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[faust]

As for not playing Treasures, it also matters for Mandarin, Haunted Woods, or even just so your opponents don't have full information about what you've already passed in your deck.

Also Black Market/Storyteller, or Black Market/Draw-to-X if you don't want to trigger a reshuffle.

[AdamH]

The misunderstanding I think I meet the most is that people don't realize that Treasure cards are played. They keep them in their hand and maybe just flash them before buying something.

Not sure if serious, but I still do this just to speed things up.

"I have $8, see?" (flashes money, grabs Province, puts everything in discard)
Only do this if you won't feel tempted to try it with $7.

I think this is fine for experienced players. But it's harmful to learning the game correctly for new players.

I don't think it's fine for experienced players. Maybe you can do it in a particular group where that's OK, but I feel like it's a bad habit and if you do it around anyone who is not in that group, they think it's OK. It bothers me even when people I trust not to cheat do this, especially during tournaments -- and they don't mean to do it since it's just habit.

Sure, I have also been known to play 4 Labs together and then draw 8 cards (or something similar). But then I and all other players know that that's a shortcut.

I think this is OK since the only person you could ever be hurting by doing this is yourself.

[Asper]

As somebody who knows the rules, we usually flash the Treasures, too. Unless there are special Treasures or cards that interact with the cards played, it never matters and makes the game a lot quicker. Of course this isn't following the rules, but so is revealing the top card of your deck to Spy before the attacker has decided what to do with the card of the player to your right. Or gaining a Curse to Witch out of order. Or revealing your Moat AFTER the player to your left revealed his. It's anarchy with us.

[AdamH]

I don't see how it saves time. I almost always have action cards on the table that I need to pick up anyways, what's the difference if I add some treasures to it? I find it easier to count my treasures as I put them on the table anyways.

[Elestan]

Another common faux pas I've seen is pre-shuffling.  You're not supposed to reshuffle until you have to look at or draw from an empty deck, because there are a variety of cards that could mess with your discards.  Players can waive this by general agreement, of course, but otherwise you need to wait.

[GendoIkari]

I don't see how it saves time. I almost always have action cards on the table that I need to pick up anyways, what's the difference if I add some treasures to it? I find it easier to count my treasures as I put them on the table anyways.

It's not that it's less stuff to clean up. It's that it's less stuff to play. By the rules, you would have to one at a time take a treasure from your hand and lay it on the table.

[GendoIkari]

Another common faux pas I've seen is pre-shuffling.  You're not supposed to reshuffle until you have to look at or draw from an empty deck, because there are a variety of cards that could mess with your discards.  Players can waive this by general agreement, of course, but otherwise you need to wait.

And this is another thing that I think is perfectly fine in 90% of situations. Your deck is empty and you have a Lab in hand that you know you're going to play at the start of your turn? Yes, shuffle while waiting for another player to take his turn. Why make the game take longer by waiting until its your turn and then doing it? Of course there's situations where you can't do this, like if your opponent might play a Militia. But most of the time, it's a good idea to speed things up.

[AdamH]

I've pre-shuffled before, but yeah you have to be very careful with that. Many games you can't, and many games you'll have to re-pre-shuffle if you gain something you didn't expect to gain (opponent buys an Embassy or something that you didn't expect).

I don't see how it saves time. I almost always have action cards on the table that I need to pick up anyways, what's the difference if I add some treasures to it? I find it easier to count my treasures as I put them on the table anyways.

It's not that it's less stuff to clean up. It's that it's less stuff to play. By the rules, you would have to one at a time take a treasure from your hand and lay it on the table.

Oh, I'm Ok with slamming my treasures down all at once, I'm more concerned with not getting to see the treasures in my opponent's hand. I suppose the fact that I yell at them to let me look at their hand every time they try this makes it not save time this way

[Asper]

I've pre-shuffled before, but yeah you have to be very careful with that. Many games you can't, and many games you'll have to re-pre-shuffle if you gain something you didn't expect to gain (opponent buys an Embassy or something that you didn't expect).

I don't see how it saves time. I almost always have action cards on the table that I need to pick up anyways, what's the difference if I add some treasures to it? I find it easier to count my treasures as I put them on the table anyways.

It's not that it's less stuff to clean up. It's that it's less stuff to play. By the rules, you would have to one at a time take a treasure from your hand and lay it on the table.

Oh, I'm Ok with slamming my treasures down all at once, I'm more concerned with not getting to see the treasures in my opponent's hand. I suppose the fact that I yell at them to let me look at their hand every time they try this makes it not save time this way

Well, i guess the problem is i only play with people i trust. If i play my treasures, then it's because order or what's in play matters, or because i actually need to count. If somebody wants to take a closer look at the cards, they can still tell me to play them. But in a three player game, where your militia'd hand is CCS since two turns ago, i have little intend to go through a more complex and slow motion for basically no benefit.

[GendoIkari]

Many games you can't, and many games you'll have to re-pre-shuffle if you gain something you didn't expect to gain (opponent buys an Embassy or something that you didn't expect).

Math could be done to get an actual answer on this, but I'm pretty sure it's in far less than half of all Dominion games where it's possible to gain something on an opponent's turn, or to have to discard on an opponents turn.

[Chris is me]

Many games you can't, and many games you'll have to re-pre-shuffle if you gain something you didn't expect to gain (opponent buys an Embassy or something that you didn't expect).

Math could be done to get an actual answer on this, but I'm pretty sure it's in far less than half of all Dominion games where it's possible to gain something on an opponent's turn, or to have to discard on an opponents turn.

Even so, the worst case outcome of pre-shuffling is that when you gain a card, you do the same thing you would have had to do if you waited to shuffle anyway. So it always either saves time or makes no difference - no reason not to do this when you can.

[Drab Emordnilap]

The reason not to preshuffle when you can, is to prevent rules errors -- putting that curse in your new discard pile after shuffling, when it should be in your new deck.

Not saying you can't remember to shuffle it in, but you can forget, also -- hardly "no reason not to".

[Qvist]

The big reason why you should show your treasures instead of just flashing them is not that you might cheat. The reason is that you might have miscounted. It happens - to all of us.

[AdamH]

The big reason why you should show your treasures instead of just flashing them is not that you might cheat. The reason is that you might have miscounted. It happens - to all of us.

More than half of the time when I correct an opponent on mechanics, it's because they've done something that hurts them (you should draw another card, you should have more money, etc.)

[singletee]

Even so, the worst case outcome of pre-shuffling is that when you gain a card, you do the same thing you would have had to do if you waited to shuffle anyway. So it always either saves time or makes no difference - no reason not to do this when you can.

But you shuffle more!

Many games you can't, and many games you'll have to re-pre-shuffle if you gain something you didn't expect to gain (opponent buys an Embassy or something that you didn't expect).

Math could be done to get an actual answer on this, but I'm pretty sure it's in far less than half of all Dominion games where it's possible to gain something on an opponent's turn, or to have to discard on an opponents turn.

Using this as a reference, I get 236 possible Kingdom cards.
I count 24 cards that can make you gain/discard on an opponent's turn, plus Possession. Plugging in 236, 25, 10, and 1 on this page, I get ~68%. Including all trashing attacks, topdeck muckers, and Masquerade (42 cards), the number goes up to ~86%.

[Simon (DK)]

The reason not to preshuffle when you can, is to prevent rules errors -- putting that curse in your new discard pile after shuffling, when it should be in your new deck.

Not saying you can't remember to shuffle it in, but you can forget, also -- hardly "no reason not to".

I often preshuffle to save time, but I never put the preshuffled cards down as my new deck before they are needed as a new deck. I either shuffle untill they're needed, or if I have to do something else I put them back on the table as my discard pile.

I think those rule errors only happen if you put down the cards as your new deck before time. Doing it this way prevents that.

But of course it should only be done by experienced players, who knows what they're doing.

To get the cards in as random an order as possible, you have to shuffle as long time as possible. Getting a good random order takes time, especially if you have a large deck. By starting the shuffling early, you can shuffle for a longer time, and then get a better random order.

[pst]

I've pre-shuffled before, but yeah you have to be very careful with that. Many games you can't, and many games you'll have to re-pre-shuffle if you gain something you didn't expect to gain (opponent buys an Embassy or something that you didn't expect).

I don't see how it saves time. I almost always have action cards on the table that I need to pick up anyways, what's the difference if I add some treasures to it? I find it easier to count my treasures as I put them on the table anyways.

It's not that it's less stuff to clean up. It's that it's less stuff to play. By the rules, you would have to one at a time take a treasure from your hand and lay it on the table.

Oh, I'm Ok with slamming my treasures down all at once, I'm more concerned with not getting to see the treasures in my opponent's hand. I suppose the fact that I yell at them to let me look at their hand every time they try this makes it not save time this way

Well, i guess the problem is i only play with people i trust. If i play my treasures, then it's because order or what's in play matters, or because i actually need to count. If somebody wants to take a closer look at the cards, they can still tell me to play them. But in a three player game, where your militia'd hand is CCS since two turns ago, i have little intend to go through a more complex and slow motion for basically no benefit.

I just can't see what's complex about playing that CCS.

If your hand is Festival, Festival, Silver, Estate, Estate and you want to buy a Gold, do you play any card at all, or just take the Gold? I think most "flashers" play the Festivals at least. What reason is there not to play the Silver that isn't as good a reason for the Festivals in that situation?

[Asper]

The big reason why you should show your treasures instead of just flashing them is not that you might cheat. The reason is that you might have miscounted. It happens - to all of us.

Flashing the Treasures implies showing them. The contrast isn't "showing vs. telling", it's "showing vs. putting them on the table, and if you want to do it correctly, one at a time". If you actually are at the risk of miscounting, putting the cards so everyone can count with you is in order, i agree. I'll care a little more when people buy Platinums or Provinces, or even a Lab, but the less money somebody has to spend, the less i have to assume he miscounted, the quicker i'm able to count the cards if they are just shown to me, and the less it matters if he actually, in fact, miscounted. Also i usually play with more than one other player, meaning all three of us would have to be sure the showed cards are a number they are not.

I've pre-shuffled before, but yeah you have to be very careful with that. Many games you can't, and many games you'll have to re-pre-shuffle if you gain something you didn't expect to gain (opponent buys an Embassy or something that you didn't expect).

I don't see how it saves time. I almost always have action cards on the table that I need to pick up anyways, what's the difference if I add some treasures to it? I find it easier to count my treasures as I put them on the table anyways.

It's not that it's less stuff to clean up. It's that it's less stuff to play. By the rules, you would have to one at a time take a treasure from your hand and lay it on the table.

Oh, I'm Ok with slamming my treasures down all at once, I'm more concerned with not getting to see the treasures in my opponent's hand. I suppose the fact that I yell at them to let me look at their hand every time they try this makes it not save time this way

Well, i guess the problem is i only play with people i trust. If i play my treasures, then it's because order or what's in play matters, or because i actually need to count. If somebody wants to take a closer look at the cards, they can still tell me to play them. But in a three player game, where your militia'd hand is CCS since two turns ago, i have little intend to go through a more complex and slow motion for basically no benefit.

I just can't see what's complex about playing that CCS.

If your hand is Festival, Festival, Silver, Estate, Estate and you want to buy a Gold, do you play any card at all, or just take the Gold? I think most "flashers" play the Festivals at least. What reason is there not to play the Silver that isn't as good a reason for the Festivals in that situation?

I was talking about the movement. Showing my hand is quicker, and simpler than taking a card from it and putting it on the table. I don't even need both hands for just showing you my cards.

We were talking about Treasures where order and what's in play doesn't matter. 90% of the time those will be the base Treasures. They don't do anything at all and are very easy to recognize. Festival has a picture, like hundreds of cards, and does something like hundreds of them, and what it does is giving you a buy and increasing your action count. Silver is a giant 2 with nothing else, and gives those 2. Yes, those four big numbers i just showed you can be added up, and then you get another number, it's no magic. It's extremely common Treasures behave like this, and extremely uncommon actions will. Festival is not even an example where that's the case.

[xyz123]

I put the treasure cards I am playing (assuming they are not Horn of Plenty or Bank or something) down on the table in front of me. That way people can see how much I have to spend whilst I am stating which cards I want to buy. With cards that do something like Horn of Plenty, Counterfeit, Contraband, etc, I have noticed that people tend to play them one at a time like actions.

The card that causes the biggest problem with people who just flash their hand in my opinion is Spoils. In most games with spoils I find at least once a "hand flasher" will just put everything on their discard pile and forget to return the Spoils to the supply.

Just showing your treasure cards can lead to confusion. At a gaming club another player once tried to call me out on counting treasures towards Horn Of Plenty. His argument was that you do not play treasures, you only play actions.

[GendoIkari]

Even so, the worst case outcome of pre-shuffling is that when you gain a card, you do the same thing you would have had to do if you waited to shuffle anyway. So it always either saves time or makes no difference - no reason not to do this when you can.

But you shuffle more!

Many games you can't, and many games you'll have to re-pre-shuffle if you gain something you didn't expect to gain (opponent buys an Embassy or something that you didn't expect).

Math could be done to get an actual answer on this, but I'm pretty sure it's in far less than half of all Dominion games where it's possible to gain something on an opponent's turn, or to have to discard on an opponents turn.

Using this as a reference, I get 236 possible Kingdom cards.
I count 24 cards that can make you gain/discard on an opponent's turn, plus Possession. Plugging in 236, 25, 10, and 1 on this page, I get ~68%. Including all trashing attacks, topdeck muckers, and Masquerade (42 cards), the number goes up to ~86%.

Trashing attacks and topdeck muckers would actually be a reason TO shuffle early, not to avoid shuffling early. And how does Masquerade come into play?

[singletee]

Even so, the worst case outcome of pre-shuffling is that when you gain a card, you do the same thing you would have had to do if you waited to shuffle anyway. So it always either saves time or makes no difference - no reason not to do this when you can.

But you shuffle more!

Many games you can't, and many games you'll have to re-pre-shuffle if you gain something you didn't expect to gain (opponent buys an Embassy or something that you didn't expect).

Math could be done to get an actual answer on this, but I'm pretty sure it's in far less than half of all Dominion games where it's possible to gain something on an opponent's turn, or to have to discard on an opponents turn.

Using this as a reference, I get 236 possible Kingdom cards.
I count 24 cards that can make you gain/discard on an opponent's turn, plus Possession. Plugging in 236, 25, 10, and 1 on this page, I get ~68%. Including all trashing attacks, topdeck muckers, and Masquerade (42 cards), the number goes up to ~86%.

Trashing attacks and topdeck muckers would actually be a reason TO shuffle early, not to avoid shuffling early. And how does Masquerade come into play?

For anything that inspects the deck as the first/only part of its attack, you'd have to have cards in your draw pile for it to matter. For example: you have Lab in hand, a single Goons in your draw pile, and reshuffle early. I play Spy, discarding your Goons. That Goons should have been in your shuffle.

As for Masquerade, you have a hand of 3 Gold, a Province, and a Pearl Diver, with no cards in your draw pile. You reshuffle early. I play Masquerade, and suddenly you won't be drawing on your turn anymore.

Actually the kingdom does not need to contain any specific card at all. What your opponents do may influence whether you draw cards on your turn or not. But it's up to you whether you want to spend the time doing what may turn out to be fruitless shuffling in order to have a chance at speeding the game up. I generally don't as it also tends to disconcert my more observant opponents (which is most of them).