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[AdamH]

I would have put this in the Articles subforum, but this thread, which is one of my favorite threads on the forum in recent memory, was posted here, so Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery (IITSFOF)...

The purpose of this thread is to highlight neat little interactions or synergies between two cards that may not be the most obvious thing. A couple of times this has caught me by surprise in a game and while they may have been talked about in bits and pieces on the forums, I really like the idea of being able to read a thread full of one-line cute tricks. Who knows if you'll find any goodies that you hadn't really thought of?

EDIT: Let's try to keep this thread on topic, please 

I'll begin:

Quarry and Stonemason: When playing Quarry, the price of Stonemason reduces to zero, so the normal "quarry gives +$2 if you're buying one action" and "you need $2 extra to get the extra action with Stonemason" becomes much better. You get cost reduction on both the Stonemason you buy AND on the overpay!

Apothecary and Shanty Town: Any top-deck interaction will help you trigger your Shanty Towns more, this is true; but I think Apothecary stands to benefit the most from this, as it can get a lot out of using Shanty Towns early to draw your green and pushing your terminals off until later in the turn when you've got the actions to play them and trigger future Shanty Towns.

Doctor and Fool's Gold: These two have a troubled relationship, that's for sure. Fool's Gold is a card that can provide you high-income hands very early, which can lead to very beneficial Doctor overpays if you're paying close attention.

Highway and Horn of Plenty: You don't need to worry about having enough unique cards with Highway around, every Highway you play effectively counts as a unique card since it reduces the cost of whatever you're going to gain.

...and some of the more standard ones:

Highway and Ironworks Cost-reducers and gainers synergize, for sure, but these two probably deserve a special mention. Highway and Ironworks are both non-terminal so it's very easy to get lots of them to increase your chances of collision, and spamming these cards can be a way to get lots of power-$5 cards very quickly.

[ehunt]

never thought about quarry/stonemason. i think that's a genuine combo. also, quarry is an expensive card that's not very good in the late game, which helps justify taking that extra stonemason

[AdamH]

University and Inn: The best thing I can think of for this is that every time you have a Uni in hand, think about gaining an Inn. It's probably amazing. Sure it isn't worth it without some kind of draw, but thinking about this will have you doing much better than the other guy who doesn't.

[WanderingWinder]

Mint and Apprentice: Trash your coppers, reload your fuel.
University and Apprentice: Similar
University and City: empties piles easy.


I will point out with Stonemason/quarry, you may eventually need to NOT play quarry, so you can overpay for, e.g., the last of the stonemasons.

[TheOthin]

Gaining too many Inns with University could get to be a bit of a mess, as you're ending up with a bunch of hand-size-reducing villages. They can definitely be useful but you don't want more than you can use.

[ehunt]

Chancellor/Scavenger and Hunting Party: On an otherwise weak board with Hunting Party, you typically want to avoid cantrips like Caravan. However, if the best terminal on the board is Chancellor or Scavenger, this is a non-issue. (This doubles as an edge case where Chancellor > Scavenger. Unfortunately, it's rare.)

[JacquesTheBard]

Quarry/Stonemason always seemed really clear to me, but then again, they are my favorite cards.

[pubby]

Scavenger/Venture. Topdeck your best treasure and then play Venture.

[enfynet]

I will point out with Stonemason/quarry, you may eventually need to NOT play quarry, so you can overpay for, e.g., the last of the stonemasons.

You would also want to be careful to not play multiple Quarry for anything under $5 as cards costing zero (like the Stonemason you just reduced to $0) would be impossible to pick up. But the early game interaction is definitely worth noting.

[Titandrake]

Ghost Ship/Wishing Well - you can guarantee a hit after getting hit by a Ghost Ship attack, which mitigates a lot of the attack. Similarly, Farming Villages lets you topdeck Victory cards and skip right past them

Ghost Ship/Fortune Teller - if you can play both in 1 turn, you deny allowing the opponent to topdeck good cards, and mess up the previous Well and/or FV interaction. You may allow them to topdeck Coppers which get discarded though, so be careful (want to make sure they at least have 1 Victory card in their deck.)

Develop/Herald - You can guarantee a Herald hit since the action you want to hit can be placed 2nd from the top.

[Awaclus]

On-trash effects/Doctor - you can buy cards with on-trash effects and trash them the same turn with a Doctor overpay, which is mostly useful for ending the game on piles with Catacombs or Hunting Grounds.

[Squidd]

I'm pretty sure Quarry is why Stonemason is called that. Maybe the clearest case of synergistic cards having synergistic names in the whole game. (That, or sacrificing Cultists at the Altar.)

[AdamH]

I'm pretty sure Quarry is why Stonemason is called that. Maybe the clearest case of synergistic cards having synergistic names in the whole game. (That, or sacrificing Cultists at the Altar.)

Are you trying to tell me that Butcher and Peddler don't fit this description? 

[werothegreat]

REDACTED and REDACTED.  Oops, I can't talk about those yet!

[markusin]

How well-known should the interactions mentioned here be? Like, does Scheme + Hermit/Madman belong here?

An interaction I like is Courtyard/Native Village. Not great for increasing handsize, but having them both in your engine deck ensures you can set the green cards you gain aside on the NV mat every turn. Similar to how Apothecary/Native Village works, but you can set aside the green cards in your starting hand too.

[werothegreat]

Bishop/Market Square.  This was on a board today I was trying to tinker with Hunting Grounds on, and I got distracted.  Bishop a Copper, discard two MS's, get two Golds to Bishop later!  It lets you Golden deck without needing the spending power.

[Flip5ide]

Chancellor/Scout: Self-explanatory. This one is an obvious combo, and a great 3/4 opening.

[Rubby]

Even better: Chapel/Scout. So you can trash your Scouts.

[Gveoniz]

REDACTED? / Scout is clearly better.

[liopoil]

Watchtower/X is a good idea most of the time.

Scavenger/Scavenger. It's lucky chancellor without the luck. Even better with TR, KC, or Prince. Especially with KC, you can topdeck scavenger-KC-platinum every turn for a colony every turn. ymyosl.

For doctor/FG it is strong to get doctor on the opening as well. And be careful with quarry not to make the cards you want to overpay for cost 0.

[Awaclus]

It's lucky chancellor without the luck.

So it's just Chancellor?

[liopoil]

It's lucky chancellor without the luck.

So it's just Chancellor?

Oh. Uh, yeah, and chancellor is really good, so you want to play it every turn!

[pacovf]

Chancellor/Scout: Self-explanatory. This one is an obvious combo, and a great 3/4 opening.

Scout draws your green so that you can draw and play Chancellor earlier.
Chancellor puts your deck in your discard pile so that you can draw and play your Scouts in your discard pile earlier.
Your deck ramps up lightning fast.

[Jimmmmm]

Swindler/Peddler: If the Peddlers are likely to run out, your Swindlers could end up turning opponents' Peddlers into Provinces; otherwise they could turn their Provinces into Peddlers.

[CavJes]

Counterfeit/Fool's Gold is a fun and potentially useful one

[liopoil]

Counterfeit/Fool's Gold is a fun and potentially useful one

Huh, I wonder where you thought of that one...

[Elanchana]

The general combo of cost reducer + gainer is a great one to know.

[CavJes]

Counterfeit/Fool's Gold is a fun and potentially useful one

Huh, I wonder where you thought of that one...

Yes, I dropped a little crumb for the multi-topic browsers...

[Flip5ide]

Fool's Gold BM+X seems so spiky that you may hit 12 with it once or twice and then have to tweak your strategy.

[enfynet]

Even better: Chapel/Scout. So you can trash your Scouts.

Scout draws your starting Estates to be trashed with Chapel!

[theJester]

I wondered about possible Black Marker combos:

BM+Poor House - play BM and all the treasures with it, thus maximizing the worth of your Poor Houses
BM+Mandarin - buy Mandarin from BM deck, topdecking your treasures and then drawing them again. This enables you to use same treasure cards again in the same turn.

[ipofanes]

Black Marker definitely synergises with Adventure cards as long as they are not to be named.

[Dingan]

Black Market + draw-up-to-x:
Play Black Market + a lot of treasures (it doesn't matter whether you actually buy something from the BM deck or not), then play your draw-up-to-x (e.g. Library).  You will have the coins from the treasure you just played, while you draw a ton more cards.  Do this multiple times per turn and you're off to the races.  Of course this requires some sort of village for support.

Usage:
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150315/log.516d4577e4b082c74d7b716e.1426465057559.txt

EDIT: I suggest the OPer put the most useful/simple/interesting interactions into the OP, to make them easy to find later.

[TheOthin]

I wondered about possible Black Marker combos:

BM+Poor House - play BM and all the treasures with it, thus maximizing the worth of your Poor Houses
BM+Mandarin - buy Mandarin from BM deck, topdecking your treasures and then drawing them again. This enables you to use same treasure cards again in the same turn.

The problem is that you're spending $5 on Mandarin and then you have to actually draw those Treasure cards again, when you could've just not spent the $5 and drawn just as many other cards.

[Awaclus]

I wondered about possible Black Marker combos:

BM+Poor House - play BM and all the treasures with it, thus maximizing the worth of your Poor Houses
BM+Mandarin - buy Mandarin from BM deck, topdecking your treasures and then drawing them again. This enables you to use same treasure cards again in the same turn.

The problem is that you're spending $5 on Mandarin and then you have to actually draw those Treasure cards again, when you could've just not spent the $5 and drawn just as many other cards.

Unless you're overdrawing your deck.

[TheOthin]

I wondered about possible Black Marker combos:

BM+Poor House - play BM and all the treasures with it, thus maximizing the worth of your Poor Houses
BM+Mandarin - buy Mandarin from BM deck, topdecking your treasures and then drawing them again. This enables you to use same treasure cards again in the same turn.

The problem is that you're spending $5 on Mandarin and then you have to actually draw those Treasure cards again, when you could've just not spent the $5 and drawn just as many other cards.

Unless you're overdrawing your deck.

Very true. It can also be helpful if you've already drawn especially high-value Treasures like Platinum.

[WanderingWinder]

Scout/Apothecary. No, seriously. Ok, so it's not useful, really, but it's neat.

[Asper]

Prince/Counting House, maybe?
Counting House can get you to a quick $8 if you're lucky, and being able to play Counting House enablers like Chancellor, Scavenger, Storeroom etc without an action means being able to set up all those combos that are not feasible normally. It's not really enough to be a combo, with luck and a third card involved, but iplayed it in one of my first Prince games, and it was fun.

If not Counting House, how about Coppersmith/Prince? It can also get you to $8 early, and effectively turns all your Coppers into Silvers. Not sure whether that's combo territory, but it does look like a nice interaction.

[theJester]

Journeyman + Fairgrounds
Chapel + Gardens
Counting House + Poor House
Highway + Bishop

I wondered about possible Black Marker combos:

BM+Poor House - play BM and all the treasures with it, thus maximizing the worth of your Poor Houses
BM+Mandarin - buy Mandarin from BM deck, topdecking your treasures and then drawing them again. This enables you to use same treasure cards again in the same turn.

The problem is that you're spending $5 on Mandarin and then you have to actually draw those Treasure cards again, when you could've just not spent the $5 and drawn just as many other cards.

Yeah, but the "neat" part is using the same treasures twice - once for buying Mandarin, and then the second time. I don't think that any other Dominion interaction allows for that.

[Awaclus]

Yeah, but the "neat" part is using the same treasures twice - once for buying Mandarin, and then the second time. I don't think that any other Dominion interaction allows for that.

Counterfeit?

[Elanchana]

Good to know your nombos. But in all seriousness, Prince + Cost Reducer is pretty special.

I like cost reducers, can't you tell?

[Gherald]

Yeah, but the "neat" part is using the same treasures twice - once for buying Mandarin, and then the second time. I don't think that any other Dominion interaction allows for that.

Counterfeit?

Herbalist?

[SirClemens]

Yeah, but the "neat" part is using the same treasures twice - once for buying Mandarin, and then the second time. I don't think that any other Dominion interaction allows for that.

Counterfeit?

Herbalist?

With Herbalist you can not use a treasure twice during the same turn.

[faust]

Apprentice/Explorer

Apprentice gives big hands and trashing to line up Province/Explorer, Explorer gives Gold to trash with Apprentice. Not as crazy as Market Square/Apprentice, but still quite useful.

[Kirian]

Prince/Counting House, maybe?
Counting House can get you to a quick $8 if you're lucky, and being able to play Counting House enablers like Chancellor, Scavenger, Storeroom etc without an action means being able to set up all those combos that are not feasible normally. It's not really enough to be a combo, with luck and a third card involved, but iplayed it in one of my first Prince games, and it was fun.

If not Counting House, how about Coppersmith/Prince? It can also get you to $8 early, and effectively turns all your Coppers into Silvers. Not sure whether that's combo territory, but it does look like a nice interaction.

Scavenger and Chancellor don't synergize with a Princed CH, since the CH gets played first, before you get to play the Scavenger.

I can maybe see Prince/Coppersmith... but the problem is that you need to hit 8 early and want to have more Copper than normal in your deck.  Most of the time you'd prefer to get rid of the Coppers and buy something better.

[werothegreat]

Good to know your nombos. But in all seriousness, Prince + Cost Reducer is pretty special.

I like cost reducers, can't you tell?

Be careful about *Princing* a cost-reducer when you want to use a cost-caring TfB, like Apprentice.

[WanderingWinder]

Prince/Counting House, maybe?
Counting House can get you to a quick $8 if you're lucky, and being able to play Counting House enablers like Chancellor, Scavenger, Storeroom etc without an action means being able to set up all those combos that are not feasible normally. It's not really enough to be a combo, with luck and a third card involved, but iplayed it in one of my first Prince games, and it was fun.

If not Counting House, how about Coppersmith/Prince? It can also get you to $8 early, and effectively turns all your Coppers into Silvers. Not sure whether that's combo territory, but it does look like a nice interaction.

Scavenger and Chancellor don't synergize with a Princed CH, since the CH gets played first, before you get to play the Scavenger.

I can maybe see Prince/Coppersmith... but the problem is that you need to hit 8 early and want to have more Copper than normal in your deck.  Most of the time you'd prefer to get rid of the Coppers and buy something better.

I assume he meant Prince the Chancellor/Scavenger, especially because you don't need a cost-reducer to do so.

[LastFootnote]

I can maybe see Prince/Coppersmith... but the problem is that you need to hit 8 early and want to have more Copper than normal in your deck.  Most of the time you'd prefer to get rid of the Coppers and buy something better.

You're thinking about this backwards. Coppersmith itself helps you get $8 early and Prince of Coppersmiths does make you want more Copper than normal in your deck. "Most of the time you'd rather get rid of it and buy something better?" Prince of Coppersmiths instantly "gets rid" of all your Copper and replaces it with Silvers.

[werothegreat]

I've never understood why Coppersmith gets rated so low - without Copper trashing, it's consistently +$3 or +$4 in the early game, for $4.  That makes it comparable to Baron.

[LastFootnote]

I've never understood why Coppersmith gets rated so low - without Copper trashing, it's consistently +$3 or +$4 in the early game, for $4.  That makes it comparable to Baron.

Well, Baron gives +1 Buy, which is significant.

[Awaclus]

I've never understood why Coppersmith gets rated so low - without Copper trashing, it's consistently +$3 or +$4 in the early game, for $4.  That makes it comparable to Baron.

There are multiple reasons:

• You usually want your opening buys to help you hit $5 early, because that's the price point where most of the important Action cards are. Any hand with Coppersmith and enough Coppers to get you $5 could have been a hand with Silver and the same number of Coppers and you still would have had $5. Silver has the advantages of being non-terminal, costing $1 less and being always available in every game.
• You do want to get rid of your Coppers, and Coppersmith starts to suck as soon as you don't have any Coppers in your deck.
• If you can't get rid of Coppers, building an engine is much more difficult and if you can't build an engine, you don't have any use for Coppersmith.
• When you've managed to build an engine with lots of Coppers and Coppersmith(s), you still need +buy to utilize all of your dollars.

Baron doesn't have any of these problems — it's significantly easier to hit $5 with a Baron than it is to hit $5 with a Silver, you only have to keep one Estate around to use the full potential of all of your Barons, and it has the +buy on it already.

[Eevee]

I feel I wouldn't buy more than half my barons if it didn't have the buy.

[faust]

New combo: Forge/Spice Merchant!

Forge can gain Coppers for Spice Merchant to trash to create the only possibility of +buy...

Happened in this game.

[AdamH]

Well this thread had a good run, I guess.

[werothegreat]

I've never understood why Coppersmith gets rated so low - without Copper trashing, it's consistently +$3 or +$4 in the early game, for $4.  That makes it comparable to Baron.

There are multiple reasons:

• You usually want your opening buys to help you hit $5 early, because that's the price point where most of the important Action cards are. Any hand with Coppersmith and enough Coppers to get you $5 could have been a hand with Silver and the same number of Coppers and you still would have had $5. Silver has the advantages of being non-terminal, costing $1 less and being always available in every game.
• You do want to get rid of your Coppers, and Coppersmith starts to suck as soon as you don't have any Coppers in your deck.
• If you can't get rid of Coppers, building an engine is much more difficult and if you can't build an engine, you don't have any use for Coppersmith.
• When you've managed to build an engine with lots of Coppers and Coppersmith(s), you still need +buy to utilize all of your dollars.

Baron doesn't have any of these problems — it's significantly easier to hit $5 with a Baron than it is to hit $5 with a Silver, you only have to keep one Estate around to use the full potential of all of your Barons, and it has the +buy on it already.

I guess I'll save it for my Worker's Village/Margrave/Counting House/Vault/Scout engine, then.

[Chris is me]

I guess the most interesting one I haven't seen mentioned would be Candlestick Maker / Gardens. It's one of the best Gardens enablers in the game, actually. Each CSM is at worst a Copper that gives you an additional buy, and unlike Workshop, Woodcutter, etc. they are non-terminal. Its cheap as fuck cost combined with the +Buy means you can afford to buy a TON of them (like more than 5) before you start greening. Once you start stuffing your deck, it swells so quickly that you can often get to 50 cards before the rush is over. Plus Coin tokens are just super useful for Gardens strategies. Those annoying $3 hands when you're trying to lock up the Gardens pile stop being a problem with Coin tokens. It's almost as good as Storeroom / Gardens.

[Gherald]

Yeah, but the "neat" part is using the same treasures twice - once for buying Mandarin, and then the second time. I don't think that any other Dominion interaction allows for that.

Counterfeit?

Herbalist?

With Herbalist you can not use a treasure twice during the same turn.

Oh, that's what was meant. Well BM + HoP + Graverobber or Rogue also let you do this.  For treasures other than HoP, Counterfeit was mentioned and that could work with BM and Graverobber/Rogue for multiple plays of the same treasure in one turn, not just the two of buying Mandarin.

Also worth noting Mandarin doesn't have to be bought, it could be gained with e.g. Altar or Jester or Graverobber/Rogue or even Highway+IW and such

almost as good as Storeroom / Gardens.

I just played a game with Storeroom, Gardens, and P-stone.  Mmmm.

One I think a lot of people miss: Gardens and Soothsayer.  ~3 Soothsayers lets you simultaneously contest Gardens and Provinces in a way that can really catch your opponent off guard (they'll only be going for one, and you'll win because you can contest both)

[Flip5ide]

Silver, when paired with a Gold, produce $5 on a consistent basis based on simulation results, however the code is still fairly basic right now.

I'm planning on adding this to the Dominion Combos page on the wiki, I didn't see it there last time I checked.

[Chris is me]

Cache + Doctor is something I played this morning in a really empty Kingdom without much else to do. Yet has surprisingly good synergy and pretty much works as a Big Money deck all by itself. You can open Silver / Doctor overpay, then buy Cache on $5, using Doctor to trash those Coppers before you even draw them. Get a second Doctor at some point and you can get essentially a Gold per shuffle without much drawback. Eventually you just buy gold straight up and then you're hitting $8 or more every draw. Kinda fun, I guess.

[LastFootnote]

Cache + Doctor is something I played this morning in a really empty Kingdom without much else to do. Yet has surprisingly good synergy and pretty much works as a Big Money deck all by itself. You can open Silver / Doctor overpay, then buy Cache on $5, using Doctor to trash those Coppers before you even draw them. Get a second Doctor at some point and you can get essentially a Gold per shuffle without much drawback. Eventually you just buy gold straight up and then you're hitting $8 or more every draw. Kinda fun, I guess.

Not to be a naysayer, but I wonder if that's really better than just buying Silver, Cache, and Gold. How many Estates and Coppers did you end up trashing?

[GendoIkari]

I feel I wouldn't buy more than half my barons if it didn't have the buy.

[Chris is me]

Cache + Doctor is something I played this morning in a really empty Kingdom without much else to do. Yet has surprisingly good synergy and pretty much works as a Big Money deck all by itself. You can open Silver / Doctor overpay, then buy Cache on $5, using Doctor to trash those Coppers before you even draw them. Get a second Doctor at some point and you can get essentially a Gold per shuffle without much drawback. Eventually you just buy gold straight up and then you're hitting $8 or more every draw. Kinda fun, I guess.

Not to be a naysayer, but I wonder if that's really better than just buying Silver, Cache, and Gold. How many Estates and Coppers did you end up trashing?

I got the first Estate on my overpay, and the second near the end of a shuffle when I knew it would be there. I picked up a second Doctor by the end of the third shuffle and trashed at least 7 Copper. Bought 3 Caches, so I had at most 6 Copper in my deck, then I think I managed two Gold buys before picking up Province. Had just two Silver. Unfortunately I don't have the log from this game.

This seems like something easy enough to script in Dominate; I'll give it a try later. You very well could be right as trashing is rarely a benefit in Big Money - the reason Doctor works well in this strategy is because it trashes without hurting your current (or even future) turn much.

[LastFootnote]

This seems like something easy enough to script in Dominate; I'll give it a try later. You very well could be right as trashing is rarely a benefit in Big Money - the reason Doctor works well in this strategy is because it trashes without hurting your current (or even future) turn much.

Well it "hurts" your turn in as much as each Doctor could have been a Silver. So it puts you down $2 in hand. Maybe it's worth it, dunno. I'd more readily believe that one Doctor was a good call than that two Doctors are.

[LastFootnote]

Maybe this one isn't that common, but I just had a fun Band of Misfits game with Shanty Town and Mining Village. When I had no other Action cards in my hand, it was Shanty Town. Otherwise it was Mining Village (or Conspirator, Forager, etc.). Band of Misfits is one of those cards that I need to buy more in order to really see its power. It's great with cards that are situationally awesome (Smugglers, Baron, etc.).

[Burning Skull]

I can see a surprisingly great potential in Village / Smithy combo.

[pubby]

Maybe this one isn't that common, but I just had a fun Band of Misfits game with Shanty Town and Mining Village. When I had no other Action cards in my hand, it was Shanty Town. Otherwise it was Mining Village (or Conspirator, Forager, etc.). Band of Misfits is one of those cards that I need to buy more in order to really see its power. It's great with cards that are situationally awesome (Smugglers, Baron, etc.).

I've noticed that it makes "bad" cards significantly more important. Cards like Thief or Feast can usually be ignored, but when BoM's on the board you have to pay attention to them.

[iguanaiguana]

Play band of misfits as feast. Trash band of misfits. Gain a band of misfits. Yes!

[sudgy]

Maybe this one isn't that common, but I just had a fun Band of Misfits game with Shanty Town and Mining Village. When I had no other Action cards in my hand, it was Shanty Town. Otherwise it was Mining Village (or Conspirator, Forager, etc.). Band of Misfits is one of those cards that I need to buy more in order to really see its power. It's great with cards that are situationally awesome (Smugglers, Baron, etc.).

I've noticed that it makes "bad" cards significantly more important. Cards like Thief or Feast can usually be ignored, but when BoM's on the board you have to pay attention to them.

I play BoM as Feast to gain a BoM!

[Gherald]

With KC, or for the last Duchy

[pubby]

Play band of misfits as feast. Trash band of misfits. Gain a band of misfits. Yes!

It has won me the game before.

pubby   plays Band of Misfits
pubby   chooses Feast
pubby   plays Feast
pubby   trashes Feast
pubby   gains Band of Misfits
pubby   plays Band of Misfits
pubby   chooses Feast
pubby   plays Feast
pubby   trashes Feast
pubby   gains Band of Misfits
pubby   plays Band of Misfits
pubby   chooses Feast
pubby   plays Feast
pubby   trashes Feast
pubby   gains Band of Misfits
pubby   plays Band of Misfits
pubby   chooses Feast
pubby   plays Feast
pubby   trashes Feast
pubby   gains Band of Misfits
pubby   plays City
pubby   shuffles deck
pubby   draws Band of Misfits, Band of Misfits
pubby   plays Band of Misfits
pubby   chooses Mining Village
pubby   plays Mining Village
pubby   draws Band of Misfits
pubby   trashes Mining Village
pubby   plays Band of Misfits
pubby   chooses Mining Village
pubby   plays Mining Village
pubby   draws Band of Misfits
pubby   trashes Mining Village
pubby   plays Band of Misfits
pubby   chooses Feast
pubby   plays Feast
pubby   trashes Feast
pubby   gains Band of Misfits
pubby   plays Band of Misfits
pubby   chooses Mining Village
pubby   plays Mining Village
pubby   shuffles deck
pubby   draws Band of Misfits
pubby   trashes Mining Village
pubby   plays Band of Misfits
pubby   chooses Feast
pubby   plays Feast
pubby   trashes Feast
pubby   gains Duchy
pubby   plays 2 Silver, 1 Copper
pubby   buys Province
pubby   gains Province
pubby   buys Province
pubby   gains Province
pubby   shuffles deck
pubby   draws City, Copper, Silver, City, Province

[sudgy]

Play band of misfits as feast. Trash band of misfits. Gain a band of misfits. Yes!

WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU NINJA ME WITHOUT ME EVEN KNOWING

[qmech]

Play band of misfits as feast. Trash band of misfits. Gain a band of misfits. Yes!

WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU NINJA ME WITHOUT ME EVEN KNOWING

Iguanas are closely related to chameleons.

[XerxesPraelor]

And the rhetorical device of repetition signals emphasis out of this world.

[xyz123]

Maybe this one isn't that common, but I just had a fun Band of Misfits game with Shanty Town and Mining Village. When I had no other Action cards in my hand, it was Shanty Town. Otherwise it was Mining Village (or Conspirator, Forager, etc.). Band of Misfits is one of those cards that I need to buy more in order to really see its power. It's great with cards that are situationally awesome (Smugglers, Baron, etc.).

I've noticed that it makes "bad" cards significantly more important. Cards like Thief or Feast can usually be ignored, but when BoM's on the board you have to pay attention to them.

I play BoM as Feast to gain a BoM!

I have played a bot game on Goko where the bot ignored all other Kingdom cards until it had finished off the BoM pile that way.

I think BoM is very good when Conspirator is on the board as BoM can be used to either activate the Conspirator chain or be pat of it.

An interaction I like is Sage/Potion/cheap potion card such as University or Apothecary. If you open Potion/Sage then providing you do not draw them in the same hand over turns 3 to 5 you can stock up on the cheap potion card.

[Awaclus]

An interaction I like is Sage/Potion/cheap potion card such as University or Apothecary. If you open Potion/Sage then providing you do not draw them in the same hand over turns 3 to 5 you can stock up on the cheap potion card.

It's also very good with Familiar — it gives you slightly higher odds of hitting $3P on turns 3 and 4 than Silver does, and then it helps you play the Familiars more often.

[werothegreat]

An interaction I like is Sage/Potion/cheap potion card such as University or Apothecary. If you open Potion/Sage then providing you do not draw them in the same hand over turns 3 to 5 you can stock up on the cheap potion card.

It's also very good with Familiar — it gives you slightly higher odds of hitting $3P on turns 3 and 4 than Silver does, and then it helps you play the Familiars more often.

Just try not to cry too hard when Sage skips over your University.

[AdamH]

So let's be really optimistic here and assume this will do the trick:

Let's try to keep this thread on-topic, please

In that vein, I'll post a few more of these. Some are classics, but maybe not all of them.

Quarry/Talisman: Relatively well-known, but the big bummer about Talisman is that it can't gain $5+ cards, and Quarry fixes that. Sure, other cost reduction works for this, but Quarry is also a treasure, stacks easily for Actions, and lets you get $6 cards too.

Menagerie/Warehouse: Menagerie is enabled strongly by cards that allow you to discard selectively from your hand, but Warehouse gets a special mention because it's much, much better than other cards for enabling Menagerie decks. You can draw most of your deck without Copper trashing, you can green heavily and not really stall all that much, which are things you're hard-pressed to do with other discarders.

[WanderingWinder]

Doctor/Fortress: Can draw you cards if there's no other way to do so. More realistically, Fortress makes your Doctor less of a dead card later.
There have been two times I have tried to use this as my only real draw. Pro tip: it doesn't work very well (somehow I think I actually won those games anyway, but yeah, not advised)

[AdamH]

Doctor/Fortress: Can draw you cards if there's no other way to do so. More realistically, Fortress makes your Doctor less of a dead card later.
There have been two times I have tried to use this as my only real draw. Pro tip: it doesn't work very well (somehow I think I actually won those games anyway, but yeah, not advised)

Hey there was one game I played a long time ago where I could keep playing Lookout later than normal because of Fortress, it was kind of nice.

[Asper]

Storeroom/Philosopher's Stone. SR discards so it can push your PS, can sift through the junk you start with and the junk you might get, accellerates your deck and provides the buy you need to push PS and to actually make something of it.

[iguanaiguana]

Here are two strong combos I saw recently that are probably well known, but that i had to learn about the hard way by losing to them.                           

Scheme/conspirator: simple. just get two schemes and have them topdeck themselves. Now your conspirators are always activated every turn. Example game: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150402/log.54485813e4b0342f4922b1e1.1428010853731.txt                                 

University/watchtower: play universities to gain actions and topdeck them with watchtower. Then play the watchtower to put the gained actions into your hand and play them with the plus actions provided by university. If you gain a second watchtower and some handsize decreasing actions, you may be able to do this more than once in a turn. Example game: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150406/log.5062f3dc51c3843e7939eb9f.1428344689079.txt

EDIT: added example games now that I am on a home computer and can do things like that.

[Polk5440]

Quarry/Talisman: Relatively well-known, but the big bummer about Talisman is that it can't gain $5+ cards, and Quarry fixes that. Sure, other cost reduction works for this, but Quarry is also a treasure, stacks easily for Actions, and lets you get $6 cards too.

Related: Quarry/Grand Market.

Not sure if this one was mentioned, but this is a combo I miss very often. With just a little bit of trashing, lining up multiple Quarries is not too hard. Then Grand Markets with the +Buy creates a very nice feedback loop.

[dondon151]

Even without trashing, if there's engine potential, Quarry + GM is just nuts.

[Awaclus]

Even without trashing, if there's engine potential, Quarry + GM is just nuts.

Even without engine potential, Quarry + GM is most likely better than most other things you could be doing.

[xyz123]

Band of Misfits and Conspirator providing there are cheap cards that give + action.

Band of Misfits can then either be used to activate the Conspirator chain or as Conspirators themselves. This means you have a very good chance of getting the chain going each turn.

[Flip5ide]

Is it possible to get Fortress in the trash?

[WanderingWinder]

Stables and Crossroads - one of my favorite draw engines.

[pacovf]

Is it possible to get Fortress in the trash?

For that to be possible, you would need an effect that trashes cards by itself, without instructing a player to do so (so "your hand" in "put it into your hand" is not defined), or an effect that sends cards to the trash without trashing them. I don't think either exists.

[iguanaiguana]

I don't know about perma-trashing fortress, but i still find stuff for this thread when i'm playing games.

Hunting party/Altar. Buy altar on your first 6 hand, almost certainly. Hunting party will repeatedly put it in your hand with an estate, which you can trash for a hunting party. You will have double hunting party turns, and the altar will quickly eliminate estates from your deck, meaning hunting party will trip on it instead of them. After this is done, on a worst case scenario the altar can start turning copper into silver, but probably in most kingdoms there is a better target card than silver once the hunting parties are out.

[Jimmmmm]

Is it possible to get Fortress in the trash?

If a card said, "Place x in the trash" and a Fortress was in x, that would work.

[Dingan]

Can we make a "Lame and certainly useless card interactions" thread?

Poor House + Copper
Death Cart + Silver
Forge + Gardens
Smithy + Hunting Party
Crossroads + Necropolis
Scout + anything

[AdamH]

*sigh*

Let's try to keep this thread on topic, please 

Council Room/Pillage: Council Room vastly increases the potency of Pillage's attack, the chances of you hitting a hand that was bad anyways decrease quite a lot. You can also play multiple Pillages on your opponent in a turn which is much more potent as well (though that's probably only feasible with Throne Room and the like). Plus, the draw and buys that Council Room gives you help you make use of the Spoils you get.

Very few times do I consider Pillage to be a legitimate attack, but Council Room is probably the best enabler out there.

[Jack Rudd]

Governor/Black Market/Minion

I've only pulled this one off once, but the idea is as follows:

Play a village (doesn't matter which one)
Play multiple Governors for +3 cards
Play Black Market, dumping all your Treasure on the table
Play Minion for the discard attack *opponent discards his huge hand for a random four-card hand*

[Dingan]

Governor/Black Market/Minion

I've only pulled this one off once, but the idea is as follows:

Play a village (doesn't matter which one)
Play multiple Governors for +3 cards
Play Black Market, dumping all your Treasure on the table
Play Minion for the discard attack *opponent discards his huge hand for a random four-card hand*

Any opponent draw (Council Room, Governor, etc.) + any discard-to-x work.  Example:
http://gokosalvager.com/kingdomvisualize?logurl=http://dominionlogs.goko.com/20150319/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1426811891226.txt
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150319/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1426811891226.txt
(Okay, ya got me, all I really wanted to do was show a game where I beat Mic Q.)

But I can see how Minion is usually even more brutal than, say, Margrave because it doesn't let them choose which cards to keep.

[WanderingWinder]

Governor/Black Market/Minion

I've only pulled this one off once, but the idea is as follows:

Play a village (doesn't matter which one)
Play multiple Governors for +3 cards
Play Black Market, dumping all your Treasure on the table
Play Minion for the discard attack *opponent discards his huge hand for a random four-card hand*

Any opponent draw (Council Room, Governor, etc.) + any discard-to-x work.  Example:
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150319/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1426811891226.txt
(Okay, ya got me, all I really wanted to do was show a game where I beat Mic Q.)

But I can see how Minion is usually even more brutal than, say, Margrave because it doesn't let them choose which cards to keep.

When someone has that plan working against you: Moat. (Useful defense is a useful interaction, yeah?) You are more likely to be defended than normal, given your increased handsize, and you're getting a bigger benefit than normal.

[Elanchana]

Governor/Black Market/Minion

I've only pulled this one off once, but the idea is as follows:

Play a village (doesn't matter which one)
Play multiple Governors for +3 cards
Play Black Market, dumping all your Treasure on the table
Play Minion for the discard attack *opponent discards his huge hand for a random four-card hand*

Any opponent draw (Council Room, Governor, etc.) + any discard-to-x work.  Example:
http://gokosalvager.com/kingdomvisualize?logurl=http://dominionlogs.goko.com/20150319/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1426811891226.txt
http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150319/log.51201cbee4b04e88c8da4f9a.1426811891226.txt
(Okay, ya got me, all I really wanted to do was show a game where I beat Mic Q.)

But I can see how Minion is usually even more brutal than, say, Margrave because it doesn't let them choose which cards to keep.

It also gives you a chance to draw up your newly bought Black Market cards if you're able to overdraw!

[Awaclus]

Governor/Black Market/Minion

I've only pulled this one off once, but the idea is as follows:

Play a village (doesn't matter which one)
Play multiple Governors for +3 cards
Play Black Market, dumping all your Treasure on the table
Play Minion for the discard attack *opponent discards his huge hand for a random four-card hand*

It's not surprising that you've only pulled it off once, it requires three specific cards in a kingdom and kingdoms with three specific cards in them are incredibly rare.

[Jack Rudd]

Governor/Black Market/Minion

I've only pulled this one off once, but the idea is as follows:

Play a village (doesn't matter which one)
Play multiple Governors for +3 cards
Play Black Market, dumping all your Treasure on the table
Play Minion for the discard attack *opponent discards his huge hand for a random four-card hand*

It's not surprising that you've only pulled it off once, it requires three specific cards in a kingdom and kingdoms with three specific cards in them are incredibly rare.

Well, the Minion could be in the Black Market deck. (It wasn't, but it could have been.)

[Polk5440]

Scrying Pool + Saboteur
Scrying Pool + Knights

Use the spying attack to discard your opponents' cards until you spy something you want to trash. Province or Duchy? Or their key engine card, perhaps? In this situation, you may want to keep playing Scrying Pools even if you aren't drawing any cards.

Similarly, Scrying Pool + Tribute. Look for the card type you want to flip.

[JW]

Scrying Pool + Saboteur
Scrying Pool + Knights

Scrying Pool + Swindler

Keep cards on top you want to hit. After the Scrying Pools run out you can use Swindler to trash remove Scrying Pools after leaving them on top of their deck (and there's probably no other $2P card on the board, so they won't even get anything in return).

[Elanchana]

^ Also works with Spy if Scrying Pool is unavailable.

[GeoLib]

^ Also works with Spy if Scrying Pool is unavailable.

Well except that spy sucks

[Flip5ide]

Scrying Pool + Saboteur
Scrying Pool + Knights

Scrying Pool + Swindler

Keep cards on top you want to hit. After the Scrying Pools run out you can use Swindler to remove Scrying Pools from their deck (and there's probably no other $2P card on the board, so they won't even get anything in return).

I feel like the margin of benefit for you minus the benefit for him in removing Scrying Pools from the game (instead of Swindling one of his other cards) is negligible at best, under almost all scenarios.

[Orange]

A couple simple ones:

Feodum + Raid:  play many Silver, buy Raid, get many Silvers, profit.
Band of Misfits + Ferry:  Place -2 cost token on Goons or Grand Market or other strong 6-cost card.  Then play Band of Misfits as the card with the reduced cost.

Ferry + Workshop/Armory/Ironworks:  Place -2 cost token on Goons or Grand Market or other strong 5- or 6-cost card.  Then use the gainer to gain the card with the reduced cost.  (Add 7- cost cards if Altar or Feast is in play.)

[Flip5ide]

Province and Gold.

The Provinces give you VP while the Gold supplies you with the coins for other important cards like Chapel, which is actually a really good card.

[nickchak]

Scrying Pool + Saboteur
Scrying Pool + Knights

Scrying Pool + Swindler

Keep cards on top you want to hit. After the Scrying Pools run out you can use Swindler to remove Scrying Pools from their deck (and there's probably no other $2P card on the board, so they won't even get anything in return).

A similar concept; if you can reliably insert Fortune Teller -> Saboteur into an engine and play it every turn, it can make for devastating and consistent end-game VP trashing.

[Jack Rudd]

A similar concept; if you can reliably insert Fortune Teller -> Saboteur into an engine and play it every turn, it can make for devastating and consistent end-game VP trashing.

Ah, the Rabbleteur deck. One of my favourites.

[eHalcyon]

Ferry + Grand Market -- it's significantly easier to get to $4 without Copper than it is to get to $6 without Copper.

Ferry + Trashing attack -- place the -$2 cost token on Province or some other juicy target that is normally too expensive to hit.

[AJD]

Ferry + Trashing attack -- place the -$2 cost token on Province or some other juicy target that is normally too expensive to hit.

Ferry only works on Actions.

[eHalcyon]

Ferry + Trashing attack -- place the -$2 cost token on Province or some other juicy target that is normally too expensive to hit.

Ferry only works on Actions.

Oops.  So scratch Province and only have it on some other juicy target... I guess there are fewer of those, but there are still some!

[Flip5ide]

Ferry + Trashing attack -- place the -$2 cost token on Province or some other juicy target that is normally too expensive to hit.

Ferry only works on Actions.

Oops.  So scratch Province and only have it on some other juicy target... I guess there are fewer of those, but there are still some!

Where is the full list of cards?

[werothegreat]

Alternatively, use Ferry on a key $4 or $3 to protect it from trashing Attacks. Never mind, doesn't work.

[TheOthin]

Ferry + Trashing attack -- place the -$2 cost token on Province or some other juicy target that is normally too expensive to hit.

Ferry only works on Actions.

Oops.  So scratch Province and only have it on some other juicy target... I guess there are fewer of those, but there are still some!

For Knights, Rogue, and Giant, you'd almost always be targeting a $7 card, since the $8 cards aren't be too great to go after anyway. So King's Court most likely. For Warrior, you'd go after a $5 or $6 card; there are plenty of good targets among those.

This does bring to mind the caveat that if you wanted to Ferry a $3 or $4 card, you'd be protecting your opponents' copies of it.

[enfynet]

Ferry + Trashing attack -- place the -$2 cost token on Province or some other juicy target that is normally too expensive to hit.

Ferry only works on Actions.

Oops.  So scratch Province and only have it on some other juicy target... I guess there are fewer of those, but there are still some!

Where is the full list of cards?

I'm guessing you missed the Rules Online thread?

I think and 5-cost you want multiples of would be good.

[ConMan]

Prince + Inheritance - if there's a card you really want to Prince, then you can use Inheritance to imprint your Estates and now you suddenly have three more copies of it in your deck, thus greatly improving the chance you'll collide it with Prince. In addition, if you have an unreliable cost-reducer (or one where it's hard to play the reducer before playing Prince), then you can apply it in one turn to let your Estates Inherit, then you need never worry about whether you'll be able to get the cost down when you need to since the Estates cost $2!

[Beyond Awesome]

This is probably obvious, but Prince and Ferry. Now, you can play Rebuild or Mountebank every turn or GM whatever. Hell, how does this sound, Ferry and anything else. The Event is just nuts crazy insane.

[Gherald]

Or beyond awesome, as some will call it

[TheOthin]

Rebuild and Mountebank don't actually sound like great Prince targets, as powerful as they are.

[AdamH]

Pardon my frustration.

One day, long ago I had a dream. This dream was that there would be a thread full of little combos that people could read through and add to their mental checklists so their game might improve.

Part of my dream was that these combos would appear in actual games of Dominion that were played. This probably means that they require only two cards to pull off. The odds of seeing three particular cards in a kingdom these days are extremely unlikely, and so they are much less useful. How much less useful? About 200 times less useful. Even requiring a village or additional draw or a category of cards to be useful is speculative. Three-or-more card combos get less and less worth talking about every day as more cards are added to the game, it's been said a lot but I'll say it again: the best place to talk about these interactions is probably in Game Reports or maybe Puzzles.

Hey, we just found a card from Adventures that reduces cost! WWWHOOAOAOAOAHAHAHAH!!! HOLY FUDGE BARS! Look at all the cool things we can break with it! The place for a list of all the cool Ferry interactions is probably a new thread on Ferry. Why? Because the dream wasn't to talk about all the mediocre combos with one particular card, the dream was to find the cream-of-the-crop pairs of cards, those special long-lost lovers who, when united, produce beautiful music far beyond what they could do alone; music that nobody else in the world could create.

If the combo is really [type of card] + [one particular card] and not two particular cards, then it should probably be presented as such (but again, the discussion on that probably belongs in a thread about the particular card). Maybe one particular card in [type of card] is way way better than the rest of its type so it's worth talking about here. Example: Quarry is probably the best cost-reducer for Stonemason because it's easy to get in play and have Stonemason take advantage of it. Stonemason is probably the best gainer for Quarry (yeah yeah Talisman whatever) because most gainers have trouble taking advantage of Quarry's cost reduction, but not Stonemason. The music, it's so beautiful! It's almost as good as TSwift's latest jam <3 <3

If your combo involves a type of card, and they're all really interchangeable, then that discussion really has to do with the particular card. Not with this list. If one shining example of your card type is really really good, that's what we're looking for. Talk about the category and then say why this particular card is better. Sure a flute sounds good with strings, but it was the flute+viola duet that brought tears of joy to my eyes.

Pardon my frustration again.

Adventures was released to the public two days ago. How many games could any given person have possibly played with these cards to legitimately think that Adventures card combos are as good as the other combos here? "But Adam I played a Ferry+GM game and it was AMAZEBALLZ!" but there are tons of other cards Ferry is good with. Have you played with all of them? How do you know it's the special music between these two cards when you've been playing with Ferry for two days. I've been playing with the Adventures cards for 10 months and I still feel like that isn't nearly enough. Not even close. How can you know that flute+viola is so magical when you don't even know what a flute sounds like?

Yeah that frustration applies to articles too I guess. Forgive me but any article on an Adventures card that's posted this year, I'm just not going to take seriously. Jack was out for 3 years before I felt comfortable writing an article about it. But this is all my personal opinion. I should be whining about this thread only because my opinion actually kind of matters here.

I'm sorry for my frustration, but there are just so many more people here that are taking this thread in 55 different directions than the few that try to steer it back. My arms are sore.

OK I'm done complaining now. Carry on with your discussions.

[werothegreat]

Bear in mind you called this thread "Neat and potentially useful card interactions".  You did not call it "List of combos sensu stricto".  So, I think most of this are thinking of it as "oo, this seems interesting" rather than "THESE TWO CARDS EAT SPAGHETTI 'NEATH THE GIBBOUS MOON".

[AdamH]

What you say is not incorrect, I'm just trying to isolate the things that make this thread go off-topic and try to fix them. If that means branching off things that spawn unrelated discussions and/or attempting to prevent them from doing so, then sure, let's do that.

[iguanaiguana]

I like this thread a lot and want it to keep going more or less the way adam wants it to as well. Not sure who else feels that way. Adam, what if you made a list of posts that you feel fit the criterion and keep that updated on the first post. That way, there can be tangents in the thread itself but the worthwhile posts are all still together and easy to read.

[AdamH]

I mean yeah I could do that, and I probabily will end up doing it. But I'd rather people be able to talk about a topic seriously on the forums. Partially because that's less work for me, partially because I don't want to have to decide what is "good enough" because that makes me an authority on the subject (which I'm not). And partially because I want to see good threads in the future that don't get sidetracked and then just die sadly.

Sorry if I sound grumpy but I guess I kind of am. Humbug. Uhh, let me say something silly to lighten the mood.

Woozle wuzzle?

[GeoLib]

Bear in mind you called this thread "Neat and potentially useful card interactions".  You did not call it "List of combos sensu stricto".  So, I think most of this are thinking of it as "oo, this seems interesting" rather than "THESE TWO CARDS EAT SPAGHETTI 'NEATH THE GIBBOUS MOON".

I'm going to agree with Wero here that the thread title does not convey your declared vision in your last post, Adam. I suggest that if you were to start a thread called "Primo combos" or whatever and clarify in the OP that you wanted the very best two-card combos that people had actually played with, you might have results more to your liking. I do agree that people tend to get a little over-excited about declaring combos with new cards, and I understand your frustrations with things going off in tangents.

Also, I would recommend editing the worthy combos into the OP every so often. That will help to fulfill your vision of a succinct list for people to read.

PPE: ninja'd on the last point.

[iguanaiguana]

I'm pretty sure that if this thread had a [serious] tag, the OP would have the right to delete your 'woozle wuzzle' remark

[pubby]

I'd post more combos here but everything I know is either well-known, or very gimmicky.

Here's a gimmicky one: Journeyman + Native village can psuedotrash your provinces.
And two mundane ones: Hoard + Counterfeit. Rebuild + Oasis.

[eHalcyon]

I think you're being a bit too exacting here.  The thread is titled "neat and potentially useful card interactions", which neither suggests that they have to be exactly two specific cards or that they have to form an actual ultimate combo. 

In your OP you mention Doctor/FG which doesn't seem to fit your strict requirements.

Later on you post CR/Pillage.  That requires a village.  Oh no, overly speculative 3-card combo! I guess you could replace CR with Governor draw but now it's not a unique interaction, oops.

If you want to limit it to hyper-specific 2 card combos, this thread is going to see much less activity.  If you didn't want to have theoretical combos (which may involve new Adventures cards), you probably shouldn't have asked for potentially useful interactions.

I get your frustration, but definitely think that you're being a lot grumpier than warranted.

PPE: ninja'd

[eHalcyon]

I'd post more combos here but everything I know is either well-known, or very gimmicky.

Here's a gimmicky one: Journeyman + Native village can psuedotrash your provinces.
And two mundane ones: Hoard + Counterfeit. Rebuild + Oasis.

Journeyman doesn't topdeck, so how does that work?

And I hope you mean to Counterfeit your surplus Gold because Counterfeited Hoard won't gain you anything.

Oasis is fine with Rebuild but I wouldn't call it out as a combo.

[AdamH]

I will not argue that my idealism has been misplaced. I sort of thought people knew how to talk about Dominion perfectly and would see my examples and realize what the spirit of this thread was and never go off-topic. I didn't really want to close off the discussion to only power-combos that make beautiful music, but "what else can I do to keep discussion on track?"

And yes there are answers here that come short of "make a serious tag and be a real hard-patootie about it" which is exactly what I was looking for. So +1s for all of you. Yeah I guess I should just suck it up and do those things.

But I feel like I get to whine about it and then be mildly sorry for whining about it. I'm not perfect.

[pubby]

Journeyman doesn't topdeck, so how does that work?

Put the provinces in your discard while drawing your deck and then NV them.

[pacovf]

Adventures was released to the public two days ago. How many games could any given person have possibly played with these cards to legitimately think that Adventures card combos are as good as the other combos here? "But Adam I played a Ferry+GM game and it was AMAZEBALLZ!" but there are tons of other cards Ferry is good with. Have you played with all of them? How do you know it's the special music between these two cards when you've been playing with Ferry for two days. I've been playing with the Adventures cards for 10 months and I still feel like that isn't nearly enough. Not even close. How can you know that flute+viola is so magical when you don't even know what a flute sounds like?

Surely this is a bit of an exaggeration? If before posting about a combo, you must have tried both cards separately with all other cards they could supposedly go well with, nobody will ever post anything. As you yourself said, there's just too many cards...

I'm all for keeping this thread useful, but I am confused as to what is expected of it.

[TheOthin]

I don't understand the fuss over Adventures speculation when this thread specifically calls for "potentially useful" interactions.

[AdamH]

Surely this is a bit of an exaggeration? If before posting about a combo, you must have tried both cards separately with all other cards they could supposedly go well with, nobody will ever post anything. As you yourself said, there's just too many cards...

I'll be first to admit that I'm probably much more skeptical of everything in life than most people on this board. But no, it's not an exaggeration of my own personal feelings.

I'm all for keeping this thread useful, but I am confused as to what is expected of it.

Me too, brah. Me too. 

[eHalcyon]

Journeyman doesn't topdeck, so how does that work?

Put the provinces in your discard while drawing your deck and then NV them.

OK, but now you're asking for a lot of support from other cards.  I don't think NV/Catacombs alone is going to reliably draw your deck. At the least you want another village lest NV put away important cards during interim plays.

[xyz123]

Over the weekend I noticed Ill-Gotten Gains seems to have a symbiotic relationship with Mercenary.

With Mercenary the deck thinning and + 2 cards means you draw your Ill-Gotten Gains more often.
Which means you are more likely to hit 5 on that turn, as when needed you gain extra coppers with IGG.
Those extra coppers are then fuel to play Mercenary again.

Plus as well as clogging your opponents deck with curses you know have a discard attack.

[Dingan]

Over the weekend I noticed Ill-Gotten Gains seems to have a symbiotic relationship with Mercenary.

With Mercenary the deck thinning and + 2 cards means you draw your Ill-Gotten Gains more often.
Which means you are more likely to hit 5 on that turn, as when needed you gain extra coppers with IGG.
Those extra coppers are then fuel to play Mercenary again.

Plus as well as clogging your opponents deck with curses you know have a discard attack.

I wouldn't put Merc+IGG as a particularly neat combo because...
If you have a Merc, doesn't your opponent often have one as well?  In which case, they're making you discard down to 3 about just as often.  And the curses you're giving them are fuel for their Merc.  Of course, if you're the only one with a Merc, or your Merc comes up at better times based on whatever shuffle luck, then your opponents will often tremble, no matter the kingdom.

[xyz123]

Over the weekend I noticed Ill-Gotten Gains seems to have a symbiotic relationship with Mercenary.

With Mercenary the deck thinning and + 2 cards means you draw your Ill-Gotten Gains more often.
Which means you are more likely to hit 5 on that turn, as when needed you gain extra coppers with IGG.
Those extra coppers are then fuel to play Mercenary again.

Plus as well as clogging your opponents deck with curses you know have a discard attack.

I wouldn't put Merc+IGG as a particularly neat combo because...
If you have a Merc, doesn't your opponent often have one as well?  In which case, they're making you discard down to 3 about just as often.  And the curses you're giving them are fuel for their Merc.  Of course, if you're the only one with a Merc, or your Merc comes up at better times based on whatever shuffle luck, then your opponents will often tremble, no matter the kingdom.

It surprised me how well it worked. My opponent did have one as well. I did have some luck in that the turn after I got my first Merc I had a reshuffle and drew my other Urchin and Merc together so I was hitting him twice as frequently. He also didn't go for the IGG rush. He tried some money strategy so was probably hurt more by my attacks then I was by his. Also I am only around the mid 3,000s on Goko so it is unlikely either of us were playing anything like the optimal strategy.

[AdamH]

I usually just IGG-nore IGG whenever there's any halfway decent trashing. In this case, I think Mercenary+Big Money might just beat Mercenary+IGG+Big Money. Of course this is rarely ever going to actually be the case but you catch my drift.

[Gherald]

Right, Urchin/Mercenary is a reason to not bother with IGG.  They don't synergize, they anti-synergize, because in the face of an IGG buyer your opponent will get 2 mercenaries and have no trouble using their $5+ buys on something better than IGG.

[xyz123]

Thanks for the replies.

Being corrected like this is what I was hoping to get out of the forum. I thought I had found something good but the reality sounds more like it was just not as bad as what my opponent was doing.

 

[AdamH]

Tangents like this are super-productive. <3 <3 <3 It's why this place is so awesome.

GWAAAAH I'm so conflicted!

[ehunt]

Tangents like this are super-productive. <3 <3 <3 It's why this place is so awesome.

GWAAAAH I'm so conflicted!

this wasn't a tangent. someone proposed an idea directly related to the thread title. someone else directly debated the idea (not edge-casing it) and others thoughtfully weighed the arguments; the original proposer concluded that there may have been an error.

(on the other hand these two posts of ours form a mini-tangent.)

[Witherweaver]

On the tangent topic of Ill-Gotten Gains, I remember one game I played against a bot with IGG + Trader + Feodum, and it all seemed to work out very nicely.  Of course, Trader synergizes with Feodum on its own, but trashing IGGs for 5 Silvers is cool; plus Trader itself is a partial IGG defense.  I'm not sure of the practicality of this in a real game, though (i.e., against a live opponent). 

[TheOthin]

IGG can also pick up Silvers in the presence of Trader, although you'd probably be better off trashing IGG when they collide.

However, it's worth bearing in mind that Trader, unlike Watchtower, stops IGG from taking Curses out of the Supply, so if even one IGG gets blocked the Curses won't get emptied. This may not be a concern, though, if you're going against the usual rush style of IGG, which you probably are with Feodum. Of course, I feel like this raises questions about the use of IGG in the first place.

[Jimmmmm]

Adam, one idea if you want a list of the cream of the crop 2-card combos is to do a Qvist-like ranking of them. You could start a thread saying, "Hey guys, name 50 useful 2-card combos", and then get people to vote for the most useful, then maintain a list of the best 20, then periodically iterate by adding new combos to the list to be voted on.

Yeah it's a bit of work and it may be that no one has the time and motivation to do it. But I think it's the way to achieve what you're trying to achieve.

[Beyond Awesome]

Adam, one idea if you want a list of the cream of the crop 2-card combos is to do a Qvist-like ranking of them. You could start a thread saying, "Hey guys, name 50 useful 2-card combos", and then get people to vote for the most useful, then maintain a list of the best 20, then periodically iterate by adding new combos to the list to be voted on.

Yeah it's a bit of work and it may be that no one has the time and motivation to do it. But I think it's the way to achieve what you're trying to achieve.

I like this idea.

NV/Bridge
Royal Carriage/Bridge
KC/Bridge
MS/Hermit
MS/Apprentice
Governor + hand size reducer
KC/Masq + hand size reducer

That's all I have for now

[eHalcyon]

Royal Carriage/Bridge

Can playtesters confirm this to be a respectable 2-card combo?  My instinct says that you usually won't be able to get enough RCs bought and into your tavern quickly enough for this to succeed.  Note, I totally think that this plan is viable with other support, but I don't think it will be a combo on its own.

Or maybe you are just pointing it out as a significant synergy, like "Governor + hand size reducer".  Even then I am uncertain; there are plenty of other ways to get multiple Bridges in play (like, say, TR-Bridge, or Village-Bridge, heh).

[AdamH]

Adam, one idea if you want a list of the cream of the crop 2-card combos is to do a Qvist-like ranking of them. You could start a thread saying, "Hey guys, name 50 useful 2-card combos", and then get people to vote for the most useful, then maintain a list of the best 20, then periodically iterate by adding new combos to the list to be voted on.

Yeah it's a bit of work and it may be that no one has the time and motivation to do it. But I think it's the way to achieve what you're trying to achieve.

This is actually a really good idea. I think someone should do it, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the right guy for the job.

The discussion here has caused me to think about what I wanted from this thread originally. I wanted to sleep on it to help me decide, since as you can tell I'm sort of flailing today when I was presented with some helpful feedback.

Royal Carriage/Bridge

Can playtesters confirm this to be a respectable 2-card combo?

It's about as much of a thing as Throne Room/Bridge is, only slightly better.

[Witherweaver]

IGG can also pick up Silvers in the presence of Trader, although you'd probably be better off trashing IGG when they collide.

However, it's worth bearing in mind that Trader, unlike Watchtower, stops IGG from taking Curses out of the Supply, so if even one IGG gets blocked the Curses won't get emptied. This may not be a concern, though, if you're going against the usual rush style of IGG, which you probably are with Feodum. Of course, I feel like this raises questions about the use of IGG in the first place.

Yeah, but then again, grabbing IGGs forces the opponent to deal with the curses in some way (which could be Trader itself).  But, getting a bunch of IGGs and then a bunch of feoda is kind of slow.. I think it may have only worked because the bot did something silly that just wasn't competitive.  I think Silvers and Feoda emptied.. or Foeda IGGs and Curses, and I had almost all the Silvers.

[werothegreat]

So how much is Guide/Outpost actually a combo?  Is it good enough that when both of them are on the table, it's a decent enough strategy to just go for them?

[Jimmmmm]

Royal Carriage/Bridge

Can playtesters confirm this to be a respectable 2-card combo?  My instinct says that you usually won't be able to get enough RCs bought and into your tavern quickly enough for this to succeed.  Note, I totally think that this plan is viable with other support, but I don't think it will be a combo on its own.

I know it's not particularly scientific, but I decided to run a single simulation of this. I bought 2 Bridges then Silvers, with obviously Royal Carriages on 5. On turn 9 I managed to buy 4 Carriages by calling the two that I had. After that I bought a couple more Bridges while loading up my Tavern, then an Estate and a Duchy while waiting for a Bridge, and finally bought 8 Provinces on turn 16.

I then tried it with Chapel, holding on to 1 Bridge, 1 Silver and 1 Copper as well as the Chapel, and bought the Provinces on turn 15.

I then tried it with Horse Traders and bought the Provinces on turn 18.

So based purely on these single games, I'd speculate that Bridge/Royal Carriage is competitive with say BM+Smithy, so long as you get a mini-megaturn, Bridge/Royal Carriage/Chapel is a bit better, and Bridge/Royal Carriage/Horse Traders isn't as good as it sounds, since even though you are getting to $5 often, it takes too long to get them in your Tavern. What you want is to get 2 RCs, then call them both on a Bridge to get 3-4 more in one turn.

For the record, as long as you get there in time, this will beat 5 Provinces or 4 Provinces and 3 Duchies, and in fact should do even better since there will often be 'wasted' turns near the end where you just buy a Duchy or Estate because there's nothing else to do.

[AdamH]

I wanted to sleep on it to help me decide

As promised, here is my spiel.

So when I look at a board, one of the things I do is look for combos. Yeah there's the big stuff like NV/Bridge, Hermit/Market Square, those you just build your whole deck around. But then there are other ones like Apprentice/Fortress, FV/Wharf, Apothecary/NV, Tactician/Black Market, and lot of the stuff mentioned here -- synergies strong enough that even though they don't dictate all of your strategy, they are incorporated strongly into it.

The way to get better at knowing these explosive synergies is to just know about them. I thought a thread that lists a bunch of these good ones would be useful.

So that's what I wanted from this thread. Anything else I've said was just a (probably misguided) attempt to keep the discussion from going off to some other direction.

So like, what is the right thing to do here? I kind of hoped that the community could just have an on-topic discussion without the need for me to moderate it and someone could just scroll down the pages and read lots of really cool tidbits of knowledge. Instead, they have to weed through a bunch of sarcastic suggestions, or maybe some suggestions that turned out to not be so good after some discussion. Whether or not I like that is irrelevant, that's what's going to happen.

So in order to have the resource I wanted, what I'm supposed to do is not only try to keep discussion on track, but find the combos that were deemed "good enough" and compile them on a list in the OP. As you can see, I'm bad at that. Because I'm bad at it, I'm less motivated to do it because it frustrates me -- all for personal reasons that are totally irrelevant. If I'm going to contribute to the community, I should just do what I'm good at, which is probably making videos. And not doing this.

Maybe there are some other people who are more motivated to do that. Sure, they should go ahead and do it, I certainly won't be offended. I'll even contribute when I think it's meaningful.

[pacovf]

I think the first thing you should do is change the title of the thread.

[iguanaiguana]

I think the first thing you should do is change the title of the thread.

Yes,

and I'd be happy to compile a list of constructive additions to the thread thus far.

[Witherweaver]

I would say "keeping the discussion on track" is not a useful endeavor: what if some deemed "off track" discussion leads to useful insight?  Also, there are things to be learned from "bad" ideas or suggestions as much as "good" ones.  Maybe someone didn't understand why an apparently synergy seems to antisynergize because of some misunderstanding of lack of understanding of some aspect of Dominion, but after some criticism and discussion, they come out enlightened, and that's a good thing. 

I think it would be useful to edit into the OP the ones that seem good, as you've said.  Though, that does takes some time/effort, and it's okay if you're not up for that. 

PPE: Hooray community.

[AdamH]

I'm happy to do things now, but the ongoing work is not the stuff I'm good at.

I wouldn't know what to change the thread title to, and someone other than me should be able to edit that post as new things come up. So maybe the answer is just to start another thread?

So the ones I liked:

Quarry and Stonemason: When playing Quarry, the price of Stonemason reduces to zero, so the normal "quarry gives +$2 if you're buying one action" and "you need $2 extra to get the extra action with Stonemason" becomes much better. You get cost reduction on both the Stonemason you buy AND on the overpay!

Apothecary and Shanty Town: Any top-deck interaction will help you trigger your Shanty Towns more, this is true; but I think Apothecary stands to benefit the most from this, as it can get a lot out of using Shanty Towns early to draw your green and pushing your terminals off until later in the turn when you've got the actions to play them and trigger future Shanty Towns.

Doctor and Fool's Gold: These two have a troubled relationship, that's for sure. Fool's Gold is a card that can provide you high-income hands very early, which can lead to very beneficial Doctor overpays if you're paying close attention.

Highway and Horn of Plenty: You don't need to worry about having enough unique cards with Highway around, every Highway you play effectively counts as a unique card since it reduces the cost of whatever you're going to gain.

...and some of the more standard ones:

Highway and Ironworks Cost-reducers and gainers synergize, for sure, but these two probably deserve a special mention. Highway and Ironworks are both non-terminal so it's very easy to get lots of them to increase your chances of collision, and spamming these cards can be a way to get lots of power-$5 cards very quickly.

University and Inn: The best thing I can think of for this is that every time you have a Uni in hand, think about gaining an Inn. It's probably amazing. Sure it isn't worth it without some kind of draw, but thinking about this will have you doing much better than the other guy who doesn't.

Mint and Apprentice: Trash your coppers, reload your fuel.
University and Apprentice: Similar
University and City: empties piles easy.

Chancellor/Scavenger and Hunting Party: On an otherwise weak board with Hunting Party, you typically want to avoid cantrips like Caravan. However, if the best terminal on the board is Chancellor or Scavenger, this is a non-issue. (This doubles as an edge case where Chancellor > Scavenger. Unfortunately, it's rare.)

Ghost Ship/Wishing Well - you can guarantee a hit after getting hit by a Ghost Ship attack, which mitigates a lot of the attack. Similarly, Farming Villages lets you topdeck Victory cards and skip right past them

Ghost Ship/Fortune Teller - if you can play both in 1 turn, you deny allowing the opponent to topdeck good cards, and mess up the previous Well and/or FV interaction. You may allow them to topdeck Coppers which get discarded though, so be careful (want to make sure they at least have 1 Victory card in their deck.)

Develop/Herald - You can guarantee a Herald hit since the action you want to hit can be placed 2nd from the top.

An interaction I like is Courtyard/Native Village. Not great for increasing handsize, but having them both in your engine deck ensures you can set the green cards you gain aside on the NV mat every turn. Similar to how Apothecary/Native Village works, but you can set aside the green cards in your starting hand too.

Swindler/Peddler: If the Peddlers are likely to run out, your Swindlers could end up turning opponents' Peddlers into Provinces; otherwise they could turn their Provinces into Peddlers.

Counterfeit/Fool's Gold is a fun and potentially useful one

BM+Poor House - play BM and all the treasures with it, thus maximizing the worth of your Poor Houses

Here are two strong combos I saw recently that are probably well known, but that i had to learn about the hard way by losing to them.                           

Scheme/conspirator: simple. just get two schemes and have them topdeck themselves. Now your conspirators are always activated every turn. Example game: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150402/log.54485813e4b0342f4922b1e1.1428010853731.txt                                 

University/watchtower: play universities to gain actions and topdeck them with watchtower. Then play the watchtower to put the gained actions into your hand and play them with the plus actions provided by university. If you gain a second watchtower and some handsize decreasing actions, you may be able to do this more than once in a turn. Example game: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150406/log.5062f3dc51c3843e7939eb9f.1428344689079.txt

Quarry/Grand Market.

Not sure if this one was mentioned, but this is a combo I miss very often. With just a little bit of trashing, lining up multiple Quarries is not too hard. Then Grand Markets with the +Buy creates a very nice feedback loop.

Stables and Crossroads - one of my favorite draw engines.

Council Room/Pillage: Council Room vastly increases the potency of Pillage's attack, the chances of you hitting a hand that was bad anyways decrease quite a lot. You can also play multiple Pillages on your opponent in a turn which is much more potent as well (though that's probably only feasible with Throne Room and the like). Plus, the draw and buys that Council Room gives you help you make use of the Spoils you get.

Very few times do I consider Pillage to be a legitimate attack, but Council Room is probably the best enabler out there.

Quarry/Talisman: Relatively well-known, but the big bummer about Talisman is that it can't gain $5+ cards, and Quarry fixes that. Sure, other cost reduction works for this, but Quarry is also a treasure, stacks easily for Actions, and lets you get $6 cards too.

Menagerie/Warehouse: Menagerie is enabled strongly by cards that allow you to discard selectively from your hand, but Warehouse gets a special mention because it's much, much better than other cards for enabling Menagerie decks. You can draw most of your deck without Copper trashing, you can green heavily and not really stall all that much, which are things you're hard-pressed to do with other discarders.

[Dingan]

As promised, here is my spiel.

So when I look at a board, one of the things I do is look for combos. Yeah there's the big stuff like NV/Bridge, Hermit/Market Square, those you just build your whole deck around. But then there are other ones like Apprentice/Fortress, FV/Wharf, Apothecary/NV, Tactician/Black Market, and lot of the stuff mentioned here -- synergies strong enough that even though they don't dictate all of your strategy, they are incorporated strongly into it.

The way to get better at knowing these explosive synergies is to just know about them. I thought a thread that lists a bunch of these good ones would be useful.

So that's what I wanted from this thread. Anything else I've said was just a (probably misguided) attempt to keep the discussion from going off to some other direction.

So like, what is the right thing to do here? I kind of hoped that the community could just have an on-topic discussion without the need for me to moderate it and someone could just scroll down the pages and read lots of really cool tidbits of knowledge. Instead, they have to weed through a bunch of sarcastic suggestions, or maybe some suggestions that turned out to not be so good after some discussion. Whether or not I like that is irrelevant, that's what's going to happen.

So in order to have the resource I wanted, what I'm supposed to do is not only try to keep discussion on track, but find the combos that were deemed "good enough" and compile them on a list in the OP. As you can see, I'm bad at that. Because I'm bad at it, I'm less motivated to do it because it frustrates me -- all for personal reasons that are totally irrelevant. If I'm going to contribute to the community, I should just do what I'm good at, which is probably making videos. And not doing this.

Maybe there are some other people who are more motivated to do that. Sure, they should go ahead and do it, I certainly won't be offended. I'll even contribute when I think it's meaningful.

FYI:

I suggest the OPer put the most useful/simple/interesting interactions into the OP, to make them easy to find later.

[eHalcyon]

So combos that need a splitter are cool after all?

Also, you quoted Ghost Ship/Wishing Well which is a counter, not a combo.  So I am more confused about what you're looking for than before. 

[Jimmmmm]

Also, you quoted Ghost Ship/Wishing Well which is a counter, not a combo.  So I am more confused about what you're looking for than before. 

He's looking for interactions, which cover combos, counters and also other things like Swindler/Peddler.

[werothegreat]

Inheritance/Baron is a pretty obvious, but nice, interaction.

[Jack Rudd]

Inheritance/Baron is a pretty obvious, but nice, interaction.

At first I thought:
"What? The point of Inheritance is to play your Estates. Baron discards them instead."

And then I realized:
"Ah, the point of this combo is to use Baron to gain Estates."

[iguanaiguana]

Also baron makes it a lot easier to hit 7 and gives you something to do with estates before they are upgraded...

[Witherweaver]

Also, you know, Inheritance and Estates... neat interaction.

[Jack Rudd]

Fishing Village/Wharf is very strong, agreed, but it's a generic rather than a specific combo, yesno? It's village + terminal draw, just two expletiveing excellent examples of said types.

[werothegreat]

Fishing Village/Wharf is very strong, agreed, but it's a generic rather than a specific combo, yesno? It's village + terminal draw, just two expletiveing excellent examples of said types.

FV/Wharf is particularly strong because it doesn't need payload, really - FV provides coin, and Wharf provides +Buy.  You really just need these cards, and maybe some Treasures.  Anything else is just gravy.  Gravy you don't mind having, but still gravy.

[Jimmmmm]

Death Cart/Vineyards is nice. Clearly you wouldn't build a deck around it, but if you have a strong Vineyards deck anyway, not only does Death Cart pump up your Vineyards by 1 each time (as long as Ruins remain), but they can help you end the game since you only need 5 of them to empty a pile.

[Flip5ide]

Death Cart/Vineyards is nice. Clearly you wouldn't build a deck around it, but if you have a strong Vineyards deck anyway, not only does Death Cart pump up your Vineyards by 1 each time (as long as Ruins remain), but they can help you end the game since you only need 5 of them to empty a pile.

Feels like a nombo to me.

[Gherald]

Death Cart/Vineyard is obviously a useful card interaction.. though there are certainly many better Vineyard helpers.

Death Cart/Fairgrounds also helps a bit for hitting 15 uniques with 1 buy toward the end of the game.  Probably not so notable, though.

[faust]

Not sure if this belongs here, and I'm kind of afraid to post it, but Swamp Hag/Events is an interesting interaction. Swamp Hag gives Curses for buying cards, Events are not cards. So going for Events on a Swamp Hagged turn might be a thing.

[Jimmmmm]

Death Cart/Vineyards is nice. Clearly you wouldn't build a deck around it, but if you have a strong Vineyards deck anyway, not only does Death Cart pump up your Vineyards by 1 each time (as long as Ruins remain), but they can help you end the game since you only need 5 of them to empty a pile.

Feels like a nombo to me.

In what sense? Obviously you're not going to want to actually play the Death Carts, so it's a very late-game thing. But if you want Vineyards anyway, upgrading them by a full point for $4 and a buy is great value.

[Beyond Awesome]

Death Cart/Vineyards is nice. Clearly you wouldn't build a deck around it, but if you have a strong Vineyards deck anyway, not only does Death Cart pump up your Vineyards by 1 each time (as long as Ruins remain), but they can help you end the game since you only need 5 of them to empty a pile.

Feels like a nombo to me.

Umm, no. I have played a few Vineyards game with Death Cart and most often I won. One DC buy increases each Vineyard in value by 1 point. If you tie the split, that's a 4 VP gain right there. If you somehow win the split 5/3, you're getting 5 VP right there. DC is pretty good in Vineyards  games.

[WanderingWinder]

Death Cart/Vineyards is nice. Clearly you wouldn't build a deck around it, but if you have a strong Vineyards deck anyway, not only does Death Cart pump up your Vineyards by 1 each time (as long as Ruins remain), but they can help you end the game since you only need 5 of them to empty a pile.

Feels like a nombo to me.

Umm, no. I have played a few Vineyards game with Death Cart and most often I won. One DC buy increases each Vineyard in value by 1 point. If you tie the split, that's a 4 VP gain right there. If you somehow win the split 5/3, you're getting 5 VP right there. DC is pretty good in Vineyards  games.

So it's a $4 somewhat-better-than-duchy. Seems reasonably good, but by no means game-shattering.

[Jimmmmm]

Death Cart/Vineyards is nice. Clearly you wouldn't build a deck around it, but if you have a strong Vineyards deck anyway, not only does Death Cart pump up your Vineyards by 1 each time (as long as Ruins remain), but they can help you end the game since you only need 5 of them to empty a pile.

Feels like a nombo to me.

Umm, no. I have played a few Vineyards game with Death Cart and most often I won. One DC buy increases each Vineyard in value by 1 point. If you tie the split, that's a 4 VP gain right there. If you somehow win the split 5/3, you're getting 5 VP right there. DC is pretty good in Vineyards  games.

So it's a $4 somewhat-better-than-duchy. Seems reasonably good, but by no means game-shattering.

Yeah, I guess I was more going for "Neat and potentially useful".

[enfynet]

Not sure if this belongs here, and I'm kind of afraid to post it, but Swamp Hag/Events is an interesting interaction. Swamp Hag gives Curses for buying cards, Events are not cards. So going for Events on a Swamp Hagged turn might be a thing.

Swamp Hag vs Alms? Buying Alms gains you a $4-cost but you didn't buy that $4-cost.

[werothegreat]

Not sure if this belongs here, and I'm kind of afraid to post it, but Swamp Hag/Events is an interesting interaction. Swamp Hag gives Curses for buying cards, Events are not cards. So going for Events on a Swamp Hagged turn might be a thing.

Swamp Hag vs Alms? Buying Alms gains you a $4-cost but you didn't buy that $4-cost.

Ball is also decent for this.  And I guess Seaway?

[Beyond Awesome]

Not sure if this belongs here, and I'm kind of afraid to post it, but Swamp Hag/Events is an interesting interaction. Swamp Hag gives Curses for buying cards, Events are not cards. So going for Events on a Swamp Hagged turn might be a thing.

Swamp Hag vs Alms? Buying Alms gains you a $4-cost but you didn't buy that $4-cost.

Ball is also decent for this.  And I guess Seaway?

Pilgrimage as well.

[dondon151]

DC sounds like something that you'd only buy on the last turn in Vineyards games for the points or pile control.

[Jimmmmm]

Tactician/Vault: Play double Tactician, playing one each turn, and turn all your cards into spendable money with Vault.

Vault/Grand Market: Absent handsize reduction, a single play of Vault guarantees you enough for a Grand Market.

[ehunt]

DC sounds like something that you'd only buy on the last turn in Vineyards games for the points or pile control.

no way -- i'm buying actions as soon as the vineyard pile is empty, and my top priority action with a 4 is death cart (assuming there's at least two ruins left)

[Elanchana]

It's already listed somewhere under combos, but Scavenger/Stash is like unlocking a cheat code.

[Witherweaver]

It's already listed somewhere under combos, but Scavenger/Stash is like unlocking a cheat code.

Up up down down left right left right B A Start

[Flip5ide]

Death Cart/Vineyards is nice. Clearly you wouldn't build a deck around it, but if you have a strong Vineyards deck anyway, not only does Death Cart pump up your Vineyards by 1 each time (as long as Ruins remain), but they can help you end the game since you only need 5 of them to empty a pile.

Feels like a nombo to me.

In what sense? Obviously you're not going to want to actually play the Death Carts, so it's a very late-game thing. But if you want Vineyards anyway, upgrading them by a full point for $4 and a buy is great value.

I mean as a strategy in and of itself it would never work be tough to make win with. You would have to consistently hit 4 (or use your DC's, which has a Trade Route-Gardens anti-synergy). Each time you buy one, which will be increasingly harder to do, you would be filling in the space between seeing your Potion with more and more Ruins.

But as a late-game interaction I can see how it would be useful. I was thinking as a "those two cards are on the board, gotta rush both piles" kind of deal.

[enfynet]

It's already listed somewhere under combos, but Scavenger/Stash is like unlocking a cheat code.

Up up down down left right left right B A Start

I feel guilty for +1'ing this post...

[Dingan]

Hermit + Coppersmith + cheap non terminal plus buy

Not as powerful as Hermit + Market Square, but still can be very powerful.  Nab Madmen, Coppersmith, and cheap non terminal plus buys (Pawn, Hamlet, Candlestick Maker, etc.).  Then do a megaturn in which you play several Coppersmiths and your non terminal plus buys.  Keep track of how many Coppersmiths you have so that you can ensure you have enough Madmen or villages or whatever to play them all, and keep track of how many buys total you will have so that you can ensure you can buy all the green cards you want.  I don't know the optimal play (when to buy a Coppersmith vs. when to gain a Madman, should you be buying coppers, etc.), but I do know it can pay off.  As with any megaturn, make sure you can end the game on it.  So maybe go for it when opponent has half the provinces and you have at least 2 Madmen in hand, or whatever.

I've executed this both successfully and very unsuccessfully.  But either way, it is fun to try, encourages careful deck tracking, and seems underrated.

[Erick648]

Some I've encountered in Adventures:

Market Square-Bonfire:  Market Square works nicely with any trasher, but the nice thing about Bonfire is it's always available, so you don't need to collide your Market Square with your trasher; you just need to collide it with $3.  I wonder how double-Market Square compares to Market Square-Silver (assuming no stronger openers are available).

Bridge/Highway/Bridge Troll/Ferry-Inheritance: Now you can inherit more expensive cards (note, however, that the cost reduction doesn't affect the cost of Inheritance itself).  Ferry is particularly effective since you don't need to collide it with your $7 hand.  As an added bonus, Estates are often free in games with cost reducers (except Ferry).  Of course, even when this combo's available, the delay might not be worth it, but it can still be very helpful on the right board (i.e., a longer game with strong $5 cards and weak $1-4 cards). 
Note that I didn't mention Princess with the other cost reducers because I imagine that would almost never be fast enough to be useful.

[belugawhale]

Ferry or Borrow guarantees opening with a $5 cost card.
Pathfinding with Magpie works pretty well. It is either an activated Menagerie (+3 cards +1 Action) or a Lab that gains you a Lab.
Inheritance counters Haunted Woods during early-game since you can play your Estates. Plus, you can save them for next turn if you want.
Treasures with effects aside from the $ they provide are very useful with Storyteller. (Quarry, Contraband, Coin of the Realm, Treasure Trove are some that come to mind.)
Distant Lands works well as a source of VP in slogs, since slogs take longer and the Distant Lands "islands" itself from your deck.

[enfynet]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

[AJD]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Inheritance doesn't work on Victory cards.

[enfynet]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Inheritance doesn't work on Victory cards.

But Distant Lands are "Action-Reserve-Victory"

[eHalcyon]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Inheritance doesn't work on Victory cards.

But Distant Lands are "Action-Reserve-Victory"

Right, but it's Action-Reserve-Victory, and Inheritance only works on non-Victory Action cards.

It's also too expensive without cost reduction.

[enfynet]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Inheritance doesn't work on Victory cards.

But Distant Lands are "Action-Reserve-Victory"

Right, but it's Action-Reserve-Victory, and Inheritance only works on non-Victory Action cards.

It's also too expensive without cost reduction.

Dur... Right it says "non-Victory" doesn't it?  It's hard to remember these things without using these cards yet.

[belugawhale]

Champion and Diadem work very well. It pretty much makes all +Action become +$.

[Aidan Millow]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Ignoring everything below this: How would this work? Are they 5/1 or 4/0 victory points? Food for thought.

[AJD]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Ignoring everything below this: How would this work? Are they 5/1 or 4/0 victory points? Food for thought.

That's probably part of why Inheritance doesn't work on Victory cards.

[Witherweaver]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Ignoring everything below this: How would this work? Are they 5/1 or 4/0 victory points? Food for thought.

That's probably part of why Inheritance doesn't work on Victory cards.

A big reason (I asked this during the previews) is that you'd often automatically go for Islands. 

[eHalcyon]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Ignoring everything below this: How would this work? Are they 5/1 or 4/0 victory points? Food for thought.

They would be 5/1.  Estate gains the effects of the chosen card, but it also keeps its Estate name, $2 cost and base 1VP.  The gained effects are additions, not replacements.

[AJD]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Ignoring everything below this: How would this work? Are they 5/1 or 4/0 victory points? Food for thought.

They would be 5/1.  Estate gains the effects of the chosen card, but it also keeps its Estate name, $2 cost and base 1VP.  The gained effects are additions, not replacements.

But the effect of the chosen card is that it's worth 0 if not on your Tavern mat at the end of that game.

[eHalcyon]

I wonder... Had anyone tried to Inherit Distant Estates? Is that a thing?

Ignoring everything below this: How would this work? Are they 5/1 or 4/0 victory points? Food for thought.

They would be 5/1.  Estate gains the effects of the chosen card, but it also keeps its Estate name, $2 cost and base 1VP.  The gained effects are additions, not replacements.

But the effect of the chosen card is that it's worth 0 if not on your Tavern mat at the end of that game.

Hmmm, I would still say that that is separate from the basic 1VP it has as an Estate.

[XerxesPraelor]

It could be worth 5-0 then, maybe?

[dondon151]

Since there is no official ruling on such matters, obviously there is no answer...

Do inherited Estates count as Action cards at the end of the game when totaling Vineyards points?

[Chris is me]

Since there is no official ruling on such matters, obviously there is no answer...

Do inherited Estates count as Action cards at the end of the game when totaling Vineyards points?

This seems obvious by the wording of the Event - Estates specifically gain the abilities and types of the set aside card. Vineyard cares about the type of the card in question, so Inherited Estates should count for Vineyard.

[dondon151]

This seems obvious by the wording of the Event - Estates specifically gain the abilities and types of the set aside card. Vineyard cares about the type of the card in question, so Inherited Estates should count for Vineyard.

This is not at all obvious to me when the wording in the FAQ says "for the rest of the game, all of your Estates have the abilities and types of the set aside card." Do inherited Estates become normal Estates at the end of the game when you're counting points, or do they stay inherited Estates?

[enfynet]

This seems obvious by the wording of the Event - Estates specifically gain the abilities and types of the set aside card. Vineyard cares about the type of the card in question, so Inherited Estates should count for Vineyard.

This is not at all obvious to me when the wording in the FAQ says "for the rest of the game, all of your Estates have the abilities and types of the set aside card." Do inherited Estates become normal Estates at the end of the game when you're counting points, or do they stay inherited Estates?

Is the score calculated at the moment the game ends, or after the game ends? Because I would figure that the "end of the game" is actually still part of the game.

[Donald X.]

Do inherited Estates count as Action cards at the end of the game when totaling Vineyards points?

Yes.

[Elestan]

I'm withholding final judgement until I've played more games, but the combination of Warrior and its grandchild, Champion seems to be dominating the games where they appear.  There's a large first-mover advantage to getting a Champion and several Warriors, as they effectively become Laboratories with a cumulative attack.  By adding some extra Pages, I've seen 8+ cards/turn of trash milling.  The most effective counter usually seems to be to get Champion oneself, which only intensifies the rush for that pile.

[AdamH]

Haven and Golem: If you need Golem to make your engine work, you've probably suffered the frustrating turns where you don't draw your Golem until it isn't useful anymore. Yeah Golems are great at the start of your turn and awful at the end. Haven takes this negative and turns it into a positive. It's also a cantrip so you don't get those nasty Golem-surprises as often (LOL I'M GOING TO HIT THE ONLY TWO TERMINALZ IN UR DECK SO UR TURN IZ OVAR!!!!!)

[werothegreat]

Just thought of this:

Storyteller/Treasure Trove:

Storyteller wants excess Treasure, TT gives it to you.  But ST doesn't just want excess Treasure, it wants high-value excess Treasure, which TT still gives you.  Ordinarily, without trashing, TT might overflow an engine, but ST is able to deal with it.  Possibly you use all your Gold for draw, and then just have an unholy amount of Coppers for buying.  Or better yet, play TT with ST, giving you even more Treasures to draw!

Might need some +Buy, but that's not exactly hard to come by, and ST is non-terminal.

[AJD]

Just thought of this:

Storyteller/Treasure Trove:

Man, I just posted this one.

[werothegreat]

Just thought of this:

Storyteller/Treasure Trove:

Man, I just posted this one.

So did LastFootnote!  But I did it first. 

[Elanchana]

Has anybody mentioned IGG+Apprentice+Graverobber?

Buy one IGG, trash it with Apprentice, gain it back with Graverobber, give your opponent a kajillion curses in the process.

Only works with a pretty thin deck and a secondary strategy but...

[Awaclus]

Has anybody mentioned IGG+Apprentice+Graverobber?

Buy one IGG, trash it with Apprentice, gain it back with Graverobber, give your opponent a kajillion curses in the process.

Only works with a pretty thin deck and a secondary strategy but...

Well, that's two separate card interactions: Graverobber + Apprentice and strong on-gain ability + Apprentice. IGG and Graverobber don't really have much of a synergy.

Also, if something requires 3 cards, then it's having a really hard time being "potentially useful". I mean, sure, it's possible that you end up playing a game with those three cards eventually if you play thousands of games, but on the other hand, it's also not too unlikely that you never will.

[Elanchana]

Well I mean I was thinking more along the lines of IGG + any non-terminal and/or cost-based trashing + any gain-from-trash card. Apprentice just struck me as best because it's non-terminal and cost-based. Terminal trashers would need a village to work, which is an extra card you'd need.

The interactions can pretty much be taken on their own - IGG + cost-based trashing gives you a bigger benefit from a "glorified copper" and IGG + gain-from-trash lets you use the on-gain ability from IGG more without junking up your deck. It's the combination of those that would qualify it as a "combo".

[Awaclus]

IGG + gain-from-trash lets you use the on-gain ability from IGG more without junking up your deck. It's the combination of those that would qualify it as a "combo".

Gaining from the trash junks your deck up just as much as gaining from the supply.

[Elanchana]

IGG + gain-from-trash lets you use the on-gain ability from IGG more without junking up your deck. It's the combination of those that would qualify it as a "combo".

Gaining from the trash junks your deck up just as much as gaining from the supply.

Trashing and gaining back the same card over and over junks you up as much as buying a ton of copies of that card?

[werothegreat]

Half the point of IGG is emptying the pile.  Then you just have to empty one more pile, and if you won the IGG split, you win.  Gaining the same IGG over and over again is kind of undermining that.  I could see Graverobber as possibly undermining a player who wants to rush IGGs, as a way to stall the end of the game.  But then you'd need a card to trash IGG in the first place... and yeah, not seeing it.

[Awaclus]

Trashing and gaining back the same card over and over junks you up as much as buying a ton of copies of that card?

Trashing and gaining back the same card over and over junks you up as much as trashing and buying a ton of copies of that card, yes. In other words, the interaction is still just IGG+Apprentice.

[Polk5440]

Half the point of IGG is emptying the pile.  Then you just have to empty one more pile, and if you won the IGG split, you win.  Gaining the same IGG over and over again is kind of undermining that.  I could see Graverobber as possibly undermining a player who wants to rush IGGs, as a way to stall the end of the game.  But then you'd need a card to trash IGG in the first place... and yeah, not seeing it.

Indeed. The relevant card combination is IGG+Duchy.

[pubby]

IGG+Mine/Taxman is decent.

[brokoli]

Crossroads + Advisor : Simply because it's very likely that advisor draws you junk. Same logic as Scout + Crossroads, but you want advisor way more often than you would want a scout.

Royal Seal (or watchtower) + Border village : Gain Border village + Any good $5 terminal draw (or a trash for benefit). And you'll have a good next turn.

Royal Seal (watchtower) + Death Cart : Topdeck the death cart and one of the two ruins. In case of watchtower, trash the second ruin.

[belugawhale]

Procession+Strong 5 cost terminal, gain Border Village, gain the 5 cost.
Works wonders with Torturer.

[Cuzz]

IGG-Death Cart

More strategic than tactical interaction. When rushing IGG you need a third pile to empty, usually duchies, but with death cart around there are a few advantages to going for those instead. You only need to hit 4 instead of 5, and you'll empty the Ruins pile in 2p in 5 buys instead of 8. Then death cart and a few coin in hand will often enable you to get province level money in those cases where your opponent has something going already and is a bit ahead in VP even after all the curses you've sent them.

[gkrieg13]

Treasure Trove and Apprentice make for a nice combo.  If you have two TT, then you can trash two golds a turn and get them back.  My only problem was having a way to get rid of all the coppers.

[belugawhale]

Royal Carriage + Haunted Woods.

Although it doesn't duplicate the attack, +6 cards at the start of your turn is ridiculous for engines. I played two games where every turn I would draw my entire deck and play the other set of RC+HW each turn for massive draw and a constant attack.

[Jimmmmm]

Counterfeit/Spoils: You're quite happy trashing the Spoils since you'd be losing it anyway.

[joel88s]

Royal Carriage + Haunted Woods.

Although it doesn't duplicate the attack, +6 cards at the start of your turn is ridiculous for engines. I played two games where every turn I would draw my entire deck and play the other set of RC+HW each turn for massive draw and a constant attack.

Don't worry, I'm sure you'll make some new friends soon.

[Awaclus]

Counterfeit/Spoils: You're quite happy trashing the Spoils since you'd be losing it anyway.

Actually, Counterfeit trashes the Treasure after you've played it twice, and by then, Spoils has already returned itself to its pile and Counterfeit has lost track of it and it can no longer be trashed.

[joel88s]

Counterfeit/Spoils: You're quite happy trashing the Spoils since you'd be losing it anyway.

Actually, Counterfeit trashes the Treasure after you've played it twice, and by then, Spoils has already returned itself to its pile and Counterfeit has lost track of it and it can no longer be trashed.

Yeah, that's what he said: You're quite happy losing the Spoils since you'd be trashing it anyway.

[Jimmmmm]

Counterfeit/Spoils: You're quite happy trashing the Spoils since you'd be losing it anyway.

Actually, Counterfeit trashes the Treasure after you've played it twice, and by then, Spoils has already returned itself to its pile and Counterfeit has lost track of it and it can no longer be trashed.

Ah right. Even better; you don't have to worry about the pile running out.

[Dingan]

Mint - Platinum?

[Jack Rudd]

Mint - Platinum?

Mint-Fool's Gold and Mint-Venture are probably more what the OP was looking for. Those treasure cards actually improve if you proliferate copies of them in your deck.

[enfynet]

Mint - Platinum?

Mint-Fool's Gold and Mint-Venture are probably more what the OP was looking for. Those treasure cards actually improve if you proliferate copies of them in your deck.

And on a Platinum board those could get you to $9 quickly

[Elanchana]

On the flip side, Mine + cost reducer can get those Coppers into Platina or other fun treasures in no time flat.

[Dingan]

King's Court - Scheme
Lets you put the KC, Scheme, and another action back on top every turn.

Similar can be said about Thrown Room - Scheme, but doesn't let you put a third action back.

These are especially useful when there are no villages in the kingdom but you want to play multiple terminals.

[Burning Skull]

These are especially useful when there are no villages in the kingdom but you want to play multiple terminals.

...like Counting House Storeroom engine

[AdamH]

I think Cultist and Scheme have an interesting relationship. By "interesting" I'm talking the same type of interesting as Minion and Tunnel -- I often say that if these two cards' relationship was on facebook, it would be listed as "It's Complicated".

Scheme enables engines on Cultist boards where they otherwise might not be strong enough. Usually on Cultist boards the junking is too much, too fast, and you just end up playing Cultist+BM and being sad, but with Scheme you can top-deck Villages or other goodies and have an engine that's reliable enough to compete sometimes. Building that engine is very difficult, though.

[Seprix]

I think Cultist and Scheme have an interesting relationship. By "interesting" I'm talking the same type of interesting as Minion and Tunnel -- I often say that if these two cards' relationship was on facebook, it would be listed as "It's Complicated".

Scheme enables engines on Cultist boards where they otherwise might not be strong enough. Usually on Cultist boards the junking is too much, too fast, and you just end up playing Cultist+BM and being sad, but with Scheme you can top-deck Villages or other goodies and have an engine that's reliable enough to compete sometimes. Building that engine is very difficult, though.

If you can Scheme two Cultists a turn, you're going to wreck. Sadly, you can draw Schemes dead, but if you have an extra village to burn every turn, that won't be an issue. And scheme can help with that.

I think even buying a single scheme on an off turn where you can't afford Cultist *might* be better than your second or third silver.

[Dingan]

Haven - Baron
Haven - Treasure Map
Haven - Anything that is bad by itself but good if you have a certain other card to pair it with

[Seprix]

Haven - 2nd Terminal

[belugawhale]

Pathfinding + Magpie

Turns them into either an activated Menagerie or a Lab that gains you another Lab.

[Sidsel]

Plan+Caravan
Increase and improve draw in one fell swoop.

[xyz123]

Cultist/Trade Route for the end game.

At the end game it is likely that the Ruins would have run out and some victory cards would have been bought. Cultists can no longer attack, so you can trash them with Trade Route to draw 3 cards, get a plus buy and some money.

[Seprix]

Treasure Trove and Spice Merchant/Moneylender/Stables

You'll never run out of fuel for money trashing for benefit. Ever.

[belugawhale]

2x(KC+Scavenger+Gold/Silver) gets a province every turn, and 2x(KC+Scavenger+Platinum) gets a colony every turn, both extremely consistently.

Also Storyteller+Miser makes for a ridiculous amount of draw.

[Erick648]

I just had a good come-from-behind with Duke-Duplicate.  It was a Colony board with strong engine potential, so no one was interested in Duchies.  When I saw I was behind, I began accumulating Duplicates with gainers (storing them on my Tavern mat), then on the last turn I used them to gain a bunch of Dukes and Duchies and make up for a 4-Colony deficit.

[ancientcampus]

I just had a good come-from-behind with Duke-Duplicate.  It was a Colony board with strong engine potential, so no one was interested in Duchies.  When I saw I was behind, I began accumulating Duplicates with gainers (storing them on my Tavern mat), then on the last turn I used them to gain a bunch of Dukes and Duchies and make up for a 4-Colony deficit.

That looks like a lot of fun. I'm gonna have to try that sometime. I guess it would prefer an engine - but maybe it could work with just a chapel? (Trim your deck to Chapel/Silver/Silver/Copper/Nothing)

Edit: upon trying it solo it seems that a "Chapel-Duplicate-Duke" so-called "golden deck" will need a little more help, at least from a village. I tried it once and started buying and playing duplicates consistently around turn 9. I don't have any numbers for how fast Duke decks need to be, but this seems a little slow. If you start adding +action and gainers, though, it can get to be scary-fast.

[Erick648]

Nice, I'm glad you like it.  I'm not sure a golden deck would work, though, since you need to buy (or otherwise gain) both a Duke and a Duchy on the turn you go off, so having $5 isn't enough.  Something like Remake-Ironworks-Ironworks-Duplicate-Duplicate-Village would probably work (Ironworks-ing a Duplicate and a Village if you don't draw your Village, and Remaking the Ironworkses into a Duke and a Duchy on the final turn), but that's probably too narrow to come up much outside of a constructed Kingdom (even if you count variants using other gainers).  It would be fun on a constructed Kingdom though (ideally with other non-obvious combos that were roughly equal in power).

[ancientcampus]

Right, that would be a problem, wouldn't it. Still, the combo as a general idea has style, so I'll keep an eye out for it.

[shmeur]

I'm not sure if it's been said before, but I just played a game with Trader/Embargo that had interesting synergy.  My opponent Embargo'd Cultists, and I eventually discovered that buying a Cultist with Trader in hand was essentially Cultist + free Silver.  He didn't even bother buying any Traders either (basically his Embargo backfired and hurt him).  Not sure if it's good just thought it was cool.

[ConMan]

I'm not sure if it's been said before, but I just played a game with Trader/Embargo that had interesting synergy.  My opponent Embargo'd Cultists, and I eventually discovered that buying a Cultist with Trader in hand was essentially Cultist + free Silver.  He didn't even bother buying any Traders either (basically his Embargo backfired and hurt him).  Not sure if it's good just thought it was cool.

Your opponent was a fool for not picking up a Trader, I think. While generally filling your deck with Silver isn't the greatest of things, having a Silver rather than a Curse (from Embargo) or a Ruins (from your Cultists) is going to be a decent compromise. And I suspect you'd get enough Silvers from that to play a Cultist rush, emptying Duchies, Ruins and a third pile of your choice fairly quickly.

[shmeur]

I'm not sure if it's been said before, but I just played a game with Trader/Embargo that had interesting synergy.  My opponent Embargo'd Cultists, and I eventually discovered that buying a Cultist with Trader in hand was essentially Cultist + free Silver.  He didn't even bother buying any Traders either (basically his Embargo backfired and hurt him).  Not sure if it's good just thought it was cool.

Your opponent was a fool for not picking up a Trader, I think. While generally filling your deck with Silver isn't the greatest of things, having a Silver rather than a Curse (from Embargo) or a Ruins (from your Cultists) is going to be a decent compromise. And I suspect you'd get enough Silvers from that to play a Cultist rush, emptying Duchies, Ruins and a third pile of your choice fairly quickly.

Yeah he opened Ironmonger instead.  Still was a cool interaction.  He didn't even buy a Cultist either (just Mountebanks, Ironmongers, and a Possession a little too late).

[ancientcampus]

Mine + Ill-Gotten Gains. Mine silvers and IGGs into more IGGs.

I haven't run this in a simulator, but in a IGG rush I'm pretty sure it's worth buying after your first IGG, if you have at least one silver in your deck. Hitting mine in the same hand as a silver or IGG is likely to result in 2 IGG gains that turn.

[Seprix]

Mine + Ill-Gotten Gains. Mine silvers and IGGs into more IGGs.

I haven't run this in a simulator, but in a IGG rush I'm pretty sure it's worth buying after your first IGG, if you have at least one silver in your deck. Hitting mine in the same hand as a silver or IGG is likely to result in 2 IGG gains that turn.

Sounds nice.

[werothegreat]

1) Procession Wine Merchant.
2) Keep Wine Merchant.
3) ?????? Gain Action.
4) Profit.

[Seprix]

1) Procession Wine Merchant.
2) Keep Wine Merchant.
3) ?????? Gain Action.
4) Profit.

Woah, you can do that!?

[Eevee]

1) Procession Wine Merchant.
2) Keep Wine Merchant.
3) ?????? Gain Action.
4) Profit.

Woah, you can do that!?

No. Well, maybe. Actually, yes.

[Asper]

"Hey guys, i'm Procession. Ask me what a Band of Misfits i played costs, and i will find it anywhere, be it trash, your hand, Island or Tavern Mat, whatever, to look at its price and tell you. What, wait, i'm supposed to move it? Sorry, no idea where it is."

[werothegreat]

"Hey guys, i'm Procession. Ask me what a Band of Misfits i played costs, and i will find it anywhere, be it trash, your hand, Island or Tavern Mat, whatever, to look at its price and tell you. What, wait, i'm supposed to move it? Sorry, no idea where it is."

"I have a psychic connection.  Like all psychics, I'm a fraud, and have no idea what I'm doing."

[Dingan]

Fairgrounds - Black Market

[Sidsel]

Transmogrify + Treasure Map

[mameluke]

Three cards, so not really a combo, but

Open Armory/Loan
If you're lucky enough for them to collide at any point (the earlier the better), play Armory to gain a Tunnel.
Play Loan

Wheee!

[Titandrake]

Three cards, so not really a combo, but

Open Armory/Loan
If you're lucky enough for them to collide at any point (the earlier the better), play Armory to gain a Tunnel.
Play Loan

Wheee!

And then your Loan can hit the Gold you gained, because Loan never hits Copper!

[Burning Skull]

Bureaucrat/Loan is even better

[Awaclus]

Bureaucrat/Loan is even better

Obviously Bureaucrat/X is better than not-Bureaucrat/X. It's the most powerful card in Dominion.

[Dingan]

Trader-Cache
Not THAT neat, but better than just Cache by itself.

[Kirian]

One I don't see mentioned that I've used to good effect is Mining Village/Rogue.  Usually you save those $2 from trashing Mining Village to the endgame.  With Rogue in hand, you can trash it, then get it back with Rogue.  (I think it also works with Graverobber, but then you don't get the additional $2 from Rogue.)

Trader-Cache
Not THAT neat, but better than just Cache by itself.

Of course, Watchtower/Cache is even better.

[theJester]

One that I like is Graverobber/Border Village.

1. Gain Graverobber with BV
2. Trash BV (3$ card in play) for Province
3. Gaining from BV also provides fuel for Graverobber to turn into Provinces
4. Regain BV from trash and gain another cheaper card along with it

[Dingan]

One I don't see mentioned that I've used to good effect is Mining Village/Rogue.  Usually you save those $2 from trashing Mining Village to the endgame.  With Rogue in hand, you can trash it, then get it back with Rogue.  (I think it also works with Graverobber, but then you don't get the additional $2 from Rogue.)

Mining Village - Rogue will give you a net of 0 actions, -1 cards, and $4.  So its not all that much different than just having 2 Silvers.  Also, a Harvest or Tribute can give you almost the same effect.

[Witherweaver]

One I don't see mentioned that I've used to good effect is Mining Village/Rogue.  Usually you save those $2 from trashing Mining Village to the endgame.  With Rogue in hand, you can trash it, then get it back with Rogue.  (I think it also works with Graverobber, but then you don't get the additional $2 from Rogue.)

Mining Village - Rogue will give you a net of 0 actions, -1 cards, and $4.  So its not all that much different than just having 2 Silvers.  Also, a Harvest or Tribute can give you almost the same effect.

Bonus: Mining Village gained through Rogue won't miss reshuffle if you shuffle during that turn; your two Silvers would.

[eHalcyon]

One I don't see mentioned that I've used to good effect is Mining Village/Rogue.  Usually you save those $2 from trashing Mining Village to the endgame.  With Rogue in hand, you can trash it, then get it back with Rogue.  (I think it also works with Graverobber, but then you don't get the additional $2 from Rogue.)

Mining Village - Rogue will give you a net of 0 actions, -1 cards, and $4.  So its not all that much different than just having 2 Silvers.  Also, a Harvest or Tribute can give you almost the same effect.

What?  Mining Village draws a card.  Starting from a regular 5 card hand, you end with 4 other cards in hand with which to do something, though you also have the option to not trash Mining Village and use Rogue as an attack (or to gain something else from the trash).  Two Silvers are pure stop cards, which only leaves you 3 other cards in hand, no draw.

Harvest leaves you with 0 actions remaining and is far less reliable.  Tribute is even less reliable, and terminal if you get +$4 from it.

Bonus: Mining Village gained through Rogue won't miss reshuffle if you shuffle during that turn; your two Silvers would.

What if MV itself causes the reshuffle?

[Witherweaver]

So really it's

+1 Action, +$4, place in discard pile after playing.

Though if you play it again in the same turn you need another Rogue to make it that.

[Witherweaver]

Bonus: Mining Village gained through Rogue won't miss reshuffle if you shuffle during that turn; your two Silvers would.

What if MV itself causes the reshuffle?

I'm talking about the next shuffle, obviously.  If there is a shuffle after playing Mining Village and before your cleanup phase, The Mining Village that was trashed and gained from Rogue will be included, but anything in play will not.

Edit: Oh, but, right.  A Silver would not have caused the shuffle that Mining Village did.  Well, edge case to an edge case I guess.

[Dingan]

One I don't see mentioned that I've used to good effect is Mining Village/Rogue.  Usually you save those $2 from trashing Mining Village to the endgame.  With Rogue in hand, you can trash it, then get it back with Rogue.  (I think it also works with Graverobber, but then you don't get the additional $2 from Rogue.)

Mining Village - Rogue will give you a net of 0 actions, -1 cards, and $4.  So its not all that much different than just having 2 Silvers.  Also, a Harvest or Tribute can give you almost the same effect.

What?  Mining Village draws a card.  Starting from a regular 5 card hand, you end with 4 other cards in hand with which to do something, though you also have the option to not trash Mining Village and use Rogue as an attack (or to gain something else from the trash).  Two Silvers are pure stop cards, which only leaves you 3 other cards in hand, no draw.

Harvest leaves you with 0 actions remaining and is far less reliable.  Tribute is even less reliable, and terminal if you get +$4 from it.

I didn't say it was the exact same, I said it was

not all that much different than

[Dingan]

Scrying Pool - Swindler
Scrying Pool - Saboteur
Scrying Pool - Jester
etc.
(Ok, what doesn't go well with Scrying Pool?)

EDIT: I mention Scrying Pool here instead of, say, Spy or Oracle because SP is just so reliable for attacks like this.

[ipofanes]

Plus Oracle is *another* terminal so it wouldn't work in an interaction in isolation.

[iguanaiguana]

One I don't see mentioned that I've used to good effect is Mining Village/Rogue.  Usually you save those $2 from trashing Mining Village to the endgame.  With Rogue in hand, you can trash it, then get it back with Rogue.  (I think it also works with Graverobber, but then you don't get the additional $2 from Rogue.)

Mining Village - Rogue will give you a net of 0 actions, -1 cards, and $4.  So its not all that much different than just having 2 Silvers.  Also, a Harvest or Tribute can give you almost the same effect.

What?  Mining Village draws a card.  Starting from a regular 5 card hand, you end with 4 other cards in hand with which to do something, though you also have the option to not trash Mining Village and use Rogue as an attack (or to gain something else from the trash).  Two Silvers are pure stop cards, which only leaves you 3 other cards in hand, no draw.

Harvest leaves you with 0 actions remaining and is far less reliable.  Tribute is even less reliable, and terminal if you get +$4 from it.

I didn't say it was the exact same, I said it was

not all that much different than

Mining Village: Action,

Reveal a rogue from your hand. If you do, +1 action, + and put this card in your discard. Otherwise, +1 card, +2 actions and you may immediately trash this card for +.

[Dingan]

IGG-Coppersmith
Seems to be better than just IGG, assuming an IGG-Curse-Duchy 3-pile game.

[Chris is me]

IGG-Coppersmith
Seems to be better than just IGG, assuming an IGG-Curse-Duchy 3-pile game.

Given a board where IGG Rush is the best option, Coppersmith in the long run looks better than a lot of $4 cost cards. In the initial shuffle or two it isn't that great - not better than Silver at getting IGGs, but what it makes up for later is boosting to Province without completely clogging your deck with Copper. Cool idea.

I had a board which had me with no choice but to play Bishop and IGG. It's obviously an awful pair in the sense that your opponent gets to trash Curses for free, but getting 3 points in exchange for an IGG trash without even necessarily losing economy that turn is rather nice.

[werothegreat]

You can Bonfire Hirelings you've played and Graverob them later (maybe on a Mission turn).  Infinite card draw.

[drsteelhammer]

You can Bonfire Hirelings you've played and Graverob them later (maybe on a Mission turn).  Infinite card draw.

I'm pretty sure that doesn't work, right?

[Donald X.]

You can Bonfire Hirelings you've played and Graverob them later (maybe on a Mission turn).  Infinite card draw.

I'm pretty sure that doesn't work, right?

It works in the sense of being within the rules.

[Davio]

IGG-Coppersmith
Seems to be better than just IGG, assuming an IGG-Curse-Duchy 3-pile game.

Given a board where IGG Rush is the best option, Coppersmith in the long run looks better than a lot of $4 cost cards. In the initial shuffle or two it isn't that great - not better than Silver at getting IGGs, but what it makes up for later is boosting to Province without completely clogging your deck with Copper. Cool idea.

I had a board which had me with no choice but to play Bishop and IGG. It's obviously an awful pair in the sense that your opponent gets to trash Curses for free, but getting 3 points in exchange for an IGG trash without even necessarily losing economy that turn is rather nice.

IGG-Duchy games are often decided on one player hitting a lucky Province or 2. With Coppersmith or 2, spiking such a Province is obviously easier. I doubt whether always getting the free Copper is optimal as opposed to only picking the Coppers when you need to hit $5/$8.

[Asper]

I recently bought Inheritance very, very early thanks to Wine Merchant. Which made me think that it's an excellent card to get very expensive cards or Events very early. Until i started typing this and realized you'd need a 5$ opening for that, and Baron as well as many other 5$s can do the same. Ah well...

[werothegreat]

With cost reduction, Summon Distant Lands.  Can also Summon Islands without the cost reduction.

[LastFootnote]

With cost reduction, Summon Distant Lands.  Can also Summon Islands without the cost reduction.

The Distant Lands can be a fun gamble. If the game ends before your next turn, you don't get the points!

Summoning Islands is a big risk (unless your deck is still mostly Estates and Coppers).

[Chris is me]

Chris is me

• Margrave