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[SirPeebles]

So I made a benign, interaction free sample deck on Goko and ran some games against the bot.  The only kingdom cards I acquired were Rats and Upgrade.  My conclusion is that the rush can possibly be pretty strong, often getting to 8 Duchies by around turn 14.  Also, it is much harder to get a good balance going than you'd think.  You need to empty the Rats and Upgrade piles before tearing through the Duchies.  This is very doable, but you need to keep up your purchases of Copper to make a large enough deck to absorb 20 Rats.  You also need to be wary of Upgrading away all of your Rats.  You need to Upgrade some into Upgrades along the way, or else you'll be tossing hands full of Rats looking for Upgrades later.  Also, don't be too afraid of feeding an Upgrade or two to your Rats is necessary.

So yeah, any thoughts?

12 turns
(I cheated a bit, upgrading a Silver into a Silk Road)

14 turns
(Here I didn't empty the Rats pile quickly enough, so I had to cannibalize a couple Duchies.  Still won though.)

17 turns
(This time I lose.  I overdid it with Rats, not getting enough Upgrades early on, and when many turns gaining 0 or 1 Upgrades.)

14 turns
(Another win for me.  The balance was a little better this time, but I still stumble a bit at the end and cannibalize a lot of Upgrades.  I'm realizing at this point that you need to get your deck up to 30 cards: 10 Upgrades and 20 Rats.  This means I should definitely be spending spare buys on Copper, and opting to Upgrade non-Coppers to keep up my card count.)

21 turns
(A loss.  This time I didn't Upgrade any Rats until the Rats pile was emptied.  Buying Silvers let me buy a few Upgrades, but it was not enough and I choked hard)

18 turns
(Another loss. I thought it was going well, but I definitely choked towards the end.  I think the spare Coppers were helpful.)

14 turns
(Another win.  Better balance, but a bit of stumbling.)

[SirPeebles]

Effectively, your goal is to reach 8 Duchies before your opponent reaches 4 Provinces.  Of course, if they see your strategy coming, they could instead aim for 2 Duchies and 2 Provinces, which beats your 6 Duchies if they hold onto at least one initial estate.  Your deck is worthless without Duchies to buy -- even grabbing an Estate is too challenging.

As for attacks, I think that this strategy would actually *benefit* from being cursed a bit, since the curses would give you more space to fit your Rats.  It could be harmful if the curses come quickly enough to disrupt your ability to buy your first Upgrade, though.

[GendoIkari]

14 turns
(Here I didn't empty the Rats pile quickly enough, so I had to cannibalize a couple Duchies.  Still won though.)

I don't understand why you would play those last 2 Rats on turn 12. You didn't have to trash your Duchies; just don't play Rats.

[SirPeebles]

14 turns
(Here I didn't empty the Rats pile quickly enough, so I had to cannibalize a couple Duchies.  Still won though.)

I don't understand why you would play those last 2 Rats on turn 12. You didn't have to trash your Duchies; just don't play Rats.

Because there were a few Rats left in the Supply.  I need to end on three piles, and have NO economy to buy them.  My hope was to draw a Rats (or even an Upgrade) instead of a Duchy, but Duchy it was.  I had no other cards left to feed to Rats, and my only way of emptying the Rats pile was to play Rats.

[SirPeebles]

On second thought, it looks like my hand was 4xRats + 1x Duchy.  Still, I needed to gain the last two Rats somehow, and I was in the lead by enough that I took the chance.  Maybe it wasn't the wisest move, but odds were still high that I'd end up eating a Duchy or two in my quest to empty the Rats.

[SirPeebles]

Here are some matches against Curses (Sea Hag and Witch present)

16 turns
(A win)

18 turns
(Another win)

18 turns
(Another win.  This time I tried fighting back with a Sea Hag.  It was a real nail biter, but I squeaked by in the last turn by 1 point, buying an estate and dealing out the final curse despite the Duchies being gone)

So yeah, that's 3 for 3 with cursers added in.  Each game was close, though.

[WanderingWinder]

I hate to break it to you, but most boards where you aren't being attacked, it's possible to get at least 4 provinces this fast, with your starting estates to boot.

On the other hand, it's definitely something you'd need to keep in mind, as it's going to cut out some engine strategies that take too long to get up.

[achmed_sender]

I remember that I've lost a game quite lousy when DA was quite new and i played an IGG Rush. My opponent (think it was lespeutere) immadiately noticed the rats-upgrade combo and won easily by trashing curses and upgrading duchies. Sure I should have noticed this synergy too, but at this point I really underrated rats power with tfB