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[WanderingWinder]

Yes, but that "a while" isn't very long at all. 3 turns total, really, especially as you should gardens earlier in the mirror matchup than you otherwise would. If workshop doesn't get gardens significantly faster than buying them, you should basically never play it as a deck. I expect that a typical Workshop/Gardens should win the race against Trader/Gardens 6/2ish.

Well, I just played 4 games each with Workshop/Gardens and Trader/Gardens.  Here are my results:

Game 1, W/G:  4th Garden turn 7.  5th Garden turn 8, 6th Garden turn 9, 7th Garden turn 11, 8th Garden turn 12.
Game 2, W/G:  4th Garden turn 9.  5th Garden turn 10, 6th Garden turn 13, 7th Garden turn 14, 8th Garden turn 15.
Game 3, W/G:  4th Garden turn 8.  5th Garden turn 9.  6th Garden turn 10.  7th Garden turn 11, 8th Garden turn 13.
Game 4, W/G:  4th Garden turn 8.  5th Garden turn 11.  6th Garden turn 12.  7th Garden turn 13, 8th Garden turn 14.

(Game 2 was appallingly unlucky).

Game 1, T/G:  4th Garden turn 6.  5th Garden turn 7.  6th Garden turn 8.  7th Garden turn 11.  8th Garden turn 13.
Game 2, T/G:  4th Garden turn 7.  5th Garden turn 8.  6th Garden turn 9.  7th Garden turn 10. 8th Garden turn 12.
Game 3, T/G:  4th Garden turn 9.  5th Garden turn 11.  6th Garden turn 12.  7th Garden turn 13.  8th Garden turn 14.
Game 4, T/G:  4th Garden turn 7.  5th Garden turn 8.  6th Garden turn 9.  7th Garden turn 11.  8th Garden turn 12.

(Game 1 was appallingly lucky).

Now, that ain't science.  But it suggests to me that hoping for a 6/2 split for the Workshop deck is aspirational rather than common.  I think a 5/3 split will be much more likely.

I'm not sure how you're playing the W/G, unless you got lots of 5/2 starts. Because I get
Game      1   2   3   4   5

4th Garden   6   6   6   5   6
5th      7   7   8   6   7
6th      8   9   10   9   9
7th      10   10   14   10   11
8th      13   12   15   11   12

On the other hand, what really surprises me is how fast you can scarf those gardens with T/G. My gut was wrong here if you aren't regularly getting absurdly lucky in your 4. Yeah, wow. That makes it look like T/G is super, super strong. Maybe even almost I/G strong, 'cept you're probably better to get some Ironworks first and then maybe back into Traders.

[ackack]

Trader/Embargo is cute, I'm just not sure how strong it is. Your opponent will often have a Silver from the opening buy and can purchase a Trader themselves on turns 3-5 if they haven't already, and then your advantage is going to be quite modest.

[ackack]

I suspect Ironworks/Gardens would still beat Trader/Gardens because Ironworks pushes the pace so hard. But in general I think the question of which is best isn't very important, because it's going to be pretty infrequent. The more important message is that Trader is a strong enabler of Gardens. I think it's a quite strong 4.

[Epoch]

Anyone want to test out Trader/Embargo opening? I banned myself from playing for the semester.
On a big money Kingdom and your opponent doesn't open trader you should be set.

What's your thought?  Embargo Silver and Embargo Trader so that your opponent can't just mirror you?  I suspect it's not likely enough that you'll get your Embargos before your opponent sneaks in enough Silver to get to Gold.  And if necessary, he can suck up one Curse to get Trader even after you've Embargoed it.

[Epoch]

I'm not sure how you're playing the W/G, unless you got lots of 5/2 starts. Because I get

Hmm.  So, start Workshop/Workshop, what do you get with your first $4 or Workshop?  A third Workshop or Gardens?  I was going third Workshop, which may well explain it.

[guided]

The goal of the Workshop/Gardens script is to get 3 Workshops before turn 5. If you think you can probably get a Gardens at turn 3 and a Workshop at turn 4, you should take the Gardens at turn 3.

[ChaosRed]

Just won my first real game with Hinterlands cards, both Traders and Border Village were on the board.

I wound up 3-piling Great Hall, Border Village and Dutchies to win, essentially gaining a Dutchy with each Border Village buy. It wasn't a clean game, I made mistakes, but Traders not only kept my deck trim of copper, it also got the Estates out of my hand for Silver. I could have done better, but the cards were useful, and a lot of fun.

[Jack Rudd]

I just won a game against Hobbinton that ended with "Torturers, Curses, and Border Villages are all gone". You can probably guess how it went.

[WanderingWinder]

The goal of the Workshop/Gardens script is to get 3 Workshops before turn 5. If you think you can probably get a Gardens at turn 3 and a Workshop at turn 4, you should take the Gardens at turn 3.

I find that this is only true if your opponent is not likely to take any gardens themselves. If they are gardening too, you really need to push the pace on the gardens, so I only get 2 workshops before racing for gardens, stopping for the 3rd workshop only if I get $3.

[DG]

I'm beginning to think that there will be some very fast province rushes with border villages. There are already some strong existing strategies where you would overbuy a key 5 cost card. Adding a bonus border village into the deck could be a tiny advantage or a massive acceleration, depending upon the kingdom cards you're using.

[Zaphod]

I played a game with Envoy and Trader this morning.  Normally I'm not a big fan of Envoy, but with Traders stuffing my hand with Silvers, my hand was very uniform.  I can vouch that this combo works very well.  It helps to have something in the Village family available so you can play them both in the same turn.

[ChaosRed]

Zaphod is right it works really well, I can consume all 8 Provinces in 24 22 turns and 5 Provinces lickety-split. If you have a cheap +2 action village-type, with Envoy and Trader, its a really nice engine.

[Anon79]

I think presence of Trader makes Saboteur worse.

[WanderingWinder]

Also, the presence of Trader makes ambassador much, much worse.

[jimjam]

Anyone want to test out Trader/Embargo opening? I banned myself from playing for the semester.
On a big money Kingdom and your opponent doesn't open trader you should be set.

What's your thought?  Embargo Silver and Embargo Trader so that your opponent can't just mirror you?  I suspect it's not likely enough that you'll get your Embargos before your opponent sneaks in enough Silver to get to Gold.  And if necessary, he can suck up one Curse to get Trader even after you've Embargoed it.

The idea is that the embargo helps you get more silvers.

edit: Bah, actually it would probably be easier to just use hamlet or pawn.

[biopower]

Trader feels like a decent enabler for Dukes, simply because the mass of silver in your deck lets you reliably hit $5 fairly often. I can gain 8 Duchies by around Turn 15 or 16, which is only slightly slower than Horse Traders. While Horse Traders is more resilient against discard-from-hand attacks, Traders is better against cursing attacks.

[chwhite]

The next two are up: Nomad Camp and Fool's Gold.

Nomad Camp is nice and straightforward but, man, Fool's Gold has me absolutely flummoxed thinking about it- first thought has me comparing it with Venture and thinking they're best in similar situations, and perhaps together?  All I can say for sure is that we now officially have our first Reaction that's useless against every single attack!

[Davio]

As mentioned, Nomad Camp can be used for a quick $5 on turn 2 if you're lucky enough to open 4/3.
But then there's always a 60%* chance that you'll be stuck with $4. Still, +Buys cards can always come in handy when you're playing some BMU strat with something like Banks. In those cases, you'd rather have picked up a +Buy early, because you don't like spending $12 on a simple Woodcutter.

*3 remaining Coppers in 5 unknown cards, chance of having Copper on the bottom = 3/5


Fool's Gold's reaction is kind of lame, there may well have been better possibilities for this reaction, but there are more reactions in the set IIRC so we'll wait and see. It definitely offers a strategy to be build around it, since two of them together will always deliver a solid $5.

[chwhite]

As mentioned, Nomad Camp can be used for a quick $5 on turn 2 if you're lucky enough to open 4/3.
But then there's always a 60%* chance that you'll be stuck with $4. Still, +Buys cards can always come in handy when you're playing some BMU strat with something like Banks. In those cases, you'd rather have picked up a +Buy early, because you don't like spending $12 on a simple Woodcutter.

*3 remaining Coppers in 5 unknown cards, chance of having Copper on the bottom = 3/5


Fool's Gold's reaction is kind of lame, there may well have been better possibilities for this reaction, but there are more reactions in the set IIRC so we'll wait and see. It definitely offers a strategy to be build around it, since two of them together will always deliver a solid $5.

There are three Reactions and we've already seen two.  I agree that the reaction on Fool's Gold is pretty lame- having a reaction to your opponents buying good stuff is a great idea, but this just seems like such a narrow implementation of that idea.

Hopefully the Victory-Reaction will be more exciting.  If it is a Victory-Reaction, of course.

[Qvist]

At first sight, I thought Nomad Camp is boring, it's an instant Woodcutter, but like Donald X. pointed out, the opening can change. I don't like that there can be a luck-based difference between 4-3 and 3-4 openings now. But it adds an interesting effect to the first two turns. If the effect is interesting in the mid- or end-game has to be tested, I suppose.

Fool's Gold is now the first Treasure-Reaction card. It supports the Chapel strategy, because now you can have Chapel & 3x Fool's Gold instead of Chapel & 3x Silver.
And you're ready for Provinces. Later it can be changed into real gold. It also interacts well with Tactician or good engines. But if you have good running engines you likely don't need Fool's Gold anymore.

[DStu]

But if you have good running engines you likely don't need Fool's Gold anymore.

That's not quite true. Say you're building an engine with build-in +buy, but not much build-in money. At least not enough to go double-Province. Say Fishing Village-Wharf/Council Room. That's not even an extreme case, as FV gives some money, but you wont push it anyway near the $16. Now Fool's Gold comes in extremely handy. For $6, you can pick up 3 of them in one turn, increasing your economy for $9, so you given you had $7 before in the deck(5xFV+Silver, 5xFishing Village + Fool's Gold), you now are at $16 and ready for double Province. Just with Golds, that would have cost you 3 turns. (7->10->13(15 with Silver)->16).

So for engines the good thing about the Fool's Gold is not so much it's power, it will seldomly be much more worth than a Gold, but its price, so you can pick them up quite quickly if you have the buys.

[Fangz]

I like Fool's Gold a lot, actually. I see the reaction effect as a self-haven in the late stages of the game. At $2, I can see the stack disappearing very quickly, for both strategically wise and unwise reasons.

[Davio]

I also somewhat expect a VP card based on either Treasure as a whole or Copper/Silver.

Bank Teller
$6

Worth 2 VP for every 10 Treasures in your deck.

[ackack]

Fool's Gold is a very interesting concept. Some analysis:

- Chapel/BM probably got a lot faster (like possibly dominating strategy) if Fool's Gold is out. Chapel/Fool's Gold and not buying any treasure but FG is going to be fast fast fast, I think. If you're doing nothing but buying Green, 2 FG get you a Duchy, 3 get you a Province, just like regular Gold. But you can get them in your deck much quicker.

- Talisman/FG is also potentially interesting, though unlikely to be sufficient on its own without help. Chapel still seems best, but any sort of big draw, +buy engine can also expect to do very well with FG.

- FG seems like Native Village in that it's a card that can be very good if you build your deck around it and terrible as a casual acquisition. added: That said, because the card benefits so hugely from density, FG might end up being a lot like Minion - if your opponent starts pounding the pile, you might have to as well. A deck with only 5 treasures probably isn't going to hold up very well for a green rush.

[DG]

Fool's gold seems to have a very appropriate name. When played well it will be fantastic. If anything goes wrong it will be an elusive waste of time.