Hey, it's Venescas with yet another game report. And this one doesn't have any Hamlets, I swear!
This game was against Ooryl (rank 12). I was rank...23? 22? Low twenties at the time. Anyway, the game link is here:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120526-075431-959591cb.htmlThe cards in the supply were: Apprentice, Bank, Baron, Contraband, Expand, Grand Market, Island, Lookout, Potion, Stash, and Vineyard
Ooryl would start with a 4/3, while I got the 5/2....on a board where I really preferred a 4/3. Figures. -_-;
Ok, initial thoughts.....What the heck was I gonna buy on $5? Stash? Not really. Apprentice? Sure, Apprentice is a power card, but it's not that useful early game. Contraband just stinks; it prevents me from buying that early gold and keeps me in silver mode until the mid-game.
But wait a moment....Contraband + Apprentice? Interesting...if I could get them both mid-game, I could build my deck quickly with Contraband's easy cash, and in the endgame, trash it for a lot of cards so it can't deny me Provinces. Plus, there were two cards priced at $7, and another priced at $6, so being denied golds wasn't going to be that big of a deal.
Speaking of which, Bank was in play, and with Apprentice, that could be worth a Province all by itself. With a few cards here providing +buys, this seemed to be a very viable strategy, albeit being a Province game.
Expand is nice, but unfortunately, I don't see myself picking up an Expand over Bank. With no +actions, I'm going to ignore it unless something unusual happens.
And now the card I was fearing: Grand Market. Now, I love Grand Market...I really do...but I always seem to lose the split, and then watch helplessly as my opponent double provinces/colonies me into oblivion. One time I won the split, but then my opponent immediately emptied out the remaining piles and bought one Estate to win. -_q. I always fear being able to play a game with Grand Market correctly. That being said, I knew I was going to have to go for them eventually. Expand could back door into them, but that was going to be waaaay too slow...
Instead, Baron was going to be the key to getting early Grand Markets. +$4 of non-copper cash + a Silver meant an early Grand Market, and then Baron + Grand Market = More Grand Markets. Sounds like a good plan......if only I didn't have 5/2!
Lookout's iffy and Apprentice is just going to be better.
Vineyard in a mega-turn game? No chance.
Island....well, I suppose it could get the Estates out of the way once Baron starts being a long shot to use...
So, the final plan was Grand Market + Apprentice + Bank, with Contraband support.
Alright, so Oorly opens with Baron + Silver. No surprise there. Just hope he doesn't get that early GM that I wanted...Hmm...with my $5, I decided to get a Baron as well. Sure, there was no chance for me getting GM, but at the very least I could get my early Gold, and with a (slightly) smaller deck, my Baron had a higher chance of connecting (although if it didn't, I was going to be one sad panda...). On my $2, I buy nothing of course, not even the extra Estate (when would you want to buy an estate on the 5/2 anyway?).
Turn 3, my fears come true: He gets the magical Baron + Silver + Estate for the first Grand Market, and I knew more were going to follow. On my turn, thankfully, I get my early Gold so I was still in it. Turn 4, he buys Island, and I immediately see why; it can potentially get coppers out of the way too, so I buy one as well.
Turn 5, he goes for another Island. Weird...was sure he'd buy a silver there...Anyway, I get $5 for Contraband. My plan now was to get Apprentice ASAP, and start working this big money strat.
On turn 6, we both Island away Estates instead of Coppers like I thought we were buying them for. He gets his first Apprentice while I can't buy anything. Turn 7, he gets his second Grand Market. Hmm, I'm getting a bit nervous here...
Oh, thank goodness. On my turn, I'm able to get my first Grand Market. I decided to get it over Bank since if I bought a Bank now, I'd be inclined to get more Banks since I'd have to play copper for them to be worth anything, and with Baron providing the only +buy, a ton of Banks wouldn't do me any good right now. Plus, I had to dip into GM's before they were all gone.
We both get a few Islands. Mine probably should've been a Silver, but oh well...
Turn 9, I finally get my first Apprentice. Note how he prohibited me from getting Grand Market, but I had enough (and rather fortunately too: look at how I drew that Estate with my GM) to get an Apprentice and a second Gold.
Turn 10, I set aside a second estate with an Island, meaning my Baron is all but wearing out its welcome. I also get my second Apprentice, hoping to build up towards that mega-turn. Turn 11, Oorly gets a third GM, while I get yet another Gold.
Ooryl did get an unfortunate hand in turn 12, only being able to Apprentice away two Coppers. Meanwhile, I finally get my second Grand Market, trashing my Baron to do so (I could've trashed Contraband, however I still think the $3 that I get from it is far better than a Baron with only one Estate in the deck, despite the fact that I avoided playing Contraband here to prevent Oorly from blocking the Grand Market buy).
Turn 13, we each get a Grand Market, making his count 4 to my 3, but I think I'm still in good shape; my economy is much better than his at this point, and I have much more appealing targets for my Apprentices than he does (he has his Baron and his Grand Markets, which he won't be willing to trash so easily, and I have 4 Golds and a Contraband).
On turn 14, with exactly 8, Oorly gets a Province, maybe a tad too soon. Either way, that motivates me to set up the third piece of the mega-turn recipe and buy a Bank, which will be worth quite a bit since I'm anticipating large hands with my Apprentices. I also buy a silver for another potential Apprentice target. Note that my Contraband comes into play here very nicely; I had $7 showing, $11 total. If he prohibits GM's, I go for Bank. If he prohibits Bank, I go for GM + Apprentice. Instead, he prohibits Provinces, afraid that I'll double Province when I really just want to build my deck even more.
Turn 15, he only manages to buy a Gold. At this point, I know I'm nearly in the clear as neither his economy nor draw power can support the advantages of winning the Grand Market split. On my turn, I trash my Contraband as planned, and am able to mega-turn into a Province, a second Bank, and another Apprentice.
Turn 16, he gets a nice turn rolling, but only ends up with $11 for yet another Grand Market and an Island (which I think should've been an Apprentice if he wanted a chance to compete with me). On my turn, the power of Apprentice kicks in as I'm able to trash a Gold and a Silver to draw my whole deck. With three Grand Markets and two Banks, I'm able to hit $31 over 4 buys, so I double province to take back the lead, another Apprentice for draw power, and a Gold (which, in hindsight, should have been a Bank, as I had $10 to spend on my last buy. Main reason why I didn't? I simply forgot how many buys I had...
).
Now I had this game in the bag; even if he bought two Provinces this turn, which his deck can't do unless he got really lucky, I could double Province back for the game. He would need to buy 3 Provinces, a Duchy, and an Island to win, which is impossible with his economy. On turn 17, he's only able to buy one Province, while I'm able to mega-turn to draw my deck again and clear out the rest of the Provinces for the win.
So, I wanted to post this game to illustrate a few points: Just because Grand Market is on the board does not mean your focus should be to get the most Grand Markets. You still need a good deck to take advantage of them. Here, I focused on Grand Markets for their +$ and +buys, but I was building my engine and my economy at the same time. Despite him winning the Grand Market split 5 to 3, my deck was just better. Oorly probably could have gone for some Banks of his own in the mid-late game, or indeed, Golds early on, which increase his overall economy by $3 instead of $2. I think he was just a little Grand Market-happy here, and it cost him.
Second, Contraband is most definitely not always bad, but there are two things that are really required for Contraband to work: multiple expensive and desirable targets (Gold, Grand Market, Apprentice, Bank, and of course Provinces here), and a trash-for-benefit for the endgame where Contraband itself blocks you from greening efficiently.
Now, we finished the game at 17 turns and I ended up with 6 Provinces, although I could've had 4 Provinces on turn 16 had I wanted to do that. This might not seem much faster than a Big Money+ deck at all, but I figured it was safer to build a large mega-turn deck than buy Provinces at the first opportunity. I probably played a little sub-optimally here (especially on Turn 16 where I had $4 left over), but overall, I think this is a good example on why you should figure out how many of which components you need, and not simply take the best looking component over and over because it's nice and shiny.
For a good mega-turn engine, you need to address three fundamental problems: where's the money coming from? Where's the card draw coming from? And where's the +buy to use all of that money? If you can't answer any one of them, don't go for the mega-turn. Otherwise, make sure you have a good balance of each component. I felt that Oorly only addressed one, which was getting enough Grand Markets to have plenty of buys and some spending cash. However, he went for treasure a bit too late, and did not have the draw power to use his entire economy anyway. Even if he had 7 Grand Markets to my 3, I feel like I was still in better shape, because my deck successfully addressed all three: Bank for money, Apprentice for cards, Grand Market for buys.
Any thoughts? Anything we did wrong play-wise? I had a feeling that stopping for Islands merely served as a distraction here. Was that a mistake?
