Print

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

[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.

[Davio]

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.

Yeah, a simple case is 4 Colonies and 9 GMs.
If you add a Platinum, you might end up with 4 Colonies and Plat in hand next turn.
If you add a GM, you are guaranteed $20.

[jomini]

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.

Yeah, a simple case is 4 Colonies and 9 GMs.
If you add a Platinum, you might end up with 4 Colonies and Plat in hand next turn.
If you add a GM, you are guaranteed $20.

The odds of 4 Col/Plat are pretty low (.05%). This has virtually no impact on expected utility.

The odds of hitting $23 with Plat are 35.7% (No Gm on the bottom of the deck).
Odds of hitting $21 or more coin  are 60.4% (odds of there not being two Gm on the bottom of the deck).
Odds of hitting $19 or more coin (break point for Col + Prov being 18)  are 77%.

In other words, adding in a Gm doesn't do much for you in comparison to plat. Odds are, you will increase your payout in this case by going Plat over Gm, even though you are no longer certain to draw your entire deck. In only 23% of cases will you be able to buy fewer VP next turn than if you got the Gm (assuming we aren't at game end and want to go estate hunting, of course if we are ... why not just buy the province instead of the plat?).

This sort of probability happens a lot, you don't need to have enough draw to be sure of drawing your entire deck for the utility of Gm's +1 card to be less than you'd expect. Playing the odds is often the right bet, particularly when you are hovering around break points like 16, 22, and 13 coin.

So you don't need to be able overdraw (in some cases you don't even need to be able to draw your entire deck - e.g. Spy) for the +1 card on Gm to get swamped by other considerations (the odds of being able to hit 2 colonies). Somewhere near being able to draw your entire deck (exact point varies by deck, and even turn by turn for a given deck), the utility of Gm plummets down to close to that of silver.

[DG]

I've run a few simulator tests on a simple deck with chapel, 3 silvers, grand markets, go green when you have all/enough grand markets. The win rate drops slightly for each platinum it buys, even the first platinum. Perhaps someone can check through Jomini's maths in more detail.

[dondon151]

The point here is not a hypothetical super-trim deck with 9 GMs and 4 Colonies: in the most common kinds of drawing deck that rely on terminal +cards and +2 actions cards, you want cantrip money to increase consistency rather than Treasures.

[jomini]

I've run a few simulator tests on a simple deck with chapel, 3 silvers, grand markets, go green when you have all/enough grand markets. The win rate drops slightly for each platinum it buys, even the first platinum. Perhaps someone can check through Jomini's maths in more detail.

The math is fairly straight-forward. The odds of getting a non-Gm in the first card is 5/14, the odds of the next card then being a non-Gm is then 4/13, so on and so forth. This means that we end up with a 120/240240 chance of drawing a straight dead 5 card hand, this simplifies down to .05%.

So what are the odds that you will draw your entire deck? Consider if the bottom card of the deck is a non-Gm, this means you have 5 cards in hand, only 4 can be non-Gm and everything else in the deck is a Gm - ergo you MUST be able to draw & play the entire deck if the bottom card is a non-Gm. So odds that the bottom card is not a Gm are 5/14 or ~35.7%. Conversely, this means that ~64.3% of the time you DO have a Gm on the bottom so it doesn't get played.

We can now repeat this exercise with one fewer Gm. If we have 8 Gm and a 5 card hand we will play the entire deck if we have a non-Gm on the bottom (5/13). So 5/13ths of the time when we have a Gm on the bottom, we will have a non-Gm second from bottom (thus we only fail to play one Gm this turn). Thus we can so .643 x 5/13 = .247 or 27.4% of the time you will hit 21. Add these two probabilities  (35.7 + 24.7) and you get the odds for hitting $21 or greater. We could continue this for a third iteration and calc the odds that all three of the bottom cards are Gm, but that doesn't seem to be worth the time.

Note: I did the initial calculations in a different manner, it shouldn't have an impact, but I wasn't rigorous with decimals so things may not calc out exactly the same.

Unequivocally, you have a higher expectation value of points you can buy after the plat over the Gm. Unequivocally, the value of adding the Gm to the deck is exactly 2 coin.

So why does DG's simulator have the plat lose? Because we don't care about just one turn's worth of expected cash output. Sure for the first plat, you get a higher expected cash value, but as you buy more dead cards, you have less and less draw. It is only very near the "draw your whole deck, reliably" point where +1 card starts to lose value. His sim starts at the reliable whole deck draw point and promptly moves away from it. After the 3rd colony, he has much better odds of using the +1 card from Gm to chain more Gm (totaling more coin than a Plat). If we are buying 8 or even 4 colonies, this just hammers the Plat.

So why not just forgot about the corner case if it doesn't last that long? In a word: megaturn. If you only buy VP on your final turn or two, it can be far more efficient to do something like smithy/village/plat/plat (total cost 25) than Gm x5 (total cost 30); both leave you with +10 coin, but the latter only gives +1 card and of course the +buy. This becomes particularly acute with things like - being able to get more coin by playing coppers or using Border Village/Smithy to only pay 24. You can get to double colony a half turn sooner and that can be a much bigger deal than +1 card, particularly if you over bought components because of copper concerns.

After all, Plat vs Gm is just a closer set of numbers than Gold vs Market. Somewhere there is a point where the advantages of treasure (e.g. purchase efficiency) outweigh the consistency of +1 card. Gm is closer to plat on those advantages, but it still isn't quite there. Most people don't rave about how +1 card from market just destroys gold in engines, clearly the value of +1 card is fluid and at some point on its relative value, we reach a tipping point where treasure is more effective. For Market vs Gold, this is early on with plenty of use left for the draw. For Gm vs Plat, it is a lot later in the curve, but nonetheless, still there.

Dondon:
Actually, I think that depends on your likelihood of dead draw. A Fishing village/Oracle engine will almost never draw the Gm dead, on the other hand a Hunting grounds/Bandit camp engine is much more likely to make a dead draw. Even with either of those specified, I don't think the math obviously favors Plat or Gm - small changes in deck composition can easily swing it one way or the other.

[dondon151]

Dondon:
Actually, I think that depends on your likelihood of dead draw. A Fishing village/Oracle engine will almost never draw the Gm dead, on the other hand a Hunting grounds/Bandit camp engine is much more likely to make a dead draw. Even with either of those specified, I don't think the math obviously favors Plat or Gm - small changes in deck composition can easily swing it one way or the other.

That's also not my point. I am not talking about the situations in which you blindly play your terminal +cards on a bad draw to fish for Platinum and hope that you don't draw 2-4 villages; those circumstances slightly favor Platinum (however, you should be opting to not play the +cards regardless of Platinum or GM unless you absolutely need the cash to make a VP buy, lest you end up drawing 4 villages and also doom your subsequent hand). When you consider GM's +1 card to Platinum's lack of +1 card during the action phase, that could mean the difference between drawing and not drawing your terminal +cards or your villages.

In summary: GM is always preferable to Plat in deck draw engines except when you can draw your deck beyond some level of consistency (let's say a 95% success rate), or when you need to sacrifice consistency for a couple of extra turns of having $3 extra of value in your deck. (Cue someone complaining about edge cases and kingdom dependency.)

[aaron0013]

The point here is not a hypothetical super-trim deck with 9 GMs and 4 Colonies: in the most common kinds of drawing deck that rely on terminal +cards and +2 actions cards, you want cantrip money to increase consistency rather than Treasures.

With Bishop, anything is possible!

[RisingJaguar]

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.

Yeah, a simple case is 4 Colonies and 9 GMs.
If you add a Platinum, you might end up with 4 Colonies and Plat in hand next turn.
If you add a GM, you are guaranteed $20.

The odds of 4 Col/Plat are pretty low (.05%). This has virtually no impact on expected utility.

The odds of hitting $23 with Plat are 35.7% (No Gm on the bottom of the deck).
Odds of hitting $21 or more coin  are 60.4% (odds of there not being two Gm on the bottom of the deck).
Odds of hitting $19 or more coin (break point for Col + Prov being 18)  are 77%.

I did a quick expected $ return similar to yours.  Except it breaks down each case (so odds of $21 would be 24.72% and so forth) and multiplied it by the dollars it was supposed to give you. 

Ironically, (I'm not totally sure why this is...) the expected return comes out as $20 (I double checked and my total probabilities added is equal to 1). 

Now given these two options.  I'm pretty sure GM is better here (as you are guaranteed $20).  Also in general, I would agree with DonDon that cantrip money is usually better than treasure money, as long as you aren't extremely over-drawing your deck CONSISTENTLY (ie. a crossroads deck, would not be consistent imo).

For math purposes, I did 5/14*9/13*8/12*7/11*6/10 for each succession by adding another n/n+4 on top.  Read Jomini's for more understanding.

There may be a flaw in my math, so please feel free to yell at me

[jomini]

Now given these two options.  I'm pretty sure GM is better here (as you are guaranteed $20).  Also in general, I would agree with DonDon that cantrip money is usually better than treasure money, as long as you aren't extremely over-drawing your deck CONSISTENTLY (ie. a crossroads deck, would not be consistent imo).

For math purposes, I did 5/14*9/13*8/12*7/11*6/10 for each succession by adding another n/n+4 on top.  Read Jomini's for more understanding.

There may be a flaw in my math, so please feel free to yell at me

Your math, so far as I can see, is fine. The problem is you are measuring the wrong thing. We don't care about having the same or higher expected coin value, that is really just a proxy for expected VP gain. For the latter, there is a world of difference between having a 1/3 chance of hitting 23 coin (and double colony) vs hitting an assured 20 (colony + prov). You do now have non-zero odds of hitting 17 or fewer coin (colony + duchy or worse), but the double colony gain tends to make that up.

Dondon:
I'm still not convinced there. Plat is space inefficient (compared to Gm), but it is extremely price efficient. Gm is exactly the opposite and I'm not so sure that every draw deck with <95% (or whatever) reliability is going to value space over price, particularly with the copper restriction monkeying around.

[Tables]

However, it's not hard to create a map between coin in hand and victory gain, and we could use that to compare the two (I leave this as an exercise for the reader).

Assuming we're happy to gain Duchies but not Estates we'd have:
$22-23 -> 20
$19-21 -> 16
$16-18 -> 13
$11-15 -> 10
$8-10 -> 6
$5-7 -> 3

From there, you just work out the odds of getting each amount and multiply by the value you're mapping to.

[RisingJaguar]

However, it's not hard to create a map between coin in hand and victory gain, and we could use that to compare the two (I leave this as an exercise for the reader).

Assuming we're happy to gain Duchies but not Estates we'd have:
$22-23 -> 20
$19-21 -> 16
$16-18 -> 13
$11-15 -> 10
$8-10 -> 6
$5-7 -> 3

From there, you just work out the odds of getting each amount and multiply by the value you're mapping to.

If we are honestly going down this route.  Lets say said deck has 4 colonies and 9 GMs, gets $18 dollars... what would you buy? 

The matter is that the previous example makes no sense in reality.  Tell me a time when my deck contents does not include a trasher yet everything is trashed, have 9 GMs and 4 colonies, and i'm deciding with my $18 what to buy?

I was using the situation to proxy what to do, when faced with 4 terminal cards, and a good chunk of GMs, what should you purchase.  I came out with similar numbers for expected return, and chose consistency over extra potential. 

So extrapolating that to an engine, lets say a deck of 5 alchemist and similar situation, barely draw all my cards.  I choose GM.

[Davio]

I really don't know why my example of "4 Col + 9 GM" has gone on this long.

I mean, its only intent was to show that it's possible to be stuck in your drawing chain if you happen to hit 4 Col + Plat, nothing else. Yes it's unlikely, but it was only to show that it was possible.

[jomini]

I really don't know why my example of "4 Col + 9 GM" has gone on this long.

I mean, its only intent was to show that it's possible to be stuck in your drawing chain if you happen to hit 4 Col + Plat, nothing else. Yes it's unlikely, but it was only to show that it was possible.

I ran with it because it illustrates one of my major points - before you deck is 100% reliable to draw everything, plat edges out Gm. Dondon calls it 95%, but there is very clearly a point where playing the odds with plat is better than getting a more reliable Gm. Your example allows for very easy odds calculations, the principle is the same with something like a smithy/village engine; that is just much harder to calc. Gm fits on a weird curve - it is pretty bad in a deck that either dead draws or has low density (e.g. lots of curses, low treasure density, not a lot of cards that have 0 effective space or less), it is really good as your deck gets "denser" (e.g. lots of cards that draw, like Gm itself), and then it gets really bad again when you are drawing most everything. The 2nd turning point is short of "draw your whole deck" and your example gives an easy to understand situation.

[aaron0013]

Tell me a time when my deck contents does not include a trasher yet everything is trashed, have 9 GMs and 4 colonies, and i'm deciding with my $18 what to buy?

With Bishop, anything is possible!

[clb]

Tell me a time when my deck contents does not include a trasher yet everything is trashed, have 9 GMs and 4 colonies, and i'm deciding with my $18 what to buy?

With Bishop, anything is possible!

I think you would have to Hermit-trash the Bishop/other trasher, not buy something to trash the Hermit, gaining a Madman, and then play the Madman to get to a trashed deck with no trasher. So, yes, with Bishop it is possible, but it takes more than that, too.

[jeb56]

You can trash your Bishop to the other guy's Bishop.

Bishop is enough.

[clb]

You can trash your Bishop to the other guy's Bishop.

Bishops is are enough.

Though, I guess since we are quibbling edge-cases, I am sure you could trash all of your cards to an opponent's single Bishop, so I concede.

[PSGarak]

Island. Everyone forgets it because it's not technically trashing, but it's the one thing that will remove both itself and another card. The other card is most likely a more effective trasher.