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[steric]

Edit: Relevant discussion/article here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=595.0
tl;dr for this post below: Estates are small change and clog up your deck early on, when Provinces dwarf them in late game. Maybe keep one around in case you are neck-and-neck even with your opponent.

Hello All.

I am relatively new to Dominion, but have certainly read and re-read a majority of the recommended articles. I now clearly understand why one would want to junk Coppers, but am still on the fence about junking Estates, and wanted some clarification.

Yes the Estates can clog up the deck, but they also contribute to the source of the win - if we are throwing out points - to a certain extent I'm not sure what we are doing. On one hand, I suppose ridding yourself of an Estate may be kind of a neutral move where now no one has that point.

Can anyone point to a very specific article about this, or sum it up for me? Thank you in advance,

[Deadlock39]

Others will probably give you more details that back this up, but it comes down to the fact that not having that Estate in your deck for the whole game will improve your capacity to buy points later by significantly more than the 1 point you lose by trashing it.

[steric]

Others will probably give you more details that back this up, but it comes down to the fact that not having that Estate in your deck for the whole game will improve your capacity to buy points later by significantly more than the 1 point you lose by trashing it.

Yeah I was sort of thinking along those lines - like - if losing an Estate or two now means an extra Province - all the better.

[AdrianHealey]

Suppose you draw an estate and you look at the next card and you see a silver. Man, your hand could have had $2 more, and that's maybe the difference between buying a €4 and a €6 card. And not just now, but every shuffle. Imagine at the end of the game (after 4 shuffles or so), 3 of your €4 cards are €6 cards. And maybe you could have bought the €4 cards anyway, so maybe it's even more accurate to say that your €3$ cards are €6 cards. Imagine how much better your capability to buy even better cards is.

Everything in dominion has avalanche effects: if you buy a good card in your first shuffle (turn 2, because you opened 2/5), well, now you get to use that card *every* shuffle. It's effects will come into play 1 time more, and given that you might see the card like 5 times, that's 20% more. Would you sign up for a 20% increase in your salary? Damn right you would. It's the same thing here. The faster you can get to good cards, th ebetter, so junk that crap.

[faust]

A wise man once said: "Dominion is not about having the most points when the game ends, it's about ending the game when you have the most points."

And that's the center of it. Estates don't actually help you end the game in a win. They're worth something when the game ends, but until then, they will just be in the way as you're trying to improve your deck.

They also merely contribute 3 points. The vast majority of games is won by a wider margin than 3 points, so the chance that they'll actually make a difference is small. That said, there are plenty of boards on which I would trash those starting green cards even if they were Duchies or even Provinces. Having the better deck is just that important.

Sidenote: Sometimes, in a game with no +buy, it can be a smart move to keep around exactly 1 Estate so that you will have the edge if Provinces split evenly.

[JThorne]

It's interesting that you got the idea of trashing coppers more quickly than trashing Estates. That's great! Some in my playgroup trashed their estates quickly, but had a hard time learning to get rid of coppers because of their buying power (such as it is.)

What you might want to do is read some of the game logs and see some high-level players at work building engines. Once you see a turn 15-16 that draws the entire deck, plays the entire deck on the table with virtual coin, extra buys, cost reduction, and just a handful of actual treasure cards (if any) and then buys 5-6 Provinces all at once, you'll see the light. Estates and Coppers just slow you down. Check out some games with Chapel and you'll notice that most players will immediately trash their entire hand as soon as they draw Chapel, sometimes twice, picking up perhaps a Silver and a Terminal +$2, +buy action card along the way. Once your deck is tiny, EVERY hand is a good hand, and that's the whole key to Dominion: Not wasting turns on lousy draws.

The game log point graphs also tell the story: A well-built engine scores no points for turn after turn, building and building, and then explodes in just a few turns at the end (or buys everything and ends the game with a mega-turn.) Estates can only hurt that process, and the 1 point you get from them is utterly insignificant.

One other quick note: The term "junking" is typically used differently here, if I'm reading correctly. "Trashing" is what you call removing a card from your deck permanently and putting it in the trash. Chapel is a Trasher. "Junking" is the act of putting bad cards in the deck to slow it down. Witch is a Junker. For clarification, a "trashing attack" is one in which other players trash your cards (Saboteur.) A "junking attack" is one in which they give you Curses, Ruins, or even Estates and Coppers (in the case of Ambassador and Mountebank.) There are very few self-junkers! (Death Cart)

That's one of the most telling facts about the Estate: Ambassador is one of the most powerful attacks in Dominion, because it allows you to get rid of up to two Estates at a time...and gives one to each of your opponents. If player 1 plays Ambassador and player 2 doesn't, player 2 will be buried under an avalanche of Estates and Coppers and will forever be drawing hands like Estate-Estate-Estate-Copper-Copper.

There is a time to buy Estates, mind you. It's always available as the cheapest card in the game, and may be a key pile to empty intentionally in order to force a three-pile ending to win the game while you're ahead before the Province pile gets any lower. But the opening estates are poison. Rid yourself of them as quickly as possible.

[Chris is me]

If you could only draw four card hands three times a shuffle for the rest of the game in exchange for three points, would you? Of course you wouldn't. That's how bad Estate is. Just get rid of them.

[steric]

Thank you everyone for the detailed responses - it seems quite clear now. This is very helpful.

faust - I love that quote - it sums it up really well once I thought about it.

[DG]

In a big money game there's a very general rule of thumb you can apply to buying duchies and estates. Buy a duchy (instead of silver) if you will probably draw it just once. Buy an estate only if you probably won't draw it again. This rule approximates the points from the victory card compared to the points/control from having better hands later in the game.

To make things simple, you can apply the same rule to trashing green cards.

[Aleimon Thimble]

It's interesting that you got the idea of trashing coppers more quickly than trashing Estates. That's great! Some in my playgroup trashed their estates quickly, but had a hard time learning to get rid of coppers because of their buying power (such as it is.)

Yeah, this is something I noticed as well. Most beginners I play with quickly get the hang of trashing their Estates, but really don't want to let go of their Coppers even after I've destroyed them with a streamlined engine.

There are very few self-junkers! (Death Cart)

There's a couple more, to be fair. Followers gives you an Estate, Baron can do that too, and several cards can give you Coppers, such as Count, Ill-Gotten Gains and Beggar. Transmute gives you more Transmutes and Rats gives you more Rats. Then there are the new Empires landmarks/events such as Defiled Shrine and Ritual, giving you Curses. But junk cards are not always junk in every deck, that's the tricky part. The Ruins from Death Cart can sometimes come in handy, because you need them to get the $5 bonus on the Death Cart if you don't want to trash the Death Cart itself.

[eHalcyon]

There is a time to buy Estates, mind you. It's always available as the cheapest card in the game, and may be a key pile to empty intentionally in order to force a three-pile ending to win the game while you're ahead before the Province pile gets any lower. But the opening estates are poison. Rid yourself of them as quickly as possible.

Mostly true, but Copper and Curse are always available too, and cheaper. Copper usually isn't a good target for 3-piling, but Curse is.

[Dingan]

The only thing I'll add is that there are exceptions when you want to keep maybe 1 Estate instead of trashing it early.  Say for example you and your opponent are playing with Jack of all Trades, and it is likely that you will split the Provinces 4-4.  Having kept an Estate, while your opponent trashed all of theirs, can make or break the game for you.

But ya, when in doubt, get rid of em.  If you don't yet realize why, you will pretty soon.

[mail-mi]

There is a time to buy Estates, mind you. It's always available as the cheapest card in the game, and may be a key pile to empty intentionally in order to force a three-pile ending to win the game while you're ahead before the Province pile gets any lower. But the opening estates are poison. Rid yourself of them as quickly as possible.

Mostly true, but Copper and Curse are always available too, and cheaper. Copper usually isn't a good target for 3-piling, but Curse is.

Edge case: 6p Beggar/Gardens game.

[eHalcyon]

There is a time to buy Estates, mind you. It's always available as the cheapest card in the game, and may be a key pile to empty intentionally in order to force a three-pile ending to win the game while you're ahead before the Province pile gets any lower. But the opening estates are poison. Rid yourself of them as quickly as possible.

Mostly true, but Copper and Curse are always available too, and cheaper. Copper usually isn't a good target for 3-piling, but Curse is.

Edge case: 6p Beggar/Gardens game.

I did say "usually"! Mountebank sometimes empties it too.

And you don't need 6p with Beggar-Gardens.

[steric]

The only thing I'll add is that there are exceptions when you want to keep maybe 1 Estate instead of trashing it early.  Say for example you and your opponent are playing with Jack of all Trades, and it is likely that you will split the Provinces 4-4.  Having kept an Estate, while your opponent trashed all of theirs, can make or break the game for you.

But ya, when in doubt, get rid of em.  If you don't yet realize why, you will pretty soon.

Everything everyone has said makes complete sense - this reminds me of that article I read recently about PPR.

[Awaclus]

Trashing a junk card from your deck is roughly equivalent to adding a Laboratory to your deck (consider having a hand of Lab, Estate and 3 Coppers and compare that with just having the top 2 cards of your deck in your hand instead of Lab and Estate to begin with because you didn't have the Lab and the Estate in your deck — the outcomes are effectively the same). Laboratory is a pretty strong card. Great Hall, which just adds 1 VP to your deck without hurting it, is not a very strong card even though it's a lot cheaper.

[funkdoc]

yes, estates are much more painful than copper at the beginning - your main hurdle to reaching $5.  this is why salvager/apprentice/raze are often good opening buys even though they're bad copper trashers.

[Aleimon Thimble]

yes, estates are much more painful than copper at the beginning - your main hurdle to reaching $5.  this is why salvager/apprentice/raze are often good opening buys even though they're bad copper trashers.

And sometimes bad Copper trashing is better than no Copper trashing.