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[D Bo]

Just wanted to see if people agreed with what I did on this game. Opened 5/2 on an Apprentice board with no 2's but I figured since I want the estates somewhat for trashing ability it might be a good plan over no purchase. Ignoring my opponent's strategy (think they were newish - 8 terminal actions...), do people think that's a waste, good decision, or doesn't matter? I figured Apprentice was probably the quickest way to victory over Haggler, as long as I got a quick lead and could afford to trash provinces or better cards if need be.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/18/game-20121018-051527-8916e184.html

[DG]

If you trash an estate with an apprentice you use two cards to draw two cards. The advantage comes from having less estates in your deck afterwards.

[Davio]

Opening Estate is pretty silly.

I mean, you start with 3 of them so odds are pretty good that you'll draw your Apprentice with an Estate on T3 or T4.
Moreover, if you happen to do so, you will have a clean reshuffle after T4 so you get to see the cards you bought on T3 and T4 a bit earlier and more often in general. <-- This is wrong, I was thinking about the general 12 card deck you have after the opening turns; in this case you would have 11 cards so you would have to reshuffle, possibly allowing the Apprentice to miss that reshuffle.

[D Bo]

Both these points make sense - not sure why I didn't think of that while playing! Thanks for the advice.

On the plus side, now I can say that even after playing 1000+ games I still do odd and different things with this game.

[KingsSkort]

In general, I don't think apprentice is a very good card when used as you did. Masq is a lot stronger. They're basically the same when you're trashing an estate, but if you have a hand with only treasure in it, apprentice is a total dud, whereas masq is still a fine card to have. I don't know that masq is a good buy 5/2, but you could consider haggler. In an apprentice deck, haggler also seems better than monument, because it can feed you expensive cards to trash.

[D Bo]

I see your point about Masquerade - I didn't consider that (probably blinded by the 5 of course). I really like Monument so that was probably going to happen, for better of for worse. But you said that apprentice may not have been used in the best way, but I'm not sure what you mean there. Obviously trashing the coppers doesn't do much for you, but trashing silver twice enabled me to get to provinces in both turns. I guess if I was trashing silver and ended up having to buy silver to replace it, that would be bad, so maybe I lucked out in some of my trashing.

[KingsSkort]

What I was trying to get at is that you weren't able to give your apprentice very good targets. If you're trashing silver with apprentice, it's a heavily-gimped stables. It's also usually worse than masquerade (which will also give you a 6 card hand if you elect not to trash after the pass). Most of the value of apprentice comes from trashing high-value cards to get monster hands. Trashing coppers is a disaster, and trashing estates and silvers is just OK.

[Davio]

Apprentice is a good end game card when you can trash other action cards which have outlived their usefulness to crawl your way to those last couple of Provinces.

Not only the obvious Sea Hag, but also small utility cards like Caravan are ideal for this.
You can often trash your Potion as well if it's not a Vineyards or Alchemist game.

[WheresMyElephant]

Apprentice is a good end game card when you can trash other action cards which have outlived their usefulness to crawl your way to those last couple of Provinces.

Not only the obvious Sea Hag, but also small utility cards like Caravan are ideal for this.
You can often trash your Potion as well if it's not a Vineyards or Alchemist game.

Other things that can be good:

*Trashing a Province for 8 cards might well be good enough to buy you another Province in addition to what you would have bought anyway. This can let it act like Remodel, Salvager, and the various other cards which can trash and replace a Province to accelerate the game end.

* Cads with on-gain benefits. Once in your deck they look overpriced. Border Village is a good example: many times you only took the BV because it was free, and you won't miss it at all when it's gone. Same for that Duchy you bought with your Hoard (sometimes the Gold too).

* Pretty much any inexhaustible source of $4 or higher cards can be good.  Ironworks, Fortress and Rats (which is effectively $5), etc. Obviously other cards with on-trash benefits are nice too.

Of course there's a lot more to be said. And a lot of this goes for other TfB cards like Remodelers, Bishop, etc. as well.

[Asklepios]

*Trashing a Province for 8 cards might well be good enough to buy you another Province in addition to what you would have bought anyway. This can let it act like Remodel, Salvager, and the various other cards which can trash and replace a Province to accelerate the game end.

People seriusly underuse this option, I think. Trashing a Province in a game where you have access to +buy in your deck often means buying a Province and a Duchy, or even two Provinces. I often feel tha many players are too cautious with Apprentice.

[Jack Rudd]

There was a classic game between Mean Mr Mustard and Theory where MMM bought the first four Colonies, and then crashed through the rest of the game by Apprenticing a Colony and buying a Colony with the card draw every turn.

[Davio]

*Trashing a Province for 8 cards might well be good enough to buy you another Province in addition to what you would have bought anyway. This can let it act like Remodel, Salvager, and the various other cards which can trash and replace a Province to accelerate the game end.

People seriusly underuse this option, I think. Trashing a Province in a game where you have access to +buy in your deck often means buying a Province and a Duchy, or even two Provinces. I often feel tha many players are too cautious with Apprentice.

Yeah, it basically becomes a Salvager this way, also handy if you want to do some other useful thing besides buying the next Province, like trashing Curses or dealing them out.

[Lekkit]

It's different from Salvager in that Salvager guarantees you a new Province, while Apprentice doesn't. But in a well built deck 8 cards is almost always better than 8 coins.

[Davio]

It's different from Salvager in that Salvager guarantees you a new Province, while Apprentice doesn't. But in a well built deck 8 cards is almost always better than 8 coins.

Meh, it feels like Salvager when you're trashing a Province and getting one back.
Apprentice has the bonus that it lets you do other stuff with your spare action.

[jotheonah]

Apprentice is good with Hoard and Tunnel (obviously you also need a TUnnel enabler). If you can flood your deck with Gold it's always good, but if you can flood your deck with Gold and then pair those Golds up with Apprentices, you can get some major megaturns. +Buy is also key.