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Dominion General Discussion / Trashing vs. Buying
« on: June 05, 2017, 10:58:19 am »
I've been mulling this one over, waiting, but what the heck, I'll do it. Someone said "start a new thread" so I'm starting a new thread.
I was shocked to see that anyone would even bother to argue this, but to review: You open Chapel/Silver.
Question: With a hand of Chapel-Silver-Copper-Copper-Copper, do you trash three coppers or buy a key power-$5?
Answer: You trash three coppers.
Trash down/build up is such a fundamental principle it's hard to imagine why there would even be an argument. You're going to have at least another $3 hand before your next shuffle, and if you want to be sure to hit $5 you can always buy another Silver. Your odds of colliding two Silvers increases dramatically with three fewer coppers in your deck.
I tried to imagine any situation in which it would be beneficial to buy the $5, and I had a really hard time doing so. If you're worried about losing the split, well, you'll probably lose it anyway to the player who builds correctly and can buy $5s reliably every turn. I've seen many people make this mistake, and inevitably, they build up their drawing capability while their deck is still half-full of junk and then start complaining about how they never draw their Chapel with their junk cards, or draw their Chapel dead.
It's even worse with Steward. The number of times I've seen Steward used for money early in a Steward, Copper, Copper, Copper, Estate hand because they wanted that power-$5 so badly is astounding. Or even Steward-4C being used to buy Gold. (Ick. Yellow cards.) The beauty of Steward is that you can trash Coppers even more aggressively than with Chapel because it can switch to giving economy for the build phase.
There's nothing like the audible "click" you hear when an engine snaps into place and starts humming because you've draw a tiny deck into your hand. The world is your oyster. You've made your own shuffle luck. Anyone who has bought a Donate on turn three or four and trashed down to five cards or less knows what I'm saying. Did you really need a power-$5 first, or are you just going to start getting them by the handful starting now?
It would be nice to have some clarity about this, if nothing else for the benefit of newer readers.
I was shocked to see that anyone would even bother to argue this, but to review: You open Chapel/Silver.
Question: With a hand of Chapel-Silver-Copper-Copper-Copper, do you trash three coppers or buy a key power-$5?
Answer: You trash three coppers.
Trash down/build up is such a fundamental principle it's hard to imagine why there would even be an argument. You're going to have at least another $3 hand before your next shuffle, and if you want to be sure to hit $5 you can always buy another Silver. Your odds of colliding two Silvers increases dramatically with three fewer coppers in your deck.
I tried to imagine any situation in which it would be beneficial to buy the $5, and I had a really hard time doing so. If you're worried about losing the split, well, you'll probably lose it anyway to the player who builds correctly and can buy $5s reliably every turn. I've seen many people make this mistake, and inevitably, they build up their drawing capability while their deck is still half-full of junk and then start complaining about how they never draw their Chapel with their junk cards, or draw their Chapel dead.
It's even worse with Steward. The number of times I've seen Steward used for money early in a Steward, Copper, Copper, Copper, Estate hand because they wanted that power-$5 so badly is astounding. Or even Steward-4C being used to buy Gold. (Ick. Yellow cards.) The beauty of Steward is that you can trash Coppers even more aggressively than with Chapel because it can switch to giving economy for the build phase.
There's nothing like the audible "click" you hear when an engine snaps into place and starts humming because you've draw a tiny deck into your hand. The world is your oyster. You've made your own shuffle luck. Anyone who has bought a Donate on turn three or four and trashed down to five cards or less knows what I'm saying. Did you really need a power-$5 first, or are you just going to start getting them by the handful starting now?
It would be nice to have some clarity about this, if nothing else for the benefit of newer readers.