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[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.