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Messages - funkdoc

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1
Dominion Articles / Re: Combo: Donate-market square.
« on: August 09, 2017, 05:15:07 pm »
i know i'm inviting pages of pedantic debate with this, but...can we safely call this the fastest big money strategy? top 3 would probably be:

1. Market Square/Donate
2. Gear/Inheritance
3. Jack/Donate (think this might move up a spot if Borrow is also in the game)
Honorable Mention: Jack/Bonfire (just barely worse than Donate)

2
Game Reports / Re: why cultist shouldn't be top 3 in the $5 list
« on: July 11, 2017, 03:51:44 pm »
here's one i would rank above cultist at this point: groundskeeper

another game i played fairly recently illustrates this pretty well.  i went for cultist-BM, opponent completely ignored cultists.  the board had castles, goons, groundskeeper, and bishop...but no villages or draw, or even any trashing besides bishop.  i thought eating all 10 ruins would be a death sentence for them, but they persisted with the alt-VP and beat me.  they even misplayed it quite a bit, only getting 3 groundskeepers; if they had concentrated more on those, i suspect it wouldn't have been close.

granted, getting 2 or 3 cultists then transitioning was probably the way to go there.  but cultist wasn't *the* power card on that board even with all its limitations...

3
Game Reports / Re: why cultist shouldn't be top 3 in the $5 list
« on: July 11, 2017, 12:27:38 pm »
counterpoint: donate

(in before "that's not a ~card~")

but more seriously, i'm positive there are 3 other $5 cards with fewer hard counters than cultist.  this board didn't even have any of the main ones!  i'm thinking of stuff like city quarter, advance, and vineyards.  even page doesn't counter mountebank as much as those do with cultist - you still want an early mountebank to slow down your opponent's path to champion.

4
Game Reports / Re: why cultist shouldn't be top 3 in the $5 list
« on: July 09, 2017, 10:52:21 pm »
well, if winning the junking war doesn't win the game, i don't think it makes for a top 3 card.  do you think i would've had a hope in hell if cultist were replaced with mountebank and i lost the curse split even 7-3?

dunno, i just see more boards now where cultist is outright ignorable.  that's still on the rarer side, but much more common are the boards where winning ruins 6-4 doesn't matter much at all - it's what you do afterward that counts.  i feel comfortable saying that the majority of boards have a stronger engine possible than what we had here!

actually, as i think about it further, ignoring cultist was probably correct on that board!  i mean, the ruins split for me was almost as if i *had* ignored it, but probably worse since i did buy cultists.  i would've won that game more easily had those cultists been hunting parties, no?

5
Game Reports / why cultist shouldn't be top 3 in the $5 list
« on: July 08, 2017, 03:49:34 pm »
game #5005045

i get worst possible draws on 2nd shuffle (double silver -> no $5), while my opponent gets the best possible draws (opened silver/temple, trashed hovel & overgrown estate, bought cultist).  i lose the ruins split something like 8-2 or maybe even 9-1...then i decide to pivot to a hunting party stack with temples.  i kept necropolis around for this.

meanwhile, opponent sticks to the standard theory of cultist-BM, and that allows me to gradually climb back into the game and eventually steal it.  cultist-BM is just too slow against any deck that can draw a bunch of cards and clean itself up decently, even if there isn't a lot of payload to be had.

6
there's more good thinning than ever, though. that's part of the issue.  i mean, empires gave us arguably the 3rd best trasher in the game...

basically, a bunch of boards that used to be cultist-BM have now become "play cultists then clean up and transition to an engine".  in those situations, winning the ruins split 6-4 doesn't matter nearly as much as it does with a purely money deck.  even a 7-3 advantage is easy to screw up if you don't follow up on it correctly.

so cultist still matters on these kinds of boards, but it doesn't singlehandedly dominate the game as often as it used to.  that and rebuild are both victims of the gradual engine creep with each new set released, and both should be lower than they are now.

7
i was ready to rant about the lack of artisan then realized 2nd edition wasn't in this list

thanks as always!

8
eh, i've been finding more and more that cultist is overrated.  empires added at least a couple significant counters to it (city quarter & advance), but it likely never was as good as we had thought.  witch-BM beats cultist-BM, for instance.

also, minion & torturer should absolutely be replaced with butcher & groundskeeper

9
glad to see Donald support the idea of a small personal banlist!  that's actually a sweet idea, though maybe it could cause league drama if people have weird ban choices? doubt that would be too big of a problem though.

also, at the time of the OP i had forgotten about some of the new counters like groundskeeper and wild hunt, so i will gladly admit that the errata aren't as big a factor as i thought. probably just all the engine improvements in the recent sets plus the players getting better at building those engines, then. after all, possession should get better as decks get better...

10
so i love the 2nd edition sets, the masquerade errata, and most of empires.  these recent changes have been wonderful for the game!  but there is one recent change i have come to despise...

possession has always been the least fun card in all of dominion when it's good (who *doesn't* love trashing their deck down to nothing and reaching a stalemate?), but now it's good way more often.  in fact, i would rank it only behind scrying pool among the potion cards now, and i'm not even sure about that.  remember when it always used to be below university & golem?

the main problem is that the recent errata have killed most of the viable counters to it.  now you only have a few strategies that hinge on specific cards, like beggar-gardens.  i get why they had to change the rules for debt, but changing VP tokens was a hugely unnecessary buff.  goons or bishop engines used to make possession skippable, but now they can work together to make games extra miserable!

with the general engine buffs in empires (hellooooooooo, city quarter!), possession was going to become stronger anyway.  the rule change combined with this has made it the only card i've seen level 60+ players want to ban in random matching.  i may follow suit soon!

donald, i've got mad love for ya, but i really am not understanding this right now.  it's the biggest damper on a game that otherwise keeps getting better and better.

11
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Playing Vassal
« on: May 25, 2017, 10:46:32 am »
Disagree. There are many times that that with say Chapel E E Si C, you'd just chapel the 2 estates and buy another silver, or Chapel C C C Si and you buy a useful 5 cost and take the hit on the chapel. And the use cases of vassal > silver are only for if chapels the 11th card. since vassal drawing a 6th card chapel is just as often a detriment as it is an advantage
If you aren't trashing as many coppers and estates 2nd shuffle, you are probably doing something wrong.
Vassal chapel opening mostly depends on the availability of villages.

strong 5s easily outweigh chapelling 3 coppers

wrong. trashing those coppers gets you way more $5s later, since you get to line up estates with chapel much more quickly

12
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Playing Vassal
« on: May 24, 2017, 09:56:50 pm »
Vassal is just okay. It's not really consistent enough most of the time to rely on, and when it is, you probably don't need it? But it does have some value.

You need the terminal space for it to miss, you need to value cycling, and you need to be eventually building to a deck of mostly Actions. If you can meet all these criteria, a Vassal or two early on isn't bad, it seems better than Silver.

i mostly agree with this.  i will say, however, that vassal is clearly a better opening with chapel than silver is.  both are equally dead if drawn with the chapel, for the most part.

also, to jonaskoelker, hunting grounds-BM is barely any better than BMU according to simulator data.  not the best example =P

13
Kirian is probably right.  i suspect as your rating goes into the 60s, you're a lot less likely to run into these people if you select good matches.

14
cultist also loses to witch-BM so i'm not so sure that's it.  breppert is the main person who's been doing all this work recently IIRC, and he could probably address this a lot better.

points matter a ton in BM, yo

15
aku_chi: without trashing you have more of a point, though even then baker has much better staying power than a lot of its competition.  strong trashing makes it quite a bit faster since you need less gold and the trashing shouldn't really hurt your ability to reach $5.  you should basically never need more than 2 silver in this deck; after the first couple shuffles it may be worth spending 2 tokens for a baker if you had to trash that turn.

also, it's not that rare for there to be another action card you can throw in with your baker stack in a money game.  this card would probably replace gold in the basic outline i described.
 that's more what i mean by it being great, not baker as a monolithic thing (though monolithic baker is still better than a lot of things we used to think were good).  that's exactly the paradigm i'm arguing against here!

16
baker is a great BM card, actually.  there's been a major shift in BM thinking that i think hasn't reached some of f.ds yet.  to explain:

something many of the top players have figured out by now, that took me a while to catch up on, is that most non-drawing BM is better than most terminal draw BM.  i had always thought it was the other way around, but the simulators have uncovered some pretty shocking results.  did you know that dungeon-BM beats embassy-BM if both open 4/3?  or that navigator-BM beats smithy-BM?  or that swamp hag-BM beats cultist-BM?

i think a big reason for this is that the non-drawing strategies give you a lot more flexibility, since you have a far lower risk of terminal collision.  you can add other helpful supporting players like haven, scary endgame weapons like salvager, or even a bit of early trashing!  the terminal draw strategies are forced to be monolithic, which is how we had long thought BM should be played...but we're now learning that optimal BM has more room for variety and adaptation to game state than the conventional wisdom would tell you.

baker is tremendous in this regard since it's non-terminal.  you get flexibility with the amount of money you spend each turn, *and* with your options for additional action cards.  a double-province turn is feasible with something like bridge on the board, or any trash-for-benefit.

i noticed in my own games that i would consistently ignore baker on money boards in favor of big draw...and usually lose to opponents who rushed bakers.  even mass candlestick makers would beat me in these situations!  that's what initially opened my eyes to all of this, and my success has increased greatly since then.

baker-BM is a bit trickier to play correctly than most, which i think is part of why it's still underrated.  here are some helpful ground rules:

- good trashing helps a lot.  baker is similar to jack & gold-gainers in that regard, but trashing is even better in this case since baker is a cantrip.  this makes it easier to line up the trasher with junk cards compared to most other BM strategies, and the trashing also carries more benefit since it can allow you to play 4 or 5 bakers in a turn (vs. 1 jack).  and the beauty of coin tokens is that you can often trash and still get a baker that turn!

for example, on the 2-card kingdom of baker & remake, i would open remake/silver and keep the token.  with junk dealer, open junk dealer/silver then rush bakers with future $5s.  and so on.

- the tokens offer plenty of room for mistakes, but you can do fine sticking to some simple rules for them.  if you have $3 before tokens, take a silver.  if you have $4, always spend the 1 token for a baker.  if you have $5, do not spend a token for gold unless the bakers are gone!  baker is almost as good as gold here and is a much more limited pile, so you need to attack those.  if bakers have run out and you don't feel you have enough gold to start greening yet, then you can spend 1 token for a gold.  and of course, when greening, you want to use all your tokens to grab provinces early then base future token decisions on the game state.  knowing when to stockpile for one more province vs. grabbing duchies now is an important skill.

- as strong as baker is, you definitely still want some gold before greening.  in a very thin deck, just 1 gold is fine.  without trashing you'll probably want 2-3.  i used to make the mistake of not getting any gold, and that's a one-way ticket to frowntown.

- if your opponent is playing a different money strategy and ignoring bakers, you'll probably want to start greening after 5-6 bakers and the amount of gold described above.


see, who said money had to be boring~?

17
Opening 1 Page almost always right, opening 2 Pages is insane, never getting the 2nd Page at all is ballsy because Warrior trashing Warrior kills you completely in that case.
I don't know what "insane" means here.  Insanely good, or insanely bad?

Insanely bad. It's hard for me to come up with a case where you really need 2 Pages in your opening deck, there's almost always either a $3/$4 cost to open with, or an important $5 that pushes you to open Silver.
I usually don't get the second page unless if i really want warrior/treasure. It is just not very likely to get it hit if you are cycling at least as fast. It's also not always worth getting over other cards if there is little draw and no trashing.

i find that there's nothing better than 2nd page for $2-3 a decent amount of the time, so i get it more often than you.  could just be a function of the page boards we've drawn since i generally agree with you!

18
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Results
« on: February 11, 2017, 09:52:55 pm »
C1:

funkdoc 4 - Jimmmmmmm 2

i will not return for next season, unfortunately

19
Game Reports / Re: Possible improper use of UNDO
« on: February 11, 2017, 01:27:16 pm »
the only time i've run into a shady undoer (now there's a username for ya!) was a game where my opponent kept requesting it every time their encampment didn't draw a plunder.  took me a couple times before i figured out what was up, haha

20
Game Reports / Re: I like Gardens, but not the strategy
« on: February 11, 2017, 01:25:23 pm »
With, Chapel, Festival and Library on the board, the engine will surely outpace the workshop/garden rush. Now, on a pure Workshop/Garden, Iīd pick one, maaaybe two Villages (probably one or none is better I believe, but not really sure), but definetely, not half the pile. Your goal is to end the game as fast as possible, donīt mind the terminal Workshop collision, playing Workshop every turn is way more important, pick Estates agressivelly every time you reach 2, but not 3 (or even on 3 after workshop is gone), if you donīt reach two pick copper. When you start going for Gardens really depends on whether itīs a  mirror or not. In a non-mirror there's simulador evidence that you should start going for Gardens after getting 9 Workshops, in a mirror it's a lot harder to decide, I would probably start on them sometime during the second shuffle

I doubt that chapel, festival, library is faster than workshop/gardens.

I'm pretty sure the engine is going to absolutely wreck Workshop/Gardens here, basically every time. Without a trasher you would have problems, but... you have Chapel!

So I'd open Workshop/Chapel in a heartbeat. I'd contest Gardens eventually, though not until I have my deck up somewhat. Should be able to pick off two of them.

I mean, you'll be up and running so fast after you trash all your Coppers and Estates, which won't take long. Villages, Smithies, Festivals, Libraries, you're golden. You'll be double Provincing in no time.

Maybe my opponents are doing it wrong, but I haven't lost a single garden/workshop game against that strategy on similar boards.

yep, they're doing it wrong.  if they're using workshop to gain gardens, that's a major mistake against the rush.  you want to make the opponent work for all those gardens while you double-province.

workshop/gardens is a kinda fast pile-out with a low points ceiling, which is why it's not actually a good strategy overall.  rebuild is similar in spirit but so much better because it attacks the pile that engine players want the most on many boards.

21
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Results
« on: February 03, 2017, 10:39:53 pm »
C1:

scotty2hotty 4 - funkdoc 2

22
Rules Questions / Re: throne room + engineer
« on: January 31, 2017, 12:51:14 am »
lol, Beyond Awesome found this exact same bug in our league match last weekend (and was even nice enough to undo the extra gain).  i mentioned it in their Discord but forgot to post on the forums, so thanks!

23
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Results
« on: January 29, 2017, 07:28:28 pm »
C1:

funkdoc 5 - Beyond Awesome 1

24
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Results
« on: January 28, 2017, 06:55:15 pm »
C1:

funkdoc 4 - Horist 2

25
Dominion League / Re: Season 19 - Results
« on: January 14, 2017, 04:15:28 pm »
C1: funkdoc 3 - breppert 3

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