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[cherdano]

I thought the card-ranking threads were interesting partly because many posters made good points about why certain cards are frequently overvalued. Similarly, the ranked card lists may be useful to beginning or intermediate players simply because if they find a placement of a card highly surprising (SCOUT IS NOT A TOP 3 CARD???), that tells them something about their own misconceptions.

But of course it depends on the kingdom. So I thought it might be worth to make a separate thread about common misconceptions/wrong uses of some cards etc. in the context of a kingdom.
What concrete type of mistake have you seen most often among players 10 levels below you? Among players with roughly the same level as yours.

[cherdano]

Let me give an example myself:

Not every board with a grand markets is a race to win the grand markets split!
Once your buying power is strong enough to hit $8 in a province game, you should have good reasons to prefer a grand market over a province. If you have an engine that should soon be hitting double province buys, then of course you should go ahead and buy the grand market. But otherwise you often won't be able to catch up on provinces in time.

[GendoIkari]

Just played a Goons game where someone opened Bishop/Crossroads to my Silver/Crossroads. I won a lot. It's already been discussed that Bishop is usually a pretty weak opener, but on a Goons boards it's even worse.

I get as much trashing as he does from it; and the VP from Bishop is going to be completely irrelevant when we both want to eventually play 4 Goons per turn. So Bishop is basically a terminal Copper here.

[cherdano]

Here is another:

"My opponent opened with a strong trasher, so there is no point for me to buy a curser."

This is absolutely true on some boards, but completely wrong on others. Sometimes, the curses will slow down the opponent's engine building enormously, since it will take him longer to trash away the bad stuff. One way to think about it is: if the opponent has a small deck, say due to having trashed 4 cars with a chapel on turn 3, the additional curse makes a much bigger difference to his average card value. That's why Witch/chapel is a pretty good opening!
Other times, the opponent is already on his way towards drawing his entire deck and can afford the extra action to use his trasher to get rid of your curses. They will hardly make a difference. That's why you would hardly ever buy a sea hag on a board with remake, menagerie, a $2 cantrip and a +buy.

So this should be a decision to think about for a moment, not one to take reflexively.

[ednever]

Just played a Goons game where someone opened Bishop/Crossroads to my Silver/Crossroads. I won a lot. It's already been discussed that Bishop is usually a pretty weak opener, but on a Goons boards it's even worse.

I get as much trashing as he does from it; and the VP from Bishop is going to be completely irrelevant when we both want to eventually play 4 Goons per turn. So Bishop is basically a terminal Copper here.

Even better would be silver/silver, no?

Ed

[Drab Emordnilap]

Even better would be silver/silver, no?

Ed

I assumed he opened 5/2 and the board sucked other than Goons and some village.

[dondon151]

* Silver/Duchess

Come on, you know you want to.

[GendoIkari]

Just played a Goons game where someone opened Bishop/Crossroads to my Silver/Crossroads. I won a lot. It's already been discussed that Bishop is usually a pretty weak opener, but on a Goons boards it's even worse.

I get as much trashing as he does from it; and the VP from Bishop is going to be completely irrelevant when we both want to eventually play 4 Goons per turn. So Bishop is basically a terminal Copper here.

Even better would be silver/silver, no?

Ed

It was a tough call. My thought was that A) I knew extra actions would be extremely important, and B) The Crossroads early would likely provide some extra cycling as well as having a chance of being worth $2 the first time I played it anyway. But I suppose your right, Silver/Silver would have helped get the first Goons even quicker.

[Wingnut]

Automatically opening Fishing Village without taking into account whether there are strong enough terminals to merit multiple terminals being played on a turn or taking into account a lack of +buy

[dondon151]

Gaining Wandering Minstrel on a board with Looters.

[Beyond Awesome]

Gaining Wandering Minstrel on a board with Looters.

I quickly learned that one the hard way.

[eHalcyon]

Always discarding to Torturer.

[WanderingWinder]

Bishop is a generally good opener.


Bishop is generally TERRIBLE as an opener (there are exceptions), yet people do it ALL THE TIME.

[yudantaiteki]

Bishop is a generally good opener.


Bishop is generally TERRIBLE as an opener (there are exceptions), yet people do it ALL THE TIME.

Can you explain this more?

[greatexpectations]

Bishop is a generally good opener.


Bishop is generally TERRIBLE as an opener (there are exceptions), yet people do it ALL THE TIME.

Can you explain this more?

the main downside here is that bishop offers your opponent an option to trash as well. they can then focus on building their engine and playing other action cards while still thinning out their deck just as fast as you. this boost is often enough to offset the marginal difference in VP chips in the early game.

[jonts26]

Bishop is a generally good opener.


Bishop is generally TERRIBLE as an opener (there are exceptions), yet people do it ALL THE TIME.

Can you explain this more?

the main downside here is that bishop offers your opponent an option to trash as well. they can then focus on building their engine and playing other action cards while still thinning out their deck just as fast as you. this boost is often enough to offset the marginal difference in VP chips in the early game.

Bishop generally makes a better open in big money games where the early game points are going to be relevant. It's really bad when there's an engine because your opponent really likes the free trashing and will have better early economy which is paramount.

Oh and it should go without saying that it makes a fantastic opening when chapel is there too.

[WanderingWinder]

Bishop is a generally good opener.


Bishop is generally TERRIBLE as an opener (there are exceptions), yet people do it ALL THE TIME.

Can you explain this more?

the main downside here is that bishop offers your opponent an option to trash as well. they can then focus on building their engine and playing other action cards while still thinning out their deck just as fast as you. this boost is often enough to offset the marginal difference in VP chips in the early game.

Yeah, so this is basically correct, but I would like to expand on this more.
So if you look at trashing an estate with it, and your opponent does the same, you come out with 1 more money and 2 more points, whereas he has a, let's say silver in his deck (the opportunity cost). This is a pretty decent trade.
You trash a copper and he does the same. You end up with 1 more coin, and 1 more point. Not so worth it. Now overall, we look at BM-bishop opening with bishop being best, and it beats other options... but only very slightly.
More important, you are going to have a 5 card hand, one of which is bishop, which gives you 4 more cards to trash from. Your opponent has 5 cards to trash from. So he has extra chances to trash what he wants than you do, and he has extra cards to do something with after he trashes, and you've used a terminal action.

Now, bishop is by no means a bad card overall, for a few reasons. So why? Well, basically it is at it's best in the golden deck (this is of course a special case big exception to my generality), or in an engine, later on. (Bishop-BM is like, I think it's even worse than chancellor? It's really bad, almost never optimal - very many things let your opponent win the province split, and you have a very hard time hanging in the duchies, or getting 12 points from chips in time...).
Why is it better later? Well, there's a couple really big reasons. First, it's less likely that your opponent can just trash something without hurting their next hand in a significant way, which takes a way a huge portion of the drawback. Moreover, you are often reaping LOTS of points in such an engine (trashing 1-2 golds and re-buying them every turn is really good, and a really good way to crush a BM player to death, for instances), and perhaps most important, you just have more cards in your hand to be able to trash exactly what you want.

[DG]

Bishop generally makes a better open in big money games where the early game points are going to be relevant. It's really bad when there's an engine because your opponent really likes the free trashing and will have better early economy which is paramount.

Not really. Any drawing card like a smithy should be able to beat a basic bishop+treasure deck. Bishop is only strong in a treasure deck when there are no other good terminals in the kingdom.

Going back to common strategic misconceptions I will suggest the quarry. No further explanation needed.

[DrFlux]

I wrote an article about this, saying essentially the same thing. Bishop is usually a bad opener.

I got a lot of resistance to this, and I think this resistance comes because people think of it as a trasher, and want to buy it right away. I don't think people think to buy bishop turns 3-6. Because of that, most of peoples experience is games where one person buys bishop and the other doesn't. In a lot of games bishop is really good. Its just better when you don't start with it.

One additional reason other than what WW stated is just the opportunity cost of not having an additional silver. When there are awesome 5 cost things out, you want those as early as possible, and opening bishop hurts that goal. I've seen people open bishop/silver when Hunting party or wharf was on the board. Don't do it.

Bishop is a generally good opener.


Bishop is generally TERRIBLE as an opener (there are exceptions), yet people do it ALL THE TIME.

Can you explain this more?

the main downside here is that bishop offers your opponent an option to trash as well. they can then focus on building their engine and playing other action cards while still thinning out their deck just as fast as you. this boost is often enough to offset the marginal difference in VP chips in the early game.

Yeah, so this is basically correct, but I would like to expand on this more.
So if you look at trashing an estate with it, and your opponent does the same, you come out with 1 more money and 2 more points, whereas he has a, let's say silver in his deck (the opportunity cost). This is a pretty decent trade.
You trash a copper and he does the same. You end up with 1 more coin, and 1 more point. Not so worth it. Now overall, we look at BM-bishop opening with bishop being best, and it beats other options... but only very slightly.
More important, you are going to have a 5 card hand, one of which is bishop, which gives you 4 more cards to trash from. Your opponent has 5 cards to trash from. So he has extra chances to trash what he wants than you do, and he has extra cards to do something with after he trashes, and you've used a terminal action.

Now, bishop is by no means a bad card overall, for a few reasons. So why? Well, basically it is at it's best in the golden deck (this is of course a special case big exception to my generality), or in an engine, later on. (Bishop-BM is like, I think it's even worse than chancellor? It's really bad, almost never optimal - very many things let your opponent win the province split, and you have a very hard time hanging in the duchies, or getting 12 points from chips in time...).
Why is it better later? Well, there's a couple really big reasons. First, it's less likely that your opponent can just trash something without hurting their next hand in a significant way, which takes a way a huge portion of the drawback. Moreover, you are often reaping LOTS of points in such an engine (trashing 1-2 golds and re-buying them every turn is really good, and a really good way to crush a BM player to death, for instances), and perhaps most important, you just have more cards in your hand to be able to trash exactly what you want.

[DG]

 

I've seen people open bishop/silver when Hunting party or wharf was on the board. Don't do it.

Hunting party + bishop is strong though?

[werothegreat]

When there's no good draw, and poor +Actions, I tend to just buy Bishop after Bishop, and keep shoving them into each other, making my VP lead insurmountable by any Provinces my opponent might be able to pick up. 

If you both go Bishop, there comes a point where your opponent no longer wants to trash anything.  Whereas you just keep shoving Silvers and whatnot through the meat grinder.

[DrFlux]

Oh yes, HP + bishop is strong, I just would open silver/silver for it. The particular board I'm thinking of had hoard on it, so I knew I could catch up on points, but I THINK its right to open silver/silver even for plain bishop+HP. Not 100% sure.

[PSGarak]

I got a lot of resistance to this, and I think this resistance comes because people think of it as a trasher, and want to buy it right away.

I'm going to generalize this a bit and say: It's a common strategic misconception that Trash for Benefit cards are Trashers. Many TfB cards like Remodel, Apprentice, and Salvager are Trash for Benefit cards. A few, like Upgrade and Bishop, aren't quite as lopsided, because using them to trash copper isn't a waste of an action, but trashing only one copper per turn isn't going to get you a slim deck with any speed.

[werothegreat]

I got a lot of resistance to this, and I think this resistance comes because people think of it as a trasher, and want to buy it right away.

I'm going to generalize this a bit and say: It's a common strategic misconception that Trash for Benefit cards are Trashers. Many TfB cards like Remodel, Apprentice, and Salvager are Trash for Benefit cards. A few, like Upgrade and Bishop, aren't quite as lopsided, because using them to trash copper isn't a waste of an action, but trashing only one copper per turn isn't going to get you a slim deck with any speed.

That's why you don't just buy one Bishop.  If you're going to go for Bishops, buy out the pile.

[WanderingWinder]

I got a lot of resistance to this, and I think this resistance comes because people think of it as a trasher, and want to buy it right away.

I'm going to generalize this a bit and say: It's a common strategic misconception that Trash for Benefit cards are Trashers. Many TfB cards like Remodel, Apprentice, and Salvager are Trash for Benefit cards. A few, like Upgrade and Bishop, aren't quite as lopsided, because using them to trash copper isn't a waste of an action, but trashing only one copper per turn isn't going to get you a slim deck with any speed.

That's why you don't just buy one Bishop.  If you're going to go for Bishops, buy out the pile.

Yeah, so there's this thought. But it doesn't really work. It takes you FOREVER to buy anything valuable when you have so many cards that produce less money density than your starting deck.....

[werothegreat]

I got a lot of resistance to this, and I think this resistance comes because people think of it as a trasher, and want to buy it right away.

I'm going to generalize this a bit and say: It's a common strategic misconception that Trash for Benefit cards are Trashers. Many TfB cards like Remodel, Apprentice, and Salvager are Trash for Benefit cards. A few, like Upgrade and Bishop, aren't quite as lopsided, because using them to trash copper isn't a waste of an action, but trashing only one copper per turn isn't going to get you a slim deck with any speed.

That's why you don't just buy one Bishop.  If you're going to go for Bishops, buy out the pile.

Yeah, so there's this thought. But it doesn't really work. It takes you FOREVER to buy anything valuable when you have so many cards that produce less money density than your starting deck.....

The point is not to buy anything of value. 

[WanderingWinder]

I got a lot of resistance to this, and I think this resistance comes because people think of it as a trasher, and want to buy it right away.

I'm going to generalize this a bit and say: It's a common strategic misconception that Trash for Benefit cards are Trashers. Many TfB cards like Remodel, Apprentice, and Salvager are Trash for Benefit cards. A few, like Upgrade and Bishop, aren't quite as lopsided, because using them to trash copper isn't a waste of an action, but trashing only one copper per turn isn't going to get you a slim deck with any speed.

That's why you don't just buy one Bishop.  If you're going to go for Bishops, buy out the pile.

Yeah, so there's this thought. But it doesn't really work. It takes you FOREVER to buy anything valuable when you have so many cards that produce less money density than your starting deck.....

The point is not to buy anything of value. 

And grovellingly pick up ~2 VP every turn?

[Kirian]

I got a lot of resistance to this, and I think this resistance comes because people think of it as a trasher, and want to buy it right away.

I'm going to generalize this a bit and say: It's a common strategic misconception that Trash for Benefit cards are Trashers. Many TfB cards like Remodel, Apprentice, and Salvager are Trash for Benefit cards. A few, like Upgrade and Bishop, aren't quite as lopsided, because using them to trash copper isn't a waste of an action, but trashing only one copper per turn isn't going to get you a slim deck with any speed.

That's why you don't just buy one Bishop.  If you're going to go for Bishops, buy out the pile.

Yeah, so there's this thought. But it doesn't really work. It takes you FOREVER to buy anything valuable when you have so many cards that produce less money density than your starting deck.....

The point is not to buy anything of value. 

And grovellingly pick up ~2 VP every turn?

Well... if you average 2 VP per turn from T4 to T14, that's almost as good as getting 4 Provinces.  And if you're not going after Provinces, your opponent is going to take much longer to get 8 Provinces.  However, they could then pick up a single Bishop and start trashing Provinces and Golds... so maybe not.

[DrFlux]

If my opponent tries this strategy of "buying out" the bishops, I would do one of the following, depending on the board:

Build an awesome engine with the free trashing: if there are villages and draw, I will be able to play multiple bishops if I want, and buy at least a province a turn, possibly more if there's +buy. Or even better gain free things to trash.

Or:
Use the fact that my opponent is playing bishops every turn to trash down to the "golden deck". I'll be trashing provinces every turn, while my opponent will be trashing bishops/silver.

So yeah, its pretty rare I'd want to buy out bishops. Maybe with fortress though... just to keep my opponent from gaining too many of them, I'd only need like 4 (assuming no draw).

[Piemaster]

I always considered Bishop a bit like JoaT.  It does a bunch of things, none of them particularly well, but put them altogether and it makes it worthwhile.  It gives you a little bit of money and a little bit of trashing and a little bit of VP.  Of course if you look at these things in isolation, none of them are significant.  But taken together I think they make a pretty powerful card and well worth opening on a lot of boards.

(Edit: Just for clarification, I'm not saying Bishop is as good as JoaT)

[Tables]

Thing is, the trashing it gives you is worse than the trashing it gives your opponents. The money is less than what you'd get from a Silver, and I don't think the VPs really make up for it as an opening, usually

[Beyond Awesome]

If my opponent tries this strategy of "buying out" the bishops, I would do one of the following, depending on the board:

Build an awesome engine with the free trashing: if there are villages and draw, I will be able to play multiple bishops if I want, and buy at least a province a turn, possibly more if there's +buy. Or even better gain free things to trash.

Or:
Use the fact that my opponent is playing bishops every turn to trash down to the "golden deck". I'll be trashing provinces every turn, while my opponent will be trashing bishops/silver.

So yeah, its pretty rare I'd want to buy out bishops. Maybe with fortress though... just to keep my opponent from gaining too many of them, I'd only need like 4 (assuming no draw).

4 Bishops/4 Fortress nets 12VP a turn. Much better than the Golden deck. Also, easier to setup.

[blueblimp]

"Buy duchies when provinces are low."

Usually correct if both you and your opponent are playing for provinces, but often oh-so-wrong if your opponent is aiming for a slow alt-VP strategy (mainly thinking of VP chips here). If your opponent is aiming for a VP explosion, you need to end the game ASAP before it happens, because a handful of points from Duchies won't save you. That means avoiding all green except provinces and draining that pile as fast as you can.

[LastFootnote]

"Buy duchies when provinces are low."

Usually correct if both you and your opponent are playing for provinces, but often oh-so-wrong if your opponent is aiming for a slow alt-VP strategy (mainly thinking of VP chips here). If your opponent is aiming for a VP explosion, you need to end the game ASAP before it happens, because a handful of points from Duchies won't save you. That means avoiding all green except provinces and draining that pile as fast as you can.

It could also mean stealing some of the alt-VP and hastening the 3-pile ending, assuming you have enough Provinces to maintain a lead.

[blueblimp]

"Buy duchies when provinces are low."

Usually correct if both you and your opponent are playing for provinces, but often oh-so-wrong if your opponent is aiming for a slow alt-VP strategy (mainly thinking of VP chips here). If your opponent is aiming for a VP explosion, you need to end the game ASAP before it happens, because a handful of points from Duchies won't save you. That means avoiding all green except provinces and draining that pile as fast as you can.

It could also mean stealing some of the alt-VP and hastening the 3-pile ending, assuming you have enough Provinces to maintain a lead.

Yeah, although sometimes that isn't a good option, such as with VP chips or Vineyards.

[DrFlux]

"Double jack is the best option when there is no strong engine"

Double jack is strong, but there are almost always slight adjustments to be made. Sometime its buying 1 jack and then a terminal draw card or two, sometimes its buying a warehouse and a festival because they combo well.

"Jack of All trades is a boring card and never goes in engines"

Jack does a lot of things. Don't discount them. If there is no other way to trash estates, jack can do that for you, and replace them with silver. If building an engine, you can use trash for benefit later to get rid of the jack. If you have a way to trash copper, like spice merchant, it can be nice to build up your economy with the silvers...

Jack can even be an engine component itself. With disappearing villages or hamlet, it does draw up to 5. I played a game with fishing village and ambassador, and this was quite amazing and fast. Jack+hamlet can make a weird sort of money/engine hybrid that is definitely faster than double jack alone.

Engine building is tricky with jack around, because you have to be fast(<15 turns for the whole game often), and attacks are going to be less effective, and stalling is going to be less effective, because Jack doesn't suffer much from greening. Still, if you're clever, there's a lot of interesting things to do with Jack.

[DrFlux]

Addition/clarification: Of course, sometimes your engine really don't want silver, and there are other ways of trashing estates, and you don't want jack. I just think a lot of people think it NEVER goes in an engine.

[DrFlux]

That's exactly what I was saying though. If I could somehow manage in those games to get 5 bishops, it would mean my opponent would only get 3, and in the long game, I would win. That's the only case I can think of though where I would want to buy ALL THE BISHOPS. Oh, the other case might be in a possession battle, where I want to trash everything good in my deck and three pile somehow. But that would be later in the game.

If my opponent tries this strategy of "buying out" the bishops, I would do one of the following, depending on the board:

Build an awesome engine with the free trashing: if there are villages and draw, I will be able to play multiple bishops if I want, and buy at least a province a turn, possibly more if there's +buy. Or even better gain free things to trash.

Or:
Use the fact that my opponent is playing bishops every turn to trash down to the "golden deck". I'll be trashing provinces every turn, while my opponent will be trashing bishops/silver.

So yeah, its pretty rare I'd want to buy out bishops. Maybe with fortress though... just to keep my opponent from gaining too many of them, I'd only need like 4 (assuming no draw).

4 Bishops/4 Fortress nets 12VP a turn. Much better than the Golden deck. Also, easier to setup.

[ehunt]

dead horses of mine:

"don't take duchess when you buy a duchy"
take duchess, sometimes. she's free!

"a potion open is mandatory if familiar is on the board without other cursers"
there are a variety of exceptions, involving strong trashers. of course you will get creamed if you think you are in an exceptional case but you are not, so use caution. bear in mind: if your strategy has a 40% chance of winning if the opponent gets 3P on the second shuffle but a 90% chance of winning if he doesn't, then your strategy is superior to familiar even though you will get crushed some games.

[Drab Emordnilap]

"don't take duchess when you buy a duchy"
take duchess, sometimes. she's free!

I almost always take Duchess. Usually, if I'm buying Duchies, I'm at the point in the game where either:

A) I'd take free Copper if you gave them to me, and even if you collide a couple Duchesses, that's still as good as Copper

2) I'm not using all my actions every turn, because I'm drawing a bunch of green that wasn't there 5 turns ago. Woo, money!

[Jimmmmm]

Hmm, question. If you have a bunch of, say, Markets or Worker's Villages, do you generally use your spare buys on Coppers in the Duchy-buying phase?

[ftl]

Usually not; if you have a bunch of spare Markets and Worker's Villages, you're probably running an engine of some sort, and the key is to make sure the engine keeps drawing your deck, and copper gets in the way of that. Also, even in the duchy-buying phase of a Big Money game, you're usually aiming to have enough for Provinces on some turns, so there's no reason to take spare Copper unless you really are settling for only Duchies and not planning to spike Provinces any more.

[() | (_) ^/]

"Double jack is the best option when there is no strong engine"

Double jack is strong, but there are almost always slight adjustments to be made. Sometime its buying 1 jack and then a terminal draw card or two, sometimes its buying a warehouse and a festival because they combo well.

> Jack
> Festival
> Warehouse

Wait, there's not an engine here?  Granted, you said "strong engine," but if I can get my hands on enough Festivals and Warehouses, I'm double Provincing on you.

[HiveMindEmulator]

"Buy duchies when provinces are low."

Usually correct if both you and your opponent are playing for provinces, but often oh-so-wrong if your opponent is aiming for a slow alt-VP strategy (mainly thinking of VP chips here). If your opponent is aiming for a VP explosion, you need to end the game ASAP before it happens, because a handful of points from Duchies won't save you. That means avoiding all green except provinces and draining that pile as fast as you can.

Similarly, if your goal is ending the game on piles before your opponent gets his engine going, sometimes you want to buy Estates with $5+ or Duchies with $8+. The points are not as important as ending the game. For example, if you piledrove the IGGs, and your opponent is trying to build an engine, you should shoot for piling out Duchies. Any turn you waste to get a few more points is one turn they have to start making lots of points.

"Double jack is the best option when there is no strong engine"

Double jack is strong, but there are almost always slight adjustments to be made. Sometime its buying 1 jack and then a terminal draw card or two, sometimes its buying a warehouse and a festival because they combo well.

This is a dead horse of mine, so I'm glad someone else posted it. Jack is such a good opening for BM that it makes it seem like double Jack is a good strategy sometimes, but if you think about it even a little, there is no reason to buy a second Jack if you don't have some hand-size decreasing non-terminal. One Jack does enough trashing. All the second one does is gain Silvers and sift one card. There are quite a few terminals you can find that do something better than that.

The general form of this misconception is that strategies that do well in simulation are good to play in real games. There are so many limitations on the simulator games, that the situation where you'd actually want to play one of those strategies to the T in practice are really rare. The thing the simulator can give us is some insight that you have to apply to practical scenarios. Things like what cards are better openings for terminal draw BM, roughly how many terminals you want in some BM strategies, which kinds of BM strategies tend to like Duchies earlier or later than usual, etc... But if you actually just auto-buy Duchy when count remaining in supply of Provinces <= 5 or something with no regard for the score or your shuffles, then you're doing it wrong.

[Piemaster]

I think this applies to Masquerade as well as Jack.  The second one has diminishing returns, meaning that BM + Masq + other terminal often seems to work better than BM + double Masq.

[WanderingWinder]

I think this applies to Masquerade as well as Jack.  The second one has diminishing returns, meaning that BM + Masq + other terminal often seems to work better than BM + double Masq.

Yeah, but with masq, you don't even want the second masq usually if you're just playing BM. And I think most people understand this much more about Masq than Jack.

Actually, there are certain shuffle lucks you can get for which single jack is better than doublejack in the mirror, i.e. you actually want to buy silver over the second jack. This should show how marginal the increase of a second jack is, and how much you should want some other card instead in many cases.

[DrFlux]

Wait, there's not an engine here?  Granted, you said "strong engine," but if I can get my hands on enough Festivals and Warehouses, I'm double Provincing on you.

Good point, really I was thinking of each of those cards individually: on a jack board with ONE of those and no other engine, I'd suppliment jack with those cards. But with both, it probably goes to my second point, that you can build an engine WITH jack. Certainly in that case I would buy warehouse on 3, and festival on 5, and probably I'd even skip gold, and I'd aim for roughly even numbers of jack and festival. I haven't tested this though, like I've tested hamlet+jack.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Hmm, question. If you have a bunch of, say, Markets or Worker's Villages, do you generally use your spare buys on Coppers in the Duchy-buying phase?

It depends on where I'm at in the shuffle, and how likely I think I am to hit $8 again. I'll start buying Coppers on the last time through my deck that I think I'm likely to hit $8.

[WanderingWinder]

"Double jack is the best option when there is no strong engine"

Double jack is strong, but there are almost always slight adjustments to be made. Sometime its buying 1 jack and then a terminal draw card or two, sometimes its buying a warehouse and a festival because they combo well.

> Jack
> Festival
> Warehouse

Wait, there's not an engine here?  Granted, you said "strong engine," but if I can get my hands on enough Festivals and Warehouses, I'm double Provincing on you.

With no other drawing, how are you ever getting enough money in your at-most-5-card hands? Unless you are saying that warehouse+jack+festival is the engine, in which case I agree but am confused because I thought that was DrFlux's point...

[Drab Emordnilap]

"Double jack is the best option when there is no strong engine"

Double jack is strong, but there are almost always slight adjustments to be made. Sometime its buying 1 jack and then a terminal draw card or two, sometimes its buying a warehouse and a festival because they combo well.

> Jack
> Festival
> Warehouse

Wait, there's not an engine here?  Granted, you said "strong engine," but if I can get my hands on enough Festivals and Warehouses, I'm double Provincing on you.

With no other drawing, how are you ever getting enough money in your at-most-5-card hands? Unless you are saying that warehouse+jack+festival is the engine, in which case I agree but am confused because I thought that was DrFlux's point...

DrFlux was saying that you can add Warehouse or Festival to a DoubleJack deck to make it slightly better. (_)\||/$__) was saying that if you have a board with Warehouse, Jack, and Festival, why wouldn't you make an engine out of those instead of playing DoubleJack with Rooster Sauce.

[WanderingWinder]

"Double jack is the best option when there is no strong engine"

Double jack is strong, but there are almost always slight adjustments to be made. Sometime its buying 1 jack and then a terminal draw card or two, sometimes its buying a warehouse and a festival because they combo well.

> Jack
> Festival
> Warehouse

Wait, there's not an engine here?  Granted, you said "strong engine," but if I can get my hands on enough Festivals and Warehouses, I'm double Provincing on you.

With no other drawing, how are you ever getting enough money in your at-most-5-card hands? Unless you are saying that warehouse+jack+festival is the engine, in which case I agree but am confused because I thought that was DrFlux's point...

DrFlux was saying that you can add Warehouse or Festival to a DoubleJack deck to make it slightly better. (_)\||/$__) was saying that if you have a board with Warehouse, Jack, and Festival, why wouldn't you make an engine out of those instead of playing DoubleJack with Rooster Sauce.

When does Rooster Sauce stop being Rooster Sauce and start being an engine?

[() | (_) ^/]

"Double jack is the best option when there is no strong engine"

Double jack is strong, but there are almost always slight adjustments to be made. Sometime its buying 1 jack and then a terminal draw card or two, sometimes its buying a warehouse and a festival because they combo well.

> Jack
> Festival
> Warehouse

Wait, there's not an engine here?  Granted, you said "strong engine," but if I can get my hands on enough Festivals and Warehouses, I'm double Provincing on you.

With no other drawing, how are you ever getting enough money in your at-most-5-card hands? Unless you are saying that warehouse+jack+festival is the engine, in which case I agree but am confused because I thought that was DrFlux's point...

DrFlux was saying that you can add Warehouse or Festival to a DoubleJack deck to make it slightly better. (_)\||/$__) was saying that if you have a board with Warehouse, Jack, and Festival, why wouldn't you make an engine out of those instead of playing DoubleJack with Rooster Sauce.

I think I agree with Darp Emborderlinenap's response, except I don't know what Rooster Sauce is.  Please don't link to let me google that for you.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I think I agree with Darp Emborderlinenap's response, except I don't know what Rooster Sauce is.  Please don't link to let me google that for you.

By Rooster Sauce, I meant just a dash of something else, as opposed to adding so many additional components that it's a whole new meal (like an engine).

[PSGarak]

I think I agree with Darp Emborderlinenap's response, except I don't know what Rooster Sauce is.  Please don't link to let me google that for you.

Then I'll link you to The Oatmeal instead.

[() | (_) ^/]

I think I agree with Darp Emborderlinenap's response, except I don't know what Rooster Sauce is.  Please don't link to let me google that for you.

Then I'll link you to The Oatmeal instead.

rofl Napalming the Jungle