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Author Topic: Nocturne Initial Impressions  (Read 53056 times)

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markusin

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #75 on: November 17, 2017, 06:31:36 pm »
0

Tragic Hero seems even worse than Library for drawing. I had to go back and look at it again to make sure I read it right. A freaking Smithy is almost always going to be better. Why is this $5?
+Buy

It's also cheaper than several treasures such as Gold, Bank, and Platinum. Bonus points if you draw Market Square when you trash it. It seems fine enough in money-ish decks.

The sad part it that it doesn't survive if played immediately after Cursed Village (provided you don't run out of cards to draw, yes).
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SinisterHologram

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #76 on: November 17, 2017, 06:36:57 pm »
+1

Tragic Hero seems even worse than Library for drawing. I had to go back and look at it again to make sure I read it right. A freaking Smithy is almost always going to be better. Why is this $5?
Yeah, it doesn't seem very strong. Although the somewhat complex nature of it makes it hard to evaluate for me. But my assessment based on my general experience of Dominion (without having used this crad) is this. You do get the +buy as SuperHans pointed out. So it has that over Smithy, but that drawback is rough, and I think some people may be underestimating how much that will hurt. It won't be very good in engines because any strategy where you want to be drawing your deck every turn will require more than 8 cards in hand for the most part. I guess one might be okay in that deck if it is drawn at the top of the shuffle. However, the fact that you gain a treasure when you lose it could be good sometimes. For instance, a free Fortune would be amazing. Usually, though, when gold is the best treasure, this only helps a money-ish deck since an engine doesn't want too many treasures in the deck getting in the way of the draw cards.
I really don't see tragic hero being a strong card.
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Gazbag

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #77 on: November 17, 2017, 07:33:28 pm »
+5

Tragic Hero is a complex card, you can't use it as draw in a conventional engine unless there are ways to lower your handsize so it plays similarly to draw-to-X in these situations, it needs a lot of support and the reward is still just smithy with +buy so I only see that happening when it's the only draw. It's fine as terminal draw in a money deck if that matters, the +buy can be useful there.

Tragic Hero wants to be a draw card, but really it's a payload card in disguise. The key is making the treasure gain a benefit, one way to do this is to end the game the turn you play it- it can be a strong megaturn facilitator because of this. The most common use I see for it is as a way to add payload to an engine, $5 for a one-shot Smithy and a Gold is a great deal and it delays the Gold so it won't be there clogging you up while you draw your deck. That's just the baseline though- it gets better with kingdom treasures, Horn of Plenty being the standout one as that is a megaturn enabler itself.

I'm not saying it's a power card or anything but you need to look at it as a Gold with a benefit, not a draw card with a downside. But that's the average case, it's obviously way more complex than that and very board dependant. I also have probably just rolled a favourable batch of games for it- I've already had a Horn megaturn and a game with Champion and Lurker where it was insane so I'm probably a little high on it because of that, but it shows that the power is there in the right circumstances.
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jonaskoelker

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #78 on: November 17, 2017, 07:55:12 pm »
+1

Here's me talking out my ass a hot take: big money with Sheperd and Crypt is a thing, even more so with support from Monastery and/or Goat.
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gloures

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #79 on: November 17, 2017, 08:10:05 pm »
+1

Here's me talking out my ass a hot take: big money with Sheperd and Crypt is a thing, even more so with support from Monastery and/or Goat.

I've done that during the previews, it's pretty strong...
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #80 on: November 18, 2017, 03:41:03 am »
+1

So, here are some of my initial thoughts. I've been at work mostly since the set was released online, so most cards I have not played against any human opponents or the rat much for that matter. So, I might be off.

Bard: This is the true puzzler for me. DA being a super large set had a few niche cards like Graverobber, Rogue, Poor House, Beggar, and Feodum. So, it's understandable that Nocturne would have a higher proportion of niche cards. Bard just seems bad to me. Honestly, I think Navigator is better, and that's not all that great of a card. But, who knows maybe I'm wrong and these Boons are actually super amazing.

Changeling: I've played with this a couple of times. My guess is it's very strong. Obviously, it won't work on every board, but get something like Trader or even Jack, and this card is pretty amazing. On boards with KC or City Quarter, Changeling is nuts. My guess is Changeling will end up being a very strong engine card. Also, the anime art, and the entire concept of the card is cool. This may end up becoming my favorite Dominion card.

Cobbler: An Ironworks variant. The fact you gain to your hand your next turn is a very, very nice way to start off an engine turn. I haven't played with it much, but I'm guessing it's quite strong.  This may end up being a top-tier or close to a top-tier $5 card. I would not be surprised at all if this were the case with Cobbler.

Conclave: It's a village that gives money. It's not the greatest Village because it doesn't draw, but sometimes this will be your only Village. I'm guessing it's okay, slightly below average for a Village, but not awful like some people believe. A Village is a Village.

Den of Sin: This has to be better than Lab. Seems solid and super strong.

Guardian: Reasonable. You can sort of predict when your opponent will have an attack and buy at the opportune moment. Also, this card can lead to interesting openings. My guess is it's slightly better than Lighthouse because it has more flexibility.

Monastery: Non-terminal trashing is good. It may not be the best trasher ever, but I'm pretty sure it's good.

Night Watchman: Don't overbuy this. Otherwise, the sifting is really nice. Seems solid to me if you can't draw your entire deck.

Sacred Grove: Seems okay. On a similar power level to Courtier and Wine Merchant.

Secret Cave: This could really help you Spike high price points. The Magic Lamp seems amazing. I've only played it against Rat, but getting three Wishes is really nice. The Heirloom is the real selling point. But, Secret Cave is a reasonable card as well.

Tormentor: Probably weak.

Tracker: Likely weak, but at least it costs $2, and hey you get to start the game with Pouch. +Buy is always nice to have around.

Tragic Hero: I've read people talk about the mega turn potential. I think that's hard to set up. This seems likely a niche card to me. I guess it's good in money decks. Most engines will likely have a hard time making this card work.

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jonaskoelker

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #81 on: November 18, 2017, 05:55:36 am »
0

Night Watchman: Don't overbuy this. Otherwise, the sifting is really nice. Seems solid to me if you can't draw your entire deck.
I have a hard time being confident about anything to do with Night Watchman.

Obvious comparisons are Scouting Party and Cartographer.  Cartographer Qvist-ranks 74th out of 96 $5'ers, and Scouting Party ranks 25th out of 39 $2-costers. Note that both are below the middle in their respective brackets. Don't read too much into this, but do read more than nothing into it.

Unlike Cartographer, Night Watchman doesn't give +1 card. In your Night phase that's probably not a big issue, since it's all about setting up your next turn; in addition to improving your next turn, Cartographer (but not Scouting Party) can also set up your top-of-deck for later in the same action phase. Unlike Scouting Party and like Cartographer, Night Watchman can discard any set of cards, not some fixed amount.

So how big is the effect of Night Watchman being a card you need to draw (and the opportunity cost of not drawing some other card)? How big is it compared to the cost of $2 and on net not costing a buy only if you have at least one buy left?

Uh, if you drew a Silver instead of Night Watchman, you could buy Scouting Party where you would otherwise be able to play Night Watchman; but a Silver also helps you hit high(-ish) price points, which Night Watchman doesn't. But playing Night Watchman is always at least as good as and sometimes better than getting Scouting Party if the cost is the same (it can do all the same things and then some).

The effect of gaining Night Watchman to hand is similar to "Event: Do what Night Watchman does. Gain a Night Watchman." which makes the first half similar to a better Scouting Party.

There's this other card that clears at least some bad cards off the top of your deck. It's non-terminal and it doesn't draw; it doesn't let you discard coppers, curses or ruins, though, and it doesn't do any Party+ing.

Is Night Watchman the new Scout? I guess no, but it does have some features in common with the butt of everyone's favorite jokes. What would make it better than Scout, in decks where you don't draw deck, is that it can skip any card, not just green (and that your terminal draw can't draw it dead). What's the value of having one dead card now and lowering the risk of having dead cards next turn?

Vagrant can peel all the bad* cards off the top. Is Night Watchman comparable to playing a Navigator, always keeping, followed by a few Vagrants? (Ignore the $2 from Navigator.)

One last thing. Here's a move: get a good card on turn 1, get Night Watchman on turn 2, play the good card on turn 3. It's probably great with Chapel, but if trashing is slow and you want to hit $5, picking a Silver rather than a Night Watchman to go with your Moneylender might be better. Maybe? I dunno, but it's something to think about.

Quote
Tracker: Likely weak, but at least it costs $2, and hey you get to start the game with Pouch. +Buy is always nice to have around.
I haven't really tried out the effect, but while building an engine, getting to topdeck the Village and Smithy you just bought has to be great for reliability. Is it worth having a terminal copper around? Is that terminal copper only worth it if you have $2 and a spare buy, or would you ever get it on $3+ with 1 buy? Err derr merr hurr... *shrug*
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smuggler

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #82 on: November 18, 2017, 09:22:28 am »
+1

okay, i thought a bit about guardian and your thoughts...
i think, starting 3/4, buying guardian guarantees you 5 right away. which may be pretty strong
esp. if the (5) is an attack and so you already have your "moat"

anyway - thanks for your thoughts
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #83 on: November 18, 2017, 09:55:56 am »
0

Night Watchman: Don't overbuy this. Otherwise, the sifting is really nice. Seems solid to me if you can't draw your entire deck.
I have a hard time being confident about anything to do with Night Watchman.

Obvious comparisons are Scouting Party and Cartographer.  Cartographer Qvist-ranks 74th out of 96 $5'ers, and Scouting Party ranks 25th out of 39 $2-costers. Note that both are below the middle in their respective brackets. Don't read too much into this, but do read more than nothing into it.

Unlike Cartographer, Night Watchman doesn't give +1 card. In your Night phase that's probably not a big issue, since it's all about setting up your next turn; in addition to improving your next turn, Cartographer (but not Scouting Party) can also set up your top-of-deck for later in the same action phase. Unlike Scouting Party and like Cartographer, Night Watchman can discard any set of cards, not some fixed amount.

So how big is the effect of Night Watchman being a card you need to draw (and the opportunity cost of not drawing some other card)? How big is it compared to the cost of $2 and on net not costing a buy only if you have at least one buy left?

Uh, if you drew a Silver instead of Night Watchman, you could buy Scouting Party where you would otherwise be able to play Night Watchman; but a Silver also helps you hit high(-ish) price points, which Night Watchman doesn't. But playing Night Watchman is always at least as good as and sometimes better than getting Scouting Party if the cost is the same (it can do all the same things and then some).

The effect of gaining Night Watchman to hand is similar to "Event: Do what Night Watchman does. Gain a Night Watchman." which makes the first half similar to a better Scouting Party.

There's this other card that clears at least some bad cards off the top of your deck. It's non-terminal and it doesn't draw; it doesn't let you discard coppers, curses or ruins, though, and it doesn't do any Party+ing.

Is Night Watchman the new Scout? I guess no, but it does have some features in common with the butt of everyone's favorite jokes. What would make it better than Scout, in decks where you don't draw deck, is that it can skip any card, not just green (and that your terminal draw can't draw it dead). What's the value of having one dead card now and lowering the risk of having dead cards next turn?

Vagrant can peel all the bad* cards off the top. Is Night Watchman comparable to playing a Navigator, always keeping, followed by a few Vagrants? (Ignore the $2 from Navigator.)

One last thing. Here's a move: get a good card on turn 1, get Night Watchman on turn 2, play the good card on turn 3. It's probably great with Chapel, but if trashing is slow and you want to hit $5, picking a Silver rather than a Night Watchman to go with your Moneylender might be better. Maybe? I dunno, but it's something to think about.

Quote
Tracker: Likely weak, but at least it costs $2, and hey you get to start the game with Pouch. +Buy is always nice to have around.
I haven't really tried out the effect, but while building an engine, getting to topdeck the Village and Smithy you just bought has to be great for reliability. Is it worth having a terminal copper around? Is that terminal copper only worth it if you have $2 and a spare buy, or would you ever get it on $3+ with 1 buy? Err derr merr hurr... *shrug*

Another thing about Nightwatchman, if you  know you're  having a bad shuffle, you   can  stop that from happening . Also, despite Cartographer s low Qvist rating, it doesn't  hurt to have it in your deck. It's  just that  most $5 it competes with are stronger.

Edit: Oops, this why we don't type on the phone.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 01:27:53 pm by Beyond Awesome »
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MattTV

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #84 on: November 18, 2017, 10:20:38 am »
0

Night Watchman would being amazing with page. Of course there's always scavenger, but at least with Night Watchman you have that immediate effect to shift through your deck and level up multiple pages. And I like how how it's an upgraded version of scouting party that you can continue to use afterwards. I mean yeah you probably don't want clog up your deck with too many, but that's kinda the point you don't have to. You probably only need like 1 or 2 to really start cycling. Maybe 3 for bigger decks.
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markusin

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #85 on: November 18, 2017, 10:34:20 am »
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Night Watchman is basically a Cartographer that does not stack, similar to how Shanty Town is like a Lab that does not stack. The first Night Watchman has the same search space as Cartographer, and it does the sifting for your starting hand. That's great for reliability. Playing 2 Night Watchmans on the same turn will likely suck (and eat up handspace). Try avoiding this is favour of playing one Night Watchman each night.

If the first night Watchman is comparable to Cartographer, then costing $3 instead of $5 is a big deal. It's just that you only want to take the deal 2-3 times per game.
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Awaclus

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #86 on: November 18, 2017, 11:12:53 am »
+6

Silver/Night Watchman guarantees $5 on turn 3. Potion/Night Watchman guarantees $3P on turn 3.
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SinisterHologram

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #87 on: November 18, 2017, 11:59:13 am »
0

Silver/Night Watchman guarantees $5 on turn 3. Potion/Night Watchman guarantees $3P on turn 3.
You just blew my mind. Night Watchman just went up in value for me.
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tastor

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #88 on: November 18, 2017, 01:14:15 pm »
+3

All this talk of Tragic Hero and nobody pointed out that Necromancers love Tragic Heroes: they trash themselves and then when played from the grave they still create their own payload (since there's no "if you did" clause on the trash -> treasure gain).

I agree though that they are harder to use than just a Smithy, but there's some potentially interesting tricks up its sleeve. And the plus buy means you can typically replenish them (especially since the first Village -> TH chain won't trigger the reaction, so you'll usually retain one and only lose them after a megaturn)

Silver/Night Watchman guarantees $5 on turn 3. Potion/Night Watchman guarantees $3P on turn 3.
You just blew my mind. Night Watchman just went up in value for me.

Yesterday I discarded a Tunnel at the end of turn 2 using Night Watchman.
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AJD

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #89 on: November 18, 2017, 01:37:49 pm »
+1

There's an interesting subtheme of "can't play the same card twice", isn't there? Imp, Necromancer, and now Conclave.
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chipperMDW

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #90 on: November 18, 2017, 02:09:24 pm »
+1

There's an interesting subtheme of "can't play the same card twice", isn't there? Imp, Necromancer, and now Conclave.

Well, Necromancer isn't really like the other two; it doesn't stop you from playing a copy of a card you've already played this turn.  Necromancer is just the same "can't play an individual card more than once per turn" that's been in the game all along. Like, playing an individual Village and moving it into play "uses it up" and, barring the exceptions I don't need to list, you don't get to play it a second time this turn. Necromancer turning cards face down is just its version of "using up" the cards so you can't play them a second time, but it accomplishes it without moving the card into play.

EDIT: Or were you just saying that Necromancer plays nicely with Imp and Conclave because playing a card with Necromancer doesn't stop you from playing a copy of that card with one of those two?

EDIT2: Actually, I'd say the subtheme is more like "cards in play matter." A lot of Night cards either care about or affect cards in play (e.g. Changeling, Raider, Crypt). Then there are Imp and Conclave. And Tormentor. Idol. Leprechaun and Magic Lamp.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 03:11:28 pm by chipperMDW »
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crj

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #91 on: November 18, 2017, 07:46:59 pm »
0

I have a hard time being confident about anything to do with Night Watchman.

Obvious comparisons are Scouting Party and Cartographer.
What about Guide?

Guide and Night Watchman cost the same.

Advantages for Guide:
  • +1 Card
  • Stays in Reserve until needed
  • Mitigates hand-size attacks
  • Nifty with Outpost
  • Action, so works with various cost reducers, tokens, etc.
Advantages for Night Watchman:
  • Can't be drawn dead
  • When you gain it, you get the benefit for your very next turn
  • Selective rather than all-or-nothing
I like Guide a lot. I think Guide is pretty strong. Is Night Watch maybe a smidgen weaker? It'd still be worth having if so.
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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #92 on: November 18, 2017, 07:58:56 pm »
0

There's an interesting subtheme of "can't play the same card twice", isn't there? Imp, Necromancer, and now Conclave.

Don't forget Magic Lamp.
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brokoli

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #93 on: November 18, 2017, 08:03:36 pm »
+2

Here are some thoughts about card-design and power level, after very few plays (not all cards) :

Druid - Some of the Nocturne cards has a very well thought flavor. Actually Druid and Faithful hound might be the most flavorful cards of this expansion. I think Druid is a very cool cards for the same reasons as pawn : each effect taken aside is really weak, but versatility makes the whole difference. Druid is probably weaker than pawn, because only 1 boon give +action.
Overall I love Druid, I think it's my favorite from the set, design-wise.

Faithful hound - Cute tricks to do with it, never awesome, more versatile than moat but obviously weaker at defending against attack. Below average.

Guardian - Some people there seems to hate the fact it's similar to lighthouse. I actually think this card is a very good addition to the game (we needed more defenses) and its existence is legitimate. Playing it right after buying it makes the whole difference, really. It's more subtle, more tactical. The fact it provides $1 like copper (while lighthouse is more similar to silver), makes you don't want to have too much of them. I think lighthouse is stronger, because the +$1 the turn you play it makes lighthouse more stackable, but I love guardian.

Pixie - This is another card I really love. The choice between receiving boon and playing pixie mitigates the luck element of boons (which I dislike) a lot. Very elegant card. Quite solid, too. You surely don't want to rush for it but for $2 it's nearly always a nice addition to your deck. I think you don't want to keep pixie too much, and I usually (after, as I said, very few plays) trash it right after the first useful boon.
About Goat : makes 4/3 slightly better than usual. It's fun to play around it. I dislike the fact that some cards always play with their assigned heirloom, in the case of pixie/goat, I think pixie would work fine alone.

Tracker - I don't know yet what to think about that one, but I guess it depends on the top-deck tricks you could do mid-turn. I have to play more with that one, but I guess I could like it a lot.

Fool - What an appropriate name for a card that does litteraly only random things. I don't see any reason to go for fool other than denying Lost in the wood to your opponent. Because, playing Lost in the wood several turn in a row is very powerful. But otherwise, there is nothing predictable about fool and you never take a fool in your deck for another particular reason. Randomness in all its glory. I don't like this card very much, but I have to admit it's a very unique one. (Someone compared fate cards to tribute, I think the comparison is very relevant, at least for fool).

Ghost Town - I think it's same power level as village. I know it's not exactly the same, but I can't find situations where the difference really matter (except about that on-buy in hand thing). It's not as obvious as shanty town / village. If both Ghost town and Village are in the kingdom, I will have a hard time to decide which one of those I would buy more.

Leprechaun - Funny card, also very flavorful. The 7-card challenge is menagerie-style, so it's a ton of fun to play. Really like it. Pretty solid card.

Blessed village - I said it, boons are just luck, most of the time you can't predict what will come, so it's hard to play with them with a long-term perspective. This is my main complain about the nocturne expansion, but I know it's already discussed here. So Blessed village, well, it's village+. I would rank it among the best $4 village but still weaker than plaza, wandering minstrel, and port.

Cemetary - It's very similar to the simplest victory cards. I find it particularly effective to trash curses late in the game for end-game points. The haunted mirror / ghost thing is a sub-game in the game, not very interesting strategically but fun to play. I like victory cards, I like cemetary. It's as simple as that.

Will continue tomorrow.
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JThorne

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #94 on: November 18, 2017, 08:26:58 pm »
+2

Conclave is better than I expected.

It doesn't seem like much at first, but to review: We all know that opening with any sort of Village is bad because they do literally nothing in the first shuffle, but that eventually you'll need a bunch of them to get a terminal-based engine to kick off at all. Now we have a Village-variant that is absolutely worth opening. With one card, it gives you enough economy to hit $5, eliminates the possibility of colliding opening terminals, and provides you with extra terminal space you won't have to buy later. It's accelerates engine building by a full shuffle. It's very close to a $4 Festival.

It does like other villages, though. If you have to start an engine with Conclave/Draw, you'll want to be able to play Conclave/Village later for a unique, and the 3 actions you'll have as a result should be sufficient to play enough draw to dig for the rest of your payload.

I don't normally like non-drawing Villages, but so far this one's pretty sweet.

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Seprix

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #95 on: November 18, 2017, 10:19:31 pm »
+6

I have changed my ratings. You all have provided your insight. I have stirred up controversy by saying many hot takes. This time, I will give my rational thoughts in detail. This is where you can point later and say "aha you were wrong" two years down the road. I won't be releasing a tier list for this because my thoughts are still subject to change but here it is. The complete Nocturne Listing.

Nocturne Itself
The set is... not Donald's finest work. The cards play fantastically enough on their own, but play the entire set as a whole and it becomes a giant sloggy mess. Don't believe me? If you care about building engines like me, you're going to be disappointed. There are engine cards in Nocturne, but the best way to put it is this: Nocturne is the Medic Class of Dominion. Most of the cards are nice complements, supports. There is not too much that just straight up wins you the game, but a lot of subtle moves. Now is this subtlety because of fantastic design or because of the cards being weaker? Is there really a difference? Anyways, your full random boards on average will be a lot more interesting with Nocturne around. Just don't go playing all-Nocturne unless you love playing variations of money most of the time.

Druid
The best of the +buy $2 cost series (if that is even a thing) which includes such hits as Candlestick maker and Pawn. Candlestick Maker is more consistent so you can easily make the case that it is better, but Druid contains so much potential upside and flexibility. The Workshop, Will-O-Wisp and Trash Boon are all worth pursuing; the odds of one or more of them showing up is 62%. Not that statistics with Druid even matter in the context of the particular instead of the abstract. Druid is heavily board dependent.

Grade: C

Faithful Hound
Tons upon tons of cute tricks with Faithful Hound make this card have more utility than Moat, but at the end of the day it's still a Moat draw. Try Faithful Hound with cyclers like Dungeon and Forum! You will not be upset.

Grade: C+

Guardian
It's Lighthouse, except you can't draw it dead, you get only one turn of economy from it, and you can tactically buy it to use on the same turn. Eh.

Grade: C+

Monastery
Absurdly strong trashing card. It's straight up delayed Bonfire at worst, and it can trash other stuff from your hand too. It can't trash midturn for the rare cases where that matters but man do you even care.

Grade: A

Pixie
This is an underrated card from the cantrip do something $2 cost series (if that is even a thing) with cards like Pearl Diver and Haven. Haven might be better, but popping a relatively cheap card to get twice the amount of Boons is awesome. And if not, you go Boon fishing. Pixie is the best way to get buys from Boons since it can cycle through them with relative ease, being a cantrip.

Grade: C+

Tracker
This card has been so surprisingly good that it has made me reconsider Royal Seal's strength. Obviously don't open with it, but Pouch makes picking this guy up on a spare buy so easy, and the rewards are immense. Royal Seal is weak because it competes with $5 costs. Obviously Tracker doesn't do that. And the potential Boon bonuses are just icing on the cake. But this is for sure an engine card. It's also weaker than Watchtower, duh do I even need to say that.

Grade: C+

Changeling
I love Changeling, and it continues the Nocturne theme of support. The exchange is nice and basically ensures you never have to waste a buy on Changeling. The Night effect is also a delayed Duplicate, but for anything in play instead of a cost limit. So really it's nothing like Duplicate at all.

Grade: B

Fool
Fool is not a bad card. You heard me. It's not bad in the sense that it's the worst card in Dominion. But don't take that as an invitation to call it a good card. It's a fine opening. Fool really shines in Big Money. Lost in the Woods really bolsters hands with dead cards, like for example that single Province you bought in your Smithy/Delve deck. Fool is a mighty fine opener on most all-Nocturne sets. Is it a mighty fine opener on a random board? Well...

Grade: C-

Ghost Town
You get this when you want Fishing Village minus opening scenarios. Pretty much the same card.

Grade: A

Leprechaun
If you want evidence that Hexes are usually weak, look no further than Leprechaun. You'll occasionally get fucked when playing it for the Hex, but by and far money doesn't mind the Leprechaun opening at all. The Gold gain is nice. And for engines, Leprechaun is awesome. It gains a Gold for TfB and it also gets Wishes for you! Alas it is terminal, but stronger than I was expecting.

Grade: C+

Night Watchman
Bold prediction: A lot of people are currently underrating this card for the same reason Cartographer is underrated. Hell, Tracer called it a Scout when he first saw it. It's a consistency machine. You can buy it and gain to hand, playing it instantly. You can trigger bad shuffles. You can save bad shuffle triggers. You can set up your next turn. This will be a high skill card. I'm calling it now.

Grade: B+

Secret Cave
Eh. It's a worse Mill and the money is delayed. You can get lucky and spike Inheritance and piss people off, or you can draw it with your hand full of economy. Either way, it's a nice complement to Magic Lamp, which will be the likely reason you ever pick this card up. That being said, it could be a thing with Double Tactician. All it takes is a bit of draw (a Moat's worth) and three discard attempts make a Province.

Grade: D+

Bard
Don't let Awaclus's post fool you into thinking that Bard is anything but weak. Sure, it's a fine card to have in the first shuffle, but the lack of consistency with Boons and its terminalness really kill it afterward.

Grade: D-

Blessed Village
One of the best Village variants. It isn't a world beater like Port or Border Village, but the on-gain effect and the choice of activating now or next turn is fantastic! There's not much else to say.

Grade: A

Cemetery
People say this card is awkward to trash with. Is it though? You can gain it with anything, the on-trash activates. Boom. Done. Just because it isn't Chapel doesn't mean it isn't a great Trashing card.

Grade: A-

Conclave
Okay. It's not S. That was overblowing it. But man it's A. It's Conspirator on crack. It forces you to play diverse engines which is usually the way to go in 2017 anyways so it makes you a better player just for using it. You can't say that about Pawn.

Grade: A+

Devil's Workshop
Okay. It's not an S. That was overblowing it. But man it's A. It's Conspirator on crack. It forces you to play diverse engines which is usually the way to go in... wait, we're not talking about Imp? Eh. If you're getting this you're getting it for Imp. It's an Imp machine. If you're not getting Imps, it's a lot lot weaker.

Grade: A

Exorcist
A nice Remodel variant, if you can squint to see the analogy. Trash an Estate, get a lab in Will-O-Wisp. Pretty sweet deal to me. No more of this "trashing one Estate equals a Lab" nonsense, now you can do both and really complicate the argument entirely. You're welcome. Ghost is worth sacking a $5 for. Please don't hesitate. But be smart about it too. Which means hesitate. So don't hesitate, unless you should hesitate. For example, don't trash your only draw card to get Ghost. And wow it can both get rid of Silver and give you an Imp? I just found Phillip's favorite card.

Grade: A-

Necromancer
If you've been dying to see a great Necromancer game in action, look no further. By the way, if you're not subscribed to Mic Qsenoch you should be. So Necromancer is the really puzzling card people don't know about so people call it weak. I'm willing to bet that doesn't change too much. If there's a board where there's an engine but terrible draw or you need some cycling, Necromancer has you covered with the Zombie Apprentice. The Zombie Mason is terrible, but not as terrible as the Zombie Spy. You can scout with the Zombie Spy to make sure you trash a good card with Zombie Mason, but man does that feel like a giant waste of potential or what? Anyways I am willing to bet Necromancer is terrible minus some niche boards with things like Knights, Lurkers and Death Carts/Ruins stuff.

Grade: D+

Shepherd
The card nobody knows how to spell. Including me. Man remember the hype around Shephard Shepherd and how OP it was at $4? Oh wait that was just me saying that. Anyways, despite being Crossroads on crack it's not busted at all. It's a great draw card, a great cycler, and you even don't mind triggering bad shuffles with all those discarded Victory cards if you have enough Shepherds.

Grade: A-

Skulk
Do you hear that? People are becoming Skulk apologists. They whisper in the streets, saying that you get a free Gold with it, Skulk is also a +buy card and hey it also attacks. People were down on Skulk, now they're up with Skulk which really means they just grasp what the card can do better than they did before. It's still awful.

Grade: D+

Cobbler
Lots of varying opinions on this one. Some say it's slow and not good. Others say it's very strong. All of this points to "it depends on the board" talk and varying experiences. I'm willing to bet that gaining a $4 to your hand is pretty nice. I'm also willing to bet that it's incredibly slow, getting effectively .5 gains a Turn. The gaining to hand should win out here.

Grade: B+

Crypt
A spooky mysterious card, and by that I mean it's mysterious to me. People like Dan Brooks swear on getting 4 of them. People like Tracer swear on getting 0 of them. I don't know about you but I'm going to side with the guy who won the ShuffleIT Championship. But since I don't see it personally, I can't give it a super super high score. How does B- sound?

Grade: B-

Cursed Village
I heard rumors that this card was immensely strong. Man how slightly wrong they turned out to be. Which isn't to say Cursed Village is bad. Man it is not. Really it's Library+ because of the taco/anti-terminal/please-call-it-anything-but-village-because-reasons effect, but it draws a bit less and there's none of that cycling action you get with Library. (Aren't stupid comparisons awesome?) Again, getting Hexed means a whole lot of heck of nothing most of the time. Oh man, I have to discard down to three when I played all my Treasures already. Oh man, I have to gain a Copper that I'll just trash next turn to my Spice Merchant. You get the picture.

Grade: A-

Den Of Sin
It essentially draws +3 cards on the following turn. Or it's pretty much a Wharf. Whatever comparison you like best man, I don't judge. It's a dead card in hand, which makes people question how good that dead card is versus the next turn benefit. Is there a cutoff point? That might hold true with Ghost Town, but probably not with Den Of Sin. I can get 4 of these guys down a turn and I don't miss a beat.

Grade: A

Idol
The Cursing is good. Very good. Because it's Cursing. That's still good, even in a world with Donate and mega engines that end on T12. Okay, maybe Idol won't be your ideal Curser on the T12 ending board, but it's a relatively painless cost with Donate. You don't spend an Action. Oh and sometimes you get a nice Boon. How about that. But the main thing is it's a non-terminal Curser.

Grade: B-

Pooka
You all have probably all been waiting for this. I have called it the worst card in Nocturne. I absolutely hate Pooka because I want it to be good. It's such a disappointment. It trashes and draws +4 Cards? Man that's good! But what it comes packaged with really is the killer: Cursed Gold. Picking up a Pooka with Cursed Gold is asking for trouble without major support. Having a deck with 1 Curse, 3 Estates, 1 Cursed Gold (which pretty much becomes an Estate since you don't want to play it to get Cursed again) and 5 Copper with your Pooka after one single use. That's 5 junk cards with 5 economy cards. Horrible. And oh, you want to trash those Curses? Well have I got a deal for you, Cursed Gold can let you buy that Sentry already. Who needs ol' Pooka? Nobody, that's who. But who cares about Pooka, because Cursed Gold adds so much to your game plan that you don't even miss having a 9 card Kingdom most of the time.

(Pooka's best friend is Monastery though. Keep that in mind. Cursed Gold lets you trash twice if you have Monastery in hand.)

Grade: F

Sacred Grove
Good money card, you'll get this when you need +Buy anyways, so stop pouting and pick it up. Also the Boons suck a lot more now because your opponents can get benefits potentially. Next.

Grade: C+

Tormentor
Tormentor is Bard, but with Hexes which are worse than Boons despite the insistence of people with negativity bias. Ew. Oh and it costs more. But wait it gains Imps. So yeah, you'll probably be sacrificing turns to use a glorified Workshop if you happen to land it in hand at the start of your turn. But Imps are worth that for sure, right? I have no idea. But forget about your Wharf engine and this thing.

Grade: F

Tragic Hero
Pretty decent card but of course since Nocturne hates Engines they put this guy in there. You're not allowed to build engines in Nocturne. It's official now. Tragic Hero is tragic because you could have built a sweet sweet engine. Nah, I'm just joking, it's not that bad. Just play with Festivals and Fishing Villages and other disappearing Actions.

Grade: B

Vampire
Pretty good card. I think most people can agree on that. But man is it slow at trashing. Overall pretty good though.

Grade: A-

Werewolf
Pretty good card. I think most people can agree on that. Hexes get more annoying when you can chain them a ton for sure, so there's no reason to not pick up a trillion Werewolves. It denies them and you still get to use them!

Grade: A-

Raider
LastFootnote has told me this guy has untapped potential. We're all using it wrong. So I have some experiments to run in the future. For now though, it will retain it's status as slightly better/worse than Gold based on the situation.

Grade: C+

And there you have it.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2017, 10:24:25 pm by Seprix »
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jonaskoelker

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #96 on: November 19, 2017, 06:50:57 am »
+5

Pixie revealing Flame's Gift, trashing itself and 0-2 cards from your hand, is strictly better than Bomb.
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brokoli

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #97 on: November 19, 2017, 07:58:05 am »
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Devil's workshop : For the moment I simply dislike that card, it's just so weird, and I don't think it leads to interesting decisions. Imps are too easy to play, and rarely going to be bad anyway. I agree that you want to get it mainly for the imp, but a nonterminal workshop is a pretty good consolation prize. A strong card.

Necromancer : It's weird how if one key card get trashed by accident, suddenly necromancer become very strong. It once happened for me in a minion game. I think most of the time you should skip necromancer early, but mid-game it can be an interesting investment, trash your key $5/$6 card with zombie apprentice, then with +buy it become more profitable to get a few necromancers than that card. Not too much because you can't play the same trashed card more than once, but the zombies add flexibility options. I think this scenario could happen reasonnably often in weak engine games, where the key card I'm talking about is draw maybe.
All zombies are obviously weak but surprinsingly I find myself using often (again, in the very few games I played) the mason. I remember it hit my estates quite often but this is pure luck I guess. An interesting card design.

Shepherd : That's a strong card, because of pasture. I think without pasture it would have been way weaker. But shepherd can draw a lot, really, and pasture makes the starting victory points more important than usual. I mean more often than not I would keep my starting estates because of shepherd/pasture. But I see people on shuffleit overbuying shepherd, and drawing shepherd with no victory cards is very sad so be careful. It's a kind of sifter but paradoxically in games where the number of cards in hands is more important than the quality of the cards themselve, shepherd is awesome.
Very flavorful card, it works with victory cards, it makes estates better : I'm always wishing for more card like this. One of my favorite from the set.

Skulk : I read somewhere that Donald X didn't like saboteur because it's purely destructive. When you play it, you gain no benefit yourself. I'm surprised to see skulk (and, to a lesser extent, werewolf) because they are quite similar. Of course getting the gold is very good. I guess later in the game skulk can become a dead card but I had game where I was completely destroyed by multiple hexes. I don't get hexes completely yet.

Cobbler : I love in hand gains. Nice.

Crypt : One of the most puzzling cards for me. I like it.

Cursed village : Hexing yourself is not scary especially during the buy phase, and getting to draw (usually) 2 cards the first time you play it makes cursed village a very solid village that only suffer the bazaar syndrome. Hexes are a purely random thing especially on this card, because the majority of these are not going to affect you during the buy phase (or slightly) but a few (locust, war, plague) really hurt. I like self-hurting things but why are hexes/boon so random ?

Den of sin : Lab variant, variants are good, and as I already said, the few in-hand night gains (ghost town, guardian, and this) are really interesting for the tactical dimension of the game. Probably slightly weaker than lab.

Idol : One of the best $5 treasures. Still not awesome. I think this rank close to relic, but idol is way funnier to play with. And here I don't mind so much the luck dimension of boons, because unlike fool/bard, Idol is nonterminal so you know you are going to play it anyway. It's not like hesitating between playing fool and monument and getting useless boons, then lose lost in the wood right the turn after. And all boons are usually useful in the buy phase, even the one that give +action also give coins, so the boon is nearly always going to be good. The fact cursing doesn't stack is good. A well designed card.

Pooka : When discovering this card I didn't realize how often that card miss the shuffle. Drawing 4 cards seems to make shuffle miss significantly more likely than drawing 3. Of course it's a good starting card, and as expected it gets weird when the number of treasures in your deck decrease.
And Cursed gold is diabolic. Very interesting to play it, though it makes the opening buys sometimes very disappointing. In any case, you have to be very careful in pooka / cursed gold games.

Tragic hero : Me and other people have talked about the potential of mega-turn. I agree, though, that this is rarely going to happen, so overall it's a weak card. If it's the only +buy in the kingdom, it's might be hard to play around it. I like Tragic hero for the same reasons I like Rogue : you know, from the begining of the game, that at some point it can turn into real crap, but sometimes it's still worth it.

Vampire : A very powerful opening card. Probably a bit weaker at turn $3 or $4, because that $5 you gain come a bit too late. But gaining a $5 + hexing is as strong as it sounds. Bat is very good at trashing estates / curses especially considering that if you play bat by turn $6/$7 you are likely to draw them with another terminal draw card, say a $5 you gained via vampire. You may want to skip vampire/bat if you have quicker trash or economy building options, or if trashing copper quickly is particularly important. Otherwise a deck with Vampire/Bat can be very potent, especially at turn 8-9 right after you exchange bat for vampire again.

Werewolf : A self-synergic draw, I think it's weaker than wild hunt but I'm not sure. Giving 1 hex doesn't seem that good to me, but as said about skulk I already got destroyed by hexes. I was expecting something more exciting for werewolf so I'm slightly disappointed.

Raider : The attack part never did anything in the games I played with raider, but I really want to see that someday.

I will talk about the rest when they will appear in my future games. I remember the last card I discovered in Adventures was peasant, and in Empires it was legionnary. I'm curious to see which one it'll be now.
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jonaskoelker

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #98 on: November 19, 2017, 08:33:25 am »
+3

Vampire : [...] at turn $3 or $4 [...] by turn $6/$7
As they say, time is money.
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JThorne

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Re: Nocturne Initial Impressions
« Reply #99 on: November 19, 2017, 05:13:02 pm »
0

Shepherd kingdom: Rabble engine actually had a significant chance of improving other players' next turn. Mind blown.

That said, it's a little easy to get carried away. Playing a Shepherd and discarding one estate is equivalent to a do-nothing +1 card +1 action Pawn. Playing Shepherd and discarding two estates is equivalent to playing one Lab. Fine if you can't trash your starters, but if you're actually gaining additional Estates on purpose, there better be another good reason (Wild Hunt, Battlefield, Inheritance, Labyrinth, Alt+VP rush...)

Conclave isn't Conspirator on steroids because it doesn't draw cards. I always put a big, fat red flag on any card that doesn't draw, no matter how good it is. But jamming a couple of $4 Festivals in an engine deck sure has its uses. If you can buy one less Silver for your draw engine, then that's one less card you need to draw deck, so it mitigates its own drawback to some degree. Big fan.

I agree that Nocturne isn't super-enginey, but boy, does it ever make other engines explodey. So many gainers, economy accelerators and interesting payload cards. The accelerators really are tempting for money-leaning players, though. Had a Druid game with the trashing gift and the gold-gaining gift. One player went almost exclusively gain, the other almost exclusively trash. Classic money vs. engine. Money got a big lead, engine won in the end. Classic.

Also, Changeling loves gaining duration cards. Wharves for days.
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