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[Young Nick]

In the following game, I played against Rabid. The notable Actions were University, Apprentice, Counting House, Jester, Mountebank, Stables, Sea Hag, and Moneylender. To confound things further, Platinum and Colonies were in play.

At first glance, a lot of stuff seemed to have counters. Rabid and I each settled on Potion/Silver and I seemed to get ahead with University purchases on turns 4 and 5. From there, I picked up 2 Mountebanks. Later, I picked up Stables, Apprentices, and Jesters for the +cards, trimming, and virtual money, respectively. Rabid, on the other hand, went for a lone Sea Hag and used his Universities to pick up Stables and Counting Houses for the most part. I feel like my strategy was better than his, and I ultimately pulled out the W by draining Curses, Stables, and Apprentices with a one Colony advantage.

My question to the readers are, How would you have played this? I feel that my strategy was superior to Rabid's, but doubt that either of us were correct. Comments from all levels included.

Log: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201204/15/game-20120415-154707-f95dc5b2.html

[TheMathProf]

This is definitely the type of board that I would have likely misplayed.

I think I'm in general agreement with you here.  I think Mountebank > Sea Hag here because of the virtual $2 even after the Curses run out and the spamming of two cards into the enemy deck rather than one.  Stables will make a decent soft counter to the copper gaining, and accordingly, I think it makes sense that he's buying Stables if he's not going to play Mountebank.

I'm not sure that the Counting House is the right strategy here, but it seems like it's more of a desperation move giving that those were all bought starting on turn 13 when it was clear that you had an engine and that he wouldn't get one.

I do like the purchase of Apprentices, and I think that combined with the University as a virtual +buy helped.  I think in Rabid's shoes where I'm picking up tons of copper, I would have opted to use at least one of my University gains or $4 purchases on a Moneylender to thin those out to some degree.

[Young Nick]

Thanks a bunch, TheMathProf.

Maybe Moneylender to trash Copper helps, but, but then again, he wants those Coppers for his Stables. I figure that with enough Stables and Counting Houses, maybe, just maybe, he can make a living on ditching Coppers to the Stables only to pick them up with Counting House. That does seem farfetched, though. Stables also should help cycle his deck to find the Sea Hag more, in theory. In practice, probably it doesn't have much of an effect. Moneylender adds no more money than Silver, so I also think that would have been very unlikely to win, especially with Colonies in play. Counting House makes purchasing Colonies possible, I guess?

Still, I doubt I managed this well. I am still confused, hours after the game has ended.

[DG]

With something like stables/counting house it's pretty hard to tell whether it will work just by throwing enough stables at it, and whether you can get them fast enough. At the other end of the scale, if you can get rid of enough copper from your deck with moneylender(s) then an apprentice/university engine looks best where you trash and gain 5 cost cards. A moneylender would help as you don't want to waste the apprentices trashing copper.