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[Davio]

It seems like lately I've been gaining more appreciation for the Cornucopia cards, especially Menagerie, Horn of Plenty and Fairgrounds. I like going out of my way to make them work, because it's so much fun when they do.

I become almost giddy when I see a board that's ripe for Fairgrounds, but I'm having problems developing a sound Fairgrounds strategy.

I have found this blog article, but found it a bit lacking. It's not hard to build a Fairgrounds deck with Black Market or a board full of cantrips and my problem is not per se in getting to the 15 unique benchmark, but rather in the gaining of Fairgrounds themselves.

When I'm building a good Fairgrounds deck and it turns into a pretty smooth engine I often get to the point where I can hit $8 pretty consistently and then I start to wonder... should I meddle with Provinces or just focus on Fairgrounds? Since they're both worth 6 VP to me it doesn't matter points wise.

If I'm playing against a non-Fairgrounds player, I think limiting the amount of VP my opponent can get by grabbing some of the Provinces may be a good idea. On the other hand, this delays the game a bit as I'm greening harder with both Provinces and Fairgrounds and this may cause the Province player to switch to Fairgrounds himself. If instead I focus on Fairgrounds first, the only danger comes from the Province player getting more Provinces than I do Fairgrounds. And after I finished the Fairgrounds, I can just join in on Duchies if needed. So I'm not quite sure which is better.

When playing against another Fairgrounds player I think it's more easy since you just have to focus on winning the split 5-3 or better. In those cases I may dip into Fairgrounds a bit sooner and try to reach the 15 card benchmark a bit later.

[SirPeebles]

I really got an appreciation for them during the final last weekend.  I think I had recently heard someone say that to an engine player, Fairgrounds is pretty much a second pile of Provinces, which is a rather interesting way of looking at it.  You can take your time building a robust engine while your opponent has to plow through all 8 Provinces on his or her own.  Meanwhile there is that shiny stack of 6 VP cards just waiting for your engine to ripen.  The 6 VP threshold is easier to reach than ever now that Dark Ages is out (sorry Iso players).

Alternatively, a 4 VP Fairgrounds is like a super Duchy in many Province games.  Unless you are going with some sort of slick combo, you can nearly always get Fairgrounds to 4 VP.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I think the big thing you can get out of Fairgrounds is that you can take time to build a stronger deck and still have tons of points available. But the thing you have to be careful with is that you're actually building a really strong deck. If you're not going to be able to buy multiple Fairgrounds per turn, it's often not going to be worth it, because even when your non-Fairgrounds opponent is stalling a bit on Provinces, he can still muster enough money to steal some of your Fairgrounds. If your deck is only hitting $8, and not $12, you're probably not building a good engine for Fairgrounds.

[crazyrunnerguy]

Fairgrounds is a goofy card because if you can get it to 6 VP each, you're looking at at least 48 points plus likely a province, Duchy and Estate thrown in for the unique cards (58 points; 60 if you don't trash two initial estates). But if you can't - and your opponent can end the game before you get 15 unique cards, you're taking a 16 point hit, and you're at 42. This is seven Provinces, or six provinces plus Duchy and three initial Estates. One more Duchy for your opponent and you the Fairgrounds player lose. This is the calculus you need to think long and hard about when you think about going for your second or third Province (if you get four, you've likely won anyway). My thoughts are that you should get that second Province if it will not affect your ability to hit 6 VP/Fairgrounds or you can end the game on Provinces.

As for your opponent, him hitting a Fairgrounds is much like a non-Gardens player taking a Gardens. It's a 3-4 point loss for him and a 2-3 point gain for you, a five to seven point swing. For your opponent, that Fairgrounds is likely to be worth 4 VP to him but at a 6 VP point loss to you - a 10 point swing.

I think HME is correct that a good Fairgrounds deck is engine-based that can consistently hit $12 with at least two buys. This will get you double Fairgrounds, and then allow you to pick up miscellaneous parts as you close out and empty piles. Focus on the engine parts first, then move to Fairgrounds (they'll likely be worth 32 VP total at this point, so you've got at least 35 points available to you barring Estate trashing and a Province/Duchy buy) and final unique cards. Then end the game on piles - Fairgrounds and two engine piles, curses (if present on board, making the game more of a slog than it already is), or Estates.

My other thought was that you can try to end the game by getting half plus one of the VP available. This is 48 + 48 + 24 + 8 in a Fairgrounds game, so you need 68 VP (assuming no Estate trashing) to get there. 8 Fairgrounds + Province/Duchy/3x Estate and then two Duchies and an Estate get you there.

[Markov Chain]

Fairgrounds also works well in multi-player, because there are 12 available.  If you are one Fairgrounds player against two Province players, your opponents can't stop you from getting eight Fairgrounds unless they can exhaust the Provinces first, and eight Fairgrounds worth 6 each will match the Province players even if they split 8-4 (with none for you).  If there are two Fairgrounds players, each may get only six, and then the Fairgrounds players may need to three-pile the game before the Province player gets six.  (Unfortunately, Fairgrounds strategies are not good for three-piling.)