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Dominion => Dominion Articles => Topic started by: werothegreat on January 03, 2013, 10:05:10 am

Title: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 03, 2013, 10:05:10 am: (work in progress)

LET'S OVERHAUL THIS BITCH

(http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/scans/darkages/deathcart.jpg)

This is Death Cart; look upon its works, ye Mighty, and despair. Death Cart provides the single largest +Coin benefit of any card, barring variable Coin producers like Vault and Secret Chamber. It is one of the new Looter cards from Dark Ages, and the only one that is not an Attack. It instead gives Ruins to the buyer, which, along with the choice to either trash it or another Action card when played, is meant to serve as a counterbalance to the ridiculous amount of Coin it produces.

What does it do? Death Cart, unlike many Dark Ages cards, is pretty straightforward. Trash Death Cart or another Action, +$5. Unlike trashers like Chapel, Count or Remake, the intent of Death Cart is not to clear your deck of junk - the intent of Death Cart is to produce money, with a little sacrifice required, in the vein of cards like Salvager. Sometimes the sacrifice is easy - when you have a Ruined Village in your hand with it. Sometimes the sacrifice is hard - when you have a Mountebank in your hand with it. Do you trash the Mountebank, or do you get your final use of Death Cart?

Now compare Death Cart to a similar card - Baron. Baron costs $4, gives a fairly ridiculous amount of Coin, and discards a specific card. This means it doesn't have to keep looking for fuel, like Death Cart does, and Baron can even generate its own fuel when running low. Add in a +Buy, and you start to wonder whether the extra +1 Coin is worth it. It is. It really, really is. To be fair, on a board with no cheap Actions and no Village, I would probably choose Baron over Death Cart, just because I would get more use out of him. But for Baron and Death Cart to appear in the same kingdom with such a setup is very rare, so the point is practically moot. For most boards, Death Cart will be superior, simply because that extra +$1 makes it that much easier to snag a Province.

But the fact that Death Cart trashes is important, so let's make another analogy - to Moneylender. Moneylender is a great opening card, as your deck starts off full of fuel for it - fuel which you're only too glad to get rid of. But whereas Moneylender starts off with 7 uses, Death Cart starts off with only 3, and 2 of those come at the cost of adding junk to your deck. So Death Cart is not going to slim your deck down.

The Duchy rush gets a lot easier with Death Cart, as it does with Altar. A Death Cart in hand at least guarantees a Duchy, so if you're having trouble getting the extra coin in your hand to make it to Province, go for a three-pile of Duchies, Death Carts and Ruins, which will empty in just five Death Cart buys, barring usage of Trader.

When should I buy it? Death Cart can be a massive help on certain boards, but there are certain instances where Death Cart is a must buy. If your Death Cart is to last long at all, it needs Actions to trash. When is your deck going to be filled with Actions? In an engine. In order for an engine to work, it usually needs +Buy, and in a Death Cart engine, those +Buys can often be spent on cheap Actions - preferably non-terminals that won't hurt your deck. A standout example is Haven - it can either be fed to the Death Cart on a turn that will field $8, or save that Death Cart for next turn. Sifters like Cellar or Warehouse are less good for this, for, while they can get you to Actions to trash or can be trashed themselves, they decrease your handsize, thus decreasing your chance of making $8 this turn. But an engine is supposed to be drawing your entire deck anyway, and in that context, Death Cart can easily net you an extra Province or Duchy each turn. Alternative ways to acquire cheap Actions, outside of using +Buys, can be very helpful, such as with Ironworks. Gainers are especially nice because they can create Death Cart fodder for this turn, rather than next turn, as a +Buy would.

Also be aware that you should not go out of your way to find fodder for Death Cart. If you have more than $2 or $3 to spend with your final Buy, it should probably be spent on a Victory card, a Treasure, or an engine part, rather than on a cheap Action. It is usually better to just let Death Cart self-trash than to try to buy out the Pearl Divers. And in the end game, you may find yourself feeding more expensive Actions to Death Cart, simply because doing so is better for getting those Provinces. It may sometimes be better to feed a $5 Action to the Death Cart in the final turns so you can Scheme that Death Cart for next turn, rather than allowing it to self-trash. Other times, self-trashing is the correct move. It will depend heavily on how the Provinces are split at the moment, how many are left, and how close you are to a reshuffle.

Perhaps the single best combo with Death Cart is Rats. What does Death Cart want to eat? Useless Actions. What does Rats do? Fill your deck with useless Actions. I may not have made this clear enough in my Rats article, but Death Cart/Rats is a quite powerful combo. When these two are on the board, Rats should be your first $4 buy, and Death Cart should be your second. Give preference to trashing Rats over the Ruins, as the Ruins will be more useful to you than the Rats, and the Rats draw you a card when trashed, which is a nice little bonus. The Rats should also be given trash preference because if they aren't, they'll quickly overrun your deck. Ironworks can fill a similar role, in that it can produce lots of copies of itself, but the key differences here are that 1) There are only 10 Ironworks in the pile, and 2) Rats replaces cards, while Ironworks adds cards, so Death Cart will find Actions to eat a lot more often with a Rats deck.

The second best combo with Death Cart is Fortress. Fortress is infinite fuel for your Death Carts, and provides the +Actions necessary to guarantee Province buys. But beware - oftentimes such boards also have engines and other trashers to take advantage of Fortress - Salvaging a Fortress will net $1 less, but gives a very crucial +Buy that can pick up the winning Duchy. An engine strategy using other cards on the board can beat a non-engine Death Cart strategy, so if you need to spend a couple turns picking up engine parts to draw your Death Carts more often, do so.

Death Cart is also a great defense against Looters - not only does a Death Cart buy decrease the Ruins pile substantially in the first place, but a Death Cart can turn those nasty Ruinses into wonderful coins for buying Provinces.

Now, there are two meanings of "when" here - we've address the sense of "in which kingdoms," but not "on what turn." Opening Death Cart is usually not a good idea, unless you're using it to self-trash into a better card. You typically want to wait until you have at least the beginnings of an engine before adding Death Cart to the mix - that way, the Ruins will hurt less, and you'll be more likely to make that Death Cart hit fodder.

Should I ever buy Death Cart outside the context of an engine? Usually not. Death Cart/BM is not a good strategy. Adding Treasures to your deck decreases the chances of your Death Cart ever seeing those Ruins, or any other Actions for that matter, quickly turning Death Cart into either a one-shot or a useless card in your deck, along with two Ruins. Now, Death Cart can be used as a slingshot card, like Mining Village or Feast, to get you to the better cards in the kingdom, but unlike those other cards, it comes with junk, which, once your Death Cart is gone, you now have no way to get rid of.

How can I counter it? You might be tempted to buy out a pile of cheap Actions to deny the Death Cart player fuel, but even if you were successful at that, a self-trashing Death Cart will still be useful to them, and you’ll be stuck with cheap Actions and no real economy.

As for countering with Attacks: Looters are absolutely useless against a Death Cart deck, as all they're doing is giving the Death Cart a longer lifespan. Discard Attacks can help, but a hand of Death Cart, Gold, and a crappy action can still net a Province. Even without the Gold, the Death Cart can still pick up a Duchy. A lucky Saboteur could knock out a Death Cart, but unlike using Saboteur against Rebuild, there's too much other stuff for Saboteur to hit that the Death Cart player won't mind losing. The best Attacks to use against Death Cart are Cursers and Ambassador, as the deck-clogging will make it harder for them to get to their Death Carts, and harder for them to line up their Death Carts with suitable targets. Mountebank is the king here, as Curses and Coppers are equally useless to a Death Cart player, though extra Coppers could give a self-trashing Province buy. If you can make it work, Swindler is also a standout, as it can turn Ruins and Coppers into Curses, or Death Cart into a Potion. However, this does limit you to the luck of whatever happens to be on top of your opponent's deck. And a chain of Rabbles could leave your opponent with a hand full of Victory cards, leaving them nothing to feed to the Death Cart, and not enough funds to buy a Province.

Other combinations: Like with any trashing card, Market Square is very nice with Death Cart - it gives +Buy, gives you a Gold (which is nice if you have to trash an Action you didn't quite want to, besides making it that much easier to hit $8), and in a pinch can be fodder.

Band of Misfits is nice with Death Cart - if you don't feel like picking up Ruins, you can instead pick up a Band of Misfits and use it as a Death Cart when the hand to do so arises.

Works well with:
Rats
Fortress
Market Square
Band of Misfits
Haven
Engines
Action gainers

Counter with:
A solid engine
Cursers
Ambassador
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: ipofanes on January 03, 2013, 11:47:31 am: Quote from: werothegreat on January 03, 2013, 10:05:10 am
When should I buy? - cheap actions to trash, Rats

(untested in games so far) Wandering Minstrel, Scrying Pool.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jonts26 on January 03, 2013, 12:41:54 pm: It should be noted that the ruins you gain are not completely a penalty. Those ruins are the exact sort of thing you'd like to trash with death cart. But an opening of death cart might be decent if you can get it to collide with a ruins. I'm not sure the probability of that, but it's actually probably not that great.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: eHalcyon on January 03, 2013, 03:03:20 pm: Should work well with cheap action card gainers in general. You mention Rats. Also consider Ironworks, maybe Hermit.

Might be a decent counter against other Looters, since the Ruins you get from them are useful for keeping DC around.

Not sure why you say not to buy it in Colony games. It can be great in Colony games as a slingshot to Platinum.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jomini on January 03, 2013, 07:52:22 pm: Deathcart is phenomenal at hitting Plat early, it is a VERY strong opening on colony boards.

A few other options:
1. King's Court. Okay so Death Cart gets you an early Kc pretty easy (even if you have to trash the Dthcrt), but it also is a great target for Kc, yeah you have to pitch it, but you can easily buy another AND a province if you have any +buy.
2. Procession. +10 coin, gain a 5. As an added bonus, Prssn can clear out leftover Ruins.
3. Throne Room. +10 coin, useful options with Ruins.
4. Haven/Courtyard/Count/etc. - save the Dthcrt/Ruins until you can line them up, or setup strong hands of Dthcrts/+buy/+action.
5. Grand Market, Dthcrt and ruins can be good at getting the Gm without too much fuss, the +coin on abandoned Mine is actually useful, and potentially better than copper.
6. Cultist - not only is it likely that you will get plenty of Ruins from the other guy, but +3 cards/+5 coin is extremely good late game.
7. Market Square - Trash a Ruins, gain a gold, buy a gold.
8. Squire - +5 coin, gain a Goons.
9. Altar - quickly mass the 5's (e.g. Minion).
10. Mint - thin your deck, pitch the now useless Mint to the Dthcrt.
11. Fortress - All you action problems are solved.
12. Graverobber/Rogue - gain dead actions to supply a nice Dthcrt engine.
13. Transmute - yeah, slow as hell, not likely to be worth the potion ... but you do get a steady supply of actions & Dthcrt can trash em for good effect. Something like Transmute/Scrying Pool or Transmute/University can move from marginal to effective on the strength of Transmute.
14. Bridge/Highway/Princess - Make cheap actions free and plentiful, get big payouts for your $5 coin.
15. Tournament - early province.

In general, Dthcrt allows you to have much better odds of more quickly getting some expensive card; this alone can be worth it (e.g. Forge on a Witch board). It is perfectly legit to buy Dthcrt and burn it to get the big card and just suck up the leftover Ruins, particularly if you have support like Warehouse or Hunting Party for playing the big card often. Another way to play Dthcrt is to build it as a reliable source of payload in an engine. $5 coin out for 2 cards worth of space isn't a bad trade, particularly for only 4 coin, but it is a bit more restrictive than other cards like that. For instance Baron doesn't deplete its targets, can gain more of them, and gives you the +buy to use the coins more easily. Dthcrt requires that you build in an additional gain (at least every 3 turns if you are gaining Dthcrts) or +buy and you cannot reuse the target card, like with Baron.

An additional use for Dthcrt is as rush enabler. You can get a lot of quick mileage from buying & using Dthcrts to pile out the Ruins, Duchies, and something else (e.g. Dthcrt). You need sifting, gaining, alt-VP or something else to make it work well, but you can empty the Ruins pile with 3 Dthcrt gains and one Ruin buy.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 12:56:35 am: The article has been filled out some.

Jomini, I'm only including specific standout card interactions.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jomini on January 04, 2013, 12:15:17 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 12:56:35 am
The article has been filled out some.

Jomini, I'm only including specific standout card interactions.

I know, the point is more that the cards which have some synergy point towards "how to play" and "when to buy". Take a card like Count. It isn't the best synergy with Death Cart, and to be honest I've only ever played it in a colony game, but Count does several things to work well with Dthcrt. It can be used to trash down the dross Dthcrt doesn't like (estates, coppers), it can help line up big turns (top deck a Ruin or Dthcrt), and with a village it can help setup Province buying turns without coin. Is pure Count faster? Maybe. But the synergies show a nice class of things your Dthcrt likes.

1. Being able to top deck cards is big with Dthcrt - it makes it MUCH easier to line up crappy actions with the Dthcrt or to save the Dthcrt until you need it (e.g. Mandarin/Gold/Silver/Dthcrt is massively better than Cache/Gold/Silver/Death Cart) or can use it. +5 coin is worthless if you've already hit 8 (or 11) with a +buy. This can be particularly good if you end up getting unexpected curses (e.g. they draw the only curser from the Black Market, you lose the race to followers).
2. Trashing is very handy with Dthcrt. Double province engines work with Dthcrt with only three payload actions (and 1 copper), setting up to reliably draw those, the +actions to play them all, and the +buy to get more actions/the second province is MUCH easier if you trash out the coppers and estates. This also means that even less useful trashing like Loan or Moneylender can be useful if the game will last long enough (e.g. colonies, discard attacks, deck inspection attacks, Alt-VP).
3. If there isn't +buy you'd really rather play some other action(s) or coins than a second Dthcrt for your provinces. +10 coin is overkill and requires you to line up a 4 card combo to keep the Dthcrts. Something simple like Count, Minion, Menage, etc. are all very good playing single Dthcrt.

Take a few other combos:
Squire. Squire provides several things that Dthcrt really likes: +actions to enable draw -> Dthcrt (trash something besides the Dthcrt) and maybe double Dthcrt plays, +buy (to get those nice double province turns), and on-trash benefits (Dthcrt/Squire/Minion is a good engine). With strong attacks out (e.g. Minion, Familiar, Scyring Pool, Goons, Torturer, and perhaps even Rabble, Ghost Ship, or Margrave) the on-trash benefit can be the strongest part of this.

Likewise Market Square gives you on-trash benefits AND provides you cantrip +buy. This can allow you to easily bootstrap to an efficient deck quickly. Afterall, you need 3 coin in your other 3 carts to make Dthcrt into a province (until you sacrifice it) - but if you have been getting gold with your Ruins trashing, it is that much easier.

Or take the combos-with-everything Watchtower. You can do all sorts of fun stuff - top deck a Ruin & Dthcrt on buy to assure a collision next turn. Use some non-cantrip +action and Dthcrt's -2 cards for big draw (e.g. Hamlet/Wt/Dthcrt is very nice at setting up big turns). Dthcrt, again, likes top deck control so you can line it and Ruins up. Dthcrt likes draw, and is particularly good in limited draw engines (though pretty crappy in most Jack setups). Another very nice combos all over the place card is Tactician - it gives you the big hand you want to play the Dthcrt on Ruins, it gives you the +buy to purchase new Ruins, and it gives the +action to allow for two Dthcrt plays (or to easily make a double-tac engine). Live draw is big for Dthcrt.

A few other things you might want to mention on this "when to buy" and "how to play lines:
1. Sifting. Cheap sifting actions let you play your Dthcrt more often and let you have more targets for it. Things like Cellar and Warehouse are quite nice here. Not enough to auto-buy Dthcrt, but something that moves you toward it.
2. +buy in general. You can just buy Ruins (I believe the rules are that they are yet another Kingdom pile) and you may actually want to split a 6 or 7 coin hand into Dthcrt + something else. With +action as well, you can get a lot more mileage out of multiple Dthcrts.
3. Gainers. You mention Iw, but there are a lot more gainers that can make Dthcrt better. Take Haggler. It provides you with 2 of the 3 coin you need to hit province, as a bonus you can a second card (like say another Haggler or Dthcrt) with your province purchase and keep odds good for more provinces. Things like Altar, Develop, Upgrade can all convert your estates into actions and each has other bonuses (Altar and Upgrade can thin Copper, Develop can be used on actions to gain 2 more actions, Upgrade is Cantrip, and Altar can mass things like Lab or Minion).

Ways to stop Dthcrt:
1. Deplete the crappy cards he's gaining to keep the Dthcrts alive. Watchtower is phenomenal here, using spare +buys to down the Ruins can make him spend actual coin on keeping Dthcrts alive. Princess/Watchtower (Highway/Bridge) can also down 2 coin cards to deprive the Dthcrt of fodder. This can be particularly strong if he ends up leaving a quick & easy 3-pile while building an engine.
2. Swindler. Ruins -> Curse is vicious. Dthcrt -> Potion (or just about any other 4) is very nasty because not only have they lost their power card, but they may have 2 now useless Ruins in deck. 2 coin actions -> Estate is nastier than normal and 3/4 coin actions -> silver/potion can also make it very hard to line things up.
3. Mass Rabble. Normally discarding Ruins is bad, but with Dthcrt, Rabble leaves you with green and makes it very hard to do more with Dthcrt than get a one-off duchy.
4. Discard/Masq. Gold/Dthcrt hands are still possible, but Masqing from a 3 (or even 4) card hand is pretty nasty as you may well end up being forces to give away a one-off Plat or your gold.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 02:37:12 pm: I'm sure that's all interesting, but, as LastFootnote pointed out, most of this is tl;dr. I'd rather get to the essence of of Death Cart and point out those cards that have a great interaction with Death Cart specifically, these being Rats and Fortress. I'm not going to list every interaction with every Dominion card.

EDIT: However, I will take your points on countering Death Cart into consideration.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: eHalcyon on January 04, 2013, 04:51:55 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 02:37:12 pm
I'm sure that's all interesting, but, as LastFootnote pointed out, most of this is tl;dr. I'd rather get to the essence of of Death Cart and point out those cards that have a great interaction with Death Cart specifically, these being Rats and Fortress. I'm not going to list every interaction with every Dominion card.

EDIT: However, I will take your points on countering Death Cart into consideration.

Fortress is worth a direct mention, but I'm not sure Rats is. Instead, generalize to "cheap non-terminal action gainers", of which Rats is one. Rats has some advantages in that it is cantrip and has a small on-trash bonus, but I don't think it is so much greater than Ironworks, for example.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 04:55:00 pm: Quote from: eHalcyon on January 04, 2013, 04:51:55 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 02:37:12 pm
I'm sure that's all interesting, but, as LastFootnote pointed out, most of this is tl;dr. I'd rather get to the essence of of Death Cart and point out those cards that have a great interaction with Death Cart specifically, these being Rats and Fortress. I'm not going to list every interaction with every Dominion card.

EDIT: However, I will take your points on countering Death Cart into consideration.

Fortress is worth a direct mention, but I'm not sure Rats is. Instead, generalize to "cheap non-terminal action gainers", of which Rats is one. Rats has some advantages in that it is cantrip and has a small on-trash bonus, but I don't think it is so much greater than Ironworks, for example.

Rats is much greater than Ironworks in this instance, because Rats clones itself and replaces other cards, which Ironworks doesn't. So you can only gain a new card in a hand you have Ironworks (so, once or twice per shuffle). But you can play Rats several times per shuffle. And since Rats replaces instead of adding, you get to the crappy Actions you want to trash more often.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: eHalcyon on January 04, 2013, 05:00:10 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 04:55:00 pm
Quote from: eHalcyon on January 04, 2013, 04:51:55 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 02:37:12 pm
I'm sure that's all interesting, but, as LastFootnote pointed out, most of this is tl;dr. I'd rather get to the essence of of Death Cart and point out those cards that have a great interaction with Death Cart specifically, these being Rats and Fortress. I'm not going to list every interaction with every Dominion card.

EDIT: However, I will take your points on countering Death Cart into consideration.

Fortress is worth a direct mention, but I'm not sure Rats is. Instead, generalize to "cheap non-terminal action gainers", of which Rats is one. Rats has some advantages in that it is cantrip and has a small on-trash bonus, but I don't think it is so much greater than Ironworks, for example.

Rats is much greater than Ironworks in this instance, because Rats clones itself and replaces other cards, which Ironworks doesn't. So you can only gain a new card in a hand you have Ironworks (so, once or twice per shuffle). But you can play Rats several times per shuffle. And since Rats replaces instead of adding, you get to the crappy Actions you want to trash more often.

I cede that trashing out Coppers/Estates can be useful for DC to find actions to trash. Not sure what you mean about playing several times per shuffle though. When you play Rats, you gain 1 Rats. When you play IW, you can choose to gain 1 IW. The differences are that Rats will draw and trash a card while IW does neither.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 05:03:49 pm: Quote from: eHalcyon on January 04, 2013, 05:00:10 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 04:55:00 pm
Quote from: eHalcyon on January 04, 2013, 04:51:55 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 02:37:12 pm
I'm sure that's all interesting, but, as LastFootnote pointed out, most of this is tl;dr. I'd rather get to the essence of of Death Cart and point out those cards that have a great interaction with Death Cart specifically, these being Rats and Fortress. I'm not going to list every interaction with every Dominion card.

EDIT: However, I will take your points on countering Death Cart into consideration.

Fortress is worth a direct mention, but I'm not sure Rats is. Instead, generalize to "cheap non-terminal action gainers", of which Rats is one. Rats has some advantages in that it is cantrip and has a small on-trash bonus, but I don't think it is so much greater than Ironworks, for example.

Rats is much greater than Ironworks in this instance, because Rats clones itself and replaces other cards, which Ironworks doesn't. So you can only gain a new card in a hand you have Ironworks (so, once or twice per shuffle). But you can play Rats several times per shuffle. And since Rats replaces instead of adding, you get to the crappy Actions you want to trash more often.

I cede that trashing out Coppers/Estates can be useful for DC to find actions to trash. Not sure what you mean about playing several times per shuffle though. When you play Rats, you gain 1 Rats. When you play IW, you can choose to gain 1 IW. The differences are that Rats will draw and trash a card while IW does neither.

True. You can gain Ironworks with Ironworks - forgot about that. I was just thinking of Ironworksing Pearl Divers or something.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: eHalcyon on January 04, 2013, 05:08:52 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 05:03:49 pm
True. You can gain Ironworks with Ironworks - forgot about that. I was just thinking of Ironworksing Pearl Divers or something.

So there are some advantages/disadvantages to either side. Rats is a bit faster because it will cycle and trash, and also provides a on-trash bonus. However, Rats will only gain more Rats, and there is some danger of over-trashing such that DC can't keep the Rats population under control.

IW is a bit more flexible because it can gain itself OR other actions (that may be more useful when drawn without DC) OR treasure/VP. Unfortunately, it does not cycle (some exceptions: Great Hall, Island, Nobles with price reduction).

But the main advantage is that they are both cheap ways of maintaining a steady supply of DC fodder.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: ycz6 on January 04, 2013, 10:17:59 pm: Quote from: eHalcyon on January 04, 2013, 04:51:55 pm
Fortress is worth a direct mention, but I'm not sure Rats is. Instead, generalize to "cheap non-terminal action gainers", of which Rats is one.
And Ironworks is the other.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:43:29 pm: Also, for those interested, the 1st and 2nd rules of Dominion are:

1) Depends on the Kingdom.
2) Only buy the penultimate Province if you're not trailing in points.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 10:44:23 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:43:29 pm
Also, for those interested, the 1st and 2nd rules of Dominion are:

1) Depends on the Kingdom.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
Quote
2) Only buy the penultimate Province if you're ahead enough in points.
No no no no no no no no no.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:50:07 pm: Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 10:44:23 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:43:29 pm
Also, for those interested, the 1st and 2nd rules of Dominion are:

1) Depends on the Kingdom.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
Quote
2) Only buy the penultimate Province if you're ahead enough in points.
No no no no no no no no no.

~~But... but... PPR...~~

I misphrased that. My mistake.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 10:53:32 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:50:07 pm
Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 10:44:23 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:43:29 pm
Also, for those interested, the 1st and 2nd rules of Dominion are:

1) Depends on the Kingdom.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
Quote
2) Only buy the penultimate Province if you're ahead enough in points.
No no no no no no no no no.

But... but... PPR...
Yes, PPR. Which is not what you're saying there at all. And also generally really overrated. It's important, but ti's not the hugely game-warping thing people make it out to be. But most important, go read the actual PPR (http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/03/28/the-penultimate-province-rule/), which is quite well done, and does not cover NEARLY so many cases as people make out. People seem to think it means everything almost up to 'never buy the penultimate province', but it really doesn't.
And of course, you have to look at how the decks are stalling vs their longevity, what other cheaper VP options there are, etc. etc.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:55:18 pm: Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 10:53:32 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:50:07 pm
Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 10:44:23 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:43:29 pm
Also, for those interested, the 1st and 2nd rules of Dominion are:

1) Depends on the Kingdom.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
Quote
2) Only buy the penultimate Province if you're ahead enough in points.
No no no no no no no no no.

But... but... PPR...
Yes, PPR. Which is not what you're saying there at all. And also generally really overrated. It's important, but ti's not the hugely game-warping thing people make it out to be. But most important, go read the actual PPR (http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/03/28/the-penultimate-province-rule/), which is quite well done, and does not cover NEARLY so many cases as people make out. People seem to think it means everything almost up to 'never buy the penultimate province', but it really doesn't.
And of course, you have to look at how the decks are stalling vs their longevity, what other cheaper VP options there are, etc. etc.

I did so. What do you think of the article itself?
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 11:08:25 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:55:18 pm
Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 10:53:32 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:50:07 pm
Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 10:44:23 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 10:43:29 pm
Also, for those interested, the 1st and 2nd rules of Dominion are:

1) Depends on the Kingdom.
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.
Quote
2) Only buy the penultimate Province if you're ahead enough in points.
No no no no no no no no no.

But... but... PPR...
Yes, PPR. Which is not what you're saying there at all. And also generally really overrated. It's important, but ti's not the hugely game-warping thing people make it out to be. But most important, go read the actual PPR (http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/03/28/the-penultimate-province-rule/), which is quite well done, and does not cover NEARLY so many cases as people make out. People seem to think it means everything almost up to 'never buy the penultimate province', but it really doesn't.
And of course, you have to look at how the decks are stalling vs their longevity, what other cheaper VP options there are, etc. etc.

I did so. What do you think of the article itself?
It's changed a lot since I read it, so I just went back through. Well, I think I've played two games, IRL, with death cart, and I don't think I even bought one. So I really don't know much. But there are quite a few things in the article which I would be absolutely SHOCKED if they were actually correct.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 11:26:49 pm: Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 04, 2013, 11:08:25 pm
It's changed a lot since I read it, so I just went back through. Well, I think I've played two games, IRL, with death cart, and I don't think I even bought one. So I really don't know much. But there are quite a few things in the article which I would be absolutely SHOCKED if they were actually correct.

Those being?
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jomini on January 04, 2013, 11:39:10 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 02:37:12 pm
I'm sure that's all interesting, but, as LastFootnote pointed out, most of this is tl;dr. I'd rather get to the essence of of Death Cart and point out those cards that have a great interaction with Death Cart specifically, these being Rats and Fortress. I'm not going to list every interaction with every Dominion card.

EDIT: However, I will take your points on countering Death Cart into consideration.

The essence of Death Cart is that is either a huge one shot payment that junks your deck or it is a large payload card that needs to be paired with trashing targets.

Using it as a one-shot is perfectly fine if the one shot is powerful enough to warrant junking your deck with 2 garbage cards. Forge, Kc, Expand, Altar, Plat, the first province in a Tournament game all fit in here. If you are playing it because it is the easiest way in the game to get an early 6+ coin card, that can be viable.

But say you don't get a big enough reward to one shot? What do you really need? A way to pair up Dthcrt with its targets. Enter sifting, trashing, or live draw.

Dthcrt/Fortress alone is pretty much crap, you need 4 cards in hand: any village (including Fortress), Fortress, and two Dthcrts to hit Province. Without sifting, trashing, or live draw ... good luck. However add in one simple synergy card, like say Courtyard, and suddenly this becomes a viabl-ish Colony engine.

In any event, how much Death Cart have you actually played? Market Square/Death Cart is insanely good. Play one card, discard one card - gain a gold, buy a gold; how many other 2 card combos can hit that? How many of those 2 card combos can you open? Dthcrt/Mrksqr is almost as good as Tr/Explorer with province in hand, Tr/Mint with Gold in hand, or Warehouse/Tunnel/Tunnel. Of course, on top of all that you end up with a cantrip +buy which goes a long way towards mitigating one of the problems of huge coin totals - not having the +buys to use it effectively. Yeah it works best with any one of the following: a non-terminal sifter, moderate trashing (e.g. Steward), or live draw, but that is just about every Dthcrt setup minus Rats.

Right now your article is dead wrong on several key aspects: Dthcrt doesn't give a damn about treasure, it cares about the likelihood of pairing it with a junk action to trash. One way to do that is to have a big engine with a high action-card density. Another is to use cards to sift for you. Hunting Party/Plat/Dthcrt/Copper is an assured colony and the Hunting Parties will find your Ruins easily. Other options, like top decking, draw & sift, Tactician, etc. all work extremely well with Plat/Dthcrt - even without +action. On most boards it is NOT just enough to have Dthcrt and a source of cheap actions - you really need a way to line things up and often a way to use whatever cash you have over 8 coin.

I mean seriously if you use Iw to gain a cheap card for Dthcrt to hit, that gives you 5 coin spread over 3 cards in the long run you had to draw (Iw, Dthcrt, and the trashed card) that's worse than silvers for a lot of engines. The big advantage of Dthcrt is that is givens a really high variance to your hands (which is good); like most high variance cards that makes sifting, big live draw, or trashing a really strong part of deciding to play it.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 05, 2013, 12:12:30 am: "You definitely don't want to open Death cart/silver" - well, probably you usually don't. But a more flexible feast isn't THAT bad, especially because you've got a very good chance to collide your Death cart with a ruins. I might be wrong here, though, this one wouldn't shock me that much.

You compare it to trashers; the more apt comparison is to T4B cards like trade route and salvager. Baron is at least reasonably similar.

I'm not sure that tradering the ruins is at all idiotic. In fact, I suspect it's usually the right play. But I'm not really sold on going for the duchies to three pile as you say. If this works, it's brilliant, but I imagine you've usually got something else that's better to do, and mentioning this is probably over-confusing things. I could be wrong on the duchy rush bit though.

"You really want to look for ways to keep your Death Cart puttering along for as long as possible, before letting it devour itself on your final turn buying the final Province."
Well, generally yes, you would like to get a number of plays out of it. But I bet people tend to try to hang on to DC too long more often than they give it up too early.

Your rule #3 of Dominion... it's not just that it isn't the third most important rule in dominion strategy, it's actually just wrong. In fact, I'd say this might even be the #1 misconception in Dominion - people hate hate HATE overpaying for things, but a lot of times, you really really need to. Remember, never buy herbalist for less than $8 (or was it woodcutter for less than $11?) Either way, though that's obviously hyperbole, you sometimes need to bite the bullet and take a relatively inefficient-compared-to-what-it-can-sometimes-do-or-what-you're-paying-for-it card. You really really do.

Your point about death carts wanting to east useless actions and rats filling your deck with them is a fallacy. Truly, you would rather have useful actions than useful ones. Even if you have to trash them. Better cards are just better, because MAYBE you won't trash them. Having said that, the action percentage is the big thing, and the on-trash benefit is nice, and it doesn't matter so much if they're useless.

"Death Cart/Rats is probably the single best combo in all of Dominion." There's no way. There is NO WAY. Ironworks/Workshop/Silk Road/Gardens/Island? Even two card combos, Chapel/Bishop, Native Village/Bridge, Wharf/FG, Hunting Party/Baron, Irownworks/Gardens, Ironworks/Silk Road, any number of Deck Deletion pins (eh, I guess these are three) - point is, I'd be stunned if DC/Rats is CLOSE to the best. I don't doubt that it's good. But not the best.

"This combo is probably the entire reason Donald X. made these two cards." Despite everything I've said before, this is clearly the most implausible thing in the article.

DC/Rats/Fortress - surely this is strong, but I bet even with this best-case scenario, lots of stuff is stronger. I mean, how fast is this? Can you give some turn benchmarks?

"A Death Cart is never a bad investment" - surely it is sometimes, if at least for the opportunity cost. EVERY card has weaknesses.

"On most boards, you can't really counter Death Cart, so the best option is to go for Death Cart yourself."
If this were the case, the card would be just way overpowered. I trust that Donald did not make such a blatantly dominant card. I'm sure there are ways to do things about it. Most probably, you can outrace it on a lot of boards. I mean, you are talking about getting cheap, useless actions, but if you're buying cards JUST to be fuel for another card, even if that card gives you $5 (over 2 cards, remember! This is worse money density than gold. BM fool's gold should take it down, too. Obviously it works best in an engine, but then you don't really want to feed engine components to it, because you want that engine to run. Well, anyway, this is an overall assessment aside based on very little experience...)

"...so buy out the Moat pile to make the other player have to feed more expensive things to Death Cart."
This seems like really terrible advice. I mean, it's not like you are ever going to run them out of fodder, and moats are probably not going to do much for you. But denial, denial of actions just really isn't going to work. Remember that whatever you are buying may hurt them, but it will probably hurt you quite a bit, too. Meanwhile the DC player is doing something useful. So I think, generally to counter you should outrace, give junking attacks, outrace, and look for three pile endings at advantageous times. Did I mention to outrace? Also you should be able to come up with a long game strategy in some cases, as I suspect that death cart will run out of steam. But action denial is just asking to lose worse. Have you ever seen this actually work?

I bet ambassador is even better than mountebank at countering - probably deserves a mention.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 05, 2013, 12:20:33 am: Quote from: jomini on January 04, 2013, 11:39:10 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 04, 2013, 02:37:12 pm
I'm sure that's all interesting, but, as LastFootnote pointed out, most of this is tl;dr. I'd rather get to the essence of of Death Cart and point out those cards that have a great interaction with Death Cart specifically, these being Rats and Fortress. I'm not going to list every interaction with every Dominion card.

EDIT: However, I will take your points on countering Death Cart into consideration.

The essence of Death Cart is that is either a huge one shot payment that junks your deck or it is a large payload card that needs to be paired with trashing targets.

Right.

Quote from: jomini
Using it as a one-shot is perfectly fine if the one shot is powerful enough to warrant junking your deck with 2 garbage cards. Forge, Kc, Expand, Altar, Plat, the first province in a Tournament game all fit in here. If you are playing it because it is the easiest way in the game to get an early 6+ coin card, that can be viable.

But say you don't get a big enough reward to one shot? What do you really need? A way to pair up Dthcrt with its targets. Enter sifting, trashing, or live draw.

Fair enough.

Quote from: jomini
Dthcrt/Fortress alone is pretty much crap, you need 4 cards in hand: any village (including Fortress), Fortress, and two Dthcrts to hit Province. Without sifting, trashing, or live draw ... good luck. However add in one simple synergy card, like say Courtyard, and suddenly this becomes a viabl-ish Colony engine.

Um, or just Death Cart, Fortress, and three Coppers. Getting +Actions from Fortress is just a bonus here - the real draw of the card is that it turns Death Cart Baron-ish - your fuel supply no longer dries up, so you can focus on buying Victory stuff, and not buying more crap to trash every turn.

Quote from: jomini
In any event, how much Death Cart have you actually played? Market Square/Death Cart is insanely good. Play one card, discard one card - gain a gold, buy a gold; how many other 2 card combos can hit that? How many of those 2 card combos can you open? Dthcrt/Mrksqr is almost as good as Tr/Explorer with province in hand, Tr/Mint with Gold in hand, or Warehouse/Tunnel/Tunnel. Of course, on top of all that you end up with a cantrip +buy which goes a long way towards mitigating one of the problems of huge coin totals - not having the +buys to use it effectively. Yeah it works best with any one of the following: a non-terminal sifter, moderate trashing (e.g. Steward), or live draw, but that is just about every Dthcrt setup minus Rats.

I'll admit that Market Square just seemed obvious. It comboes with pretty much any card that trashes. I was trying to limit the article to cards that specifically interact with the "I want to trash lots of cheap Actions" aspect of Death Cart. And I have played a fair amount with Death Cart - not really any Colony games, though. For that, I was mainly extrapolating. Just played one with it, and Death Cart was indeed very effective in slingshotting up to Platinum, but there was also Forager and Farming Village on the board.

Quote from: jomini
Right now your article is dead wrong on several key aspects: Dthcrt doesn't give a damn about treasure, it cares about the likelihood of pairing it with a junk action to trash. One way to do that is to have a big engine with a high action-card density. Another is to use cards to sift for you. Hunting Party/Plat/Dthcrt/Copper is an assured colony and the Hunting Parties will find your Ruins easily. Other options, like top decking, draw & sift, Tactician, etc. all work extremely well with Plat/Dthcrt - even without +action. On most boards it is NOT just enough to have Dthcrt and a source of cheap actions - you really need a way to line things up and often a way to use whatever cash you have over 8 coin.

I mean seriously if you use Iw to gain a cheap card for Dthcrt to hit, that gives you 5 coin spread over 3 cards in the long run you had to draw (Iw, Dthcrt, and the trashed card) that's worse than silvers for a lot of engines. The big advantage of Dthcrt is that is givens a really high variance to your hands (which is good); like most high variance cards that makes sifting, big live draw, or trashing a really strong part of deciding to play it.

I'll mention sifting/draw, and amend the Colony discussion. But eHalcyon suggested Ironworks, not me.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 05, 2013, 12:35:38 am: @WanderingWinder:

I'm probably being a little too disparaging of not being able to feed something to Death Cart.

Point taken on the comparisons.

For the Duchy rush, it's not guaranteed, but in a mirror match, the Ruins pile is going to empty, and Death Cart will guarantee a Duchy buy.

Tradering the Ruins will give you a Death Cart and two Silvers. That should guarantee you a Province buy, but probably just one, since you'll most likely be trashing the Death Cart. I have not tried this yet, though.

I'll mention that one shouldn't get *too* attached to one's Death Carts.

My rule 3 is not about overpaying - it's about not using all of what you pay for. There's nothing wrong with pay $8 for Herbalist if you really need the +Buy. However, there is something wrong with paying $5 for a City if you don't desperately need the +Actions and there's little likelihood of a pile running out anytime soon. There is something wrong with paying for a card, and then not using all of what you pay for.

I'll tone down the Rats bit.

And Goons and Mountebank aren't blatantly dominant?

Yeah, I picked Moat because I didn't want to say Pearl Diver or Vagrant again.

I will mention Ambassador.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: Forge!!! on January 05, 2013, 08:58:00 am: Can you people edit all my papers for me? I suppose I just need to find people as passionate about my topics as people on here are about dominion...
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 05, 2013, 09:30:40 am: Quote from: werothegreat on January 05, 2013, 12:35:38 am
Tradering the Ruins will give you a Death Cart and two Silvers. That should guarantee you a Province buy, but probably just one, since you'll most likely be trashing the Death Cart. I have not tried this yet, though.
Well I mean, how often are you going to have both? But yeah, you're probably giving up the death cart much faster. On the other hand, you have two silvers in your deck rather than two dead cards, and I think that at least reasonably often this is actually right - I certainly wouldn't call it idiotic. I probably just wouldn't mention it at all, because it will almost never come up.

Quote
My rule 3 is not about overpaying - it's about not using all of what you pay for. There's nothing wrong with pay $8 for Herbalist if you really need the +Buy. However, there is something wrong with paying $5 for a City if you don't desperately need the +Actions and there's little likelihood of a pile running out anytime soon. There is something wrong with paying for a card, and then not using all of what you pay for.
Yeah, but what do you mean by that? Because I am basing my comments largely on a video you did where you criticize and ridicule your opponent for buying mining villages and then not trashing them on multiple occasions, and you were being REALLY unfair to your opponent on that, because he SHOULD be keeping those villages around and not trashing them. Yeah, he isn't getting all the use out of mining village, but really, he's just paying for a village, and he'd be happy to pay 4 for it. Same with a city - even if piles aren't running, sometimes you need village for 5, and city's better, so might as well get it. Or for something like herbalist, this is I think the clearest demonstration. What does herbalist do for you? Three things - it gives you a terminal $1, it gives a +buy, and it gives the treasure return. Now, the terminal copper is virtually never worth it (I'm sure there's an edge case somewhere). But very very often, you're buying herbalist in a big big engine, and you just really need the +buy, and in these decks you usually specifically DON'T want to put treasure back, because it hurts your chances of getting the engine to fire next turn. And most of the other times you want it, you have little to no use for the +buy, and mostly you want to hit those key treasures over and over - with hoard, or a weak-ish BM strategy where you are returning your good treasures. In either of these cases, you're definitely not getting the maximum usage out of the card, and thus you're violating your rule #3, but in both cases, you really need to do this. Of course, when you can use both things (a la with P-Stone), the card gets to its strongest. But you very often want to buy cards that aren't at their strongest, because you really need to fill a role. It's like you say here 'if you aren't desperate for actions'. Well, yeah, but this ENORMOUS exception of being 'desperate' for something basically nullifies the rule entirely - you're almost always 'desperate' for something. Well, this depends on how desperate is defined, but my point is that you are desperate enough to warrant it quite often, and the largest point is this: whether or not you are getting the full use out of a card is actually totally irrelevant; if you aren't, then you might not "be getting your money's worth", but this doesn't matter. It's all about what, of your legal options, is best and most needed for your deck right now. The point of comparison should be your other options of what to buy, NOT how good that card can be for you in other decks.
Quote
And Goons and Mountebank aren't blatantly dominant?
No, they aren't. They're very strong (and I would guess much better than DC, though hey, I could be wrong), but there are plenty of times you don't want mountebank, and a decent number you don't want goons. I got clobbered a week or two ago largely because I got goons against an opponent who had an engine that was just too strong and fast for it to matter. Wharf is probably the most ubiquitous card, i.e. the one you want closest to 100% of the time, but there are situations you don't want it, either.
Quote
Yeah, I picked Moat because I didn't want to say Pearl Diver or Vagrant again.
My larger point here isn't about the moat specifically, it's about the denial strategy in general being bad. Trying to buy out the death cart fodder to deny your opponent is almost never going to work, especially if getting those cheap actions wasn't part of your own game plan. Again, I ask you for even one example of where this denial strategy has actually worked.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 05, 2013, 11:00:12 am: Editing the article now.

Death Cart/Rats/Fortress:
http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20130105/log.505c6195a2e6c78ad2ed5a99.1357401499267.txt
4 Provinces in 18 turns, game end (6 Provinces) 23 turns. Bear in mind my Rats missed the first reshuffle.

http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20130105/log.505c6195a2e6c78ad2ed5a99.1357401947212.txt
Salvager/Fortress, with Menagerie and Conspirator aid, was quicker than my Death Cart strategy.

The article has been amended, with both jomini's and WW's thoughts considered.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jomini on January 05, 2013, 12:57:57 pm: Remember, two golds are better in most engines that one Dthcrt/Target. They have identical space constraints, but give another coin. I'm not completely sure, but I think most sifting/live draw setups with Mrksqr/Dthcrt may beat Rats/Dthcrt. As I long been saying, Dthcrt really likes +buy, Mrksqr has on-trash benefits and just about the most painless +buy in the game.

Quote
I'll mention sifting/draw, and amend the Colony discussion. But eHalcyon suggested Ironworks, not me.
Iw is completely legit, particularly as a way to gain Dthcrts, however, like most combos for Dthcrt, it works much better with sifting, draw, or trashing to enable the combo. Yeah, it is not as space efficient as 3 silvers, however there are times when you don't want the silvers (e.g. Wandering Minstrel), and times where you go faster by not rejiggering to a more draw efficient engine. Iw/Kc/Dthcrt/Draw (<5) would be a good example.

Sifting makes it a lot faster, as you note, Dthcrt only really needs 3 cards to make a province (gold/Dthcrt/target). This means you can use something like two Warehouses to search 9 cards for that combo. In like manner, top decking cards - like Count, Courtyard, etc. can help you store parts of the combo to line up later. As you've noted Haven can easily let you set back one of the key cards in hopes of lining up next turn and that is just a very flexible form of top-decking and sifting.

Thinking about this more, I think you really should de-emphasize the utility of cheap action cards. Yeah they can be good with +buy (Herbalist), sifting (Haven), draw (Moat), +action (Hamlet), or on-trash benefits (Squire) ... but consider if you really are buying them just for Dthcrt fodder what that really means. You are spending $2 now to get $5 coin later. In a steady state, that makes Dthcrt a gimped gold - it takes up an extra card, an extra buy, and an extra action (all compared to Gold) for the same net benefit. There are times you want that (again Wandering Minstrel is a great example), but it doesn't take too long before you should have just not bought the $2 card, pitched the Dthcrt, and replaced it with a Gold. I'd be real hesitant to stock up on cheepies if I couldn't use them well in my engine. If they actually are good engine bait (like Courtyard, Hamlet)), or if they combo really nicely with Dthcrt (like Squire), then sure stock up up and trash as needed. However, buying something crappy - like Pearl Diver - just to trash it seems to not be worth it in the long run.

Now if you are getting your cheap actions for "free" (e.g. Haggler, Iw, Bridge, Highway, Princess, etc.), then that changes. Otherwise, I'd only dabble in fodder if I've run out of Ruins to buy or have absolutely nothing better to do with that $2.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 05, 2013, 06:23:19 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 05, 2013, 11:00:12 am
Editing the article now.

Death Cart/Rats/Fortress:
http://dominionlogs.goko.com//20130105/log.505c6195a2e6c78ad2ed5a99.1357401499267.txt
4 Provinces in 18 turns, game end (6 Provinces) 23 turns. Bear in mind my Rats missed the first reshuffle.
A little by-hand testing makes me think that this is decently bad luck, but on the other hand this 'combo' seems to only be about as good as BM-Smithy...
Edit: That's without the fortress. But I was getting so clogged down, I don't think you really want the rats...
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 07, 2013, 11:39:08 pm: Any more thoughts? How is the article looking now?
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: Jerk of All trades on January 11, 2013, 05:11:10 pm: I'd add a little more about opening deathcart. It can be a very risky proposition if there isn't much sifting. But also can have huge payoffs.

Honestly I hate the card and usually veto it with friends. It takes Baron Bad Luck to the extreme. (drawing CCEEE on turn 3 after opening baron). I played a game once, where my deathcart was my 12th card along with 3 copper and an estate. So I could trash it, leaving 2 dead cards in my deck, or hold it and get my 4th silver. Adding insult to injury my opp just trashed his second ruin on turn 5 giving him DC+2 gold + 2 silver after 5 turns, while I had DC + 2 ruins + 4 silvers

And is almost a must have in platinum games. Deathcart + 4 copper has a non-trivial chance of appearing and practically winning the game for you on your first shuffle.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jomini on January 14, 2013, 12:43:28 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 07, 2013, 11:39:08 pm
Any more thoughts? How is the article looking now?

I still think you are misleading people about buying cheap actions to feed the death cart. Outside of Poor house and Ruins, the best long term result from using Death cart on bought actions is $3 coin (5 coin gross, 2 coin costs, 3 coin net). This is a gimped gold; which while useful, isn't worth structuring your buys around. For a lot of boards, pitching the Dthcrt and just buying a gold when you have nothing to pair is going to work a LOT better. Yeah, there is the timing question, but address it - don't just ignore the opportunity cost of buying cheap, crappy actions just to Dthcrt them.

You really need to look at the costs of playing Dthcrt, not just its "OMG 5 coin payout". Dthcrt takes up 2 card slots in hand, needs a +buy or card gain off another card, and an action to get you a gold's worth of payout. Massing cheap crap that does useful stuff can work, I remain skeptical that massing crap (like Duchess or Pearl Diver) will be anything other than a money sink.

Likewise, you still are basically ignoring the difficulty of pairing up your Dthcrt with stuff you want. Sifting is REALLY that useful and it would be very helpful to get more into the kind of deck structure you need to actually pair up Dthcrt with stuff to trash.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 14, 2013, 01:14:45 pm: Quote from: jomini on January 14, 2013, 12:43:28 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 07, 2013, 11:39:08 pm
Any more thoughts? How is the article looking now?

I still think you are misleading people about buying cheap actions to feed the death cart. Outside of Poor house and Ruins, the best long term result from using Death cart on bought actions is $3 coin (5 coin gross, 2 coin costs, 3 coin net). This is a gimped gold; which while useful, isn't worth structuring your buys around. For a lot of boards, pitching the Dthcrt and just buying a gold when you have nothing to pair is going to work a LOT better. Yeah, there is the timing question, but address it - don't just ignore the opportunity cost of buying cheap, crappy actions just to Dthcrt them.

You really need to look at the costs of playing Dthcrt, not just its "OMG 5 coin payout". Dthcrt takes up 2 card slots in hand, needs a +buy or card gain off another card, and an action to get you a gold's worth of payout. Massing cheap crap that does useful stuff can work, I remain skeptical that massing crap (like Duchess or Pearl Diver) will be anything other than a money sink.

Likewise, you still are basically ignoring the difficulty of pairing up your Dthcrt with stuff you want. Sifting is REALLY that useful and it would be very helpful to get more into the kind of deck structure you need to actually pair up Dthcrt with stuff to trash.

If you get Warehouses to sift, I would most likely just feed the Warehouse to the Death Cart, rather than using it to sift.

EDIT: Maybe I should make it more clear that I don't mean to spend $6 on a Pearl Diver. I mean that if the cheapest card on the board is Death Cart, you're not going to get much use out of Death Cart. If Pearl Diver is there, when you have $2 or $3, pick one up. A Death Cart and a Pearl Diver in hand is better than two Silvers.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: Drab Emordnilap on January 14, 2013, 01:21:32 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 14, 2013, 01:14:45 pm
A Death Cart and a Pearl Diver in hand is better than two Silvers.

But is it?

I get to keep the silvers. I'm not sure the advantage there is so clear cut.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 14, 2013, 02:25:36 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 14, 2013, 01:14:45 pm
Quote from: jomini on January 14, 2013, 12:43:28 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 07, 2013, 11:39:08 pm
Any more thoughts? How is the article looking now?

I still think you are misleading people about buying cheap actions to feed the death cart. Outside of Poor house and Ruins, the best long term result from using Death cart on bought actions is $3 coin (5 coin gross, 2 coin costs, 3 coin net). This is a gimped gold; which while useful, isn't worth structuring your buys around. For a lot of boards, pitching the Dthcrt and just buying a gold when you have nothing to pair is going to work a LOT better. Yeah, there is the timing question, but address it - don't just ignore the opportunity cost of buying cheap, crappy actions just to Dthcrt them.

You really need to look at the costs of playing Dthcrt, not just its "OMG 5 coin payout". Dthcrt takes up 2 card slots in hand, needs a +buy or card gain off another card, and an action to get you a gold's worth of payout. Massing cheap crap that does useful stuff can work, I remain skeptical that massing crap (like Duchess or Pearl Diver) will be anything other than a money sink.

Likewise, you still are basically ignoring the difficulty of pairing up your Dthcrt with stuff you want. Sifting is REALLY that useful and it would be very helpful to get more into the kind of deck structure you need to actually pair up Dthcrt with stuff to trash.

If you get Warehouses to sift, I would most likely just feed the Warehouse to the Death Cart, rather than using it to sift.

EDIT: Maybe I should make it more clear that I don't mean to spend $6 on a Pearl Diver. I mean that if the cheapest card on the board is Death Cart, you're not going to get much use out of Death Cart. If Pearl Diver is there, when you have $2 or $3, pick one up. A Death Cart and a Pearl Diver in hand is better than two Silvers.
Well, there are always ruins. Death Cart+Pearl Diver gets you one more money than two silvers - you still need to be able to come up with $3 from the rest of your hand to get to province, and if you spend time buying cheap actions... I mean, you just don't hit $2 or $3 that often outside the first 4 turns or so of the game. So you really have to look at the opportunity cost, which is probably going to be at least a silver, in most cases. It's also a terminal, which means that there's going to be increased opportunity cost in terms of I can't play as many other terminals now.
Basically... it's a really weak card for a money strategy, it seems. I'm thinking it is going to do best in an engine, and you probably don't want to get it until you're up and running, so that the few extra ruins don't clog you too much. Then when you get it, it's like $5 free a few times, which can be okay, particularly if you're desperate for non-treasure forms of income. But this looks fairly niche, too.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jaybeez on January 14, 2013, 02:43:30 pm: How much stronger does Death Cart get in Shelter games? You have an Action (Necropolis) in your deck to start with, does that make opening with Death Cart more viable? I mean, I'm sure it makes it more viable, but how big a difference is it?
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: ftl on January 14, 2013, 03:37:23 pm: I'd guess the best place for a Death Cart is to quickly add money to an overdrawn engine. You spend $4 (or a single play of a gainer) to get it, and you immediately get $5 to spend for the next three turns - or more, if you're willing to sacrifice existing components already, or if you already had occasions to pick up pearl divers or whatever, or if you can TR/KC it on the last turn. And it's likely that after you've built up your engine you don't have more than three turns of greening until the game ends anyway.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jomini on January 14, 2013, 04:13:43 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 14, 2013, 01:14:45 pm

If you get Warehouses to sift, I would most likely just feed the Warehouse to the Death Cart, rather than using it to sift.

EDIT: Maybe I should make it more clear that I don't mean to spend $6 on a Pearl Diver. I mean that if the cheapest card on the board is Death Cart, you're not going to get much use out of Death Cart. If Pearl Diver is there, when you have $2 or $3, pick one up. A Death Cart and a Pearl Diver in hand is better than two Silvers.

Well, for starters, you often draw the the Dthcrt AFTER having played a Wrhou, so it is kinda moot. More importantly, unless you got the Wrhou for "free" (e.g. Haggler), at some point you HAD to pay for it. This is not sustainable long term, paying 3 coin to trash later for 5 is not that efficient.

Likewise, a Dthcrt & Pdiver in hand is not always better than two silvers, take a simple example - you also have a Merchant ship. Play the Dthcrt & trash Pdiver, get 5 coin. Play the Mship and silvers - get 6 coin & 2 next turn. Just how often do you really want to spend one action on only one net coin? I mean if Dthcrt & Pdiver is so much better ... why does Duchess suck so hard in so many cases? After all, Duchess pays out 2 coin for 1 action/1 card and needs no support.

Of course, most of the time you won't be sure of pairing up your cheap crap and the Dthcrt, so in reality those two Silvers (or that Silver and that Gold) start looking better and better.

I could see paying $2 to get $3 if you have a reliable engine and particularly if that $2 card does something else beside provide Dthcrt fodder. I can also see buying Ruins off spare buys if I have the +buy, reliability, etc. to support them. I can't see having a bunch of fiddly bits being worth it long run without reliability and high odds of pairing the cheap crap with the Dthcrt.

Quote from: jaybeez on January 14, 2013, 02:43:30 pm
How much stronger does Death Cart get in Shelter games? You have an Action (Necropolis) in your deck to start with, does that make opening with Death Cart more viable? I mean, I'm sure it makes it more viable, but how big a difference is it?
Not much, Dthcrt is useful for getting big cards - like Kc, Plat, Expand, Altar, etc. and in a lot of those cases, you want to keep around the Necro most of the time because you are aiming at engines and crappy as Necro is as a village, it is still a village and it greatly increases engine reliability. If you aren't going engine, then you likely don't care so much about pitching the Dthcrt (e.g. Forge/Dthcrt/Venture in a Colony game).

Dthcrt works well as engine payload in some cases, particularly those that draw well, but again those engines tend to be the ones where you actively want the Necro.

I just haven't seen that many cases where opening Dthcrt is good, but where I'm also overly concern with missing a Ruin (I mean sure I'd rather hit the Ruin, but it isn't game ending if I have to pitch the Dthcrt for my Forge).
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 14, 2013, 04:19:43 pm: I'm not convinced opening Death Cart is good either.

While Pearl Diver doesn't actively add to your economy, it doesn't hurt either, since it's non-terminal. I believe I mentioned Haven as particularly standout in this case. I'll probably rework the cheap Actions section of the article.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: eHalcyon on January 14, 2013, 04:31:54 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 14, 2013, 04:19:43 pm
I'm not convinced opening Death Cart is good either.

While Pearl Diver doesn't actively add to your economy, it doesn't hurt either, since it's non-terminal. I believe I mentioned Haven as particularly standout in this case. I'll probably rework the cheap Actions section of the article.

I think the point that people are making is that picking up extra Pearl Divers to trash to DC hurts in terms of opportunity cost. Yeah, once it is in your deck, it's generally harmless. But what could you have bought instead of that Pearl Diver?
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 14, 2013, 04:34:10 pm: Quote from: eHalcyon on January 14, 2013, 04:31:54 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 14, 2013, 04:19:43 pm
I'm not convinced opening Death Cart is good either.

While Pearl Diver doesn't actively add to your economy, it doesn't hurt either, since it's non-terminal. I believe I mentioned Haven as particularly standout in this case. I'll probably rework the cheap Actions section of the article.

I think the point that people are making is that picking up extra Pearl Divers to trash to DC hurts in terms of opportunity cost. Yeah, once it is in your deck, it's generally harmless. But what could you have bought instead of that Pearl Diver?

At $2? Not much - again, I'm not saying you should spend $5 on a Pearl Diver. And you will get hands of $2, unless you have immaculate shuffle luck.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: ftl on January 14, 2013, 04:35:10 pm: Really? In most games, you often won't have hands of $2 very often if at all.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: eHalcyon on January 14, 2013, 04:41:56 pm: Quote from: ftl on January 14, 2013, 04:35:10 pm
Really? In most games, you often won't have hands of $2 very often if at all.

Thought -- are $2 hands more common in games when you buy Death Cart? If you open DC, those 2 dead Ruins might result in more $2 hands. If this is the case, then is the DC worth having those dead cards and $2 hands? Again, opportunity costs. Maybe it's better to buy a different card, avoid the Ruins, and have better hands to buy other better things.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jomini on January 14, 2013, 07:31:44 pm: Wero: You currently state, "but there are certain instances where Death Cart is a must buy. Any time you have a board with cheap, crappy Actions like Pearl Diver or Vagrant, pick up a handful for Death Cart to grind up."

This is bad advice. First, as I understand Dark Ages rules, you can always just buy Ruins, yeah Ruins suck, but they only require a +buy, not spending 2 coin. If you can support buying crappy Pdivers you can't play most of the time, then you can likely support just buying Ruins.

Second, sure when you have 2 coin you rarely can make your deck worse with Pdiver, sure, but the question is: How much does having Pdiver out tip you toward buying Dthcrt instead of, say Silver or Baron or whatever else is out there?

The answer is, not too much. The only price points where you really might want to buy Pdiver with low opportunity cost are $2, $3, $7 (with 2 buys), $10 (2 buys, even here it is sketchy). If you expect to hit these a lot, it is something other than Pdiver putting you there.

But let's say you have just built an engine that consistently hits 10 (no provinces yet) and has 2 buys with no Ruins left in game. Okay so you hit your first 10, trashing the last ruin in your deck, what do you buy? A Pdiver and a Prov? 2 Labs? Or how about a Gold & a useful 4 (including say a Dthcrt)/Silver?

If you buy the Pdiver, you get zero benefit from if you don't play it. If you do play it, then you can't use your Dthcrt to kill it. How about the gold case? Best case scenario, you manage to consistently hit it with the Dthcrt every turn for the next 2 turns and buy 4 Prov total (one from the last Ruin and three from Pdiver trashing).

If you buy Gold/Silver, then you can trash the Dthcrt for a payout of 15 coin. This lets you buy Gold/Prov. From here on out you can hit 16 coin, letting you buy 5 Prov over those same 4 turns.

Both options have close to the same space efficiency until after you buy the fifth province: the first is +2 cards (Pdiver/Prov) on the first turn and +1 card each turn thereafter; the second is +2 cards the first turn, +1 on the second and +2 on the third and fourth.

Which gets back to what I was saying about Dthcrt becoming a gimped gold once you have to pay for fodder - for a LOT of setups, swapping the Dthcrt for a gold works. There are times where, yes you want to trash an action - perhaps even a Kc - in order to keep the Dthcrt for one more turn. However, for a small price in tempo, you can often come out ahead buying the gold and then pitching the Dthcrt. Like Fool's gold there are times where losing Tempo kills you, there are other times to get out of high payout matching cards and into nice solid Gold.

The important thing with Dthcrt is either to use it when you are OK one-offing it to leap at some hugely important card (e.g. Altar, Forge, Kc) or as a means of juicing an engine for a few turns (particularly if your terminal trasher gives you 4 plays before its gone). Pdiver or something else cheap, crappy, and harmless being out is very much an icing on the cake sort of thing, it isn't enough to go Dthcrt and it isn't enough to make me buy Pdivers when I otherwise wouldn't (excepting edge cases). I care far more about needing an early slingshot to some big card or juicing an engine when I consider Dthcrt.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: sandstorm on January 14, 2013, 08:52:18 pm: jomini mentioned that Death Cart is good with cultist because you can trash it and get +3 cards/+5 coins. But there is another reason Death Cart is really good with Cultist (and to a lesser extent Marauder). After the cultist war is over and the ruins are empty you can gain Death Carts without their baggage. They help you clean up your deck while giving you massive buying power.

Death Cart also has sort of a strange interaction in 2p since there are only 10 ruins in the pile. This means that the bottom 5 Death Carts will not come with extra ruins. This can be a good or bad thing. This also means that the Death Cart, Duchy, Ruin rush gets much harder at 3P (20 ruins) and nearly impossible at 4P (30 ruins).

EDIT: Of course the Death Cart,Duchy,Ruin rush is also harder in 3 or 4 player game because of the greater number of duchies in the supply. But can also be easier if someone else is also going for the rush.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jamespotter on January 15, 2013, 09:46:53 am: IMO, the ruins gained with Death Cart are almost always a liability. Sure, an early collision will sustain your Death Cart for one more turn, but overall, they are a disadvantage similar to the two copper gained with Cache. My main reasoning for this is that Death Cart is a "one shot" 4- cost that produces $5. In the secret histories, Donald says that Feast was originally a one-shot 4- cost that produced $3 and it was too powerful. By this reasoning, the ruins must be a serious disadvantage, which they are in actual play.

I would seldom buy Death Cart, unless there was a good combo like Trader or Watchtower in the kingdom. If I were to buy it, I would see it as buying a powerful one shot that comes with a penalty, because most of the time, that's what it is.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: ipofanes on January 15, 2013, 10:30:50 am: Quote from: jamespotter on January 15, 2013, 09:46:53 am
I would seldom buy Death Cart, unless there was a good combo like Trader or Watchtower in the kingdom.
"In the kingdom" wouldn't cut it, I presume you mean "in hand", since you want to use the reaction part of the cards you mentioned?
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jamespotter on January 15, 2013, 12:29:41 pm: Yes, you' 're right...my mistake.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 12:43:41 pm: So to sum up, the issue we're debating is whether Death Cart is viable as a long-term trash-for-benefit, or if it's best used as a one-shot. Personally I lean toward the former, but everyone seems to be disagreeing with me.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: ftl on January 15, 2013, 02:01:54 pm: I think it's best used as a three-shot.

You have an overdrawn engine. You want to add spending power to it fast. One buy and $4 (or one play of a gainer) gets you $5 to spend on the next three turns (assuming you can draw the Death Cart with the ruins, which you should in an overdrawn engine), and honestly a lot of engines don't spend more than three turns greening.

I think that is the best use of death cart.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WheresMyElephant on January 15, 2013, 03:31:16 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 12:43:41 pm
So to sum up, the issue we're debating is whether Death Cart is viable as a long-term trash-for-benefit, or if it's best used as a one-shot. Personally I lean toward the former, but everyone seems to be disagreeing with me.

Is this really the debate? That wasn't my impression, and it sounds like a silly debate to have. Obviously either approach can be good depending on your deck/the board, so both are worth discussing, though of course if one is somewhat more prevalent it's worth knowing.

Buying an endless stream of $2s for Death Cart isn't much of a strategy, seems to be the biggest thing people are saying. But the same would go for any other TfB, though for different reasons (i.e. most of their benefits are cost-dependent). It doesn't mean using Death Cart as a TfB isn't viable; it just means that neither Death Cart nor say Bishop is so broken that buying up all the Moats to trash becomes a winning strategy.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jomini on January 15, 2013, 03:33:13 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 12:43:41 pm
So to sum up, the issue we're debating is whether Death Cart is viable as a long-term trash-for-benefit, or if it's best used as a one-shot. Personally I lean toward the former, but everyone seems to be disagreeing with me.

The bigger problem is that you aren't listening to nor talking about why people say it is a one-shot and why you think it should be good for long-term TfB.

Space efficiency, odds of pairing Dthcrt with its fodder, needing an action, tempo concerns, sustainability, etc. these are issues that you blithely ignore for reasons I don't understand. I've done a worked example showing exactly how one-shotting a dead Dthcrt & replacing it with gold/silver gives you 5 provinces for only one more card of draw.

You aren't doing a good job until you address these concerns legitimately. Maybe I'm wrong about Dthcrt becoming a weakish gimped gold when you can't feed it Ruins, fine, tell me why. Why do you think Dthcrt/Money is actually viable on a lot of boards? Why do think it is better than Dthcrt/Engine? Why don't you want to sift for Ruins?
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 04:38:07 pm: Quote from: jomini on January 15, 2013, 03:33:13 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 12:43:41 pm
So to sum up, the issue we're debating is whether Death Cart is viable as a long-term trash-for-benefit, or if it's best used as a one-shot. Personally I lean toward the former, but everyone seems to be disagreeing with me.

The bigger problem is that you aren't listening to nor talking about why people say it is a one-shot and why you think it should be good for long-term TfB.

Space efficiency, odds of pairing Dthcrt with its fodder, needing an action, tempo concerns, sustainability, etc. these are issues that you blithely ignore for reasons I don't understand. I've done a worked example showing exactly how one-shotting a dead Dthcrt & replacing it with gold/silver gives you 5 provinces for only one more card of draw.

You aren't doing a good job until you address these concerns legitimately. Maybe I'm wrong about Dthcrt becoming a weakish gimped gold when you can't feed it Ruins, fine, tell me why. Why do you think Dthcrt/Money is actually viable on a lot of boards? Why do think it is better than Dthcrt/Engine? Why don't you want to sift for Ruins?

I could have sworn I at least started out saying that Death Cart doesn't do well as a Big Money thing. I'm sorry for blithely ignoring.

Death Cart/Money - this is probably not a good strategy - a sustained Death Cart needs Actions, and with Big Money, you're not going to be colliding Death Cart with anything. One-shotting the Death Cart can slingshot you to Golds or Platinums, but then you're left with Ruins in your deck.

Death Cart/Sifter - yes, you can use this to find your Ruins to trash, and then you can use Death Cart as just a three-shot (or four-shot with Shelters). But if you have Death Cart, Warehouse and three Coppers, you may as well just eat the Warehouse and get a Province.

Death Cart/Engine - this is probably the best. You're buying lots of Actions anyway, you usually have +Buy to make full use of the $5, and you're usually drawing your entire deck, so you don't have to worry about collision.

I guess I didn't articulate properly with the cheap Actions thing. How about this: only do that if you have +Buy, or are in an engine. What I'm trying to say is that you get the most out of Death Cart if you can keep it going.

Maybe I should compare this to Moneylender. Moneylender is awesome - it gets rid of your Coppers, and it gives you coin. When you're out of Coppers, Moneylender is now a Confusion in your deck. Do you buy more Coppers to feed to Moneylender? Most likely not, barring Goons or something like that. Perhaps it is best to think of Death Cart as a Moneylender analogue - you use it to eat up those Ruins (and maybe your Necropolis), and as an added bonus, it takes itself out of your deck when you're done with it.

But the fact that it gives $5 should give you pause. Moneylender has 7 targets, unless you're being Mountebanked. Death Cart only starts off with 2. So while you don't normally have to worry about Moneylender running out, you do with Death Cart, because it will usually run out of Ruins before the game ends. So while you wouldn't normally spend a +Buy on Coppers (again, except maybe for Goons) to keep feeding the Moneylender, it might be worth your while to spend a +Buy on a $2 non-terminal. You spent $4 on Death Cart in the first place to get $5 out of it - are you saying that you now won't spend another $2 to get another $5? And again - this would be if you had +Buy, and typically in the context of an engine.

I seriously need to overhaul this article.

Am I making sense? Or am I still blithely ignoring something?

EDIT: I've also noticed that with Death Cart and Procession, you often find yourself blithely (heh) chewing up Actions you normally wouldn't, just because they happened to collide. One game, I fed a Merchant Ship to a Death Cart to win. One of my recorded games has me Processing anything and everything, even with no $6 Action on the board, and it was the most fun I've had with Dominion in a while. It gives games a delightful sort of "ah, fuck it, let's do it" attitude.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 15, 2013, 04:56:49 pm: Quote from: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 04:38:07 pm
Quote from: jomini on January 15, 2013, 03:33:13 pm
Quote from: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 12:43:41 pm
So to sum up, the issue we're debating is whether Death Cart is viable as a long-term trash-for-benefit, or if it's best used as a one-shot. Personally I lean toward the former, but everyone seems to be disagreeing with me.

The bigger problem is that you aren't listening to nor talking about why people say it is a one-shot and why you think it should be good for long-term TfB.

Space efficiency, odds of pairing Dthcrt with its fodder, needing an action, tempo concerns, sustainability, etc. these are issues that you blithely ignore for reasons I don't understand. I've done a worked example showing exactly how one-shotting a dead Dthcrt & replacing it with gold/silver gives you 5 provinces for only one more card of draw.

You aren't doing a good job until you address these concerns legitimately. Maybe I'm wrong about Dthcrt becoming a weakish gimped gold when you can't feed it Ruins, fine, tell me why. Why do you think Dthcrt/Money is actually viable on a lot of boards? Why do think it is better than Dthcrt/Engine? Why don't you want to sift for Ruins?

I could have sworn I at least started out saying that Death Cart doesn't do well as a Big Money thing. I'm sorry for blithely ignoring.

Death Cart/Money - this is probably not a good strategy - a sustained Death Cart needs Actions, and with Big Money, you're not going to be colliding Death Cart with anything. One-shotting the Death Cart can slingshot you to Golds or Platinums, but then you're left with Ruins in your deck.

Death Cart/Sifter - yes, you can use this to find your Ruins to trash, and then you can use Death Cart as just a three-shot (or four-shot with Shelters). But if you have Death Cart, Warehouse and three Coppers, you may as well just eat the Warehouse and get a Province.

Death Cart/Engine - this is probably the best. You're buying lots of Actions anyway, you usually have +Buy to make full use of the $5, and you're usually drawing your entire deck, so you don't have to worry about collision.

I guess I didn't articulate properly with the cheap Actions thing. How about this: only do that if you have +Buy, or are in an engine. What I'm trying to say is that you get the most out of Death Cart if you can keep it going.

Maybe I should compare this to Moneylender. Moneylender is awesome - it gets rid of your Coppers, and it gives you coin. When you're out of Coppers, Moneylender is now a Confusion in your deck. Do you buy more Coppers to feed to Moneylender? Most likely not, barring Goons or something like that. Perhaps it is best to think of Death Cart as a Moneylender analogue - you use it to eat up those Ruins (and maybe your Necropolis), and as an added bonus, it takes itself out of your deck when you're done with it.
I think this is a great analogy, but...

Quote
But the fact that it gives $5 should give you pause. Moneylender has 7 targets, unless you're being Mountebanked. Death Cart only starts off with 2. So while you don't normally have to worry about Moneylender running out, you do with Death Cart, because it will usually run out of Ruins before the game ends. So while you wouldn't normally spend a +Buy on Coppers (again, except maybe for Goons) to keep feeding the Moneylender, it might be worth your while to spend a +Buy on a $2 non-terminal. You spent $4 on Death Cart in the first place to get $5 out of it - are you saying that you now won't spend another $2 to get another $5? And again - this would be if you had +Buy, and typically in the context of an engine.
But I think you get the wrong takeaway out of it. You buy moneylender (and not all that often anyway) primarily to trash copper, not for the economic benefit. Why? Because you want the copper out of your deck.
Death Cart does the same thing, except with junk actions like ruins. You also want them out of your deck, great. But buying cheap actions to feed to death cart is like buying coppers for the moneylender - you usually don't want to do it. And if the cheap actions are worse than copper, you want to do it even less. And since you are getting two in any case, this is like buying two coppers (or actually worse!) just to get a moneylender. Except, you don't already have 7 other targets like you do for moneylender.
Now, of course, there are SOME countervailing plusses on DC - it gives more cash, and it can get rid of itself. The second thing will, in the average deck, be a good thing! Now all these differences mean, at the end of the day, I think (and again I don't have oodles of experience here) is that it has far less general utility than moneylender, though in the case you really want it (similar to the case you'll be buying coppers for a moneylender, or if you're getting hit with ruins attacks anyway, or if the ruins are out), it has a far higher upside.

So it's a niche card.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 05:09:39 pm: A powerful niche card. It could possibly be a trap card, but it just gives so much money at once that the trap isn't that hard to get out of.

But yes, I'm seeing the point.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: RD on January 15, 2013, 07:26:49 pm: Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 15, 2013, 04:56:49 pm

But I think you get the wrong takeaway out of it. You buy moneylender (and not all that often anyway) primarily to trash copper, not for the economic benefit. Why? Because you want the copper out of your deck.
I think this is kind of unfair to both cards. The copper-trashing is why you would buy Moneylender over Silver. The economic benefit is why you would buy Moneylender over, say, Spice Merchant. Now it so happens that Silver is in every game but Spice Merchant isn't, and that's why with Moneylender we usually wind up asking "What's that copper trashing worth to you?" rather than "What's a terminal Silver with a shelf life worth to you?"

But Death Cart isn't directly comparable to Silver; in fact it's not comparable to much, especially not at $4. Baron and Gold and Moneylender, but it's pretty far from any of those. Its economic benefit is genuinely impressive and is definitely a big part of why you're buying it over whatever other option you might have.

Here's an interesting thought experiment. After you play and trash your Death Cart, would you consider buying another one, along with two Ruins? I think this is often worthwhile, even though it undoes all the junk-Action trashing you've been doing. (In fact I think Death Cart can be a great use of a spare $4 buy late in the game; sort of like you might buy a Feast to turn into Duchy).

But keeping the original Death Cart around and not gaining those Ruins sounds even better, especially if you're focused on getting rid of junk! Now suppose your deck control is such that you could have guaranteed this, by buying 2 $2 Actions somewhere along the line to keep the Death Cart alive (i.e. you're certain they would successfully collide). Why not do this? If you have the buys, it's not really any more expensive than buying a new Death Cart, and the Actions are probably better than Ruins.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 07:31:44 pm: Quote from: RD on January 15, 2013, 07:26:49 pm
Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 15, 2013, 04:56:49 pm

But I think you get the wrong takeaway out of it. You buy moneylender (and not all that often anyway) primarily to trash copper, not for the economic benefit. Why? Because you want the copper out of your deck.
I think this is kind of unfair to both cards. The copper-trashing is why you would buy Moneylender over Silver. The economic benefit is why you would buy Moneylender over, say, Spice Merchant. Now it so happens that Silver is in every game but Spice Merchant isn't, and that's why with Moneylender we usually wind up asking "What's that copper trashing worth to you?" rather than "What's a terminal Silver with a shelf life worth to you?"

But Death Cart isn't directly comparable to Silver; in fact it's not comparable to much, especially not at $4. Baron and Gold and Moneylender, but it's pretty far from any of those. Its economic benefit is genuinely impressive and is definitely a big part of why you're buying it over whatever other option you might have.

Here's an interesting thought experiment. After you play and trash your Death Cart, would you consider buying another one, along with two Ruins? I think this is often worthwhile, even though it undoes all the junk-Action trashing you've been doing. (In fact I think Death Cart can be a great use of a spare $4 buy late in the game; sort of like you might buy a Feast to turn into Duchy).

But keeping the original Death Cart around and not gaining those Ruins sounds even better, especially if you're focused on getting rid of junk! Now suppose your deck control is such that you could have guaranteed this, by buying 2 $2 Actions somewhere along the line to keep the Death Cart alive (i.e. you're certain they would successfully collide). Why not do this? If you have the buys, it's not really any more expensive than buying a new Death Cart, and the Actions are probably better than Ruins.

This is why Rats does well with Death Cart, because you only buy it once, and it turns everything into an Action.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: WanderingWinder on January 15, 2013, 07:41:19 pm: Quote from: RD on January 15, 2013, 07:26:49 pm
Quote from: WanderingWinder on January 15, 2013, 04:56:49 pm

But I think you get the wrong takeaway out of it. You buy moneylender (and not all that often anyway) primarily to trash copper, not for the economic benefit. Why? Because you want the copper out of your deck.
I think this is kind of unfair to both cards. The copper-trashing is why you would buy Moneylender over Silver. The economic benefit is why you would buy Moneylender over, say, Spice Merchant. Now it so happens that Silver is in every game but Spice Merchant isn't, and that's why with Moneylender we usually wind up asking "What's that copper trashing worth to you?" rather than "What's a terminal Silver with a shelf life worth to you?"
Certainly if you're buying it over spice merchant, you want some economy out of it. On the other hand, since silver is (virtually) ALWAYS available, you are (virtually) ALWAYS buying it for its copper trashing power. I think it's quite fair to say that. It may not be the only reason you're buying it, but it is A reason. And my broad, general point is that it's usually the primary reason.

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But Death Cart isn't directly comparable to Silver; in fact it's not comparable to much, especially not at $4. Maybe Baron. Its economic benefit is genuinely impressive and is definitely a big part of why you're buying it.

Here's an interesting thought experiment. After you play your Death Cart as a one-shot, would you consider buying another one, along with two Ruins?
I don't understand - you're presuming that I have a death cart in the first place - my point is that you usually don't want to. But the actual confusing bit is, how is this different from just the decision to buy a death cart in the first place?

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I think this is often worthwhile, even though it undoes all the junk-Action trashing you've been doing. (In fact I think Death Cart can be a great use of a spare $4 buy late in the game; sort of like you might buy a Feast to turn into Duchy).
I think that much like buying a feast to turn into duchy (actually much moreso), you almost never want to do this, unless you have a wonderful drawing at least most of your deck engine already. So no, this doesn't sound like a good deal to me in most cases - it sounds like a pretty bad deal, especially considering that I could have bought something else.

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But keeping the original Death Cart around and not gaining those Ruins sounds even better, especially if you're focused on getting rid of junk!
Yes, if I already have a death cart, I would generally like to keep it around, but only up to a point - I don't want to have to bend the rest of my deck around backwards for it.
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Now suppose your deck control is such that you could have guaranteed this, by buying 2 $2 Actions somewhere along the line to keep the Death Cart alive (i.e. you're certain they would successfully collide).
Yeah, to be ensured of this, you need to have a strong engine going, and this is the case I said I thought it would be useful.
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Why not do this?
Generally? Opportunity cost.
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If you have the buys, it's not really any more expensive than buying a new Death Cart, and the Actions are probably better than Ruins.

Well, if I am doing it at once, the second death cart gives me two more actions to trash anyway, and more money/potential to trash them, and if I have the buys, I can get another ruin to go with them to boot. If I am doing it spread, then okay, yeah, sure, in this edge case (how do I have exactly 2 and a buy? Did I buy province and have 2 left? Am I sure I didn't want two $5 cards?), go for it. But in this case, I am probably buying that 2-cost anyway. Anyway, I probably don't want to buy a second death cart all that often anyway - it may be fine, but there's usually something better to do. I mean, yeah, the situation can come up for sure. I just don't think it's very common.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: RD on January 15, 2013, 09:26:17 pm: Ah, evidently I'm not keeping the arguments straight too well; sorry for the confusion.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 09:54:44 pm: Alrighty, I'm going to rewrite the article.

Key points I'll include - please let me know if these actually make sense to anyone.

-Does not go well with Big Money - too hard to collide it with an Action, and if you one-shot it, you're left with practically useless Ruins

-Moderate with sifting - Warehouse/Cellar can help for the collision, or even just provide fodder BUT don't go out of your way to do this, because...

-Best with engines with +Buy - makes best use of the +$5, ensures you can always collide, and extra +Buy can pick up something to feed to it.

-Without the engine, you're wasting turns when you're buying fodder

-Good combos:
--Action gainers like University, Rats
--Market Square - provides fodder, +Buy, and a reward for trashing something

-Counter with Cursing or a faster strategy
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: jomini on January 15, 2013, 11:31:23 pm: Quote
I guess I didn't articulate properly with the cheap Actions thing. How about this: only do that if you have +Buy, or are in an engine. What I'm trying to say is that you get the most out of Death Cart if you can keep it going.

Maybe I should compare this to Moneylender. Moneylender is awesome - it gets rid of your Coppers, and it gives you coin. When you're out of Coppers, Moneylender is now a Confusion in your deck. Do you buy more Coppers to feed to Moneylender? Most likely not, barring Goons or something like that. Perhaps it is best to think of Death Cart as a Moneylender analogue - you use it to eat up those Ruins (and maybe your Necropolis), and as an added bonus, it takes itself out of your deck when you're done with it.

But the fact that it gives $5 should give you pause. Moneylender has 7 targets, unless you're being Mountebanked. Death Cart only starts off with 2. So while you don't normally have to worry about Moneylender running out, you do with Death Cart, because it will usually run out of Ruins before the game ends. So while you wouldn't normally spend a +Buy on Coppers (again, except maybe for Goons) to keep feeding the Moneylender, it might be worth your while to spend a +Buy on a $2 non-terminal. You spent $4 on Death Cart in the first place to get $5 out of it - are you saying that you now won't spend another $2 to get another $5? And again - this would be if you had +Buy, and typically in the context of an engine.

I seriously need to overhaul this article.

Am I making sense? Or am I still blithely ignoring something?

Okay so for how to play Dthcrt, I'm okay with spending a spare 2 coin buy to help keep the Dthcrt alive, but will almost always be a card I'd buy without Dthcrt in my deck. At a tactical level, sure buying those $2 coin cards is good. At a strategic level, the decision of: should I buy the Dthcrt at all, that isn't changed much by the $2 coin cards being viable.

I like the Moneylender analogy, but let's look at that; its payout is identical to the hand you'd get with a simple silver. Moneylender works, 95+% of the time because it removes something you don't want in your deck. Unwanted actions are pretty rare in your deck, you may have one or rarely 2 leftover from the early game (Chapel being an obvious example), and there are edge cases like using Develop, being hit with Swindler, and receiving them from Masquerades ... but it is fairly rare to find your deck inundated with actions you don't want.

As to why not to buy actions to keep the Dthcrt alive - that would be the worked example I already put out - you know the step by step one where I showed how not feeding the Dthcrt lets you buy an extra province over 4 turns at the price of drawing one more card each turn. This is pretty common for Dthcrt; cashing it out for a gold loses some tempo, but it is much more reliable and more space efficient in the long haul. It is pretty rare that you can't do something else with your money/buys and often that something else is more space/cost/action efficient than just buying fodder.

As far as what to include, well my best uses of Dthcrt have been come from using it to get to some big card (e.g. Forge, Altar) early. I'd be tempted to make that the article focus, but at the very least you should have a decent bit emphasizing when it is worth it to add some junk to your deck just to get to something strong quickly.

Another niche use that I have gotten really good mileage out of is Band of misfits; Bom is great for where you can the odd hand that hits 9, 8, or whatever only if you kill a 2 coin action. It comes without Ruins, but often you will use Bom as something else and only need to start cannibalizing to pick up the last few provinces.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 15, 2013, 11:35:32 pm: Band of Misfits is awesome on a Rats/Death Cart board.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: eHalcyon on January 15, 2013, 11:40:44 pm: It might be good to mention that Death Cart is a good counter to other Looters.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: werothegreat on January 18, 2013, 11:37:06 pm: I made some changes - thoughts?
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: DG on February 16, 2013, 09:09:01 pm: Did nobody mention death carts and vineyards? Even the Goko bots seem to know death cart + vineyards.
Title: Re: Death Cart
Post by: dondon151 on February 19, 2013, 03:42:43 pm: Death Cart + Transmute!