Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Willvon on February 13, 2013, 11:35:05 am
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My wife and I play IRL. We had an interesting kingdom come up that we really enjoyed. In fact, we ended up playing it 5 times, and each time it ended differently as we tried different routes each game. These are the cards:
P - Vineyard, Familiar, Golem
2 - Crossroads
3 - Watchtower, Trade Route
4 - Tournament, Marauder
5 - Bazaar, Fairgrounds
It also included Potions, Ruins, Spoils, Platinums, Colonies, Shelters, and of course Prizes.
There are a number of routes to go with this. Having Shelters and Ruins allows for you to make Fairgrounds worth 10 without even thinking about Prizes. Then again, is it better to go for Tournaments and Prizes here? Do you open with Marauder to give you the early Spoils to get to Golds quickly, or buy Potion to get the Familiar quicker? Watchtower is great against the curser and ruins-giver, but how many do you want in your deck? And Vineyards can be great with Ruins and Curses running out pretty fast, though the only source of +Buy is Trade Route or a Ruined Market, if you get one. And then with 6 Victory cards in the game, Trade Route can be worth quite a bit especially later in the game. It is definitely not a game that lends itself to a thin deck. You end up with a lot of cards in hand.
Actually, if I had come across this deck before the Kingdom Design Challenge, I think I would have submitted it in the contest. But I'm afraid I missed the boat there. Either way, I would love to hear your opinions on how you would play this. Thanks in advance for your comments.
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This is a tricky kingdom for sure. There is a possibly potent engine in Crossroads, Watchtower, Bazaar, and Tournament with Trade Route support and possibly Golem thrown in. The issues here are whether it should detour for a junk-giver and if it can even deal with the junk-givers in the first place. Watchtower + Trade Route is not the most reliable defense.
My gut feeling is that Marauder is not very strong against this engine, especially if it can get a glut of +actions from Crossroads and Bazaars, because it can play Ruins for small benefits and then draw cards with Watchtower. I think Ruins are somewhat bad in general because of Fairgrounds. Familiar is a bit of a different story and I think that it is desirable to have, but you might not want to open with Potion to get it.
You should definitely get 1 Province and try to win prizes with Tournament. It's very possible here that Fairgrounds will be worth 10-12 VP and it will probably be the dominant scoring card on this board. Vineyards is also a strong consideration if you're going heavy on the Actions. With both a Ruins- and a Curse-giver, an early 3-pile ending is something to watch out for, and Fairgrounds is pretty easy to get to.
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I'd go for silver/potion since golem/familiar combination looks too strong and the potion has value in the endgame. Trade route looks like an important end game card and might be needed early too. After that though the kingdom probably needs some reactive play. If your opponent buys tournaments then you need provinces. Watchtower and trade route are likely to be good but the state of the decks will change their priority. Marauder seems a good attack against an opponent with golems but might be weak against a variety deck looking for fairgrounds. If your deck gets well ahead you can clean up with provinces and tournament prizes.
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Don't forget that Ruins boost Vineyards too. Marauder looks terrible to me because it boosts both alt VPs for the opponent.
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Interesting kingdom.
Ruins boost Vineyards and Fairgrounds, but they also hurt Golem.
I think I would open Watchtower/Potion. It has only slightly worse probablity in getting to $3P than Silver/Potion, but let me cycle faster, protect from all incoming things and let me even topdeck a Familiar if that case occurs.
Fairgrounds is pretty interesting with Shelter, Ruins and Prizes. So I guess I want then a Province fast, so I get Tournament, Bazaar, Golem and Gold, try to get some Prizes and then rush Fairgrounds. Later I get a Trade Route to trash duplicate stuff so that I can pick up maybe even some Ruins and Vineyards.
But I don't know, it seems highly dependant what my opponent does.
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Would totally go Watchtower/Potion as well, shooting for prizes most likely followed by Fairgronds.
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Given that your opponent is probably going for familiars, what about begin with trade routes/potions, and try rushing vineyards + crossroads?
With vineyards, crossroads draw more, and trade routes give you coins. With crossroads, vineyards give you more points; With trade routes, you are able to trash some curses, and the +1buy helps you turn a turn with 2+p into a pair of vineyards and crossroads.