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[manthos88]

Curses vs. Ruins.

Everyone who has played the base set of Dominion knows that Curses are bad cards. They are good to screw up your oppenent's deck and they also give negative points. Someone will probably like attacks that give Curses and they will try to get rid of these awful purple cards as fast as possible when they happen to be in their deck.
Moving through the expansions, someone meets new awsome Cursers and new ways to get rid of Curses, or live with them. But when they reach Dark Ages, they will have a pause on Ruins. They will wonder. What are the Ruins? They will experiment with them. And after getting the experience, they will see that Ruins are pretty similar to Curses: Their purpose is to screw up someone else's deck, but they have some obvious differences with Curses: While Curses are totally useless cards and give negative points, Ruins don't give any negative points and they are actually Action cards that can be played and even give you some minor benefit.

Looking through the games being played in Goko, most games include random cards from various sets and that means that the Ruins may sometimes inflitrate a game where you have gotten used to seeing Curses instead. And this way, you start noticing that some cards interact with Ruins in a different way than they would interact with Curses.

There are a bunch of cards that behave differently with Curses and differently with Ruins and some players are probably not aware of that, simple because they haven't noticed or haven't thought of it yet.

I am now going to display a full list of these cards, because i believe that it's good for everyone to keep in mind these various interactions and have knowledge of them before going into a game, because some strategies can be totally altered by the presence of Ruins (instead of Curses, maybe).

• Shanty Town

Curses: It's draw can be triggered with Curses in hand.
Ruins: It's draw cannot be triggered with Ruins in hand.

• Tribute

Curses: Cannot get benefit by hitting Curses.
Ruins: Can get up to +4 Actions by hitting Ruins.

• Ironworks

Curses: Will gain Curses while not giving any benefit.
Ruins: Will gain Ruins while giving +1 Action.

(That's probably useless unless you 're playing with Vineyards or trying to 3-pile, but i had to point it out).

• Golem

Curses: It will skip them.
Ruins: It will stop on them and play them.

• Transmute

Curses: It will trash them into nothing.
Ruins: It will trash them into Duchies.

• Scrying Pool

Curses: It will stop drawing upon revealing a Curse.
Ruins: It will not stop drawing upon revealing a Ruins.

• Vineyard

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: They will make Vineyards go up in VPs.

• University

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: It can gain Ruins.

• Farming Village

Curses: It will skip the Curses.
Ruins: It will not skip the Ruins.

• Fortune Teller

Curses: It will top-deck the Curses.
Ruins: It will not top-deck the Ruins.

• Harvest

Curses: Will give +$1 by hitting 2+ Curses.
Ruins: Can give more than +$1 by hitting 2+ Ruins.

• Menagerie

Curses: It's draw cannot be triggered with 2+ Curses in hand.
Ruins: It's draw may be triggered with 2+ Ruins in hand.

• Hunting Party

Curses: Having a Curse in hand will cause other Curses to be skipped.
Ruins: Having a Ruins in hand will probably not cause other Ruins to be skipped.

• Horn Of Plenty

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: They can be played and act as additional unique cards in play.

• Fairgrounds

Curses: Curses count as 1 additional unique card in deck.
Ruins: Ruins can count as up to 5 additional unique cards in deck.

• Jester

Curses: Revealing a Curse will cause another Curse to be gained.
Ruins: Revealing a Ruins will probably not cause another Ruins to be gained.

• Inn

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: Can shuffle into deck Ruins when you gain it.

• Scheme

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: Can top-deck Ruins.

• Peddler

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: They can count as additional Action cards in play.

• Rabble

Curses: It will leave Curses on top of deck.
Ruins: It will discard the Ruins.

• Ambassador

Curses: It will give a Curse to each other player when revealed.
Ruins: It will probably give Ruins only to the player to your left when revealed, and only if you return it to the pile.

• Wandering Minstrel

Curses: It will discard them.
Ruins: It will leave them on top of your deck.

• Ironmonger

Curses: It will not give any benefit by revealing a Curse.
Ruins: It will give +1 Action by revealing a Ruins.

• Death Cart

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: It can target Ruins.

(An obvious one, here.)

• Graverobber

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: It can trash them into a card costing up to $3.

• Procession

Curses: No interaction
Ruins: It can target ruins and trash them (if Poor House is not in the game).

• Herald

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: It will play them upon revealing them.




[Edit:]

• Library

Curses: No interaction.
Ruins: It can skip the Ruins as it draws them and discard them after drawing.

• Doctor:

Curses: By naming Curse, it can trash more than 1 Curse.
Ruins: By naming a Ruins, it will probably not trash more than 1 Ruins.

• Journeyman

Curses: By naming Curse, it can skip more than 1 Curse.
Ruins: By naming a Ruins, it will probably not skip more than 1 Ruins.


[End Edit]




Now, i'm not exactly pointing whether the outcome is good or bad in each case, but i'm pretty sure you can all understand which one it is. For example, Golem and Hunting Party stopping on Ruins is definitely a bad thing, as is Shanty Town not triggering it's draw. Menagerie being able to trigger its draw with many Ruins in hand is definitely a good thing, as is for Fairgrounds to have more unique cards available. It seems that Scrying Pool can live with Ruins, while Curses stop it dead, and it could be interesting to target Ruins with Transmute or Graverobber. A Herald deck is in a somewhat better situation with Ruins than it would be with Curses and, with Procession, 99% of the times you will want to target Ruins particularly to trash them, but who knows? Someday, someone may even kick off their engine by processing a Ruined Village!



Now there might be a few more minor interactions that i haven't thought of yet, but i'm pretty sure that I have covered the most important parts of this aspect. If i'm missing something i'll be happy to be informed.



[Edit:]

How could i forget about these three cards? Especially Library! Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I just added the cards now.

[End Edit]

[soulnet]

I don't see what's the point of the artice, but I am sure there are plenty of others. At least, you are missing TR, KC (especially TR, since the playing of an Action is mandatory), Talisman (although buying Curse and to a slightly lesser extent Ruins with Talisman in play is an extreme edge case). Band of Misfits may be played as a Ruins but not as a Curse. Doctor and Journeyman are way less effective with Ruins instead of Curses.

And the edgier of the edge cases: Quarry attempts and fails to decrease the cost of Ruins but not of Curses.

[Awaclus]

And the edgier of the edge cases: Quarry attempts and fails to decrease the cost of Ruins but not of Curses.

Another one: You can gain Ruins with Stonemason's ability in theory, except in practice you can't because you can't overpay for $0.

[2.71828.....]

And the edgier of the edge cases: Quarry attempts and fails to decrease the cost of Ruins but not of Curses.

Another one: You can gain Ruins with Stonemason's ability in theory, except in practice you can't because you can't overpay for $0.

so then its not really an edge-case

[DG]

Since ruins are actions you can play them out before discarding a hand or drawing up to x cards.
The ruined village can start a conspirator chain.
You can discard tunnels or clear the top of your deck with survivors (with many intereactions).

[SirPeebles]

And the edgier of the edge cases: Quarry attempts and fails to decrease the cost of Ruins but not of Curses.

Another one: You can gain Ruins with Stonemason's ability in theory, except in practice you can't because you can't overpay for $0.

so then its not really an edge-case

It is certainly on the boundary of legit dominion scenarios.  The fact that it itself is not a legit dominion scenario (yet) shows that we are not working with a closed set.

[Drab Emordnilap]

One of the bigger ones, I think -- Library can skip ruins but not curses.

[SirPeebles]

You are also missing the most explicit differing interactions:  Mountebank and Vagrant.

Edit:  On second thought, Vagrant is more of an explicit similarity.

[Warfreak2]

Witch can empty the Curse pile but not the Ruins pile!

[Powerman]

Curses are always on the board, even if there isn't a Curser.
Ruins are only on the board if there is a Looter.

[KingZog3]

Curses are purple. Ruins are brown.

[soulnet]

Curses are purple. Ruins are brown.

Actions are white, but those I don't frown.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Shelters are red, reactions are blue
Hovel is both
And it sucks about as much as this poem

[Smartie]

Haha there are indeed many differences between them. Imagine both curses and ruins in your deck.. Having said that, I think a more meaningful discussion would be to think of the scenerios where you would choose to give ruins than curses? For example, cultist could be more useful than witch in some scenerios =)

[Awaclus]

For example, cultist could be more useful than witch in some most scenerios =)

Fixed that for you. Witch is more useful than Cultist in the scenario that the Ruins pile is already empty, and if the opponent happens to have incredibly good defense against Ruins but not Curses, but usually it isn't.

[KingZog3]

Yeah, the ability to chain the attack is brutal. Plus it's way better for draw once the Ruins are empty than Witch with the Curses Empty.

[eHalcyon]

For example, cultist could be more useful than witch in some most scenerios =)

Fixed that for you. Witch is more useful than Cultist in the scenario that the Ruins pile is already empty, and if the opponent happens to have incredibly good defense against Ruins but not Curses, but usually it isn't.

As I recall, Witch vs. Cultist was a big debate, and it is still not really resolved.  I wouldn't call that a fix just yet.

[Awaclus]

For example, cultist could be more useful than witch in some most scenerios =)

Fixed that for you. Witch is more useful than Cultist in the scenario that the Ruins pile is already empty, and if the opponent happens to have incredibly good defense against Ruins but not Curses, but usually it isn't.

As I recall, Witch vs. Cultist was a big debate, and it is still not really resolved.  I wouldn't call that a fix just yet.

It was a big debate because we were debating which one of them is better more often when the other isn't in the kingdom. If they both are in the kingdom and you go Witch while your opponent goes Cultist, well, good luck with that.

[manthos88]

Haha there are indeed many differences between them. Imagine both curses and ruins in your deck.. Having said that, I think a more meaningful discussion would be to think of the scenerios where you would choose to give ruins than curses? For example, cultist could be more useful than witch in some scenerios =)

That is a totally different subject to discuss. But, that being said, i am almost entirely sure that Cultist is much stronger than Witch. It is well-expected for Looters to give more benefits to the attacker than Cursers would, simple because Ruins are strictly worse to Curses (in terms of screwing up your opponent's deck), but Cultist is way strong. Its comparison to Witch is undoubtedly inevitable, yes. But, if you ask most players, they will tell you that Cultist is way stronger than Witch, because it can fill your opponent's deck with junk very fast and even though Ruins don't give negative points, they are good enough to slow your opponent down so that they don't build their deck adequately enough to beat you.

If you think of it, you don't really care whether the junk you give gives negative points or not. If it does, it's only welcome. For that reason, Cultist is strictly better than Witch in most cases.

[markusin]

Err, the conclusion of the debate between Cultist being better than Witch is that you can't say with certainty that it is. In games where you can't trash curses, the -10 VP is HUGE. That's almost 2 Provinces worth. So, you would have to win the Province split with 10 curses in the deck? Also, the negative VP makes it much harder for you to end the game on piles with a win, while making it easier for your opponent to do that.

However, there are games where light trashing can handily defend against Witch but not the Cultist stack. Cultist kind of has that Torturer feel of having a strong attack while possibly acting as an engine component. Then there's the on trash ability.

So, it's kind of unsettling to just outright say Cultist is strictly better than witch in most cases, especially considering the special cases outlined in the OP.

[Awaclus]

Err, the conclusion of the debate between Cultist being better than Witch is that you can't say with certainty that it is. In games where you can't trash curses, the -10 VP is HUGE. That's almost 2 Provinces worth. So, you would have to win the Province split with 10 curses in the deck? Also, the negative VP makes it much harder for you to end the game on piles with a win, while making it easier for your opponent to do that.

However, there are games where light trashing can handily defend against Witch but not the Cultist stack. Cultist kind of has that Torturer feel of having a strong attack while possibly acting as an engine component. Then there's the on trash ability.

So, it's kind of unsettling to just outright say Cultist is strictly better than witch in most cases, especially considering the special cases outlined in the OP.

But the thing is, if you go for Witch and your opponent goes Cultist, the Curse split won't be 10-0 because after emptying the Ruins pile into your deck, he can still buy a Witch because there are plenty of Curses left in the supply at that point.

It's true, though, that no card in Dominion is strictly better than another one at the same price. Witch has its upsides and they can be relevant in some games (mostly ones that don't have Cultist in them).

[markusin]

Err, the conclusion of the debate between Cultist being better than Witch is that you can't say with certainty that it is. In games where you can't trash curses, the -10 VP is HUGE. That's almost 2 Provinces worth. So, you would have to win the Province split with 10 curses in the deck? Also, the negative VP makes it much harder for you to end the game on piles with a win, while making it easier for your opponent to do that.

However, there are games where light trashing can handily defend against Witch but not the Cultist stack. Cultist kind of has that Torturer feel of having a strong attack while possibly acting as an engine component. Then there's the on trash ability.

So, it's kind of unsettling to just outright say Cultist is strictly better than witch in most cases, especially considering the special cases outlined in the OP.

But the thing is, if you go for Witch and your opponent goes Cultist, the Curse split won't be 10-0 because after emptying the Ruins pile into your deck, he can still buy a Witch because there are plenty of Curses left in the supply at that point.

It's true, though, that no card in Dominion is strictly better than another one at the same price. Witch has its upsides and they can be relevant in some games (mostly ones that don't have Cultist in them).

The question had switched to when you don't have both in the kingdom. With both in the kingdom, the Cultist player can win without even bothering to get a Witch of their own. In fact, Witch might only get in the way of the Cultist draw.

[dondon151]

The Witch vs. Cultist matchup yields almost zero significant insight on the question of which is actually better.

[eHalcyon]

For example, cultist could be more useful than witch in some most scenerios =)

Fixed that for you. Witch is more useful than Cultist in the scenario that the Ruins pile is already empty, and if the opponent happens to have incredibly good defense against Ruins but not Curses, but usually it isn't.

As I recall, Witch vs. Cultist was a big debate, and it is still not really resolved.  I wouldn't call that a fix just yet.

It was a big debate because we were debating which one of them is better more often when the other isn't in the kingdom. If they both are in the kingdom and you go Witch while your opponent goes Cultist, well, good luck with that.

Was that actually confirmed?  I recall that part of the debate as inconclusive as well, but I may be remembering incorrectly.  Currently too lazy to find the thread.

[Awaclus]

For example, cultist could be more useful than witch in some most scenerios =)

Fixed that for you. Witch is more useful than Cultist in the scenario that the Ruins pile is already empty, and if the opponent happens to have incredibly good defense against Ruins but not Curses, but usually it isn't.

As I recall, Witch vs. Cultist was a big debate, and it is still not really resolved.  I wouldn't call that a fix just yet.

It was a big debate because we were debating which one of them is better more often when the other isn't in the kingdom. If they both are in the kingdom and you go Witch while your opponent goes Cultist, well, good luck with that.

Was that actually confirmed?  I recall that part of the debate as inconclusive as well, but I may be remembering incorrectly.  Currently too lazy to find the thread.

I'm not sure myself, but it should have been.