Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[FishingVillage]

I have been getting a lot of plays with Inn lately, so I thought it would be interesting to see what strategies or experiences other players have come across when using it. I would like to do an article on Inn myself, but I do not know if I can make it very in depth and accurate.

From my experiences, I've found that Inns are fantastic for maintaining momentum with an action engine and are great fun with +Buy and lots of money involved, but I don't want to depend on actually playing them too much. While sifters such as Cellar and Warehouse have the problem of shrinking hand sizes with increased use and risk dead draws with terminal actions, the +2 Actions on Inn makes that less of a problem. Inns really need a source of +Cards to justify them though (preferrably +3 Cards or more to counteract shrinking hands), otherwise they're very inefficient for their cost.

Positives!
- Inn works really well with sources of big +Cards such as Wharf, Smithy or Tactician.
- Hand refilling cards such as Watchtower and Library remedy Inn's shrinking hand problem without risking dead draws.
- When played, Inn is a cross between a village and a sifter, which can be beneficial with cards such as Tunnel and Menagerie (and the aforementioned hand refillers).
- Good control over reshuffles with Inn buys allows you to keep using Action cards without other crap getting in the way.
- If you want to leave Action cards for your next turn, you could discard them using Inn and buy an Inn to shuffle them into your deck.

Negatives...
- Inn is not very reliable on its own; without the right Action cards, an Inn is a very expensive Warehouse.
- Inn is very inefficient for big money strategies.

It dies against hand reduction.  On the one hand, it's like warehouse so after playing Inn, you have 2 cards.  The other, you built up this perfectly timed hand with Inn purchase and now you can take 5 great (not random) cards and you have to discard 2.

Anyone with better advice/experience?

[cherdano]

Why would you need to know about Inn when you are a FishingVillage yourself?

[DG]

Timing inn purchases can be difficult since they are a card of opportunity. You don't want too many. You might not want too few. You might not always get the draws you want to get the balance and timing right. You certainly need to be aware of the contents of your deck and discard pile.

[ednever]

Usually I buy Inn for its on-gain ability. It's a rare case where I need the actions do badly I would buy it with nothing in my discard. (only source of +actions on a goons kingdom?)

Buy using it to avoid reshuffles or to create guaranteed mega turns are amazing. It also works great if you are building an engine and buying multiple components. Buy it last and drop everything you just bought into your draw deck.

Also good with trash for benefit - since you are primarily buying for the on-gain you have no problem sacrificing to an apprentice.

Ed

[RisingJaguar]

It dies against hand reduction.  On the one hand, it's like warehouse so after playing Inn, you have 2 cards.  The other, you built up this perfectly timed hand with Inn purchase and now you can take 5 great (not random) cards and you have to discard 2. 

[FishingVillage]

Hmm... so it seems like a general opinion thus far is that Inn is not particularly complicated... but it does have some very specific timing to it, and it would be terrible to over-invest in them. That seem accurate so far? I think this is actually important to point out, since other $5 cards tend to be good with just 1 copy (Tactician and $5 attacks) or good en masse (Laboratory and Venture).

It sounds like actually playing Inns is something one might want to avoid. Anyone have any good strategies or Action card combinations that they can be useful for (which aren't related to the bottom half of the card)?

Why would you need to know about Inn when you are a FishingVillage yourself?

Cute :3 I really am the kind of idiot that favors building an engine over actually winning the game much too often though.

Timing inn purchases can be difficult since they are a card of opportunity. You don't want too many. You might not want too few. You might not always get the draws you want to get the balance and timing right. You certainly need to be aware of the contents of your deck and discard pile.

This is something I definitely agree with. Inns can be pretty good, but they have a timing to making them work right, and they're likely not very good to have a lot of.

Usually I buy Inn for its on-gain ability. It's a rare case where I need the actions do badly I would buy it with nothing in my discard. (only source of +actions on a goons kingdom?)

Buy using it to avoid reshuffles or to create guaranteed mega turns are amazing. It also works great if you are building an engine and buying multiple components. Buy it last and drop everything you just bought into your draw deck.

Also good with trash for benefit - since you are primarily buying for the on-gain you have no problem sacrificing to an apprentice.

Ed

Agreed with a lot of this, but the last detail is rather interesting to me; apparently it's much better to keep Inns out of your deck, particularly if you can use trash for benefit on it! Are the stats on actually playing the Inn that bad?

It dies against hand reduction.  On the one hand, it's like warehouse so after playing Inn, you have 2 cards.  The other, you built up this perfectly timed hand with Inn purchase and now you can take 5 great (not random) cards and you have to discard 2.

Ah! Good point. I was going to mention that Inn is vulnerable to discard attacks due to it being a sifter, but I didn't include that since it would seem like a generic point (sifters are generally vulnerable to discard attacks anyway). Good mention on having an awesome turn on the whole being ruined though (I added it into the opening before this reply).

[ednever]

It sounds like actually playing Inns is something one might want to avoid. Anyone have any good strategies or Action card combinations

Menagerie. Tunnel. Goons+draw.

Usually I buy Inn for its on-gain ability. It's a rare case where I need the actions do badly I would buy it with nothing in my discard. (only source of +actions on a goons kingdom?)

Buy using it to avoid reshuffles or to create guaranteed mega turns are amazing. It also works great if you are building an engine and buying multiple components. Buy it last and drop everything you just bought into your draw deck.

Also good with trash for benefit - since you are primarily buying for the on-gain you have no problem sacrificing to an apprentice.

Ed

Agreed with a lot of this, but the last detail is rather interesting to me; apparently it's much better to keep Inns out of your deck, particularly if you can use trash for benefit on it! Are the stats on actually playing the Inn that bad?
[/quote]

It's not that Inn is THAT bad. It's that, without the ongain ability it's about the worst $5 card (without the ongain Inn would likely cost $3 - sort of a combo between village and warehouse). Since it's bad "for it's price", it's a great card to use for trash for benefit.

Ed

[FishingVillage]

Hmm... so assuming Inn is the only available village in a kingdom, what other cards would you look for before deciding on an action engine? If there were terminal draws such as Council Room, Margrave and Moat, would you consider making one under those circumstances?

[philosophyguy]

Inn is useful with "draw up to X" cards (e.g., Watchtower, Library, JoaT).

Inn is really strong in most junking attack games (e.g., Rabble, cursers) because you can take advantage of all of the Inn features. You want to play your attacks frequently—Inn lets you play them twice or more per shuffle. Your deck is full of crap so it's hard to connect the pieces—Inn does this both with its on-gain ability and its Warehouse-like sorting.

[RisingJaguar]

Inn is useful with "draw up to X" cards (e.g., Watchtower, Library, JoaT).

Inn is really strong in most junking attack games (e.g., Rabble, cursers) because you can take advantage of all of the Inn features. You want to play your attacks frequently—Inn lets you play them twice or more per shuffle. Your deck is full of crap so it's hard to connect the pieces—Inn does this both with its on-gain ability and its Warehouse-like sorting.

On the flip side, trashing is bad (relatively, in the sense that trashing does not help Inn nearly as much as any other village/engine) for the similar reasons you mention above but opposite.

[DG]

Hmm... so assuming Inn is the only available village in a kingdom, what other cards would you look for before deciding on an action engine?

The inn is an unusual card and enables unusual strategies. In this respect you're probably best thinking through what an inn can do for you in each game. A card that can frequently be discounted, such as counting house, can suddenly become a lot better. There isn't a single classic inn deck but as with the golem you would typically be looking to progress your deck with actions rather than with treasure.

[jomini]

Inn has a lot of potential to be great, but it can also be pretty poor.

Inn is one of a small number of cards that you play a top deck control game. Like KC-Scheme, inn can set things up so you can green at will and just power out the game without worrying about future shuffle luck. For instance, if you have enough cheap actions and 2 counting houses you play a turn of cheap +action/+buy (pawn, hamlet, etc.), CH (draw all copper), and then buy an inn and either a province or more coppers. Once you have only actions in your draw deck, you can reliably drop a hand of counting house, +buy, and +action back into the discard. Clean up returns your actions to the discard and your coppers go back to be drawn as well (including any you purchased this turn). You can then play counting house, your +action/+buys, and buy another inn and a province. If you have time to set up reliable decks like these, inn is an insanely strong enabling card until you run out of them. If you want a reliable Inn top deck engine you either need to duplicate your engine so one is in the discard/draw and one in hand at the start of each turn or gain an inn during your turn (university, IW/highway, remodel/any three, upgrade/any 4, etc.) and then play draw to churn through new action rich deck. Things that can force your deck to go into the discard are also helpful: chancellor, loan/venture (made even better by herbalist), golem, and hunting party can all dump your deck and setup an every other turn inn top deck engine.


Alternatively, you may just need to play the odds. For some setups, like KC/witch/bridge, the game may literally end up being a race to who gets inn at the key moment in the game (well, I'll just shuffle up a deck of KC/KC/KC/Inn/witch/bridge/bridge/bridge now that I bought an inn with all my actions in the discard). So yeah, I will sometimes play huge megaturn "engines", just trying to buy an inn at the right moment and then setup a game winning turn. The usual suspects for megaturns hence complement inn quite well - KC, bridge, highway, big draw, etc.

[cherdano]

Timing inn purchases can be difficult since they are a card of opportunity. You don't want too many. You might not want too few. You might not always get the draws you want to get the balance and timing right. You certainly need to be aware of the contents of your deck and discard pile.

As usual, I think DG's short post hits precisely the most important points.
The timing of Inn purchases is tricky, and you have to accept that sometimes you just won't get $5 at the right time. But to give yourself the best odds you have to know precisely what's left in your deck. Do I likely have one more full turn before the reshuffle? That will depend on how many draw cards are left in your deck. And even more obviously, you need to know what's in your discard - it's not a card well-suited to flying on autopilot.

Obviously it's most useful when you have actions that combine well with each other. Councilroom/Ghost ship and friends. Bridges/more bridges. Highway/more highways/extra buys.  Other disappearing villages and watchtower/library. Lab-equivalent and card benefiting from large hands. Look out for these more than you would without Inn.

[Davio]

Hmm... so assuming Inn is the only available village in a kingdom, what other cards would you look for before deciding on an action engine? If there were terminal draws such as Council Room, Margrave and Moat, would you consider making one under those circumstances?

Scrying Pool. 

[ipofanes]

Anyone may want to say a bit more about reshuffle control with Inn's on-buy effect?

More often than not I find myself buying Inn when I feel there'll be enough cards to care about in the discard. Naturally, this occurs most times when my deck is thin. Which leads, along with Inn's cycling ability, to a reshuffle some time during the next turn.

But then again, very often I'll be able to draw/cycle most of my deck thanks to all the great stuff I'm getting next turn that the next reshuffle is not too far away. At worst, I tend to ruin my next move, which is a bit like a move which involves playing a Tactician.

[Warfreak2]

I played Inn/Graverobber once, it seemed quite good. A hand of four cards with two actions usually lets you double-Province, assuming your action cards are all Inn and Graverobber - Inn is a weak $5 once it's in your deck, so it's a perfect target to be trashed into a Province. Otherwise you can use Graverobber to gain those Inns that you trashed, which takes some of the luck out of hitting $5 on the last hand before you reshuffle. Would work even better with Cellar, as that lets you cycle through to your next Inn superturn quicker, and also can be trashed to get another Graverobber or Inn. (Don't shuffle the Cellars back into your deck when you gain an Inn.)