not sure if it's good enough here, but what about mint/silver and go for golden deck?
Are you sure about Wishing Well/Ironworks over Silver/Ironworks? Winning the Farming Village split gives a big advantage, and opening silver gives you the chance to get a Haggler and an extra Farming village before the second reshuffle. The issue I see with Wishing Well is that you'll probably end up using a lot of different cards in your deck and it will be hard to guess correctly (though it can partially defend against Rabble), whereas Farming village can still cycle when it skips a victory card.
Right, but I'd get at least one Silver at some point here and I'd probably open with it here even though a Wishing Well opening is an effective at cycling in the early game. Here, I would look to hit the mid-price point ($4,5,6) as often as possible early on rather than trying to play a key card as much as possible.Are you sure about Wishing Well/Ironworks over Silver/Ironworks? Winning the Farming Village split gives a big advantage, and opening silver gives you the chance to get a Haggler and an extra Farming village before the second reshuffle. The issue I see with Wishing Well is that you'll probably end up using a lot of different cards in your deck and it will be hard to guess correctly (though it can partially defend against Rabble), whereas Farming village can still cycle when it skips a victory card.
It's not clear which opening is better at all. They should all be pretty close (including the Haggler openings). The reason I favor Ironworks/Wishing Well is because the early cycling is very nice and the Baker token should make the risk of not getting a Haggler in the first reshuffle much less. Silver is a safer bet in this respect, but it will slow down your cycling, and more importantly, doesn't really do all that much for you because your key price points are $4,5,6 and with a Haggler and a few Farming Villages/Rabbles you shouldn't have too much trouble hitting these points. With perfect luck you don't get any Silvers in this game, though one or two is fine. In the Mid/Late game Silver is just a dead card for drawing and gums up your engine. If you look at the log, I think the worst thing Eevee does is Mint Silvers.
Yeah, I for some reason thought that I could start drawing my deck quite reliably (never happened, didn't have enough time which in hindsight should maybe be obvious). That's also why I wanted the baron, so I'd have use for my big hands.
I guess that's the biggest reasons I lost, so convincingly too?
Farming village counters rabble's attack quite nice for the engine and I doubt anyone is suggesting a duke thing.
I was surprised you didn't want an ironworks, SCSN. I would thought it would be essential to grab farming villages (and after they'd ran out, there'd be other great targets too).