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[zahlman]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201212/09/game-20121209-211321-feb00278.html

Develop no good here? It seems like there is something useful at every price point, and topdecking village-wharf pairs sounds especially nice.

[dondon151]

Why'd you open Village? You didn't get a Wharf after the reshuffle and your Salvager missed Estate consecutively. That's pretty much a game over.

Consider that if you hadn't opened Village but with Silver instead, you would've hit $6 on turn 3 for a Wharf and your Salvager would have trashed an Estate on turn 4 for a Village.

I'd think that Salvager/Develop is a better opening on this board.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I'd think that Salvager/Develop is a better opening on this board.

I'm not convinced that Develop will really be useful here. There are no 2s, so you can't Develop 3s, and there are no 4s you really want. You also don't need it for trashing, since Salvager gets the Estates, and a lot of Coppers are going to go on the Mint buy.

[Titandrake]

But Salvager/Develop has a good chance to trash more sooner, and you can Salvage the Develop once you get rid of most the Estates. Although Mint changes things around...I still want to side with Salvager/Develop here for redundancy's sake.

EDIT: Actually, now I'm not sure. If I were playing it, I'd be opening Salvager/Silver to try to get early Wharves. Salv/Develop delays that, but will likely get you a Village along the way.

[dondon151]

Well, it depends. I'm not entirely convinced that you want to buy a Mint because if your draws don't line up, then you end up having an overbuilt deck with $4 of spending power (assuming you buy no Treasures after opening Silver and trash 5 Coppers to Mint). Develop gets you slightly more out of your Estates and lets you trash Salvager into a Mint + Village after the Estates are gone. If you draw $4 or $6, you don't mind trashing a Copper either.

I tried both of them and had them neck-and-neck in speed; I suppose Develop is more prone to bad luck but you can't just discount it because you can't do little tricks with it.

[ftl]

I'm not going to say never open village... but, well, never open village unless you have a REALLY good reason to.

Here there isn't one. It's a Wharf game, so you don't even need as many villages as usual. There is both Village and Bazaar around, so there can't possibly be any importance in winning the Village split. No Peddlers around. And here it's important to get $5, since the dominant card is Wharf, and the Village doesn't help you do that at all.

Regardless of whether the right thing to pair with Salvager was Develop or Silver, it DEFINITELY wasn't Village.

[WanderingWinder]

In a wharf engine, you don't NEED to trash so much. Certainly not more than one salvager would do. The big thing is to get as many wharves in play as possible, which first of all means a lot of wharves, a little money to buy them (and eventually more to do stuff with them), and then villages to support, IF you need them and have the time. Which depends a little on how the opponent is going.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Well, it depends. I'm not entirely convinced that you want to buy a Mint because if your draws don't line up, then you end up having an overbuilt deck with $4 of spending power (assuming you buy no Treasures after opening Silver and trash 5 Coppers to Mint).

I'm fairly certain you want to buy Mint, not to trash the Coppers (that will just be a side effect), but primarily to gain Golds. You should quickly get to the point of being able to draw your whole deck and using the Mint to gain Golds which you can use for money and eventually Salvager fuel. Having to buy money beyond 1 Gold will take too much longer, and you won't really be able to get to the point of buying 2-3 VP cards in a single turn fast enough.

[DG]

With a salvager opening you are looking to trash estates for 2 coins and spend those 2 coins with treasures on good cards. This would typically be a good 5 cost card and not a good 4 cost card, since you could have just bought the good 4 cost card instead of the salvager in the first place. A salvager/village would be lucky to hit 5 coins on turns three or four and is likely to be much weaker than salvager/silver. It's quite important to harness the full value of the salvager in the early game since the salvager can be poor in the mid game once the estates are gone.

You could think about this further and also consider remodel. Remodel can trash an estate and gain a 4 cost card regardless of treasures in hand. The initial spending is not likely to be as important.

[dondon151]

I'm fairly certain you want to buy Mint, not to trash the Coppers (that will just be a side effect), but primarily to gain Golds.

Oh, I am certain that you want to have a Mint. I just don't think that buying one is necessarily a good idea with Wharves drawing all of the Copper in your deck anyway.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I'm fairly certain you want to buy Mint, not to trash the Coppers (that will just be a side effect), but primarily to gain Golds.

Oh, I am certain that you want to have a Mint. I just don't think that buying one is necessarily a good idea with Wharves drawing all of the Copper in your deck anyway.

I'm not sure what your concern is. You don't want to lose the Coppers? Then Develop is bad too. You can't spare one buy at the $5 level? It shouldn't take long for the Mint to pay back by giving Gold to buy even more 5s at once. Plus by skipping Develop, you have more shots at hitting $5.

The opportunity cost of going Develop is much higher than buying Mint, imo.

[dondon151]

Say that you have $9 or $11 or however much coin you have in your deck. On the turn that you buy Mint, you can only play $5. So you lose tempo, if only a little bit.

Now I guess you could argue that Develop loses tempo to begin with, barring the lucky scenario that you draw Develop with Estate on turn 3, topdeck a Silver, and then buy a Wharf on turn 4. But whatever.