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Author Topic: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck  (Read 7935 times)

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Zakharov

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Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« on: January 18, 2012, 04:07:23 am »
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Introduction

The combo deck aims to set up a particular combination of cards which can either immediately win, lock the opponent out of the game, or quickly and consistently gain VPs. Unlike most other decks, combo decks completely neglect VPs until they are set up, then ignore everything else afterwards.

Building a combo deck nearly always requires strong trashing. Chapel is the best way to achieve this. Remake or Steward are decent. Bishop is good if your opponent is also Bishoping. Single-card trashers like Upgrade and Lookout are good enough only if the combo is extremely powerful and other potential decks are weak.

Ambassador has an interesting place in combo decks. It can be a good trasher, and decks set up to play multiple Ambassadors transition well into combo, but your opponent's Ambassadors can really shut you down. When trying to play combo on an Ambassador board, focus purely on an Ambassador strategy, and go for the combo cards if and when you win the Ambassador wars.

The Mega-Turn

Mega-Turn decks tend to rely on strong trashing to work. Failing that, strong draw such as Scrying Pool, Apothecary, Governor, Council Room, or Wharf can get you everything you need. Mega-turn decks can typically win from a 3-5 Province/Colony deficit if they have enough buys, but have difficulty winning 2-6 unless they use Goons.

Bridge

Playing 7 Bridges in a single turn lets you buy out the Province stack and win the game; 5 or 6 are enough when combined with other sources of money. Bridge decks require extra sources of actions and cards to play all their Bridges. Most Bridge deck rely on cards that help get a mega-turn: King's Court, Mining Village, or Native Village.

When building a Bridge deck, trashing is extremely valuable, and Silvers aren't very good. You might need one or two to build up the deck, but you want to trash them before you combo off. A sufficiently good draw engine can replace trashing, but will slow you down considerably. Never buy green cards before your combo turn. If you're going for a combo with lots of cards, be wary of your opponent sneaking a 3-pile ending.

Good support cards:
King's Court/Throne Room - These cards are immensely important to a Bridge deck. Bridge combo is the best strategy on most boards which include KC and trashers.
Scrying Pool - If you trash all your victory and treasure cards, Scrying Pool draws your entire deck.
Council Room/Governor-for-cards - The downsides of these cards don't matter if you end the game on a single turn.
Library - If you have enough sources of actions, you can play Bridges down to only a few cards, then draw a lot from Library.

Counters:
Cursing attacks are devastating to most of these decks, especially those relying on Scrying Pool. A combo deck that can set up a good actions/draw engine with Chapel before being cursed too heavily can fight through curses, though.
Discard attacks are very good against the Ironworks-Mining Village-Bridge deck, terrible against Scrying Pool or Library, and bad against most of the rest.
Masquerade is very good against these decks because they try to get rid of everything they don't want.

Sample decks:
2 Steward, 3 King's Court, 3 Bridge, 3 Laboratory, 2 Village - Trash heavily at the start; it's fine to spend your turn trashing instead of buying. A KC/Bridge turn can get you a lot of your support cards and allow you to win shortly afterwards. Your aim is to play KC->KC->3xBridge on a single turn, giving you +$9, +9 buys, and -9 cost so you can get all the Provinces or even Colonies.
Chapel, 3 Ironworks, 6 Mining Village, 3 Bridge, 3 Throne Room, 1 Smithy - Ironworks for Ironworks, then Ironworks for Mining Villages and a Smithy, then Ironworks for Bridges, all while trashing heavily. On the combo turn, play some MVs trashing them and Bridges, Ironworks for Nobles, play all the Bridges and buy a pile of Provinces. Sample game.
8 Native Village, 6 Bridge, 1 Silver, 7 Copper, 3 Estate - NV/Bridge is fast and doesn't require trashing. Sample game and article (credit to WanderingWinder).
Chapel, 2 Scrying Pool, 2 University, 7 Bridge, 6 Bazaar - Scrying Pool for your entire deck, play all the Bazaars, play all the Bridges. University isn't necessary, but it helps. Sample game.
10 Festival, 8 Goons, 7 King's Court, 6 Library, 4 Bridge, 1 Chapel, 1 Worker's Village - The overkill deck; good for gaining vast quantities of VP. Sample game (but it can be risky).

Highway

Unlike Bridge, Highway replaces itself, so a sufficiently trashed deck can play all of its Highways on a single turn without +actions or +cards. Highway needs extra buys to combo; Market or Grand Market are the best ways to accomplish this. Laboratory effects, especially Apothecary, can be used in place of trashing, at the cost of some speed. Highway decks can make fairly good use of Upgrade as a trasher; it cycles and after 4 Highways you can upgrade Copper or Estate into Highway.

When building a Highway deck, get a 2:1 ratio of Highways to Markets, then buy a few extra Markets before your combo turn, then buy all the Provinces.

Highway decks are resilient to discard and top-of-deck attacks (e.g. Rabble), but weak to Curses.

Good support cards:
University and Ironworks (after a Highway) can get you your Highways and Markets easily.
Festival+Library works well with a Highway deck as an alternative to Markets.

Counters:
Buying 5 Highways. Highway decks need at least 6 Highways to work well, and are slowed down slightly by their trashing. Buying 4 Highways will slow down the Highway deck slightly. In Colony games, getting 3 Highways can be enough to stop the combo.
Cursing attacks.
Gardens, Silk Road, or any other strategy that can quickly empty 2 piles and pick up a few Highways along the way.

Sample deck:
6 Highway, 4 Grand Market, 3 Border Village, 2 Steward, 1 Worker's Village, 2 Copper - Sample game.

Goons

Goons plays quite similarly to Bridge. The buy from each Goons gives you a point for each Goons, so the total points is proportional to the square of the number of Goons you play. This leads itself perfectly to mega-turn strategies. Goons decks have to be able to combo off with 3 cards in hand, as the opponent is very likely to be playing Goons of his own. You typically want to end the game on a 3-pile of Goons/Village/Estate.

Good support cards:
Watchtower - Goons decks buy a lot of copper on their critical turn, Watchtower means it won't clog up your deck and you can do it again next turn. Unnecessary if you can win the game in one turn.
Anything that's good with Bridges, except for Throne Room/King's Court, which don't double the VP gain of Goons. They're still not bad for building your draw engine and getting more buys.
Festival/Library draw engines are especially good against opposing Goons.
Apothecary - Helps get Goons faster, lets you combo off without trashing, goes through your deck after you spam Copper.
Worker's Village - The best Village to pair with Goons, it gives you more buys to use your Goons with.
Council Room/Margrave/Wharf - Card draw which gives +buy is also good with Goons.
Highway - A few Highways let you buy more useful cards with all your Goons buys instead of just copper, and can accelerate getting to your combo.

Counters:
Cursing attacks
Library/Watchtower - Goons decks will be playing Goons every turn, Library mitigates the damage.

Sample deck:
Chapel, 2 Scrying Pool, 6 Village, 7 Goons, Watchtower - This looks a lot like the Bridge deck, and for good reason. Scrying Pool negates the discard from enemy Goons by drawing your deck.

Copper

The Copper deck relies on Tactician, Counting House, Cellar, and lots of Copper to draw a huge pile of cards thanks to the interaction between CH and Cellar. A bunch of Coppersmiths make those Coppers valuable. Worker's Village helps play all these cards and get more coppers in the meantime. The deck is good against Mountebank, especially with more players. Copper works best in Colony games, which are a bit slower. Copper decks are very resilient to all attacks.

Sample deck:
6 Cellar, 3 Coppersmith, 4 Worker's Village, 2 Counting House, 2 Tactician, 22 Copper, 6 Curse - Sample game. I mistakenly bought a 4th Coppersmith over the 4th WV in the sample game.


The Lock

The Lock aims to stop your opponent from doing anything, or at least from doing much of use. It relies on consistently playing a lot of attacks or pseudo-attacks.

King's Court + Discard + Masquerade

Credit goes to jomini for most of the information about this combo.

Trash down to 2 King's court, 1 Goons, and 1 Masquerade, preferably using Chapel. Play KC on KC, use one of the KCs on Goons, then the other on Masquerades. The opponent has to pass you his remaining 3 cards, which you trash. You pass them nothing, as you've got nothing left in your hand, deck, or discard. Article and sample game. This works only in 2-player games, unless you specifically want to destroy the player to your left.

Village effects are a cheaper alternative to one King's Court. Goons, Militia, Ghost Ship, Margrave, and Outpost all work as the second piece of the combo; Cutpurse can occasionally work. Throne Room instead of King's Court gives you a softer lock, leaving the opponent with one card, but is easier to set up. The 2-card King's Court + Masquerade deck still trashes 3 cards per turn from the opponent's hand, which can be good enough in the absence of +buy cards, especially against an opponent who is trashing heavily.

Opposing Masquerades can be countered by having any one nonterminal (a card which gives at least +1 action) as your 5th card. You pass it to them when they Masquerade you, then pass their card back to them and buy a new nonterminal on your turn. Discard attacks can be beaten by any cantrip (a card which gives at least +1 card and +1 action); KC, KC, Courted Pearl Diver gets you your Goons and Masquerade back. Cursing attacks aren't a problem, you can just trash the curses with Masquerade.

Counters:
Moat - Stops the lock cold, though you'll still lose cards when you fail to draw Moat. Lighthouse works so long as you can play one every turn for the rest of the game; when you miss you're gone.
Discard attacks - Wrecks the vanilla combo, but can be stopped without much difficulty.
King's Court + Bridge - Faster than some versions of the lock.
Possession - Possess the locking player and steal his valuable cards with Masquerade.
Double Tactician - Double Tactician decks (see below) can withstand Goons/Masquerade, but lose if they ever miss a Tactician. Unless they have en extra source of +buys, they lose three cards for every two they gain, so they need to deplete 3 piles before running out of cards.
2 Tunnel - Doesn't beat Goons, but can gradually deplete the Golds, Coppers, and Curses and force a 3-pile ending against Militia.
Swindler - Can slow down the lock combo considerably, but doesn't stop it once it's in place.

Sample decks:
Village, Militia, King's Court, Masquerade - Cheaper than the 2 King's Court version, and no less effective. Any Village effect works.
2 King's Court, Outpost, Masquerade - This version isn't stopped by reactions; trash 3 cards on your regular turn and 3 on your Outpost turn.
2 King's Court, Goons, Pearl Diver, Masquerade - Beats discard attacks. Any card which gives +1 card/+1 action can be used in place of Pearl Diver. Still has difficulty against discard combined with Masquerade.
2 Throne Room, Minion, Outpost, Masquerade - Works without King's Court; can be faster because it doesn't need to hit $7.
King's Court, Masquerade, Haven - Trash down to KC+Masq and trash your opponent's deck. Slowly buy up 2 coppers and 2 Havens, comboing on the turns where your coppers are Havened. Buy an Estate. Each turn, Haven the Estate, then trash. Repeat to get 4 Havens and 2 Estates. Grind through the Coppers, Curses, and Estates until the game ends. Doesn't work if there's enough +buy for your opponent to fight through the trashing. Sample game (the opponent conceded).

Mass Saboteur/Thief

Mass Saboteur operates similarly to Bridge decks, except instead of winning you're trashing all the useful cards in your opponent's deck. Works best in a Colony game where the opponent is less likely to end the game before you can combo.

Good support cards:
Quarry - Makes it easier to buy your key cards, which are all actions.
Baron - Gets you to KC money faster.
Outpost - Lets you sabotage twice as much post-combo.
Minion - Prevents the opponent from hiding cards in his hand.

Counters:
Moat/Lighthouse - Stops Saboteur, can't be sabotaged, can easily be sabotaged into.
Island/Native Village/Haven - Hides points away where they can't be sabotaged.
Peddler - Sabotaging a peddler sucks, but peddlers alone aren't enough to beat the deck.
Minion - Forcing a discard gets rid of Scheme's benefits.
5-card decks - Saboteur does nothing against someone with no deck. Adding discard fixes this problem.

Sample deck:
4 King's Court, 3 Scheme, 2 Saboteur, 2 Mountebank (optional), 1 Outpost (optional), 2 Quarry (optional), 2 Silver, 7 copper, 3 estate - Play 4 KCs, courting each of your other actions, then play Outpost. Do it again on your Outpost turn. 12 Sabotages per turn is more or less impossible to recover from. Sample game.
2 Scrying Pool, 2 Haven, 5 Bazaar, 5 Saboteur, Outpost - Havens let you ensure you get Scrying Pool every turn, Scrying pool draws your deck. Bazaar gives you enough actions to play Saboteurs and enough money to buy more. Scrying Pool and Saboteur are the only necessary cards in this deck; everything else can be replaced. Credit to jomimi for the deck.
2 King's Court, 3 Scheme, 2 Thief, money - Uses Thief instead of Saboteur, but the principle is the same. If there's no actions which give +money, you can lock your opponent out of the game. Sample game credit to ecq.

Possession + Ambassador/Masquerade

Possession decks try to use Ambassadors on their opponent's Possessed turns to steal valuable cards from their opponent's deck. The obvious counter of "don't buy Ambassador" doesn't work, as the Possession player can simply Ambassador his Ambassadors. This deck is very slow, but brutal when it hits.

To make the deck work, you have to win the Ambassador wars by reducing your deck to a state where you can draw most if not all of your deck and Ambassador at least once every turn, cancelling out opposing Ambassadors and filling their deck with junk. Once that's done, you buy a Potion and some Possessions, then start Ambassadoring Ambassador and playing as many Possessions as you can each turn. On your Possession turns, steal and buy cards which help you buy more Possessions, Provinces, and Colonies. Avoid getting money, though stealing Potions might be worth it to keep your opponent off of Possessions.

Masquerade is basically a slightly worse version of Ambassador in this deck; it's more likely to hit Province but will never hit 2 Provinces. It's much worse if you've trashed all the junk in your deck.

Good support cards:
Inn - The "discard 2 cards" part of Inn doesn't matter that much when you don't care about money only want to play a few cards each turn. The on-buy effect is very useful, allowing you to get your engine running more easily.
Council Room/Governor - The +1 card to your opponent is amazing when you're going to be using it yourself.
Colony - Slower games make this combo easier to pull off in time.
Tactician - Tactician helps you get to 6P for Possession, you can afford to Tactician a Tactician hand after playing Possession a bunch, and Possessing a Tactician turn is awesome.
King's Court/Throne Room - Being able to get extra possessions using relatively cheap cards is great. KC-KC-Possession-Possession-Possession should cause a resignation.

Counters:
Chapel/Watchtower/Lighthouse+Possession - If you can fight through Ambassador, being able to Possess the combo player first and Ambassador his Possessions to you pretty much gives you the game.
Trash most of your money, buy Estates and Coppers - If you can't do anything, he can't do anything when possessing you. Only works if you can get a 3-pile ending before the Possession player takes enough of your greens. Diluting your deck reduces the risk of Ambassador colliding with important cards.

Sample decks:
8 Inn, 6 Council Room, 5 Possession, 3 Ambassador - Sample game. Includes one beautiful turn where I Ambassador 2 of his Provinces then buy another Province.
2 King's Court, 2 Scheme, Possession, 2 Ambassador, (any support cards) - KC->KC->(courted Scheme)->(courted Scheme)->(courted Possession) lets you Possess your opponent 3 times every turn. If you have enough support cards to reliably draw both your Ambassadors, so much the better.
2 Tactician, 2 Possession, 2 Ambassador, Crossroads, Chapel - After playing all your actions you can Tactician, so you can start with 10 cards each turn. Once you start greening heavily, buy more Crossroads so you can draw both your Possessions.

Honorable Mention: Pirate Ship

If there's no other cards which give +money, enough Pirate Ships can take all the money out of your opponent's deck and leave him stranded. However, Pirate Ship is a card which gives +money, and these games nearly always turn into a Ship mirror match. Buy villages.


The Consistent Deck

The consistent deck aims to get to a point where it can do the exact same thing every turn for the rest of the game. Unlike other combo decks, consistent decks need to be set up relatively early.

Bishop

Bishop decks trash everything except Bishop, some money, and one Province/Colony. Each turn they trash Province, buy Province. It's not difficult to build the deck using only Bishops for trashing, especially in 4-player, but Chapels make it faster. Bishop decks are very good against deck attacks (Saboteur, Swindler, Rabble, etc), as they have no deck to attack.

Counters:
Discard attacks - The deck can't function on 3 cards.
Cursers - The deck can't function on 6 cards either.
Masquerade - The deck needs all of its cards.

Sample decks:
Bishop, 2 Platinum, Copper, Colony  - Platinum, Gold, Silver as the money also works. 2 Platinums lets you trash Copper, buy Colony on your last turn for 5 more points than otherwise. With 2 Platinums you're safe from Masquerade. Sample game in which I buy a superfluous Lab because I can.
Bishop, Gold, 2 Silver, Province - Slightly worse than the above, but Colonies aren't available every game.
Bishop, 2 Platinum, Moat/2 Lighthouse, Colony - Immune to attacks. Watchtower is another option against curses. Laboratory or similar is an option against discard. Credit to petrie911.
Bishop, 2 Gold, 2 Lighthouse, Province - Immune to attacks, Province version. Play Lighthouses on alternating turns. Credit to jonts26.
Bishop, Outpost, Fishing Village, Market, Peddler - Each turn, Fishing Village, Market, Bishop a Peddler, Outpost, buy 2 Peddlers. On the Outpost turn, Market, Bishop Peddler, buy 2 Peddlers. Orange cards count as in play for the purpose of Peddler on both turns. Once the Peddlers run out you should be able to play enough Peddlers to start buying Markets, then with enough Markets you can play FV, 6 Market, Bishop Province, Outpost, buy Province. Any village can be used in place of Fishing Village, and Grand Market can substitute for Market. Most of the time you're not going to get down to 5 cards, here's a sample game where I play a close approximation of this deck.

Double Tactician

Double Tactician decks try to play a Tactician every turn, using non-treasure means of gaining money. This means they can draw 10 cards per turn. Pure Double Tactician is vulnerable to discard and cursing attacks, but adding some card draw negates this.

Good support cards:
Spice Merchant/Upgrade - These cards let you trash one card per turn without costing an action, preventing your deck from getting too large.
Laboratory or similar cards - Labs let you bounce back from discard, deal with cursing, and provide an alternative to trashing in finding your Tactician every turn.

Counters:
Possession

Sample decks:
2 Tactician, Black Market, Upgrade, 7 money - Black Market lets you play all your money before Tactician, even if you buy nothing from it. Sample game. Credit to Jack Rudd.
2 Tactician, Vault, 2 Spice Merchant, 4 Copper/Silver, 3 Estate - Each turn, you draw 10 of your 11 cards, Spice Merchant a copper (you have 2 Merchants so you're sure to draw one), Vault drawing two and discarding 8 cards, Tactician. Once you run out of coppers you aren't as consistent, but by that point you have 4 Provinces, so it doesn't matter. Sample game.

Island/Native Village

These decks buy a Province each turn, then set it aside so they don't have to draw it. Trashing down to 5-6 cards is required to get the deck to work.

Counters:
Discard attacks
Curse attacks
Bureaucrat - These decks can't function without their victory cards in hand.

Sample decks:
(Chapel), Hamlet, 2 Gold, Silver, Native Village, Province - Each turn, Hamlet discarding Province, Native Village setting Province aside, buy Province. It's 6 cards, so sometimes you won't draw the Hamlet. Buying a Lab reduces the odds of this happening. You'll need to set aside your trasher(s) on Native Village before starting. Sample game.
(Chapel), Ironworks, 2 Gold, Silver, Province, (Island) - Each turn, Ironworks for Island, draw the Island, play the Island on Province, buy Province. You'll need to Island your trasher(s) before starting. Has the downside of petering out when the Islands are depleted.

King's Court + Scheme

Courting a Scheme lets you play a particular action every turn. Most of the time this leads to a strong non-combo deck, but it's also good for combo. Using this with attacks is described in the lock section above.

Counters:
Minion - Forcing a discard gets rid of Scheme's benefits.

Sample deck:
King's Court, Scheme, Chancellor, 3 Stash (5 for Colony) - KC-Scheme lets you Chancellor every turn, Chancellor lets you get your Stashes every turn, Stashes let you get a Province every turn. Against discard attacks, place your Stashes in slots 6-8; you'll draw them off of Scheme. I'm not sure that this deck is better than vanilla Chancellor/Scheme, though. Sample game.
King's Court, Scheme, Herbalist, 5 Venture, Silver - Herbalist every turn lets you guarantee Venture, which guarantees $8. Rarely actually worth it; Ventures are reliable enough by themselves.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2012, 09:40:44 pm by Zakharov »
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vulturesrow

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2012, 09:02:09 am »
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I cant speak to the absolute accuracy of the information in this article but I like the presentation and I definitely learned quite a bit and actually filled in some holes in my knowledge that I had questions about already. Nice first effort, hopefully some of the more experienced guys weigh in with any needed tweaks to the information. Keep up the good work.
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theory

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2012, 09:56:08 am »
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I didn't think it would be possible to write an article like this, but you managed to do it in a very readable and comprehensive way!  Kudos.
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jomini

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2012, 10:30:05 am »
+1

You are incorrect on a number of things about a masq pin. While a lot of pins can be stopped by a moat or slowed by a lighthouse, KC/KC/Masq/Outpost chews right through them without blinking. In addition this deck can incorporate any non-terminal to protect it from a masq attack.

E.g. My opponent has a lighthouse out and masqs me. I have KC/KC/outpost/masq/pearl diver. I send over PD, he sends me an estate. On my turn I play KC->KC->outpost-> masq. This leaves KC/outpost on the board. I pass him the estate, trash a card. I trash two more cards of his (possibly keeping the last one if it isn't a terminal) he has 3 cards in hand. Outpost turn -> (non-terminal) ->KC->Masq. I receive & trash the 3 cards in his hand (possibly keeping a non-terminal). My opponent is now pinned and cannot recover. If I have a single self-replacing card (e.g. pearl diver) I can also make the pin even in the face of a discard attack. Only the combo of a discard attack followed by a masq can completely disrupt an outpost pin with a self-replacing card; even that can be mostly countered by having 2 self-replacing cards & KC most of the time in hand.

A faster pin comes from TR/TR/Minion/masq/outpost. Minion for 4 cards (opponent hand is now 4 cards). TR->TR->outpost-> masq (opponent hand is now 2 cards). Outpost turn -> minion for 2 coin -> TR -> masq (opponent hand has 0 cards).

Additional stuff:
For the classic pin (goons or other discard attack) failure to draw a moat does not result in terminal pinning. You lose 3 cards in your hand - make those your worst cards. Then once you draw a moat, the pin is broken and you can continue playing.  Sure you may end up with a hand of province/province/province/province/moat and just let the opponent keeping buying engine cards, but that can be an insurmountable lead (e.g. you bought 7 provinces, that means the your opponent has to snag all but two of the duchies when he greens his deck, without +buys you can actually come back).

Cursing attacks are a very soft counter. If a pin deck is viable, then curses will be easily trashable. Curses only delay, they do not prevent the pin.

Discard attacks are insufficient if there are self-replacing cards on the table. For instance pearl diver. So you hit me with a terminal militia when my hand is KC/KC/PD/Militia/Masq. Whatever. I discard the militia & masq. Now I play KC->KC->PD(draw 2 cards)->militia->masq. Self-replacing cards let you have a larger deck, the only risk with them is if swindler or sab is out and they leave one of the key cards vulnerable to destruction (e.g. swindle a KC into a bank).

I remain unconvinced that KC/Bridge is faster than any pin except the goons one. For a KC/Bridge megaturn, militia really hurts. It both slows down KC acquisition and prevents the final combo. Certainly if there is a good self-replacing card out there (i.e. village) you can start to militia every turn and still use masq to thin down your deck.

Better counters:
Double Tactician - you are screwed if the pin hits on a normal hand, but if it hits after you reliable hit the combo you only lose two cards (unless outpost is in use, in which case you may lose 4 or 5 as well). You still have a 5 card hand to disrupt the attack, as a bonus you start with 2 actions allowing you to do the real killer combo - a discard attack & a masq (though still counterable if the opponent has 2 self replacing cards & a KC in hand).

Possession - Play before they hit the pin. KC a masq and pass yourself a KC, a discard attack (or outpost), and take back one of your cards. If they are opting for village/KC/(discard or outpost)/Masq then you can just pass over the KC.

Tunnel - only weakly counters a discarding pin without VP chips. Buy out the tunnels. When you are hit with a discard attack, discard the tunnels. Eventually, each turn you deplete the curses buy 1 card and the gold by 2. You can force a pile ending if they don't stop & acquire VP.


Swindler - Masq -> silver, goons -> gold (or outpost/ghost ship/etc. -> duchy or miltia -> random 4) can really delay the pin.


Support cards:
Village - can replace a KC in most all pins (cutpurse pins being a notable exception) only hamlet (I think) doesn't work here
Quarry - can may KC easy to grab
Chapel - fast trashing is a win



Sab decks:
A hard to implement, but devastating attack in a sab deck is blackmarket/quarry. This will bring down the price of a lot of filler cards below the sab threshold. This, in turn, means that you both hit provinces (colonies) more often, but also force them to downgrade to either treasure (which doesn't pile out the game as fast) or green (which leaves them with a clogged deck).

A much better setup for mass sab than scheme (liable to suffer from minion & discard attacks) is scrying pool, particularly if you can manage scrying pool & haven. If you are sufficiently thinned & have enough scrying pools, havening one away each turn with one of your 2 havens means that you can draw everything, every turn (even outpost turns). This cannot be disrupted except via opponent sabs & swindlers.

Another very useful attack to chain in between sabs are green deckers. Bureaucrat, Fortune teller, and Rabble all directly let you preferentially target provinces, spy & oracle let you have better odds at choosing your target.

Counters:
NV - anything on the mat is safe, anything can be sabbed into a NV. Even dumping copper into the NV mat increases the ability of hitting a megaturn. If you pile NV & estates that leaves one pile to deplete while the sab player tries to accrue points.

Haven - less reliable than NV, but mass haven can hide green points until you pile out the game.

Traders - load your deck full of silver. Traders a silver for 3 more silver. You can easily pile on duchies & traders & estates with the odd province/colony buy thrown in.

Island/NV:
You can do these without trashing if you will always have a watchtower in hand or if you can have royal seal in play.

E.g. Play border village, play council room ... play IW for an island, reveal a watchtower & top deck the island, draw the island with the IW +card, island a province, buy a province, border village & council room, reveal a watchtower to top deck them.

Goons:
Better support cards:

Golems: in a pure Goons/golem deck you can always hit two goons/golem. With some cards that give actions & cards you can often comb through huge masses of copper and play a large number of goons.

Apothecary: draw a crap load of copper, arrange things so you can draw exactly the number of goons you can play. This may lead you to getting a second potion so you can mass these suckers and just copper out. Works extremely well with goons/apoth/golem.

Peddler: free useful card instead of a copper

Highway: makes lots of cards free & useful



« Last Edit: January 18, 2012, 10:34:45 am by jomini »
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Mean Mr Mustard

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2012, 11:06:57 am »
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I'd like to find something to critique but I really must echo Theory.  Well done.
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Davio

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2012, 11:09:43 am »
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I would've liked to see a more detailed section about Scrying Pool decks.

For a good Scrying Pool deck you need: a trasher, $-producing action cards (GM woohooo), +Buy.
Even so, picking up spare Scrying Pools in not so dense decks with excess buys can be useful.

In this game I took Pawn over Silver to go for that Scrying Pool megacombodeck. It took a while to get into gear, but after it was setup, it easily steamrolled my opponent in 3 turns.
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Jack Rudd

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2012, 11:30:45 am »
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You missed Black Market as an enabler for the double-Tactician deck. Sample Game.
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Voltgloss

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2012, 12:14:02 pm »
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I'd suggest mentioning Worker's Village and Spice Merchant as good support for the Goons engine.  Worker's Village both helps you to play additional Goons-per-turn and helps you get the most out of those Goons by giving +buy.  Spice Merchant chews through Goons-bought Coppers and converts them into either nonterminal draw or an extra buy.

Also, it may be worth noting that TR/KC on Goons isn't entirely useless - it still gives you an additional buy, which means more VP.  They're just not quite as dominant as they are in a Bridge engine.
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jomini

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2012, 01:10:52 pm »
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KC/goons gives extra buys, but more importantly it can be a way to chain actions. When there are no other +actions on the board, KC chaining for goons can still be dominant. E.g. KC/KC/Watchtower will allow for +4 cards & allow the triple play of a goons; better it might allow for the play of a third KC which can then get three goons into play.

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WanderingWinder

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2012, 01:17:11 pm »
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The thing with KC is, if you can actually get enough KCs and +Cards options in your deck, you don't need any cards that have +Actions on them at all - KC a KC a card drawer and go

ecq

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2012, 01:45:23 pm »
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KC/Scheme is much better than you seem to suggest.  Chancellor/Stash doesn't make effective use of it. 

Without discard attacks, KC-KC-Scheme-Scheme-X lets you play X 3 times a turn.  It also draws 6 cards and gives +6 actions.  In other words, if your deck can find one silver per 6 cards, KC-KC-Scheme-Scheme-Chancellor will buy a Province every turn without Stash.  That's what it does playing one of the weakest $3 cards purely as a terminal Silver.

Using ever-so-slightly stronger cards:

Thief: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111213-213545-d55615f1.html
Saboteur: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111208-071206-92c64e89.html

Both decks ended up being complete locks for their respective kingdoms.  Saboteur in particular felt completely broken.  It's not that hard to set up, either.
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Davio

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #11 on: January 18, 2012, 02:25:19 pm »
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KC-Scheme is almost always brutal.

At the very least, you can keep the same 3 cards together with KC-Scheme-X.
If you get it up to KC-KC-Scheme-Scheme-X then you can keep those 5 cards together (and a 6th on your deck) for eternity.

Imagine X is a Horse Traders or a Mandarin and that's a guaranteed Province every turn.
X could very well be a Pirate Ship or bumped Trade Route too (as long as you have junk to trash, which you can buy with TR's +Buy).

Of course, when X is a vicious attack it's exceptionally brutal.

Discard attacks like Goons/Militia/Ghost Ship/Margrave mess with it though, but in that case, you can still keep KC-Scheme-X together.
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Octo

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #12 on: January 18, 2012, 02:36:41 pm »
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I know it's only visual, but some pics of the cards in question at relevant points (scaled down from the normal size I'd say) would make this article even more enjoyable and easier on the eye. Great article though!
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petrie911

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #13 on: January 18, 2012, 03:01:24 pm »
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You can still do the 5 card Bishop deck in the presence of attacks if you include a Moat.  Bishop/Plat/Plat/Moat/Colony is nearly unassailable.  Horse Traders works to stop discard attacks as well.  Bishop/Gold/Gold/Lighthouse/Province works in non-Colony games, though you're only protected half the time.
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jonts26

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #14 on: January 18, 2012, 03:03:55 pm »
+1

You can still do the 5 card Bishop deck in the presence of attacks if you include a Moat.  Bishop/Plat/Plat/Moat/Colony is nearly unassailable.  Horse Traders works to stop discard attacks as well.  Bishop/Gold/Gold/Lighthouse/Province works in non-Colony games, though you're only protected half the time.

You just need two lighthouses alternating turns.
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Zakharov

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #15 on: January 18, 2012, 05:57:36 pm »
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Thanks for all the feedback, especially jomini's excellent analysis of Masquerade lock. I've incorporated most of it into the original post.

As to what I didn't:
jomini on Saboteur - The point of a Saboteur combo deck is to Sab literally everything, so things like Bureaucrat and Spy provide only incremental benefit. They're great in regular Sab decks, though.
jomini on Goons - Golem is great in a deck that wants to Goons consistently; in Goons combo it can be part of a strong draw engine but isn't so much better it needs to be mentioned separately. A draw deck with mass Highway and Goons is more of a Highway deck than a Goons deck.
Davio on Scrying Pool - Regular Scrying Pool decks are just strong draw-your-deck decks, not combo decks.
ecq/Davio on KC+Scheme - Saboteur is mentioned in the lock section. Most KC+Scheme decks aren't combo, I found two which are (three with Thief) but I'm sure there are more.
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ugasoft

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #16 on: January 19, 2012, 04:42:20 am »
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wanna see a bridge deck in action?

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/18/game-20120118-042956-aa93d5f8.html

ok, my opponent was not so skilled... but that's the amazing power of native + bridge :)
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jomini

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #17 on: January 19, 2012, 09:29:23 am »
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Thanks for all the feedback, especially jomini's excellent analysis of Masquerade lock. I've incorporated most of it into the original post.

As to what I didn't:
jomini on Saboteur - The point of a Saboteur combo deck is to Sab literally everything, so things like Bureaucrat and Spy provide only incremental benefit. They're great in regular Sab decks, though.
jomini on Goons - Golem is great in a deck that wants to Goons consistently; in Goons combo it can be part of a strong draw engine but isn't so much better it needs to be mentioned separately. A draw deck with mass Highway and Goons is more of a Highway deck than a Goons deck.
Davio on Scrying Pool - Regular Scrying Pool decks are just strong draw-your-deck decks, not combo decks.
ecq/Davio on KC+Scheme - Saboteur is mentioned in the lock section. Most KC+Scheme decks aren't combo, I found two which are (three with Thief) but I'm sure there are more.

Sab decks take time to build and top deck attacks are reasonable ways to set them up before the game ends. In addition, you will normally end up with a player who has massed estates & who is pile depleting some 2 or 3 coin cards. If they can acquire more 3+ coin cards than you can sab, they can hide a good number of points in the deck. E.g. this is what makes traders a rather effective counter - you can just keep stuffing your deck full of silvers (you sab my village, I get a silver; I have 3 silvers, a copper & a traders - I net two new silvers & buy a duchy). Spy effects let you hunt for the counter cards - moat, traders, talisman, IW, jack, etc. before trashing out a bunch of useless 3s.

Things to target the green cards or to target only high value cards (e.g. quarry/BM, highways, bridges, princess) can skip all the gunk and pull off a dramatic swing when you have a late game move to a sab deck. While yes, it would be nice if you could sab before the game was close to ending, mass Sab runs a real danger of forcing the game on piles and you may not have time to trash his colonies -> provinces -> duchies -> estates if he's 3 piling on estates, cellars, and pawns.

Golem in Goons:
Ehh, I think you underestimating the impact of being able to churn though whatever copper you have and just keep hitting goons. Goons/village/Golem is one of the better goons decks as you can start coppering up quite early and never really slow down, remember in a goons vs goons match without much draw, you are going to be very hard pressed to play more than 2 goons anyways. Being able to buy copper from pretty much day one is a lot of oints to leave on the table and this is really on of the very few goons decks that is viable without trashing.

Highway in Goons:
I'm not talking about massing highways, I'm talking about things like "I have 11 coin and 2 buys what should I get" or "I just hit 5 coin, what should I get to help me get (more) goons that won't slow down my deck". Just 1 or 2 highways are extremely powerful to combo in a goods deck - you can get a lot of cheap self-replacing cards, you buy goons more easily, and it doesn't slow down your combo late game (unlike say bridge or baron).

For a scrying pool deck combo the biggees are:
SP/Scheme - always start with a pool, this can allow you to get away with having a single pool, always go off, and going off turns earlier
SP/haven - requires 2 SP and 2 haven, but you can haven a SP and and start with a SP in had every turn
SP/discard for benefit (secret chamber, vault, cellar, etc.) - one problem for a lot of SP decks is having a good payout. Without villages or good +coin you can draw whatever you want, but getting provinces will be hard. A solution is to just get a bunch of cheap actions and then use a discard for benefit card (vault being the best) and buy a province. Big enablers of this type of combo are things like IW (gain a bunch of IW or useful action cards), transmute (gain  many transmutes, and even talisman (buy multiples of cheap actions like pawn). With a strong setup, you can discard many times and cash out for an obscene megaturn.

errata:
There are many discards that can be used in a pin i.e. margrave is an option, even something like followers can work. I strongly suspect that there will be such an attack in all expansion sets and would suggest just saying the second card can be outpost or any discard attack (some being better than others).

One fun thing with outpost is that it is viable in 3 player. The basic combo burns 1 card for P3 per turn (until P2's deck is gone after which P3 is pinned), as you are killing 4 cards a round (assuming P2 buys a curse or copper), it doesn't take that many hands before you can keep both players down.

Using a discard attack allows you to pin both opponents. KC/village/village/discard/outpost/masq will always draw both villages before you play discard, outpost, KC->masq. In your outpost turn, you will almost always have a village allowing you to play that, then another village, then discard, then KC->masq. This pins both opponents as soon as the combo goes off.


One thing to note that I got wrong on the KC/Masq pin - moat & lighthouse only slow down the pin and give you a chance to escape. You won't have to discard down, but you will still lose 3 cards. This means your terminal moat hand will eventually die as well. These things slow down the pin, they don't stop it. I would definitely change the "stop cold" comment.
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Octo

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Re: Archetype in Detail: The Combo Deck
« Reply #18 on: January 21, 2012, 07:20:26 am »
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I think the pin in question gets undue attention. Sure, be aware of it, but it's really just an anomaly in the game.
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