Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

1

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: August 09, 2019, 03:23:56 pm »

Future sight
$4
Action-duration

---
When you play this, put a coin counter, a draw counter, and an action counter on it. At the start of each turn, remove up to 2 counters from this card and gain their corresponding bonuses.
---

Basically, you get a +draw, a +action, and a +coin to use during your next turns.

2

Dominion League / Re: Season 18 - Results

« on: December 11, 2016, 06:26:54 pm »

D3:

Searingspear92 -polot38 4-2

I won't be participating in season 19.

3

Dominion League / Re: Season 18 - Results

« on: November 18, 2016, 01:06:13 pm »

D3:

polot38-Cascadestyler

polot38 won 5 games, Cascadestyler won 1 game.

4

Tournaments and Events / Re: First Crew Battle Tournament (Signups Here. First 20 to enter are in!)

« on: October 11, 2016, 09:04:09 pm »

/in

5

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Alchemy 2nd Edition

« on: October 05, 2016, 09:25:07 pm »

I voted for:

Possession: It is simply unfun to play with.

Philosophers Stone: It is too weak. I think that in my last 1000+ games, I've only bought it in one game, and I don't think such stats are atypical for Philosopher's stone.

Transmute: This card is okay except for the fact that it is rarely worth buying a potion just for it.

6

Dominion League / Re: Season 18 - Signups

« on: October 05, 2016, 02:25:54 pm »

Hey! Could I join the league? My timezone is America/New York, and my MF username is the same as my DSF username.

EDIT: I currently own all expansions and promos.

7

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: October 04, 2016, 05:40:38 pm »

Raze-Tunnel

You start off by trashing down, then get a few tunnels. Trash a gold with a raze, flip 3 or 4 tunnels, and profit.

8

Dominion Articles / Re: How to play Lost Arts.

« on: June 24, 2016, 04:10:20 pm »

When you include trashing, durations, or scheme, such a scenario is very possible.

It turns out that trying to disprove a generally-speaking statement with edge cases doesn't actually work.

If there are enough edge cases, then the edge cases combined cease to be an edge case.

Besides, since when is the existance of trashing considered an edge case? There being at least one way to trash cards is literally more likely than not.

9

Dominion Articles / Re: How to play Lost Arts.

« on: June 24, 2016, 03:41:52 pm »

You are ignoring the point rather than addressing it. Engines without Lost Arts are not weak, and can usually fire, even without trashing or durations. And, once engines fire, it literally doesn't matter whether you overdraw your deck by 20 or by 2; pointing out how many extra cards you draw doesn't change that at all. While it is true that Lost Arts on a draw card increases reliability, it doesn't change that balance so much that putting your +action onto a strong, spammable terminal is weaker; for example, if your deck has a 99% chance of firing but can only hold 3 bridges, while mine has an 80% chance of firing but can hold 7 or 8 bridges, you are going to lose.

This example doesn't make sense to me. If my engine only has terminal space for 3 Bridges even with Lost Arts backing up my draw, your engine only has terminal space for about 2 draw cards to line up your Bridges (the last draw would draw Bridges dead), and that depends on you first lining up your draw and splitters. 80% chance of firing doesn't sound like a reasonable estimate there.

When you include trashing, durations, or scheme, such a scenario is very possible. I may have estimated the +draw players action capacity a little low, but the point still stands that the player who got the +action on their bridge gained far more by getting extra payload capacity than they would have if they had chosen to go with reliability.

10

Dominion Articles / Re: How to play Lost Arts.

« on: June 24, 2016, 03:39:52 pm »

i think you really underestimate the value of overdrawing your deck.  the strongest engines tend to be based on mid-turn gaining rather than just buying stuff (goons & bridge [troll] aside, obv), so being able to draw and play your shiny new toys without worrying about actions is practically the best thing you can get

Mid-turn gaining isn't always possible, and when it is there often isn't a single payload card that you are trying to spam, but rather several, in which case we were never in disagreement.

11

Dominion Articles / Re: How to play Lost Arts.

« on: June 24, 2016, 02:10:19 pm »

Yeah, placing Lost Arts ok draw is almost always stronger than putting it on payload. This entire article is just wrong.

It's really quite simple - would you rather have 5 cards to line up Village + Draw, and "free" payload? Or would you rather have "free" draw and as many cards as you want to line up Village + Payload? I think pretty much anyone who has ever played Dominion would take the free draw.

You are underestimating putting Lost Arts on terminal payload; often, you are going to be able to play your entire deck without lost arts without too much difference between the decks. At that point, having a capacity of like 8 or 9 of your payload rather than however you won the village split is huge.

Quite frankly, you're wrong. I don't know how else I could spell it out for you. If you have a bigger hand, it is easier to collide cards together. That's just a fact. Lost Arts on payload means you have to collide cards with a standard size hand in order to get to the payload. Lost Arts on draw means you have to collide cards with a much larger hand (maybe even your whole deck) in order to get to the payload. In most cases, it is tremendously easier to draw, then line up cards than it is to line up cards and then draw.

If your draw is nonterminal, sure put Lost Arts on your payload. Maybe your draw is Scrying Pool in a thin deck with no junk. Obviously don't put Lost Arts on that. But these are edge cases, and they are obvious. There are even some situations where it is better to Lost Arts payload than it is to Lost Arts terminal draw, but it certainly is way, way, way less than most of the time as you imply. Only in extremely specific circumstances.

You are ignoring the point rather than addressing it. Engines without Lost Arts are not weak, and can usually fire, even without trashing or durations. And, once engines fire, it literally doesn't matter whether you overdraw your deck by 20 or by 2; pointing out how many extra cards you draw doesn't change that at all. While it is true that Lost Arts on a draw card increases reliability, it doesn't change that balance so much that putting your +action onto a strong, spammable terminal is weaker; for example, if your deck has a 99% chance of firing but can only hold 3 bridges, while mine has an 80% chance of firing but can hold 7 or 8 bridges, you are going to lose.

12

Dominion Articles / Re: How to play Lost Arts.

« on: June 24, 2016, 12:54:51 pm »

Yeah, placing Lost Arts ok draw is almost always stronger than putting it on payload. This entire article is just wrong.

It's really quite simple - would you rather have 5 cards to line up Village + Draw, and "free" payload? Or would you rather have "free" draw and as many cards as you want to line up Village + Payload? I think pretty much anyone who has ever played Dominion would take the free draw.

You are underestimating putting Lost Arts on terminal payload; often, you are going to be able to play your entire deck without lost arts without too much difference between the decks. At that point, having a capacity of like 8 or 9 of your payload rather than however you won the village split is huge.

13

Dominion Articles / Re: How to play Lost Arts.

« on: June 24, 2016, 03:57:20 am »

The solution is actually pretty simple: put the +Action token on the card you're going to play most often in a turn.

Actually, not quite. If both +draw cards and payload are equal, you prefer putting your +action onto the draw because it increases your engines reliability more than putting it onto your payload. If you have only a small difference between the two, like maybe 4 draws and 5 payloads, it still may be better to +action the draw to get that increased reliability. There is also the thing about if you are playing more of a cantrip than a given terminal; maybe I have a deck where I am drawing with lab and using goons as my payload. Should I really put +action onto lab over goons, even if I have more labs?

14

Dominion Articles / How to play Lost Arts.

« on: June 24, 2016, 03:35:46 am »

The main aspect of any card in dominion is whether it is terminal or not; Lost Arts completely changes that balance. Moat with Lost Arts becomes better than lab, while costing only $2. This happens for many cards, and it isn't hard to think of more examples of cards that become very, very strong as a result of no longer being terminal.

The question, then, is where and when do you buy Lost Arts, and what do you put it on?

It goes without saying that Lost Arts is an engine card; getting +1 action on a card that you will usually only play once a turn isn't a great help.

Anyway, there are two main options in regards to Lost Arts: you can either put it on your terminal draw (think smithy or moat) or put it on your terminal payload (think bridge or goons or mountebank). Both are good options. Obviously, both aren't going to be available on every board that lost arts appears, either. Anyway, lets look at where each approach is good and where each approach fails.

The terminal draw option is quite strong. When there aren't any villages, it can become almost mandatory; even when there are villages, you can simply either ignore the villages or buy a few at the beginning then later stop buying them when you get lost arts onto your terminal draw card, depending on what other terminals you want to play. This somewhat depends on which draw card you are using; cheaper ($4-?) draw cards will like having villages more while more expensive ($5+?) draw cards like getting villages less. This is because the gap of time, and thereby the utility of villages, of smithy to lost arts is longer than that of, say wharf to Lost Arts. Even in the latter case, villages may still be useful if there are some strong terminal payload on the board that you would like to play multiple of. It should also be noted that putting +1 action onto a terminal draw makes your engine much more reliable, as you no longer have to worry too much about drawing your draw without any villages to play it. Finally, just as there not being any villages helps putting your +action onto your terminal draw, having multiple villages also helps because you are't running around trying to fight over the village pile. This approach becomes weaker if there are nonterminal draw cards already in place, especially without villages, as sometimes it may be simply better to buy a lab and put your +action onto a terminal payload rather than worrying about getting lost arts on said terminal draw then getting more villages to play your terminal payload.

The other option is putting it on your terminal payload. This is actually much, much stronger than it may sounds at first, to the point that when it is available, I think that it is usually stronger than putting it on your terminal draw, although you obviously only want to do so when there is a good, spammable terminal payload. Consider first that engines are often able to consistently draw themselves without Lost Arts on a draw card. The next thing to consider is that you can, potentially, get far, far more use out of lost arts on a terminal payload card than a terminal draw. For example, a deck with 7 bridges may only need something like 4 smithy's; putting +1 action on your smithy versus bridge gives 3 less actions over your turn, whereas putting the Lost Arts onto the smithy doesn't do much to increase payload capacity, only reliability. Lost Arts on terminal payload also works wonders when your draw is a draw-to-X card, as your terminal payload is now almost a cantrip, and you no longer have to worry about getting enough villages to play your terminal actions before you play your your draw card either, because before you needed a +action for every terminal payload you want to play. Putting Lost Arts on your payload also works better when villages are contested, as the number of villages needed to play out all the payload you need is usually much larger than the number needed to play all your draw cards. Further, putting Lost Arts on your payload works much better in the general timeline of how your deck is likely to develop anyway because you never have those awkward questions of whether to buy a village or overbuy draw cards.

As usual with dominion, there are some womewhat edge-casey stuff to consider.

An option is to put lost arts on a card that is already nonterminal to create a village when there aren't any on the board. This is uncommon, but sometimes useful when the you need to play multiples of both your terminal payload and terminal draw, or if there are multiple different terminal payload cards that need playing.

In games with 3 or more people, it can often be good to place your +action onto a different card than other players to avoid competing with them. I can't say too much about this, as I don't really play 3+ player dominion that much.

In summary, basically Lost Arts works well when put on terminal draw, but usually works better when put on terminal payload. But don't be an idiot about it either; Lost Arts on Wharf is probably better than Lost Arts on woodcutter.

15

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Empires Previews #6 - Jack...

« on: May 20, 2016, 01:17:17 am »

I seriously had to check whether it was April 1 when I saw and read that card. But seriously though... this isn't a real card, is it? Surely this must be some sort of joke?

16

Dominion: Empires Previews / Re: Empires Bonus Preview #4: Enchantress

« on: May 12, 2016, 10:38:10 am »

I feel like one of the biggest impacts of this is against big money decks, which usually rely on one or two strong actions in their deck to really boost them. All of a sudden, with an engine playing an enchantress every turn, the big money player has to collide 2 actions to do anything, which can be really difficult.

17

Rules Questions / Hermit & Market Square trashing

« on: February 01, 2016, 04:30:16 pm »

If, at the end of your turn, you trash a hermit into a madman while you have a market square in your hand, can you reveal and discard that market square for a gold? Thanks.

18

Goko Dominion Online / Re: Should Dominion Online Have Identical Starting Hands

« on: November 30, 2015, 12:19:37 am »

These two things can't co-exist in the same ranking system. Ideally, people are playing others with similar skill levels to their own most of the time, but realistically this isn't the case: people on the ends of the spectrum of skill levels aren't going to play people at similar skill levels to them, and people can also simply choose not to play equal opponents. Having a system of identical starting hands drastically reduces variance between games, and thus favors better players. This, in turn, means that two people of equal skill with different preferences in this regard will likely not be ranked the same.

With this in mind, I think the only real options are either always yes or no. I like no for many of the reasons posted before me.

19

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Wording Challenge 3: Artifact

« on: October 31, 2015, 04:23:25 pm »

Pick a card you have in play. If it is face up, gain a copy of it. Flip the card you picked face down.

20

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Scout is bad, not horrible?

« on: June 14, 2015, 06:43:18 pm »

I'm just going to come out and say it: I like Scout. It combos with a lot of things, and I personally do not think it's horrible.
1. It combos with Crossroads for a deck that can use Victory cards as draw.
2. It has a weak combo with Wishing Well.
3. Can defend against deck inspector attacks if they leave Victory Cards on top of your deck.
4. Can let you draw more cards with draw-to-x, and can control what those cards are.
5. Harem, Nobles, Great Hall, etc.
6. Can combo with discard cards like Oasis and Inn (you draw Victory cards then discard them).
7. Mystic, Mystic, Mystic!
That's my opinion, but I think a lot of these reasons make Scout a card that you could buy every once and a while, and benefit from it!

1. Crossroads+Victory cards is almost never a viable engine option. Scout doesn't change that.
2. So you play a scout, then a wishing well. Okay, most likely you end up neutral, besides knowing what the top 2 cards in your deck are. Occasionally, you will have a 2-card lab, but that is really weak for a 2-card combo, especially one that has a card that is more-or-less dead outside of the combo. And then there is the opportunity cost... which is far too high for something as bland as that.
3. That is still very weak, and scout could well miss the attack.
4. This reason is very confusing. You play a card that does nothing so that you can draw one more card? That doesn't actually help draw-to-x cards at all; if you hadn't had scout, you would have drawn that extra card anyways. Sure, it lets you reorder the things on top of your deck, but again, that marginal benefit is far too high given its opportunity cost and what happens in the event that you do not manage to couple scout with your library.
5. You need 1/4 of your deck to be these cards before scout is not a drag on your deck, which takes a lot of effort, and can stymy your engine building in other ways; you may feel the pressure not to buy other things like villages and such. The only thing listed there which could make scout even close to not being a drag on your deck is harem+scout, but that is going to be hard to set up, and by that point you probably have terminals in your deck and may not want to risk drawing scout, for example, with a smithy. And again, let us not forget; scout carries with it an opportunity cost, and merely not hurting your deck doesn't make it a worthwhile buy.
6. This is just not viable 95%+ of the time. Having upwards of 1/4 of your deck be victory cards hurts your engine too much for something like this to be viable.
7. You need to collide scout with at least 2 mystics for it not to just be an overpriced, 2-card silver. Even then, it is still just a 3-card grand market + silver, which is extremely weak, given that it can miss and has a lower effect than buying 2 cards that are actually at the same price as the mystics that you bought. In addition, the chance of colliding that much is far too low to be viable.


All in all, i would not hesitate to call scout the worst card in the game. Some people like to give the title to thief, but at least with thief there are some non-contrived situations in which it could be useful (if your opponent goes for gardens, for example).

A lot of what you said has already been stated and it made me realize that Scout may be worse than I thought, but the one thing I have a problem with is Mystic. You only need one Mystic in your hand and one in the top four cards of your deck to already draw two cards, if you have a Scout. With some trashing and a pretty good Mystic density, that is pretty likely. You're already up to at least $4, but you will control what you draw with your Mystic that was in the top 4 cards, so you're probably up to at least $5, which is enough for another Mystic. More Mystics let you buy green cards, which you can just pull out of your deck with Scout.

So your scenario is getting to, for the cost of 3 cards, draw two cards and gain $4, and that if they miss, it hurts a lot? Here is what you could do for cheaper using cards that are generally weak-ish anyways; 2 markets+silver. At least with that there isn't a risk of a non-collision.

And besides, getting that many mystics isn't realistic; you'd need 2 mystics for every 9 cards in your deck for your scenario to be average. Considering that you need to get (probably) 2 starting silvers in such a deck, you'd need to get 4 mystics for it to be worthwhile to buy a scout. (Well, i understand that the scout can take victory cards if you get lucky, but by that point it is drawing less than 1 card on average, and mystic has a chance to draw something without a scout, and then there is the opportunity cost of buying scout (at least a silver), so if anything i am overestimating the utility of scout). Considering that you cannot expect more than 5 mystics, because your opponent can always go the much stronger route of mystic + silver, there really is almost no room for scout in your deck.

In a mystic game, you'd be probably be much better off buying silvers than scout.

21

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Scout is bad, not horrible?

« on: June 13, 2015, 09:07:36 pm »

I'm just going to come out and say it: I like Scout. It combos with a lot of things, and I personally do not think it's horrible.
1. It combos with Crossroads for a deck that can use Victory cards as draw.
2. It has a weak combo with Wishing Well.
3. Can defend against deck inspector attacks if they leave Victory Cards on top of your deck.
4. Can let you draw more cards with draw-to-x, and can control what those cards are.
5. Harem, Nobles, Great Hall, etc.
6. Can combo with discard cards like Oasis and Inn (you draw Victory cards then discard them).
7. Mystic, Mystic, Mystic!
That's my opinion, but I think a lot of these reasons make Scout a card that you could buy every once and a while, and benefit from it!

1. Crossroads+Victory cards is almost never a viable engine option. Scout doesn't change that.
2. So you play a scout, then a wishing well. Okay, most likely you end up neutral, besides knowing what the top 2 cards in your deck are. Occasionally, you will have a 2-card lab, but that is really weak for a 2-card combo, especially one that has a card that is more-or-less dead outside of the combo. And then there is the opportunity cost... which is far too high for something as bland as that.
3. That is still very weak, and scout could well miss the attack.
4. This reason is very confusing. You play a card that does nothing so that you can draw one more card? That doesn't actually help draw-to-x cards at all; if you hadn't had scout, you would have drawn that extra card anyways. Sure, it lets you reorder the things on top of your deck, but again, that marginal benefit is far too high given its opportunity cost and what happens in the event that you do not manage to couple scout with your library.
5. You need 1/4 of your deck to be these cards before scout is not a drag on your deck, which takes a lot of effort, and can stymy your engine building in other ways; you may feel the pressure not to buy other things like villages and such. The only thing listed there which could make scout even close to not being a drag on your deck is harem+scout, but that is going to be hard to set up, and by that point you probably have terminals in your deck and may not want to risk drawing scout, for example, with a smithy. And again, let us not forget; scout carries with it an opportunity cost, and merely not hurting your deck doesn't make it a worthwhile buy.
6. This is just not viable 95%+ of the time. Having upwards of 1/4 of your deck be victory cards hurts your engine too much for something like this to be viable.
7. You need to collide scout with at least 2 mystics for it not to just be an overpriced, 2-card silver. Even then, it is still just a 3-card grand market + silver, which is extremely weak, given that it can miss and has a lower effect than buying 2 cards that are actually at the same price as the mystics that you bought. In addition, the chance of colliding that much is far too low to be viable.


All in all, i would not hesitate to call scout the worst card in the game. Some people like to give the title to thief, but at least with thief there are some non-contrived situations in which it could be useful (if your opponent goes for gardens, for example).

22

Goko Dominion Online / Whats up with goko?

« on: May 02, 2015, 11:55:41 am »

I edited the picture to remove reference to my opponent (i'll send you a link to an unedited version if you like), but if you notice, i played several Nobles, but when my opponent resigned, it didn't count their points! Whats up with that?

23

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Holy Cow

« on: April 29, 2015, 02:35:32 pm »

I don't like it. The problem is that curses are always supposed to be a negative thing; it makes people timid to go for cursing attacks in two player games (wondering whether or not playing their card will actually hurt them). It also doesn't scale well; in a 4p game with cursing, it is utterly useless.

24

Simulation / Re: Adventures: some simulation results

« on: April 19, 2015, 07:13:36 pm »

Amulet i feel is by far the strongest card in the set (well, maybe lost city can compete), although i think it may be hard to simulate due to the different choices (such as; i have 4 money. should i trash a copper or gain a silver?). However, being this strong, i'd really like to see how amulet BM compares to something like Double Jack.

25

Dominion: Adventures Previews / Re: Previews #3 - Amulet, Swamp Hag, Hireling

« on: April 04, 2015, 11:25:24 am »

I actually think amulet looks like (possibly) one of the strongest cards in the game- or at the very least a major trasher. It is like a steward mixed with a JoaT. Let me explain the benefits;

-In big money it can trash estates quickly and gain a ton of silvers. Sure, it can miss the shuffle, but then you could just get an extra one. If you have already trashed your estates, you can gain a ton of silvers, or trash coppers.
-In engines it is also very good. It trashes two cards with every play, and doesn't gum up your deck as much after it is done trashing (if you play it), so i'd prefer it over steward in most cases, especially if you are fighting over villages. Also, the duration effect gives you a better selection of cards to trash; if you play steward, you might do something like trash copper/estate where with amulet you could trash double estate, amulet is less likely to be unable to trash due to not having enough trashable cards in your hand, and amulet doesn't instantly destroy your chances of buying anything on the turn that you play it.