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[ehunt]

Let X be a cantrip costing 3/4 that you'd normally prefer to buy silver than open with. Suppose it is a chapel game and you split 3/4 or 4/3 (similar questions happen if you split 5/2, but let's keep this simplifying assumption).

Now, chapel has the property that if you miss it on the first shuffle, and your opponent doesn't, you're going to lose the game. OK, that's an exaggeration, but not by too much. It's a lot like missing your potion in a familiar game. So it stands to reason that you might want to cut your risk of missing the chapel in the first shuffle (almost*) in half by buying the cantrip. Then the question becomes, given that it's unlikely that you'll miss your chapel on the first shuffle, how bad of an opening does the cantrip have to be to justify doing this? Is it worth opening, say, menagerie, which will be useless to you on the first shuffle? What about wishing well? Caravan? Oasis?

*if bottom card after shuffle is chapel (probability 1/12), or if bottom two cards are chapel/cantrip (1/132 in that order; we've already counted the other order) you're just as screwed as if the cantrip were a silver. So you increase your odds of drawing chapel from 5/6 = 83.33% to (11/12 - 1/132) = 90.91%.

In general I suspect conservative plays like this are undervalued.

[eHalcyon]

Can't answer this specific question, but it's worth noting that Caravan and Wishing Well should do a bit better at keeping Chapel from missing the reshuffle.

If you play Caravan on turn 3 and don't draw Chapel, you're guaranteed to draw it on turn 4 and then reshuffle immediately.

Wishing Well is actually pretty good early game because your deck is easy to track, so your wishes should be pretty accurate.  If you do this on turn 3, it's the same as the Caravan situation -- you'll draw to the last card before reshuffling.  And if you have WW on turn 4, you can play it and wish for Chapel if it's on the bottom.

[hobo386]

Looking at http://councilroom.com/openings?card=Chapel, the only $5> cantrips that beat out silver are tournament and caravan.

HOWEVER, it is worth noting that many other openings follow closely behind. Wishing well, Hamlet, Spice Merchant, and Worker's Village, and Scheme are all level +3 openings, and many of them have higher base values (but higher deviation), so they may be better as well.  Still, I'd say it's very situation what you want, and often times, almost any card can be a great opening with chapel depending on the kingdom.  Depending on the game, I might open oasis or even pawn (not pearl diver though).  To me, the most important thing is being able to rebuild my economy after I trash everything.  Silver does that, as does spice merchant.  Hamlet or WV would work great in a peddler game too.  But also, many of the terminal openings are still better than cantrips (from experience as well as councilroom.)

[ksf_]

I think you're risking dollars to make pennies, because 83% of the time, you're hurting your economy and getting behind.

[ksf_]

Ruminating further, I think as a thought experiment, the comparison would be to opening chapel/chapel.  You have the same odds of getting 1 chapel (or maybe 2) on turn 3/4, and are not really any worse of than having a "worthless" cantrip.

[popsofctown]

50% isn't the relevant figure here.  The percentage of the games you would have insta-lost but don't is what's relevant.  That's about 1/12 by my reckoning.  Even as player 1, I don't think you want to damage 11/12ths of the time protecting that 1/12th of cases.  Even if you are able to change those cases ten times as much with a cantrip than you could help the other cases with Silver, it's not quite enough.

[O]

A better point may be that WW/Caravan increase effective handsize and therefore make your average chapel play hit more estates. Spice Merchant is for extremely thin decks when needed, and Worker's Village is pretty much solely useful there when Peddler is on the board.

[RisingJaguar]

Assuming your final deck should only have 1 silver (almost any engine), then it is probably better to get the silver on the non-chapel T3/T4 turn.  This is more important when the cantrip is a $4 to avoid having two silvers in your deck by T5, with a chapel deck.  The silvers are kind of annoying when you are trying to chapel.  They often just get in the way of early trashing (cantrips won't).

[shraeye]

And what if your cantrip is Pearl Diver?  That would mess with some of the probabilities ehunt started with, as if it is in the first 5 card hand, you will draw your chapel no matter where Chapel is buried

[RisingJaguar]

And what if your cantrip is Pearl Diver?  That would mess with some of the probabilities ehunt started with, as if it is in the first 5 card hand, you will draw your chapel no matter where Chapel is buried

The thing is, your deck is so much better as silver/silver after T4 compared to silver/pearl diver that it is totally worth the risk.  Something like caravan/silver or even worker's village/silver in some cases makes it okay to take the risk.  The difference is that they are actually useful to you later (the real key is how soon they will begin to impact your deck, WV probably works if there is a $3 terminal worth purchasing soon.)

[shraeye]

The thing is, your deck is so much better as silver/silver after T4 compared to silver/pearl diver that it is totally worth the risk.  Something like caravan/silver or even worker's village/silver in some cases makes it okay to take the risk.  The difference is that they are actually useful to you later (the real key is how soon they will begin to impact your deck, WV probably works if there is a $3 terminal worth purchasing soon.)

Yeah, I am in no way advocating Chapel/Pearl Diver, that sounds like an insanity wolf option.

[jomini]

Assuming your final deck should only have 1 silver (almost any engine), then it is probably better to get the silver on the non-chapel T3/T4 turn.  This is more important when the cantrip is a $4 to avoid having two silvers in your deck by T5, with a chapel deck.  The silvers are kind of annoying when you are trying to chapel.  They often just get in the way of early trashing (cantrips won't).

Really? I play a lot of engines and I'd say very few are that silver intolerant. For instance, most engines depend heavily on getting key 5 coin parts (minions, margraves, torturers, libraries, festivals, etc.) Take a lib/fest/chap setup, I need to consistently hit 5 to get my components, until I get my second festival, a second silver is not that bad. Yeah, I'll likely trash it (and the first silver) so I can have a leaner deck, but really I'd rather have better odds a lot of the time at hitting the power 5s than having a leaner deck struggling to get to 5. If there isn't a better way to get components, two and three silver are not out of the question.

Now if there are terminal silvers out, sure I'll buy one of those in hopes of getting a 5 on T3/4 or buy a second silver then, but if the choice is between a weak cantrip and a silver, I think I'll take the silver. Afterall it is an odds off bet that it will collide with the chapel on the first shuffle, and decent odds of getting the 5 coin I need to get the engine humming.

I'd be inclined to go cantrip/chap IFF the cantrip provided a long term benefit. WV with peddler out is a perfect example; the odds of bad shuffle luck go down AND I have a better chance at picking up payload for the rest of the game. Walled village, well it might give me better shuffle luck, but if I'm going engine with that, then I need to have some very strong payout coming and that normally means more expensive cards so I want some economy rather than ditching all my coppers and having to slow build up.

Another big factor in the silver vs cantrip issue is the power of any 2's out on the board. Yeah silver is dead if it collides with the chapel, on the other hand, something like haven, xroads, hamlet, courtyard, pawn or native village means that I can buy an engine component during the collision. If I want to buy a few 2 coin cards, I may as well get them early.