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Messages - XnFM

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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Pronunciations and plurals
« on: September 22, 2012, 03:27:03 pm »
I can't tell if you're really suggesting that the correct plural of City of Brass is City of Brasses, but you shouldn't be.

Now I'm neither an English major, nor a linguist, but I'm pretty sure it is, technically, correct.

If you were to refer to an array of ingots of different copper/zinc alloys, wouldn't you refer to them collectively as "brasses"? I would suggest that the technically correct plural of "City of Brass" is "City of Brasses," however because it sounds unnatural sentence constructions requiring it should be avoided.

"Look at all those copies of City of Brass."
"Look at all the City of Brasses."

Both of the above are correct, however the former is more natural and flows better and thus is the preferred construction.

"City of Brasses" and "Cities of Brass" have rather different meanings.

But if it's a reference to the MTG card, I think the easy way would be "City of Brass cards".

I think you mean "city of brasses" and "cities of brass," have rather different meanings. "City of Brass" is a proper name, and my understanding is that the actual meaning of the English when you pluralize it is irrelevant.

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Dominion Articles / Re: All-around cards
« on: September 22, 2012, 02:00:53 am »
I would go with Pawn, Steward, maybe Count (I haven't played it yet), possably Governor, and Market.

I can't think of many other cards that I wouldn't mind picking up in most decks. (Though I'll play Monument in almost any pool it's available in, but that's just me.)

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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Pronunciations and plurals
« on: September 22, 2012, 01:28:36 am »
I can't tell if you're really suggesting that the correct plural of City of Brass is City of Brasses, but you shouldn't be.

Now I'm neither an English major, nor a linguist, but I'm pretty sure it is, technically, correct.

If you were to refer to an array of ingots of different copper/zinc alloys, wouldn't you refer to them collectively as "brasses"? I would suggest that the technically correct plural of "City of Brass" is "City of Brasses," however because it sounds unnatural sentence constructions requiring it should be avoided.

"Look at all those copies of City of Brass."
"Look at all the City of Brasses."

Both of the above are correct, however the former is more natural and flows better and thus is the preferred construction.

4
Dominion Articles / Re: Scrying Pool
« on: July 04, 2012, 01:55:56 am »
I think in your initial thing, you mean cases 1, 3 and 6?

[. . .]

So maybe having any 1 of these isn't enough to bypass SP, but these are definitely the "bad" things to look for.

Yes I did; I sort of rushed out the door to go bowling last night and didn't take the time to do a final proof-read.

What I was trying to get at (and I probably came off to harshly in retrospect) was that "junking" attacks, a lack of cantrips/villages, and quick-game strategies are things that should be making you look at other strategies whereas your other three points should make you think about whether it's still worth playing SP.

They're all present as cases where you should not be buying scrying pool; and while I agree that is true of some of them, other's really just require you to take a couple more minutes to asses the Kingdom, and whether or not SP is worth it.

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Dominion Articles / Re: Scrying Pool
« on: July 03, 2012, 12:38:12 am »

When NOT to buy Scrying Pool

Case 1: Lack of plus actions or many cantrips

Case 2: Lack of (some) trashing

Case 3: Curses

Case 4: Lack of virtual $

Case 5: Lack of plus buy

Case 6: Very quick games

I play alot of Scrying Pool decks and I really think you're overstating the situations when it's not a good card. Only cases one, three, and six are truely times when you really shouldn't bethinking about Scrying Pool (maybe if Fairgrounds is in play though . . .); the reasoning behind that is just as you stated. However lack of +$, + buy, and trashing can all be made up for by the presence of quality cards in the other categories.

If you don't have + $, and you have some trashing you can clear out your coppers and estates for the bigger denomination coinage. If you lacking buys, well, you really just need to build a very lean decklist, clear your junky cards and play like champ. If you don't have trashing you just build a robust deck and utilize your buys to stock up on the cheap actions. Sometimes you just have to be willing to deviate from the norm. Heck, I played SP, something that gives + buy (Woodcutter I think), and Bank the other day. Once I got going, I was drawing my deck, Banking for $9, buying Colonies, and ninja-ing the third pile for the win.

You really can't not mention how awesome Pawn is with SP. It's + buy, + $, it digs out Scrying Pools when they miss and it helps you set up a 3-pile victory against (when the kingdom is right), and it's cheap so you can quickly build up your action density. There is no card that I like to see more in a SP kingdom than Pawn.

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Dominion Articles / Re: Optimizing Play
« on: June 15, 2012, 11:13:10 pm »

Use trash-for-benefits on higher cost cards.

TFBs work terrible on Coppers. The better the trashed card, the better the reward. It's okay to trash expensive cards aggressively. This is especially true if it's the greening stage and you need to maintain tempo. That one extra Province from Apprenticing a Gold is often well worth losing that card, as long as you're careful with regards to not over-trashing your good cards. You don't always want to trash a Gold or Platinum or Lab, but leave the option open.

(The exception is the gain-exactly cards. Upgrade and Remake work well on Coppers because no $1 card exists.)

I think your exception isn't really an exception.  You say TFB on Copper is bad because it confers no benefit, but Upgrade or Remake on copper doesn't give you benefit either.  I think the reason why those two cards are better for Copper is because Upgrade is a cantrip, thus a "free" trash, and Remake can trash two Copper at once, which is much more efficient. 

Also I don't think it's a problem to using TFB on Copper if you have nothing better to do and don't need the Copper.  The advice is really to not be afraid of trashing good things.  But it's OK to trash weak things as well! :)

I'm pretty sure he was thinking primarily of Remodel here, where you're generally forced to gain a "bad" card if you trash a copper. Upgrade and Remake are different from Remodel in that you're never forced to gain an unwanted card when you trash a copper or a curse. As far as most of the other trash for benefit cards go, the correct card to trash really depends on what phase of the game you're in. And if you have: Silver, Copper, [non-Remodel trasher], Curse, Curse, I think the correct trashing choice is very rarely the higher cost card.

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Dominion Articles / Re: Noble Brigand
« on: April 09, 2012, 03:24:40 pm »
There is a niche use of the card as a opener. When you are second player with $4 in hand in your first turn and when the first player have bought a silver, you will have 2/7 chance of getting that silver and trigger a reshuffle with the initial crappy cards at the same time. It is fun to use and see it works, but when it doesn't, you are facing quite an up-hill battle. The situation improves significantly with more players though, and it helps negate the advantage of the third or the fourth player quite a bit. They still have to have $4 in their first hand though.
If the first player buys a silver on his first turn and the second player buys a Noble Brigand, it triggers a reshuffle with a Silver and 5 Copper / Estate, right? So doesn't that mean there is a 2/6 chance of hitting the Silver, not 2/7?

I think you're correct on the odds there.

Personally I think the flip side of this is worth noting as well. Yes, you have a 1/3 chance of giving your opponent one more turn without any of their opening cards and getting an extra silver for yourself, but at the same time you're accellerating your oppenent's early resuffles, and giving your oppenent a 2/3 chance of essentially knowing his turn three hand before his turn two. Even worse, you'll be giving your oppenent a resuffle every turn for at least the next two turns, and quite easily up until turn eight or nine, depending on when the next time you play your Brigand is (hope it's not turn five), trashing, and whether or not the Brigand hits. That's a huge advantage early on.

NB turn one is bad. It's a cool idea, but the odds are against you, and you run the risk of giving your opponent greater access to his early buys.

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Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Dominion Sporcle Super Quiz!
« on: February 08, 2012, 01:33:42 am »
Inn works for the 3-letter card as well.

I only count two letters in "Inn". ; ]

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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Card Sleeves
« on: February 01, 2012, 08:50:02 pm »
I use Mayday premium sleeves, and the only complaint I have about them is that I can't fit the cards back into the original box.  I've been through enough sleeves to sleeve every expansion and most of the promos and the quality has been excellent. I've had maybe one or two sleeves out of every 150 - 200, that have been either too small, scuffed, or had "stuff" embedded in them; that's better than my track record with Dragon Shields*. I don't know about their regular sleeves, but the premium ones are good.

*A high-quality standard CCG size card sleeve. ~$10/100 iirc.

10
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Greatest Isotropic Moments of 2011
« on: December 13, 2011, 06:16:59 pm »
If anyone has a better example of heavy Tunneling/Gold depletion, please post.

It depends on what you mean by "better." I'll have to go looking for it, but I have a three (or maybe four) player game where we inadvertantly ended the game by piling out the golds because of Warehouse + Tunnell shenannigans. I don't think anyone had more than 12 points that game . . . .

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Dominion General Discussion / Is there a right way to play Mine?
« on: October 22, 2011, 12:58:02 am »
This is something that's been bugging me for . . . well the last few weeks at least. Up until fairly recently I've always used Mine to upgrade the worst basic treasure card in my hand (I'd turn my Coppers into Silvers, and if I had no Coppers, then I'd turn my Silvers into Golds). But I played a Colony game not too long ago and randomly decided to try Mining my bigger value monies and it seemed to work pretty well. Which leads to my question: is there a right way to mine?

Right now I'm inclined to say that it depends on the game type (Colony/Province). Because Silvers aren't bad in Province games (especially when they're replacing a Copper), you want to Mine your small money in a Province game. Whereas in Colony games things tend to hinge more on Gold and Platinum, so you want to Mine your bigger monies.

Is there a strictly (or even generally) better way to play Mine?

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