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[shraeye]

Hey, I'm shraeye.  I'm much more present on the games forum than in the actual Dominion-related area, but mostly because I'm not experienced enough to comment on different articles/strategies/gamelogs/etc.  I'm trying to change that.  Currently, I'm level 10 or so on Isotropic, and probably only have 70 games (I can't actually check, because until today I hadn't played a game in a while).

So here's a thread where I post terrible games, close matches, and awesome wins (hah, that'll take a while) and kindly ask those better than me to take a look at those logs and give me one major lesson per game (ok, maybe two if you have some really good ideas; but laundry lists of everything I need to do to improve would be toooo long and overwhelming).

I was going to start off with an unfortunate loss to MrEevee where he steamrolled me with a University/Stables type engine.  But I don't have that log, so instead I'll start with a win, which by a margin that surprised me by its smallness at the end (I also play with point counter off most the time, so often don't know how well i'm doing).

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-184359-e62202f0.html

My summary:

• My initial plan is to get a few actions going with Upgrade (turn Estates into Silvers/Wishing wells) and Mining Village, then start buying Border Villages and gaining Conspirators, eventually buying double Provinces.  It mostly works.
• I get distracted by a Trade Route, which frustrates me as I have to trash cards that I'm not sure if I can afford or not because I'm not tracking my deck's worth (this is the reason I bought a random copper with 2 Provinces once).
• I become afraid to use Upgrade for much the same reason.
• Twice Wishing Well finds my Conspirators, yay!

[thirtyseven]

This thread is better off in the Help! thread, but anyway...

Yeah, why do you need the Trade Route there? The Wharves (which I would've tried to have gotten more of) provide the +Buy you need. Definitely like going Conspirator here, and Upgrade works well with that.

[shraeye]

This thread is better off in the Help! thread, but anyway...

Yeah, why do you need the Trade Route there? The Wharves (which I would've tried to have gotten more of) provide the +Buy you need. Definitely like going Conspirator here, and Upgrade works well with that.

Yeah, I thought about putting it in Help! (theory can decide on that), but I'm looking more to discuss general strategies, showcase some wins (hopefully), and document my dominion progress.  That feels more like an all-around Dominion-ish thing instead of a "here is a very specific question; help!"

So how does upgrade work well with Conspirator?  Should I be getting some silvers to bump up into Conspirators, or is it just the +action part of it that's useful?  Gotta start loving Wharves a bit more, I think 

[thirtyseven]

So how does upgrade work well with Conspirator?  Should I be getting some silvers to bump up into Conspirators, or is it just the +action part of it that's useful?  Gotta start loving Wharves a bit more, I think 

Upgrade does two things for you here: helps clear out those starting Coppers and Estates (that hinder you from getting to your Conspirators and other actions) and it's +1 Action allows you to play Conspirators even if you're lacking villages. The thing is it costs the same as Wharf, another card you want, but I'd buy an Upgrade first. Whenever you go for a Conspirator strategy, you want as little Silver (and as little treasure in general) as possible in order to chain all your actions together. In this game, always buy WW with $3 (except get one Silver in the early game to ramp up your buying power early). Even if there were no kingdom cards costing $3 or less, resist buying a Silver on $3 and just end your turn, hard as it is! And yes, gotta start loving Wharves. Have you checked out the article(s) on Wharf or the "Qvist Card Rankings" threads?

Edit: I see now you opened 5/2 in which case the Wharf instead of the Upgrade was the right move. When to get Upgrade(s) and when to get Wharves really depends on the ratio of terminal actions to nonterminal actions in your deck.

[dondon151]

I think you need to look at Conspirator as the supplement for this engine rather than as the payload itself. The payload here is BV-Wharf, and you can afford to have an economy based on Treasures in this deck - in fact, you should prefer Gold and not avoid Silver. Conspirators just help keep everything running smoothly - Upgrading a Silver to a Conspirator, drawing it, and then playing it is a pretty strong move when you don't have any better targets for Upgrade. You don't need to trash away all of your Copper here, either.

You shouldn't have to worry about activating Conspirators. Once your Wharf draw is big enough, then the BV-Wharf combo does that for you. I could be wrong here, but I would actually suggest preferring Silver over Wishing Well as a $3 target. You can change either of them to a Conspirator later, but Silver gives more buying power immediately.

[ehunt]

I think I would skip upgrade on this board and just stock up on villages and wharves. Conspirator is nice, but not essential. When you decide to start buying money, you can decide if you want it in the form of conspirators or silvers.

[eliegel34]

Like the others have said this game the priority is a wharf engine where you draw your whole deck every turn.  There are a couple different ways to get there, but i would recommend remake into conspirators. 

Remake is great at trashing quickly since it upgrades 2 cards on the same turn, and there are tons of cool tricks you can play with it in this set. Remake is also good here since you can trash estates into Wishing Well, which activates your conspirators as well as increase hand size.  It allows you to draw your whole deck faster by reducing the size. 

I'm going to make a bold statement: Conspirator is awesome here!  It needs the Wharf BV engine to get it started and draw your whole deck but it helps you get to that point to without putting money like silver and gold that take up space in your deck.  I would recommend never buying money and only BV, Wharf, WW, and Conspirator.  The priority is to draw your whole deck as soon as possible so BV and Wharf are most important.  When you miss those early get WW or Conspirator.  Conspirator is essentially a cheep Grand Market in this set.  BV Wharf gives you a large enough hand size that it is always activated, and all the buys that you will ever need.   

There are a ton of cool tricks you can do with remake in this set.  Early on you want to remake estate to WW as first priority and kill copper second.  Once you are starting to draw your deck it is easy to remake a WW to a Conspirator and still draw it that turn with other WW or Conspirator.  Typically you want to balance how your Wharfs are split; if you have 4 Wharfs, you want to play 2 each turn.  If you end up with 3 on 1 turn before you are drawing everything, you can always remake a Wharf into a BV and Wharf.  Free Boarder Village. 

I played with this for a while, and here is an example log solo: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-234632-0ec833da.html

[-Stef-]

I played with this for a while, and here is an example log solo: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/12/game-20121112-234632-0ec833da.html

At first, I wanted to complain about your usage of a very lucky turn 3/4. Remaking two estates *and* getting $6, that's the dream scenario. The quality of an opening is not determined by the strength of the dream, but by the strength of an average scenario. Sure you can get to 8 provinces in 14 turns if you play enough single player and post the luckiest one. But that's kind of meaningless.

Then I tried a game myself opening WW/Remake, and I got the far more reasonable scenario of destroying one estate and getting to $3 max on my first reshuffle. The result... I got 8 provinces two turns sooner 

OK, wishing well is a great friend for remake. And in a strong deck, remake is a great card.
Drawing & playing a card you just created is always super powerful. This kingdom enables it amazingly soon.

[thirtyseven]

Maybe you ended 2 turns sooner because your name is -Stef-?

And I can't believe I didn't see Remake in the kingdom! Absolutely go for that instead of Upgrade. The others are right about BV/Wharf being top priority as well.

[DG]

This set can use the excellent wishing well/conspirator/upgrade engine from Intrigue with some embellishment from border villages and wharves. You can open with an upgrade on 5/2. You do not want to buy any silvers at all, just buy wishing wells and they will do the business. It's then up to your opponent to match you and force the game into 3 pile ending.

Opening with the wharf gives you some higher initial spending but the deck construction comes in the wrong sequence. You're also losing time that could be spent trashing estates and this could only be a 11-13 turn game.

[shark_bait]

One thing to be very careful about in this game is managing your drawing/buying power.  A Conspirator engine that this game promotes can lead to a game where you can easily get excessive draw (no cards left in draw pile to pick up).  There is a fine balance between having enough draw to get through your deck but not too much so that you have wasted +Card.  Remake and Upgrade are great for managing this as you can upgrade cards and then play them on the same turn.  If you find yourself drawing through your entire deck, make sure that your next purchases provide cash of some sort so that you increase your buying power. 

[DG]

If you find yourself drawing through your entire deck, make sure that your next purchases provide cash of some sort so that you increase your buying power. 

You can actually upgrade your wishing wells to conspirators if you can easily draw through the deck, not to mention tricks with border villages.

[RisingJaguar]

1. Remake is a significantly better trasher than trade route/upgrade.  As like all trashers, it should be obtained right away (T3 should be remake). 
2. Conspirators need two main things to make it worth concentrating your deck around.  Action density, usually with trashers (remake, upgrade), and replayable actions or cantrips (border village, wishing well).  Easy method to get +buys (Wharves).  This game is almost designed for you to go conspirators.  See stef for proper balance of playable actions/+buys/conspirators. 

Then I tried a game myself opening WW/Remake, and I got the far more reasonable scenario of destroying one estate and getting to $3 max on my first reshuffle. The result... I got 8 provinces two turns sooner 

Also, providing your thoughts on the game is really helpful to those giving you advice as it allows us to know what you were thinking (and more importantly, what you have missed).  It'll also provide you, ideally, a progression in your thoughts as you post more often.

[shraeye]

This set can use the excellent wishing well/conspirator/upgrade engine from Intrigue with some embellishment from border villages and wharves. You can open with an upgrade on 5/2. You do not want to buy any silvers at all, just buy wishing wells and they will do the business. It's then up to your opponent to match you and force the game into 3 pile ending.

Opening with the wharf gives you some higher initial spending but the deck construction comes in the wrong sequence. You're also losing time that could be spent trashing estates and this could only be a 11-13 turn game.

I am surprised by this, delaying a buy of wharf until later.  I'm not sure if I know the WW/conspirator/upgrade engine that you talk about well enough to evaluate it.  It seems that others agree that Remake is the better card here as I can trash two cards at once, Upgrade does have the +1action that matches well with Conspirator, but if I have Border Villages for bonus actions, could I get away with using the faster Remake instead of the +action Upgrade?

[shraeye]

I took some ideas that people had, and did this on my first solo try.  Further comments greatly appreciated.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/15/game-20121115-085848-062b4ffb.html

Here's my second try, same result (15 turns) with a few more points.  I know I made a mistake of remaking a Copper once, instead of remaking an unused Wharf into a BV/Wharf.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/15/game-20121115-091010-7ae53741.html

[DG]

It seems that others agree that Remake is the better card here as I can trash two cards at once, Upgrade does have the +1action that matches well with Conspirator, but if I have Border Villages for bonus actions, could I get away with using the faster Remake instead of the +action Upgrade?

There is an elegance in design when you can get the maximum use from all your cards. This is clearly happening for the border village, wharf, conspirator, wishing well, etc. It is also the case for the estates since you are using their cost of 2 when they are upgraded to wishing wells. The elegant use of copper here is to draw it all and spend it each turn rather than hack it away with a remake. Whether it is more effective to do so is another matter, but I expect the upgrade has a better variation of draws starting from 5/2 regardless.

[shraeye]

Yeah, I could see Upgrade being the route to go if you open 5/2 as we both did in the original game.  I think 3/4 is very powerful with WW/remake as -Stef- and eliegel showed.

Do others agree that Upgrade is the best opening with 5/2?

[shraeye]

Status update: I'm at level 12 now, 80 games played total. 

Going to summarize "Lessons Learned" soon, then play another batch of games to pick a mildly interesting one to post next.

[shraeye]

Lessons learned:

• Remake is a powerful trasher, especially when there are so many cards that I want at each level.  Wishing Well is cantrips that support Conspirator, Remaking Wharves gives a free Border Village
• Focus here on winning the conspirator split.  I'm aiming for at least $16, so if I get 6 conspirators, I need to keep at least 4 copper.  If I can get 7 conspirators, then I can afford to trash more copper (or keep it to use a third buy on some turns?)
• Learn to love Wharf; it's very powerful
• Optimal number of wharves seems to be 3-4 in this kingdom; need to fine-tune so I don't have +Cards with no cards to actually draw

Finding next game worth discussing now...

[shraeye]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/23/game-20121123-181308-37355312.html

Here's a sweet game, the board was Jester, Mandarin, Mining Village, Nobles, Outpost, Quarry, Spy, Tournament, Vault, and Witch

Opponent opens Quarry/Silver
I open Silver/Tournament

My summary

• My initial plan was to go for provinces with some help from Nobles, but not bother with dealing out curses
• The action cards I want from the start are Nobles, Mining Villages, Jesters, Tournaments, and Vaults (if I get too many curses)
• When my opponent gets two Witches, I cave and buy one myself, surprisingly losing the curse split only 7-3 with my 1 witch to his 3 (jester helps); I also abandon getting Vaults.
• I get distracted by Mandarin, which I buy with my first $5.  I think that getting Jester would have been much stronger for my strategy (or caving early and grabbing Witch)
• I lose the Nobles split badly, and then start hoping I can grab extra provinces before my opponent 3-piles (spoiler alert: it doesn't work).  However, I come pretty close, getting a last turn $7
• The two buys I regret the most was a Gold over Nobles on turn 11, and a Mandarin instead of a Jester on turn 4

[Dsell]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/23/game-20121123-181308-37355312.html

Here's a sweet game, the board was Jester, Mandarin, Mining Village, Nobles, Outpost, Quarry, Spy, Tournament, Vault, and Witch

Opponent opens Quarry/Silver
I open Silver/Tournament

My summary

• My initial plan was to go for provinces with some help from Nobles, but not bother with dealing out curses
• The action cards I want from the start are Nobles, Mining Villages, Jesters, Tournaments, and Vaults (if I get too many curses)
• When my opponent gets two Witches, I cave and buy one myself, surprisingly losing the curse split only 7-3 with my 1 witch to his 3 (jester helps); I also abandon getting Vaults.
• I get distracted by Mandarin, which I buy with my first $5.  I think that getting Jester would have been much stronger for my strategy (or caving early and grabbing Witch)
• I lose the Nobles split badly, and then start hoping I can grab extra provinces before my opponent 3-piles (spoiler alert: it doesn't work).  However, I come pretty close, getting a last turn $7
• The two buys I regret the most was a Gold over Nobles on turn 11, and a Mandarin instead of a Jester on turn 4

I'm not quite a world-class player like some here but your early buys look pretty terrible to me. Tournament/Silver isn't a bad opening but witch slows the game down enough (and junks your deck enough) that tournament's payout is less strong. Ignoring witch I think is a huge mistake and it probably should have been your first $5. Mandarin is probably not a strong buy here, although it did let you hit six. Still it should have been a Witch. Your first $6 (which admittedly came because of Mandarin) should have been Gold rather than Nobles. I think subsequent $5s, if you don't want a second Witch, should have been Vault+Gold is pretty viable in a junky deck.

[ehunt]

Actually I think tournament is good in curse games since it's less likely to be blocked and cantrips let you play witch more. But passing up witch is not an option. Get a witch and then a vault on your second five.

[ftl]

Is there a reason you wanted to ignore curses?  Because you're basically never going to get a +Cards/+Actions engine going when you have no trashing AND you are eating all the curses.

[Dsell]

Actually I think tournament is good in curse games since it's less likely to be blocked and cantrips let you play witch more. But passing up witch is not an option. Get a witch and then a vault on your second five.

Interesting. But it takes so long to hit 8 usually, and then your deck is so junky that matching tournament to province is tougher. I guess tournament is basically just a peddler in these games, which is pretty good but not quite the powerhouse tournament usually is. As far as prizes go, Followers is pretty bad, Trusty Steed's silver option is pretty strong in these games.

[DG]

The witch dominates the kingdom, it should be your first 5 coin buy, and you probably want a second witch or vault to back that up. There's a question of whether to buy mining villages and I think you probably do, mainly because of the nobles. If you're planning to gain some mining villages later then you probably have the leeway to open with tournament, otherwise it is going to be a handicap to a witch/witch deck.

[eHalcyon]

Agree with the others.  Witch ASAP, possibly a second Witch, then Vault+Gold to the end.  Not sure about Tournament vs. Quarry vs. Mining Village.

[shraeye]

Tournament/Silver isn't a bad opening but witch slows the game down enough (and junks your deck enough) that tournament's payout is less strong.

Interesting, area you saying that Tournament is less strong in a slow game?  Or are you saying that other cards aren't as fast as Tournament, but if I know I'm in a slow game then they can be stronger?

[shraeye]

Lessons learned...

• Give witch much stronger consideration on boards where there is no trashing
• Vault was a card I should have estimated higher (I actually don't htink I play it often, should change)
• Don't absorb curses unless I have a plan to deal with them
• Think of the expected value of the drawn card, when trying to evaluate the strength of Tournament

Currently level 11 with 90 games played (stopped playing recently when work picked up)

[shraeye]

Recently played my first game where double Tactician seemed like the route to go.  Kingdom was Border Village, Harem, Pawn, Philosopher's Stone, Pirate Ship, Potion, Scrying Pool, Tactician, Trader, Trading Post, and Tunnel.

I opened Silver/Potion and was lucky to get both a Scrying Pool and a Tactician on turns 3 and 4; I recognize that this is very lucky.  Opponent buys a turn 4 Pirate ship and trashed my Potion on turn 5, so I only had one scrying pool.  My turn 9 scrying pool was ridiculously lucky.  I was wondering though, if I was also lucky with my Pirate Ships, should I have been hitting opponent's treasure as often or less often than I did?

Thoughts while playing:

• I'm going to get Border villages and pick up Pirate ships with them (or a Tactician so I can have 2)
• Try to get scrying pools/BVs to hit my 2nd tactician during a Tactician turn, using Pirate ships as money so I can still buy
• I bought a Pawn on a whim and am really glad I did, when I use the +Buy to get 3 Provinces later on
• I'm not worried at all when my opponent goes up the first 3 provinces, because I know I can build my Pirate ships up and get a mega-turn that way.  I end up winning Province split 5-3 (with my buys spread across only 2 turns)

I'd usually rather post losses and learn from them, but I'm proud of having pulled off a double-Tac deck, and am sure that you all can come up with an even better strategy than the one I used.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201211/29/game-20121129-213409-6444dcfe.html

[Dsell]

Tournament/Silver isn't a bad opening but witch slows the game down enough (and junks your deck enough) that tournament's payout is less strong.

Interesting, area you saying that Tournament is less strong in a slow game?  Or are you saying that other cards aren't as fast as Tournament, but if I know I'm in a slow game then they can be stronger?

Basically, tournament becomes a peddler in these games unless there is a way to build up fast despite witch. I think tournament as a peddler is not definitely not bad, but tournament is usually such a powerhouse and I just don't think it is here. Peddler is super nice in an engine deck and it's pretty good in a money deck, but I think you have a bit more on your mind.

Think of it this way: In a deck where your cards are nice, the expected value of the card you draw with that peddler (or tournament) is going to be higher than $1, so it's usually going to be better than silver and you get to cycle a card. In a game like this, though, your deck is gonna get fairly junked up, making the expected value of your next card a lot closer to $1, meaning that silver might just be a better choice. Particularly in the opening, if you're trying to get to $5, the silver is more reliable than the peddler because the average value of your cards in your first shuffle is actually less than $1.

So I'd say tournament is less strong in a slow game because that usually means there are going to be other, more dominating cards slowing the game down (such as witch in this case).

[Dsell]

Actually, this recent video from WW is a pretty classic example of what I'm describing and he describes it some too. (Promise I wasn't just stealing his ideas from the video though!)

[DG]

That pirate ship game is ok. You did push the pirate ships up to 8 coins though and that's probably too much.

[eHalcyon]

Tournament is harder to connect to Provinces when your deck is junked, and the usual best prize is neutered if there is already a curser on the board.

[shraeye]

Haven't posted in a while due to the Championships, from which this game comes.  As an update on my level, I have managed to claw myself over the level 20 mark (currently level 21 with 153 games played), due largely to surprising success in the Championships.  This game was the opposite of a success.

The board is Conspirator, Festival, Ironworks, Margrave, Merchant Ship, Outpost, Rabble, Scout, Venture, and Wishing Well, with Colonies in play.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/12/game-20121212-203202-63cffc04.html

Writeup from tourny: "I get beat down on a conspirator board.  My first 5 is a Festival, while Wingnut's first 5 is the smarter buy of a Margrave.  At the time I thought, "hey more collision for him." But the discard attack keeps me from hitting $5 very often, and Wingnut soon picks up more Festivals than me.  Conspirators/Wishing Wells empty, and Wingnut piles out Festivals for the win."

My summary:

• We both open Silver/Conspirator
• My game plan is to pick up an early Ironworks to gain Conspirators and Wishing Wells, obviously both enabling the Conspirator engine to kick.
• Eventually I want to get Margrave as well, so that I can take advantage of what I assume will be copious amounts of money.
• I do not end up with copious money, we split Conspirator stack 5/5 and I win Wishing Wells 6/4.
• My Ironworks only ends up gaining 1 Wishing Well and 2 Conspirators (also some estates, rational play disappeared when it was clear I was getting crushed)
• A key difference in our strategy was that Wingnut bought a Margrave with his first $5 and I bought a Festival.  At the time Wingnut had 2 conspirators and no +Action cards, it seemed like a mistake to have 3 terminals.  Yet I do lose incredibly.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I think your assessment is pretty right, that the early Margrave was a big deal. Attacks are strong, and it helps to get them early. Even if you get a collision, you waste 1 card, but your attack hits your opponent, which is at least as harmful as a collision, and if you don't get a collision, it's great!

Another thing you might want to think about is money. This is a Colony game. You're not really going to get all the money you want out of Conspirators. You need some actual treasures and/or a lot of Festivals. Your opponent was fortunate enough to get a couple early Platinums (the Margrave helped, of course), but you should have probably bought Gold or Festival instead of double Wishing Well on turns 11 and 12. Conspirator and Wishing Well split I think are not that important here. You mostly want a Festival/Margrave engine with Conspirators and Platinums to add money to buy stuff.

[DG]

My game plan is to pick up an early Ironworks to gain Conspirators and Wishing Wells, obviously both enabling the Conspirator engine to kick.

I think this is the wrong view of this kingdom. You should be looking for a festival/rabble/margrave engine with conspirators as a much improved silver for coins. With no trashing a conspirator engine can be intermittent and as soon as an opponent plays rabbles the conspirator engine will be likely to stall. With that in mind, the key card for the kingdom is the festival with the rabble and margrave also at cost 5. This means that the ironworks works against you, providing an excess of 3 and 4 cost cards as seen on your turn 5.

[shraeye]

My game plan is to pick up an early Ironworks to gain Conspirators and Wishing Wells, obviously both enabling the Conspirator engine to kick.

I think this is the wrong view of this kingdom. You should be looking for a festival/rabble/margrave engine with conspirators as a much improved silver for coins. With no trashing a conspirator engine can be intermittent and as soon as an opponent plays rabbles the conspirator engine will be likely to stall. With that in mind, the key card for the kingdom is the festival with the rabble and margrave also at cost 5. This means that the ironworks works against you, providing an excess of 3 and 4 cost cards as seen on your turn 5.

It's true, I do like conspirator engine perhaps more than one should.  Considering that there were Colonies, I needed a way to get money in my deck, AND a way to draw it.  I can see how the Ironworks hurt in that regard.  Would an Ironworks be a good card to include if this wasn't a Colony board?

[clb]

I think the Ironworks will be best in a scenario where key cards are $3 or $4 - the further you get from the ideal, the less useful the Ironworks becomes. If you are going for Festival/Rabble/Margrave, which are all $5, then the Ironworks won't help you, regardless of the Colonies.
Now, if there are no Colonies and you decide to do a Conspirator engine over the engine DG mentioned, then the Conspirator is much more helpful, however the lack of trashing makes that a bit of a long shot, as DG mentioned.

[dondon151]

As has been mentioned before, you have pure Conspirator engines vs. engines that use Conspirator as an auxiliary source of money.

Ironworks is great for pure Conspirator engines, but you need to have some great enablers at $4 or less. Light trashing, cards like Warehouse, Scheme, Caravan, etc., and no Colonies are great indicators for a pure Conspirator engine. However, with no trashing on the board and a lofty target of $11, you'll need something more powerful.

Just keep in mind that if you're really going out of your way to try and make Conspirators work, then they probably won't work.

[shraeye]

Lessons learned...

• Ironworks is a dangerous card, I have to know that there are $4 and lower cards worth gaining on almost all turns (meaning more than one hotly contested stack)
• Conpirator engines are cool, but you gotta know that on a colony board they aren't gonna automatically be the best; use them as support for a better engine
• It's worth a bit of terminal collision to get an attack card earlier, especially a strong one (Margrave)

Currently level 18 with 180 games played

[shraeye]

Game #5

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20121227-201424-77ad71ee.html

My summary:

• I open Spice Merchant/Silver trying to get to Goons first; opponent opens Potion/Silver.  Still he's actually the first to buy Goons...seems like bad luck to me
• I'm aiming for Highways, Goons, and Worker's Villages, but a bit into the game I realize that without card draw, I'm not going to play tons of goons, especially starting with 3 cards often. (Actually I get two goons in play I think surprisingly often given my bad deck).
• My opponent's second potion solves this problem, as he is able to get Alchemists and more Golems giving him his huge turn 17
• My opponent also picks up some Oases; I'm never sure when these are good cards, I thought they weren't especially with hand-size attacks on the board.
• Was Spice Merchant a good opening? Was it a good buy?

[DWetzel]

Well, the thing is, you have to have draw.  And the only available draw is Alchemist.  So, you need Alchemists, and because of that you need to start them right away.  Even if you can manage to get just a couple Alchemists, that will help you get to your Goons faster (and maybe let you luck into a bigger Goons turn once in a while).  And if you can three of them stacked semi-consistently, they're also pretty good defense against Goons themselves.

I think maybe a Spice Merchant the second time through to clear copper might be better.  I'm not sure what the right order is.  But I am pretty sure that ignoring Alchemist is a mistake.

Oasis seems bad, but if he's drawing and you aren't hitting him with Goons consistently, it's not so bad.

[-Stef-]

This is a pretty complicated set. Expect different views from different players, probably nobody really sure who's right. But I'll give you my thoughts.

• Goons is a powerhouse always when you can play multiples. But on this board I'd call it a bit of a trap. Here it has to compete with a highway-stack with free buys from Workers Village to load up on more of the same. Playing one goons is good for the attack, money and buy, but getting several goons is not as important as it may seem. Don't get me wrong - I want several goons in the endgame, but during the build-up stage I'd rather have more highways and a few Workers Villages. That allows for an incredible amount of buying power. So much that if we're not careful the endgame may never happen.
• The problem on this board is - as you say - to draw the good cards. Only alchemist and golem do that for free, both costing potion. However, a card that you both seem to have completely missed is Apprentice. It's very very good on this board, especially in combination with the spice merchant (Apprentices usual weakness is getting rid of coppers - too cheap. Spice merchant has a problem of getting useless late game - apprentice food). Don't be scared of "I played so many highways my apprentice doesn't draw anything" because if that's the case you're winning anyway. And if you can get rid of all the estates/coppers, you dont need that much draw because the core of the desired deck is cantrip already. Because of all that, I completely agree with your spice merchant opening. Getting coppers out is very important if you want to go for a megaturn, even if your plan would be Golems.
• Without a card costing $2P a potion opening is always a bit of a risk; no need to do that with an alternative as good as the merchant here. Your opponent gets to $6 before you, but has to pay the price with $2P so I wouldn't call him lucky. In fact - although I'm not sure I'd stick to it under all circumstances - my initial plan would be to completely skip potion here.
• My early focus would be 1 apprentice and then as many highways as I can get. A second spice merchant is an option, as is a single goons on a lucky $6 spike, mainly for the attack
• While going for the megaturn, buying coppers for points is absolutely no-go
• You're right in stating oasis isn't that great here. Too many goons flying around. On the other hand silver is't that hot either if you want to draw your action cards as badly as you do here. I agree with your opening silver over an oasis.
• Jester can be very nice if it hits the right cards, but here I'd rather have an additional highway

[DWetzel]

Oh, hey, Apprentice.

Yes, that's important and changes things.

[ftl]

Oh, and you definitely bought coppers WAY too early. Buying coppers for goons points is a move you do when you're not planning to build up a slim engine anymore - either it's a money game and coppers don't matter much, or it's so far in the endgame that you've resigned yourself to your engine not firing anymore, or it's the last turn. (Or, I guess, if you've got good deck control and know exactly when you'll draw and trash those coppers.) But here you bought one for single points as early as turn 10, when you don't have an engine at all yet (and probably won't have one ever, since you're buying coppers!)

I don't really have any more advice to add since -Stef- has weighed in. I'd probably be too scared to skip potion entirely, but thinking about it I can see how it could work, if you trash all your coppers and estates you don't need the card draw since you have all cantrips.

[DG]

It's not a straightforward set to give advice on since you can develop your deck in different ways with the potential for the some of the cards to conflict, such as oasis and apprentice. You've got to have an idea of the mid game to see the strengths of your opening.

For the way you seemed to play it, I'd suggest oasis instead of some of your silvers. You are planning to get alchemists and golems so this will make the oasis worthwhile, the oasis cycles the deck, and estates will be in hand quite often. You then need to buy goons instead of the gold. The golem you buy immediately afterwards will play the goons but discard the gold. The extra buy and attack from the goons are strong too.