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rspeer

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Evaluate your best and your worst board
« on: December 18, 2011, 07:22:03 am »
+7

One of the inscrutable statistics over on CouncilRoom.com, "win rate given avail", will tell you how likely you are to win a game with each given card in it. Let's suppose you get to play a game with your best 10 Kingdom cards on this list. That's your dream board. How do you play it? Now do the same thing for the worst 10 cards, your nightmare board.

To see this, go to the increasingly misnamed "Popular Buys" page on councilroom.com. Type your name into the first search box, the one that says "search by player", and hit enter. This should add a bunch of columns about your statistics on the right. One of those columns is your "win rate given avail". Click the header to sort by it.


Here's my best board:

$5  Jester
$4  Coppersmith, Walled Village, Spice Merchant, Talisman
$3  Trade Route, Woodcutter, Smugglers
$2  Hamlet, Pawn

I'm pretty sure that the only action cards I would actively buy in this kingdom are Jester and Pawn. Besides that I'd aim for Big Money, though "Big Money/Jester" is not a well-defined strategy because you have to adapt it to whatever ends up in your deck. Maybe I'd pick up a Hamlet or WV if I ended up with too many terminals because of my Jester or my opponent's. This board mostly involves being adaptable, and picking the right time to start greening, which I think I can do.


Worst board*:

$5  Highway, Archivist, Haggler
$4  Noble Brigand, Bridge
$3  Tunnel, Scheme, Oasis
$2  Chapel, Fool's Gold

This board is telling me two things: "you're bad at Hinterlands", and "you're bad at combos". Thanks, board, way to make me look like a noob.

But it's probably right. My reaction upon looking at this kingdom is "buhhhhhh". But let me think through it.

Of course I need a Chapel, and I'd probably open Chapel/Silver. Now there's the fan card Archivist on the board, and I remember it being described as a "one card combo card", so loading up on Archivists in a chapeled deck is
probably good. Especially because it does something slightly useful with Chapel (discards it for $1) after it has served its purpose.

Is Archivist/Oasis a combo, or just redundant? I might pick up an Oasis just to try it. But most notably I'm discarding all the  time, so once I have an Archivist I'd probably start buying Tunnels. Which have a significant threat of clogging my chapeled deck, but Archivist/Tunnel just sounds way too good to pass up. And that sounds like an argument for more Oases later.

Oh, and I need a Bridge, as my one terminal, for +buys. With which I'd probably buy even more Tunnels while it's possible. This game might empty the gold pile. And wouldn't Highways go well with Bridge? Well, I don't know. I don't think I have time to buy them among everything else I'm trying to do.

I'd probably pass entirely on Fool's Gold. The deck is going to be too full of tunnels and real Gold. Archivist sounds initially like a good way to find two FGs to pair up, but that only actually works if you get two Archivists to pair up!

Now show me why I screwed that up entirely.


*I cheated a bit. Jack of All Trades is, remarkably, on my worst list, and I skipped over it. I think this is due to a phase where I desperately tried to find ways to not buy it. I've got a bunch of games where I didn't buy a Jack, and my win rate in these games is an abysmal 0.44. If you put Jack in this kingdom instead of Oasis, you get a predictably boring board that's dominated by DoubleJack, so let's not.
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DG

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2011, 07:51:38 am »
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Have fun with my "best board".

6$ - Border Village, Grand Market
5$ - Tactician, Merchant Ship
4$ - Bureaucrat, Mining Village, Sea Hag, Spy, Young Witch
3$ - Village, Woodcutter (bane)

Ouch. My worst board is seemingly hinterlands cards, all of them.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2011, 08:18:47 am »
0

Best
Archivist (I'm going to throw this out, with 4 games, which I think is actually like 2 plus artifacts...)
Oasis
Walled Village
Cache
Ill-Gotten-Gains
Silk Road
Haggler
Farmland
Philosopher's Stone
University
Governor

I'm probably playing a fairly straight IGG rush here, maybe dipping for farmland and/or silk road depending on what my opponent does.

Worst Board
Spice Merchant
Tunnel
Noble Brigand
Platinum
Colony
Steward
Minion
Stables
Ghost Ship
Caravan
Torturer
Hunting Party

Here I'm probably going for a minion/tunnel deck, with an early steward for trashing and eventually some caravans. And I want platina, even with the minion engine, but I'll probably green decently early.
Actually, thinking more, I might forego the minions and go more steward/BM. I'd pick up tunnels and Hunting Parties if my opponent heads for minion and ghost ships otherwise.
But there is a reason these are my worst cards.

Thisisnotasmile

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2011, 08:48:09 am »
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My Best Board:

$5 Haggler, Margrave, Cartographer, Mine
$4 Spice Merchant, Nomad Camp, Gardens
$3 Oracle, Masquerade
$2P Apothecary

Depending on my mood I might play this a couple of different ways. First thing to note is there are no Villages and in fact there are hardly any non-terminals at all either.

No matter what I do, I'll probably be spamming Apothecaries. Apothecary is such an underrated card but I love it because it's the perfect alternative to trashing your starting cards (it effectively removes 7/10 of them from your deck, while not actually taking away the benefit that they would otherwise provide you). Since I'm ignoring trashing (i.e. Masquerade. I have no idea why Mine and Spice Merchant are here, maybe because other people don't ignore them 95% of the time like I do because they are so terrible) Gardens immediately stand out as a strong route to take. Since I plan on having a big deck I don't mind picking up a few extra terminals and on this board I'm talking Margrave, Haggler and Nomad Camp. With a $4 opening I'll pick up Nomad Camp aiming for Margrave with $5 or Potion with $4, I'll pick up Silver with any $3 turns but I'm not that fussed because I'm aiming to use Apothecary to get most of my buying power.

Once I've got 1 each of my 3 terminals I'll start picking up Gardens with 4 with Copper or Silver if I have +buy or Haggler in play. I'll take a couple of Cartographers with $5 after the Gardens have gone to keep my deck moving and an extra Potion if there are still a significant number of Apothecaries left. Then just spam +buys and Haggler gains until I empty Gardens/Apothecary/Estate.

Alternatively, I'll start as above aiming for a couple of strong terminals and spamming Apothecaries, but if my opponent picks up a Masquerade early I have a choice. Either I carry on for Gardens with the safety net that he's trashing so even if he snipes a couple, they're not going to be worth much, or I switch to Provinces. I might do this because I'm inevitably going to be passed some Coppers. All I need is one extra Copper in my deck and I can suddenly afford Provinces (although if I already have Haggler or Nomad camp I can already afford Provinces, but the extra Copper is just fuel for my Apothecaries). The extra Buys I have from Margrave/Nomad Camp can let me pick up extra Apothecaries or tie-breaking Gardens during the game. Haggler will allow me to do stuff like Province -> Gold.

Finally, if I've lost a few games recently and just want to get a win on the board no matter what, there's always Masquerade Big Money, but I'll avoid that if at all possible.

My Worst Board:

$6 Hoard
$5 Inn, Mint, Saboteur, Stables
$3P Philosopher's Stone
$3 Steward, Swindler, Watchtower, Scheme

Archivist is apparently my 3rd worst card but I have omitted it because a) I don't even know where to put it because I don't know how much it costs, b) I don't know what it does so I can't analyse it and most importantly, c) I've never played a single game with it.

I'd probably lose this because I'd get too mixed up with which cards I want/need and when I want/need them. I'd probably ignore Steward because trashing is lame and instead go for a Stables draw engine (which is way too slow because there's no +buy to catch up with later) with Hoards for money. I'd take a Swindler and probably hit only Estates for the first 10 turns while all of my Stables get swindled into Duchies and later on Mints or my Coppers turn into Curses and then my Stables have no fuel. Maybe pick up a Scheme or two with $3 hands to keep Stables on my deck (which will inevitably end up givng me a draw of Stables, Stables, Stables, Estate, Estate) and maybe a Watchtower to defend against Swindler.

But yeah, I'd definitely lose this game.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2011, 08:54:03 am by Thisisnotasmile »
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Elyv

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2011, 11:23:30 am »
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Best Board:
$6P Possession
$5 Mountebank, Ghost Ship, Mandarin, Contraband
$4 Bureaucrat, Spice Merchant, Pirate Ship
$3 Chancellor
$2 Chapel

Seems like a really boring board, grab a chapel and a mountebank or two and, well, that's about it. It's interesting to me that the only cards on that list that I buy more than 65% of the time are Mountebank and Chapel, and 4 cards on it are under 10%.

Worst Board(ignoring archivist):
$6 Farmland, Border Village
$5 Cache, Inn
$4P Golem
$4 Coppersmith
$3 Develop, Scheme, Oracle
$2 Fool's Gold

This looks like a pretty bad board too, and it's filled with cards that I've only played 20-30 games with. I have no idea what I'd do here; maybe pick up a ton of fool's golds and an oracle plus a scheme or two/go big money with oracle? I don't really see anything else.
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TheMathProf

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #5 on: December 18, 2011, 11:24:56 am »
0

Best Board:

Colonies/Platinums in play (these tie for 9th)
$7  Expand
$6  Fairgrounds
$5  Embassy, Highway, Haggler
$4  Worker's Village, Smithy
$3  Menagerie, Steward, Trade Route

The funniest thing to me about this arrangement of cards is that I regularly veto Expand because I can't stand it.  :)

Fairgrounds are a much weaker card with the Colonies/Platinums in play.  It doesn't look like a particularly Action heavy board, but I probably do buy a Haggler and a Steward (initially for trashing).  Probably also a Smithy or Embassy.  A few Worker's Villages, not so much for the +2 actions, although it could come in handy with the 2-3 terminals in the deck but more for the +buy.  Using the Haggler to gain Worker's Villages and Menageries are probably decently strong.

Worst Board:

$6  Farmland
$5  Cartographer, Governor, Ill-Gotten Gains
$4  Spice Merchant, Pirate Ship, Nomad Camp, Jack of All Trades, Farming Village
$2  Duchess

Seems like a decent board for Jack, although I've been tempted a lot with Ill-Gotten Gains lately (these are the only two cards where my Effect With is -0.10 std dev better than the mean or better).
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hobo386

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #6 on: December 18, 2011, 12:22:06 pm »
0

Top 10:
1)Saboteur
2)Navigator
3)Shanty Town
4)Royal Seal
5)Possession
6)Black MarketPearl Diver
7)Quarry
8)Lookout
9)Jack of All Trades
10)Workshop

I'm ignoring Black Market, since I don't know what is in it...  Overall this is a boring board, and most of these cards like Saboteur I'm something like 1.6 Win Rate without and 1.0 win rate with (royal seal notable exception, I have a 1.89 WR with).  I'd probably open JoAT+Shanty Town, then play doublejack from there.  Pick up a royal seal at $5, I suppose, but play it straight other than that.

Worst 10:
1)Hoard
2)Nobles
3)Duchess
4)Stables
5)Embassy
6)Trader
7)Rabble
8)Hunting Party
9)Oracle
10)Tournament

Boards like this are why I have such a bad win rate with tournament.  When I get a board with warehouse, chapel, or remake, I can pull off tournaments like everyone else. On boards like this, I end up with 3 provinces to my opponents 1, and he ends up with all the prizes, then proceeds to kick my ass somehow. My first thought is to open trader/silver Province>Hoard>1 Embassy>silver, to buy victory cards when I have a hoard and trash them with trader when necessary.  My other thought is to ignore Hoard and go for a HP strategy with 2 gold, HP at $5, tournament at $4 and a few silver, hoping my opponent doesn't get lucky and pull the same thing off but one turn faster and with better shuffle luck.
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olneyce

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #7 on: December 18, 2011, 12:25:06 pm »
0

Best board

$5
Ill-Gotten Gains
Haggler
Governor
Stables
Embassy
Mandarin
Inn

$4
Spice Merchant
Trader

$3
Scheme

That's really boring. All that says is that my play has improved substantially in the past couple months, so Hinterlands cards are all at the top.

Worst board

$6P
Possession

$5
Counting House
Venture
Minion
Trading Post

$4
Ironworks
Tournament
Quarry

$3P
Familiar

$3
Watchtower

That's much more interesting.  And it has some of my absolute least favorite cards.  Possession, Familiar, and Tournament are three of approximately 6 cards that I regularly veto.

I suppose you have to go for Familiars, but should you buy Watchtower as a counter?  There's no +action unless you get Trusty Steed.  There's no +buy, which makes Quarry a lot less useful.  Minions are a lot weaker in a deck clogged with curses, but that might still be the best strategy.  Ventures skip over curses but the only trashing is Trading Post, which is expensive and slow.

Yes, I would almost certainly lose on this board.
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DrHades

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #8 on: December 18, 2011, 12:33:03 pm »
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"Best" board:

$7 Expand
$6 Grand Market, Border Village
$5 Embassy, Royal Seal, Cartographer
$3 Lookout, Tunnel
$2 Courtyard, Native Village

Well, Embassy/Cartographer+Tunnel combo is pretty obvious + getting the Embassy with free village sounds really yummy :) Then after some Golds comes in, GM is my choice and maybe even some Expand on the way...OTOH - I would watch my opponent very closely, because this game might end very quickly since gold is so easy to get and no Colonies on the board.

Opening? Tunnel/Lookout and let's rock'n'roll  :P

"Worst" board:

Colonies and Platinums in play

$2 Herbalist (Bane)
$3  Village, Wishing Well, Masquerade
$3P Alchemist
$4  Militia, Young Witch, Sea Hag
$5  Council Room, Wharf, Duke

Since Herbalist is a bane I would go for Alchemist/Herbalist combo and ignore the attacks. And that is why I would lost this one. But I am glad that Duke moved to #10, it was in my bottom 3 for a long time, finally I know a little how to play that dude.

Thanks to this thread I found out 2 things I didn't know before:

1.
Attacks in "best"? 0
Attacks in "worst"? 4 - all of them for $4 or less.
This is interesting. I probably want to buy $5 so much I miss a strong attack below and then I lost because of this mistake  ;D

2.
If you read REALLY carefully (did anyone? I don't think so), you would notice that my "worst" board has Colonies and Platinums but not even 1 card from Prosperity. I think this means that I am bad at making good engines (that can get Colonies) without strong cards like KC, GM or Expand...and it is probably true - I am offen going for Provinces waaaaay too early and with Colonies on the board, I am helpless...
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WHARF 2 THA BRIDGE

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #9 on: December 18, 2011, 12:57:33 pm »
0

Here's my "best" board (in order of my win rate):

Scheme
Goons
Fool's Gold
Spice Merchant
Black Market
Governor
Scrying Pool
Ghost Ship
Transmute
Possession

On this board I'd open Potion/Black market and try to spike some villages and load up on Scrying Pools. My next action buy would be Spice Merchant, and I'd try to have Goons be the only other terminal in my deck if I couldn't get a village.

If you cut Black Market, the next card down for me is Quarry, which makes this board harder to evaluate. I feel like it makes Scrying Pool less viable because there's no actions that generate money (except Goons which is terminal). I might open Spice Merchant/Fool's Gold and try to rush Fool's Golds with a Goons to cap it off.

Kind of disappointing board. Scrying Pool is my favorite card in Dominion and it's not that great on either of these boards, and I also hate Fool's Gold and Possession and have no idea how they're on there.

My "worst" board:

Contraband
Wishing Well
Throne Room
Jack of All Trades
Merchant Ship
Caravan
Tunnel
Crossroads
Stables
Island

(Archivist was at the bottom but I don't even know what it is so I cut it.)

I mean, I guess Jack of All Trades is the fastest deck. It doesn't look like any of the other possible strats are both faster and more reliable. If you cut Jack, the next card up is Silk Road, which makes some kind of Crossroads 3-pile strategy possible, but is still kind of hurt by no +buy (except Contraband). Maybe the strat on that board is to buy Contraband, and your opponent can't block you from all the stuff you wanna buy (silks, islands, tunnels) so you just buy around what they call.

My boards suck, what a let down.
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jonts26

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #10 on: December 18, 2011, 01:02:14 pm »
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My Best Board

$2 Chapel, Pearl Diver, Herbalist (Bane, my next highest $2-3 card)
$3 Masquerade
$4 Young Witch, Silk Road, Noble Brigand, Talisman
$5 Mountebank, Hunting Party, Wharf

This would be a lot more interesting with a good village type. But as it is? Probably open Young Witch/Chapel, moving into a Hunting Party Stack. I may buy a Mountebank later and trash the YW depending on how the game goes. Mountebank is a much better card to have in a strong Hunting Party deck, but the early cursing from Young Witch with the bad bane card is too good to pass up. Also what the heck are Talisman and Noble Brigand doing there?

My Worst Board

$2 Crossroads
$3 Oracle, Develop
$3P Philosopher's Stone
$4 Trader
$5 Haggler, Carographer, Vault, Treasury, Highway

Very Hinterlands heavy, as has been the case with a lot of people. Also, clearly my experiments with Trader and Develop have not gone well. This isn't a very good board for Crossroads so pretty much everything south of $5 is going to be ignored. Highway is strictly inferior to treasury without +Buy. Haggler is probably decent, but not great here. Most likely I'd go Vault/BM with Cartographer for card organization so I get good vault draws.
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chwhite

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #11 on: December 18, 2011, 01:06:12 pm »
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Worst board:

$5: Governor, Cartographer, Mandarin, Explorer, Venture
$4: Bureaucrat
$3: Woodcutter, Scheme
$2: Duchess, Crossroads

Technically Archivist is my second-worst card at even (I lose more often than I win with Governor out); but it's only even because I've never actually played Archivist, so there you go.

Anyway, this board is some crap, filled mostly with weak cards that I historically have ignored even when they're good and misplay when I go for them.  Duchess is just taking up space, Woodcutter probably is too.  With Bureaucrat and Explorer we have two pillars of crappy Silver-based decks, which I've historically floundered with (and ignored even more often than I should).  Venture was for a long time my very worst card, as I thought it was really weak (and lost to good Venture strategies) and even after I started going for it didn't do it very well.  (I still think Venture is overrated).  Crossroads was a trap for me when it first came out; Mandarin I haven't figured out either.

The winning strategy here is probably mass Governors for Gold gain leading into massive draw and remodel them into Provinces.  Greening early and getting Cartographer and/or Crossroads probably helps too, and I'd even consider opening Bureaucrat since the attack is likely to actually be relevant.  But whatever I do I wouldn't be at all confident in my plan.


Best board:

$8: Peddler
$6: Goons, Adventurer
$5: Inn, Ghost Ship
$4: Bishop
$3: Menagerie, Black Market
$2P: Scrying Pool
$2: Fool's Gold

Holy Goons engine, Batman!  Actually this isn't the very best setup for mega-Goons, since Inn is the only Village and Bishop is the only trashing, but Scrying Pool and Peddler and Menagerie all give big boosts to this approach.  Menagerie has my very best Win Rate With; I go hard for Menagerie almost all the time and it almost always works out; it's a beast of card and with Goons, Pool, and Ghost Ship it's bound to hit often here.  Pool and the Ship are two very strong cards that I do a good job of ignoring in unfavorable situations (and Black Market is a normally weak card that I can often extract extra value from); I think Pool is probably the only card of the three I'd want here, since one Bishop and several Goons is more than enough terminals for this deck.  VP chips are powerful and suit my style well, and we've got two of the three chip-givers here; Adventurer and Fool's Gold are on this list because they suck (especially in this setup!) and I'm good at ignoring them; no the recent "Fool's Gold is better than Silver!!!1!!one" simulation data is going to convince me to buy it here (or, really, in most setups).  It's just going to convince me the simulator shouldn't be blindly trusted.


Tl;dr: I'm bad on boards where you need to mass Silver and green early; I'm good at getting the "Who needs green cards anyway?" achievement.
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chwhite

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #12 on: December 18, 2011, 01:07:32 pm »
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Kind of disappointing board. Scrying Pool is my favorite card in Dominion and it's not that great on either of these boards, and I also hate Fool's Gold and Possession and have no idea how they're on there.

Probably because they're way weaker than their reputation and you're good at ignoring them?
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Fabian

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #13 on: December 18, 2011, 01:13:15 pm »
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Best:

$5 Mandarin, Highway, Embassy, Stables, Inn
$4 Jack of All Trades, Island, Nomad Camp
$3 Scheme
$0P Transmute

This list is pretty hilarious to me, as it consists of 7 cards I'm pretty much actively trying to avoid, and 3 cards I like.

As for strategy.. DoubleJack anyone? I kinda doubt some Inn/Embassy/Nomad Camp combination would speed it up, then again I often seem to overvalue DoubleJack so I'm sure I'm dead wrong :)

Worst:

$6P Possession
$5 Hunting Party, Royal Seal
$4 Noble Brigand, Walled Village, Spice Merchant, Bridge
$3 Menagerie, Trade Route
$2 Moat

Probably Bridge/Silver, load up on Hunting Parties, buy a Gold, hope for some double Hunting Party turns or something?
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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #14 on: December 18, 2011, 01:45:19 pm »
0

Best:

Farmland
Highway Margrave Torturer
Jack HorseTraders PirateShip
Menagerie
Crossroads Scrying Pool

Don't really see this being much other than a doublejack; there arent any good handsize-decreasing actions besides torturer, no villages, etc...I'd be jackin' it.  Without jack, it's a 3 terminal crossroads deck, probably torturer.

Worst:

BorderVillage
Archivist Embassy MerchantShipStashRabble
TraderIronworks
Oasis
Duchess

As evidenced by my failure in the tournament, (honestly, almost this exact board was present), I'd try to build some sort of embassy/bordervillage/oasis engine when clearly the best strat is just embassy/BM.  My biggest problem is playing BMX decks.
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Titandrake

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #15 on: December 18, 2011, 02:01:53 pm »
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Best Board:
$7 King's Court
$5 Haggler, Cache, Library, Treasury
$4 Bureaucrat, Mining Village
$3 Wishing Well
$2P Apothecary
$2 Haven

Huh. Wasn't expecting that. I've never tried Apothecary/Cache before, so I'd probably try that. Maybe pick up a KC along the way for KC-Apothecary, and a Haggler or two to give pseudo +Buy.

Worst Board:
$5 Embassy, Cartographer
$4 Silk Road, Spice Merchant, Noble Brigand
$3 Fortune Teller, Develop, Scheme, Oracle
$2 Cellar

Yeah I really don't know how to use Cartographer, and I keep trying to not play Embassy-BM when I really should. I've experimented with Noble Brigand recently, and it's not bad, but I'm probably playing it a bit wrong. Eh, I'd still do Embassy-BM, hope that it gets more money than Brigand steals.
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Elyv

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #16 on: December 18, 2011, 02:09:19 pm »
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Just for fun, I thought I'd see how this would work for isotropic as a whole.

Overall Winrate with(for isotropic as a whole):

Best(ignoring Prizes, colonies on the board):
$6 Grand Market
$5 Mountebank, Witch, Ill-Gotten Gains, Hunting Party, Venture(?!), Ghost Ship, Wharf
$3P Familar
$3 Masquerade

What a nice, friendly board. I think I'd open Silver/Masquerade, and grab a mountebank early. After that it gets a little trickier. I'm pretty sure you want a second masquerade at some point, but do you want Wharf? Do you want a second Mountebank/Witch? Do you take HP over Gold(I suspect no, but I'm not sure)? I'm really not sure.

Worst:
$5 Counting House, Saboteur
$4 Thief, Coppersmith, Bureaucrat, Pirate Ship, Talisman
$3 Workshop, Chancellor
$0P Transmute

Seems like a good Pirate Ship board; grab a couple quickly, and try to build up to provinces. Not really a whole lot else to say.

Overall Winrate without(for isotropic as a whole):

Best:
Note: silver is in second here


$5 Saboteur, Highway
$4 Pirate Ship, Throne Room, Bridge, Talisman, Walled Village
$3 Black Market, Smugglers
$2P University

This actually seems like an interesting board; all it needs is a little card draw or trashing to be really strong(and you might be able to find it in the black market). I think I would try to go for some sort of Highway/TR/Bridge based deck, maybe mixing in Talisman, smugglers, and/or Walled Village. Saboteur might even  be worth getting to trash their provinces, although I think this board will be too much about one big turn.

Worst:
Colonies are present
$7 King's Court
$6 Goons, Grand Market, Nobles
$5 Mountebank, Witch, Hunting Party, Wharf
$4 Tournament
$3P Familiar

Um, Mountebank into Goons-Based deck? seems like a pretty straightforward concept, although building it might be tricky. Probably the person who wins is the first one to King's court a mountebank/witch/wharf.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2011, 03:30:33 pm by Elyv »
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kn1tt3r

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #17 on: December 18, 2011, 02:10:55 pm »
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Best Board:

$6: Hoard
$5: Haggler, Cartagropher, Upgrade, Wharf
$4: Cutpurse, Ironworks, Farming Village
$3: Workshop
$2: Hamlet

Interesting Choice between straight Wharf/Money or a Wharf/Haggler/Village engine. Probably Haggler makes the engine option a bit better because you build it up much faster.


Worst Board

$6: Harem
$5: Cache, Venture
$4: Bishop, Silk Road, Feast
$3: Swindler, Shanty Town
$2: Embargo, Pearl Diver

Looks like a simple Bishop/Swindler/Money board.
Obviously I'm bad at some of these alternative VP possibilites. Silk Road and Bishop have indeed killed me several times. Would have really expected Governor though.
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AJD

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #18 on: December 18, 2011, 02:48:55 pm »
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Best board:
$6p Possession
$5 Cache / Governor / Highway / Ill-Gotten Gains / Mint / Stables / Witch
$4 Noble Brigand
$3 Develop

That's totally not the set of cards I would have expected to be my best win-rate-given-available. I guess I'd open Silver/Silver to get a Witch after the reshuffle, spend future $5s on Stables and (until the curses run out) IGGs, and then try to hurry for Provinces; if my opponent buys a Potion I'll start grabbing Duchies as well and maybe try to run out the curseless remaining IGGs, if there aren't too many left, and three-pile it.

Worst board:
$6 Adventurer
$5 City / Mandarin
$4 Bishop / Monument / Navigator / Quarry
$3p Familiar / Philosopher's Stone
$2 Fool's Gold

Cities are going to be important here since the Curses are likely to run out. I guess I open Potion/Silver so I can hand out my share of Curses, get a Monument or two when I have $4 turns and Cities with $5, and see where it goes from there.
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Wingnut

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #19 on: December 18, 2011, 03:33:35 pm »
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Best board:
$6 Farmland
$5 Governor, Highway, Mandarin
$4 Jack of all Trades, Nomad Camp, Ironworks
$3P Familiar
$3 Menagerie
$2 Crossroads

This looks like go for double Familiar and spam Governors, maybe an early Menagerie for later in the game and then try for the Governor mega turn. Trashing a curse or two into Crossroads (most likely with Farmland not Governor) looks like it could work rather well here too as Crossroads could help amass the number of Governors needed for a huge turn. Opening 4/3: Potion/Silver. Opening 5/2: Governor/Crossroads

Based on these cards, I would be really confident in winning on this board, especially since so many people so badly misplay Highway (which is useless here without the deck clogging Nomad Camp or the slowing Ironworks).

Worst board:
$5 Cartographer, Margrave, Hunting Party, Inn, Wharf
$4 Bridge
$3P Philosopher's Stone
$2P Scrying Pool
$2 Courtyard, Lighthouse

Except for Scrying Pool, this looks like a fun board (I hate Scrying Pool and instantly veto it in all games when playing with veto mode). Alas, this looks like a good pool deck board though Hunting Party and Cartographer looks tantalizing to avoid it. Using some of those extra buys from Wharf and Margrave on some Lighthouses looks necessary as both Margrave and Scrying Pool on their own are powerful but together they could be insane. Opening 4/3: Potion/Silver. Opening 5/2 Margrave/Lighthouse (or maybe Margrave/Courtyard?)
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Davio

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #20 on: December 18, 2011, 03:39:04 pm »
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Best
$5 Horn of Plenty, Embassy, Ill-Gotten Gains, Cartographer, Stables
$4 Noble Brigand, Moneylender
$3 Oracle
$2 Chapel, Crossroads

I think it's pretty funny that Oracle is on there, because I rarely buy it. Same goes for Noble Brigand. I'm a big Embassy and IGG fan. Especially IGG has served me quite well and it proved quite resilient.

There are some choices here. 5/2 is definitely IGG/Chapel for me. I'd probably bring in a Moneylender later to deal with those Coppers. 4/3 is most likely Moneylender/Chapel and hammering the IGGs as well.


Worst - not counting rinkworks' fan card Archivist
$5 Tactician, Governor
$4 Envoy, Throne Room
$3 Swindler
$2 Duchess, Fool's Gold
$3P Philosopher's Stone
$2P Apothecary
$0P Transmute

Some swingy cards here, still working out the best strategy with Governor. Also a surprising bunch of Alchemy cards.
I'd probably go Tactician with Apo assist and a Transmute here. With Tact-turns I can doubly buy and likely get an Apo with a Gold or something. Don't know whether it beats the obvious and boring Envoy.
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Jack Rudd

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #21 on: December 18, 2011, 03:58:20 pm »
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My best 10:

Goons
Workshop
Remodel
Peddler
Saboteur
Spy
Trade Route
Bazaar
Contraband
Monument

That looks like a fun deck. Workshop and Saboteur are probably in there because I don't buy them unless I think they'll be really effective.

Worst 10:

Develop
Margrave
Jack of All Trades
Oracle
Mandarin
Nomad Camp
Embassy
Trader
Tunnel
Duchess

I, uh, think I need to play Hinterlands more.
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chwhite

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #22 on: December 18, 2011, 06:29:10 pm »
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It occurs to me that a lot of the cards on my Worst list are really most relevant in games where you want Duchy: B-crat and Explorer facilitate Duchy rushes, Duchess pretends to do so, Crossroads and Cartographer like greening early as well.  In other words, this is a board where Duchies probably matter.  Now, if you want to see something hilarious, take a look at my Effect With and Effect Without for Duchy (-3.81 Effect With, 5.05 Effect Without, both the most extreme effects I have for any card).  Actually, my top five cards in "Effect Without" are all kinda hilarious.  Who needs green cards anyway, indeed.
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Kore

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #23 on: December 18, 2011, 07:04:27 pm »
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My "best board"

$2 + P: Scrying Pool
$3: Menagerie, Oasis
$4: Spice Merchant, Remake,
$5: Ill-Gotten Gains, Margrave, Cache, Embassy, Haggler

What an odd combination of cards for me. I'm horrible at scying pool engines, Cache is something I would never buy and Margrave is one of the weaker $5 attacks. On the other hand, Remake and IGG are two of my favorite cards and the combination of those on this board makes my decision easy. This is an IGG board so I'd open Remake/Silver and then buy nothing but IGG which would be remade into golds. After the IGG are gone, it's time to grab a embassy put those golds to good use.
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olneyce

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Re: Evaluate your best and your worst board
« Reply #24 on: December 19, 2011, 01:36:08 am »
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A couple meta-comments here:

Hinterlands is obviously a big effect here.  For some (like me), it's due to improvement over time.  So Hinterlands cards only reflect a higher quality of play and thus look better.  For others, it's about less familiarity making them look worse.  There is also probably a small sample size effect.  Less games with Hinterlands cards gives them less time to regress to the mean, so they show up at both extremes.

People have expressed some surprise at the mediocre cards that show up on the 'best' lists.  Of course, the good cards are good for everyone.  This isn't about what cards are good; it's about what cards you play better than the average person. 

That said, quality of cards could still matter.  The very best cards are probably harder to outplay others with.  Any goober can play Witch reasonably well.  Similarly, really bad cards are probably far easier for bad players to ignore.

I'm assuming that many of the people posting here are pretty good, better than average.  So you might expect them to have 'best' cards which require more skill to play well.  That is: good cards, but not the very best. 

I'd actually be really curious to see a study that compares the best/worst lists for the top players vs. level 30s, level 20s, level 10s, etc.  I wonder if there would be noticeable trends. 
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