Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Titandrake on September 30, 2013, 05:28:32 am
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I've used the Stonemason overpay a lot, just to pick up actions.
I've used the Herald overpay occasionally, just to set up a nice turn or to topdeck a card I bought to get a use in this shuffle.
But, I still have no idea how to use Doctor overpay. I've only done it in the opening, and otherwise I haven't been able to get much use out of it.
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In the opening and if you draw a lucky hand with lots of money when you still have lots of junk in your deck.
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I usually buy only one Doctor during turn 1 or 2 trying to overpay as much as possible. There was a game where I got particularly lucky with that - got a 5 Copper opening hand on a board with Baker, allowing me to trash 3 cards first turn. After 7 turns my deck was down to 7 cards - Doctor, Silver, Copper, Swindler, Workers' Village, 2 Bakers, which allowed me to get 6 Provinces in 15 turns.
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Here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=9324.0
I use it to trim a FG deck.
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After activating Treasure Maps.
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It seems hard to spot the big doctor opportunities. Perhaps we haven't insight to prepare our decks properly yet.
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I would say that it is somewhat similar to using Mint's trashing. That is, sometimes you will luck into it. Sometimes it seems that all your good cards clump together by chance, and this is may be a good time to pounce on a pricy Doctor. It is analogous to that fortuitous 5 Copper hand in a Mint game. Unfortunately, since this happens by chance, the deck you were constructing might not want or be ready for a mass trashing.
Alternatively, you can work towards a Doctor cleansing "megaturn" in much the same way you would with Forge. Here you want to either draw your deck and discard the junk, or you want a strong filtering engine to go through and grab the good stuff. Then you buy a Doctor and trash all of the junk. Now, if your engine is strong enough to do that regularly you probably don't need the trashing. But if your fledgling engine just happens to get that lucky turn, that you can use that opportunity for a Doctor to vastly improve future reliability.
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I agree with SirPeebles - sometimes you can plan for the Doctor, but sometimes you can get a lucky opportunity. It's something to look out for in games that otherwise don't have any trashing, or in games where you might not get Doctor for the on-play ability (e.g., games with Ruins, Shelters, or lots of cheap engine parts). I've never done it myself, but I've seen a savvy opponent use an unusually good hand of $9 to clear out the remaining junk in his deck after playing most of the actions he'd already bought.
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The best Doctor buy I have ever made is in a video I put up a while ago. If Baker's on the board and you open 5/2, getting a Doctor is hugely beneficial as long as you don't need the Shelters or Copper so much. I find I rarely buy the card midgame, though. I'd imagine some deck that could draw everything then discard with Warehouse or something would benefit from buying Doctors, but getting a deck in to that state often involved prior trashing anyway.
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I think it's mainly in the opening, or fairly early when you happen to get a lot of money.
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If you want a Doctor at all, get it on T1/T2 (overpaying by 0-3). I very occasionally get a second one with some overpaying, but only if the first one hasn't been doing its job, which is something you really want to avoid in the first place, but sometimes you just can't. You've usually lost already at that point, but it could be your last shot to get back into the race.
It might also be ok to pay this big medical bill in a Cultist mirror when the ruins are (almost) gone and you have quite a bit of money but relatively little junk in your hand (this is important, don't randomly buy it just because you can). In fact Cultist games are probably the only sort of games where it's often fine or even preferable to postpone weak to medium trashing to the mid-game.
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(http://i.imgflip.com/3xire.jpg) (http://imgflip.com/i/3xire)
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If you want a Doctor at all, get it on T1/T2 (overpaying by 0-3). I very occasionally get a second one with some overpaying, but only if the first one hasn't been doing its job, which is something you really want to avoid in the first place, but sometimes you just can't. You've usually lost already at that point, but it could be your last shot to get back into the race.
It might also be ok to pay this big medical bill in a Cultist mirror when the ruins are (almost) gone and you have quite a bit of money but relatively little junk in your hand (this is important, don't randomly buy it just because you can). In fact Cultist games are probably the only sort of games where it's often fine or even preferable to postpone weak to medium trashing to the mid-game.
I agree that usually you want to open Doctor or skip Doctor, but there are situations in which you want trashing but can't get it early (mainly Fool's Gold comes to mind, but there might be others). In those situations, it's a good idea to spend a ton of money on an expensive Doctor in the mid game if you can (and it's a bad idea to buy a cheap Doctor in the mid game if you can't spend a ton of money).
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If you want a Doctor at all, get it on T1/T2 (overpaying by 0-3). I very occasionally get a second one with some overpaying, but only if the first one hasn't been doing its job, which is something you really want to avoid in the first place, but sometimes you just can't. You've usually lost already at that point, but it could be your last shot to get back into the race.
It might also be ok to pay this big medical bill in a Cultist mirror when the ruins are (almost) gone and you have quite a bit of money but relatively little junk in your hand (this is important, don't randomly buy it just because you can). In fact Cultist games are probably the only sort of games where it's often fine or even preferable to postpone weak to medium trashing to the mid-game.
I agree that usually you want to open Doctor or skip Doctor, but there are situations in which you want trashing but can't get it early (mainly Fool's Gold comes to mind, but there might be others). In those situations, it's a good idea to spend a ton of money on an expensive Doctor in the mid game if you can (and it's a bad idea to buy a cheap Doctor in the mid game if you can't spend a ton of money).
One of the prime examples of this, as mentioned earlier, is treasure map.
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I agree that usually you want to open Doctor or skip Doctor, but there are situations in which you want trashing but can't get it early (mainly Fool's Gold comes to mind, but there might be others).
Opening Doctor in a Fool's Gold game sounds good to me, especially if you can get it on T1 with $4.
One of the prime examples of this, as mentioned earlier, is treasure map.
I read that as a joke? :D You want to trash early to facilitate the connecting of your Treasure Maps, not hope they just magically connect and then go for some big trashing.
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I agree that usually you want to open Doctor or skip Doctor, but there are situations in which you want trashing but can't get it early (mainly Fool's Gold comes to mind, but there might be others).
Opening Doctor in a Fool's Gold game sounds good to me, especially if you can get it on T1 with $4.
One of the prime examples of this, as mentioned earlier, is treasure map.
I read that as a joke? :D You want to trash early to facilitate the connecting of your Treasure Maps, not hope they just magically connect and then go for some big trashing.
Well, sifters... With the right cards, it's amazing.
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But good sifters diminish the value of trashing, especially mid-game trashing when you have four Golds in your hand. It would certainly still improve your deck, but I doubt it does so by enough to warrant adding a Doctor over a Province. And if it turns out that's it worth it, I think a T1/2 Doctor would be better still, even with sifters (Warehouse is actually quite great with Doctor if you've trimmed your deck a bit already (i.e. from its 2nd play onward), as you can discard the cards you want to trash).
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I agree that usually you want to open Doctor or skip Doctor, but there are situations in which you want trashing but can't get it early (mainly Fool's Gold comes to mind, but there might be others).
Opening Doctor in a Fool's Gold game sounds good to me, especially if you can get it on T1 with $4.
One of the prime examples of this, as mentioned earlier, is treasure map.
I read that as a joke? :D You want to trash early to facilitate the connecting of your Treasure Maps, not hope they just magically connect and then go for some big trashing.
Well, sifters... With the right cards, it's amazing.
I thought it was a joke, saying that on the turn that you activate Treasure Maps, overpay for Doctor. Preferably overpay by $4.
I suppose it might be legitimate to overpay on the turn you draw the 4 Gold.
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Good sifting doesn't mean you don't have any use for an opportunistic mega-trash - your deck might be working fine now, but won't necessarily survive a few more green cards, especially if it was an unexpectedly lucky turn which gave you the $ for a Doctor overpay.
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I agree that usually you want to open Doctor or skip Doctor, but there are situations in which you want trashing but can't get it early (mainly Fool's Gold comes to mind, but there might be others).
Opening Doctor in a Fool's Gold game sounds good to me, especially if you can get it on T1 with $4.
If you're going first, a Doctor opening is probably good, but if you're going second, depending on how p1 plays his first turns, you might want to open FG/FG instead.
Treasure Map is hardly ever worth going for, but if you do go for them and manage to connect them before the game's over, I think you should really start greening at that point already.
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My opponents routinely connect Treasure Maps on turns 5-8 without support.
I think the strategy article for them overstates the case for how bad they are; I think about half of the time Treasure Map is on the board, it's playable.
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My opponents routinely connect Treasure Maps on turns 5-8 without support.
I think the strategy article for them overstates the case for how bad they are; I think about half of the time Treasure Map is on the board, it's playable.
Treasure Map is a gamble. They're great if you connect them, they're terrible if you don't. Luck is often enough to give you the win against higher skill players. Skilled players will generally avoid such a risky strategy, though there's also some skill in knowing that the risk is worth it. Even so, if you connect TMs early without any support, you can't really point to that and say, "I played really well".
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But I think a lot of people read the strategy article and now think the normal outcome for a Treasure Map player is to still have them clogging up his deck until turn 15. I think not activating them until turn 15 is probably less likely than activating them on turn 5.
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I think not activating them until turn 15 is probably less likely than activating them on turn 5.
essentially if you're going for treasure map you're taking a gamble that you'll get it sooner than later. My favorite is turn 3 activation :)
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But I think a lot of people read the strategy article and now think the normal outcome for a Treasure Map player is to still have them clogging up his deck until turn 15. I think not activating them until turn 15 is probably less likely than activating them on turn 5.
That could probably be calculated, but I'm not up for it. But keep in mind that if you don't connect it early, it gets less likely with each shuffle unless you just stop buying other things. Again, this is about TM with no support cards.
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When do you overpay for Doctor?
When you don't have good health insurance.
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I think, that with good sifters (I've done it with Warehouse), Treasure Map-Doctor is a good idea.
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I think not activating them until turn 15 is probably less likely than activating them on turn 5.
essentially if you're going for treasure map you're taking a gamble that you'll get it sooner than later. My favorite is turn 3 activation :)
My favorite is turn 2 (masquerade)
see my sneaky avoidance of "mine"? Otherwise it would have been "mine is turn 2 masquerade
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I think not activating them until turn 15 is probably less likely than activating them on turn 5.
essentially if you're going for treasure map you're taking a gamble that you'll get it sooner than later. My favorite is turn 3 activation :)
My favorite is turn 2 (masquerade)
see my sneaky avoidance of "mine"? Otherwise it would have been "mine is turn 2 masquerade
Therefore, your favorite is Mine?
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I think not activating them until turn 15 is probably less likely than activating them on turn 5.
essentially if you're going for treasure map you're taking a gamble that you'll get it sooner than later. My favorite is turn 3 activation :)
My favorite is turn 2 (masquerade)
see my sneaky avoidance of "mine"? Otherwise it would have been "mine is turn 2 masquerade
Therefore, your favorite is Mine?
I think it's time this joke was abandoned.
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I think not activating them until turn 15 is probably less likely than activating them on turn 5.
essentially if you're going for treasure map you're taking a gamble that you'll get it sooner than later. My favorite is turn 3 activation :)
My favorite is turn 2 (masquerade)
see my sneaky avoidance of "mine"? Otherwise it would have been "mine is turn 2 masquerade
Therefore, your favorite is Mine?
I think it's time this joke was abandoned.
I see what you did there.
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But I think a lot of people read the strategy article and now think the normal outcome for a Treasure Map player is to still have them clogging up his deck until turn 15. I think not activating them until turn 15 is probably less likely than activating them on turn 5.
That could probably be calculated, but I'm not up for it. But keep in mind that if you don't connect it early, it gets less likely with each shuffle unless you just stop buying other things. Again, this is about TM with no support cards.
Not to say this is a great idea, but if you're going in with a plan of colliding TMs by sheer luck and then overpaying for Doctor, you might as well buy a third or fourth or fifth TM and just plan to trash the extras with the Doctor, right?
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Turn 3 Treasure Map collision with doctor on the board. 8)