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[c4master]

The discussion about T1 M ountebank opening in this thread has made me think about the odds of player 2 in a mirror match with $5 power cards such as Witch.

Of course, it matters a lot which other cards are available. Let's first assume there are only non-drawing $2 cards (and no Cellar).
Let player 1 open witch and an arbitrary $2 card. I'm going to invest the odds of cursing before the second shuffle.

a) You mirror P1 and open Witch/$2-card.
- There is a 2/12 cahnce for your witch to miss the first shuffle. P1 can play his Witch either n T3 or T4 and still curse you before your shuffle.
- There is a 5/12 chance your Witch appears on T4. In this case you curse after the reshuffle of P1 and P1 still has the chance to curse you on T3 or T4.
- There is a 5/12 chance your Witch appears on T3. In this case you curse P1 before his shuffle and he has still the chance to curse you on T3 or on T4.

--> odds of getting a curse before your reshuffle: 10/12 = 83% (P1 Witch doesn't miss the shuffle)
--> odds of dealing a curse before his reshuffle: 5/12 + 5/12*2/12 = 49%

b) You open Witch/nothing
- 1/11 chance for your Witch to miss the shuffle.
- 5/11 chance for your Witch to appear on T3. P1 now only has T3 left to deal his curse before your reshuffle. There is a ~1/9 chance for your Witch to appear again on T4 (top card of your shuffle).
- 5/11 chance for your witch to appear on T4. P1 has both, T3 and T4 for his cursing AND you Witch misses the shuffle. At least, you will deal the curse before his shuffle with a probability of 2/12.

--> odds of getting a curse before the shuffle: 6/11*10/12 + 5/11*5/12 = 85/132 = 64%
--> odds of dealing a curse before the shuffle: 5/11 + 5/11*2/12 = 35/66 = 53%
--> odds of your witch missing the next (9-card) shuffle: 6/11*10/12 = 10/22 = 45%
Actually this can be good if you hit $5 with your T4 Witch, so you can safely buy another Witch or another $4 terminal that is worth getting.

c) You open Witch/Cantrip
- There is a ~1/12 + 1/12*1/11 = 1/11 chance for your Witch to miss the shuffle (exceptions below).
- If you play your Cantrip before the Witch, you are sure to reshuffle before T5. Whether this is good really depends on when you play your Witch. With a Witch/Cantrip hand on T3 you should play the Cantrip, same hand on T4 and you probably shouldn't because it would make your Witch miss the shuffle. Only Cantrip on T3 is a tough call. You can decrease the odds for your Witch to miss T4, but you greatly increase the chance for your Witch to miss the next shuffle.
- There also is a slight chance to draw your Cantrip dead (Should be around 2/12). Drawing it dead on T3 is bad, but drawing it dead on T4 is mostly good.

All in all, I'd say that a Cantrip is mostly a clever buy, because you can chose to activate it - or not to.

Special $2 cards:
Pearl Diver - guarantees to play your Witch until T4 unless both cards are at the bottom of your shuffle or Witch is your bottom card and Pearl Diver doesn't appear on T3. [corrected]
Vagrant - has the potential to draw two cards - one of which is a bad one. Very good, as it gets those curses out of your sight.
Haven - helps you getting $5 if your Witch appears on T4 (~5/12).
Cellar - must-buy unless there is...
Chapel - must-buy
Pawn - worth buying, maybe worth trying $ and card just to get $5.
Lighthouse - maybe Witch isn't that great anymore...
Hamlet - doesn't provide direct benefit other than being a Cantrip at first. Very good, if your going to build an engine later on.
Crossroads - potential to draw up to three cards. Can be tricky and gets less useful later on unless your going to slog (silk raod or gardens) or need a village for an engine.
Fool's Gold - very likely a must-buy. Yet, less great with all these curses.
Beggar - Anti-cycling on opponent's attack, but provides economy. Great for slogs, otherwise pretty awful. At least, it let's you spike a second witch almost certainly - at the cost of 3 more Coppers. Again, great in Slogs, bad otherwise.
Candlestick Maker - helps you get $5 or $6
Duchess - Only useful for P2. Discard anything but your witch. Also helps your opponent a bit.

[shark_bait]

In terms of how to play a mirror as P2.... I can't say that I would play any differently.  Instead I will be praying differently that my 5/12 odds come through as to not fall even more behind.  The difference between the 5/12 and 10/12 odds are why there is such a big advantage for P1 in cursing games.

None of those $2-cost cards provide differences in how I would play as second player.  In these situations I would do the same thing as P1 as I would for P2.  I know there has been other discussion related to this before.  I believe the consensus was that Witch/$2 > Witch/Nothing > Witch/Copper

[dominator 123]

Pearl Diver draws first then filters, so if your Witch is at the bottom of the deck and you draw PD on turn 4, your Witch will still miss the reshuffle

[c4master]

In terms of how to play a mirror as P2.... I can't say that I would play any differently.  Instead I will be praying differently that my 5/12 odds come through as to not fall even more behind.  The difference between the 5/12 and 10/12 odds are why there is such a big advantage for P1 in cursing games.

None of those $2-cost cards provide differences in how I would play as second player.  In these situations I would do the same thing as P1 as I would for P2.  I know there has been other discussion related to this before.  I believe the consensus was that Witch/$2 > Witch/Nothing > Witch/Copper

Yeah, that's why P1 has such a big advantage in Witch games (also in Cultist games).
I'm not sure about the consensus. I think, not every $2 card is worth buying and not all of them are of the same value for both players. One good example might be Duchess.

Pearl Diver draws first then filters, so if your Witch is at the bottom of the deck and you draw PD on turn 4, your Witch will still miss the reshuffle

Oh yeah, that's true.

[DG]

The more interesting topic is how a young witch bane changes a mirror for the second player.

[c4master]

The more interesting topic is how a young witch bane changes a mirror for the second player.

Isn't that quite the same as a Moat?

[Stealth Tomato]

The more interesting topic is how a young witch bane changes a mirror for the second player.

Isn't that quite the same as a Moat?

It's similar, but Young Witch always has a Bane available, is the most powerful sub-$5 Curser, and the Bane can be anywhere from extremely powerful (Forager) to extremely weak (Duchess).

[ConMan]

The more interesting topic is how a young witch bane changes a mirror for the second player.

Isn't that quite the same as a Moat?

It's similar, but Young Witch always has a Bane available, is the most powerful sub-$5 Curser, and the Bane can be anywhere from extremely powerful (Forager) to extremely weak (Duchess).

The really interesting part, to me, is when the Bane is something like Beggar - you can choose to react to the playing of Young Witch and get the Silver, or you can reveal it to prevent you getting the curse, but not both (because the reaction to playing YW resolves before any of YW's card text, and once you've done that you've discarded the Beggar).

[c4master]

In a sloggy game, I would probably discard the beggar for two silvers, one of which is being topdecked! I feel like getting 2 silvers and a curse is better than gaining none of all this in any slog, even in BM without Colonies.
Later on, you could chose not to gain any more curses, because you want to deal them or because you don't want the curses to run out.
The more important question would be: Is the beggar strong enough to buy it even when you have it in your hand, but not gaining curses? In a very basic estimation I hold this situation to be 50/50 until the curses run out. After that, the other player might decide not to play the YW unless he needs the sifting.