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[AdamH]

Not exactly an article, but I'm hoping for some thoughtful Dominion discussion on this topic...

We all have those big dreams of making an engine with Ruined Market as the only +Buy, I know I have. You know what else I've done? Lost a lot of games going for an engine where Ruined Market is the only +Buy. I've won a couple of them and I think I might have begun to grasp what the things are that can make this possibly work, and at least some of the things that make it not work. Unfortunately, several of my examples are IRL games, and the examples I have on video aren't terribly helpful.

I'm going to make a lot of bolded statements that are much more absolute than I prefer to make, so if anyone has any counterexamples they'd like to share, please do. That's most of the reason I'm making this thread. Some of the things I'm saying are bad ideas may seem silly and you may ask "how many times have you actually done these things?" The answer to that question is "more often than I'd like to admit." In IRL games sometimes I become a Johnny and I do some pretty silly things, especially if the game starts at 2AM or later. One of my pet tricks that never works is trying to make these kinds of decks work.

Will your opponent be giving you Ruins? Take a look at why there are Ruins on the board. Sometimes it's just because of Death Cart and there's no way for your opponent to force you to have Ruins (yeah yeah edge case there could be Ambassador too, whatevs), but other times there's Marauder or Cultist around and you might be getting Ruins. Of course that's not always the case, but let's assume right now that you've decided the best strategy involves giving your opponent Ruins, and let's assume you aren't wrong.

If you aren't mirrored and the opponent doesn't try to junk you, then you've won the Ruins split 10-0 and you're probably going to win the game. Easy peasy. They probably can't make use out of 10 Ruined Markets at this point so you should be fine.

If you are mirrored, it gets a little more interesting, mainly the question you ask isn't "do I gain Ruined Market?" anymore, but rather it's "do I keep Ruined Market?" If there's no trashing, then I've never seen Ruined Market make the difference in engine payload, ever.

If there is trashing, then there's always the temptation to keep your Ruined Markets around. Sure, if you have other options on what to trash that are viable then go ahead, trash them first; you have nothing to lose. But if your choice is to trash Ruined Market or trash nothing and you aren't drawing your deck (or close to it) then I've never been happy with my decision to keep Ruined Market in this case, and I've never been sad that I trashed Ruined Market, ever.

There's the temptation to not play your looter when you know you're going to give your opponent a Ruined Market (you see it on top of the pile). I've never been happy that I didn't play my Looter just to deny my opponent a Ruined Market, ever. I've also never been unhappy that I played my Looter, giving my opponent a Ruined Market, ever.

Is there a gainer? This question is important, because if you're building some kind of engine by only getting one card per turn, you're going to have a really tough time outracing Big Money. With no +Buy and no gainer you're building so slowly and your mechanism to catch back up (your payload) can't really be all that spectacular if your only +Buy is Ruined Market.

Is Ruined Market on top of the pile? If there's no gainer, you're just buying a Ruined Market with one of your turns. That's so bad. I've never been happy with buying a Ruined Market, ever. On the other hand, if it's on top of the pile, go ahead and gain it when it's right for your engine!

Is there Throne Room in the kingdom? So an interesting statistic: in my Dominion career I've won three games where Ruined Market was the only +Buy and the centerpiece of my payload, and there are a few things that they all had in common:

- I was either handed Ruined Market by my opponent, or gained it when I saw it on top of the pile (meaning I never spent a buy on Ruined Market, and I never went digging through the Ruins deck to find one).

- There was some trashing available, and enough draw that I could draw my deck.

- Throne Room was in the kingdom.

Throne Room, eh? I've played lots of decks where Ruined Market was just not enough payload, but with Throne Room it's actually worked for me. What's magical about Throne Room? Well Procession gets rid of your precious Ruined Market. Why not Zoidberg King's Court? Well I guess that's just never come up, but I imagine that works even better and can maaaaybe help you justify digging through the Ruins deck to find a Ruined Market, but I just don't have any data on that. I think the takeaway here is that without TR or KC, you really really really need to think hard about how viable your deck is actually going to be before you go for it.



Does anyone else have any discussion to add? I'd certainly like to hear about other peoples' experiences with this kind of deck.

[Awaclus]

This depends a lot on how strong the engine can be. I remember one fairly recent game that I lost anyway because I had to Masquerade my opponent good cards all the time and then I never managed to get rid of my initial junk, but had he not passed one of his Ruined Markets to me, I would have had even less of a chance to win the game.

[SCSN]

If there's no gainer, you're just buying a Ruined Market with one of your turns. That's so bad.

SheCantSayNo: turn 9
SheCantSayNo   plays Lighthouse
SheCantSayNo   plays King's Court
SheCantSayNo   plays Laboratory
SheCantSayNo   draws Copper, Steward
SheCantSayNo   plays Laboratory
SheCantSayNo   draws Copper, Lighthouse
SheCantSayNo   plays Laboratory
SheCantSayNo   shuffles deck
SheCantSayNo   draws Abandoned Mine, Ruined Village
SheCantSayNo   plays Lighthouse
SheCantSayNo   plays Steward
SheCantSayNo   trashes Ruined Village, Abandoned Mine
SheCantSayNo   plays Steward
SheCantSayNo   trashes Copper, Copper
SheCantSayNo   buys Ruined Market
SheCantSayNo   gains Ruined Market

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20130811/log.5101a6c4e4b02b7235c3860f.1376262835430.txt

[AdamH]

So King's Court clearly changes things, eh?

[RobertJ]

I had a funny one of these.

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150212/log.51396c35e4b0cd4b5a40deea.1423735225595.txt

Ruined Market was on top so I went for Death Cart and .....

---------- RobertJ: turn 6 ----------
RobertJ - plays Bandit Camp
RobertJ - draws Caravan
RobertJ - gains Spoils
RobertJ - plays Caravan
RobertJ - shuffles deck
RobertJ - draws Copper
RobertJ - plays Masquerade
RobertJ - draws Copper, Bandit Camp
RobertJ - passes Estate
dhcblitz - passes Copper
RobertJ - trashes Copper
RobertJ - plays Bandit Camp
RobertJ - draws Spoils
RobertJ - gains Spoils
RobertJ - plays 4 Copper
RobertJ - buys Death Cart
RobertJ - gains Death Cart
RobertJ - gains Ruined Market
RobertJ - gains Ruined Market

Even better, there was still a Ruined Market on top so:

---------- RobertJ: turn 8 ----------
RobertJ - plays Masquerade
RobertJ - draws Bandit Camp, Spoils
RobertJ - passes Copper
dhcblitz - passes Copper
RobertJ - trashes Copper
RobertJ - buys Ruined Market
RobertJ - gains Ruined Market

and three Ruined Markets was enough.

[Titandrake]

KC seems like the best card if you're looking for one to push you to buy Ruined Market.

To want to buy Ruined Market, you need

- a surplus of actions, with
- the ability to draw your deck so that you can play Ruined Market each turn while building, with
- no other +Buy in the kingdom

So basically, an engine that has everything it wants except for +Buy. King's Court is the biggest engine card there is, and usually give you the first 2 while desperately wanting the 3rd.

[jomini]

I dug through the pile with a Kc/gainer (Armory?) and Wt one time. Diving through the pile is bad for two reasons: you have more cards you have to draw & trash later, it takes time. Kc/Gainer/Wt doesn't take much time to burn through; you could get 3 components instead of 3 shots at a Ruined Market but this is one of those $11 Herbalist things.


.
Options I see:
Forge: Forging a Copper -> ruins -> ... Ruined Market  seems decent if you have no other gain. Yeah you are keeping around one dead card, but the utility of getting the ruined market is worth it. Unlike a lot of other TfB gainers Forge adds no value to the deck so using the spare action to fish for a Ruined Market isn't that bad.
Haggler: If I have a strong Haggler board (trashing, I can play multiple Hagglers with a decent engine) I might give a go at fishing, particularly if I have Wt to not care about the dross Ruins
Hermit: I can gain & trash ruins as I go, particularly good with Tr or Kc after I have no more actions/curses/VP to trash. I could see this for something like Hermit/Menage where I've trashed Estate, gained Menages and want some +buy to use with big Madmen setups.
Pool: The draw cost is a lot less for junk actions, this also can make Ruined Mine and Library into marginally useful plays. I could see setting up a pool deck with say Iw and then fishing for Ruined Markets with my Iw if I had a way to top deck a Pool
Masquerade: I might be more included to fish with a gainer for +buy; I want a certain amount of junk to pass and I have to count on at least 20% of my starting being dead anyways.

I will also second the Kc/Tr/Prssn line, these are nice in that the non-market ruins are not completely useless. Ruined village can become functional. Ruined mine can be played with a spare action (possibly doubled) for some coin without having to buy a village for the privilege, library can actually be used for draw. A lot of this comes from having a surplus of actions, but it is also nice that you can pair an extra Tr with your other Ruins for some useful effect.

In like manner, you might be able to support a more Ruin cultured deck with Ironmonger, Vagrant or Herald.



I've also fished for Ruined Market in Goons/Wt game. Lots of point potential with no risk of stalling and plenty of buys to fish was a good recipe.

[faust]

I've also fished for Ruined Market in Goons/Wt game. Lots of point potential with no risk of stalling and plenty of buys to fish was a good recipe.

Huh. I can't really imagine Ruined Market to be worth not trashing in a Goons game. Unless the Goons pile was already empty or something (and even then I doubt this is a correct move). Or you got Goons from the Black Market.

[Dingan]

Just played a game where the +buy from Ruined Market won me the game.  Opponent and I both had a bunch of level 2 Cities and 2 Banks, there were no gainers, and no source of +buy other than Ruined Market and level 3 City.  My Ruined Markets (which I gained both of from opponent's Marauder) enabled me to buy 2 Provinces twice, while opponent could only ever buy 1.  So even though I didn't strictly pay a lot of money to buy the RM, or even voluntarily gain them, they were the difference in the game.

PS I know I need to include logs.  Still working on figuring out how that works.

[Jimmmmm]

In this game I realised on turn 3 that I should have opened Ruined Market/Trading Post instead of -/Trading Post, so I bought the RM with $3. I ended up with 3 double-Province turns in a row (with the help of King's Court of course).

[AdamH]

So I believe that King's Court in all of its raw power can make Ruined Market viable.

It seems that we haven't found any counterexamples to the idea that you shouldn't go for Ruined Market as the only source of +Buy on the board unless you have either Throne Room or King's Court present.

Not much has been said about the presence of trashing either.

I know it's quite a task, without any examples to the contrary, though, I think this could be a pretty good blanket statement to make. (ducks)

[Jack Rudd]

What about other ridiculous engine cards? Scrying Pool is a ridiculous engine card with sufficient trashing; could Ruined Market work in a Scrying Pool deck?

[WanderingWinder]

So I believe that King's Court in all of its raw power can make Ruined Market viable.

It seems that we haven't found any counterexamples to the idea that you shouldn't go for Ruined Market as the only source of +Buy on the board unless you have either Throne Room or King's Court present.

Not much has been said about the presence of trashing either.

I know it's quite a task, without any examples to the contrary, though, I think this could be a pretty good blanket statement to make. (ducks)

I think the thing is, you need to have a very strong engine, such that draw isn't really an issue, actions aren't really an issue, and there's no other source of buy (possibly even gains). King's Court can really get you there, and with some help, Throne Room will do its best impression. But otherwise you'll need a big confluence of things to go right; I think Jack Rudd has come up with the best chance (though not the only one).

[mpsprs]

I assume I didn't play this board all that well: www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20141020/log.5101a312e4b0a35e483e0772.1413848582812.txt.

But, I did find myself with a ruined market (via cultist battle), that I kept after trashing (with chapel).  Played it every turn but one from turn 13 on (though I didn't use the buy on one turn), ended the game on piles on turn 19.  Based on the way we played the game (mostly mirror cultists into heralds), the fact that I kept ruined market probably won me the game.

Not great evidence, since I'm not convinced we should have bought out all the heralds, and then the pile control is a bit less of an issue.  But it does include a log!

[Mic Qsenoch]

I played a game with Rabid where we both opened Death Cart for Ruined Markets:

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150222/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1424624165030.txt

My opening actually gave me two Ruined Markets! He trashed his and I like to think having 3 buys here let me build a type of deck that my opponent couldn't mirror and gave me a lot more flexibility on a board with plenty of alt-VP.

[WanderingWinder]

I played a game with Rabid where we both opened Death Cart for Ruined Markets:

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150222/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1424624165030.txt

My opening actually gave me two Ruined Markets! He trashed his and I like to think having 3 buys here let me build a type of deck that my opponent couldn't mirror and gave me a lot more flexibility on a board with plenty of alt-VP.

I remember that game - I believe the chat in general was dubious of this play. I certainly was. I don't think your buys really are what did it there for you, almost at all? Really the biggest problem was that Rabid was not focused on what kind of VP he was going for, and that he would have had much better chances if either his provinces had been duchies, or he hadn't bought the early duchies he did - splitting himself led inexorably to his downfall.

[Dingan]

PS I know I need to include logs.  Still working on figuring out how that works.

I guess this is a little off topic, but... how do you actually get to these logs?  Are they publicly accessible?  I assume they are for games played on Goko.

[AdamH]

PS I know I need to include logs.  Still working on figuring out how that works.

I guess this is a little off topic, but... how do you actually get to these logs?  Are they publicly accessible?  I assume they are for games played on Goko.

This is a pretty good utility for finding Goko logs

[Mic Qsenoch]

I remember that game - I believe the chat in general was dubious of this play. I certainly was. I don't think your buys really are what did it there for you, almost at all? Really the biggest problem was that Rabid was not focused on what kind of VP he was going for, and that he would have had much better chances if either his provinces had been duchies, or he hadn't bought the early duchies he did - splitting himself led inexorably to his downfall.

I agree about him being divided, I still think the +buys give me enough maneuverability to respond to whatever VP strategy he goes for. The only scary thing is him piling out Provinces, anything else looks hopeless for him at one gain a turn. I think I can catch up on Fairgrounds before the Provinces are gone, but yes, that's not clear.

[-Stef-]

If there's no gainer, you're just buying a Ruined Market with one of your turns. That's so bad.

...
SheCantSayNo   buys Ruined Market
SheCantSayNo   gains Ruined Market
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20130811/log.5101a6c4e4b02b7235c3860f.1376262835430.txt

In this game, I buy a Marauder on turn 6 for the sole purpose of digging for a Ruined Market.
On turn 15 I finally can spend my buy on a Ruined Market, which then goes on to win me the game.
The combination of Highway and Monument here make it very important to have +buy.

I don't mind you trying to get some discussion going with all the bold statements, but I still don't like all the nevers and evers.
It's games like these that make me love this game and even though their frequency is low I don't want to rule them out.

[AdamH]

I don't mind you trying to get some discussion going with all the bold statements, but I still don't like all the nevers and evers.
It's games like these that make me love this game and even though their frequency is low I don't want to rule them out.

I don't like them either, but I've gone for this so many times and lost that those statements are so far true for me. It's not like I'll stop looking for it because of course that will make me a worse player, but it's like Counting House + Coppersmith, if it just doesn't work out IRL then I'll know I need to look for amazing support to make it viable.

[Throwaway_bicycling]

In this game I realised on turn 3 that I should have opened Ruined Market/Trading Post instead of -/Trading Post, so I bought the RM with $3. I ended up with 3 double-Province turns in a row (with the help of King's Court of course).

I myself am better at being lucky than good. Here is a game I won because I got absurdly lucky enough to turn up the Ruined Market I had previously given to my opponent while possessing him, good for the game's only double Province turn.