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1051

Dominion Articles / Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together

« on: December 09, 2011, 10:02:31 am »

Wait, I don't quite follow how you can get more dead Masq hits by using Golem or Native Village. When you Golem into Masq, you need to both not have any cards in hand and not have any cards in the deck or discard pile to not pass any cards... which means that you can only play one Masq. If you use Native Village, you can reduce your handsize, but you can still only play one Masq.

The only ways I can think of playing a Masq multiple times in a turn that yields no cards in hand and no cards in deck or discard are TR, KC, and Outpost. Maybe I'm missing something obvious?

Well take the simple case: I have a hand consisting of golem, KC, hamlet, masq, masq. I hamlet away a masq and a KC for actions. Play the golem, now I can KC the dead masq left in hand 3 times and play the other masq (pulled by the golem) once dead for a net kill of 4 cards.

This still isn't enough for a true pin, but with a strong enough draw engine, some villages, and a hand reducer attack (margrave and ghost ship being particularly nice, but it can even work well enough with something like cutpurse), it can be game over regardless of the point spread.


Another shot is a hand reduction attack (e.g. militia), a draw engine, a discarder (e.g. hamlet, secret chamber), golem, masq, and native villages. So you draw your entire deck and discard  golem, masq, masq, and a copy of your discarder. Now you play 4 NVs in a row and place those 4 cards on the mat. Play your hand reduction attack (opponent has 3 cards), discard a NV and a masq, and then play through the rest of your deck till you have nothing left in hand except a golem. Play golem then a dead masq, then bring everything from the mat back to hand. Opponent has two cards which you can kill by discarding two masqs and goleming them.

Obviously working without TR or KC is much more difficult than having either of them, but it can be done. I'd avoid trying to set this up unless there is some great engine factory and I've already fallen way behind in normal scoring (e.g. opponent has 3 colonies to my 0), but it is a marginally viable Hail Mary when you lack any other option. Even with possible substitutions, I'd say this is around a 2.5 card combo and is rare enough that I work with it more for the fun of figuring out how to do it rather than it being dominant.

1052

Dominion Articles / Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together

« on: December 08, 2011, 02:33:40 pm »

The strongest of these being the unstoppable pin from  KC/KC/outpost/masq where your entire deck goes poof the moment I play the combo.

A variation on KC/KC/Goons/Masquerade??!!

Mind = blown.

Yeah, there are a lot of variants on that one. The most wild one I know that works is TR/Minion/outpost/masq. In the simple case your hand consists of TR, TR, Minion, Outpost, Masq. Play minion for 4, then play TR -> TR -> outpost (stays out with a TR) -> Masq (x2). This leaves the opponent with 2 cards and in your outpost turn you play minion -> TR -> Masq and destroy those two cards. I like the outpost/KC variant because it can't be stopped by reactions as nothing in the setup is an official attack, also it is fast enough that it is viable in 3 player (the more fortunate player gets 4 cards to pay from the player upstream until his deck begins to be directly attacked).


Masq is actually the only require card in the combo. You need a way to play more dead masqs (where you have nothing to pass) than the opponent has cards (obviously helped by hand reduction attacks). Outpost can be used creatively to double the number of dead masq hits, and of course KC and TR work wonders, but there are a few other ways get to those dead hits (golem with controlled discard or native village shenanigans).

For a lot of options, you are further ahead ignoring the pin or just whacking them around with your own hand reducers or whacking them around with your own masqs for expensive cards, or mucking around with duration cards (e.g. tactician, haven)  to end the game before you you get obliterated ... but when they work, pins like these are insanely effective.

1053

Dominion Articles / Re: Updating the Top 5 lists

« on: December 07, 2011, 02:50:57 pm »

One useful heuristic for the $2s might be to think about balancing three components: 1) how often they are an important component  of a good deck 2) how often they are a tolerable compensation for not getting enough money to buy something better and 3) how often they are actively damaging.

There are plenty of circumstances where I’d prefer nothing over Secret Chamber, Duchess, Moat, or Herbalist.  OTOH, Pearl Diver doesn’t really ever contribute something uniquely useful.  It’s a cantrip, sure, but plenty of other cards are, too, while also providing other value. 

The reason why Duchess is the worst $2 is because it fails on all these tests. One of the defining features of Dominion is that every card shines in some specific circumstance.  Except for Duchess.  I can’t think of a circumstance where it’s an important card.  And it often does active damage, to the point where I usually refuse it even when I can get it for free.

Crossroads definitely is a cut above the other cards mentioned here because it can play a really important role in some decks (especially if there are green action cards or if it’s the only +action on the board), it is a decent supplement a lot of other times (especially if you can combine it with other drawing cards so that you can get some extra actions and play it once you’ve drawn your green), and isn’t actively damaging too often.  Really it’s only a clear ‘don’t purchase’ if there’s good trashing to clear out all your green and another source of actions.  It certainly doesn’t compare with the really good $2 cards, but it’s not one of the worst.

The closest thing Duchess has to a circumstance where it "shines" is as part of a 5/2 opening with Lab or Hunting Party; I imagine it might be a good companion to Dukes as well but I've never seen that strategy pursued in an actual game.

I really like your heuristic, by the way.

The real place where duchess "shines" is off a 5/2 mint opening. Getting quick silver and quick gold is worth having a crappy terminal silver you may only play a few times. Sure, secret chamber and embargo might be better, but duchess fits that role when it is rather critical and gives you better odds of having a strong turn 4

Duchess's real value is, of course, in its alternate gain condition. Pile depleting the duchies/duchesses makes for a really quick way to end the game. I think this is strongest with something like silk road. If your opponent doesn't go for silk road/duchies then you can pile deplete on just the duchies & silk roads. Likewise having traders in hand can turn drop the terminal from this terminal silver and make it an even better freebie. I haven't tried it yet, but I'd be curios to see what would happen if you went duchy hunting with traders using duchesses. It should be quick and painless to get up to 5 coin on average and not too hard to have small number of hands crest 8.

1054

Dominion Articles / Re: Not Combos -- Cards that don't work well together

« on: December 07, 2011, 02:32:54 pm »

For a lot of these, they can actually be quite strong if you maximize the use of the cards (playing them for their full benefit for instance:


KC/outpost has some fine synergy in a very thinned deck. Take a simple deck where the only chaining is KC/KC/Outpost/Bishop deck.

Normal turn: I chain the KC's to get an outpost turn (KC/Outpost stays on the board) then play the bishop for 4 VP (crunching a silver) and buy a silver.

Outpost turn: I draw my entire deck KC, Bishop, and silver. I KC the Bishop and I net 4 VP (crunching a silver) and a silver.

Each turn I get 8 VP.

If you can't otherwise chain, two copies of KC can be used to chain so you can play useful actions on both turns. The strongest of these being the unstoppable pin from  KC/KC/outpost/masq where your entire deck goes poof the moment I play the combo.

Further having KC around makes outpost turns worthwhile. With good enough odds of hitting KC/most anything decent (lab, grand market, golem, adventurer, etc.) can make a 3 card hand much more worthwhile.

Highway/Bridge/Princess works quite well with trash-for benefit when you either have a lag between acquire (at low prices) and trashing (at high prices) or when you can bring the price of your gained card down to zero (e.g. forging a late game copper into a duchy is quite strong). Gaining a bunch of self replacing cards (pawn, pearl diver, village, wishing well, etc.) for zero cost means that they don't slow down your deck ... but can be fed to the forge whenever you need them to top off a province acquisition.

1055

Dominion Articles / Re: Counter: Native Village/Fortune Teller

« on: December 06, 2011, 08:58:30 am »

I would dispute that multiple fortune tellers are useless. Yes, it doesn't stack, but you can get multiple uses out of it. For instance, fortune/swindle/fortune/swindle is extremely strong late game (after you have the engine to build it out) as a duchy, duke, garden or noble killer. Chaining fortune/sab can also be vicious late game. Another decent combo is tribute/fortune/tribute, particularly against mixed type victory cards which make for strong mega turns. A last shot is with minion. Here you can leave your opponent with a hand of 3 + a green and have their next hand (4 or 5) start with a green by playing fortune/minion/fortune.

Yeah, none of these are earth shattering and they all require either luck or a good external source of + action, but they can work and more importantly be highly amusing (gardeners will swear if you can hit a garden every turn ... and buy a province).

1056

Dominion Articles / Re: Ill-Gotten Gains

« on: December 01, 2011, 02:12:22 pm »

A couple of other points for fun:
1. A strong play with IGG is bank. Because IGG allows you to always have multiple treasures in hand, banks are much easier to power up, even without +cards. Two IGG in hand with a bank is an automatic province. This can be particularly hilarious when you are facing a discard attack, like militia, as a hand full of garbage quickly becomes rather valuable.
2. An obvious synergy is with gardens. As easy as 5 coin is to hit with IGG, 4 is easier and IGG gives you an extra card each.
3. I'm not so sure that IGG conflicts too badly with traders. I haven't played this one yet, so please tell me if I'm wrong here. Yes the opponent gets silvers instead of a curse - if they have traders in hand when you acquire, but I could certainly see timing IGG buys for after you've seen the trader(s) in the opponent's deck go into the discard (or before they buy any) or just playing the odds that you will give them less than a copper on average (assuming they have <50% chance of having traders any given hand). Turning IGG into 5 silvers should also make for quick pushes to provinces, particularly if other 5s are weak on the board.

1057

Dominion Articles / Re: Highway cost interactions

« on: November 10, 2011, 08:52:19 am »

Also another surprising combo is Bridge. One of the problem for the mega highway turn is that it takes so long to get enough highways without native + buy. Bridge makes double highway buys and double province buys much more achievable. Loan/Bridge was insanely good. It doesn't conflict terminals, odds of hitting a bridge on the first go round are pretty good, and the deck things - without action collision potential - making an easy turn of Highway/Highway/Bridge -> buy two highways much quicker in coming.

1058

Dominion Articles / Re: Highway cost interactions

« on: November 10, 2011, 08:39:15 am »

1. Highway/feast seems to be overlooked so far. Feast gets you highways, highways let you feast for better cards. I think a setup like KC/highway/feast would allow for some quick highways followed with some quick KC acquisitions to be topped off with a mega turn of KC/feast -> 3 provinces.

2. Highway/mine could also be useful. Mostly, I think being able to mine coppers to kingdom treasures would be quite useful. E.g. Mine/Highway/Talisman should allow opportunistic mining to acquire huge numbers of high value cards while highway/quarry/mine should allow for some really insane action buys (KC for $4 anyone?). Another good option is highway/mine so more hands can benefit from mining into or out of potions  - you can always gain value while adjusting your treasure to potion balance on an as needed basis (golem/highway/mine/other potion cards seems like it should be quite strong).  Also mining coppers to ill gotten gains is a lot less painful than mining silver down to IGG. To a lesser extent some of the other 5 coin kingdom treasures became a lot better with highway making them one shots from copper (royal seal, horn of plenty, etc.)

3. Goons. Being able to mass buy self-replacing cards (e.g. Pearl Diver) for nothing is great. Making it cheaper to chain multiple goons/villages together also is a win. With more highways/goons/+actions you can accelerate goons decks even more insanely than they already run.

4. Farmland. I don't think this is viable even with highway, but getting down 6 highways makes these guys free and you can trash coppers for a duchy. This makes one late game mega turn (something like Highway X 6 with KC/CR/Pawn) allow you to get 40 VP and down two piles. Even better, if there are duchesses or haggler out you can 3 pile with as many points as 5 provinces with only 8 buys.

5. Talisman/Border village/highway might also be fun. Two highways and you can deplete the duchies and BVs using talismans, assuming talismans xor highways are already depleted you can end on three pile in a hurry.

I like the Highway/Mine-idea. Not sure if it's really a killer, but probably mining Copper->Talisman and get (unexpected) duplicated $5-buys is really a satisfactoring move. Esp. Talisman might behave somehow nicer here than with Bridge. Bridge already gives you the buy, so it's not so important to get the dublicates, and of course it's also 20% harder to collide Bridge and Talisman than Highway and Talisman.

Highway/Mine isn't a killer, but it is a fine trick. Mining to a quarry is normally a loss - unless you are buying multiple actions a turn you may as well forget it - silver to gold has the same net affect as silver to quarry. Highway/mine lets you jump from copper to gold - as much improvement to your hand as gold -> plat. Pretty much, mining all the kingdom treasures becomes more powerful with mine - and 3 highways + mine lets you go copper to gold.

KCing a highway is still a strong move. Yeah it doesn't stack the discount, but it gives you more treasure in hand (virtually assuring another highway or perhaps getting a second KC) and gives you plenty of surplus actions.

1059

Dominion Articles / Re: Highway cost interactions

« on: November 08, 2011, 10:07:46 am »

1. Highway/feast seems to be overlooked so far. Feast gets you highways, highways let you feast for better cards. I think a setup like KC/highway/feast would allow for some quick highways followed with some quick KC acquisitions to be topped off with a mega turn of KC/feast -> 3 provinces.

2. Highway/mine could also be useful. Mostly, I think being able to mine coppers to kingdom treasures would be quite useful. E.g. Mine/Highway/Talisman should allow opportunistic mining to acquire huge numbers of high value cards while highway/quarry/mine should allow for some really insane action buys (KC for $4 anyone?). Another good option is highway/mine so more hands can benefit from mining into or out of potions  - you can always gain value while adjusting your treasure to potion balance on an as needed basis (golem/highway/mine/other potion cards seems like it should be quite strong).  Also mining coppers to ill gotten gains is a lot less painful than mining silver down to IGG. To a lesser extent some of the other 5 coin kingdom treasures became a lot better with highway making them one shots from copper (royal seal, horn of plenty, etc.)

3. Goons. Being able to mass buy self-replacing cards (e.g. Pearl Diver) for nothing is great. Making it cheaper to chain multiple goons/villages together also is a win. With more highways/goons/+actions you can accelerate goons decks even more insanely than they already run.

4. Farmland. I don't think this is viable even with highway, but getting down 6 highways makes these guys free and you can trash coppers for a duchy. This makes one late game mega turn (something like Highway X 6 with KC/CR/Pawn) allow you to get 40 VP and down two piles. Even better, if there are duchesses or haggler out you can 3 pile with as many points as 5 provinces with only 8 buys.

5. Talisman/Border village/highway might also be fun. Two highways and you can deplete the duchies and BVs using talismans, assuming talismans xor highways are already depleted you can end on three pile in a hurry.

1060

Dominion Articles / Re: Request: Diadem

« on: October 23, 2011, 10:43:04 am »

Diadem has possibilities when you have lots of surplus actions. KC games can make it better than a platinum. For instance KC/Lab games tend to draw huge and have huge +actions. KC/Bazaar can make diadem easily a second province all on its own.

The best scenario I've seen for diadem was Library/Hamlet/Baron. This let's you get an early province (as soon as hamlet/library can hit the baron and 4 coppers), cycle your deck heavily to always get your tournamet in hand with province, and lets you rack up more than 8 spare actions. The big key is that you can discard dross (coppers and estates) multiple times and keep drawing them back with libraries. Depending on how well I have the hamlet/library engine built, I might take trusty steed (when +2 cards/+2 actions will make the engine hit more readily) or followers (when the engine is set up well enough that I can shrug off estates easily) first, but diadem can easily make this two province per turn engine on its own.