Combo: Ill-Gotten Gains/DevelopIf you are reading this article, I’m sure that you are well aware of the infamous IGG/Duchy rush strategy. In fact, this
very strategy has been featured on the front page of the blog already. The gist of this strategy is to buy things that are good at getting $5 and then when you have $5, you buy IGG. Some exceptionally good enablers for getting to $5 include things like Ironworks, Horse Traders, Silver, etc… You continue to buy IGG until around 2 are left in the supply and then start pounding the Duchy pile. For a more complete discussion about the traditional IGG rush, I would recommend reading the article already posted.
One card that has incredible synergy with IGG is Develop. There are a few things that make Develop ideal for synergy with IGG which are summarized below:
1.) It doubles the effective value of the card being trash – The main benefit here is that much of IGG’s cost is present in the on-gain ability. When the card is in your deck, it would probably be a $2/3-Cost card because it is almost strictly worse than Silver with only strategies involving Gardens, Trader, Coppersmith, Counting House, etc. actually wanting the extra copper. So let’s put this in the perspective of what Develop is doing; develop is essentially taking a $2/$3 cost card and converting it into both a $4 and a $6 cost card. This leads me into the second point about develop…
2.) It puts the gained cards on top of your deck – That pretty much sums it up. The gained cards go on top of your deck. The implication is that you get the benefit of them immediately on your next turn. You don’t have to wait for a reshuffle and hope that they are on top of your deck. You get them right away and thus the benefit right away. This becomes essential toward the end game when you don’t know how many turns will be left.
3.) It is cheap – Why does it matter that Develop is cheap? The cheapness (only costs $3) means that you can buy it essentially whenever you want. You don’t want to open with it because it will hinder you from your initial purchasing of IGG. You want it sometime mid game when the IGG are running low and it’s about time for the Duchy* rush
*You are not playing a Duchy rush
Okay, so I’ve went through the individual reasons for why this works, it’s time to put it all together. You are converting your lousy IGG into two powerful cards which will get you Provinces and not Duchies. You will still probably end the game on Duchies, but the goal is to obtain enough Provinces to overcome a loss in the Duchy split.
With this combo, you will be using Develop to trash your IGG and place a $6 Gold and a $4-Cost card on top of your deck. You want the $4-Cost to give you the best chance at reaching $8 on your next turn. For that reason, terminal cash is often the best route. And thankfully there are a lot of options as shown below:
The Candidates Navigator
Nomad Camp
Cutpurse
Horse Traders
Conspirator
Bridge
Salvager
Militia
Monument
Scavenger
Death Cart
Coppersmith
Remodel
Smithy
With the cards listed above most of them will net you with $5 from the 2 cards. That means that in your other 3 cards, you must get $3. With the amount of Copper, IGG and Silver in your deck already, that should usually be quite manageable. There are a few different options in the list. Trash for benefit cards like Salvager and Remodel will ensure that you get the Province at the cost of trashing the Gold. Smithy runs off the assumption that you have mostly cash and drawing 3 cards will result in the required funds. Horse Traders assumes that of the 3 cards, 1 will either be a Silver or an IGG.
With this strategy, even though you are buying green, you are still improving your deck. The consequence is that subsequent passes through your deck will find these improved cards which will result in even greater chances for hitting $8 again. This deck even has the added bonus of having a built in safety feature. If your Develop and $4-Cost card clash, simply develop the $4-Cost into an IGG/Develop thus guaranteeing development of IGG into Gold/$4-Cost next turn. Once you've picked up a few provinces in this manner, your opponent will realize what is going on and if they have not followed you with a develop strategy, they are doomed to lose. Their main source of victory is also their path to defeat. They can not buy Duchies because you are winning and that accelerates the 3-pile. And it is very clear that they will not be able to buy as many Provinces as you. So when running this strategy, you still want to buy Duchies, but your primary objective is to get some Provinces so that you will comfortably win by piling out the Duchies.
