lets you do so many cool things with Tactician, Library, Menagerie, etc...
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But even more than that, I HATE being able to play Treasures outside of the buy phase. I view Action-Buy-Cleanup as fundamental to the game and it bothers me that Black Market messes so much with that clean delineation.
But that's the best part of Black Market! It lets you do so many cool things with Tactician, Library, Menagerie, etc...
Agreed! Even if the card was just: "+$2, you may play any treasures in your hand at this time," I would still love finding ways to exploit use it.
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I agree on Black Market. I think it is awesome that we have one card in the game that lets us play treasures outside of the buy phase. With Dominion, every rule needs to be broken.
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But even more than that, I HATE being able to play Treasures outside of the buy phase. I view Action-Buy-Cleanup as fundamental to the game and it bothers me that Black Market messes so much with that clean delineation.
But that's the best part of Black Market! It lets you do so many cool things with Tactician, Library, Menagerie, etc...
Agreed! Even if the card was just: "+$2, you may play any treasures in your hand at this time," I would still love finding ways to exploit use it.
I actually think I would like Black Market a lot more if that's what it did. It would be far less powerful, more of a niche card, but it would still be just as interesting, and would be infinitely less annoying.
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But even more than that, I HATE being able to play Treasures outside of the buy phase. I view Action-Buy-Cleanup as fundamental to the game and it bothers me that Black Market messes so much with that clean delineation.
But that's the best part of Black Market! It lets you do so many cool things with Tactician, Library, Menagerie, etc...
Agreed! Even if the card was just: "+$2, you may play any treasures in your hand at this time," I would still love finding ways to exploit use it.
I actually think I would like Black Market a lot more if that's what it did. It would be far less powerful, more of a niche card, but it would still be just as interesting, and would be infinitely less annoying.
I'd be interested. Hey, if you and I ever play, remind me of this and we'll just both never buy things from the BM deck. Deal?
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Well, since technically there aren't hard and fast rules for what goes into the Black Market deck, IRL you can just set it up with an empty Black Market deck for the same effect.
Anyway, with that, it's just a very niche card. Basically no effect except for combos with a small number of specific other cards.
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I'd probably give poor old Black Market a +1 Action in this case.
Edit: Or maybe a +1 buy, to replace the lost "virtual buy".
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Edit: Or maybe a +1 buy, to replace the lost "virtual buy".
You mean, like, Woodcutter?
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Edit: Or maybe a +1 buy, to replace the lost "virtual buy".
You mean, like, Woodcutter?
Right, then Black Market would be a strictly better Woodcutter. Which is against the meta-rules. Bah.
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But even more than that, I HATE being able to play Treasures outside of the buy phase. I view Action-Buy-Cleanup as fundamental to the game and it bothers me that Black Market messes so much with that clean delineation.
But that's the best part of Black Market! It lets you do so many cool things with Tactician, Library, Menagerie, etc...
I have a special hatred for Black Market, because I agree that it's the best part of the card, but the card itself does not mention that effect, or even imply it that strongly. I agree with jaybeez, if it were an explicit part of the effect I would be more OK with it. But it feels wrong to me that so much of the power comes from not even the secondary functionality of the card, but the implementation details of the secondary part of the card, as explained in the errata.
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Well, that's why it's a promo.
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Well, since technically there aren't hard and fast rules for what goes into the Black Market deck, IRL you can just set it up with an empty Black Market deck for the same effect.
Anyway, with that, it's just a very niche card. Basically no effect except for combos with a small number of specific other cards.
Reprice it at $2 and there you go. Terminal Silver which can sometimes do small things. Sounds like a standard $2.
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Well, that's why it's a promo.
That's often forgotten I feel.
The fact that we have unlimited availability on Iso is a poor reflection of real life play, where you'd sometimes whip it out to spice things up and play a wacky game.
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Provinces Smovinces, what about Platinum?!!? I mean that is so hard to even buy but when you do it is like "BLAM BABY I JUST GOT $5 from 1 card!!!" I don't even know how many games I've lost due to my opponent getting more Platinum out of his Smithies!
edit: And dondon has 1 respect for every day of the year o.O congrats.
You'll note that Donald mentions in that very article how swingy Platinum is, precisely because it's so powerful and the options at slightly lower price points are massively inferior.
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But even more than that, I HATE being able to play Treasures outside of the buy phase. I view Action-Buy-Cleanup as fundamental to the game and it bothers me that Black Market messes so much with that clean delineation.
But that's the best part of Black Market! It lets you do so many cool things with Tactician, Library, Menagerie, etc...
Agreed! Even if the card was just: "+$2, you may play any treasures in your hand at this time," I would still love finding ways to exploit use it.
I actually think I would like Black Market a lot more if that's what it did. It would be far less powerful, more of a niche card, but it would still be just as interesting, and would be infinitely less annoying.
I'd be interested. Hey, if you and I ever play, remind me of this and we'll just both never buy things from the BM deck. Deal?
Deal!
Also I just had another interesting idea for "improving" Black Market: make it so you can play your treasures during your Action phase, and also allow you to make one buy from the supply during your Action phase. That would allow for interesting stuff like leveling up Cities during your turn, or maybe doing really specialized stuff like buying the last Duchy during your Action phase so your opponent can't upgrade a $4 to a Duchy when you remodel a Gold with your Governor, stuff like that. It would still be a niche card like I said before but it would broaden its possible applications a bit, and it would make it a potentially really interesting card on boards with no +Buy.
And the theme of the card would still be intact! Instead of getting cards you're not supposed to be able to buy, at a time you're not supposed to be able to buy cards, now you're just buying cards that you can normally buy, but at a time when you typically can't, so there's still this kind of "this card allows you to break the buying rules" feel.
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That version of BM would be strictly better than Woodcutter. (Technically not really when you're in the middle of your action phase and make a mid-turn Victory card buy, but in that case you would just play BM at the end of the Action phase... unless you had 2 in your hand and wanted to activate Menagerie... and you wouldn't have enough actions to play the second one later... stupid edge cases...)
Not that it would be a bad thing. Woodcutter sucks.
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Hm, you're right actually. So that would require some kind of penalty for the Action-phase buy (cards cost $1 more if you choose to do that? I dunno). But then that gets too complicated.
Or wait, maybe it could give you the option to use one of your buys in your Action phase. So if you have no other +Buy, that wouldn't really help you except for the special situations like I mentioned.
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I was glad to discover I am allowed to hate Treasure Map as long as I hate Platinum too. I do hate Platinum too :)
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Hm, you're right actually. So that would require some kind of penalty for the Action-phase buy (cards cost $1 more if you choose to do that? I dunno). But then that gets too complicated.
Or wait, maybe it could give you the option to use one of your buys in your Action phase. So if you have no other +Buy, that wouldn't really help you except for the special situations like I mentioned.
Yeah, but it's still an option that you don't have with Woodcutter, and the cards are otherwise the same. It's a nerf, but it is still strictly better than Woodcutter.
A cost increase would be OK, but it is simpler to give it +$1 instead of +$2. They are equivalent.
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Hm, you're right actually. So that would require some kind of penalty for the Action-phase buy (cards cost $1 more if you choose to do that? I dunno). But then that gets too complicated.
Or wait, maybe it could give you the option to use one of your buys in your Action phase. So if you have no other +Buy, that wouldn't really help you except for the special situations like I mentioned.
Yeah, but it's still an option that you don't have with Woodcutter, and the cards are otherwise the same. It's a nerf, but it is still strictly better than Woodcutter.
A cost increase would be OK, but it is simpler to give it +$1 instead of +$2. They are equivalent.
What I meant was, the BM could give you the option to expend one buy in your Action phase instead of your Buy phase. So if you play the BM and have no additional buys, you could then choose to buy a card either in the Action phase or the Buy phase but not both. So my version of BM would not allow you to buy two cards in one turn on its own.
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Hm, you're right actually. So that would require some kind of penalty for the Action-phase buy (cards cost $1 more if you choose to do that? I dunno). But then that gets too complicated.
Or wait, maybe it could give you the option to use one of your buys in your Action phase. So if you have no other +Buy, that wouldn't really help you except for the special situations like I mentioned.
Yeah, but it's still an option that you don't have with Woodcutter, and the cards are otherwise the same. It's a nerf, but it is still strictly better than Woodcutter.
A cost increase would be OK, but it is simpler to give it +$1 instead of +$2. They are equivalent.
What I meant was, the BM could give you the option to expend one buy in your Action phase instead of your Buy phase. So if you play the BM and have no additional buys, you could then choose to buy a card either in the Action phase or the Buy phase but not both. So my version of BM would not allow you to buy two cards in one turn on its own.
That does sound pretty cool. It wouldn't do anything special too often, but I love gaining a card and immediately drawing it with my engine. Who knows? We still got Guilds...
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Hm, you're right actually. So that would require some kind of penalty for the Action-phase buy (cards cost $1 more if you choose to do that? I dunno). But then that gets too complicated.
Or wait, maybe it could give you the option to use one of your buys in your Action phase. So if you have no other +Buy, that wouldn't really help you except for the special situations like I mentioned.
Yeah, but it's still an option that you don't have with Woodcutter, and the cards are otherwise the same. It's a nerf, but it is still strictly better than Woodcutter.
A cost increase would be OK, but it is simpler to give it +$1 instead of +$2. They are equivalent.
What I meant was, the BM could give you the option to expend one buy in your Action phase instead of your Buy phase. So if you play the BM and have no additional buys, you could then choose to buy a card either in the Action phase or the Buy phase but not both. So my version of BM would not allow you to buy two cards in one turn on its own.
Ah, OK.
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I've played two very aggravating Swindler games in the last few games, one of which knocked me out of the tournament. I still can't bring myself to hate the card though. Dunno why.
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I've played two very aggravating Swindler games in the last few games, one of which knocked me out of the tournament. I still can't bring myself to hate the card though. Dunno why.
It must be the jaunty purple hat.
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Ghost Ship. I, possibly irrationally, hate it more than life itself.
It just bogs down games, self-contributes to bogging down games, snowballs fairly well (if someone gets an early lucky one, you're going to be hard-pressed to recover if you can't luckily get one soon yourself), and offers no useful decisions.
Cards that affect what goes on top of your deck really mess with me. They slow me down so much. The only one I like is Courtyard because the application is so simple - it's terminal and you can put one of your dead actions on top of your deck to use next turn. That bit is nice.
Ghost Ship messes with me a lot though. Even stuff like Navigator and Cartographer make me take a while to count things out and make all sorts of plans.
But the worst is Secret Chamber. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT. Half the time someone plays an attack card, I don't even know if it's worth revealing and using! I end up just avoiding it entirely unless I want to use it as an action card (like a less-powerful Vault; useful for clogged decks and buying Grand Markets).
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But the worst is Secret Chamber. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT. Half the time someone plays an attack card, I don't even know if it's worth revealing and using!
Always reveal it, of course. Then, just pretend you got Ghost Shipped from a 7 card hand to a 5 card hand. (I know you said Ghost Ship causes similar issues, but this isn't any worse than Ghost Shipped. Unless Ghost Ship is the reason you're revealing Secret Chamber. Ew.)
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But the worst is Secret Chamber. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT. Half the time someone plays an attack card, I don't even know if it's worth revealing and using!
Always reveal it, of course. Then, just pretend you got Ghost Shipped from a 7 card hand to a 5 card hand. (I know you said Ghost Ship causes similar issues, but this isn't any worse than Ghost Shipped. Unless Ghost Ship is the reason you're revealing Secret Chamber. Ew.)
Don't reveal if this causes reshuffle @ bad time.
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If Secret Chamber is the Bane, do you have to do top-deck-fiddly if you reveal it? Same question with Beggar and Horse Traders re: their thing.
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If Secret Chamber is the Bane, do you have to do top-deck-fiddly if you reveal it? Same question with Beggar and Horse Traders re: their thing.
You choose which part you want to reveal for. The timing is different anyway. It goes like this:
Alice plays Young Witch.
Bob may now reveal a Reaction that reacts to opponent playing an attack card. If he does so, resolve the reaction.
Alice draws 2 cards then discards 2 cards.
If Bob did not stop the attack (i.e. with Moat or Lighthouse), Bob may now reveal the Bane. **
If he does not reveal the Bane (and the attack was not stopped), he gains a Curse.
When Bob gains a Curse, he may reveal other reactions (i.e. Watchtower or Trader).
** I'm actually not sure about this. If you revealed Moat, can you still reveal the Bane when it comes time for it? Not that there is any reason to do so, but can you? I don't think so, because you are no longer affected by the attack.
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** I'm actually not sure about this. If you revealed Moat, can you still reveal the Bane when it comes time for it? Not that there is any reason to do so, but can you? I don't think so, because you are no longer affected by the attack.
I believe you're right.
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So Moat is technically slightly better when it's the Bane, since you can block Young Witch's Curse after your opponent chooses which two cards to discard. For instance, if you had revealed a Moat to start, your opponent would know to discard the Saboteur drawn from Young Witch, but may hang on to it if you wait and reveal Moat as a Bane.
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** I'm actually not sure about this. If you revealed Moat, can you still reveal the Bane when it comes time for it? Not that there is any reason to do so, but can you? I don't think so, because you are no longer affected by the attack.
I believe you're right.
I don't think the rules address whether you are required to keep your hand secret.
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So Moat is technically slightly better when it's the Bane, since you can block Young Witch's Curse after your opponent chooses which two cards to discard. For instance, if you had revealed a Moat to start, your opponent would know to discard the Saboteur drawn from Young Witch, but may hang on to it if you wait and reveal Moat as a Bane.
Except that playing online, the game will pause, so the opponent will know you have a Moat anyway.
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So Moat is technically slightly better when it's the Bane, since you can block Young Witch's Curse after your opponent chooses which two cards to discard. For instance, if you had revealed a Moat to start, your opponent would know to discard the Saboteur drawn from Young Witch, but may hang on to it if you wait and reveal Moat as a Bane.
Except that playing online, the game will pause, so the opponent will know you have a Moat anyway.
Well, unless there's also Secret Chamber on the board.