I was reading through old posts and came across an interesting thread. The idea was to go to councilroom and look up the set of 10 cards you have the worst (and best) win rate with. If you had all ten of these cards in one kingdom, how would you play it?
(I looked for it again and can't find it- would be great if someone who knows where it is links to it)
I think it's worth reviving given the growth of this forum. I'll post mine below. I think it would be great to get feedback from other players on what you are doing right/wrong when you play these sets.
(Note: The biggest flaw I see in this is changing ability. For example I think I play Bishop pretty well now, but for a LONG time I played it terribly - and these stats go back to when I first started I believe).
So here goes my sets:
My worst set:
$4P Golem
$4 Noble Brigand, Bishop, Silk Road, Island
$3 Great Hall, Tunnel, Black Market
$2 Cellar, Lighthouse
(Black Market would include my next 15 worst cards I guess: Chancellor, Moat, Embargo, Oasis, Menagerie, Bazaar, Horse Traders, Moneylender, Ill-Gotten Gains, Watchtower, Cartographer, Explorer, Walled Village, Envoy, Courtyard)
(Obviously I was bad at alt-VP, Big Money and defending against attacks...)
HOW I WOULD PLAY IT:
With Great Hall, Island, Tunnel and Silk Roads it's a crazy alt-VP set with Silk Roads as the linch-pin. However there doesn't seem to be any cards that facilitate a rush.
I think I would open Silver-Island. Pick up a second Island after I've used the first (so there is zero chance of overlap). Pick up one more Silver and then switch to Great Halls on $3, Silk Roads on $4+ and Estates on $2 (Coppers otherwise). Then watch VP totals very carefully and manage the piles (assuming my opponent is doing a mirror).
Is there anything else viable here?
Are my tactics at all close to right?
I've lost way too many Silk Road splits by not going in fast enough. Do I need that second Silver?
My Best Set:
$8 Peddler
$7 King's Court
$6 Goons
$5 Torturer
$4 Coppersmith, Feast, Jack of all Trades, Remake, Salvager, Baron
How I would play it:
Very challenging set to play I think. Goons is normally my go-to, but here there are no villages and the only cantrip is Peddler which means only one play per turn - which makes dominating with Goons a lot more difficult.
You also always have to closely examine King's Court for some sort of spammable action. The first thing I look for a drawer (So you can hit KC-KC-Smithy-KC-KC-KC... Play all actions 3 times each...). Here the only option is Torturer (which is not a bad option). Torturer chains themselves don't work without multiple actions (again - KC does this in a way, but because the other guy sees it coming they can take two curses then discard them)
I think my play would be to set up a mega turn that looks like this:
(1) KC-KC-Torturer-Peddler-Peddler (left with 15 cards in hand, $6 and 6 actions)
(2) Play a ton of Goons (I think 4 would do)
(3) Buy up a bunch of stuff, end the game on piles with a ton of VP tokens
The challenge would be to get there before a double-Jack strategy took down all the provinces. Not sure if I could do it fast enough given the costs of all those cards (and the need to get a bunch of them so you get the right initial hand with KC, KC and T), but I would definitely give it a try.
The good news is I do have facilitators to help: Remake/Silver is the key open. Definitely picking up a second Remake. Changing Estates into Silvers and killing two coppers at a time. When the deck has been thinned turning the Remake into a Torturer (and depending on draws the Torturer into a Goons.
I think the second goal is to connect a KC and a Goons. This plays 4 cards and brings Peddlers down to free (with 4 buys). Pick up three of them and another KC. Sometime around then use Remake to turn a silver into a Salvager. You Salvage the Peddlers one by one to get the rest of your engine built.
It would definitely be a fun deck to pull off and while it would take some luck to get the mega turn, I think with the trashing from Remake it's definitely doable. It's just a question of whether it could beat Jack to 8 Provinces.
(If you played the double-Jack BM strategy - would you trash your provinces so they wouldn't slow you down? It would be ballsy (I've never seen anyone do it), but it might be the way to beat my mega-engine. You would just have to watch to make sure the few Goon's VP I am picking up doesn't let me end the game prematurely before the mega turn)
Thoughts on this one?
I would love to see how others do with this exercise.
Kirian: It might even be fun to have a tournament with these. Every player comes with two Kingdoms that people play each other with in a round-robin or something...
Ed