573
« on: January 07, 2013, 12:33:47 pm »
Playing this strategy isn't very tricky. Start by thinning your deck so that you can play as many Rogues as possible (deck destruction works best when you can lay it on thick). Buy Feodums, trash them for silver, then Rogue them back. Rogue slows down your opponent down some, and a long game helps your Feoda acquire more value.
However, Rogue works much better with Feodum than it usually does - both its attack and its dumpster diving. Rogue's attack isn't that powerful, and there's often stuff in the trash you don't want. For most decks, having a Rogue hit your opponent's Silver is especially annoying. In this case, Rogue resembles a Thief/Saboteur you have to play twice, and you'd likely rather not have more Silver anyway, but when you're going for Feodum, that Silver is a juicy treat. Meanwhile, getting hit with an opponent's Rogue doesn't really hurt you that much nor will it help them a good deal (outside a mirror match).
Any trasher will do here. Remake is perhaps the best because it turns estate into silver, silver into Feodum/Remake, and Feodum into Rogue. Trashing your copper is better here than for other alternate VP strategies because it helps you play your Rogues more and you don't need copper for buying power when you've got so much silver.
Things like steward and chapel probably help the engine builder more than you (steward especially), but if you can hit them with enough rogues (which an initially thin deck helps with), then you have a good chance to slow them down enough to get the win you want. Rogueing away your oppoent's villages can help this strategy play Rogue more and allow you to trash a Feodum and get it back in one turn. (I found this strategy in a game with Scheme, KC, Chapel, Rogue, Feodum, and Chapel - I played it a few times and found that Feodum was practically unbeatable even in the presence of other strong engine parts. KC-Rogue is not KC-Sab, but played every turn it's still brutal. Meanwhile, Rogue is much worse for the Province player for the reasons discussed above.)
I haven't tried out all the TfB options, but it seems like Salvager would be the next best after Remake. Trade route would probably work quite nicely too. I'd guess bishop would be good too - the danger is, as always, the free trashing for your opponent; on the other hand, the extra VP will add up in the long game that can be expected. Upgrade would work like Remake, and Apprentice would you help you spam your Rogues (though Apprenticing a Silver away is pointless unless you can play multiple rogues in a turn), while Junk Trader isn't going to be that useful to you after the early game since it's really easy to hit $3 or $4. At a cost of $5, these options conflict with Rogue, and you want as many Rogues as you can get.
I would guess that this beats BM handily - it shouldn't be hard to simulate, but I've never used the sims so I can't tell. Stealing treasure, duchies and those few actions from the BM player will hurt her some, but I think that most BM strategies would just choke. It's not hard at all to get 18 silver if you can freely trash the feodum, and that's all you need for Feodum to match province at a mere cost of $4. You need more than 18 silver to beat your opponents' duchies and estates, but I don't think it's that hard, especially since you'll knock a few of their duchies down.
One nice thing that separates Feodum from Duke is the non-Duke players can contest for Duchies, but (a) Feodum isn't going to be worth much to a non-Feodum centric deck, and (b) you might possibly steal them back.
As to vulnerabilities, I'm not so sure. Your thoughts?
