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[Schneau]

Playing off the recent discussion of what is the best target for King's Court, I was thinking about what the worst target is. To make this more interesting than naming the worst cards, I am asking the question slightly differently: what card is the worst when King's Courted compared to it's usual strength. So, Scout is obviously bad with KC, but it is bad to begin with, so maybe it's not the one to vote for. Essentially, which card's second and third immediate plays are least useful compared to its first play?

I've excluded cards that plain old just don't gain anything with a second play: Library, Secret Chamber, Treasure Map, Outpost, Tactician, Watchtower, Counting House

[Tables]

It has to be Madman, surely? Just playing Madman would give you (usually) +4 cards +2 actions. KC it and you get +3 cards, +6 actions, and no KC left in hand. I'd go as far as to say, KC-Madman is worse than just flat Madman, assuming you aren't in a KC stack already.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Trading Post is pretty bad, since the trash is forced. I'm pretty sure you'll most often opt to simply not play the Trading Post rather than KC it.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I'm not even sure how a curser (Young Witch) is on the list. 

[Robz888]

It's not the worst, but King's Court on Warehouse is super demoralizing. Hey-wait-I-wanted-those...

[jonts26]

I'm not sure why a lot of those are up there. If KC'ing the card is strictly superior than just playing it without KC, then it's not even worth talking about. Yeah Goons doesn't give you more points, but +$6 and +3 buys is not bad at all. There are a ton of cards which the KC makes no difference for: Counting House, Outpost, Tactician, Treasure Map, Watchtower/Library (almost).

Of course the real winner should be a card which is almost always worse to KC, than play without KC. Madman probably does win that, but I think Rats makes a good case.

[SirPeebles]

Sometimes King's Courting a Throne Room is just plain worse than Throne Rooming the King's Court.

[DWetzel]

Given the constraints, I am pretty sure that Chapel is the choice here -- that ability to trash cards 5-12 in your hand doesn't exactly add to the value of the card (though I have done Throne Room/Chapel to decent effect -- Tactician appreciated the help).

[GendoIkari]

I'm not sure why a lot of those are up there. If KC'ing the card is strictly superior than just playing it without KC, then it's not even worth talking about. Yeah Goons doesn't give you more points, but +$6 and +3 buys is not bad at all. There are a ton of cards which the KC makes no difference for: Counting House, Outpost, Tactician, Treasure Map, Watchtower/Library (almost).

Of course the real winner should be a card which is almost always worse to KC, than play without KC. Madman probably does win that, but I think Rats makes a good case.

He mentioned all those in the original post, and explained why he didn't include them... same thing happened to me in my poll; I'm guessing people tend to only read the list of options in the poll, and not the post that goes along with them.

[GendoIkari]

Given the constraints, I am pretty sure that Chapel is the choice here -- that ability to trash cards 5-12 in your hand doesn't exactly add to the value of the card (though I have done Throne Room/Chapel to decent effect -- Tactician appreciated the help).

What's that, you have a KC-Torturer deck that just managed to get 10 Torturer plays off?

[SirPeebles]

Given the constraints, I am pretty sure that Chapel is the choice here -- that ability to trash cards 5-12 in your hand doesn't exactly add to the value of the card (though I have done Throne Room/Chapel to decent effect -- Tactician appreciated the help).

What's that, you have a KC-Torturer deck that just managed to get 10 Torturer plays off?

Followed up with a Minion 

[GendoIkari]

Given the constraints, I am pretty sure that Chapel is the choice here -- that ability to trash cards 5-12 in your hand doesn't exactly add to the value of the card (though I have done Throne Room/Chapel to decent effect -- Tactician appreciated the help).

What's that, you have a KC-Torturer deck that just managed to get 10 Torturer plays off?

Followed up with a Minion 

Followed by a surprise Moat, which wasn't revealed to the Torturer.

[shMerker]

Judging by the number of groans induced I'd say it's a tie between Scrying Pool and Spy.

[SirPeebles]

Given the constraints, I am pretty sure that Chapel is the choice here -- that ability to trash cards 5-12 in your hand doesn't exactly add to the value of the card (though I have done Throne Room/Chapel to decent effect -- Tactician appreciated the help).

What's that, you have a KC-Torturer deck that just managed to get 10 Torturer plays off?

Followed up with a Minion 

Followed by a surprise Moat, which wasn't revealed to the Torturer.

Followed by a Possession!

[greatexpectations]

What's that, you have a KC-Torturer deck that just managed to get 10 Torturer plays off?

Code: [Select]

--- tko's turn 11 ---
   tko plays a King's Court.
   ... and plays a King's Court.
   ... ... and plays a Torturer.
   ... ... ... drawing 3 cards.
   ... ... ... Wingnut gains a Curse in hand.
   ... ... and plays the Torturer again.
   ... ... ... drawing 2 cards.
   ... ... ... Wingnut gains a Curse in hand.
   ... ... and plays the Torturer a third time.
   ... ... ... drawing nothing.
   ... ... ... Wingnut gains a Curse in hand.
   ... and plays the King's Court again.
   ... ... and plays a Torturer.
   ... ... ... drawing nothing.
   ... ... ... Wingnut gains a Curse in hand.
   ... ... and plays the Torturer again.
   ... ... ... drawing nothing.
   ... ... ... Wingnut gains a Curse in hand.
   ... ... and plays the Torturer a third time.
   ... ... ... drawing nothing.
   ... ... ... Wingnut gains a Curse in hand.
   ... and plays the King's Court a third time.
   ... ... and plays a Chapel.
   ... ... ... trashing 2 Coppers.
   ... ... and plays the Chapel again.
   ... ... ... trashing nothing.
   ... ... and plays the Chapel a third time.
   ... ... ... trashing nothing.
   tko plays a Gold and 2 Silvers.
   tko buys a King's Court.
   (tko reshuffles.)
   (tko draws: a Gold, 2 King's Courts, and 2 Silvers.)

--- Wingnut's turn 12 ---
Wingnut plays a King's Court.
... and plays a Chapel.
... ... trashing 4 Curses.
... and plays the Chapel again.
... ... trashing 3 Curses and a Copper.
... and plays the Chapel a third time.
... ... trashing nothing.
Wingnut plays a Contraband.
... tko prohibits Wingnut from buying Platinums.
Wingnut buys a Silver.
(Wingnut reshuffles.)
(Wingnut draws: a Contraband, a Torturer, a Gold, a Silver, and a Copper.)
greatest iso moments of 2011 candidate.

[GendoIkari]

Given the constraints, I am pretty sure that Chapel is the choice here -- that ability to trash cards 5-12 in your hand doesn't exactly add to the value of the card (though I have done Throne Room/Chapel to decent effect -- Tactician appreciated the help).

What's that, you have a KC-Torturer deck that just managed to get 10 Torturer plays off?

Followed up with a Minion 

Followed by a surprise Moat, which wasn't revealed to the Torturer.

Followed by a Possession!

GG!

[SirPeebles]

Given the constraints, I am pretty sure that Chapel is the choice here -- that ability to trash cards 5-12 in your hand doesn't exactly add to the value of the card (though I have done Throne Room/Chapel to decent effect -- Tactician appreciated the help).

What's that, you have a KC-Torturer deck that just managed to get 10 Torturer plays off?

Followed up with a Minion 

Followed by a surprise Moat, which wasn't revealed to the Torturer.

Followed by a Possession!

GG!

Unfortunately you weren't the player to my left?

[DG]

It's quite sad when the Goko bots do play King's Court with a trading post.

[michaeljb]

Sometimes King's Courting a Throne Room is just plain worse than Throne Rooming the King's Court.

Isn't it usually better to Throne Room the King's Court?

KC-TR: play three cards, two times each; total of 5 cards played to get 8 plays (1 for TR, 1 for KC, plus 6 for the cards you're "really" playing)

TR-KC: play two cards, three times each; total of 4 cards played to get 8 plays

[HiveMindEmulator]

Sometimes King's Courting a Throne Room is just plain worse than Throne Rooming the King's Court.

Isn't it usually better to Throne Room the King's Court?

KC-TR: play three cards, two times each; total of 5 cards played to get 8 plays (1 for TR, 1 for KC, plus 6 for the cards you're "really" playing)

TR-KC: play two cards, three times each; total of 4 cards played to get 8 plays

Of course it depends on what the cards are and how many you have. Sometimes, for example you need some +Actions, but you don't want to KC the Pearl Diver, and would rather Throne it and Throne 2 other cards. But yeah, I think usually it's better to throne the KC because you are limited by how many copies of the really good cards you have in your deck.

[Lekkit]

Treasure Map.

[shMerker]

PLEASE READ THE OP BEFORE POSTING YOUR WRITE-IN

[Lekkit]

Have you read the Best target thread? It was filled with "King's Court, obviously!".

[GendoIkari]

Have you read the Best target thread? It was filled with "King's Court, obviously!".

Yeah, I was surprised at first, but I realize now that it's the fault of the way polls are laid out... the post you make along with the poll doesn't look like part of the poll at all, it just looks like a response that someone made to the poll. So it's not so surprising that people wouldn't read it; not everyone reads all the posts before replying... they are just replying to the poll itself, which is lacking that info.

[Tables]

Really don't get why Chapel is beating Trading Post or Madman... Chapel is occasionally useful to KC and it never hurts. Trading Post will kill your hand, Madman is a waste; both of those are usually worse to KC than to just play them. Chapel can't be.

[Schneau]

Why is only one "Draw up to ..." card mentioned (JoaT) and not Library or Watchtower? The worst thing about KCing a Library is that it feels so wasted, but you'll do it anyway in the hope of filling the KC card slot with something more useful.

PLEASE READ THE OP BEFORE POSTING YOUR WRITE-IN

[GendoIkari]

Really don't get why Chapel is beating Trading Post or Madman... Chapel is occasionally useful to KC and it never hurts. Trading Post will kill your hand, Madman is a waste; both of those are usually worse to KC than to just play them. Chapel can't be.

Oops! You just said "can't be" in regards to a Dominion strategy! Now someone like me is going to come along and point out an edge case where you're wrong! What if you wanted to trash that King's Court? Of course that wouldn't happen often... but perhaps you've over-invested in King's Courts and are drawing too many hands of King's Courts without other actions. Or perhaps you want to Chapel down to a Golden deck. Or perhaps your opponent is playing massive Possession, and you want your deck to have less buying power.

[SirPeebles]

Sometimes King's Courting a Throne Room is just plain worse than Throne Rooming the King's Court.

Isn't it usually better to Throne Room the King's Court?

KC-TR: play three cards, two times each; total of 5 cards played to get 8 plays (1 for TR, 1 for KC, plus 6 for the cards you're "really" playing)

TR-KC: play two cards, three times each; total of 4 cards played to get 8 plays

KC-TR is also more dangerous when you have blind draw, since you might draw a Trading Post and be forced to cash in your Colonies for Silver (oh noes!)

[achmed_sender]

Forge can also be very bad when playing with KC. Sometimes you have to take 2 additional coppers...

[verikt]

I've kc'd everything on that list usefully, including trading post. Excluding chapel, warehouse and the dark ages cards.

[Jack Rudd]

I vote for Baron.

[Davio]

I vote for Baron.

Certainly not!

KC-Baron can be pretty nice in a double Tac engine.

[Jack Rudd]

I vote for Baron.

Certainly not!

KC-Baron can be pretty nice in a double Tac engine.

Ah yeah, if you've got a big engine that can draw all three estates consistently, fair point.

[HiveMindEmulator]

PLEASE READ THE OP BEFORE POSTING YOUR WRITE-IN

I wonder how many people who would vote before reading the OP will read reply #21 first...

[shMerker]

As long as people keep quoting it to make comments it will be hard to miss.

[jomini]

Forge can also be very bad when playing with KC. Sometimes you have to take 2 additional coppers...

Kc/Forge/Fortress is just insanely good though, it is almost as strong as Kc/Bridge at mega-turning.

Even without that, it is not uncommon for Kc/Forge engines to get idiotically overbuilt once you forge away the dross. With Kc and a card gainer, you can pretty easily hit a 4 province turn Kc-> Kc -> Kc -> Iw (gain 12 value) -> Iw (gain 12 value) -> draw (draw 24 value) -> forge (gain 3 provinces), buy a province with your coin.

Another fun shot with Kc/Forge is piling down by replacing your cards (e.g. forge Colony -> Colony). Being able to deny my opponent a province, forge a province (say from a silver and a engine component 5), and take a copper is a VERY strong play late game.

Now all of these are a bit uncommon, but Forge has nothing on stuff like Madman which extremely rarely in a Kc deck wants to swap 1 card (2, 4, 8 ... depending on how many Madmen you intend to play) for just a few more actions.

[Mr Anderson]

I vote for Counting House, which is not mentioned in the list because you only benifit once and it is hard to draw both the KC and the Counting House in a deck with much Copper.

[Schneau]

I vote for Counting House, which is not mentioned in the list because you only benifit once and it is hard to draw both the KC and the Counting House in a deck with much Copper.

PLEASE READ THE OP BEFORE POSTING YOUR WRITE-IN

On a normal thread, people would at least usually read the OP and skim the rest before posting - why are the rules different on a poll?

BTW, Mr Anderson, I'm not picking on you - many others have already done this in this thread.

[eHalcyon]

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Treasure Map yet?

just kidding

[eHalcyon]

More seriously, there are several on the list that aren't really that bad. Vault is pretty good. Warehouse isn't terrible because you still get your best 3 of 12 cards. JoaT still gains you three silvers and can draw up more than once if you trash in between. I think forced trasher like TP and Remake are the worst to KC.

[GendoIkari]

I vote for Counting House, which is not mentioned in the list because you only benifit once and it is hard to draw both the KC and the Counting House in a deck with much Copper.

PLEASE READ THE OP BEFORE POSTING YOUR WRITE-IN

On a normal thread, people would at least usually read the OP and skim the rest before posting - why are the rules different on a poll?

Because of the layout... the poll question itself, along with the choices, looks like it's own thing. It doesn't look like it is attached to the OP.