qmech and I played in the final of Rabid's one-day tournament. The final was to be decided by the first player to win 5 games.
After two hours of playing we were tied 4-4 and I had to push the final game to the next day.
The following day... well you can see below.
Below are all the game logs with commentary. Qmech will follow-up with his own commentary on the games. I think we both learned a TON from playing each other as we both seem to have very different strengths. Most of the games were decided by strategy, and those that weren't were decided by some significantly different tactics.
On the the commentary:
Game 1: Sometimes even Goons need the Green
Key Cards: Goons, Nobles, Inn, Remake, Horse Traders, Duke, Fairgrounds
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120505-152705-d159e2e4.htmlGoons is my third-highest win rate given availability, so I was excited to see it here. The first thing I look for on a goons kingdom is whether there are +actions. In this case there were two options: Inn and Nobles. Both are not good options as they do not give you +cards. If the other player also goes Goons (and I assumed qmech would given how good a player he is) then you will be usually looking at 3 card hands. Without draw cards the best you can hope for is +2 actions, play goons, play goons. And your best buy scenario is $4 and 3 buys (but 6 VP if you use them all). If you use the buys then your drown your deck in copper. If you don't then you may run out of piles before you have enough VP to win.
But there were two more options on the board:
(1) Buy a lot of nobles and use them for actions AND draw. If you started with Goons, 2xNobles, you could end up with Goons + 3 cards. If that was Goons, Goons, Silver, Nobles - you could have $6 and 3 buys. Substantially better than $4 and 3 buys.
(2) Horse Traders. If you have a HT in hand when you get hit by Goons, you end up starting your turn with 4 cards - same scenario as #1, and it doesn't require a 2-card combo to get there
qmech saw the Horse Traders defense before I did, but I saw the importance of Nobles before he did (I think). Nobles also gives you that little bit of VP that reduces the need to pick up coppers and/or green and dilute your deck along the way. Which helps in setting up the mega turn (where the mega turn is when you manage somehow to play three Goons in the same turn, and use 4 buys to pick up 12 VP)
There are two other important cards:
(1) Remake: Which let us both dump our estates for silver, and get rid of some early coppers
(2) Inn: Both as a source of actions (given the lack of draw the same as a Noble played for actions most of the time), and as a way to manage your deck if you can pick it up right before re-shuffles (I've never payed so much attention to opponents reshuffles than in this game - unfortunately something you can't see from the logs)
For a full understanding, worth reading the entire log and watching the point totals. qmech pickes up the first goons and hits the first double-goons turn (he hits two more before my first one). He's also forced to buy a little more copper to stay on top (due to my purchases of Nobles). That additional copper (both forced and unforced) reduces his Goons ratio such that there are a few turns where he doesn't get to play one. On one of those turns I manage a Province.
Eventually the game comes down to both of us watching the piles and buying copper to stay far enough ahead (due to the danger of a mega-turn anytime you miss playing a Goons after the other guy had just bought an Inn). The game ends when I buy out three Estates to end on piles.
Series: 1-0 ednever
(Posting as I go along so I don't lose what I've written)
