Just finished watching jonts26's videos
jonts26 over Young Nick
5 games to 2
This was a pretty wild series. Young Nick deserved better than 2 wins as parts of my play were just awful. But just as a quick recap we had a game where thief featured heavily, one where coppersmith was absolutely out of control and another where counting house picked up 20+ coppers. I did record videos for the series. Uploading them now. Though some of them are a bit embarrassing in how scatterbrained I was. First one here:
Game 1: Young Nick 51 - 23 jonts26 Video
University, Wharf with Golem and City support. Lots of power cards. I fall behind early and never manage to get back in the game.
Game 2: Young Nick 83 - 82 jonts26 Video
Vineyards, Fairgrounds, Dukes. All viable threats. Honestly I have no idea what to do, and if you watch the video you see me keep changing my mind on what to do. I'm pretty sure I played this terribly. Maybe WW can chime in. This seems right up his alley. I come very close to winning several times but ultimately just cannot close it out.
I'm pretty sure University/vineyards is the way to go here. I'm not going to offer comments on how to play the mirror there, but... in the non-mirror, there's no particularly fast strategy for provinces or fairgrounds, basically they're out. This leaves duchy/duke, but... well, if they get ALL the duchies/dukes, this takes about 32-33 turns on average with just money. And there is NOT a lot of help here, like at all. In fact, the attacks are going to hurt that quite a big. So anyway, it takes a little longer. In that amount of time, if you're playing the university/vineyards, you can see that he's not fighting you for this stuff, get LOTS of universities, LOTS of actions, and actually have 11 point vineyards pretty easily, I think. Stealing one or two duchies in a match-up like that is going to be huge, too. Each duchy nets you 3 points, costs him 11, net swing is 14 points! Also, the attacks are going to hurt duchy player way more than vineyards. Vineyards player almost never has more than three important cards in hand, and when he does, the extra ones are basically always universities. So like, even in a hand that's 2x Univ, potion, militia, cutpurse, you can keep the potion, a univ, and either the other univ or a militia, depending on your taste, the point of game, etc. etc. Also, I expect militia is by-and-large>cutpurse here, and this should not be underestimated. But nevertheless, an interesting board, where you really need to react to your opponent, and basically all cards are in play.
Game 3: Young Nick 18 - 55 jonts26 Video
Wharf, Village, Coppersmith. Coppersmith plays big when you're drawing your deck each turn. Also some wishing well and apothecary like each other.
I can't help but wonder if you can't do the same thing a little faster without the apothecaries. Someone want to simulate/solitaire this? I'm pretty sure you both played a little sub-optimally, but, of course, in the heat of the moment, this almost always happens.
Game 4: Young Nick 44 - 48 jonts26 Video
I'm pretty sure I didn't deserve this one. Colonies with Mountebank Cache and Counting House. I consider the latter two but never really pick them up going for more straight big money with a forge. One turn I miscounted and forged all my stuff into a $10 card. Young Nick has a turn picking up 20 coppers with CH.
I think your analysis in the video is spot-on. Way too many caches for him. And this is really the thing with CH, isn't it? You want lots of copper, but when you get it, you can't play CH as much. And also, it's hard to make use of a thousand copper as opposed to just 11, because it's hard to get buy with it. The last cache, for instance, that he bought, could just as easily have been a duchy. And some of the earlier ones, undoubtedly more CHs. Also, probably he should green more and sooner.
Game 5: Young Nick 32 - 33 jonts26 Video
Another game where I'm just not quite sure about Vineyards. We both end up ignoring Familiar, going Trader, big money, hoping to get some free silvers with cache. He breaks PPR and I squeak out a win.
Vineyards appear to do very little here. And familiar is weak against trader, which is actually quite good against basically every curser.
Game 6: Young Nick 19 - 40 jonts26 Video
Vineyards again. And this time it's absolutely the right play. We split the alchemists, but I win vineyards 5-3.
A little surprised by this one, and how fast it goes. I'm guessing I'm underestimating herbalist a good bit here.
Game 7: Young Nick 34 - 47 jonts26 Video
A wacky game. I go for some scrying pool aided bridge/nobles mega turn. He tries something closer to big money. I fall behind 4-0 in the provinces but connect with my megaturn just in time. I'm pretty sure I played this somewhat poorly and know for a fact I could have been a turn or two quicker. But I guess I was quick enough.
Yeah, so this game, I don't really understand Young Nick dipping into the potions, with the deck he eventually took. I see a few options here. Mega-turn, like you did; play basically BM/oracle or BM/Nobles/oracle. Or something with more apprentice-centric. So the problems I see with your strategy is that it's very dependent on the nobles. If he can block you to lots of those he's good. It's also a bit slow. If he has apprentices, he can cut down the VP left for you to buy and shorten the game. Or maybe he can out-race you. I think his two major problems were the diversion to potions, which just slowed him down, and greening too fast (which is really easy to do with apothecary, if you aren't being super-careful). Or it might just be that mega-turn is great here.