Some fun games with Lekkit, especially the first game so props to that. It was much better than I expected at first look.
Game 1:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120208-173917-cf57fec8.htmlI have some very interesting thoughts on the set itself, but I'll save that a bit. The game itself came down to what I hope it would be, as it was the theme of this week. Crazy/odd contraption vs. decent BM. I got to play the role of crazy odd contraption. Lekkit starts off with silver/silver to vault. He picks up a lot of tunnels along the way, but somehow only gets three gold of it... one he bought. That was very odd to me.
My actual thoughts... Initially I had two ideas here. Golem*n/Chancellor/Vault with as many tunnels as possible. When it works, ie I get all 3 pieces by turn 7 or so, its a wonderful set up. The point of this was that chancellor resets the golem setup, vault/golem creates mass gold so you can provinces in non-vault turns eventually. It hits all provinces by turn 23-25, that's with duchies and tunnels along the way. But if you miss the set up early, it struggles mightly.
I do start WV/chancellor to be safer and honour this week's challenge. I didn't get much to test this method, but I'm certain it involves Golems, Chancellor, Counting house, Coppersmith, WV/hamlets. I realize that vault was not as good as I was expecting here. I had ideas of discarding coppers, bringing them back up and what not but no go here. Maybe just not proper timing. I'm also convinced that tunnels don't help that much in a copper based deck. Probably obvious, but not to me. The tough part here is the lack of a +card, and Golems sifts through SO well, but worries of triggering counting house too early was always on my mind. All in all, good series, and I'm glad I this was voted (although I still think MMM's version looks great).
The game itself, again it was odd he only had 3 golds. That has to be horrible shuffle luck. Vault/Tunnel must cause gold to close to depletion right? The tunnel advantage causes me to have to get 5/3 province or really fight out a duchy war. Then T14 gets to 3/2 provinces him. Then the mechanism kicks in to save the day! This was definitely horribly built that ran into some good luck. I liked my opening though, I think +buys are vital and silvers are useless (or should be if you're doing this deck right).
Game 2:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120208-180011-7f7f8421.htmlWe both had very similar ideas here, although I suspected he would go a different route (Mass platinums from tacticians which I'm not sure if that's dominant considering there's +buys through hamlet). Double Tactican to Action $ (minions, conspirator). Conspirators ended up being more important than minions here (the attack is so weak here). It was a lot of deck management (ie. to trash further, use for money, what to buy.) The game log doesn't do it justice but this had some very intricate play.
Game 3:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120208-181315-cafe89c5.htmlLekkit goes for Mandarin/remake/hamlet, and subsequently misses out on remake till T5. That pretty much ended it. I take a little long to get to scrying pool, but the early shuffle luck for him did him in.
Game 4:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120208-182339-0259ab0a.htmlA game where farmland should have had a real chance to shine here. Margrave+FG with no trashers. We split FGs evenly. I think Lekkit was too honed in crossroads as he buys a farmland on T6 and T7 (without trashing either). Probably should've been a second Margrave. Luck and second margrave net me 3 KC in T6-8. That's essentially game.
Farmland here has a chance to shine as it uses every aspect of it. It's the only trasher, there's actual reason to trash coppers for $2, really complements crossroads, +buys. If there was silk road and no KC, this looks about as ideal a Farmland set I can think of.
So 4-0 RisingJaguar - Lekkit. I can attest to some great shuffle luck, although game 4 was more about the early farmland. I had a lot of fun, a real nice guy. I think game 2 is the only game where I outright won without some great variance occuring.
Post-Questions:
Game 1: Obviously
Game 2: Is tactician/trashing/hamlet/mass platinums stronger than the engines we built? I assume no, but I've underestimated mass platinums before.
Game 3: In that context, ambassador or remake? ambassador because of the engine possibility (scrying pool).