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101

Game Reports / Is Apothecary that good?

« on: November 04, 2012, 05:53:58 pm »

This was a strange game. I want to recap it here turn by turn.
You can see the log here: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/02/game-20121102-212833-9479fce0.html

Of course you want to go for Familiar here. I opted for Shanty Town/Potion instead of Silver/Potion hoping for some faster cycling with slightly weaker chances of hitting $3P. Not sure if right choice.
On turn 3 of course I hit $2P and buy Apothecary as consolidation.
On turn 4 I buy a Wharf while my opponent can buy a Familiar.
On turn 5 I get a Stables and my opponent deals the first curse out.
On turn 6 we both buy a Familiar.
On turn 7 I buy a Salvager and get the second curse.
On turn 8 I can finally deal out my first curse and my second Familiar and another Salvager. But I get the third curse in return.
On turn 9 I have a horrible draw: Salvager, a Curse, a Stables, and 2 Estates. I salvage a Curse, because I don't want anything for $2. I get curses 4 and 5. With a 5/1 curse split I already wanted to resign. But I kept going.
On turn 10 I get another bad turn, but I at least hit $2P for another Apothecary.
On turn 11 I finally can deal out another 2 curses, trash an Estate and buy another Wharf. I get another curse.
On turn 12 I traded a Shanty Town for a Bazaar. Maybe I should have just bought another Apothecary here. My opponent deals out the last curse for a 7/3 curse split and gets a Bazaar and a Stables!
On turn 13 I get another bad draw and can only trash a curse. Again I thought about resigning here. But from now on it gets interesting.
On turn 14 I can trash an Estate and can buy an Apothecary and another Wharf.
Turn 15 is similar: Trashing an Estate and buying an Apothecary and a Bazaar. Now my engine gets rolling. I don't know why my opponent now gets bad draws. He should have had a better deck.
On turn 16 I only buy an Apothecary, but
on turn 17 now I nearly can draw my whole deck. I need to trash my curses, so I buy a Bazaar and another Salvager.
On turn 18 I can trash 3 curses and buy another Bazaar and Wharf.
Now I can draw my whole deck so I buy on turn 19 a Vineyard and another Potion for Double Vineyards, a Bazaar and Wharf.
On turn 20 and 21 I can double Vineyard and then end the game on piles.

But how I exactly did I win this? I didn't bought a single Silver which was important for my Apothecaries. And I think my Wharves were very important, more important than Stables, even though it's terminal and Apothecary + Stables isn't a bad combo. But I'm still not exactly sure how I won this. Should I maybe totally skipped Familiar here and just load up on Shanty Towns (later Bazaars), Wharves and Apothecaries? Is Apothecary + Salvager a really good defense to Familiar on its own?

102

Game Reports / Winning with Silver/Silver against Ambassador/Ambassador

« on: November 04, 2012, 05:19:55 pm »

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/03/game-20121103-093903-f2eebecb.html
See also this thread: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1709.msg27183#msg27183

My opponent opened Ambassador on a board with no super strong engine. Yes you could go Festival/Library, but that may be too slow IMHO.
I then saw Gardens and decided to wait and opened Silver. He then bought another Ambassador, then I knew, I had to go for Gardens.
It's always nice to win against an Ambassador deck and it was close in the end. So I like to know:
Was this the right decision or am I just lucky?

103

Dominion Strategy Wiki Feedback / Dominion Wiki

« on: October 22, 2012, 08:35:31 am »

I know this has come up a few times, but I more and more think that we need some sort of community-driven wiki for Dominion.
This would be especially useful for all the articles. We don't need to edit a list in a thread to link to all of the articles. Also many of the articles are already outdated by 2-3 expansions. And rather than someone has to write an article for all the left out cards or update the old articles, the community could put together articles for those cards, because - you know - there are many of them.

But there are more reasons:
Also, the FAQ gets quite big and an wiki could help sort that out. It's also the perfect place for explaining all the Dominion Lingo.
It also has come up that lists of cards that share certain criteria would be nice. This could easily be solved by categories in wikis.
Tournaments and Events could also be edited there.
Many more...

But...

Do you agree or do you think that this isn't necessary?
If you agree, how do we set this up?
Could theory install a wiki on dominionstrategy? Or would it be best to use a hosted wiki, like wikia?

104

Puzzles and Challenges / Blue game

« on: October 18, 2012, 11:09:35 am »

Rhyming in a foreign language is really hard. So excuse my bad rhymes and mistakes. I just wanted to add flavor.

In this game against one enemy
I tell you what I see.
I really have no clue -
I see a kingdom full of blue.

Eight of them are Reactions,
the other two "normal" Actions
So I play this in a newbie style
and buy one of each kingdom pile.

I really have a hard stand
because I drew a crappy hand.
Not even a Duchy I can buy
I'm not sure what I should try.

But wait a moment.
Look at my opponent!
He plays an action card, a single one,
and basic treasures and he's done.

There's nothing fancy he tries,
a single card he buys.
But now I'm very glad,
nearly no card I previously had
is in my hand anymore.
So what happened before?

All of my eight Reactions I used
to my advantage, I'm amused.
In my turn I will buy without shame
two Provinces! What a game!

Clarifications:
I hope all is covered. Just to be sure: No Black Market or Possession shenigans.
All Reactions have to give a benefit. For example: A Moat within a 3-card hand after a Militia isn't allowed.
You can also assume that you have only those 10 cards. No Coppers and no Estates/Shelters. But it doesn't really matter.
And I'm pretty sure someone has a better solution than me. I didn't managed to make it with 9 Reactions.
Ask me if there are questions left. Please use Spoiler tags.

105

Dominion Articles / Storeroom - A "seemingly innocent" card

« on: October 12, 2012, 07:12:19 am »

Secret Chamber + Cellar - Reaction - 1 Action + Buy = Storeroom ... End of Article
No, it's not that simple. At first glance it seems like a boring straight forward card. But I think it offers more than it seems.
I make no claim that this article is complete, I just wanted to point out some observations that I made about this "seemingly innocent card".

Storeroom is more like an upgraded Secret Chamber (without its Reaction) than an upgraded Cellar.
The lack of +1 Action is what makes Cellar a decent addition to any engine, but in engines with strong terminals Storeroom hurts more than it may help.
It's also bad on boards with discarding attacks because - like all discarders - it needs big handsizes to be really useful.
So, what is it good for?

1.) Discarding
You discard two times in a row, so cards that profit from discarding combo really good with Storeroom.

1a) Tunnel
That was the most obvious combo after the release of Storeroom. You only need 1 Tunnel in 8 cards if you discard your whole hand with the first discard option. That makes it one of the best Tunnel enablers. The +Buy also makes it possible to pick up 2 Tunnels soon after you got the first few Golds. With 2 Storerooms, a lot of Tunnels, you get a lot of Golds and can easily switch to Provinces afterwards. Also - because of the discard option - the high variance in your deck doesn't really hurt you at all.

1b) Tactician
That's not different to Secret Chamber or Vault. It's also better to find your second Tactician more easily when you discard 9 cards and draw 9 new cards. You can then discard 7 cards for $7, and play your second Tactician. This is not enough to buy a Province and it needs obviously support. With a non-terminal drawer (Laboratory, Stables, also Crossroads, ...) or cantrip money-generating card (Market, Peddler, Treasury, ...) you can buy a Province easily each turn. With support this is one of the most reliable Double-Tactician combos so far. You really don't need a third Tactician as backup. 2 Tacticians and ~4 Storerooms + support should be enough to guarantee a Province each turn.

1c) Enabling Big Draw
Menagerie needs hands with different cards. Storeroom lets you discard all duplicates and gets even money for them. So you can even discard Coppers for $1 and don't lose anything. But you need villages to enable this combo, but Storeroom lets you find your villages more reliably and as soon as this gets rolling you also have the needed buy to buy multiple of this cheap engine components. Draw up to X cards like Watchtower and Library can even draw more than 3 cards, but you need more villages to set this up as they are terminal.

2.) Guaranteed $4 each turn
In games where you don't want to go for Provinces, Storeroom is a good supporting card. In games without discarding attacks you have $4 with every hand containing a Storeroom.

2a) Gardens
Secret Chamber isn't the best Gardens enabler, but Storeroom's +Buy makes it way better. You can even open Double-Storeroom and have a higher chance to have a Storeroom in turn 3 in hand. When those collided, discard all cards for +Cards and in turn 4 you already trigger the reshuffle and will see one Storeroom soon again. If they didn't collide, discard only for $4 and you probably see the other Storeroom in turn 4. So you can go for Gardens (with Copper buys) very soon and can later 3-pile Gardens, Storerooms and Estates - because each Storeroom also guarantees a Double Estate buy.

2b) Other Alternative VPs
Alternative VP strategies will have many dead cards in your deck. Storeroom really helps here by discarding your dead cards and drawing e.g. Silver. The +Buy allows it to buy extra Coppers on the way. Storeroom isn't the best supporting card for alternative VPs other than Gardens, but in combination with Silk Road or Duke and few more Silver buys it's a reliable strategy.

3.) Potion cards
The best use for Storeroom are the combinations with Potion cards. The problem with Potion is that you want to see it often early in the game but don't want to clog your deck with 2 Potions. Also your Potion(s) are dead cards later in the game. Stategies with Potion cost cards also need +Buy for cases when you hit $5P or better. Your supporting card also should cost less than $4 that you can open Potion+X. All this solves Storeroom. You always want to open Storeroom + Potion and discard all 4 cards when you don't have a Potion in hand. The probability is high to draw your Potion which guarantees you $3P which is enough for 8 out of 10 Potion cards. If you miss your Potion you should have at least $3 to buy a second Storeroom.

3a) Scrying Pool
Like written above you should easily get a Scrying Pool each turn. In turns where you didn't get your Potion in hand pick up a cheap village or other cheap cantrips or non-terminal trashers. Your Scrying Pools should give you 6-7 cards hands very soon where you can pick up a Scrying Pool + X to pile up on action cards. Later when you draw your whole deck you can even discard your Action cards with Storeroom for money and draw them all again with Scrying Pool (if you played at least one village). You can then easily buy 2 Provinces. Storeroom + Scrying Pools isn't good on its own, but with a cheap village and/or non-terminal trashing, this is a really powerhouse.

3b) Philosopher's Stone
Storeroom may be even better than Herbalist as a supporting card. Both have the much needed + Buy so you can pick up a lot of Storerooms and Coppers on the way and both have a mechanic to see the Potion often early in the game. But Storeroom can mostly discard 2-3 dead cards and Coppers which makes your Philosopher's Stone 0.5$ worth more on average! When you have your first Philosopher's Stone in hand, it should already be worth $3 and soon $4. That means: 2 Philosopher's Stones and you can already buy Provinces.

3c) Familiar
Like written above a Storeroom and a Potion guarantees you a $3P hand, exactly the amount you need for Familiar. The probability is therefore high you can buy a Familiar in turn 3 or 4 with this opening. Storeroom also triggers the reshuffle more often which you need to play your Familiar as often as you can early in the game. The problem is that you can't play a drawn Familiar because Storeroom is terminal, so take that into account.

3d) Other Potion cards
Storeroom isn't a good enabler for University or Vineyard on its own. But on boards where University or Vineyard are an option, Storeroom is also a very good reason to go for them - for reasons written above. Apothecary has often the problem to leave the crap on top of your deck. If you play a Storeroom at the end of your turn you can discard exactly as many Coppers as you need for drawing your crap and discard them again for the same amount of money. This can setup a next good turn. With villages you can even build an engine fast. With 1 Apothecary and 1 Storeroom you can often buy another Apothecary and Storeroom (or village or another engine component) and you can then quickly cycle through your deck as the Apothecaries now leave good cards on your deck which you can draw with your Storeroom. On boards with good engine potential, where Golem is a good card, Storeroom lets you buy the Golem faster. When you play your Golem you'll find your Storeroom for the needed buy and deck filtering. This accelerates the engine and mitigates the problem of Potion cards being slow. Seeing your Potion often is especially important with Alchemist. Storeroom lets you buy them faster and can put them more reliably on top of your deck. Storeroom being terminal isn't a big problem here as you won't draw Alchemists dead often.

4.) Treasure cards
The are other cases where your key card is a treasure card other than Potion. So the drawback that Storeroom is terminal isn't a drawback anymore.

4a) Ill-Gotten-Gains
With a Storeroom/Silver opening you can quickly reach a level when you hit $5 nearly every turn. Just discard all cards other than Ill-Gotten-Gains and your opening Silver and you should be drawing at least one Ill-Gotten-Gains or Silver because you only need a 1 out of 8 probability. With 2-3 Storerooms you should be able to keep hitting $5 every turn and can then switch to Duchies.

4b) Fool's Gold
Fool's Gold is cheap and you want as many as you can get. Therefore you need +Buy. Check. You also want collisions, you want to draw 3 Fool's Golds in the same hand. Therefore you either need draw or cycling. Check. Like written above, with a Storeroom in hand, you are guaranteed +4$ and 2 Buys, that's perfect for picking up 2 Fool's Golds. And with many Fool's Golds it's not that hard to have 3 of them in hand as you can either draw 4 when you didn't have one in hand, 3 when you did have one and even 2 cards when you already had 2 FGs.

4c) Quarry
Storeroom + Quarry is no strategy on its own. But in games where Quarry is strong, Storeroom + Quarry is a very good opener. With a Storeroom in hand you likely draw them together and then you have $4 and all Action cards cost $2 less. So, you basically have $8 and 2 buys. Perfect for picking up 2 $4 key cards or your $5 key card with a $3 supporting card.

5.) Triggering reshuffles
All of the above combos and other engines where preparing the next turn by triggering or not triggering the reshuffle is important can benefit from Storeroom. Storeroom may be not the best X in Hunting Party + X because it often only gives you $1 instead of $2, but discarding exactly as many Coppers and Estates that you'll have an empty deck while still getting money out the discarded cards is nice. The probability of having a Hunting Party in the next hand will be much higher. Triggering reshuffles may also come in handy if you want to prepare a good turn with Inn. So let's say you're building a Goons engine. So the +Buy from Storeroom is important, the cycling may give you more Double-Goons turns and you can time an empty deck and then buy an Inn for a Mega Goons Turn.

Summary:
Storeroom isn't a strong card on its own, but has its uses and can also shine in a few situations. Its strength is the heavy cycling to see the key Treasure cards (Potion, Philosopher's Stone, Ill-Gotten-Gains, Fool's Gold) more often, its support for Potion cards in general, its use for big hand sizes (Tactician, Scrying Pool, also Crossroads), the discarding option itself (Tunnel, also Grand Market) and as supporter where you don't want expensive cards (Fool's Gold, Alternative Victory cards, especially Gardens). It's not a great Big Money card, skippable in boards with strong terminals and especially weak against discarding attacks.

106

Variants and Fan Cards / Pawn-variant which I didn't submit for the +Buy contest

« on: September 27, 2012, 05:01:30 am »

While thinking about the +Buy card for the contest, I came up for a neat idea. But it was too weak for a main bonus, so it needed some form of +Actions or +Cards as additional bonus. But I couldn't decide. Often it depends in which kinds of decks the effect fits best. But it was nice in engines and BM. Also I wasn't sure of the power level. I couldn't decide between +2 Actions, +1 Card +1 Action or +2 Cards which isn't the same power level but I could adjust the cost.

Either way, I thought this decision could be made into a card itself - which I obviously won't submit. As you may know I like decision cards like Pawn. What about:

Unnamed Action $3
----------------------------
+1 Buy
Choose 2: +1 Card; +1 Action

You often buy Pawn only because of the (unterminal) +Buy and it doesn't hurt in most decks.
This is even a better option if you want the +Buy badly. It's very similar to Pawn, but I think it plays very differently.
You could use it as Hamlet-variant if you choose +2 Actions.
You could use it as Market without money for +1 Card, +1 Action
And you could use it as Terminal Drawer for +2 Cards.

What do you think? Is it balanced? Is it too boring?

107

Dominion General Discussion / Feedback needed: Define card categories

« on: September 20, 2012, 04:48:43 am »

This thread got me thinking and the Design contest did it too: There are various possibilities to categorize cards.
Until the next card voting contest starts (in December probably) I like to make a little project. To prepare that, I need your help. Please name me "card categories" like "Trasher" or "Gainer" and define them (like if the effect is mandatory or optional). I will give you no restrictions what makes a name a good card category. I'm more interested in the definition of the category than the name, because I know there are different opinions on how to define "Cantrip" or "Village".

To give you some thought-provoking impulses, how would you categorize cards like:
Baron, Coppersmith, Counterfeit, Embargo, Explorer, Harvest, Herbalist, Ironmonger, Jack of All Trades, Mint, Pawn, Poor House, Rats, Treasure Map, Tribute to name a few...?

108

Dominion General Discussion / Riddle I came up, but have no solution of

« on: September 06, 2012, 12:09:31 pm »

Don't ask me how I came up with this riddle and it has probably a simple solution, but I don't have any. It isn't really a riddle, but, eh, just read it. And it has nothing to do with Dominion, but here are so many Logic and Math experts that might help me. Here it is (I hope I can explain it understandable):

-----------------------

A group of X people is in the same room, each one sitting on a chair.
No-one knows any other person in the room.
The chairs are not be placed in the room in a specific pattern, they are distributed all over the room.
Suddenly a man enters the room, challenging the people in the room with following task:
"Each one of you has to sit on a different chair than the one you're currently sitting on.
But you aren't allowed to choose the chair you're going to sit on on your own, so let's just say you have to sit on a random different chair.
You may use supporting tools for that as long you can find it in a normal household.
Do that as fast as you can."

What method would you use for a group of 10 people / 100 people / unlimited big group of people?
Would it change the method
- if the chairs would be form a specific pattern, like a circle?
- if you would be the host, knowing the names of all people in the room?
- if you would have to change chairs multiple times?

-----------------------

Don't laugh at me for that crazy question, but this really bugs me. I'm looking forward to read some interesting ideas.
If there are any open questions that are not covered here, feel free to ask...

109

Puzzles and Challenges / Find the Missing Card

« on: September 06, 2012, 11:41:35 am »

Here's another "What's missing". I think that it might be easy, but I think it hasn't come up yet.

Band of Misfits
Counting House
Crossroads
Explorer
Ill-Gotten-Gains
Ironworks
Jack of All Trades
Library
Masquerade
Pawn
Ruined Library
Vault

110

GokoDom / IsoDom 5: Finals Thread

« on: September 05, 2012, 06:58:38 pm »

I just played the finals against Teproc. We didn't knew for sure if it was Best of 5 or Best of 7, so we played a Best of 7.

I will go to bed now and I forgot to save the logs. But I have the video. So, I won't spoil the ending. Just watch the video:

111

Dominion General Discussion / The Best Dominion Cards List 2013 Preparation Thread

« on: August 30, 2012, 11:54:54 am »

Yes, it's a little bit early, but I like to prepare the 2013 voting and with Dark Ages a change in the categories is needed.
Also I want to add all cards in the voting as many of you requested. This causes/may cause some problems.
For maximum fun, I really appreciate your feedback for compiling the categories. I already have sort of my own opinion. But I want to let you answer the numbered questions below unbiased.

For adding base cards: Silver and Gold really make no problems to add them in the $3 and $6 category respectively.

1.) Does it make sense voting for Base victory cards like Duchy and Estate?

If yes, there's also Province as an $8 cost card. We already have Peddler in the $6+ category, but we all know this isn't a $8 cost card per se. This leads to:

2.) How can we assign Province, Platinum and Colony to a category?

Then there's Copper and Curse. We don't have a $0 category and we did get 5 different Ruins for $0.
Also there are 8 different $0* cards so far. Then there are 3 Shelters and Poor House for $1.

3.) How can we assign these to categories? A 19 card list with all these cards like rinkworks did? Or separate the $0* cards? Does it make more sense to differentiate between $0, $1 and $2 cards? Or is a $0-$2 list more reasonable? Or a mix like $0-$1 and $2 or $0 and $1-$2?

4.) Then there's Potion. This will be very hard to rank. Should we include it in the $4 list?

5.) Knights are another exclusion. I think one possibility is to add each knight to their respective ($4 or $5) list and the other one is to treat Knights as one average card for $5 and make a separate list for ranking each Knight.

6.) Not a real problem, but I like already to mention that the strength of Tournament, Urchin, Hermit and all Spoils gaining cards depend on their corresponding 0* card, but if we will vote the 0* cards, their strength will be independent of how they are gained and should be voted independantly. Please tell me if you agree or not...

112

GokoDom / IsoDom 5: Semi-finals Thread

« on: August 15, 2012, 04:10:47 pm »

Ok, I know I'm early, but I really want to end this tournament while isotropic is still alive. I doubt that I'm able to do that, but anyways.
You can read my comments and/or watch my video:

angrybirds 40 -28 Qvist
I was really overwhelmed by this board. Please help me here. Wharf, Governor as strong cards and Farming Village, Inn, Bazar as Villages. I really didn't know what to do here and lost badly.

Qvist 41 - 22 angrybirds
King's Court, Tournament, Swindler, Remake, Scheme. There were no +Buys and King's Court was really skippable here I think. I opened Remake/Scheme to trash early and switch into Tournaments. Then it turned out that Swindler is pretty powerful here with strong $3s and $4s but Lookout and Treasure Map on the other side. So I could swindle his Tournament early and got to two early Golds which I embargoed later. He still picked up 2 Golds, but my first player advantage was too strong. He matched his KC witch Scheme later, but the game was nearly over until then. Even my Followers didn't do much anymore.

angrybirds 55 -66 Qvist
Colony game in which I tried an engine with Embassy/Smithy, Hamlet, Market and Bank. I had some really bad draws in the beginning which made my nervous leading in lack of concentration, but I could catch up his 3 Colony lead. In the second last turn I later realised he maybe should have better expanded his Bank into a Province instead of his Province into a Colony, giving me the possibility to end the game.

angrybirds 34 -36 Qvist
Straight forward Mountebank game. I picked up a Watchtower as defense which only prevented one attack and we both thought Monument is pretty strong in this cursing game, but both only had 4 extra VP. Also Vault didn't help that much. It was basically Mountebank-Big Money. He broke PPR and was unlucky.

Yeah, I'm in the finals. Thanks angrybirds for the nice games and hopefully the other players can schedule their games in time for finishing this tournament in time too.

Edit: Added Councilroom links

113

Dominion General Discussion / The Favourite Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2

« on: August 14, 2012, 07:18:46 pm »

Exactly 30 submissions, here is the overview. I think no-one will really go over the whole list. So I post many numbers here, I hope this isn't too much. But categorized seems much more interesting than just a plain list.

Top 10 kingdom:
#1 Monument ▲19, #2 Menagerie ▲1, #3 Fishing Village ▼2, #4 Tactician ▲23, #5 Wharf ▼1, #6 Apprentice ▲7, #7 Bishop ▼5, #8 Horn of Plenty ▲18, #9 Highway ▲13, #10 Steward ▲9

The previous ranked #5-#10 are this time on: #14 Salvager ▼5, #19 Hamlet ▼13, #25 Laboratory ▼15, #30 Grand Market ▼23, #39 Venture ▼30, #62 Governor ▼57

Bottom 10 kingdom:
#157 Transmute ▼7, #156 Treasure Map ▼8, #155 Scout ▼28, #154 Secret Chamber ▲1, #153 Familiar ▼35, #152 Duchess ▲5, #151 Woodcutter ▼5, #150 Fortune Teller ▼12, #149 Navigator ▼7, #148 Moat ▲3

Previous ranked in the bottom 10 are now: #147 Thief ▲9, #137 Chancellor ▲16, #132 Counting House ▲17, #130 Stash ▲24, #125 Philosopher's Stone ▲27

VP generating cards are still everybody's favourite:
#1 Monument ▲19, #7 Bishop ▼5, #52 Goons ▼35
So are Duration cards:
#3 Fishing Village ▼2, #4 Tactician ▲23, #5 Wharf ▼1, #21 Merchant Ship ▲48, #46 Caravan ▼9, #76 Lighthouse ▼8, #79 Haven ▼30, #120 Outpost ▼14
Alternative VP are now much better rated:
#16 Vineyard ▲27, #24 Gardens ▲64, #33 Silk Road ▲75, #42 Tunnel ▼9, #47 Island ▲11, #54 Fairgrounds ▼2, #56 Duke ▲58, #67 Nobles =0, #94 Harem ▼32, #117 Farmland ▼34, #127 Great Hall ▼10
Reaction cards are still low although two cards made big jumps:
#17 Watchtower ▲61, #42 Tunnel ▼9, #49 Trader ▲63, #55 Horse Traders ▼7, #122 Fool's Gold ▼33, #148 Moat ▲3, #154 Secret Chamber ▲1
Treasure cards are still very low rated:
#8 Horn of Plenty ▲18, #39 Venture ▼30, #41 Bank ▲41, #43 Hoard ▼28, #71 Quarry ▲31, #90 Ill-Gotten-Gains ▼10, #94 Harem ▼32, #102 Cache ▲37, #103 Loan ▼11, #105 Royal Seal ▼6, #108 Contraband ▲18, #122 Fool's Gold ▼33, #125 Philosopher's Stone ▲27, #130 Stash ▲24, #143 Talisman ▼9
Potion cost cards also gained some love:
#16 Vineyard ▲27, #22 Scrying Pool ▲73, #32 Golem ▲54, #34 Apothecary ▼2, #66 University ▲5, #81 Alchemist ▼6, #91 Possession ▲46, #125 Philosopher's Stone ▲27, #153 Familiar ▼35, #157 Transmute ▼7

Attacks were also rated a little bit higher, but nearly all cards with very big changes.
Top 5 Attacks:
#22 Scrying Pool ▲73, #26 Jester ▲13, #31 Margrave ▲63, #52 Goons ▼35, #68 Witch ▲22
Bottom 5 Attacks:
#153 Familiar ▼35, #150 Fortune Teller ▼12, #147 Thief ▲9, #145 Spy ▼49, #129 Saboteur ▲16

Most agreement on the ranking / lowest deviation:
Talisman (#143), Transmute (#157), Feast (#144), Monument (#1), Woodcutter (#151), Worker's Village (#44), Spy (#145), Nomad Camp (#133), Bazaar (#61), Navigator (#149)

Least agreement on the ranking / highest deviation:
Minion (#113), King's Court (#12), Governor (#62), Hunting Party (#60), Jack of all Trades (#126), Black Market (#118), Masquerade (#40), Possession (#91), Tournament (#116) and Ambassador (#84) is again the most controversial card

Favourite expansions:
#1 =0 Cornucopia 60.4 ▼13.1
#2 =0 Prosperity 65.1 ▼3.7
#3 ▲1 Hinterlands 72.3 ▲11.2
#4 ▲2 Alchemy 76.4 ▲13.3
#5 ▼2 Seaside 79.7 ▼2.9
#6 ▼1 Intrigue 87.6 ▼2.7
#7 =0 Base 93.6 ▼3.2
(#8 =0 Promo 118.4 ▼23.0)

3 big changes and I find the change in Alchemy quite surprising.

Thanks for all the contribution. Until December 2012, where we'll see #1 Scout ▲154

For reference, here is the full ranking:

Code: [Select]

#	Card Name		Points	Deviation

1	Monument		34.63	24.84
2	Menagerie		35.65	34.42
3	Fishing Village		40.33	37.81
4	Tactician		41.05	38.29
5	Wharf			41.47	41.65
6	Apprentice		42.20	38.48
7	Bishop			42.98	43.27
8	Horn of Plenty		44.85	41.46
9	Highway			46.33	29.27
10	Steward			46.35	36.36
11	Scheme			47.43	42.91
12	King's Court		47.47	52.38
13	Conspirator		49.07	36.61
14	Salvager		49.18	30.18
15	Border Village		49.25	29.36
16	Vineyard		49.65	45.39
17	Watchtower		49.97	33.27
18	Crossroads		50.38	37.04
19	Hamlet			50.98	38.80
20	Throne Room		51.37	42.42
21	Merchant Ship		52.25	31.97
22	Scrying Pool		52.63	43.03
23	Haggler			52.88	30.02
24	Gardens			53.03	42.70
25	Laboratory		53.20	31.46
26	Jester			53.23	39.46
27	Chapel			53.48	47.50
28	Festival		54.22	30.65
29	Stables			54.52	34.54
30	Grand Market		54.95	36.12
31	Margrave		55.03	32.68
32	Golem			57.35	45.64
33	Silk Road		57.68	39.18
34	Apothecary		57.98	41.40
35	Bridge			57.98	42.25
36	Peddler			58.25	40.53
37	Inn			59.40	33.63
38	Embassy			59.92	44.00
39	Venture			60.38	32.85
40	Masquerade		60.67	54.90
41	Bank			61.05	30.10
42	Tunnel			61.27	48.91
43	Hoard			61.38	29.71
44	Worker's Village	61.40	26.49
45	Warehouse		62.07	39.47
46	Caravan			62.57	40.35
47	Island			63.25	38.46
48	Embargo			63.38	44.93
49	Trader			63.68	32.47
50	Upgrade			64.13	35.64
51	Remake			64.28	43.09
52	Goons			64.30	49.02
53	Courtyard		65.10	39.01
54	Fairgrounds		65.32	46.13
55	Horse Traders		65.50	31.02
56	Duke			65.62	40.31
57	Vault			65.90	41.92
58	Library			66.58	28.83
59	Cartographer		66.65	39.99
60	Hunting Party		66.75	52.90
61	Bazaar			67.40	28.16
62	Governor		67.90	52.61
63	Native Village		68.63	50.64
64	City			69.73	41.40
65	Market			70.90	33.18
66	University		71.18	39.90
67	Nobles			71.57	35.96
68	Witch			71.62	44.67
69	Mountebank		72.03	43.56
70	Farming Village		73.63	31.28
71	Quarry			73.85	37.49
72	Forge			74.52	37.83
73	Council Room		75.12	28.96
74	Moneylender		75.12	32.55
75	Militia			75.15	39.18
76	Lighthouse		75.20	32.62
77	Cutpurse		75.50	35.85
78	Trading Post		76.30	34.37
79	Haven			76.42	34.88
80	Mining Village		76.72	34.30
81	Alchemist		77.60	46.31
82	Baron			78.30	42.57
83	Rabble			79.03	32.10
84	Ambassador		79.12	57.36
85	Young Witch		79.38	42.79
86	Oracle			80.42	42.34
87	Wishing Well		80.95	42.20
88	Ironworks		82.23	33.23
89	Harvest			83.25	44.03
90	Ill-Gotten Gains	83.77	49.96
91	Possession		84.05	54.91
92	Torturer		84.07	45.55
93	Smithy			84.65	35.64
94	Harem			85.30	29.54
95	Village			85.30	33.72
96	Spice Merchant		85.78	35.24
97	Expand			86.60	34.85
98	Trade Route		86.67	29.15
99	Cellar			86.73	44.29
100	Tribute			86.98	44.23
101	Noble Brigand		87.10	44.40
102	Cache			87.22	35.76
103	Loan			87.88	37.36
104	Mint			87.95	33.97
105	Royal Seal		90.23	35.87
106	Treasury		90.92	30.01
107	Ghost Ship		91.33	49.30
108	Contraband		91.63	44.25
109	Sea Hag			92.57	50.51
110	Pawn			92.80	37.46
111	Mandarin		93.48	39.35
112	Oasis			93.53	28.46
113	Minion			94.13	52.25
114	Shanty Town		94.22	37.62
115	Pirate Ship		94.83	48.58
116	Tournament		95.50	56.95
117	Farmland		95.60	38.51
118	Black Market		95.65	54.70
119	Lookout			95.68	38.90
120	Outpost			95.75	46.88
121	Mine			97.35	36.04
122	Remodel			97.50	34.42
123	Fool's Gold		97.50	52.17
124	Swindler		98.20	50.22
125	Philosopher's Stone	99.78	45.29
126	Jack of all Trades	100.92	53.10
127	Great Hall		101.95	28.37
128	Bureaucrat		103.33	31.23
129	Saboteur		103.47	50.28
130	Stash			103.75	44.21
131	Explorer		103.92	36.18
132	Counting House		104.03	47.34
133	Nomad Camp		107.17	27.95
134	Herbalist		107.42	28.91
135	Workshop		107.43	35.70
136	Develop			108.87	37.62
137	Chancellor		109.40	37.73
138	Coppersmith		109.77	38.01
139	Adventurer		110.17	40.15
140	Walled Village		110.50	29.27
141	Smugglers		111.73	39.83
142	Envoy			111.83	36.66
143	Talisman		113.25	20.45
144	Feast			114.12	24.74
145	Spy			115.23	26.76
146	Pearl Diver		115.57	32.39
147	Thief			118.12	30.32
148	Moat			119.33	28.61
149	Navigator		120.23	28.24
150	Fortune Teller		120.60	32.75
151	Woodcutter		121.83	25.23
152	Duchess			122.77	32.44
153	Familiar		123.78	38.96
154	Secret Chamber		127.65	29.06
155	Scout			128.30	29.17
156	Treasure Map		129.78	29.19
157	Transmute		129.93	24.13

114

Dominion General Discussion / The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: Potion cost cards

« on: August 13, 2012, 09:19:24 am »

The Best Potion Cost Cards

	#10 =0 Transmute (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 9.89 ▲0.09 / Median: 10 =0 / Mode: 10 =0 / Standard Deviation: 0.3 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #9 (7x) / Lowest Rank(s): #10 (59x) While the last time only one of you not voted it last, this time there are 7 players who did so. But still this is one of the most obvious placements of all lists. Why is that card so bad? You need trashers early in the game. For Transmute you need to open Potion. Then you buy a Transmute in turn 3/4 and have your Transmute somewhere between turn 5 and 8! That is really slow. And what's the benefit? You can trash Estates to get Gold, ok that's really nice, but only for the 3 starting Estates and you have to draw them together. If you trash Copper you get another Transmute! Why does anyone want that? And trash actions to get Duchies could only ne nice in the end game, but still make no big difference. You can also trash a Curse, but you won't get anything for that. For a pure trasher it's too slow, for a trash-for-benefit card it's too weak. When do you really want to buy one? Yes, it's better with dual-type cards like Great Hall (for Duchy and Gold) and you can heavily trash for Gold->Transmute->Duchy and try to three-pile, but I think that's just too slow in the most cases. I think the only reason when you want to buy it, if you want that Potion anyway and you desperately need a trasher anyway.
	#9 =0 Philosopher's Stone (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 8.56 ▲0.09 / Median: 9 =0 / Mode: 9 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.5 ▼0.4 Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #3 (1x), #4 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #10 (4x) 4 of the remaining 7 last places has Philosopher's Stone. But this time it has some pretty high votes too with one even being second. It was 47 times voted on #9. With Philosopher's Stone on the board and it is the only Potion cost card, it's often ignorable. And it anti-synergizes with all other Potion cards except for Familiar (with University you get a lot of cards, but mostly to build an engine). With a relative cost of ~5.5$ it's in direct comparism to Gold. This means you need 20 cards and no drawing power. With no +Buy you need 10 turns to achieve this. This is often way too late. This card gets better and better the longer the game lasts. But you want high value treasures early in the game. The only reason going for it, may be in Curse-heavy games where it's obvious you get big decks. Also it has this nice synergy with Herbalist.
	#8 =0 Possession (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 6.67 ▲0.21 / Median: 7 ▲0.5 / Mode: 8 =0 / Standard Deviation: 2.1 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #1 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #9 (2x), #10 (1x) Possession shares the highest deviation in this list with another card. It was voted 3 times first, but also last once. It was voted on #8 23 times. Possession seems so powerful, but in reality it isn't. It's just frustating. There's much to say about Possession, but I keep it short. First you have to realize, that it's really the most expensive kingdom card in the game so far as it costs ~8.5$. So, if you want it and it is the only Potion cost card on the board, don't open Potion. And the cost also means it's in direct competition with Province. When you've bought a Possession you mostly could have bought a Province instead. Its high cost makes it stronger in Colony games. When does it shine? Especially in 2-player games when your opponent opens with strong cards like Ambassador or Masquerade, you may look after an opportunity to send good cards (of course especially Provinces and Colonies) to you. With King's Court Possession is just madness. With Council Room or especially Governor you can boost the turn you get from your opponent and may even boost your own turn afterwards if he has them too. When your opponent has strong trash-for-benefit cards like Apprentice, you can even trash Provinces or Colonies to get the benefit. And if he has cards with choices like Envoy you either get stronger benefit or can mess his deck up. And if he has duration cards you can also profit from them. It may seem now that there are many situations where Possession is good. That's true, but still often ignorable because of its slowness.
	#7 ▼4 Alchemist (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 6.03 ▼2.33 / Median: 6 ▼3 / Mode: 5 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 1.8 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #1 (2x), #2 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #8 (8x), #9 (1x), #10 (1x) Alchemist made the biggest change in this list. Losing 4 ranks in a 10 card list is big. It's another card which has first and last places. It was voted 17 times on #5. Alchemist is strictly superior to Laboratory and if you have a lot of Alchemists to draw most of your deck, you're almost unstoppable. But how do you get there? First you have to buy Potion and then you have to spend the next turns to buy Alchemists. That's really slow and with no source of +Buy, you aren't able to build up your economy at the same time. Alchemists are therefore more powerful in Colony games, but often weak in Province games unless you have any supporting card. That's the reason Herbalist was added in Alchemy. With Herbalist you're able to put your Potion back and get the needed +Buy. Cards that profit from big hand sizes like Bank (if you have the +Buys) are great. Outpost also synergizes perfectly. Beware of opponents playing with Minions or Masquerade.
	#6 ▲1 University (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 5.94 ▲0.49 / Median: 6 =0 / Mode: 6 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.8 ▼0.4 Highest Rank(s): #2 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #8 (9x), #9 (2x) It was very close, but University is better than Alchemist. It has no first and no last place, but still a relatively high deviation. It was voted 15 times on #6. The effect of University is by far not bad. Unlike Workshop you don't need to spend an action to gain a card and you don't get weak $4 cards, you get strong $5 ones. And you are able to play all of them because of the +2 Actions. But, it has the same problem as all Potion cards have. It's very slow. If you go for University and open Potion/X you lose at least one reshuffle to get the critical $5 cards (and you need to get a Potion only to get strong non-Potion cards, what?). You you have to be sure to have enough time to catch up and this really depends if the cards on the board are really so strong that you want as many as you can get. So, it's very board dependant and is really nice with Library, Wharf, City, Torturer and any money producing cantrip. It has only few combination potential with other Potion cards. University/Scrying Pool looks nice but is even slower. Only University/Vineyard is really strong. Beware of 3-piling with University.
	#5 =0 Golem (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 5.35 ▼0.43 / Median: 5 =0 / Mode: 5 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.8 ▲0.1 Highest Rank(s): #2 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #8 (7x), #9 (2x) Golem hasn't a first nor a last place too and the same high deviation as University. It stays on the same place, but loses some points. It was voted 14 times on #5. It is #4 in the unweighted ranking. Like Throne Room, Golem's strength heavily depends from the action cards on the board, what makes it hard to rate. But it hasn't the drawback of Throne Room or King's Court to have at least one action card in hand. You can use Golem either in action-heavy decks and may be able to play more of them in your turns even with Curses or Victory cards in your deck. It acts also as a pseudo-village. Just beware of Golem+Trasher because you have to play the drawn action card and you don't want to risk trashing a Province. Or you use it to play your only 1-2 action cards in your deck everytime you play Golem. Counting House+X Golems guarantees to draw all Coppers in hand. Golem+Scheme+strong attack is also very nice because you can play your attack every turn. Even with those cards on board Golem is very expensive with a cost of ~6.5$. It's very risky to open Potion with Golem being the only Potion card on the board.
	#4 ▲2 Apothecary (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 4.86 ▲0.41 / Median: 5 ▲0.5 / Mode: 4 ▲4 / Standard Deviation: 2.1 =0 Highest Rank(s): #1 (1x), #2 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #9 (5x), #10 (1x) Apothecary is the best rated card with a last rank and it shares the place for the highest deviation with Possession. It is the winner of this list for going up 2 ranks and is on #5 in the unweighted ranking. It was voted 18 times on #4. Apothecary seems very weak at first glance because of its profit of Copper. But unlike many other Potion cards it's very strong at the start at getting very strong cards very early in the game. Buy a early Forge and with your next big hand you can get rid of all your Coppers; or get an early King's Court or Goons. Later in the game it's almost never a bad card, because it's at least a cantrip and even if it draws no cards you can set the order of your next cards (basically a Cartographer without the ability to discard). It's also strong if you build your strategy around Copper. Apothecary/Coppersmith can easily net you Provinces. The problem still is, it leaves the junk on top of the deck. With Native Village you can use this as an advantage. With 8 Coppers, a few Apothecaries and at least one Native Village you are able to buy a Province each turn. With no strong $6+ card or no synergizing card on the board, Apothecary often is not worth a Potion.
	#3 ▲1 Vineyard (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 3.95 ▲0.85 / Median: 4 ▲0.5 / Mode: 3 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 1.7 ▼0.2 Highest Rank(s): #1 (1x), #2 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #8 (3x) Vineyard is the first card that has no last or second last rank. It is this time nearly one point better (the best improvement in this list) and therefore in the Top 3 this time. It was voted third 26 times. Vineyard is another card that heavily depends from the action cards on the board. You definitely want +Buy or at least gainers to get enough action cards to make it worthwhile. +Buy is also better in getting Vineyards, because you don't waant to "waste" $6P for a Vineyard. Beside +Buy and gainers, you definitely need Villages or many catrips to be able to play all of your actions, cheap cantrips like Hamlet or Pawn are very good. Like all alternative VP strategies, you can totally ignore Provinces what gives you more time getting more action cards. Unlike all other Potion cards you can delay buying the Potion until mid-game when you already have a good running engine. It has nearly no practical limit in the max VP you can get from one Vineyard what can make it really strong and often a clearly superior strategy over Provinces.
	#2 =0 Scrying Pool (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 2.45 ▲0.45 / Median: 2 ▲1 / Mode: 2 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.5 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #1 (8x) / Lowest Rank(s): #6 (3x), #7 (1x), #8 (1x) Scrying Pool has 8 first places and still a big lead over all previous cards. It was voted second 34 times. Attacks that mess up the top of your deck are often weak. Scrying Pool is different because of its drawing power. It may draw your whole deck. Buy you mustn't have a lot of treasure cards in your deck. Its power is therefore dependant of trashers on the board and action cards that net you money. Secret Chamber/Vault is especially nice, just discard all action cards and keep one Scrying Pool in hand to get a lot of money and draw them again with your Scrying Pool. Attacks that tend to be swingy because of the top card of your opponent, like Jester or Swindler, are gaining value with Scrying Pools, because you can choose which card to keep on top. If those cards are not in the supply, Scrying Pool is just a Spy (which draws sometimes an additional card) and not worth the Potion.
	#1 =0 Familiar (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 1.28 ▲0.12 / Median: 1 =0 / Mode: 1 =0 / Standard Deviation: 0.8 ▲0.3 Highest Rank(s): #1 (51x) / Lowest Rank(s): #4 (2x), #5 (1x) 51 first places and 11 second places speaks for itself, no doubt about Familiar's rank. Cursing attacks are the strongest cards in the game. A cantrip curser is just ridiculous strong. If you haven't a plan for defense to get no curses at all or easily deal with them (which is very rare), you can't skip over Familiar. What makes Familiar one of the most hated cards is its cost. If one player doesn't get $3P while the other hits it in turn 3/4, the player who hasn't gained the Familiar is in a clear disadvantage.

To the favourite cards

115

Dominion General Discussion / The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $6+ cards

« on: August 10, 2012, 07:24:15 am »

The Best $6+ Cards

Link to the win rates on Councilroom
Link 2 to the win rates on Councilroom

	#14 =0 Adventurer (Base) Weighted Average: 13.86 ▼0.05 / Median: 14 =0 / Mode: 14 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.1 ▼0.5 Highest Rank(s): #9 (2x), #10 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #14 (59x) Again a nearly "perfect" score for the Adventurer. Only 7 times it wasn't voted last. By all means Adventurer is no bad card. But all $6+ cards have the problem competing with Gold. And Adventurer is only superior to Gold in decks without Copper and even $5 cards like Harvest or Merchant Ship (can) give you $4 easily. The filter effect is nice and finds still 2 treasure cards if you are already heavily greening what is especially good with Platinum. But the same does Venture (you see the name sililarity?) without spending an action and for one coin less. So, most of the time, Adventurer is just overpriced, but can be nice in a chapelled deck with no better alternatives.
	#13 =0 Farmland (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 11.58 ▼0.11 / Median: 12 =0 / Mode: 13 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.9 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #6 (1x), #7 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #13 (27x), #14 (2x) Over one third voted it second last, but it still got 11 votes above #10. That's similar to last time. Farmland is definitely no power card, but still should be considered as a good buy in a handful of situations. At first it seems weak as it is more expensive and gives less VP than a Duchy. But the on-buy remodel effect can be very handy. You really have to calculate the benefits. If you have $7, you can remodel a Copper into an Estate, but then it would be better to buy a Duchy for the same VP. For $8 you could buy a Province directly, but if you're behind and there are only few Provinces left, just remodel a Silver into a Duchy for 5VP. For $9 Farmland is like an extra buy, if you remodel a Gold into a Province for 8VP total. In the middle game you even may prefer Farmland over Duchy, because with a Farmland in hand you only need $6 and a Farmland in hand to get a Province. Especially nice is Farmland in cursing games. For $6 and a Curse in hand, Farmland is worth 4VP. There are even more nice situations like getting 2 victory cards in Silk Road games or trashing a Potion to get a Gold.
	#12 ▼1 Harem (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 9.91 ▼0.09 / Median: 10 =0 / Mode: 12 ▼2 / Standard Deviation: 2.5 ▼0.2 Highest Rank(s): #4 (1x), #6 (8x) / Lowest Rank(s): #13 (9x), #14 (2x) The places #9-#12 were really close, like last time. This time Harem is the worst of these 4 cards. It has 2 last ranks and a fourth rank. It was 12 times on #12. Like all cards in this list, Harem is by far no bad card, but it's another card that's not really game dominating. Especially in Big Money games where you rarely need more than 1-2 Golds you can pick easily pick up Harems in the mid-game if you still fall short for Provinces. This gives you -1VP in comparism to Duchies, but you will see this Harem still 2-3 times to make it worth a buy and give you enough money to win the Provinces split or make the 2VP difference to win this game. Harem is also good in Silk Road games and in combination with Hoard (don't buy Gold, just buy a Hoard and Harems), Mine (mine early Silvers into Harems) and Mints (extra money and VP is nice). In Colony games, Harem is really ignorable because neither Silver nor 2VP are worth a buy.
	#11 ▼2 Expand (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 9.78 ▼0.72 / Median: 9 ▼0.5 / Mode: 12 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 2.5 ▲0.1 Highest Rank(s): #4 (1x), #5 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #13 (7x) Expand is 0.13 points better than Harem and lost 2 ranks, so it isn't the best of these 4 cards anymore. It was 13 times on #12. Expand is a mix between Remodel and Mine, but is another card that has drawback of being too expensive. So if you want to trash treasure cards in the late game for victory cards, Remodel manages that too for $3 less. If you want trash treasure cards for better treasure cards, Mine does it even better for $2 less. Its best use is to trash victory cards for better ones. This is especially nice in Colony games. With 2 Expands you can start greening earlier and even buy Provinces to expand them later into Colonies for a benefit of 4VP. And if you have a good drawing engine this works even better. You only need one copy to expand a card into a (better) victory card each turn. And expanding Peddlers into Colonies may be its strongest combo.
	#10 =0 Forge (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 9.68 ▼0.38 / Median: 10 ▼1 / Mode: 11 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 3.0 ▼0.3 Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #4 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #13 (7x), #14 (2x) Forge is the card with the highest deviation in this list. It stays on the same rank, but still loses points. Forge is really hard to evaluate because it heavily depends from the cards on the board. Forge is like a much better Chapel because you can quickly trash many cards out of your deck and get an additional benefit, but has 3 big drawbacks. 1.) It's too expensive. If you get to $7 you mostly can't heavily trash anymore because you have too many cards in hand you want to keep. But with cards on the board that can give you $7 early like Baron, Apothecary or Tactician, Forge is really strong. 2.) Forge needs big hand sizes to be really worth it (comparing to other trash-for-benefit cards). Cards like Apothecary or Tactician accomplish this too, but if you have good draw engines, a Forge may also worth a buy to trash a few cards for a late Province. But with discarding attacks Forge is weak. 3.) The term "exactly" and the obligatory gain makes Forge swingy. With a Forge in hand heavy calculating goes on. If you just want to get rid of cards like Coppers or Estates you often have to gain at least a Copper or an Estate or another card you basically don't want. Only if you manage to reach $10 where no card exists you get rid of those. And if you want to forge a Province you often draw the wrong cards (e.g. only treasure cards). Summary: You have to really consider if Forge is a trap or worth a buy, like in Torturer engines where you can simply take all Curses in hand to forge them right away.
	#9 ▲3 Fairgrounds (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 9.21 ▲0.72 / Median: 10 =0 / Mode: 10 =0 / Standard Deviation: 2.6 ▼0.4 Highest Rank(s): #3 (2x), #4 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #13 (6x) Fairgrounds is the big winner of those 4 cards. It's still very close and in the next lists, they could easily change positions again. It was 12 times on #12. Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province and Fairgrounds and you have already 7 different cards. With 3 more cards, every Fairgrounds is already worth more than a Duchy. Especially in cursing and Potion games, this is easy to accomplish. This is still making it a mediocre card. But in games where you have many cantrips and a good source of buy, Fairgrounds can be really strong. Just buy 15 of the 19 different cards and every Fairgrounds is worth 6VP like a Province and this for $2 less. And with Black Market on the board it is even easier to get 15 or even 20 different cards and may be the board determining combo.
	#8 ▼1 Bank (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 8.38 ▼0.54 / Median: 9 ▼2 / Mode: 9 ▼2 / Standard Deviation: 2.4 ▲0.3 Highest Rank(s): #3 (1x), #4 (8x) / Lowest Rank(s): #11 (11x), #12 (2x) Bank loses one rank, but gains a little bit of consensus. It's the card with the "best worse" rank so far. Bank's value really depends from the board. Bank is dependant from big hand sizes and +Buy. On an average board, especially Big Money games, Bank is mostly worse than Gold. While 3 Golds allow you to buy a Province, 3 Banks don't. So it can really be a trap card. But with a drawer it can be also better than Gold (e.g. 4 Copper + Bank instead of 4 Copper + Gold). And with the addition of +Buy it can get incredibly powerful. Margrave/Wharf Big Money with Bank is great. And in combination with Tactician or Apothecary+Herbalist(or another +Buy) Bank is really powerful. In Colony games Platinum is still stronger in almost every situation, but still Bank is no bad card in Colony games and just depends of above mentioned scenarios.
	#7 ▲1 Nobles (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 7.63 ▲0.63 / Median: 7 ▲2 / Mode: 7 ▲4 / Standard Deviation: 2.7 ▲0.5 Highest Rank(s): #1 (1x), #3 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #13 (4x) Nobles has the second highest deviation in this list with a range from first to second last. It's the first card in this list that was voted first. Although it has 4 votes in second last, it is better than last time and managed to beat Bank. I like to call Nobles another trap card what the high deviation shows me too. Yes, Nobles is a self working combo when you use it for +2 Actions and +3 Cards alternating. But 2 Nobles still give you only a +1 Card Bonus what one Laboratory gives you too. So a Big Money player is going to outrace a "Nobles-Engine" player, it's just to slow. You should rather see it as a Village or a Smity with two extra VP just how you need it. Playing Big Money with Nobles instead of Smithy is nice, you just need to get to $6 early. And if you fall short for another Province you can easily buy another Nobles because two Nobles don't collide, you only can draw them dead. Still it is in direct competition with Gold. But after 1-2 Golds you can often easily switch to Nobles. However, in Colony games the 2VP from Nobles are ignorable. Only buy it in those games if you really really need the +2 Actions or the Smithy effect.
	#6 ▼2 Hoard (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 6.75 ▼0.59 / Median: 7 ▼2 / Mode: 6 ▼2 / Standard Deviation: 2.2 ▲0.4 Highest Rank(s): #4 (8x) / Lowest Rank(s): #11 (3x), #12 (1x), #14 (1x) Hoard is the best rated card in this list which was voted last at least once. On the other side its best rank is only on #4, but it was voted there 8 times. It loses two ranks and was voted on #6 12 times. Hoard is really good if you play it right. If you use it to buy a Victory card every time you have it in hand, just to get a Gold, this is maybe not the right play because then your money average approximates to ~1.5$ what isn't enough for a Province and is even worse in Colony games. But it's great if you want go green anyway. Your deck doesn't clog up too much and you may keep buying Provinces or at least Duchies until the end of the game. So if you pick up a Hoard after your first Gold in Big Money games you can go green pretty early. Hoard is also good if you use the free Gold for trash-for-benefit cards, especially Apprentice. Just trash a Gold with Apprentice, buy a Province with a Hoard in hand to get another Gold and do the same in the next turns over and over. Hoard works also nice with dual-type victory cards especially Harem and maybe Great Hall. With Nobles it really depends if you not rather buy directly that Gold.
	#5 ▲1 Peddler (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 6.22 ▲0.35 / Median: 6 =0 / Mode: 5 =0 / Standard Deviation: 2.5 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #3 (5x) / Lowest Rank(s): #12 (2x), #13 (2x) Peddler is one rank better with only few changes in your votes. It was voted on #5 14 times. Peddler basically don't belongs in this list similarly to Duchess, because you almost never spend $8 for a Peddler as its effect is only worth ~$4. So if you spend $6 or $8 for a Peddler, this was mostly a waste. But in games with many +Buys like Grand Markets, Worker's Villages or Hamlets, you can easily pick up Peddlers for $0 or $2. Peddlers are also good in combination with duration cards as they count for price reduction in both turns. But it is in this list and it is so high in this list because it really shines in combination with trash-for-benefit cards and then its cost shows to advantage, e.g. - like above mentioned - expanding it into a Colony. As it is the only card for $8, its also worth mentioning how it works with Swindler. As long as there are still Peddlers left, there is the danger that it get swindled. But when the Peddlers are gone, you have a great defense against Swindler. Another quick note: Beware of three-piling in Peddler games with +Buy.
	#4 ▲1 Border Village (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 5.22 ▲1.19 / Median: 5 ▲1 / Mode: 4 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 2.2 ▼0.2 Highest Rank(s): #1 (1x), #2 (1x), #3 (6x) / Lowest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #12 (2x) Border Village is a Hinterlands card that made the biggest jump in this list - not in ranks, but in points. It's the second card with a first place and was voted 23 times on #4. For every good engine Border Village is great. Especially if you have $6 and there are strong terminal $5 cards on the board and you want the $5 card anyway, you get a Village for free. Do this a few times and you basically are guaranteed to have a Village in each hand. The uses are similar to when you want many Fishing Villages. Border Village + Torturer is maybe the strongest combo. Still this is in strong competition with Gold. It's really a trap in cases where you want a Big Money-like strategy. Especially with the first $6 you often rather buy a Gold than a Border Village in most cases. Border Village also very good on boards with trash-for-benefit cards because for every $6 you have you can buy a Border Village and the trash-for-benefit card. Later you can trash the Border Village for 4VP with Bishop, 6 cards with Apprentice, 6$ with Salvager or remodel it into a Province, etc. And in Gardens games Border Village is just another extra card for you.
	#3 ▼1 Grand Market (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 3.59 ▼1.44 / Median: 3 ▼1 / Mode: 3 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 1.7 ▼0.9 Highest Rank(s): #1 (1x), #2 (7x) / Lowest Rank(s): #7 (3x), #11 (2x) Grand Market is on the other side the biggest loser. It loses almost 1.5 points. It has also only one first place, but was voted second 7 times. And there are these two big outliers on #11. I was voted third by two third of you. Grand Market is basically a $8-$9 card and is the dominating card on many boards. Often it's basically a race to get the first Grand Market faster. And with the first Grand Market you can easily buy more of them. You achieve that at best with Vault or any other Source of virtual coins like Baron or Horse Traders and of course with Gold. Grand Markets are very powerful, but still there are situations where it's just too slow to pick them up because of its restriction and is really a trap card. Other strategies are just quicker. They are great in nearly all decks, but Grand Markets really shine in thin decks where you can chain them. Then they are even better than Platinum! The same applies in combination with King's Court. But in Colony games with heavy cursing or other thick decks, Platinum is still the stronger card.
	#2 ▲1 Goons (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 1.70 ▲0.79 / Median: 2 ▲0.5 / Mode: 2 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 1.6 ▼0.3 Highest Rank(s): #1 (22x) / Lowest Rank(s): #4 (1x), #5 (1x), #13 (1x) Goons is now the second best card in this list. One third of you ranked it first and over a half of you ranked it second. No real doubt here, beside the one player that ranked it second last!? Goons is a strong and board dominating card nearly every time. Yes, it gets quadratically (n^2+n) better the more Goons you can play per turn, so it gets big profit from good drawing engines, but is still great if played alone because of the discarding attack. It's also the only attack card that is so strong that it needs to cost more than $5. So you have a Militia that nets you VP for cards you would have bought either way, great! In the later game you can pick additional VP for Coppers (and with a Watchtower in hand you can even immediately trash them). And if you have that needed actions and set up a really nice engine with Goons and manage to play 3 or more Goons per turn, it is so insane powerful: You can achieve easily 100 or more points. Also a Goons engine has more time for setup as you don't necessarily need to buy Provinces/Colonies. For clarification: King's Court + Goons doesn't triple the VP gaining effect, but you still get the extra money and buys you can use for more VP, so it isn't a so bad combo after all (especially if you have another King's Court and a Masquerade in hand )
	#1 =0 King's Court (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 1.48 ▲0.26 / Median: 1 =0 / Mode: 1 =0 / Standard Deviation: 0.7 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #1 (41x) / Lowest Rank(s): #3 (1x), #4 (2x) Only three of you didn't vote it either first or second and nearly two third of you voted it first. So, King's Court remains the best $6+ card with less doubt than before. Just like Goons and Grand Market, when King's Court is on the board, there's nearly every time a race who gets it first with cards like Tactician, Baron or Apothecary. Throne Room does nothing for itself and just doubles the action, but still is often skippable, but tripling an action seems like no big difference, but it is a huge boost. If you triple a Curser the game is basically over; if you triple a card drawer like Wharf is really crazy; and with Possession or Saboteur it could get really mad. With King's Court you also need no Village, just triple a Cantrip for a huge benefit. And with King's Courting a King's Court it gets even crazier... Maybe only on Province boards that are already very quick without King's Court or have only terminal non-curse-givers you may skip it. PS: For everyone who has the same problems as I, calculating the actions you may play three times: For every King's Court you play on a King's Court you can play 2 more actions three times - or if you prefer a formula: 2n-1

To the Potion cost cards

116

GokoDom / IsoDom 5: Quarterfinals Thread

« on: August 09, 2012, 04:13:33 pm »

I hope you're fine with me starting a new thread, because I don't know where to put these games otherwise.

You can watch the match-up here: and/or read the comments below.

Game 1:
Qvist 15 - 6 SpajderDzerusalem
This was a straight-forward IGG game with help from Militia. As first player Militia is great for me. I play mine in turn 3, buy another one in turn 4 and play another one in turn 5. He plays his in turn 5 the first time - obviously missed the reshuffle - and can play it on turn 8 again. With this luck I get a big IGG lead. I'm not so sure about his Trading Post buy, IGG were more important here. So I can win the split 8-2 and therefore the game.

Game 2:
SpajderDzerusalem 21 - 32 Qvist
The most interesting game IMO. That's a Torturer game with Ambassador, Scheme and Hamlet. I wasn't so sure why he opened Hamlet/Silver, but that was the clear signal to open Ambassador/Scheme and later transition into Hamlets and Torturers. But can get a lucky Mint and later two early Provinces with the Torturer, Hamlet and Curse piles getting smaller and smaller. But my engine got rolling. And with my Ambassador and Torturer I can heavily curse him, what hurts his small deck with not so much economy. I then buy Duchies and hope for some Provinces. And... yeah, there was also Duke on the board... I bought only one. In the end I could catch up, my patience paid off.

Game 3:
SpajderDzerusalem 40 - 38 Qvist
This was an obvious Scheme/Sea Hag game, but with a 5/2 split. As first player he has a huge advantage and I had a lot of $2 hands. But still the curse split ws 5/5, but he had more money. We then transitioned into Venture/Tunnel, but he also got a Forge and that Forge gave him the deciding Province although I could heavily catch up, but lost with 2 points.

Game 4:
Qvist 51 - 34 SpajderDzerusalem
I thought a lot here in the beginning, either trying something with Alchemists or some engine with Jester (but the only draw card was Courtyard) or Merchant Ship Big Money. But I decided to wait and react what he did and opened Horse Traders/Silver. I got an early Gold and decided to go for a straight-forward Merchant Ship Big Money game. And that was the right decision. I got some lucky $8 hands and could easily run out the Duchies later so that there weren't enought points left for him to catch up. A few turns later I could buy the last Province.

Edit: added CR logs

117

Dominion General Discussion / The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards

« on: July 30, 2012, 03:46:31 pm »

The Best $5 Cards - Part 1/4

Link to the win rates on Councilroom
Link 2 to the win rates on Councilroom

	#48 =0 Counting House (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 46.57 ▼0.79 / Median: 48 ▼2 / Mode: 48 ▼2 / Standard Deviation: 2.8 ▼0.3 Highest Rank(s): #33 (1x), #38 (1x), #40 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (34x) Counting House is the card with the second lowest deviation. With only two times above #40, there's no doubt, this is the worst card of all $5s. More than the half of all players rated it last. All $5s are really strong cards, but some shine more often than other ones. Counting House is one that shines very rarely. The best use may be countering Mountebank. With massive Copper in your deck, you have a high probability to get many Coppers in hand even if you're only half through the deck. Then you can easily buy a Province or a Colony with the use of this card only. It also has some really nice synergies with Coppersmith (make all Coppers worth a Silver) and Chancellor (discard all Coppers and put them in hand). But then you need a village to play Counting House and one of these cards in one turn and the probabilities to draw these 3 cards together are low in a deck full of Copper. The better alternative and only real combo is Golem. Buy many Golems and only one Counting House. The Golem will always find the Counting House and discard all other cards. With a Golem in hand, you are now guaranteed to get all Coppers. Instead you can buy many Warehouses, cycle through your deck discarding all cards right before the reshuffle and then play your Counting House. It has some other nice synergies, but are very difficult to pull off. For a Bank you need additional buys to be worth it. With no real supporters, this card is mostly not worth the effort.
	#47 ▼2 Saboteur (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 43.70 ▼0.61 / Median: 45 ▼1 / Mode: 45 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 7.5 ▼2.2 Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #16 (1x), #23 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (6x) Saboteur has a 2.9 point lead over Counting House. It didn't lose many points, but nevertheless it loses 2 ranks and is now second last. It was 12 times on #45 and has some really big outliers from newer players, because the unweighted ranking lists it at #45. This may also be the reason for the big drop in the deviation. Saboteur is the worst $5 attack. Why? There are similar reasons like Thief is bad. It trashes cards from your opponents deck without immediate benefit to you, so it's only destructive. And if you aren't able to play Saboteur in each turn at least one time, your opponent can catch up easily when he just continues and ignores it or re-buys the trashed card if it was essential. But, on the other side, it can lead to big outbursts if you play 1-2 Saboteurs each turn or if you can even play King's Court with it. In games with no mats and chips you are then able to trash the whole deck and all points from your opponent and can easily finish and win. But these cases are so rare, Saboteur is still a bad card for itself.
	#46 ▲1 Stash (Promo) Weighted Average: 43.29 ▲0.89 / Median: 44 ▲2 / Mode: 45 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 4.7 ▼1.0 Highest Rank(s): #24 (1x), #30 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (5x) Stash is this time nearly one point better, but still in the bottom 3. The deviation is really low as it was above #30 only one time and 5 times last. In the unweighted ranking it is one rank lower. You need 4 Stashes to get a Province after the reshuffle for sure and in Colony games it's almost useless. But a sure Province that you can get only after a reshuffle needs you to trigger the reshuffle as often as possible. This means you need supporter cards too. The most obvious ones are Golem (with max. one other action) or a few Chancellors, but sifters or other good cyclers can work too. But if the cyclers are good, you probably want more of them and Stashes are losing their value. In all other cases, you probably find stronger cards than Stash, although if you have $5 and want a Silver anyway, you can pick up a Stash unhesitatingly most of the times.
	#45 ▲1 Explorer (Seaside) Weighted Average: 42.55 ▲1.23 / Median: 43 ▲2 / Mode: 42 ▲5 / Standard Deviation: 3.8 ▼0.5 Highest Rank(s): #29 (1x), #36 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (5x) Explorer even went up more than one point. Its deviation is still very low (with only one outlier), although it lost a little bit of consensus. In the unweighted ranking it is one rank lower. The problem with Explorer is: When you already have 2-3 Provinces and you have $5, you want a Duchy most of the times. When you have one or none, it only nets you a Silver in hand most of the times and then there are still other cards that are better getting you Provinces than just a Silver-generating machine. If you compare it to Jack of All Trades, it's better in the Silver-getting, but just worse on all the other parts. So, it's pretty decent with alternate Victory cards and you want it in thin decks where you can draw it with a Province with high probability. Explorer/Chapel is therefore a #70 ▼5 opening. And I forgot to mention, it's nearly useless in Colony games.
	#44 ▼1 Contraband (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 42.34 ▼0.92 / Median: 43 ▼0.5 / Mode: 44 ▲4 / Standard Deviation: 3.9 ▲2.2 Highest Rank(s): #28 (1x), #33 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (8x), #48 (1x) Contraband dropped nearly one point and one rank, but gained a lot of consensus. It was last only once, but on the other side 8 times on #47. The next treasure card in this list. Contraband can be very trappy. Buying it can be a nice early Gold and the +Buy is very important for finding a substitution for the prohibited card. If there are many good cards on the board and you want Gold and a card with +Buy anyway this can be very good. But most of the times you embargo yourself. And in the late game this is a dead card because everybody knows you want that Province. If you buy it, buy only one, because two or more can really shut you down. And beware of Venture + Contraband!
	#43 ▲1 Cache (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 41.13 ▲1.42 / Median: 42 ▲2 / Mode: 45 =0 / Standard Deviation: 5.0 ▲0.4 Highest Rank(s): #18 (1x), #30 (1x), #33 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (2x), #48 (1x) With a really big outlier, Cache is still very consistent in the ranks. It has a solid lead of over 1 point over Contraband now. The third treasure card already in this list. Cache performs differently in different kind of decks. In engine decks with few money (Scrying Pool etc) it's just horrible. In Big Money decks, it's most of the time superior than just a Silver (like Stash, see above). But it only shines in big decks (Gardens) with many green cards (Silk Road), simply said in decks where Copper isn't a so bad card after all. Also nice is Cache in combination with Trader for a Gold and 2 Silvers for only $5. And Cache is like Silver not very good in Colony games.
	#42 ▼1 Mine (Base) Weighted Average: 40.66 ▼1.00 / Median: 41 ▼1 / Mode: 42 =0 / Standard Deviation: 6.2 ▲0.1 Highest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #23 (1x), #29 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (6x), #48 (1x) With exactly one point less than last time, Mine is the next card in this list. This time it has its first last place. It has one really big outlier and would be on #41 in the unweighted ranking. Mine is one of the first trash-for-benefit card you probably got to know. It has the disadvantage of being limited to treasures, so you cannot trash them later into victory cards. But it has the advantage to get the new card immediately in hand. But Mine is still slow. A Moneylender doesn't get you a card, but is at least worth a Silver in the turn you played it, whereas Mine is only worth a Copper. But in the long term Mine can be better. The more often you play the new treasure card, the more Mine was profitable. So, if you want Mine, you want it early. It gets so much better in Colony games. First, Colony games last longer and you will probably see your treasure card more often and Mine is a Silver if you trash Gold for Platinum. For a 5/2 opening Mine/Fool's Gold is a pretty decent #110 opening. PS: Don't confuse Mine with Mint.
	#41 ▲1 Mandarin (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 40.65 ▲0.17 / Median: 40 ▲1 / Mode: 39 ▲6 / Standard Deviation: 5.1 ▲0.6 Highest Rank(s): #18 (1x), #29 (1x), #31 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (3x), #48 (2x) Mandarin has still 2 last places. And it was one of the closest battles against Mine, only 0.01 points made the difference. It would be behind Mine in the unweighted ranking. Mandarin is again a cheap Gold, but you need an action to play it. What makes it better than the last cheap Gold-alternatives? The drawback of this card is to put back a card on your deck. But this can be also very nice, because you can prepare your next turn just like Courtyard does it. So, if you have more money than you need or you have colliding terminals, just put back a card. But with colliding terminals, the other card is mostly stronger and you want to play that this turn. The on-buy effect can also be very nice. With a 5/2 opening you can buy the wanted stronger card next turn too and get an additional Mandarin. Mandarin/Hunting Party or Mandarin/Mint are very nice openings and it's not that bad in Double-Tactician games. In the late game where you miss $8 or $11 you can just play one Platinum or two Golds, buy the Mandarin and have a higher chance to reach it in the next turn. That can be very effective. But, still it's a cheap Gold and there are many better alternatives on the board most of the times.
	#40 =0 Outpost (Seaside) Weighted Average: 40.25 ▼0.92 / Median: 40 ▼1 / Mode: 40 ▲8 / Standard Deviation: 7.3 ▲1.3 Highest Rank(s): #14 (2x), #21 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (5x) Outpost was even 5 times last, but has pretty high ranks on the other side. It lost a little bit in deviation, but is still high. It is on #39 in the unweighted ranking. Outpost seems so nice for getting extra turns. But you only get a 3-card hand. It's like you Militia'd yourself, even worse, you cannot choose the 3 cards you want to keep. If you really need a +Buy Outpost can fulfill this need. But even in those cases it's not better than a Workshop, but it can work in Gardens/Silk Road/Duke games. If you want to use it to attack multiple times per turn, it can work, but still it is another terminal in your deck that can collide. It really can shine, in cases when you can guarantee a good card in your next hand. Treasury, Alchemist and Scheme are probably the best combos. Another case where your 3-card hand isn't that bad, may be with Minion, but this isn't very reliable too, because one of your 3 cards has to be one of your Minions. Another combo is Double Tactician/Outpost where you can get 8 cards. Generally it's pretty good with Duration cards, especially Wharf, Caravan and Haven. In all other cases you better skip Outpost.
	#39 =0 Harvest (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 40.22 ▼2.33 / Median: 40 ▼2 / Mode: 39 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 5.9 ▼1.3 Highest Rank(s): #12 (1x), #28 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (7x), #48 (1x) Harvest stayed were it was, but is still one of the big losers. It lost over 2 points and it was a close battle with Outpost which Harvest won with 0.03 points. Also the deviation raised significantly. It has a big outlier on #12 and lost the battle against Outpost in the unweighted ranking. Harvest is very swingy. In games with very few different cards and a coherent strategy, this is mostly a Silver and rarely a Gold and really no good card. And it can discard all your good cards you wanted to play in the next turn and even trigger an unwanted reshuffle. In games with many attacks, especially Cursers, Harvest can be really a better card. You can then make your Curses to money without having them in hand and Harvest can easily be worth $4. Harvest has also a nice synergy with Tunnel.
	#38 =0 Tribute (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 37.8 ▼0.11 / Median: 38 ▲0.5 / Mode: 37 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 6.2 ▼0.9 Highest Rank(s): #15 (1x), #22 (1x), #25 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #46 (5x), #48 (1x) We're leaving the really bad cards and making a jump of 2.4 points. Tribute is the last card with a last place. The stats are similar to last time, but it lost a little bit of consensus. It is on #37 in the unweighted ranking. Tribute is another swingy card and even depends on the opponents' deck. You can really bad luck, revealing the same card. Then Tribute is really bad. In action-heavy decks you get +4 actions what you only want if there isn't another village around (but then you probably don't want many action cards). All other combinations can really be nice, e.g. in BM games, giving you $4 most of the times and later in the game +cards). It only really shines in games with dual-type cards. Hitting a Harem and a Nobles and getting +4 Cards, +2 Actions and $2 with only one card is excellent. But the unreliableness still is Tribute's biggest problem. Forming your strategy around it not only depends on you, your opponent has to cooperate.
	#37 =0 Royal Seal (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 37.63 ▼2.53 / Median: 38 ▼2.5 / Mode: 44 ▼12 / Standard Deviation: 5.9 ▲0.3 Highest Rank(s): #19 (1x), #23 (1x), #24 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #46 (1x), #47 (2x) Royal Seal is the next treasure card and another loser. It doesn't lose a rank, but 2.5 points. It was very close between RS and Tribute, in the unweighted ranking RS loses and ranks on #38. I don't know if there's much to say about Royal Seal. It's another Silver with bonus card. You probably want it early in the game, as it will accelerate your strategy. It's strictly superior to Silver. So if you want a Silver anyway and have $5, you can pick it up unhesitatingly. But still it's very expensive for a $5 card and there are better cards for the same cost around most of the times.
	#36 =0 Mint (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 34.72 ▼0.45 / Median: 36 ▼1 / Mode: 36 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 6.7 ▲1.4 Highest Rank(s): #19 (1x), #20 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #43 (2x), #45 (1x), #46 (1x) Mint is in "Nowhere Land". It has a huge lead over Royal Seal, but there's another big gap to the following middle ranked cards. It gained a lot of consensus, so it's maybe properly ranked. Mint can duplicate a treasure card in hand. The problem still is, you need that Gold or Platinum in hand, so you really need to draw most of your deck with a good engine or need a small deck to accomplish this regularly. In the first case you probably don't want Mint because you don't want to many treasure cards. But for the latter case, Mint itself helps. Most of the time you buy Mint just to trash most of your Coppers. It really depends if you want Mint with your opening buy as you are now left with only 2 coppers, having no buying power. The only opening which is really powerful is Mint/Fool's Gold, currently #5 ▼3 of all openings, because you have a small deck and get 2 Fool's Gold per turn most of the times. PS: Beware, don't confuse Mint with Mine.

To the second part

118

Puzzles and Challenges / One Card Deck

« on: July 27, 2012, 07:57:09 pm »

I was pretty sure this puzzle was around somewhere, but I can't find it.
If this is a double-post, sorry.

It's a solitaire game. You can choose any kingdom you like and take one card from any pile. This card is your starting deck. How many turns does it take to gain all 8 Provinces (which have to stay all in your deck) assuming worst shuffle luck? Outpost and Possession turns count as separate turns.

In combination to the above, a solo challenge: Gain all the 8 Provinces as fast as possible after you started your turn with only one card. Same rules as above. Fewest total turns (including those to get to the one card hand) wins with points as tie-breaker.

119

Council Room Feedback / Supply based card stats

« on: July 23, 2012, 09:39:35 am »

I spent a little on the Supply based card stats page to find interesting combos to watch out.
I type in a card (in interaction card) and try to guess the best combo partners. I use mainly Δ Qual
It says: The change in quality given the conditioned cards are available.
Basically that means: These cards have a very good synergy and especially cards that are mostly mediocre or even bad can get high values here.

But there are some cases I don't understand.
Let's take Hamlet. I guessed Library and Watchtower. They were at #3 and #4, Vineyard is at #2 and that's understandable. What is on #1? Curse! Why??
Native Village has Curse on #1 too? What does that mean?

Another crazy result was Outpost. I guessed Alchemist and Treasury, but it was Alchemist was only #4 and Treasury wasn't so high. On #1 there was Philosopher's Stone! And on #2 there was Explorer! What? Can anyone explain me that?

Then I tried Jack of All Trades, because we know it hasn't any real combo potential. I guessed Fishing Village, it is on #10.
That Jack of All Trades is not a card for synergies was proven that only 18 cards have a positive Delta and in the Top 8 are 7 Treasure Cards and Duke. But the best Treasure Cards are neither Loan nor Hoard. The best one is Bank! I cannot understand it.

I can now proceed for a while, like Explorer is #1 for Mandarin, etc.

I also looked up some games I played and tried to guess the best combo in this game, e.g.
Baron, Bureaucrat, Contraband, Explorer, Haggler, Hunting Party, Jack of All Trades, Native Village, Pearl Diver, Royal Seal
Just copy and paste that in both target and interaction.

I guessed Hunting Party + Baron or Hunting Party + Haggler. They were at #2 and #4. What is on #1? Native Village + Explorer! I can't see any synergy here.

Any ideas?

120

Dominion General Discussion / The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $4 cards

« on: July 16, 2012, 10:10:59 am »

The Best $4 Cards - Part 1/3

Link to the win rates on Councilroom
Link 2 to the win rates on Councilroom

	#43 ▼1 Scout (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 42.43 ▼3.31 / Median: 43 ▼4.5 / Mode: 43 ▼6 / Standard Deviation: 1.6 ▲3.7 Highest Rank(s): #34 (1x), #37 (1x), #38 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #43 (37x) Scout is the worst $4 card. Even though it wasn't last the last time, there's no surprise here. With very few outliers and more than the half voting it last, its deviation is by far the lowest of all $4 cards. The discussions about this card in the last months exposed its weakness. Scout has its uses. You don't need to spend an action, but it isn't a cantrip, so it really can hurt your deck. If you're massively greening this can be nice as it makes your next turn better, but is still not good. The best uses are: making Crossroads way better, it has a nice synergy with Wishing Well (making it a cheap Lab) and of course it's great with dual-type-victory cards like Harem, Great Hall and Nobles, making Scout a Lab or even better. There might be more edge cases when Scout shines, but even when it shines you often do better skipping Scout, because you waste a turn marginally improving your deck.
	#42 ▲1 Thief (Base) Weighted Average: 41.32 ▼0.1 / Median: 42 =0 / Mode: 42 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 2.4 =0 Highest Rank(s): #30 (1x), #33 (1x), #34 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #43 (16x) Thief went up a rank, but the points nearly stayed the same. So, Thief is still as bad as before. And there's no doubt. It has the second lowest deviation as it was voted last or second last by a third of all players. An attack on such a low position may seem strange, but Thief has the big problem helping your opponent in the early game. Its a free trasher for your opponent and even later it's so risky hitting the Coppers of your opponent. Its only use may be in thin Chapel decks or if you manage to play it multiple times per turn. And it gets better in 3- or 4-player games, where you can minimize the risk of getting nothing and hitting Coppers. It can be a nice counter against a Ill-Gotten-Gains rush dealing out curses with it and got a boost in Hinterlands because of Fool's Gold too, but it is still swingy and still a bad card. You don't want it early and in the later game it's almost never worth a buy.
	#41 =0 Coppersmith (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 39.14 ▼0.87 / Median: 40 ▼1 / Mode: 41 =0 / Standard Deviation: 3.7 ▲2.5 Highest Rank(s): #22 (1x), #24 (1x), #31 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #43 (4x) Coppersmith is the third last card with 18 players ranking it there. It has a really low deviation with a much higher consensus this time and yet it has two big outliers. It has a big lead over Thief and Scout, but it still lost nearly one point. Yes, Coppersmith is very hard to rank, because it's either clearly the worst card on the board or it's very dominating. As a opener you may get to $6 or even $8, but you also can draw only one Copper, so it's very swingy as a opener and gets worse later. On the other hand King's Court + Coppersmith can become brutal and it has some nice synergy with Apothecary, Counting House and Tactician. The cases where it shines may occur more rarely than with any other card, but then it's a must-buy.
	#40 =0 Talisman (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 37.00 ▲0.84 / Median: 37 ▲1.5 / Mode: 36 ▲4 / Standard Deviation: 4.7 ▼0.5 Highest Rank(s): #16 (1x), #17 (1x), #29 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #42 (5x) Talisman has still a low deviation and another big lead over the previous card. No-one ranked it last, but 5 people ranked it second last and 10 people ranked it on #36. The much higher mode and the two big outliers led to an increase of nearly one point, but it is still on the same rank. There are very few cards for $4, you want in masses. Silk Road and Gardens may be a exception, but Talisman doesn't work with victory cards. So there are even less cards you want for free with Talisman. Fool's Gold, Caravan and in some cases Throne Room, Conspirator and Tournament came to my mind being the only cards which makes Talisman a good buy, especially as a opener. You can build a Village + Smithy/Envoy quicker too, but this is rarely worth a Talisman buy since you need money too. But it shines especially with cost reducers like Quarry, Bridge and especially Highway. Play Highway, play Talisman, buy Highway, get one for free, that's nice. Talisman is also nice for a quick 3-pile ending. This works well with Bishop for example: get many Talismans and then Bishops, trash Talismans for 3VP and try to three-pile. But Talisman also can hurt very badly since the free extra card is not optional, so only buy Talisman if you really want cheap card in masses. And don't forget: if you're buying more expensive cards you've spent $4 for a Copper.
	#39 ▼6 Spy (Base) Weighted Average: 36.24 ▼4.07 / Median: 37 ▼5 / Mode: 38 ▼7 / Standard Deviation: 3.6 ▲3.1 Highest Rank(s): #27 (1x), #29 (1x), #30 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #42 (2x), #43 (1x) What a big drop! We're now in a region where all the cards are really close together, but it still lost 4 points and the consensus is much higher this time, it has even the third least deviation. It was 12 times on #38 and this time had really no big outliers. An attack that is a cantrip, that seems nice at the first look. But Spy is an attack with a pretty bad attack and little benefit. It's very swingy as you can discard your victory card (or even your Tunnel) and discard the only Witch of your opponent, but you can hit a victory card of your opponent too that you put back. That's no change for your opponent and he even may use that additional info for the next turn. You can add a Spy in your drawing engine if you have a buy and money left, but is really rarely worth a buy. It's a cantrip that doesn't hurt your engine and can really shine in a Scrying Pool+Jester engine (or any other engine that takes profit from knowing the top card of the opponent's deck), but the benefit it gives you is marginal, similar to Scout. If we already mentioned cards with different costs (Warehouse and Cellar), the way better Cartographer comes into my mind.
	#38 ▼6 Treasure Map (Seaside) Weighted Average: 35.35 ▼3.78 / Median: 36 ▼4.5 / Mode: 33 ▼2 / Standard Deviation: 6.5 ▲2.3 Highest Rank(s): #6 (1x), #14 (1x), #18 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #39 (3x), #40 (1x), #42 (1x) Another big drop of 6 ranks and nearly 4 points. The standard deviation is now higher, but still the consensus is much higher compared to last time. Treasure Map was on #33 11 times and has a few big outliers. In the unweighted ranking it would be on #37; newer players ranked it higher. Treasure Map's power is undeniable. An early enabling can already decide a game. But you can hardly call it strategy going for Treasure Map. You really need enablers for that, like Warehouse, Chapel, Tactician or the Watchtower/Talisman combo. If you go for Treasure Map without such enablers, you totally rely on your luck. And losing against a totally luck-based enabling can really be frustrating.
	#37 ▼3 Pirate Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 35.28 ▼2.57 / Median: 36 ▼3 / Mode: 40 ▼7 / Standard Deviation: 7.5 ▲1.1 Highest Rank(s): #5 (2x), #22 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #42 (3x) Pirate Ship is only 0.07 points higher than Treasure Map and has an even higher deviation, but still gains consensus and there will be more cards with much higher deviation. It wasn't even last and got two big outliers on #5, but got many bad ranks with 8 votes on #40. In the unweighted ranking it would be on #36, so this is another card that newer players seem to rank higher. There's the next attack that trashes treasures. This time it's not the best one anymore. The high ranks may result from players mainly playing 3- or 4-player games where Pirate Ships can be devastating. In 2-player games it's too slow most of the times. So, with Pirate Ship you really want to buy as many as you can, so you can play them multiple times, and with Throne Room or King's Court this card is really great.
	#36 ▲1 Navigator (Seaside) Weighted Average: 35.18 ▼0.62 / Median: 36 ▼1 / Mode: 40 ▼8 / Standard Deviation: 4.8 ▲0.9 Highest Rank(s): #18 (1x), #19 (1x), #26 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #42 (2x), #43 (2x) Navigator went up a rank, but still lost points. It was a very close fight for #36 with a lead of 0.10 points over Pirate Ship and 0.17 points over Treasure Map. It has also 2 last places and there's only one card with at least one last place left. It has relatively high consensus and it was voted 8 times on #40. In the unweighted ranking it would be on #38; newer players seem to underrate it. Scout is at least non-terminal and therefore nice for Wishing Well to draw the top-decked cards. Top-decking the next 5 cards in a specific order is only nice if you have still an action left to draw a few of them. Because if you don't do that, you draw all 5 cards no matter in what order you put them back. The discarding option is nice to minimize shuffle luck and to get a half Chancellor effect, but still it is terminal and most of the time there are better terminal cards on the board. At least it gives you $2. The best use still may be to enable Tunnel's reaction.
	#35 ▼4 Feast (Base) Weighted Average: 34.00 ▼3.75 / Median: 35 ▼3.5 / Mode: 36 =0 / Standard Deviation: 5.6 ▲2.6 Highest Rank(s): #13 (1x), #20 (1x), #23 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #41 (3x) Feast is another card with a big drop. It lost 4 ranks and nearly 4 points too. It's the next card with a much higher consensus this time with only one outlier. It's the first card which wasn't neither last nor second last. In the unweighted ranking this would be on #34, another card that newer players seem to overrate a little bit. Feast basically does nothing but being a one-shot balancing bad shuffle luck, especially at the start. If you really want a specific $5 card and have a 4/3 opening you can open with Feast and can be sure to get that $5 card soon. It also can be used with Throne Room and King's Court to gain multiple $5 cards. It's only other use is gaining Duchies, especially in Duke games.
	#34 ▲5 Bureaucrat (Base) Weighted Average: 33.77 ▲1.98 / Median: 34 ▲3 / Mode: 34 ▲5 / Standard Deviation: 6.2 ▼0.9 Highest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #16 (1x), #18 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #43 (3x) It was very close, but Bureaucrat is better than Feast. It went up 5 ranks and 2 points, but is one of the first cards with higher deviation too. Last time it hadn't one vote above #20, now it has 3 votes. On the other side it's the last card with a last place; it has even 3 last places. It was voted on #34 7 times. In the unweighted ranking this card would be on #35, it's underrated by newer players. The attack of Bureaucrat is weak. Your opponent loses one card that he don't need anyway for him getting another 4 card hand in the next turn. And he might even be able to counter that easily by playing Farming Village for example. The attack gets better in multiplayer games, especially if there are dual-type victory cards like Nobles or Harem on the board. The benefit on the other side still isn't good either. Top-decked silvers are nice, especially in the beginning and you can get to $8 with 4 silvers too, but it's not easy. So it seems Bureaucrat is nice where you don't want to get to $8 and Silver is a good card, like in Duke / Silk Road and especially Gardens games, but then Bureaucrat is a good counter too. And you can play your Bureaucrat less frequently if your deck is already flooded with silvers. Bureacrat + Big Money is not bad on the other side as it doesn't seem to have synergies with other cards.
	#33 ▲3 Nomad Camp (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 33.38 ▲0.54 / Median: 34 ▼0.5 / Mode: 35 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 4.7 ▲0.6 Highest Rank(s): #16 (1x), #22 (1x), #25 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #40 (5x) Nomad Camp is the first card which wasn't voted in the Bottom 3 with 5 votes on #40. It only has a slightly better average, but still managed to go up 3 ranks. It was voted on #35 10 times. Woodcutter was the third worst $3 card. Here we have a Woodcutter with a on-buy top-deck ability. Is it worth costing $1 more? And how can it be that it ranks higher than Woodcutter? IMO there are only 2-3 reasons for that. You have a high chance to get a $5 card on turn 2 even with a 4/3 opening (so Witch / Monad Camp is on #86 and Nomad Camp / Trading Post at #91 of the best openings). Similar to that it is nice you need the +Buy either way and need multiple cheap cards as fast you can. But the only opening which is strong without $5s is IMO Nomad Camp / Fool's Gold / Fool's Gold on #339 of the best openings. The last reason is if you're really unlucky in the late game and only get $4 and want to maximize the chances to hit $8 in the next turn. Beside of that it's only an expensive Woodcutter.
	#32 ▲3 Walled Village (Promo) Weighted Average: 30.30 ▲2.56 / Median: 31 ▲1.5 / Mode: 29 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 6.1 ▼1.4 Highest Rank(s): #17 (2x), #18 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #39 (2x), #41 (2x) A big jump of over 3 points and Walled Village seems to leave the "really bad cards area". It went up 3 ranks and also two and a half points. But it also loses consensus with a much higher deviation this time. It was on #29 8 times. In the unweighted ranking it would be on #31. It is the worst of the four $4 villages. Why? Its only ability is top deck it if you weren't able to use both actions. So this is nice if you have only 2-3 terminal actions and really want to play them each time without taking the risk of colliding. That's especially useful with Torturer. The only reason opening with Walled Village could be if there's a $3 key card and you want a second one later too. Because of that Walled Village / Masquerade and Walled Village / Ambassador are Level 4 openings rankings on #87 ▲4 and #95 ▲19 on Councilroom respectively. In all other cases it is the same as the normal village.
	#31 ▲7 Noble Brigand (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 30.19 ▲5.52 / Median: 31 ▲5.5 / Mode: 29 ▲11 / Standard Deviation: 6.1 ▼0.5 Highest Rank(s): #7 (1x), #11 (1x), #16 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #41 (2x), #42 (1x) It was close, but Noble Brigand is better than Walled Village. And it's another Hinterlands card with a huge boost. It went up 7 ranks and 5.5 points. The mode is even 11 points better (8 times on #29). Not all players noticed the boost in power, so the deviation went up a little bit. In the unweighted ranking it would be on #32. Noble Brigand is the better Thief on many boards. It hasn't the disadvantage of trashing the opponents Coppers, making it a better opener. It even attacks on-buy. It deals out Coppers too, which is nice playing against no-treasure decks. And it gives $1 too, so you have at least an immediate benefit. But it's worse in Colony games as it cannot steal Platinum, it cannot steal Ill-Gotten-Gains like Thief and cannot steal other Kingdom treasure cards. And most important: it's still too slow and doesn't hurt enough if you can't play one nearly each turn. Noble Brigand + Big Money is not that bad on weak boards and a good counter to many strategies.
	#30 ▼1 Remodel (Base) Weighted Average: 28.16 ▼3.08 / Median: 29 ▼6 / Mode: 32 ▼10 / Standard Deviation: 6.4 ▲2.7 Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #12 (1x), #13 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #36 (2x), #37 (1x), #39 (1x) Remodel is the next card with a much higher consensus this time. It has still a solid lead over Walled Village, but it loses 3 points and even 10 points in mode. After Remodel is the biggest gap in this list, so I included it in the bottom third. Remodel introduced us to the cards that trash for a better card. As a opener it has big problems trashing the Coppers, because you need either good $2 cards on the board you want in masses like Fool's Gold (Remodel / Fool's Gold is on #168 of the best openings) or Lighthouse or you need to remodel in 2 steps (Estate to Silver or another $3-$4 card) which is not really a good idea. But Remodel is good in the later game. Just remodel your money in the respective victory card. It seems some of you take the opener qualities more into account while others did it vice versa.

To the second part

121

Dominion Videos and Streams / Qvist jumps on the bandwagon...

« on: July 10, 2012, 06:24:19 pm »

Yeah, a lot of you now are streaming or have a YouTube channel. I considered that a while ago when WW started his Youtube channel.
I'm German, so my English isn't that great, but I try to achieve various things with recording my games:

1.) I can rewatch them on my own to see where I can improve.
2.) I tend to play better if there's some form of tension. If I play some random games on isotropic I usually try some fancy stuff with me ending up losing. In tournaments I mostly performed very well so far. I won all 4 games in IsoDom 5 so far with either 3-0 or 3-1 and in I was in the Top 32 in the 2011 DominionStrategy.com Championships. So I kinda force myself to play better because I know I record the game.
3.) Some of you can give me advice how to improve
4.) Maybe (I think that's unlikely) someone learns from me
5.) It's simply fun

So I really love to hear feedback, especially how horrible my English is and if anybody will keep watching my videos!?
Here's the video of IsoDom 5 which I also linked in the results thread:
But I think the commentary of my videos from today are already better... http://www.youtube.com/user/davqvist

122

Help! / Overwhelmed by this board

« on: July 06, 2012, 04:03:40 am »

When there's a lot going on on the board, I have a really hard time figuring out in which order to buy the cards or which strategy is the strongest out of 2-3 good strategies. Now that councilroom is back, I looked back at this board where there was a lot going on and I really was overwhelmed/overextended.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120704-152731-28548430.html
Bridge, Colony, Duke, Great Hall, Harem, Highway, Jack of All Trades, King's Court, Mountebank, Native Village, Platinum, and Trade Route

First I saw Mountebank, so I opened JaoT/Silver.
But there is also KC, especially with Bridge.
And then I saw NV+Bridge, so I tried that. But I couldn't get any Bridges on the mat.
Trade Route is strong with 7 green cards, but maybe too slow, I don't know.
The game was over so quick and I really didn't know what to do.
In turn 12 I should've bought at least a Province. I realize that in turn 13, but it was all over in turn 15.
How would you play that board?

123

Dominion General Discussion / The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $3 cards

« on: July 04, 2012, 08:36:31 am »

The Best $3 Cards - Part 1/2

Link to the win rates on Councilroom
Link 2 to the win rates on Councilroom

	#26 ▼1 Chancellor (Base) Weighted Average: 24.07 ▼1.1 / Median: 25 ▼1 / Mode: 26 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 2.2 ▲0.7 Highest Rank(s): #17 (1x), #18 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (19x) With a very low deviation Chancellor is the worst $3 card this year. It's still a few outliners, but they can't let it get a better rank. Being in the Base Set, most players (like me) didn't got the use of Chancellor at first. Yes, it costs $3 like Silver and gives also 2 coins, but it costs an action for what? To put your deck into your discard pile? Why do I want to do that? You can get your recently buyed great cards faster! Yeah, that sounds great. But those great cards are mostly terminals and then Chancellor becomes a dead card. I think it would be a better card if it wasn't terminal. So it's only good for rare scenarios like Stash or Counting House. And if you want to get your recently buyed cards earlier, use cards that put these cards on top of your deck like Royal Seal or Watchtower.
	#25 ▲1 Develop (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 23.49 ▲0.81 / Median: 25 =0 / Mode: 26 =0 / Standard Deviation: 3.3 ▼0.8 Highest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #14 (1x), #15 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (23x) Develop is not last anymore, but still second last. I expected it higher, but there seem to be many players which even still think it's bad or still don't see the use of it. So it's still the card with the most last places. The significantly higher deviation shows the disagreement between the players. A good trasher mostly has to be a good start buy. Develop can only trash one copper at a time without benefit. You get a Silver for a trashed Estate, which can be put on top of your deck. That's at least really nice. Later in the game you get 2 cards for trashing one. This is something you only want if there are a lot of really good cards in the supply and most important in a specific price range. Because you have to gain a card which cost exactly one more and one less than the trashed card. Those cases are rare. It's good with good $5s and $7s like developing a Gold into a King's Court and a Wharf putting both on top of the deck. In the end of the game you want victory cards. So you can trash a $4 card for a Duchy and a Silver. But you have to put both cards on top of your deck. That is something you don't want if you're going for Provinces or Colonies. Developing a Silver in a Estate and Silk Road can be really nice for example. But you have to put them on your deck, really nasty. So it often fails in being a good trasher, you have to see it as a gainer instead of a trasher. I think that's something many of us didn't see at the beginning and can explain it was rated better now.
	#24 =0 Woodcutter (Base) Weighted Average: 22.01 ▲0.38 / Median: 22 ▲1 / Mode: 24 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 3.1 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #12 (1x), #13 (1x), #14 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #25 (11x), #26 (2x) Another card from the base set, but it went up a little bit. It got #24 14 times and even last twice. Its deviation is still low and shows the consensus on that card. It mostly worse than Silver as its only use is its +Buy. So, you only buy it if you really need that +Buy for setting up your engine and there's no other card that provides that. You can use it very well for a Gardens or Silk Road rush, but beside of that, there's not really much to say about that simple card.
	#23 =0 Fortune Teller (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 21.03 ▲0.02 / Median: 22 =0 / Mode: 24 =0 / Standard Deviation: 4.0 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #10 (1x), #12 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (4x) Fortune Teller is one of the worst attacks in the game and the first attack of all lists so far. And as it is an Attack Card, several players gave it a mid-level rank. That may explain its clearly higher deviation compared to the previous cards. Its mode still is bad, 12 times it got #24. In games with trashers you want your Estates in hand and get rid of them, especially with Lookout Fortune Teller is bad. If you've trashed them, Fortune Teller just cycles through your deck, so your opponent mostly profits from your attack. In Tournament and Tunnel (with assistance of Inn, Young Witch or Vault) games you help your opponent even more. And in all other occasions there are mostly cards that soft counter top-decked victory cards or get profit from them by discarding. If those cases all don't exist, Fortune Teller might be a good buy, but those cases are very rare too. It gets better in the end game, but in the end game mostly you don't waste your buy for a Fortune Teller. And in comparism to Rabble which can be very nasty, Fortune Teller doesn't even get more benefit if you play two or more in one turn.
	#22 =0 Workshop (Base) Weighted Average: 20.82 ▼0.24 / Median: 21.5 ▲0.5 / Mode: 23 =0 / Standard Deviation: 3.6 ▲0.1 Highest Rank(s): #9 (1x), #12 (1x), #14 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (4x) And there's already the third card from the base set with only one card left to come. It is just a little bit higher than Fortune Teller, but that may result from a lot of players that seem to love it. It got #23 10 times. You must ask yourself: How many $3 or $4 cards do I want in my deck. With Gardens in the supply, you may answer "as many I can get". Silver, Gardens, Estates and more Workshops are all good cards. But in all other situations you want $5 cards and Gold. And in comparism to Ironworks where you at least get benefit and isn't terminal if you gain action cards, it's a "wasted" action. The only cards that you want as many you can get may be Tournament, Caravan, Conspirator and any Village + card drawer (Envoy/Smithy). But for all you have to spend your action and you have to be sure there isn't another terminal action you want to play too.
	#21 ▼4 Great Hall (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 18.51 ▼1.76 / Median: 17 ▼0.5 / Mode: 17 ▼4 / Standard Deviation: 4.2 ▲0.3 Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #9 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #24 (2x), #25 (1x), #26 (1x) Great Hall is the first card with a bigger change. I went down 4 ranks, even though the weighted average only went down less than 2 points and the median even only a half point. This and the big lead over Workshop foreshadow that the next cards are very close together. It was on #17 11 times. There is not much to say to Great Hall beside how difficult it is to rank. It's an Estate that don't hurt your deck, so that's really nice. And you can buy it early if you have an additional buy and $3 left and don't need another Silver. It also supports Silk Road strategies nicely. You can even use Throne Room or King's Court with it for additional benefit if you're really desperate. It can enable Conspirator chains and other rare cases where another cantrip is useful. The best combo might be with Ironworks where you can pick it up and get a cantrip bonus. But it's never a card you use for your strategy, instead you buy it if you have $3 left and don't need more money, then you're glad to pick another VP. And you often buy Estates in the end game, Estates you will may never see in your hand. In those cases it doesn't even matter if you pick up a Great Hall or an Estate.
	#20 =0 Smugglers (Seaside) Weighted Average: 18.03 ▲0.06 / Median: 18 ▼0.5 / Mode: 13 ▲6 / Standard Deviation: 5.6 ▼1.3 Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #5 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (7x) Smugglers lost no rank, but agreement. It's the card in this list with the highest deviation and therefore biggest disagreement. It has the third most last places as it got last 7 times. In the last list it was not even voted last a single time. On the other side there big outliers such a second place (!). In this big range it achieved a luckily good mode with 8 times on #13. Why this disagreement? With Smugglers the luck factor is high. If your opponent has bought a card which you don't want, it's a dead card, especially later in the game where he buys only Provinces. And with Smugglers in your deck, you have to commit to the strategy of your opponent and mostly don't get better than him. Smuggle a Gold early or smuggle an additional Duchy (especially with Duke) in the late game is really nice, but with a supply with many terminals, you rather buy the good terminals and money instead of wasting your action for getting another Silver or another terminal you won't be able to play. But if there are many cantrips and you're going to build a neat engine, Smugglers can be a good buy. And if you're not going first you can compensate this disadvantage. King's Courting a Smugglers can also be very strong in a good running engine. We can say, Smugglers is very board-dependant and can be a very good buy on some boards, especially if you're not going first.
	#19 =0 Shanty Town (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 17.63 ▼0.32 / Median: 18 ▼0.5 / Mode: 21 ▼9 / Standard Deviation: 4.1 ▲0.3 Highest Rank(s): #5 (1x), #8 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #24 (3x), #25 (1x) Shanty Town pretty much stayed were it was although its coincidentially high mode now got really low. It's the first card with no last place so far and has (one fifth place) a big outlier as well. It was on #21 9 times. Shanty Town is a very problematic village. If you want villages you have many terminals and want to build an engine. Shanty Town is bad as it only gives you +2 Actions and is actually worse than Native Village for example. If you want the +2 Cards for a Big Money strategy, the +2 Actions are wasted. And if you have multiple Shanty Towns in hand and no terminals, it's even worse. The best use is to minimize bad draw luck, when you have many terminals, but have the bad luck to not draw them with your village. Then you have a second shot to draw them with your +2 Cards. And if you have 2 Shanty Towns and 1 terminal in hand, it's not bad after all. Play your first Shanty Town, then your terminal and then you can play the second one and hopefully draw more terminals. But the raw benefit is in this case the same as you would get out of a "normal" Village. And even if you play basically Big Money, Shanty Town serves like a Laboratory for you.
	#18 ▼5 Loan (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 17.17 ▼2.95 / Median: 17 ▼4 / Mode: 20 ▼8 / Standard Deviation: 4.3 ▲0.9 Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #9 (1x), #10 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (3x) Here is your first card from Prosperity. And wow, the biggest loser so far. 5 ranks and nearly 3 points is a big drop and it was even last three times. And the agreement in the rank of this card increased. It was voted on #20 8 times. You can trash without spending an action, that's always great. It also gives at least one coin which is no big deal, but is still better than Trade Route early. And you don't need to trash a card from your hand, so you have still 4 cards in your hand you can play. But this is also a problem: That involves a luck factor as it may find every time your only Silver in your deck which you even can't play in your next turn (and may discard all your good terminals at the same time). Also it's limited to treasure cards and therefore basically to Copper. So it has advantages and disadvantages and some may evaluate the advantages higher while others seem to do it vice versa. That you can't choose the card you want to trash, might be the reason many of you rank it lower than the last time. Sea Hag / Loan is better than Sea Hag / Silver on #92 of the best openings.
	#17 ▼3 Trade Route (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 17.09 ▼1.71 / Median: 17 ▼2 / Mode: 20 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 4.1 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #5 (1x), #7 (1x), #10 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #24 (4x), #25 (1x) The next card from Prosperity and another loser and it was very close between those two cards. Nevertheless it's the second card with no last place and it's the first card so far which would've been on a different rank if the votes wouldn't have been weighted (#16). That means that experienced players rank it a little bit lower than unexperienced players. It was voted on #20 10 times. It's not a very good trasher as a opening buy as you don't get enough benefit until the end of the game (beside the buy). It's better if there are additional victory cards in the supply, especially action/victory cards like Island or Nobles that get bought earlier, but still, as a trasher it's no good opening buy. Buying green cards earlier just to get more benefit is rarely a good decision as your opponent may buy Trade Routes too and get the same benefit without clogging up his own deck. Mostly you buy it if it's the only source of +Buy and you really need that +Buy and later in the game where you're going green and it's really a neck-and-neck-race, so Trade Routes are now worth $3, $4 or even more. Then they can be really powerful. So, some of you may have ranked it as opener, the other players may have ranked it as strong card in the later game. But quality is more often defined how useful it is in the beginning, so it's no suprise that it lost 3 ranks.
	#16 ▲2 Wishing Well (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 16.75 ▲0.53 / Median: 17 ▲1 / Mode: 16 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 4.3 ▼0.3 Highest Rank(s): #9 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #25 (3x) With the increase of only half a point Wishing Well benefits from the drop of the two Prosperity cards. As mentioned, it was voted lower from unexperienced players than from better players. 9 players ranked it on #16. Wishing Well is a very interesting card, but of course very luck-dependant. Ok, it can never hurt, but in most of the decks it's just a cantrip and you may have better bought a Silver. Another problem is that you have to guess the second card, so that cards like Spy, Lookout that seem to synergize don't work. But with cards like Apothecary or Cartographer it works really well. Then it can be a guaranteed cheap Laboratory. And in some decks you only buy a few different cards, so you can maximize your probability. And if you're really good with card counting, this is really a good card if there are few cards left in your draw pile. It's also a very good counter against Ghost Ship. Young Witch / Wishing Well is even better than Young Witch / Silver on #120 of the best openings.
	#15 =0 Black Market (Promo) Weighted Average: 15.95 ▼0.34 / Median: 16 ▼1 / Mode: 13 =0 / Standard Deviation: 4.7 ▲0.1 Highest Rank(s): #4 (1x), #6 (1x), #7 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #23 (3x), #25 (1x) Here's your first promo with a very high spread of ranks. Like last time it was the card with the third highest deviation. It got #13 8 times. It's hated by many players as it has a very high luck factor. You may draw in turn 3 the only curse-giving attack in the game, but you may also draw Treasure Map, Fool's Gold and Peddler. Or you draw 3 potion cost cards when you don't have a Potion in play or even in your deck. Playing your treasures in the buy phase can lead to many confusing rules questions, but can also lead to the well-known Tactician + Black Market combo where you can discard your hand in a Tactician turn with another Tactician after you've played all your treasures with Black Market. Many Cornucopia cards also benefit from the diversity you add to your deck by buying many cards from Black Market. The most famous combo may be Fairgrounds + Black Market where Fairgrounds can easily be worth 6VP but even 8VP or more are possible. But also cards like Harvest or Menagerie benefit from such diverse decks you can get from Black Market. So when do you really want to buy a Black Market when there's no Fairgrounds or Tactician in the supply? Either you know there are many good attacks in the Black Market pile and don't want your opponent get them or you don't want to win at all costs and just have fun playing with it and your friends and rely on your luck.
	#14 ▲2 Oasis (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 15.49 ▲0.86 / Median: 15 ▲0.5 / Mode: 15 =0 / Standard Deviation: 4.3 ▼1 Highest Rank(s): #7 (2x), #9 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #24 (1x), #25 (1x), #26 (1x) Oasis is a Hinterlands card and of course it went up like most of the Hinterlands cards so far. It went up nearly one point, but on the other side the disagreement got higher as shown by the significantly higher deviation. It was on #15 14 times and even last once. At first I read it as "+1 Action $1", basically a Copper. But it's much better as you get money out of your victory cards or curses, like Vault or Secret Chamber do. It's limited to one card, but it is a cantrip. It's not a very strong card, but it is a very nice addition to many strategies, especially if there's no heavy trashing possible and is especially good on cursing boards or on boards with early greening. If there are hand-size reducing attacks on the board, Oasis is on the other side rarely a good buy. It synergizes well with "draw up to" cards, so it's no surprise that JaoT/Oasis on #152 is a little bit better as opener than simply JaoT/Silver.
	#13 ▼2 Lookout (Seaside) Weighted Average: 14.76 ▼3.15 / Median: 14 ▼3 / Mode: 13 ▼5 / Standard Deviation: 4.5 =0 Highest Rank(s): #7 (1x), #8 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #25 (1x), #26 (2x) We're now in the upper half, but the big gap is between #12 and #13, so here's another card. Lookout went down only 2 ranks, but with a drop of over 3 points, it's one of the biggest losers. It still has a high deviation and is the last card with a last place, no it got even 2 last places. It was 9 times on #13. The positive part is: It's a non-terminal trasher which is of course very powerful. It can trash a card which is even not in your hand. It also counters top-deck-attacks, especially Sea Hag (Sea Hag / Lookout is currently the #56 ▼25 best opening), very well. And with the support of "spying" cards you are guaranteed trashing a bad card. All this is similar to Loan. But Loan can only trash the first card. With Lookout you can even choose between three cards. But: In the late game, it's a dead card in your hand, because it becomes dangerous. Who doesn't fear drawing 3 Provinces or even Colonies and having to trash one? More and more players seem to rank it that low because of that fear. The fear isn't justified mostly, but you have to keep that in mind. Especially if you have only 2 or even 1 card in your drawing deck.

To Part 2

124

Dominion General Discussion / The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $2 cards

« on: July 02, 2012, 04:01:45 pm »

The wisdom of the crowds. With exactly 62 65 "Best Cards" lists, we got the double amount of rankings and may also a double as good list

You were waiting for the results, so let's get started. Feel free to comment.
I changed the card texts a little bit, but couldn't update references to the councilroom openings as it is still down. I will update that soon.
I'm sorry for mistakes with the English language as I'm no native speaker.

(For reference, if anybody is wondering: I defined lower deviation as "better" because it means "more agreement")

The Best $2 Cards

Link to the win rates on Councilroom
Link 2 to the win rates on Councilroom

	#16 ▼1 Secret Chamber (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 14.89 ▼0.40 / Median: 15 ▼0.5 / Mode: 16 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 1.6 ▼0.2 Highest Rank(s): #9 (1x), #10 (1x), #11 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #16 (28x) Secret Chamber is the worst $2 card this time. It lost one rank. But the consensus was high. Nearly the half of all list ranked it on the last place and only the first-ranked card has a lower standard deviation. The action part seems not so bad. You can discard cards for money and in decks with many victory cards or curses it's guaranteed $4. But first: What do you want to buy with $4? As a opener it's bad, because mostly you want to get to $5 and later in the game you need $5 too to get at least a Duchy. So, basically it's a very bad Vault and you better buy a Silver. But there are rare cases, especially you can use it when you need virtual money like in Tactician turns, or you draw your whole deck with Scrying Pools discard all action cards with Secret Chamber for money just to draw them again, or when you want to buy Grand Markets. It's reaction part is really bad. It has nearly no effect against the best attacks: Cursers and Handsize-Reducers, but you can use it against cards that mess up the top of your deck or trash cards from your deck, like Thief or Pirate Ship. But Thief is already bad. Why buy a reaction card against Thief? Yes, it's nice against Minion, but that's all.
	#15 ▲1 Duchess (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 14.39 ▲0.66 / Median: 15 ▲1 / Mode: 16 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.6 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #10 (1x), #12 (6x) / Lowest Rank(s): #16 (21x) Duchess switched places with Secret Chamber, but still only has a lead of half a point because it still has over 20 last places. It's a terminal silver with a spy-effect that has even a benefit for your opponents. Yeah, it's even so bad that it needs a clause to get it for free when you buy a Duchy. And mostly that are the only cases you want a Duchess. Rarely you want to spend $2 to buy one. Once in a while you want it for free, especially when you are trying to make a "green card rush" with Duke or Gardens and want to maintain the buying power and emptying the third pile as fast as possible. That may also the be the reason that it went up a rank, because you can get it for free. And a Duchess for free is even better than a Secret Chamber for $2.
	#14 =0 Pearl Diver (Seaside) Weighted Average: 13.36 ▲0.30 / Median: 14 =0 / Mode: 15 =0 / Standard Deviation: 2 ▼0.5 Highest Rank(s): #7 (1x), #8 (1x), #10 (5x) / Lowest Rank(s): #16 (6x) Also no surprise here. Although it has some more outliers in the top ranks, it's still only on #14 with too many bad ranks, at least it went up 0.3 points. It was on #15 14 times. Why is it so bad? Pearl Diver mostly don't hurt in your deck as it is a cantrip. So, if you got $2 early and you don't want to buy an Estate, you can buy a Pearl Diver. Buying too much Duchesses or Secret Chambers hurts much more than too many Pearl Divers. But the benefit of Pearl Diver is lower than those cards. It's only use is to minimize draw luck a little bit and to let cards shine which interact with the top card of your deck (Native Village comes into my mind). OK, I admit, since Cornucopia it got a little boost as it can add more diversity into your deck and cards like Menagerie, Fairgrounds, Horn of Plenty can profit from it. Pearl Diver never really shines, but it hurts less.
	#13 =0 Herbalist (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 12.99 ▼0.28 / Median: 13 =0 / Mode: 12 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 1.7 ▼0.6 Highest Rank(s): #9 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #15 (13x), #16 (1x) Last time it was the card with the least deviation. This time it's only on #4. It got even one last place, the first time ever. But its mode on the other side went up one rank as it was on #12 15 times. If I know correctly it's a card that's widely hated, especially because it's the only non-potion-related card in the Alchemy set (Apprentice references Potion at least) and its bad too. Many liked to see it replaced with another potion-cost card. But I think it's bad reputation is only half-justified. Yeah, it's a terminal copper. How bad is that! So, mostly it hurts. But "scheming" your treasures is really nice. In the beginning you can use your newly buyed Gold twice if you have the luck to draw it with Herbalist. And even putting back a Silver is not so bad in the beginning. But especially if you're going for Potion (because of that it's in Alchemy) you can use it twice early on. The most important combo might be Alchemist+Herbalist. And - mostly forgotten - it's one of three $2 cards that gives the important +Buy and it's the only one which gives the +Buy without taking a disadvantage (either discarding one card or forfeiting an option). This in combination with Philosopher's Stone is therefore also very nice. But if you have no +Actions this card is mostly not worth buying. Its board dependency may be the reason of its higher deviation.
	#12 =0 Moat (Base) Weighted Average: 12.43 ▼0.19 / Median: 13 ▼1 / Mode: 13 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 2.4 ▼0.3 Highest Rank(s): #3 (1x), #7 (1x), #8 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #16 (7x) Moat now has a definitely higher deviation. With a big outlier on #3, but still seven last places. It lost also one rank in median and mode. What could be the reason? Moat is very situational. It highly depends on the cards on the board and - more important - on the number of players. If there's Mountebank in the supply and you're playing a 4-player-game, Moat is usually a very good buy. It can prevent getting 3 coppers and 3 curses in one turn. But if you're playing a 2-player game, buying Moat is mostly superfluous. Buying a trasher more against Cursers or Library/Watchtower/Menagerie agains hand-size-reducing is mostly the better alternative. Even worse, if there's no attack card on the board, +2 cards with no other benefit is so weak, because that means a raw benefit of +1 card . Maybe only if your going for Big Money with bad other cards and you're getting unlucky and hit $2 early, this might be worth considering. As most players play 2-player games here, it got that many last places.
	#11 ▼1 Cellar (Base) Weighted Average: 10.66 ▼1.35 / Median: 11 ▼1.5 / Mode: 11 =0 / Standard Deviation: 2.5 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #3 (2x), #6 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #14 (4x), #16 (1x) One of the cards with the highest deviation is Cellar. Last year its worst place was #13, this time we also have a last place. It lost more than one point and therefore lost a rank, it's the biggest loser of the $2 cards. Especially the median heavily went down. It mostly ranked on #11 (16x). There are many cards that take profit from bad cards like Estate or Curses. Secret Chamber fails - as mentioned earlier - by just getting $1 per card. Cellar let you discard them and get you get your good cards in hand. Of course Warehouse is better in most cases as it let you draw your cards before discarding, but Cellar can even discard more than 3 cards if you wish. If you want compare Cellar with another $2 card, Crossroads comes into your mind. Crossroads also lets you draw more cards for useless cards. But it is limited to green cards, so you get no benefit for Curses and Coppers. But you don't have to discard them and it gives you +3 Actions the first time. So it highly depends which card is better. In cursing games Cellar's great. And of course with Tunnel. The problem is often the opportunity cost; when do you want to spend your money on a $2 mediocre card?
	#10 ▲1 Embargo (Seaside) Weighted Average: 9.36 ▲0.87 / Median: 9 ▲1 / Mode: 9 ▲2 / Standard Deviation: 2.4 ▼0.2 Highest Rank(s): #4 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #14 (3x), #15 (1x) Embargo switched places with Cellar, but also made a big jump with nearly one point more. The median and mode are better and it is the first card in this list without a single last place. Even last time it had a last place. Especially the three lists ranking it on #4 are surprising. First, it's a terminal silver. Basically that's bad. But it's a one-shot. So if you get unlucky and hit $2 early you can buy it without much thinking as it only interferes once. But Embargo can be a game-changer, especially if you and your opponent(s) are taking different strategies. And it really shines if your opponent buys a Potion and you decide not to go for Potion. Just embargo the Potion-cost card and you are turns ahead. And especially you can shut down strategies that want a lot of a single card, like Hunting Party, Alchemist or alternative victory cards. So, it's nearly never bad, but only shines situation-wise. And it might be the first card in the list that's worth to play with King's Court.
	#9 ▼1 Pawn (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 8.58 ▼0.96 / Median: 8 =0 / Mode: 7 ▲2 / Standard Deviation: 2.6 ▼0.9 Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #3 (1x), #4 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #13 (2x), #14 (1x), #15 (1x) Pawn is the card with the highest deviation this time. I can't understand this, because Pawn is THE mediocre card in my opinion. Last time the deviation was really low, but with such big outliers on both sides this year - it was even second - the deviation increases heavily and loses one rank. But the difference between rank #9 and #8 is not big. On the other side its mode increased; it was on #7 16 times. Pawn is bad if you don't know how to play it and simply use it as a cantrip. But it can be very useful as a cheap source of +Buy and in the beginning it's mostly a cheap Silver if you use it for card + money. It's flexibility makes it good. But it's not great. It can win your game because you picked it up for +Buy but normally it's no game-changer. And if you use it for card + action it at least doesn't hurt. But nothing is more frustrating if you use it for card + money and you draw a Pawn dead.
	#8 ▲1 Native Village (Seaside) Weighted Average: 8.28 ▲0.04 / Median: 8 =0 / Mode: 8 =0 / Standard Deviation: 2.5 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #2 (2x), #3 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #13 (4x) Native Village is a mediocre $2 card with relative high deviation. It's the worst $2 village (with Hamlet and Crossroads to come). It's the most consistent card so far with nearly the same points as last time and similar high deviation. But why ? The problem with NV is that you get no immediate benefit beside the +2 Actions. If you use it as a cheap village you only draw 1/2 card per play. But that's not the intended use. But you can use it either as a pseudo-trasher by putting bad cards on the mat. But it fails that you cannot choose the card to put there. You need assistence with cards like Spy, Pearl Diver, Wishing Well or Lookout. The best use may be to use it for mega-turn with a lot of buys. NV+Bridge is the most effective combo. It's also neat on boards with heavy cursing to either forge a big hand or to get at least once to $6-$8.
	#7 ▼1 Haven (Seaside) Weighted Average: 7.27 ▼0.49 / Median: 7 ▼1 / Mode: 6 =0 / Standard Deviation: 2.2 =0 Highest Rank(s): #2 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #11 (4x), #12 (1x) After Haven lost the battle for #5 very close last year, it is only #7 this year and this although it was voted four times on the second place. It was 15 times on #6. What makes it above-average? Haven reduces your hand size by one, but your next hand size is bigger, that hurts very rarely. And this ability to minimize draw luck is great. You have $11, just set a Gold aside. You have $7, just set a Copper aside. Two terminal actions in hand, no problem. You get your maximum out of your money and your actions. It's a very good card, but no game-changer what may be the reason why it isn't a tier 1 card. It supports every strategy but isn't a strategy on its own. Still it's one of the best $2 cost cards for a 5/2 opening split. Trading Post / Haven is on #9 and Mountebank / Haven on #15.
	#6 ▲1 Crossroads (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 6.79 ▲0.57 / Median: 7 =0 / Mode: 6 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 2.3 ▲0.1 Highest Rank(s): #2 (2x), #3 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #12 (2x) Crossroads is the second Hinterlands card that also went up one rank and the last card in the middle range before the biggest gap in the list. The raw statistics are similar to Haven (same Median, same Mode and nearly identical Top and Worst Ranks). But it was voted 17 times in the Top 5, while Haven was only voted 9 times there. Crossroads is the only card with +3 Actions which can be very useful. The problem is the luck factor you need with that card. If you buy it early and get a hand with 4 coppers, you wish it were a Silver or one of the above $2 cards. Later you draw it with 3 Estates and you draw now your Vault and you can buy a Province for sure. It combos well with cards that take advantage of big hands. So Crossroads + Vault is very good and of course it's great with your good $5 attacks, especially setting up a Torturer chain. Baron + Crossroads is also nice because it gives you the actions to play multiples and you can much easier connect Estate and Baron together. IMO Crossroads is never a reason to go green earlier, but it helps a lot in the end game and can assure you won't lose your buying power. And sometimes there are so many good terminals that you only want it for its 3 Actions. As mentioned above another problem is that it only synergizes with victory cards not with curses what makes it a worse alternative to Cellar in cursing games. Still it went up one rank, as the community appreciate the flexible use it offers. Drawing without having to discard is often better because you have targets for other cards, for example trash-for-benefit cards. Wharf / Crossroads is the third-best Wharf opening on #67.
	#5 =0 Fool's Gold (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 4.52 ▲2.0 / Median: 4 ▲1.5 / Mode: 5 =0 / Standard Deviation: 2.5 ▲0.7 Highest Rank(s): #1 (2x), #2 (11x) / Lowest Rank(s): #10 (3x), #15 (1x) Fool's Gold is the next Hinterlands card and the biggest winner of the $2 cards. Even though it's still on #5, it went up 2 points and it was a very close battle for #4. It's also the first card that got a first rank and that even twice. And eleven second places is also great. It was on #5 14 times, but it's still one of the cards with the highest deviation (look at the one big outlier on #15), but not that big anymore - compared to last time. Why is it so strong? Going for Fool's Gold is its own strategy what Haven isn't. If you buy just one or two, it mostly isn't worth it, because the reaction part isn't the strong part. You want FG in masses, in high density. With a card with money and +Buy and/or a card drawer it's really great and you have to go for it. Goal: Get as many FGs as you can. Margrave + FG or Nomad Camp + FG are good combos, Remodel + FG and Mine + FG as well, but you can get even higher density with Mint. Mint + FG is the fifth ▼3 best opening on Councilroom. That may reason enough that FG deserves to be in the Top 5. Connecting at least two FG isn't that hard if you've got lots of them. And then it's better than Silver. But you really have to analyze when to buy it. On boards with strong cursers where it's unlikely to connect them, it's one of the worst cards - on other boards it's the best card. The still high deviation of your rankings proved that.
	#4 =0 Lighthouse (Seaside) Weighted Average: 4.46 ▲0.02 / Median: 4 =0 / Mode: 5 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 2.1 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #1 (2x), #2 (6x) / Lowest Rank(s): #9 (1x), #10 (1x), #12 (1x) Rank #4 was a really close call. Fool's Gold has way more second places, but with the lower deviation of Lighthouse and only 9 players ranking it below #6, it stayed on #4. With 15 votes on #5 it also lost one point in Mode. It's also one of the most consistent cards compared to last year in the weighted average. With Lighthouse on the board, you really need to evualate if it's worth buying a attacking engine. It may the best Reaction that isn't even blue. Why? Most important: It's non-terminal. Unlike Moat, it cannot collide with other terminal actions or another copy. Second: It gives you money. It may look like a Copper, but after you play it, you are safe and get even another $1 the next turn. No surprise Mountebank / Lighthouse is the tenth best opening. Without the reaction part it's still nearly as good as Silver, but on boards with heavy attacks, it's clearly superior to Silver. You only have to make sure you play one Lighthouse each turn.
	#3 =0 Courtyard (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 3.44 ▲0.02 / Median: 3 =0 / Mode: 3 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.7 ▲0.6 Highest Rank(s): #1 (1x), #2 (16x) / Lowest Rank(s): #7 (5x), #9 (1x) Courtyard got only first once, but with 16 second and even 17 third places, there's no doubt about its strength. It nearly got second, it was veeery close. It's also one of the most consistent cards compared to last year in the weighted average, but if you look at the deviation, much more agreement on its placement than last year. Courtyard is really great with Big Money. Like Haven it minimizes shuffle luck by putting a card on top of the deck, so if you have too much money or a second Courtyard in hand, that's no problem. But you don't get a 6 card hand like with Haven. But the card draw makes it really nice with Big Money and very strong for a $2 card. It's not much worse than Smithy which costs $4. And Smithy itself is by far not the worst $4 card. Its concept is simple but very effective. Don't underestimate the power of Courtyard. Additionally Courtyard is also a good drawer in engines as you can put your strong colliding terminal action also on top of your deck. So it's nearly everytime a very strong card.
	#2 =0 Hamlet (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 3.35 ▼0.83 / Median: 3 ▼1 / Mode: 2 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.8 ▼0.9 Highest Rank(s): #1 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #6 (3x), #9 (1x), #11 (1x) Hamlet got 3 first and 20 second places. But still Hamlet's position is a little disappointing. It lost nearly a point and it was very close between Hamlet and Courtyard. And especially the deviation went down. I can't explain the disagreement right now, but Hamlet seems much less often useful than it used to be. It's one of the best villages around. Yes, you have to discard one card as "payment" for the second action, but if you really need the +2 Actions there's no problem for you to discard that Copper. And most important: Most engines lack +Buy. Hamlet may provide that for another card as payment. Even if you don't need the +2 Actions for your strategy, a non-terminal card with +Buy is always worth to buy. So, if you use both options, you have a Worker's Village for $2, but you have to "pay" for that options. And when you got your first Hamlet you can easily buy more Hamlets with that additional +Buy. With "draw up to" cards like Watchtower or Library it's brilliant and everybody's favourite for engine building. Of course it's not that useful in Big Money boards what may be the reason for many prefering the more flexible Courtyard over Hamlet.
	#1 =0 Chapel (Base) Weighted Average: 1.25 ▼0.07 / Median: 1 =0 / Mode: 1 =0 / Standard Deviation: 0.6 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #1 (57x) / Lowest Rank(s): #3 (4x), #4 (1x) Really, that's still no surprise. A nearly perfect score, not as perfect as last year, but still uncontested. Is it still that great? So, what's up with that uber-card? Even Donald X. admitted that Chapel is a little bit overpowered and he won't release another card so strong like Chapel in future expansions. Trashing is important in the beginning, and the cost of Chapel enables everyone to open with Chapel. As Councilroom shows it's veeery strong, but only if you open with it. You even want to start Chapel/Silver with 3/4. It's not every time a must-buy but in most occasions it is. It's so strong that you already can say you lost if your opponent opened Witch/Chapel and you have a 4/3 start. Mountebank/Chapel and Govenor/Chapel are the best two openings on Councilroom and Witch/Chapel (#4) and Tournament/Chapel (#6) are close behind. It is 27 times in the top #100. So, its power is undeniable. I do agree that it's more often skippable than it used to be, especially on Big Money boards or other boards with strong key cards which you want ASAP.

125

Puzzles and Challenges / Infinite points

« on: June 25, 2012, 08:45:23 am »

In a solo game what is the first possible turn in which you can get infinite points? Of course you can freely choose the kingdom cards.
That leads to many sub questions:

1.) How do you get infinite points in one turn?
The answer leads to:
2.) What is the first possible turn in which I can play Possession and e.g. Monument continuously?
Before we answer that question, maybe you want first answer this questions:
3.) What is the first possible turn in which I can play Possession the first time?
4.) What is the first possible turn in which I can gain Possession?

For the answer you can assume perfect shuffle luck.
Hard mode would be: After the turn in which you played Possession the first time, assume worst shuffle luck.

For perfect shuffle luck I can manage 5 turns. I don't think it can be achieved faster.

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