Dominion > Game Reports

Sabotuer is a terrible card

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Glooble:
I forgot to save the log (might post it when it comes up on council room), but I just played a game where my opponent tried to go mass Saboteur. He had lots of villages to avoid the clashing terminals and managed to sabotage me a lot. I went big money with Ventures and won 76 to 20. Yeah.

The best part was that when we got down to two colonies left I started using his Sabotuers to gain estates and Duchies, thus shoring up my lead.

I remember when I first started reading the blog I thought Saboteur was over-powered. Ha.

Kuildeous:
Yeah, for Saboteur to be useful, it has to be used well. If you're busy trying to sabotage and not build up your own deck, you are going to lose, plain and simple.

Most of the time, I ignore Saboteur and just focus on building up my own deck. Sure, I might lose a Province here or there, but I'll also win. Now, if the opponent is skilled and the board is right, then a Saboteur strategy can be downright brutal.

rinkworks:
When is the board "right" for Saboteur?  After learning here how weak Saboteur is, except in just the right situation, I'm now struggling to figure out what the right situation might be.

Jack Rudd:

--- Quote from: rinkworks on July 05, 2011, 05:08:41 pm ---When is the board "right" for Saboteur?  After learning here how weak Saboteur is, except in just the right situation, I'm now struggling to figure out what the right situation might be.

--- End quote ---
When you can play it multiple times per turn - so that your opponent's deck is being torn down faster than he can build it back up.

King's Court - King's Court - Rabble - Saboteur is a fun combo in the endgame.

DG:

--- Quote ---When is the board "right" for Saboteur?  After learning here how weak Saboteur is, except in just the right situation, I'm now struggling to figure out what the right situation might be.
--- End quote ---

Sometimes you can look an opponent's deck, minus a few cards, and it seems a lot weaker. This might be because it has some key cards that cards that can't be replaced from a depleted pile or the black market. Knocking out a few minions might stop the minion draw chain and make all the cards bought to support it seem weaker too.

Something that you also have to consider is the underlying deck. Lets firstly consider an opponent who set aside all his estates onto the island mat and bought some silver. If you sabotage those silver the opponent will always still be able to spend 5 coppers next turn and buy something better, since that's the worst his deck can perform. Sabotage is going to be pretty weak. However, if you consider an opponent who has bought some familiars, a harvest, a loan, a potion, and taken some curses, then removing the harvest might leave the opponent with really poor draws that can't replace the harvest.

Another important consideration is how much damage you do to your deck by taking a saboteur. There's generally an 'opportunity cost' for the saboteur in that you could have bought a different 5 cost card (like a festival), and a playing cost in that it takes up a slot in hand without providing any coins and takes an action. Sometimes however these costs aren't so bad, typically in a deck where there are no extra buys or you can use something like a golem to play your actions.

As an example of all that I'll mention I game I played recently that started with both my opponent and I buying young witches and villages (the bane card). The village stack ran out and we both started buying rabbles. I then took a saboteur and could use it very regularly with all the drawing cards. The saboteur needed a few plays but eventually took out enough villages so that the bane protection was removed and the young witches dealt a lot of curses. The rabbles then clogged up my opponent's deck even more but he could still buy some duchies, the next step being that the rabbles left duchies on top of the deck for the saboteurs to trash. So all in all, the combination of cards was very effective and any tempo lost in the development of my own deck was irrelevant.

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