To continue my post from yesterday, streamed again for 4 hours with the new cards. Here is my imp-ression:
- Shepherd only really shines if you can guarantee bigger starting hands, like Duration draw (Haven, Wharf, Caravan, Hireling, Ghost Town, Ghost, Archive) or similar non duration ways (Prince, Expedition, Save). There might be even more ways. Also to make your Shepherd decent you need a decent amount of green cards in your deck. Assuming it's not a dual type victory card, you need to at least need a way to get use out of the cards you draw. If your deck is full of victory cards, discarding victory cards for more victory cards is just not that great. Meaning you need discard for benefit cards. Vault, Storeroom and Artificer and probably Mill might be the strongest with this. But also to a lesser extent Oasis, Horse Traders might work. Still not sure how good it is, but also to consider is if the board is lacking draw and you can somehow guarantee that your Shepherd discards at least 2 Victory cards regularly, it also increases your handsize and can be quite good.
- You mostly want 1 Pooka I assume. It has 2 important engine pieces, trashing and drawing, making this quite powerful. If it is the only trashing and draw, it can get quite awkward and I don't know how good it is. If it is the only trasher but other draw, this is excellent, as you just get one and then switch to the other draw card. If it is not the only trasher, but the only draw, it is getting quite awkward as well. Overbuilding might be a trap then. If it is neither the only trasher, nor the only draw, I guess you might be able to skip it, but that heavily depends on how good the trasher is mainly. You definitely want to look out for cards that gains you extra treasure cards easily like Banquet, Cache, Trader, Treasure Trove, Masterpiece, Hoard, Haggler to name a few.
- Cemetary I can't evaluate yet. The Alms combo is quite strong as mentioned already a couple of times, especially if you Mirror+Necro+3 Coppers to even get Ghost. The tricky thing usually is (similar to Trade) to have $4 and want to trash cards from your hand. But even if you have let's say 2 Curses in hand, it is a pretty good deal, as it is -1 dead card and +4VP.
Let's talk about the Heirlooms seperately.
- Pasture, certainly the least exciting one, probably rarely matters. Forager interaction is interesting as trashing it might help your opponent more than you. I'm looking forward to the first game with it and Silk Road as 2VP Estates and an additional victory card from the start is quite good. Of course it boots Inheritance even way more.
- Cursed Gold is probably may favourite of the 3 Heirlooms. It is always tricky to decide if it is worth it playing it. If there is no Curser and no trashing on the board you might hold off on playing it even if it is tempting and just play it when greening. If there is a Curser and no trashing, it is getting weird as you want to buy it, meaning you want to play Cursed Gold to get it. By gaining a Curse yourself you weaken your own Curser but accelerate the time until your Cursed Gold gets to be a real Gold. So not sure how to evaluate the up- and downsides. If there is no Curser, but trashing, it depends of course on how good the trashing is, the better the trashing of course the less hesitant you play it. And if there is both Curser and trashing, getting the Curser is usually not really worth it. Also, Cursed Gold costs $4, meaning that trash for benefit openings are quite good, so Salvager or Remodel openings are quite tempting. And I haven't talked about the implications of the different possible splits. Being able to open Expand, Forge or Inheritance is excellent, in my game I was able to open King's Court which is maybe less exciting than it sounds, but might be too tempting to pass. Also Altar or Artisan openings are quite good of course and it also boosts Overlord openings and Turn 2 Donates if you have Cursed Gold turn 2.
- Haunted Mirror is not that easy to activate with Cemetary than it sounds, I fear that it might lead to quite lucky/lopsided games. But using Pooka, Masquerade, Forager or Spice Merchant to trash this seems so excellent. And to realize what Ghost exactly does, took me a while. You can't get more than one (Possession, Masquerade or Thief shenanigans aside) and it being a duration means you can't alternate play them like you would like to with Durations. As the effect is really strong you will have turns that are quite different in strength, especially as the Ghost is also a dead card on the non-Ghost turn. Also, I was worried that you might not hit if you draw your deck, but did only realize after playing with it that the buy phase is before playing Ghost. Not only this means that you basically hit something everytime, you can also if you draw your deck, plan what you Ghost which is just really really strong.
- Faithful Hound, my favourite of today's cards even if many are disappointed of it being to "basic", but I love Reaction cards and I love discard for benefit effects like Tunnel. While it is certainly not a power card, there so many ways to activate it to good use, making this way more useful than Moat or Beggar. Keep in mind that this only costs $2 so if you have spare buys or can gain this easily, the opportunity cost for maybe big effect can be quite impressive. So many cards can make good use out of it. Forum, Cellar, Hamlet, Oasis, Storeroom, Vault, Mill, Artificer, Dungeon, Warehouse, Inn and Oasis might be the strongest ones which you can use to get more and more benefit the longer the game goes, but it can be triggered my so many more cards and also quite easily like Minion, Guide, Cartographer, Embassy, Sentry and many more which depending on the other cards can also be quite strong. You might think, well you get the cards in hand, but what if your opponent plays a discard attack, then you have to just discard more cards? Ha, you can just discard the dogs and get them back when it is your turn, so that doesn't matter at all. And then there also other attacks from opponents. In one game Fortune Teller was a good pick for several reasons, but at second thought it maybe wasn't as my opponent once triggered 4 dogs from his one Fortune Teller play. I imagine that Rabble can be even worse in that regard. Also your opponent usually has to leave them on top in Scrying Pool games and Knights can also be quite unlucky when finding a dog.
-Devil's Workhop is pretty solid, not sure how well it compares to Ironworks or Armory, being forced to take the option makes is really tricky
-If Ghost Town is the only village, it is just so important as the +Actions are very limited, if it isn't just just get it for the on gain effect to get reliability similar for when you want to buy Villa
-Raider is just very bad so far, it doesn't do anything great in the early game and is not at all that impressive in the later game, pretty weak card
-Crypt is just bonkers good in every game so far. Being able to get lots of treasures out of the deck is so good in every game. You can get Terminal Draw + Crypt and if they line up you got rid of so many treasures allowing you to build the deck you want. But it is also very good in money strategies, making this a must buy on like most boards. And I indeed did play a Crypt+Capital board and that was the most fun board I have played in a while.
To elaborate on my impressions yesterday.
- Devil's Workhop in comparism to Ironworks: Can't be really used for Silk Road/Gardens but works for Vineyards because of Imps. On engine boards when you would open Ironworks, you will open DW as well. In addition to that is Chapel or Donate where you can just get additional Golds. Quite often you get DW later to just get a few Imps. All in all I would say it is a bit stronger than Ironworks and therefore maybe the strongest variant of the $4 gainers.
- Getting Ghost Town when it is the only village is just so important very often because of the limited actions. It is still hard for me to balance not losing the split vs. building the deck.
- Raider might be not that bad as originally assumed, but still quite weak. You basically want it in no village engine decks.
- Crypt didn't impress me that much today. Not sure if bad boards for it or just not that good after all. At least when I thought it was good, it didn't work out for me. I might have also been just unlucky. Still I think it is a quite important and powerful card.
I guess I had a lot to say today.
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Topic: Previews #2: Shepherd, Pooka, Cemetery (Read 62908 times)