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[jsh357]

Can someone explain venture to me? I find more strategic uses for most of the cards on here.

Remember these days when Venture was considered one of the best $5 non-attacks:

http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/04/11/the-five-best-5-non-attacks/

How the time has changed.

To be fair, that was just one man's opinion. I believed it too at that point, but at the time theory was one of the only Dominion strategy writers putting out articles, and he was better than me at the game so I went with what he said. Since then I think people generally agree Venture is on the weaker side of the $5 options.

[markusin]

Can someone explain venture to me? I find more strategic uses for most of the cards on here.

Remember these days when Venture was considered one of the best $5 non-attacks:

http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/04/11/the-five-best-5-non-attacks/

How the time has changed.

To be fair, that was just one man's opinion. I believed it too at that point, but at the time theory was one of the only Dominion strategy writers putting out articles, and he was better than me at the game so I went with what he said. Since then I think people generally agree Venture is on the weaker side of the $5 options.

I think Venture felt stronger back when it was more likely to be in a kingdom with Mint.

[Limetime]

saboteur, i mean, it's a bad card, but it can buy you time to build an engine or grind an opponent out of the game when there's king's court out. certainly better than tribute, which is just awful.

In engine mirrors with limited villages tribute is pretty good (aka olny village is crossroads/necro)Also against a grand market+non terminal draw deck.

[markusin]

saboteur, i mean, it's a bad card, but it can buy you time to build an engine or grind an opponent out of the game when there's king's court out. certainly better than tribute, which is just awful.

In engine mirrors with limited villages tribute is pretty good (aka olny village is crossroads/necro)Also against a grand market+non terminal draw deck.

I played an Adventures game where I put my +Action token on Tribute with Teacher. That helped a lot.

[theJester]

And already I see some of my favourite 5$ cards here. I like Cache, and I'm a big fan of Saboteur and Harvest - but it's hard to deny they're suboptimal buys in the majority of kingdoms they appear in. All the more enjoyment when I play the board where they were good and useful.

I'd maybe put Saboteur few places higher. It doesn't shine often - but when it shines, it shines brightly.

[Limetime]

Counting house has certainly got better with the new adventures cards. New cards that counting house synergizes with (from best to worst)

1)Traveling fair - Game descends into counting house madness
2)Dungeon - Cycle to find your Counting house or discard coppers to redraw later
3)Treasure trove - this in slog or as part of a engine can be really effective
4)Messenger - (in a non-mirror engine)send coppers around, buy coppers, discard deck before playing Counting House
5)Scouting party - Cycle to find counting house and/or engine components for your counting house engine
5)Guide - Cycle coppers, find key engine components to set up mega counting house power

[Beyond Awesome]

Counting House is a pretty decent card in IGG and Mountebank games. It should not be last. Sab should probably be last. It hardly ever hurts the opponent and often even helps them out. I guess in some engines it can shine, but it is hard to pull off from my experience. Then again, I just suck with the card.

[Aleimon Thimble]

I can't believe Counting House is still last. I'm going to cry.

[funkdoc]

saboteur is too often dominant with king's court to be the worst.  it benefits from that card to a unique degree, since its whole problem is how slow it is.  there's also the rare scrying pool deck where you can play multiple sabs every turn and that's the best terminal thing to do, as that still beats BM especially with pool's spying.

[liopoil]

I feel like stash is the worst, and it's not that close. It's still not even good with Chancellor/Scavenger/Messenger, and the only other time when I'd buy it is when I'm playing a super lame big money strategy where the alternative is silver. The others all have weird cases when they shine, whereas stash is like nearly adventurer's level of never being good.

I might put Royal Seal as the second worst. $5 silvers are just plain bad, while {Cache, Explorer, Mandarin, Contraband, Venture, Harvest} can at least make more money and be useful in weird scenarios.

[Awaclus]

I feel like stash is the worst, and it's not that close. It's still not even good with Chancellor/Scavenger/Messenger, and the only other time when I'd buy it is when I'm playing a super lame big money strategy where the alternative is silver. The others all have weird cases when they shine, whereas stash is like nearly adventurer's level of never being good.

I might put Royal Seal as the second worst. $5 silvers are just plain bad, while {Cache, Explorer, Mandarin, Contraband, Venture, Harvest} can at least make more money and be useful in weird scenarios.

Stash is good with Scavenger, fine with Chancellor/Messenger. Cache, Explorer and Venture definitely have their uses in some rare situations, Contraband can be useful in theory too although it almost never happens in practice, but I don't think there's ever a reason to get Mandarin or Harvest unless you're doing it for the Fairgrounds points (well, I guess sometimes you might want Mandarin if you can gain it without triggering the on-gain drawback). At least you actually buy Royal Seal in games with no +actions, and it can make a minor, but significant impact in those games.

[JW]

I can't believe Counting House is still last. I'm going to cry.

How many more crazy Counting House engine kingdoms will Stef need to design?

Congratulations to Stef, the designer of kingdom #5, and the winner of the 2014 Kingdom Design Challenge!

This is a well-deserved win against quality finalists who approached the design challenge in different ways.

Stef put together a great kingdom that has something for every level of Dominion player. While the kingdom first appears to be a Mountebank-Gardens game, there is a crazy Counting House-Storeroom based engine for the experts to find. You have to turn engine building rules on their head: Coppers are good. The goal is to draw your discard pile. Trigger the reshuffle so there is a bunch of junk in my deck? Yes, please! And what a spectacle to pull off.

Even though the crazy engine seems to be a dominant strategy among the very best players, it is really difficult to find and execute correctly. That gives the kingdom added replayability.

[Voltaire]

I think Venture felt stronger back when it was more likely to be in a kingdom with Mint.

That's the other thing to remember about "early" strategy advice - it might be outdated now and simultaneously correct then. Expansions change lotsa stuff.

[assemble_me]

I think Stash is decent in sloggish kind of games. You don't even need 4, just 2-3 also make it so much more likely to hit that Province hand, especially if you draw one or two cards before shuffling - I have it at #76.
I have Cache last. I think it's a lot worse than Stash. I think Cache is usually fine in Duke games, if you want fodder for trashing and lack +buy or if you can combo with Trader or Watchtower (which actually isn't easy to set up because you'll likely want to do that in money kind of decks where you need to get lucky to hit the amount of coins and the reaction).
Second to last I have Contraband but I can see that it might be wrong as I've recently seen some boards where it's quite okay.
Counting House comes at 81. It's very week in general but it can be quite good as counter to Mountebank, Ambassador in other slogs where you pick up coppers voluntarily... or you do just because CH is there.

[markusin]

I feel like stash is the worst, and it's not that close. It's still not even good with Chancellor/Scavenger/Messenger, and the only other time when I'd buy it is when I'm playing a super lame big money strategy where the alternative is silver. The others all have weird cases when they shine, whereas stash is like nearly adventurer's level of never being good.

I might put Royal Seal as the second worst. $5 silvers are just plain bad, while {Cache, Explorer, Mandarin, Contraband, Venture, Harvest} can at least make more money and be useful in weird scenarios.

Stash is good with Scavenger, fine with Chancellor/Messenger. Cache, Explorer and Venture definitely have their uses in some rare situations, Contraband can be useful in theory too although it almost never happens in practice, but I don't think there's ever a reason to get Mandarin or Harvest unless you're doing it for the Fairgrounds points (well, I guess sometimes you might want Mandarin if you can gain it without triggering the on-gain drawback). At least you actually buy Royal Seal in games with no +actions, and it can make a minor, but significant impact in those games.

Mandarin's on-gain drawback can be a benefit in Big Money games where you topdeck a Gold and a Silver or something to hopefully spike a Province next turn. Mandarin makes Big Money strategies slightly more appealing that way.

[Burning Skull]

Had anyone ever bought Harvest?

I think I didn't, at least in the last couple of years.

[Beyond Awesome]

I feel like stash is the worst, and it's not that close. It's still not even good with Chancellor/Scavenger/Messenger, and the only other time when I'd buy it is when I'm playing a super lame big money strategy where the alternative is silver. The others all have weird cases when they shine, whereas stash is like nearly adventurer's level of never being good.

I might put Royal Seal as the second worst. $5 silvers are just plain bad, while {Cache, Explorer, Mandarin, Contraband, Venture, Harvest} can at least make more money and be useful in weird scenarios.

Stash is good with Scavenger, fine with Chancellor/Messenger. Cache, Explorer and Venture definitely have their uses in some rare situations, Contraband can be useful in theory too although it almost never happens in practice, but I don't think there's ever a reason to get Mandarin or Harvest unless you're doing it for the Fairgrounds points (well, I guess sometimes you might want Mandarin if you can gain it without triggering the on-gain drawback). At least you actually buy Royal Seal in games with no +actions, and it can make a minor, but significant impact in those games.

I agree with this. Harvest should be last. It's rare you ever get $4 out of it. You usually get $3 and sometimes even $2, and for $5 wtf.

As far as Mandarin goes, it's pretty lame, but it does have an on-buy effect that can occasionally be useful. Sometimes, it is worth buying for the on-gain effect. Still, though, it is a super weak card, but not as bad as Harvest.

There is no reason Harvest shouldn't be dead last.

[Beyond Awesome]

I think Stash is decent in sloggish kind of games. You don't even need 4, just 2-3 also make it so much more likely to hit that Province hand, especially if you draw one or two cards before shuffling - I have it at #76.
I have Cache last. I think it's a lot worse than Stash. I think Cache is usually fine in Duke games, if you want fodder for trashing and lack +buy or if you can combo with Trader or Watchtower (which actually isn't easy to set up because you'll likely want to do that in money kind of decks where you need to get lucky to hit the amount of coins and the reaction).
Second to last I have Contraband but I can see that it might be wrong as I've recently seen some boards where it's quite okay.
Counting House comes at 81. It's very week in general but it can be quite good as counter to Mountebank, Ambassador in other slogs where you pick up coppers voluntarily... or you do just because CH is there.

My problem with Contraband, is that I used to filter it all the time. Now, in today's engine heavy board, often there will be several choices to chose from. With Adventures, we now get events which can't be named. So, Contraband is a card to watch out for in the future for sure.

[aku_chi]

Had anyone ever bought Harvest?

I think I didn't, at least in the last couple of years.

I bought a Harvest recently in a Scrying Pool game.  Harvest and Squire were the only sources of virtual coin (I bought a bunch of Squires, too).  My purchase might have been optimal, but it was still really sad.  I ranked Harvest last and Counting House 4th to last.

For people saying 5-cost silver+ cards are all bad: Relic is quite solid.  Most engines want one and strategies that don't draw one's deck want multiple.

I had Mandarin a little higher with the expectation that it would be a good buy on 2/5 or 5/2 openings.  Am I mistaken?  Is having a Mandarin (in addition to another 5-cost card) worth delaying your first reshuffle by a turn?  Even if they're both terminal, Mandarin can top-deck the other action if they collide.  Mandarin + Mint (+ 2-cost card) sounds like a pretty awesome opening!

[managore]

There is no reason Harvest should be dead last.

I hope you meant shouldn't!

[Chris is me]

I feel like stash is the worst, and it's not that close. It's still not even good with Chancellor/Scavenger/Messenger, and the only other time when I'd buy it is when I'm playing a super lame big money strategy where the alternative is silver. The others all have weird cases when they shine, whereas stash is like nearly adventurer's level of never being good.

I might put Royal Seal as the second worst. $5 silvers are just plain bad, while {Cache, Explorer, Mandarin, Contraband, Venture, Harvest} can at least make more money and be useful in weird scenarios.

I'll buy Chancellor / Stash as not being stellar, but Scavenger / Stash is quite possibly the easiest and one of the fastest golden decks to set up, and it can easily end the game very quickly. That doesn't make Stash good, but dismissing Scavenger / Stash off hand like that is a decision that absolutely will lose you games.

[Beyond Awesome]

There is no reason Harvest should be dead last.

I hope you meant shouldn't!

Oops! I fixed that.

[assemble_me]

I agree with this. Harvest should be last. It's rare you ever get $4 out of it. You usually get $3 and sometimes even $2, and for $5 wtf.

So...?
I mean sure, most of the time you have something better to do with your terminal space. But 3$ for 5$ is still more cost efficient than Gold. It's not great but it's okay in general.

The really sad thing is that it's so hard to use in engines.

[LastFootnote]

I think I'd put Stash and Cache under Harvest. Harvest can be great in slogs and good with thrones. But yes, it is very weak.

[Beyond Awesome]

I agree with this. Harvest should be last. It's rare you ever get $4 out of it. You usually get $3 and sometimes even $2, and for $5 wtf.

So...?
I mean sure, most of the time you have something better to do with your terminal space. But 3$ for 5$ is still more cost efficient than Gold. It's not great but it's okay in general.

The really sad thing is that it's so hard to use in engines.

except for the fact that gold is nonterminal