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[Kirian]

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130428/log.5101a6c4e4b02b7235c3860f.1367179231782.txt

Forager, Smugglers, Baron, Farming Village, Quarry, Sea Hag, Wandering Minstrel, Council Room, Duke, Hunting Grounds

It's both a good thing and a bad thing about Dominion that you'll only play certain games once, unless you decide to play another game with the same cards, which isn't fun except to replicate someone else's game.  In this case, the combos we played required almost everything on the board.

The Wandering Minstrel stack is pretty well-known by now.  Forager, especially with bonus Treasures on the board, can be phenomenal, and its +Buys and cash were key.  Also, though it took a few minutes to notice, Duke loves Hunting Grounds.  And with all those actions to buy, Quarry is awesome.

We took similar strategies here.  I open Forager/Sea Hag, expecting him to do the same, but he goes Forager/Quarry.  My single Sea Hag gives him 9 Curses throughout the game; it doesn't slow him down a ton, as he has six or so Foragers to my two or three, and Council Room and Hunting Grounds make for great drawing.  In addition, I'm feeding him fodder for Forager.  Halfway through the game, I think I've lost it.

But then something key comes out:  there's only so many cards you can trash to Forager before you have nothing left to trash!  When I find myself drawing my deck with only one of my Hunting Grounds--and my opponent starts going after Provinces--I decide to start greening, trashing Hunting Grounds for Duchies, then buying others with pure cash and replenishing Hunting Grounds with Quarry and Sumgglers.

After picking up 2 Dukes, I look to end the game on piles, and I would have if my T16 hadn't been lousy draws; he buys a few Provinces on T16 and T17 to take the lead, and I have to wait for 17, when a single Curse from Sea Hag both drops him down one point, and leaves just one Curse in the curse pile so I have enough buys to empty it.

Final score: 30-29.

[dondon151]

I have to thank you first for posting this game report because I think that this kingdom is fantastic. And while your analysis of the game itself is as accurate as can be, there is still much more to this kingdom that is not addressed.

1. I'm not convinced that Wandering Minstrel is strictly better than Farming Village in this kingdom. Reason number one is that FV guarantees that you draw a useful card in hand on the first play whereas Wandering Minstrel draws, and then sifts. There are advantages to having both. If your opponent goes for Sea Hag, an FV in hand counters the Sea Hag play (WM will not do anything). If you go for Barons as economy, FV will not draw Estates discarded by Baron. If you supplement your deck with Quarries, WM might discard them. Regardless, the presence of two villages in the kingdom is important because it lets you go nuts with the terminals here without worrying about losing a village split.

2. In a trim deck that draws itself with tons of actions to spare, Baron is a great card because you can discard an Estate, pick it up again, discard it again, etc. The +$4 is unparalleled and the +buy synergizes with Quarry. Neither player picked it up here, but I'm convinced that Baron will enable sustained megaturns.

3. I don't think that Duke "loves Hunting Grounds" as advertised. The vast majority of Duke boards are not going to benefit very much from having Hunting Grounds. The key here is the synergy between Quarry and Forager/Baron that technically lets you pick up Duchies at less-than-$5. There is also the fact that this board is really just a huge engine board, and engines benefit greatly from the presence of alt VP.

There is also another interaction between Hunting Grounds, Forager, and Baron: with only 8 Estates in the supply, you can pretty much empty that pile at the drop of a hat.

But mostly I am just surprised that neither player used Baron.