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[Omer]

Please advise me what is the optimal purchase in these 2 scenarios:

1. 1 buy, 9 coins. Do I buy a Platinum or a Grand Market?
2. 2 buys, 12 coins, no Colonies have been bought yet. Do I buy a Platinum and maybe a 3 cost card? or do I buy two Grand Markets? or just go straight for Colony?

[HiveMindEmulator]

It of course depends on your strategy. If you're planning to cycle and play a ton of GMs, go with the GMs. Plats will never run out and you don't ever really want to many of them unless you have a lot of draw. But if there wasn't a lot of trashing and you're not going to be likely to get something good out of the +1 card from GM, you're usually better off with the spikes of value you get from Plats to help buy those Colonies.

[GendoIkari]

Depends on the Kingdom. And I know that's a very stock answer around here, but in this case it's extremely true. Grand Market is not always worth getting. If all you can do with it is play 1 on a turn, then think of it this way... it was worth $2 plus the value of whatever you draw. If what you draw was a Gold, then playing Grand Market was identical to playing Platinum. If you draw Platinum, then it was better. If you draw Silver or Copper, it was worse. So... if you aren't going to play multiple in a turn, or use the extra buy that you get, then Platinum will be better most of the time.

But if the Kingdom and your deck allow for you to draw lots of cards, and play lots of cards, then playing lots of Grand Markets can be way more important than playing Platinum. Put it this way... a hand of 5 Platinums gets you a Colony. A hand of 5 Grand Markets will most likely get you much more than 1 Colony.

As for your second question, if no Colonies at all have been bought yet, I probably wouldn't buy a Colony there; unless I had good reason to think that my current hand was just very lucky, and I won't hit $11 so easily again. As for 2 Grand Markets vs Platinum + other card; see above.

[DIonized]

[TWoos]

#1.  I can't see going for Grand Market with $9 in hand.  But then, I think of Market & Grand Market as slightly over-rated.

#2.  Platinum & $3 card, you mean?  Depends too much on the game.  If it's time to go green, buy a Colony.  If it's too early (I judge this by whether the high value high hand seems to be an incredibly lucky draw), I might go for something else.  Maybe Plat. & $3.  But then again, an incredibly lucky draw to score 10 victory points and just a single dead card?  Probably worth it.

[HiveMindEmulator]

People have a tendency to get too caught up in the list price of cards. Is a "$9 card" worth more than a "$6" card? Not necessarily. You have to think about what your deck needs. If you need a village more than anything else, pay $6 for it. If you need a +buy more than anything else, you can pay $11 for an Herbalist. A lot of times these questions come up because you don't know what your strategy is. Have a plan, and then you won't even really have to think when this comes up.

[Omer]

I opened this thread because in the Grand Market article in this website it states it's as good as Platinum, so naturally I'd be interested to know which one is the better buy.

[TWoos]

Got a link for that?  I just re-read the article...  didn't see any mention of Platinum.

[ednever]

Beyond the "it depends on the kingdom" part of it (which is very true in this case. I would argue even more do, "depends on your strategy", here are some thoughts.

Think about your money density. Let's ignore strategy, other cards, and +buy needs.

Let's assume you have 20 cards in your deck (7 coppers, 3 estates, 6 silver (or equivalent), 4 golds. Total value is: 7+0+12+12=31. So average value of a card is 31/20 or 1.55.

If you add a Platinum: 36/21, 1.71
If you add a gm: 33/20, 1.65
If you add 2 gms: 35/20, 1.75

So, for a pure money play, given that deck composition, 2 gm > 1 plat > 1 gm

That calculation changes as deck composition changes (you really should be optimizing for next shuffle, or maybe the shuffle after that)

You are unlikely to be making these calculations in mid-game though. So you can either make calculations between games, or play a lot of games and start to develop intuition (before I started writing this I guessed which order it would come up, but I'm not sure I would have had the magnitude right. (I would have guessed plat>3 peddlers. In this example that's true, but barely!)

There is an article somewhere talking about money density. It's a good place to start when considering "which is better"

Ed
(check out stopovertravel.com)

[shMerker]

I think the article in question is The Five Best $6+ Cards.

The mark of a good Kingdom card is when you’d take it over Gold.  The mark of a truly obscene Kingdom card is when you’d seriously consider taking it over Platinum.

[ftl]

I opened this thread because in the Grand Market article in this website it states it's as good as Platinum, so naturally I'd be interested to know which one is the better buy.

It depends on the Kingdom. Seriously, there are very few easy comparisons in Dominion like that, where you can just say one card is a "better buy".

Grand Market and Platinum are very different. Grand Market is an action which draws you a card, and gives $2 and an action and a buy. Platinum is a treasure, which gives you $5.

If you're going for a treasureless deck such as double-tactician, you want GM. If you want more good targets for your King's Court, then you want GM. If you need +buy for the engine you're building, then you want GM. If you want to keep drawing your deck but the card draw is weak, you might want GM. Whereas if you plan to play terminal draw with no spare actions, then you want Platinum. If you are already drawing your whole deck and you want to ramp up your buying power ASAP, then you want Platinum. If you're playing a treasure-based strategy such as a Venture or Adventurer strategy, you want Platinum. If you're accumulating unique cards for Horn of Plenty or Fairgrounds, get whichever one you don't have yet. If you plan on using Remodel to make Colonies, then you want the Platinum.

If multiple ones of those conditions hold, some leaning you towards GM and some towards plat, then you have to make a judgement call.

The question is too vague to give an easy answer. It depends on the situation.

[Omer]

Yes, I meant the above article, not the GM article.

[Mic Qsenoch]

People have a tendency to get too caught up in the list price of cards. Is a "$9 card" worth more than a "$6" card? Not necessarily. You have to think about what your deck needs. If you need a village more than anything else, pay $6 for it. If you need a +buy more than anything else, you can pay $11 for an Herbalist. A lot of times these questions come up because you don't know what your strategy is. Have a plan, and then you won't even really have to think when this comes up.

This is good advice, but there's an important balance to be struck. If you find yourself repeatedly overpaying for cards in a game then it can be a good indication that you've overbuilt your deck. And although the $11 Herbalist buy can be the right move, it can be a sign that you should have bought an Herbalist earlier. As you've said the key thing here is utility. But I'm very bad at estimating utility, and it turns out the price of cards is a decent enough measure of it.

I also don't agree much with the "make a plan and stick to it" style. Unless that plan is super vague and flexible. Dominion is all about making the best of the hands you're dealt, and that includes buying the expensive cards when you get the chance, even if you think you need a village badly.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Oh and another thing. Do we really need multiple "depends on the kingdom" responses in every thread asking for advice? It will be a sad state of affairs whenever we quit masking it even that much and we write "just make the correct play". It's true but not useful.

This isn't targeted at anyone in this thread particularly since most have gone on to give examples of the kinds of kingdoms where you might make one decision over another, but that phrase is getting a bit worn out. If the question is too vague to answer, then don't answer and ask for more details. If you have some useful advice for a particular situation, then describe that situation and give your advice.

I apologize for preaching.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Oh and another thing. Do we really need multiple "depends on the kingdom" responses in every thread asking for advice?

It depends on the thread.

[eHalcyon]

People have a tendency to get too caught up in the list price of cards. Is a "$9 card" worth more than a "$6" card? Not necessarily. You have to think about what your deck needs. If you need a village more than anything else, pay $6 for it. If you need a +buy more than anything else, you can pay $11 for an Herbalist. A lot of times these questions come up because you don't know what your strategy is. Have a plan, and then you won't even really have to think when this comes up.

This is good advice, but there's an important balance to be struck. If you find yourself repeatedly overpaying for cards in a game then it can be a good indication that you've overbuilt your deck. And although the $11 Herbalist buy can be the right move, it can be a sign that you should have bought an Herbalist earlier. As you've said the key thing here is utility. But I'm very bad at estimating utility, and it turns out the price of cards is a decent enough measure of it.

I also don't agree much with the "make a plan and stick to it" style. Unless that plan is super vague and flexible. Dominion is all about making the best of the hands you're dealt, and that includes buying the expensive cards when you get the chance, even if you think you need a village badly.

The $11 Herbalist is a reference to a real game, by Stef I think? In that situation, waiting on the Herbalist was probably the right call. But I don't remember what it was.

[Schneau]

Stef buys herbalist for $11

[RisingJaguar]

Oh and another thing. Do we really need multiple "depends on the kingdom" responses in every thread asking for advice? It will be a sad state of affairs whenever we quit masking it even that much and we write "just make the correct play". It's true but not useful.

This isn't targeted at anyone in this thread particularly since most have gone on to give examples of the kinds of kingdoms where you might make one decision over another, but that phrase is getting a bit worn out. If the question is too vague to answer, then don't answer and ask for more details. If you have some useful advice for a particular situation, then describe that situation and give your advice.

I apologize for preaching.

I like this sentiment.  In short, instead of saying it depends on the kingdom.  Maybe just summarize your response in the depends on the...

For example, if I had a choice between trader/watchtower for defending curses.  I would say depends if there are viable engine options, instead of saying depends on the kingdom, then spilling out your answer anyways.  This at least provides a preview into your insight.

[Kahryl]

Platinum > Grand Market, always, unless you desperately need +buy.

First platinum > Colony > Other platinum > Grand Market as a GENERAL rule but "depends on the kingdom"

2 grand markets vs Platinum? Good question. I'd still go for the plat if there's a decent $3 (NOT silver)

[Omer]

Even if there is a good $3, a Platinum over 2 GM sounds insane to me. GM offers money that doesn't clog your deck as it replaces itself. Platinum does not.

[jomini]

There are a lot of things you need to think about. For instance:

Are you ever facing dead draw? If you a village/draw engine, you will likely have a few times when you draw either your plat or you Gms dead. This weights things heavily toward plat.

Are you already drawing your whole deck and more so will you always draw your whole deck till game end? If you aren't going to use the +1 card on the Gm, then it becomes a very expensive silver with a +buy. Advantage Plat.

Are you cycling a lot? Take the easy example - Minion. Gm is phenomenal in a minion deck - it doesn't slow you down and you never have to discard them to your first minion. Plat forces you to cycle onto it, which can be really problematic. Other cycling also works less well with Plat, for instance warehouse gets one less card with which to work. Advantage Gm.

Are there attacks out that matter? All the coin based attacks make Plat a big gamble, swindler (Gm -> Adventurer), sab, and perhaps discard attacks can flip things over to Gm being the big gamble.

Are you using Tr/Kc or even Procession (for the last turn or two)? Advantage Gm.

Do you have a particular bias in your deck for/against actions? Or for/against coin? Wandering Minstrel hates Plat with a passion, but loves actions. Venture loves plats but is harsh on high cost actions. Black market/Lib is biased a bit towards coin, Loan is biased against.

There are many different things in play here - space efficiency, total payout, card type, attack vulnerability, etc. Each of them could be the dominant factor in any particular game so not only does it depend on the Kingdom, it depends on which strat you opted to play, which your opponent opted to play, and how many disparate factors play out.

[Asklepios]

Platinum > Grand Market, always, unless you desperately need +buy.

Or unless you're playing a +1 action chain like Conspirators, or a Scrying Pool deck, or a Minion deck.

Or you're in the lead and can 3-pile.

Or, it depends on the kingdom, strategy, circumstance, etc.

[DG]

The grand market is worth +2 coins with +1 card and whatever that card brings. So if that +1 card is worth more than 3 coins then the grand market is better. This is typical the case when your +1 card goes on to draw another card, and that draws another card, and so on, until that +1 card has turned into drawing your most/all of your deck. There might also be another key card that is worth as much as 3 coins, perhaps a goons, that you want to cycle faster through your deck.

Of course the value of that +1 card diminishes when you add green cards to your deck.

[jomini]

The grand market is worth +2 coins with +1 card and whatever that card brings. So if that +1 card is worth more than 3 coins then the grand market is better. This is typical the case when your +1 card goes on to draw another card, and that draws another card, and so on, until that +1 card has turned into drawing your most/all of your deck. There might also be another key card that is worth as much as 3 coins, perhaps a goons, that you want to cycle faster through your deck.

Of course the value of that +1 card diminishes when you add green cards to your deck.

Actually, the value of drawing another card drops heavily when you draw your entire deck. Take the simple case, a deck of pure Gms means that each new Gm increases your expected payout by only 2 coin a hand (making it strictly inferior to a gold in these circumstances). Oddly enough, in really high draw situations, adding green makes the +1 card much more valuable as it drastically reduces your chances of stalling; going from +1 card drawing nothing to +1 card let's me get past these green cards to a smithy mean that, oddly, the +1 card becomes more valuable the more green you add. Draw in engines behaves very differently than in BM, you have to account for the many cases when you just don't have a card to draw and for the many cases when +1 card moves you from something like "expect to draw half my deck" to "expect to draw my entire deck".

[DG]

Actually, the value of drawing another card drops heavily when you draw your entire deck

Only when you can overdraw your deck with spare drawing capacity.