Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Rabid on February 11, 2013, 05:40:46 pm
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Bishop, Bureaucrat, Hamlet, Royal Seal, Sea Hag, Smithy, Stables, Tournament, Wishing Well, Worker's Village
From a game I just played, I will post to log in week or so.
As P1 what would you open with 4/3?
Does P2 have an advantage because they can choose opening to counter P1?
Please feel free to discuss below.
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Is there a reason not to open Sea Hag?
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I thought so.
But would need to play more games to be sure how good the Bishop engine is.
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The Sea Hag player can just use the Bishop player's trashing to get a Tournament engine running. Followers can disrupt whatever shenanigans the bishop player is trying to pull, and Trusty Steed, Diadem, and Princess will just have you raking the Provinces in really fast. The same engine enablers that make Bishop capable of so much here are eclipsed by the even dirtier things that Tournament can use the engine cards for.
Buy Sea Hag, if your opponent commits to Bishop to try to answer that, throw a couple curses at him, then trash the Sea Hag for free when you are confident you deck can buy a Province next reshuffle.
.. imo
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There is a question if you want to go for scoring with Provinces or Bishops, or some combination of the two. But no matter what, I think you should open Sea Hag...
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I would go Sea Hag into Bishops, even if it's a little self-defeating.
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Any merit to picking up a Bureaucrat on either the first or second reshuffle (along with a Sea Hag of course) in order to build your economy, since Sea Hag makes that job a lot harder?
Edit: Just noticed someone voted Smithy... care to defend that, whoever you are? And my vote is first-player advantage for the other question.
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I voted for Sea Hag and first turn advantage…
Anyway, yeah. Pretty standard Hag into Tournament engine…maybe some Bishop help…
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Aside from the strategic considerations, I don't consider p2 to have an advantage here. You either open sea hag or you don't, and the game is decided based on that + initiative. But yeah, sea hag into tournaments worked for me. Bishop is way slowed by the cursing.
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If you get tournament and pick up Followers, Bishop has an even harder time keeping up.
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I don't see why you even want a Bishop here. It doesn't help you connect Tournament.
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If you get tournament and pick up Followers, Bishop has an even harder time keeping up.
But followers isn't AS critical due to the sea hag. You could open yourself up to other strategies though - pick up a bishop and bag of gold, and you have many free vp's available to you. Still, if nothing else the duchies gained from tourneyprov will help you win.
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Handsize attacks are pretty brutal for Bishop.
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I don't see why you even want a Bishop here. It doesn't help you connect Tournament.
Uh, of course it does. It removes dead cards (Estates, Curses) from your deck. It increases your average $ yield per hand (making it easier to get to $8) and reduces overall deck size, making it easier to connect Tournaments and more likely for you to have a Province in hand during your opponent's turn.
I really cannot possibly fathom why you don't think a Bishop is helpful. I'm under the impression that you think the only possible route that includes a Bishop is a pure Bishop engine, which is not what I'm implying. If you Stables into a Bishop, then you'll likely have a solid selection from which to trash and you'll cycle all of your cards faster. Obviously your opponent benefits slightly as well, but the benefit is not equal, even if you consider only the trashing, because 1) your opponent won't always have a Curse/Estate in hand and 2) he might not want to trash a Copper.
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Stables is a card that increases your handsize by 1. That takes you from 4 cards to choose to trash from up to 5, allowing you to match your opponent's trashing selection. But then it's also dependent on keeping coppers in your deck, or you risk fizzled Stables. And since the card systematically trades your coppers out for other cards, there is some risk you don't have a Copper and below quality card to trash to your Bishop.
Forfeiting a Silver for a Terminal copper really wrecks a decks economy, so Provinces are going to come much later. I can't fathom how Bishop would be useful. Although I admit I am probably the lower ranked player here
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With a bishop you can't separate the trashing in your deck from the trashing of your opponent's deck. With that view it is hard to fathom how a bishop opening would be useful. It makes stables an excellent card for the opponent. It is poor in deck development vs a sea hag. Tournament dominance will be more important than early bishop points.
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Stables is a card that increases your handsize by 1. That takes you from 4 cards to choose to trash from up to 5, allowing you to match your opponent's trashing selection. But then it's also dependent on keeping coppers in your deck, or you risk fizzled Stables. And since the card systematically trades your coppers out for other cards, there is some risk you don't have a Copper and below quality card to trash to your Bishop.
wait wait wait
You're telling me that in a kingdom with no other trashing and an easily accessible early Curse-giving attack, you're worried about having no Copper, Estate, or Curse in hand to pair with your Bishop?
With a bishop you can't separate the trashing in your deck from the trashing of your opponent's deck. With that view it is hard to fathom how a bishop opening would be useful. It makes stables an excellent card for the opponent. It is poor in deck development vs a sea hag. Tournament dominance will be more important than early bishop points.
For the last time, I'm not advocating a Bishop opening or a predominantly Bishop-oriented strategy. No one is arguing that Bishop is preferable to Sea Hag as an opening.
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After you get hit by Followers, yeah, it's possible you keep a hand of Stables/Copper/Bishop and you flip the copper and get 3 quality cards. I guess it's not likely. The last bit was an after thought, the much bigger issue is fizzling Stables.
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Back to my still-unanswered question, would anyone else pick up a Bureaucrat on this board or is it just me?
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Edit: Just noticed someone voted Smithy... care to defend that, whoever you are? And my vote is first-player advantage for the other question.
It was Rabid. (click View votes to check)
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After you get hit by Followers, yeah, it's possible you keep a hand of Stables/Copper/Bishop and you flip the copper and get 3 quality cards. I guess it's not likely. The last bit was an after thought, the much bigger issue is fizzling Stables.
Where's this assumption that you'll always get hit by Followers coming from? Followers isn't even that strong in this kingdom. More importantly, Stables is less likely to fizzle once you've trashed out the junk.
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I voted Tournament cuz I didn't see that there is Sea Hag :D
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Back to my still-unanswered question, would anyone else pick up a Bureaucrat on this board or is it just me?
I think you are in the extreme minority, but I don't know if you mean as an opener or what. I think a bureaucrat-opening player would have no chance vs the hag - hag clogs your deck, and you are proposing that we further clog it with silvers. I played this board with rabid yesterday, and at no time did I think "wow let's pick up a bureaucrat now, that will win the game for me." If I remember correctly I didn't get any stables either (or maybe like 1?), because village-smithy was humming pretty nicely. I'll let him post the log, since CR isn't working for me :)
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Back to my still-unanswered question, would anyone else pick up a Bureaucrat on this board or is it just me?
I think you are in the extreme minority, but I don't know if you mean as an opener or what. I think a bureaucrat-opening player would have no chance vs the hag - hag clogs your deck, and you are proposing that we further clog it with silvers. I played this board with rabid yesterday, and at no time did I think "wow let's pick up a bureaucrat now, that will win the game for me." If I remember correctly I didn't get any stables either (or maybe like 1?), because village-smithy was humming pretty nicely. I'll let him post the log, since CR isn't working for me :)
Here's what I said first:
Any merit to picking up a Bureaucrat on either the first or second reshuffle (along with a Sea Hag of course) in order to build your economy, since Sea Hag makes that job a lot harder?
So I'd pick up a Sea Hag first, and then a Bureaucrat for economy. IDK how good that is though, which is why I asked.
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I think getting a second hag would be more beneficial than a bureaucrat on the first reshuffle. Plus there's other shiny stuff like villages and smithys and bishops. I just can't see picking one up ever.
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I don't like a second Sea Hag in this kingdom. Playing your one Sea Hag more often is more advantageous than getting a second one.
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After you get hit by Followers, yeah, it's possible you keep a hand of Stables/Copper/Bishop and you flip the copper and get 3 quality cards. I guess it's not likely. The last bit was an after thought, the much bigger issue is fizzling Stables.
Where's this assumption that you'll always get hit by Followers coming from? Followers isn't even that strong in this kingdom. More importantly, Stables is less likely to fizzle once you've trashed out the junk.
Followers->Bishop is nice (since hand-size reducing before playing Bishop is generally good, plus your Bishops can eat the Estates for points), although maybe too slow to be relevant in this kingdom.
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That is true, but remember, Bishop must be avoided like the plague!
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That is true, but remember, Bishop must be avoided like the plague!
Oh, so this is why the Bishop of Rome retired! He played this kingdom and realized how much he sucks! ;D
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Thanks for voting everyone.
I thought Bishop was better against Sea Hag here but you have all changed my mind.
Which is why I included the 2nd player advantage bit, if Smithy > Bishop > Hag > Smithy Then going second could possibly be good (Maybe not but at least close enough to be worth discussion).
The original game that inspired this: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201302/11/game-20130211-142431-591bee66.html
Even though my Smithy got hit by Hag on T4 the game felt close.
My Tournament was a mistake getting blocked nearly every time I played it.
Played a few more games after, many thanks for accepting the custom games.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201302/11/game-20130211-154601-486aa24e.html
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201302/11/game-20130211-160551-9ab34b4c.html
Hardly a large sample size but enough for me to give up and just play Sea Hag
Despite me messing up the question I hope people enjoyed the voting.
So I'll try something similar again next week if people are interested.
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yes, would be interested!
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I like this kind of post Rabid...
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That is true, but remember, Bishop must be avoided like the plague!
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, since I'm a big Bishop fan (I overbuy it for sure). Yet I 100% agree it doesn't make sense to pick up an early Bishop here. Probably I wouldn't even want one until getting at least 1 Province.