Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: Procession logs  (Read 6151 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

brokoli

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1119
  • Respect: +787
    • View Profile
Procession logs
« on: February 11, 2014, 06:26:43 am »
0

I realize that despite the great article of DG, I often end up not buying procession and don't find any use for it.
My request is : do you have logs where Procession was really useful (aside the obvious combo Procession Fortress) ? How has it helped ? i'm especially looking at high-ranked players :D
« Last Edit: February 11, 2014, 05:47:56 pm by brokoli »
Logged

Emeric

  • Apprentice
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 276
  • Shuffle iT Username: Emeric
  • Respect: +219
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #1 on: February 11, 2014, 08:00:22 am »
0

I know that Marin is a great engine player so I look for "Marin + procession" and I found this game : http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20140101/log.51381735e4b0f4a0a3951ab1.1388626365813.txt
There is 5 others games. Marin won 4 using procession in 3 of it ! He loosed one game where he didn't use procession
« Last Edit: February 11, 2014, 08:03:43 am by Emeric »
Logged

BadAssMutha

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 115
  • Respect: +119
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #2 on: February 11, 2014, 09:28:46 am »
0

The key to remember about Procession is that it plays a somewhat like Throne Room, in that it's obviously no good unless you have action cards you want to play multiple times, and can actually draw those actions with the Procession in hand. The "upgrade" ability can be either be a great way to increase the overall value of your deck, but it can be a liability when all you have in hand are $5s or $6s you don't want to trash. This where Procession really differs from TR - usually the good $5s and $6s are exactly what you want to target with TR, but that's not the case anymore with Procession. Having useful actions at consecutive price points ($3, $4, $5) is a must for Procession, so it can be quite board-dependent (like Develop). A source of +buy is also quite useful for picking up cheap components that you can later Procession into better stuff.

Here's a sort of odd game where I Double Tactician into a treasureless deck with Steward, Rogue, and Embargo as my source of coin. The Tacs are necessary in order to not draw the Processions dead, and the good supply of +$2 at almost any price point allows me to continue Processioning productively. The upgrade ability also allows me to get around some embargoes.
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130923/log.50db96a8e4b0a3565c365932.1379978068805.txt
Logged

tolenmar

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 121
  • Respect: +45
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #3 on: February 11, 2014, 10:16:49 am »
0

I don't have a log as it was a live game, but I managed to eke out a win last week with procession.  Yeah, the kingdom had fortress in it, and I did take advantage of it, but it was a random kingdom. On one turn I processioned Hunting Grounds, turning it into a King's Court, and then later did it again, getting bank. Near the end I pulled off a turn drawing all but 5 cards of my deck (which I knew were green cards anyway, we had warehouses), but only managed a double provinces.  Of course, trashing Hunting grounds in this way netted me a couple of free duchies, which was just enough to pull the win.

I almost feel sorry for the new guy...almost. He went big money and almost pulled it off.
Logged

serakfalcon

  • Apprentice
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 278
  • Shuffle iT Username: serakfalcon
  • Respect: +230
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #4 on: February 11, 2014, 10:49:11 am »
+4

On one turn I processioned Hunting Grounds, turning it into a King's Court, and then later did it again, getting bank.
Not to be That Guy but Procession only gains action cards...
Logged

LastFootnote

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7497
  • Shuffle iT Username: LastFootnote
  • Respect: +10741
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2014, 11:39:07 am »
+1

Procession is one of the cards that benefits most from the home field advantage. Normally Procession can be tough to use because you don't want to hit your pricier Actions, but it combos with Cultist, Catacombs, and Hunting Grounds well enough. Also Market Square.
Logged

zporiri

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 198
  • Shuffle iT Username: zporiri
  • Go, and do likewise.
  • Respect: +130
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2014, 11:53:45 am »
+3

Procession is one of the cards that benefits most from the home field advantage.

i really like this way of saying "this card works best with other cards from the same expansion"

also, scout must have a horrible road record
Logged
Go, and do likewise.

RobertJ

  • Alchemist
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 39
  • Respect: +57
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #7 on: February 11, 2014, 12:58:41 pm »
0

Border Village is another card which Procession works nicely with. Process your favourite $5 action and get it back with a free village.
 
Logged

Beyond Awesome

  • Global Moderator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2941
  • Shuffle iT Username: Beyond Awesome
  • Respect: +2467
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #8 on: February 11, 2014, 01:41:34 pm »
+1

I feel overall Procession is a high-skilled card. Either that or we don't understand the card well enough. You really have to look at the board and ask yourself if Procession will help the deck your building or hurt it. I wish I could offer a better road map than that.
Logged

tolenmar

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 121
  • Respect: +45
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #9 on: February 11, 2014, 02:15:47 pm »
0

On one turn I processioned Hunting Grounds, turning it into a King's Court, and then later did it again, getting bank.
Not to be That Guy but Procession only gains action cards...

You're right.  It's been several days since that game. I probably didn't get bank that way.  Certainly, I did get the first King's Court with it, though.
Logged

Awaclus

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11851
  • Shuffle iT Username: Awaclus
  • (´。• ω •。`)
  • Respect: +12942
    • View Profile
    • Birds of Necama
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #10 on: February 11, 2014, 02:34:08 pm »
+1

I feel overall Procession is a high-skilled card. Either that or we don't understand the card well enough.
Well, if we (the f.ds community) don't understand the card well enough, then "high-skilled" is a massive understatement.
Logged
Bomb, Cannon, and many of the Gunpowder cards can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way

The YouTube channel where I make musicDownload my band's Creative Commons albums for free

JOG

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 55
  • Respect: +52
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #11 on: February 11, 2014, 03:25:04 pm »
+1

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130923/log.50a44d70e4b09c3f1c235128.1379956948997.txt
procession with wishing well, wharf and grand market

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131129/log.50a44d70e4b09c3f1c235128.1385764025684.txt
procession with fortress and baker
Stef  beat me in this one because he is so good at finding 3 pile wins, but still shows how good procession fortress is.  Made some mistakes: I should have watched piles more closely, and shouldn't have been processing processions.
Logged

scott_pilgrim

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1102
  • Respect: +2146
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #12 on: February 11, 2014, 03:40:57 pm »
+3

(Disclaimer: I have not read the article (or if I have it's been a while and I've forgotten what it said).  Also, I do not consider myself an expert at Procession but the following is my experience with it.)

Procession is not a Throne Room variant.  It's a trash-for-benefit card, with the benefit of playing an action card twice before you trash it.  If you try to use it as a substitute for Throne Room, or for a similar function to Throne Room, the result will be disastrous.  You'll end up with too many power terminals and not enough villages, or too many villages with no terminals, or just a bunch of random action cards you didn't want.  When you pick up Procession, it should be because you're thinking "I want to upgrade my actions" and "I can easily replenish the cheap pieces of my deck".  And when you play it, it should be because you're either done with or can replace the card you're trashing, and because you want an action card costing exactly $1 more than it (or if it is the late game and you're ready to cannibalize your deck).  On boards where you can easily control how many of which engine pieces are in your deck at any given time, Procession is incredible, because not only does it increases the overall "value" of engine pieces in your deck, while throning cards as they start losing utility.  So, how do you identify a good board for Procession?  You want the following things:

1. Gainers (especially Rogue and Graverobber).  The combo with Rogue/Graverobber is obvious: trash good cards with Procession, and then dig them back out of the trash with Rogue or Graverobber (and even top-deck them in the latter case).  But even aside from these two cards, gainers are huge for Procession.  They help you pick up cheap engine parts to upgrade, and when you think you're closing in on the mid-late game, you can Procession those gainers in one final hurrah to grab two more cheap engine parts and $4/$5/$6 (depending on the gainer).
2. Strong trashing.  Trashing helps you maintain solid control over what is going into your deck.  In a thin deck it's easy to check "I have too many terminals" or "I don't need this many villages"; great, upgrade them with Procession into the terminals/villages that you need.
3. +Buy.  Similar to the point with gainers above, you usually want to be picking up cheap engine pieces quickly, and +buy can help out with that a lot.
4. Combos.  As with all TfB cards, you should look for on-trash bonuses.  Fortress may be the most obvious, but getting a Duchy as compensation for a late game Hunting Grounds popping, or extra Processions (or other cheap engine pieces) for trashing Catacombs, or extra attacks from Squire, etc. can be great as well.  One-shots are also awesome with Procession, even more so than with TR, because you get an extra benefit for them.  Processioning Feast for three $5's actually makes you want to go for Feast (and maybe even pick one up as one of your three $5 gains!) (warning: only do this if you're sure you can actually connect Procession with Feast), and Processioning Pillage for an extra two Spoils and a $6 is a nice bonus.  Knights also have a semi-one-shot aspect to them, so Processioning them can be nice if they would have died after the first hit anyway.  (In particular, Processioning Sir Martin can pick up another knight!)

The following things should trigger a red flag in your head that says "Don't get Procession":

1. A lack of a strong sequence of action cards at consecutive costs that you want.  There should almost certainly be at least a $3, a $4, and a $5 that you want.  Procession is probably that $4 if you want to use circular reasoning, but still check for a $3 and a $5 which you want.  If these are not present, you probably don't actually want to "upgrade" many of the actions in your deck, and so Procession's main benefit is negated.  Ideally there will also be at least either a $2 or a $6 that you want.  The point is, it may be a strong engine board that has the stuff mentioned above, but if all of the good engine components cost exactly $5, or exactly $4, or whatever, then you aren't going to be getting them by trashing stuff costing $1 less, since you don't have stuff costing $1 less.  You also usually want a good $4 alternative so that you don't always have to get Procession after trashing your $3's, but it's not necessary; just be prepared to play Procession a lot (meaning you'll also be grabbing lots of $5's), so get lots of cheap fuel to upgrade quickly.
2. Junking attacks (that can't be easily overcome with strong trashing).  If you can't consistently connect Procession with action cards you want to trash, then Procession will often just be a dead card in your deck, and you don't want to pay $4 for that!  On the other hand, you can use Procession to trash Ruins with a minor benefit, but this is generally weak and slow, and you should have a good reason for thinking it's okay before you go for it.  (Example of when it might be okay: you would otherwise want Procession, you have fast treasure-specific trashing with Spice Merchants, and you can build an engine if you can clear out your deck; then Processioning Ruins may be a good way to get there.)

Other types of attacks might also be bad for Procession, I don't really know about that.  Anyone else want to comment on it?

I want to give an example game, but I can't find the log I wanted to use.  I think this game was from summer 2013?  So I'm really re-constructing this from memory, but I remember it pretty distinctly, since it was the first time I saw Procession shine.  The board was: Chapel, (some good $3), Procession, Bridge, Monument, Laboratory, Rogue, Grand Market, King's Court, shoot that's only nine cards.  Maybe another $3 or something that just didn't get bought.  I can't remember what the good $3 was but I remember it being something you didn't mind having, though it wasn't something you needed either.

Okay, so I opened $2/$5 in this game, which is amazing.  Ultimately it was just a race to set up KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge, but Procession was essential to getting there.  You trash down with Chapel, then on your last time playing it Procession it to grab the $3 and get it out of your deck.  Pick up lots of $3's, Bridges, and Processions, so that you can buy lots of cheap engine parts (from bridges), and upgrade stuff quickly with Procession, picking up Rogues, processioning them into GM's (to circumvent the no-Copper restriction, though you probably don't have any Copper anyway), and grabbing your good cards back out of the trash.  Eventually you can Procession GM's into KC, and you'll reach KC-KC-Bridge-Bridge-Bridge and win.

So the following things make this nearly the optimal Procession board:

1. Strong trashing from Chapel
2. Rogue to dig stuff out of the trash after you Procession it
3. Bridge for awesome +buy that can pick up lots of cheap components fast
4. A clear chain of cards costing from $2 to $7, with at least one that you want at each price

It's also worth noting that if you play Bridge enough times in a turn, you can Procession "cheaper" $0's into $1's (like Chapel into KC as an extreme example), but that's not a big deal, it's unlikely to come up many times before the game ends.

Hope that helps!  I am also completely open to hearing more experienced players' comments/corrections to my thoughts.
Logged

KingZog3

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3163
  • Respect: +1380
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #13 on: February 11, 2014, 05:46:58 pm »
0

It's use is limited, but it really shines with one shots (Makes Festival Feast great), as well as a lot of Dark ages cards. Personally I think it's good to turn early game cards like Sage into more useful cards, but I never feel like you need more than 1 or 2 Processions.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2014, 01:09:20 pm by KingZog3 »
Logged

silverspawn

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5379
  • Shuffle iT Username: sty.silver
  • Respect: +3334
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #14 on: February 12, 2014, 07:32:26 am »
0

It's use is limited, but it really shines with one shots (Makes Festival great), as well as a lot of Dark ages cards. Personally I think it's good to turn early game cards like Sage into more useful cards, but I never feel like you need more than 1 or 2 Processions.

that's definitely wrong imo... if you go allout for it for it you need lots and lots of processions, because the ultimate goal is always to procession - procession - drawer - procession - continue a turn. and then you lose a bunch of processions, and because most drawers are $5, that means you get a lot of drawers. but you also lose drawers, because you want to play them twice to draw lots of cards. that's obviously not possible on every board, and if it's not you might be fine with just 1 or 2, but it is on some.

imo procession is the single most difficult to use card in the game. i'm far from understanding it perfectly, but it has so much potential... so damn much
« Last Edit: February 12, 2014, 07:33:51 am by silverspawn »
Logged

BadAssMutha

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 115
  • Respect: +119
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #15 on: February 12, 2014, 09:19:14 am »
+2

Quote
Quote
It's use is limited, but it really shines with one shots (Makes Festival great), as well as a lot of Dark ages cards. Personally I think it's good to turn early game cards like Sage into more useful cards, but I never feel like you need more than 1 or 2 Processions.

that's definitely wrong imo... if you go allout for it for it you need lots and lots of processions, because the ultimate goal is always to procession - procession - drawer - procession - continue a turn.

I agree that you'll almost certainly need more than 2 Processions if you're playing it right, but you might not need more than 2 or 3 at a time for much of the game. Your deck is constantly in flux with Procession, and you should probably be Processioning Processions into $5s, and then replacing those by Processioning $3s into more Processions. By the end of the game, you may go through 5 or more Processions, but only wind up with a couple in your deck.
Logged

markusin

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3846
  • Shuffle iT Username: markusin
  • I also switched from Starcraft
  • Respect: +2438
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #16 on: February 12, 2014, 10:06:36 am »
0

Quote
Quote
It's use is limited, but it really shines with one shots (Makes Festival great), as well as a lot of Dark ages cards. Personally I think it's good to turn early game cards like Sage into more useful cards, but I never feel like you need more than 1 or 2 Processions.

that's definitely wrong imo... if you go allout for it for it you need lots and lots of processions, because the ultimate goal is always to procession - procession - drawer - procession - continue a turn.

I agree that you'll almost certainly need more than 2 Processions if you're playing it right, but you might not need more than 2 or 3 at a time for much of the game. Your deck is constantly in flux with Procession, and you should probably be Processioning Processions into $5s, and then replacing those by Processioning $3s into more Processions. By the end of the game, you may go through 5 or more Processions, but only wind up with a couple in your deck.
It's something like that. I'm just not sure if I'm playing the optimal strategy when I have that sort of thing going.
Logged

eHalcyon

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8689
  • Respect: +9192
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #17 on: February 12, 2014, 01:07:30 pm »
0

It's use is limited, but it really shines with one shots (Makes Festival great), as well as a lot of Dark ages cards. Personally I think it's good to turn early game cards like Sage into more useful cards, but I never feel like you need more than 1 or 2 Processions.

You mean Feast, right?
Logged

KingZog3

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3163
  • Respect: +1380
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #18 on: February 12, 2014, 01:09:05 pm »
0

It's use is limited, but it really shines with one shots (Makes Festival great), as well as a lot of Dark ages cards. Personally I think it's good to turn early game cards like Sage into more useful cards, but I never feel like you need more than 1 or 2 Processions.

You mean Feast, right?

Yes! I did mean Feast.
Logged

flies

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 629
  • Shuffle iT Username: flies
  • Statistical mechanics of hard rods on a 1D lattice
  • Respect: +348
    • View Profile
    • ask the atheists
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #19 on: February 14, 2014, 12:39:21 pm »
0

procession is going to be much better than upgrade on an action if you have the actions for it and you want to get another action.  If you'd want to upgrade your actions, then procession is worthwhile.
Logged
Gotta be efficient when most of your hand coordination is spent trying to apply mascara to your beard.
flies Dominionates on youtube

Polk5440

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1708
  • Respect: +1788
    • View Profile
Re: Procession logs
« Reply #20 on: February 14, 2014, 04:55:53 pm »
0

imo procession is the single most difficult to use card in the game.

For me, it's a toss-up between Procession and Develop.

-----

With Procession, you really have to commit. You can play Upgrade chains half-heartedly. With Procession you have to commit to upgrading those actions into actions. And you should be willing to upgrade almost any action Procession collides with.

It's hard to play well because you have to have a very good sense of the flow of cards through your deck. You don't want to stop Processing, usually. If you have a mature deck mid-game then you should be gaining cheap cards and Processing them up through the chain and out the top (don't be afraid of Processing power cards just because you don't replace them that instant). If you are not careful, midgame the chain can break, your deck can go out of balance and you can let Procession destroy your deck.
Logged
Pages: [1]
 

Page created in 0.062 seconds with 21 queries.