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[Anon79]

Level 30-ish here. I have no idea how to play my best board. At all. Will probably be trounced on it by anyone at a similar level.

$6: Border Village, Farmland
$5: Governor
$4: Bridge, Feast, Island, Nomad Camp, Spice Merchant
$3: Steward
$2: Haven

[Thisisnotasmile]

Level 30-ish here. I have no idea how to play my best board. At all. Will probably be trounced on it by anyone at a similar level.

$6: Border Village, Farmland
$5: Governor
$4: Bridge, Feast, Island, Nomad Camp, Spice Merchant
$3: Steward
$2: Haven

Border Village -> Governor. Use Governor to Remodel the BVs into Provinces? It's the same as the standard Governor strategy but it skips out gaining Golds, and so it must be quicker.

[brokoli]

Best :

2$ - Embargo, Secret chamber
3$ - Woodcutter
3P$ - Apothecary
4$ - Ironworks, Quarry, Island
5$ - Counting house, Stash, Hunting party

… Funny, and interesting board. I don't love all of these cards. I hate Stash. Apothecary is annoying.
In this board, My favorite card is Island. I like also Hunting Party. Couting house is fun but too situationnal.
Embargo is depending very much of the opponent's strategy.
I think I will go for a simple Island rush.
After that, I will take quarry and woodcutter/Ironworks, this combo can help me to take a lot of HP.

Worst board :

2$ - Duchess
3$ - Oasis, Loan, Ambassador, Chancellor
4$ - Mining village, Bridge,
5$ - Cache, Upgrade, Cartographer

Here, I think I will open Mining village / Loan, taking some oasis instead of silver (so I can trash my coppers easily, with loan). And I will take 2-3 cartographers, an Upgrade and BM.
Bridge and Ambassador are pretty useless.

[Thisisnotasmile]

After that, I will take quarry and woodcutter/Ironworks, this combo can help me to take a lot of HP.

You should take a look at the boneheaded plays topic!

Edit: Also the nombos topic http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1120.msg19803#msg19803

[theory]

I did this experiment a little differently: I took only cards that I had >100 games with (this excludes Tournament, for one), and included a column of my %+, which is how often I buy or gain the card.

The result for best:

Code: [Select]

2   Chapel   92.10%
2   Haven   80.40%
3   Ambassador   92.50%
3   Warehouse   85.70%
3   Great Hall   90.60%
4   Feast   41.70%
4   Pirate Ship   36.20%
4   Sea Hag   83.90%
7   Expand   65.30%
7   Forge   50% Several cards appear on this list because sometimes bad players don't buy them, I guess?  Chapel, Sea Hag.  It's possible I play those cards better, but somehow I doubt there's really that much skill involved in those cards.  Some appear because bad players buy them too much/inappropriately?  Feast/Pirate Ship.  Several cards appear on this list because they reduce bad luck (Haven, Warehouse).  Great Hall is an application of Beyond Silver.  Expand/Forge are just not that good, and maybe most people don't realize that?

And Ambassador ... I think I've fallen behind several of the 40+'ers in many other aspects of Dominion (since the great game purge, I'm not even 40+ on the leaderboard anymore!), but Ambassador games are one of the few areas left where I'm still confident I can beat just about anyone in the world.

The result for worst:

Code: [Select]

2   Moat   27.40%
3   Lookout   50.40%
4   Worker's Village   65.80%
4   Thief   9.40%
4   Salvager   76.70%
4   Spy   45.20%
4   Conspirator   49%
4   Ironworks   25.70%
5   Explorer   15.80%
8   Peddler   68.10%
Also known as "theory is bad with $4's".  Unsurprisingly, mostly, since I'm pretty bad at dealing with these cards.  (Conspirator in particular is a card I have never mastered, and I ignore Peddler and Salvager way too often.)  I think Thief/Explorer represent my last-ditch efforts to come back, and they cause me to ignore how I really should be mounting a comeback.

[Anon79]

The result for worst:

Code: [Select]

2   Moat   27.40%
3   Lookout   50.40%
4   Worker's Village   65.80%
4   Thief   9.40%
4   Salvager   76.70%
4   Spy   45.20%
4   Conspirator   49%
4   Ironworks   25.70%
5   Explorer   15.80%
8   Peddler   68.10%

It's uncanny how synergistic this board is? Lookout/Spy/Worker's Village to spam actions, Peddler/Conspirator to take advantage of spammed actions, Ironworks to gain all of them save Peddler, and Salvager to turn the Peddlers into Provinces and the +buy. On the other hand, Thief and Explorer are completely useless here, and Moat - well I suppose if you open 5/2.

[Anon79]

Level 30-ish here. I have no idea how to play my best board. At all. Will probably be trounced on it by anyone at a similar level.

$6: Border Village, Farmland
$5: Governor
$4: Bridge, Feast, Island, Nomad Camp, Spice Merchant
$3: Steward
$2: Haven

Border Village -> Governor. Use Governor to Remodel the BVs into Provinces? It's the same as the standard Governor strategy but it skips out gaining Golds, and so it must be quicker.

Okay, but what's the 4/3 and 3/4 opener here? Spice Merchant/Silver? Spice Merchant/Steward? Island/Silver? Feast/Silver? Feast/Haven? or some Nomad Camp shenanigans?

[Davio]

Steward/Silver for me.

[Thisisnotasmile]

With 4/3 I'd probably open Nomad Camp hoping for a turn 2 Governor and if I don't get the $5 I'll take a Silver. Later on Governor the Nomad Camp into a Border Village -> Governor. If I open 3/4 I'd probably just take Silver/Spice Merchant using the Merchant to trash a few Coppers before it meets the same fate as the Nomads from the other plan.

Steward is probably a good option too to do a bit of trashing but I would skip it for the $4 terminals because a) they can be turned into BV/Governor later when they outlive their welcome while Steward can only becaome a Governor and b) heavy trashing is boring so I avod it whenever possible.

[Elyv]

I'm wondering if that board has a border village/Governor/Bridge deck with steward(and maybe spice merchant) for trashing, or if messing around with all that is just worse than remodeling BVs.

Because I have to admit, I would probably try for that. I don't really like remodel engines, and I do like Bridge decks.

[rrenaud]

A governor/gold remodel deck has the nice property that spamming you with silvers disrupts your chance at hitting the combo.

[toaster]

Interesting topic idea, here's my best board:

$6 Fairgrounds
$5 Horn of Plenty, Rabble, Stash
$4 Baron, Bureaucrat, Scout, Young Witch
$3 Black Market, Oracle
$2 Hamlet (Bane)

Since my top ten includes Young Witch, I took my next highest 2 or 3 cost card as the Bane (Hamlet, as it turns out).  The set seems to show my tendency toward big money-style games, but there's an interesting catch: my top two cards (Oracle and Horn of Plenty) are apparently in as trap cards...I play well in games where they are present by ignoring them.  Bureaucrat also falls in this category (a card which I buy in only 2% of games).  In fact, I only play 3 of these cards in 40% or more of games (Young Witch, Rabble, and Black Market), while 3 of them I play in fewer than 10% of games (Bureaucrat, Scout, and Horn of Plenty).  As for how this plays out...I probably go Young Witch/big money here.  Black Market is a little tempting, but it conflicts with Young Witch, which is the higher priority.

Worst board:

$6 Border Village
$5 Cache, Embassy, Governor, Haggler, Ill-Gotten Games
$4 Silk Road, Trader
$3 Oasis
$2 Fool's Gold

Given that these are all recently released cards, I think this set can be entirely disregarded.  I think I know the cause...sometime within the last couple of months I switch from matching with any registered player to primarily using the +- 15 levels option...which in turn has caused my raw W/L rate to dip.  Nothing terribly interesting there.  If I exclude Hinterlands and Governor, I get the following set:

$8 Peddler
$7 King's Court
$5 Contraband, Tribute
$4P Golem
$3P Philosopher's Stone
$4 Conspirator, Militia
$3 Ambassador
$P Transmute

Okay, that's more like it.  If my best set showed that I do well with big money-ish strategies and avoiding trap cards, this set sows that I still have a lot of work to do on my big engine play.  I don't have as much insightful commentary here (if I did, maybe these cards wouldn't be so bad for me ).  I've been working on my Ambassador play, but I'm still not very good in those games.  Apparently I buy Militia far more often then I should, while Transmute and Philosopher's Stone are two card I'm not giving enough credit to (or, maybe not...I still play better without them than with them).

As to how I'd play it, I think Ambassadoring down to a Conspirator/King's Court Engine is the best bet here...but whether I could pull it off is an entirely different matter.

[ehunt]

This is really fun!

My "best board" (skipping archivist).  I am actually terrible at this board. I'd go wharf/fool's gold if I split 5-2, buying three to four wharves and as many fool's golds as possible, and I'd go singlejack + 2 wharves with a 4-3 split; this is probably completely wrong.

$6 Farmland
$5 Embassy, Highway, Margrave, Wharf
$4 Jack of all Trades, Trader
$2 Duchess, Fool's Gold
P Vineyard



My worst board. Um, I would buy mountebank and hope to play it as much as possible. My opponent would hit me when I didn't have curses in hand, and then I would lose. At some point I'd buy a treasury; that will be a mistake, although my opponent's treasury will be very useful.

$6 Adventurer
$5 Stash, Council Room, Treasury, Mountebank
$4 Smithy
$3 Develop, Smugglers
$2 Courtyard, Secret Chamber


Adventurer and Council Room are cards I buy too much. My "effect with" adventurer is very high! It's just that I still shouldn't be buying it. That's a hard lesson to learn. We should all check this site more often!

[Axxle]

Seems like fun!  I wanted to make a thread about what your best and worst cards according to council room are, but this seems like a much better way of doing it!

$6 Fairgrounds
$5 Ill-Gotten Gains
$4 Walled Village, Horse Traders
$3P Philosopher's Stone
$3 Scheme, Oasis
$2 Fool's Gold
$P Vineyard, Transmute

Not so surprised to see some of these things on here, I tend to do very well with super janky junk filled decks like the ones that happen with IGG and Vineyard.  There seem to be so many conflicting options here it's hard to figure out what's best.  I'd be tempted to do something with Horse Traders and Vineyard, since I'd probably have plenty of turns where I can buy a scheme/oasis and a vineyard but IGG is probably too fast for this deck to get going and oasis/HT is a nombo.  I'd probably end up just rushing the IGG and getting a bunch of other cards along the way when I can for Fairgrounds.

Worst board:

$5 Harvest, Highway, Cartographer
$4 Young Witch, Coppersmith, Island, Spice Merchant, Bureaucrat
$3 Chancellor (bane)
$2 Hamlet, Duchess

Hmm... yeah... Not liking this one.  Lets see... the only +Action is hamlet, also the only source of +buy.  No trashing whatsoever, but cartographer and island could help that.  I really don't know what I'd do here.  I'd probably open Young Witch/Silver, picking up Hamlets on 2, Cartographers on 5 and one harvest, but mostly play BMU. I would probably open Spice Merchant/Chancellor to get some trashing done and have some cover against the young witch.  I would buy a young witch and two hamlets later and go big money with cartographers at 5.  I'm tempted with the highway engine but I'd rather not take the chance.

edit: Apparently I failed pre-K math.  8 != 10

[Axxle]

Adventurer and Council Room are cards I buy too much. My "effect with" adventurer is very high! It's just that I still shouldn't be buying it. That's a hard lesson to learn. We should all check this site more often!

I thought that a high "Effect with" means that when you buy it you win more often than normal and a low "Effect without" means that you shouldn't have ignored it.

"Win Rate with" is the number of Win Points per game you get when you buy or gain at least one of this card.
"Win Rate without" is the number of Win Points per game you get when you never buy or gain the card.

[mith]

Given Availability:

$5 - Ill-Gotten Gains (92.9), Governor (94.1), Haggler (25.0), Stables (70.8), Margave (54.5), Mandarin (17.5)
$4 - Conspirator (61.8)
$3 - Scheme (42.5)
$2 - Crossroads (77.3), Fool's Gold (22.6)

IGG-rush... Might consider picking up a Margrave or two, depending on how the game was going, but probably just a boring Duchy-rush. I love Governor, but not against IGG.

Minimum 100 Games:

$7 - King's Court (91.7), Forge (55.5)
$5 - Royal Seal (32.9), City (80.9), Outpost (38.3)
$4 - Conspirator (61.8), Moneylender (56.7)
$3 - Black Market (61.2), Smugglers (23.0), Fortune Teller (13.5)

Depends on what's in the Black Market, I guess; KC/City/Conspirator/Outpost seems like a good plan with some +Buy (though relying on powered-up Cities for that may be dangerous).

Effect With:

$5 - Ill-Gotten Gains (2.9), Governor (94.1), Outpost (38.3), Stables (70.8)
$4 - Spice Merchant (62.3), Trader (26.0), Walled Village (53.1), Coppersmith (17.8)
$3 - Fortune Teller (13.5)
$2P - Scrying Pool (51.7)

Trader is a good defense against IGG-rush... but I'd probably still go there. Trader/Silver opening might be safest, though Spice Merchant/Fortune Teller is intriguing. Stables or Governor after the IGGs run out if the Curses aren't low enough to rush the Duchies. Coppersmith works nicely with IGG as well.

Worst Given Availability:

$6 - Goons (75.2)
$5 - Upgrade (69.5), Ghost Ship (56.2), Rabble (42.7), Treasury (56.0)
$4P - Golem (44.9)
$4 - Bureaucrat (5.6), Militia (57.9), Gardens (60.7), Baron (55.6)

Ugh. Upgrade to get rid of my Estates, I guess. Some combination of Ghost Ship/Goons/Rabble, after that. (Golem/Bureaucrat/Rabble might be amusing, if not for Upgrade?)

[Elyv]

Adventurer and Council Room are cards I buy too much. My "effect with" adventurer is very high! It's just that I still shouldn't be buying it. That's a hard lesson to learn. We should all check this site more often!

I thought that a high "Effect with" means that when you buy it you win more often than normal and a low "Effect without" means that you shouldn't have ignored it.

"Win Rate with" is the number of Win Points per game you get when you buy or gain at least one of this card.
"Win Rate without" is the number of Win Points per game you get when you never buy or gain the card.

You're getting "effect with" and "win rate with" mixed up.

Imagine there was some hypothetical card that was completely horrible, and isotropic as a whole had a 0.1 win rate with it. Now imagine you are a player who has an overall winrate of 1.30, and you have a win rate with this card of 0.3. Your win rate with it is horrible(0.3), but your effect with is actually very high since you do so much better than the average player who buys it when you do buy it.

[Anon79]

Worst board:

$5 Harvest, Highway, Cartographer
$4 Young Witch, Coppersmith, Island
$3 Chancellor (bane)
$2 Hamlet, Duchess

You're missing a couple of cards there.

[toaster]

It'd be even more interesting if I could filter this to be based only on games against level 25 or 30+ players.  A lot of my "top" cards are simply traps I don't fall into, and I'm guessing most of that effect would disappear if restricting to game against other good players (who presumably avoid the same traps)

[Axxle]

Worst board:

$5 Harvest, Highway, Cartographer
$4 Young Witch, Coppersmith, Island
$3 Chancellor (bane)
$2 Hamlet, Duchess

You're missing a couple of cards there.

Whoops!

[Jorbles]

My Best Board is:
$6 Farmland
$5 Hunting Party, Vault, Highway, Haggler, Governor
$4 Walled Village, Noble Brigand
$3 Menagerie
$2 Fool's Gold

With no +Buy I'd say Fool's Gold is a trap, unless you open 5/2 in which case you could open Governor/Fool's Gold and then trash your Coppers into FGs. The rest of the cards aren't that exciting, I'd probably just get a Vault or two and then Vault it up. Maybe buying a Farmland's late game to remodel a Gold into a Province. One thing I noticed about this board is that almost all of these cards are new as of the Cornucopia expansion which I think is when I started actively improving a lot. Vault being the one exception. I do play that card well, and always have.

My worst board is:
$5 Cache, Ghost Ship, Mint, Torturer, Explorer
$4 Bishop
$3 Ambassador, Smugglers, Loan
$2 Duchess

With no Villages present on this board I would probably open this double Ambassador hoping to win the Ambassador war, maybe buying a Mint if a good trashing opportunity came up. This set of cards is interesting as it contains cards I used to overrate and play when I shouldn't (Bishop, Torturer, Smugglers) and also contains a lot of cards I just don't know much about when to use (most of the others), Ambassador is interesting that it's on here as it's long been a card I'm weak with however I think the fact that it's still on here comes from the fact that I spent basically the first 6 months I played online trying to find a way to (usually unsuccessfully) work around the card. I'm more accepting of the card now.

[permanoob]

Best Board
1. Archivist. No surprise there. I only played 7 games with it before it went down so it's got high variance but honestly? Archivist is just awesome. Check this out: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/31/game-20111031-192747-9868d312.html
2. Haggler. I rarely go for this card so I don't know. I guess other people are misled by it and lose?
3. University. I totally get this one. I rarely go for it and other people always do on boards where it is bad. They lose. Badabing badaboom. Although oddly enough if it was on this board I might consider it to set up an Archivist chain depending on support.
4. Farmland. I feel like my knack for choosing when to buy Farmland is pretty good. Sometimes it helps in the late game of nochapel curse games when I can trash curses and gain estates for a lil vp swing.
5. Spice Merchant. I just played a fun game with Spice Merchant. I opened spice merchant/chancellor, bought some peddlers, then went for the gold. I wouldn't have won if my opponent had gone for a better strategy but it was still fun to play.
6. Moat. I have no idea why this is here. Why am I even typing this? Nobody cares about my stats.
7. Remake. What a great card! Sometimes my opponents ignore this when they shouldn't.
8. Talisman. Not sure why this is here. It's plus/minus .35 so let's attribute it to that.
9. Steward. I feel like I am good at selecting good steward boards and when to trash with Steward.
10. Tribute. I usually ignore Tribute.

I guess on this board I would open Silver/Steward and maybe employ a few Farmland buys in the late game. Boring board and Archivist has no support unfortunatley.
 ______________
//RIP ARCHIVIST\\
||                       ||
||         M            ||
||       MMM         ||
||         M            ||
||         M            ||
||                       ||

[Dubdubdubdub]

Best:

$6
Hoard

$5
Saboteur
Minion
Mountebank
Governor

$4
Caravan
Spice Merchant
Worker’s Village

$2
Secret Chamber
Herbalist

No real surprises here, though I would have expected Menagerie or GM. I feel like I play those pretty well.

4/3: Secret Chamber/Spice Merchant, for a smooth start, defending against Mountebank-onslaught. As soon as possible, I'd buy some Governors, as any Governor/SC hand is likely to give me a province (except after a Minion-attack. Hmm. I would probably ignore that realization). With a $4-hand, I'd buy silvers, to make sure a Gov/SC hand makes for a province.

5/2: Governor/SC, and buy Provinces almost right away. With $5-$7, always buy a Governor. Bluntly ignore the other $5, each of which may disrupt my strategy (Mountebank least of all, I guess). Again, buy silvers to fuel this engine.

This Gov/SC strategy is new to me, and I'm not sure it would win. Usually I play Gov a bit more 'traditionally', building up to a gold-trashing superturn.


Worst:

$6
Harem

$5
Duke
Margrave
Contraband
Merchant Ship
Harvest

$4
Navigator
Gardens
Baron

$2
Lighthouse

This makes sense. I got wrecked on Baron a couple of times, I need to practice and understand that card better (so, thanks for the article, Theory!). I love Gardens and Duke, but go for them too often. I half expected Silk Road and Vineyards here as well.
Here's what I'd do:

5/2: Margrave/Lighthouse. Pure BM after that, choosing a couple of Golds before my first Harem. The extra coin help a lot, given the +buy from Margrave. I might screw this up trying for a Gardens or Duke strategy, because I like them so much.
4/3: Pure Barom/BM. Opening Baron/Silver. Again: the alternate greens might be a trap. Then again, I might just pull it off. Live and learn. At least I have the +buy, so it does make sense.

[Michaelf7777777]

Best Board:

$5 - Mine
$4 - Cutpurse, Treasure Map, Remodel, Young Witch, Baron
$3 - Shanty Town, Steward, Smugglers, Village (Bane)
$2 - Duchess

With 4/3 would open Treasure Map/ Steward
With 5/2 would open Mine/ Duchess

Worst Board

$6 - Grand Market
$5 - Stash, Outpost, Counting House
$4P - Golem
$4 - Bridge, Monument
$3P - Familiar
$3 - Fishing Village

4/3 Opening: Potion/ Silver
5/2 Opening: Potion/ Nothing cursing my bad luck

[mnavratil]

Fun excercise!
Best (ignoring Archivist):
$6 - Harem
$5 - Ill-Gotten Gains, Embassy
$4 - Bridge
$3 - Great Hall, Shanty Town, Ambassador, Oracle
$2 - Native Village
$0P - Transmute

Couple of options here. Bridge/Native Village is present, but might be hard to pull off in the face of the ambassadors and IGGs.
Straight IGG rush probably won't work great against ambassador, but I think I would go for ambassador/IGG. 5/2 open IGG/nothing, picking up an ambassador ASAP. 4/3 open ambassador/silver.
Depending on where my deck ends up, probably transition into a VP rush or BM.

Worst:
$5 - Margrave, Inn, Upgrade, Jester
$4 - Spice Merchant, Treasure Map, Jack of All Trades, Scout
$3 - Tunnel, Warehouse

I'd probably go Double-Jack. Warehouse/Tunnel is intriguing, but that combo is probably on the worst list because I overbuy it.
I would probably lose to somebody that throws together a miraculous Jack, spice merchant, margrave, Inn combo.