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[Elanchana]

Code: [Select]

Chapel, Moneylender, Pirate Ship, Smithy, Throne Room, Worker's Village, Band of Misfits, Hunting Party, Hunting Grounds, King's Court
The board that gives Pirate Ship snarkers a solid middle finger.

This one was invented by Leck, who has an outrageously high casual rating... which is probably caused by screwing over countless players with this board. Basically, if your opponent doesn't go for a mirror, you can sabotage their entire economy with a quasi-golden deck and then rack up umptijillion coins to buy out everything. And I fell for it HARD. I was a bit disappointed in myself but mostly I was too impressed to feel anything else.

I'd love to see two high-level forum members take this board on. Maybe as a league final?...

Here's the log if you want to see it (although you can probably guess what happens). Was there any way at all to pull it back?

[liopoil]

Well that's a horribly contrived board. The mirror is so degenerate, with neither player ever having any money.

[dondon151]

You can buy stuff as long as your PS fishes out a Copper...

[Elestan]

Code: [Select]

Chapel, Moneylender, Pirate Ship, Smithy, Throne Room, Worker's Village, Band of Misfits, Hunting Party, Hunting Grounds, King's CourtThe board that gives Pirate Ship snarkers a solid middle finger.

This essentially falls into the same category as a board designed to force a pin race.  There's only one viable strategy, and it's pretty obvious, so every game is going to be a mirror race to the same cards, and will be decided by some combination of shuffle luck and FPA.  I don't think you'll see much interest in playing it from experienced players, because they can already see how the game will play out before it starts.

Was there any way at all to pull it back?

I think the game was open until turn 5; he wasn't playing optimally, and you had FPA, so you might have gotten away with the Silver buy on turn 3.  But your odds plummeted when you bought treasure over PS/BoM on turns 5-6, and he sealed the win when he trashed down on turn 7.

[Mic Qsenoch]

This essentially falls into the same category as a board designed to force a pin race.  There's only one viable strategy, and it's pretty obvious, so every game is going to be a mirror race to the same cards, and will be decided by some combination of shuffle luck and FPA.  I don't think you'll see much interest in playing it from experienced players, because they can already see how the game will play out before it starts.

This is a losing perspective both for this board and for games of Dominion in general. Knowing that you want to KC/Pirate Ship does not predetermine your game decisions here. When do I add a Pirate Ship (if I can't get BoM)? I know I need to get at least a couple tokens on the mat to compete but how important is getting more tokens and how will I make that happen? How do I balance trashing to defend against their Pirate Ships versus having money to buy nice cards? What order to buy stuff throughout the game is not obvious, as basically the entire board is playable. If both decks get off the ground, how do I end the game with a win? For 3-piling you must track purchasing power and buys of two decks with KC/TR/BoM/Worker's Village/Pirate Ship, not trivial. Oh and don't forget about Hunting Grounds trashing to get those estates.

I don't have answers for these questions btw, mainly because they aren't well defined until the game actually gets played and people start buying cards. I usually just consult my gut at the moment of decision.

There's always room to differentiate your play from your opponent's, even on boards which are "strategically obvious." When you're talking about a massive thing like this deck it's even more true. The real trick is realizing that KC/Pirate Ship doesn't even deserve to be called a strategy, it's basically nothing at all, just two card names sitting next to each other. The devil is always in the details.

[Elestan]

There's always room to differentiate your play from your opponent's, even on boards which are "strategically obvious." When you're talking about a massive thing like this deck it's even more true. The real trick is realizing that KC/Pirate Ship doesn't even deserve to be called a strategy, it's basically nothing at all, just two card names sitting next to each other. The devil is always in the details.

...then I'll bow to your greater insight, and look forward to hearing of your explorations of this kingdom's strategic depth.

  Cheers!

[Davio]

Mic makes a very valid point.

Even if it's perfectly clear what your long term strategy will be, there usually are a lot of tactical decisions before you reach that point.
So both players will go with Pirate Ship, that much is obvious, but the rest?

The game can still be pretty interesting if both players Chapel away all of their coppers and have their Pirate Ships stuck at 2/3 coins.
This considered, I would probably open PS/Chapel, prioritize trashing and hope to get PS to at least 2 before my opponent Chapeled away all his Coppers.

[Mic Qsenoch]

...then I'll bow to your greater insight, and look forward to hearing of your explorations of this kingdom's strategic depth.

  Cheers!

Sorry if I came off as harsh, it's not a reaction to your post in particular, but just the common attitude of people wanting to wave things away as being determined by luck without even having a specific game played out. I mean, there's a whole lot of luck in Dominion but you have to look at the specific case to make evaluations of how probable/improbable the outcome was.

I don't have any special insights on this board (or any board). If you can get two tokens on the mat and your deck to have at least 1 Pirate Ship and 1 Throne Room (or BoMs) then you can build whatever you want. The actual buy order depends too much on shuffles and what your opponent does to say more. For the opening 5/2 is super awesome BoM/Chapel. For 4/3 I guess either Moneylender/Chapel or Pirate Ship/Chapel. Can't say much about the rest unless it's actually played out.

[Elestan]

For 4/3 I guess either Moneylender/Chapel or Pirate Ship/Chapel. Can't say much about the rest unless it's actually played out.

I think Moneylender/Chapel loses badly to Pirate Ship/Chapel here.  Where is it going to get any economy from?

I would probably open PS/Chapel, prioritize trashing and hope to get PS to at least 2 before my opponent Chapeled away all his Coppers.

That is the mirror I was expecting.

Okay, I haven't indulged in a good overexplanation in a while, so let me clarify why I think this board is excessively luck-based.  My analysis went like this:
 - There's clearly a massive engine here, and lots of ways to build it.
 - However, there are only three possible payloads:  Moneylender, Pirate Ship, and Treasure.
 - Playing Pirate Ship directly weakens both other payloads, so it's clearly dominant between them.
 - The presence of KC,TR, and other engine cards increases this advantage, enabling a money-pin on any deck without virtual money.
 - The only long-term virtual money on this board is, again, Pirate Ship, so not only is it the best attack and best economic enabler, but it's also the only long-term defense against itself.
 - So this is a Pirate Ship mirror.  Moreover, anyone who doesn't get at least one token is going to get pinned.  Even being held to a single token would still be pretty crippling.
 - So this is a full-throttle rush, but a rush to tokens, not cards.  I'm clearly going to lose all my treasures, and any that I don't take out myself are going to turn into pirate tokens for my opponent. 
 - So my early-game priority is to win the pirate token rush at all costs, and the best way to do that is:
 - - Open Pirate Ship/Chapel.
 - - Trash myself down to 5 cards ASAP, so I have no discard pile to plunder.  This requires playing Chapel twice, while buying no additional cards.
 - - Play Pirate Ship at every opportunity when I can't trash (every turn once I'm down to 5 cards), until my opponent has no Treasures left.
That's the end of the early game.  Then I rebuild my deck using pirate money, trashing my remaining treasures as needed to avoid any of them ever being in the discard. 
 
I feel pretty confident that this strategy is dominant for this Kingdom's early game.  The problem is that everything depends on winning the token/trashing rush, and in a mirror, that's highly luck-dependent, and has a huge FPA swing.  Having your Chapel miss the reshuffle or get plundered costs you nearly two tokens worth of pace in that race, with no way to make it up.

Now, if the Pirate Token count is tied at the end of the early game, then the strategy space diverges and it's anyone's win.  But if either player has a token lead, I think their advantage is insurmountable.

[Titandrake]

Although this board gets very degenerate, I think there's still some potentially interesting scenarios that come of it.

First off, you aren't going to use Moneylender as payload. You use Moneylender as a very, very short term economy boost to hit $4/$5 early in the critical early turns, then trash it to Chapel once you have your first engine pieces because it'll become a dead card.

Secondly, I don't think you can get Pirate Ship to more than 2 tokens before you run out of treasures. This makes a really, really weird scenario. One nice thing is that if you only 5 cards in your deck, you can't lose any of your treasure...so something like

Chapel, Moneylender, Copper, Copper, Copper

can hit $5 for Band of Misfits while staying at 5 cards. The corresponding Pirate Ship with 2 tokens hand has to risk a Copper for the opponent, and the Moneylender player can play BoM as Pirate Ship to do so. So, Moneylender/Chapel isn't actually as crazy as it seems. If this doesn't feel like an incredibly bizarre way to justify an opening, something in your internal calibration is wrong.

Now, the tricky part is that opening Moneylender is most likely going to put you behind a Pirate Ship play. However, given that you have a much higher chance of hitting $5 to buy the first Band of Misfits, Moneylender could win out over a Pirate Ship open. I think I still lean more towards Pirate Ship, but the key here is that it's not necessarily the token lead, it's having a way to consistently hit $5 that will win you the game here. A token lead will definitely help you towards that goal, but it's not the be-all-end-all.

If there was a way to gain Coppers mid-turn, I could see an absolutely hilarious engine that gains then trashes all of its Coppers to BoM-as-Moneylender to make sure none of it got Pirate Shipped. Maybe if Hunting Party or Hunting Grounds was Beggar instead. Ah well, not all boards can be that convoluted...

[Elestan]

You use Moneylender as a very, very short term economy boost to hit $4/$5 early in the critical early turns.

I maintain the $4-5 cards are irrelevant in the early game.  You can get your engine components later, but long-term, the only viable payload is PS with some tokens, and the window for getting tokens closes by about turn 6 if your opponent is smart and not unlucky.  Buying any cards other than one Chapel and one BoM or PS in the early game just increases the time that your own treasures are plunderable.

I don't think you can get Pirate Ship to more than 2 tokens before you run out of treasures.

Your treasure doesn't matter - it's your opponent's treasure that's important.  This is where the huge swing factors come in.  The median close of the token window is turn 6, but if P1 plays PS on turn 3 and gets lucky, hitting Chapel-Copper, they have a good chance of reaching four tokens (hitting on turn 3, turn 5 or 6, and then every turn from 7 on until their opponent runs out of treasure).  They'll have extra time, because that initial lucky hit set their opponent's trashing back 2 turns.

(Chapel, Moneylender, Copper, Copper, Copper)
The corresponding Pirate Ship with 2 tokens hand has to risk a Copper for the opponent

Play Chapel, trash 2xCopper.  Next turn play PS/Copper, buy Silver.  Next turn, play PS/Silver/Copper, buy BoM.  Or you can buy a TR with 4 and use that to get to 5.  It takes a little longer to get going, but after the early game is over, time isn't nearly so important.

it's not necessarily the token lead, it's having a way to consistently hit $5 that will win you the game here.

If you didn't open PS, you probably have 0 or at most 1 token by the time your opponent has trashed their treasures.  So how do you consistently hit $5 once you're out of Copper for your Moneylender?

[Titandrake]

Technically, by opening Moneylender, you trash a little faster.

I meant your opponent's treasure on that line. I don't think you can trash down that fast. In an even game, you run into many more Chapel + PS collisions because both players are trashing down as much as they can, which means fewer PS plays, which means both players get starved of tokens. If you assume good luck, sure, it's awful. That's why this board is very degenerate.

With a Moneylender opening, you are entirely gambling on hitting Moneylender + 3 Copper + (Estate or Copper) on turn 3/4. If you don't hit $5, it loses to PS opening. If you do, it has some potential - most likely in that scenario your 5 card deck is Bom - Moneylender - Chapel - 2 junk cards, which lets you do BoM as TR-Moneylender to pick up more pieces. You will then have to play BoM as Worker's Village and buy Coppers. For maybe 1 turn, you don't risk them getting hit by PS. Then, you have to risk it, but then your opponent has to decide if the chance of hitting a token is worth losing out on a Pirate Ship for money play. It's at least an interesting decision, that depends far too much on what both player's decks look like.

Again, I still think Pirate Ship opening is better, I'm just playing devil's advocate here.

Let's put it this way - if you get bad luck with a PS open, you are entirely dead, because you just have so little economy and it takes too long to build back up. If you get bad luck with a Moneylender open, you have a glimmer of hope if you take really silly risks and build incredibly strange decks. Maybe you buy Hunting Party instead! And trash Hunting Grounds for Estates to minimize the chance of losing the Coppers you buy every turn, hoping that you can successfully skip those Estates with your HP! Is this insane and unlikely to even work? Yes, absolutely. It's also hilarious, and I can't see myself trying something off-the-wall like that if I was in the same situation with Pirate Ship.

[Elestan]

...your opponent has to decide if the chance of hitting a token is worth losing out on a Pirate Ship for money play. It's at least an interesting decision, that depends far too much on what both player's decks look like.

I think this is a non-decision.  Once your PS engine is running, you always attack if the opponent might have treasure in their discard.  The engine infrastructure here is so powerful that you can easily loot your opponent's entire discard pile every turn, and still buy new components. 

Let's put it this way - if you get bad luck with a PS open, you are entirely dead, because you just have so little economy and it takes too long to build back up. If you get bad luck with a Moneylender open, you have a glimmer of hope.

I see no hope at all for ML here.  Check the log:  Ela tried buying 8 Coppers one turn in a desperation play to restart her economy.  Next turn, her opponent cycled her entire discard pile twice, completely cleaning it out, and more than doubled their token count in the process.  They then bought all the Colonies (and more) on their next turn.

This is a pin Kingdom.  It's made so that anyone who doesn't manage to get pirate tokens in the first few turns cannot recover; they will have to restart their economy from scratch every turn, and the mere act of trying just makes the pinning player even stronger.

[luser]

There's always room to differentiate your play from your opponent's, even on boards which are "strategically obvious." When you're talking about a massive thing like this deck it's even more true. The real trick is realizing that KC/Pirate Ship doesn't even deserve to be called a strategy, it's basically nothing at all, just two card names sitting next to each other. The devil is always in the details.

This is tricky board, otherwise leck would not win all the time. Most of questions what is best is look in logs what leck plays. He has enough experience from encountering every possible situation hundred times.

Problem with this board is that single small mistake could likely cause you losing game.

Also I played several games with him, as opening goes you probably lose if you try something else than moneylender-bom/chapel. Reason is that you cannot otherwise in midgame have economy and trash coppers.
If opponent gets three coin mat he basically won so you need to trash. Going for pirate ship is too slow as opponent will build better engine in meantime.

A trick here is use worker village to buy copper for moneylender so you can have income as leck did.

[Leck]

Hello guys!
Thank you for discussing my board.

I think ML/Chapel is better than PS/Chapel.
Because this is a bit faster to trash coins and ML is not so short term card, I think.

So, Moneylender/Chapel isn't actually as crazy as it seems. If this doesn't feel like an incredibly bizarre way to justify an opening, something in your internal calibration is wrong.

Really?
So... maybe my internal calibration is wrong ;-)


BTW, I made this deck not to win the human players.
I wanted to make a deck in which I always win the bot.
So, I named this deck, "Beat the Bot".
HP's slot is anything that costs 5 is OK, because this is a dummy that bots or not smart player would buy instead of BoM.

[Deadlock39]

It probably doesn't work at all, but I thought of a golden deck variant as a counter to committing to Pirate Ship.

If you go straight for a deck of Moneylender/Chapel/Copper/Copper/Silver... (not sure how many turns that would average, and how many tokens a Pirate Ship/Chapel would get in the process).

You can trash Copper with ML, buy Gold,
Repeat trash Copper with ML, buy Gold,
Chapel Moneylender buy Province.
Then mill the Province pile to end the game.

Like I said, that probably doesn't work at all, but maybe if your opponent is gunning for the pin deck, and trashes down to much with low value Pirate Ships, it could work. 

[Elestan]

Hello guys!
Thank you for discussing my board.

Hello Leck, and welcome to the forums, where we're happy to dissect and over-analyze any Kingdom.  :-)

I think ML/Chapel is better than PS/Chapel.
Because this is a bit faster to trash coins and ML is not so short term card, I think.

Against opponents who don't know what you're going to do, I think you're right, in part because it avoids revealing the trap before you're ready to spring it.  However, against opponents who understand the trap and are trying to trash quickly, this means that you won't have a chance to play Pirate Ship until turn 5 at the earliest, and more likely not until turn 6-7.  By then, your window of attack against a Chapel-using opponent is almost closed, and they've already gotten at least one attack in. Additionally, you're at risk of getting your Chapel discarded by the Pirate attack, which will cost you a couple of turns of pace during the critical early phase.

BTW, I made this deck not to win the human players.
I wanted to make a deck in which I always win the bot.
So, I named this deck, "Beat the Bot".

That's as may be, however I do notice that you've played a couple hundred rated games (over a third of your total) using Pirate Ship trap Kingdoms against humans, with about a 95% win ratio, and usually ending with your opponent having very few VP, suggesting they were successfully pinned.  While I'm sure your opponents gained a new appreciation of the power of Pirate Ship, I personally have never found pin traps to be particularly fun (from either side).  If you want to make this board a bit more sporting, I would suggest adding Secret Chamber, so that there is at least a chance of being able to escape the trap.

[ben_king]

That's as may be, however I do notice that you've played a couple hundred rated games (over a third of your total) using Pirate Ship trap Kingdoms against humans, with about a 95% win ratio, and usually ending with your opponent having very few VP, suggesting they were successfully pinned.  While I'm sure your opponents gained a new appreciation of the power of Pirate Ship, I personally have never found pin traps to be particularly fun (from either side).  If you want to make this board a bit more sporting, I would suggest adding Secret Chamber, so that there is at least a chance of being able to escape the trap.

I think a really fun way out of the trap would be to add Masquerade.

[Awaclus]

That's as may be, however I do notice that you've played a couple hundred rated games (over a third of your total) using Pirate Ship trap Kingdoms against humans, with about a 95% win ratio, and usually ending with your opponent having very few VP, suggesting they were successfully pinned.  While I'm sure your opponents gained a new appreciation of the power of Pirate Ship, I personally have never found pin traps to be particularly fun (from either side).  If you want to make this board a bit more sporting, I would suggest adding Secret Chamber, so that there is at least a chance of being able to escape the trap.

I think a really fun way out of the trap would be to add Masquerade.

And Goons!

[Elanchana]

That's as may be, however I do notice that you've played a couple hundred rated games (over a third of your total) using Pirate Ship trap Kingdoms against humans, with about a 95% win ratio, and usually ending with your opponent having very few VP, suggesting they were successfully pinned.  While I'm sure your opponents gained a new appreciation of the power of Pirate Ship, I personally have never found pin traps to be particularly fun (from either side).  If you want to make this board a bit more sporting, I would suggest adding Secret Chamber, so that there is at least a chance of being able to escape the trap.

I think a really fun way out of the trap would be to add Masquerade.

And Goons!

Wow, pin vs. pin? Love to see that.

[Jack Rudd]

That's as may be, however I do notice that you've played a couple hundred rated games (over a third of your total) using Pirate Ship trap Kingdoms against humans, with about a 95% win ratio, and usually ending with your opponent having very few VP, suggesting they were successfully pinned.  While I'm sure your opponents gained a new appreciation of the power of Pirate Ship, I personally have never found pin traps to be particularly fun (from either side).  If you want to make this board a bit more sporting, I would suggest adding Secret Chamber, so that there is at least a chance of being able to escape the trap.

I think a really fun way out of the trap would be to add Masquerade.

And Goons!

Wow, pin vs. pin? Love to see that.

I could be wrong, but I think Kingsgoonsquerade would win that one fairly easily. It's even easier to trash down to the pin deck if Pirate Ship is trashing your coppers for you.

[qmech]

If there was Goons in the Kingdom then Pirate Ship wouldn't be an economic pin.

[Leck]

Well...

I think, only one pin can work in a game. Because others are pinned by it.

[pingpongsam]

One potential strategy not being discussed int he PS/chapel opening is that of sparing Estate cards from the trashing. Depending on who has FPA and how the early shuffles pan out this could be a means of massaging the luck factor towards your advantage. It is a gamble with an obvious risk/reward dividend. The risk is screwing up your own draws while your opponent pulls ahead. The reward is your opponent plundering estates instead of Copper or your Chapel/PS cards. also, even more obscure is the strategy of hanging onto an estate in a Chapel game so that when you split the Province pile you come out ahead, which I have done to win more times than it caused me to lose.