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[DG]

This is an open challenge and I don't know how many answers there may be. It might still be interesting though.

The kingdom contains chancellor, stash, and border village. Seeing as there are no other 5 cost cards in the kingdom you decide to play chancellor/stash, buying stashes, a few chancellors, silver, lots of green cards, and nothing else. What other cards in the kingdom would persuade you to buy stashes and duchies directly for 6 and not buy border villages?

[Anon79]

While Tournament, Young Witch, and any form of handsize-reduction attacks are obvious, there is little if any advantage in having Border Village when playing Stash/Chancellor, so I suspect I will buy Stash/Duchy directly with $6 regardless of the presence of other kingdom cards (perhaps if Pirate Ship is in play I will buy Border Village though?)

You restricted the presence of $5 cards, so no Tribute/Minion/Mountebank.

[DStu]

While Tournament, Young Witch, and any form of handsize-reduction attacks are obvious, there is little if any advantage in having Border Village when playing Stash/Chancellor, so I suspect I will buy Stash/Duchy directly with $6 regardless of the presence of other kingdom cards (perhaps if Pirate Ship is in play I will buy Border Village though?)

You restricted the presence of $5 cards, so no Tribute/Minion/Mountebank.

I don't understand. Wasn't the question, given I decided to go Chancellor/Stash, which other cards would let me not buy Border Villages (and gain Stash/Duchy), instead I buy them directly? I don't see how Tournament or YW will interfere here...


So given our strategy is fixed, only attacks (or other cards of the opponent which messes with our cards like Masquerade or Tribute) might influence us. The only one I see at the moment is Thief. And that's also only very marginal. As we can hide our Stashes (thanks to the Chancellor) from the Thief, the Thief would clean our Coppers better if we wouldn't have some Border Villages in between them...

[Anon79]

With so many negatives and "not"s in your question, it's hard to be sure whether you are asking:

(1) Given you are playing Stash/Chancellor, when would you buy Border Villages with 6? or
(2) Given you are playing Stash/Chancellor, when would you NOT buy Border Village with 6?

My reply and perspective is that the answer to (1) is "under special circumstances only" and (2) is "nearly always". In other words, my default rule when playing Stash/Chancellor is not to buy Border Village. (It doesn't really help you, so why bother?)

Cards that would make me WANT to buy Border Village: Pirate Ship, if my opponent is running them
Cards that would make me NOT WANT to buy Border Village: Tournament (I want to hold Provinces in my hand to deny your Tournament, not draw my Provinces from Border Village), Young Witch (again if Chancellor is the bane I want to hold the Chancellor, not draw Chancellor from my Border Village).

In a Chancellor/Stash deck the Village is effectively +1 Action +1 Card (since you need play only one action per turn), so the question is more or less equivalent to "when do you want to pad a deck with cantrips?"

[Davio]

This may be a bit abstract, but what if your opponent has some Militia-like attack?

Having Border Villages in your hand instead of the cards you would have otherwise drawn increases uncertainty about the other cards.

Imagine having BV-BV-Stash-Stash-Copper (you have 6 Stashes and put 4 of them in your first hand) in your hand and your opponent plays his Militia. Do you discard the Copper hoping to draw better with the BVs or do you keep the Copper for a certain Duchy?

Besides, if you sometimes discard your BVs to a Militia-like attack, you're better off not having them, since you'll reshuffle more without them.

[DStu]

In a Chancellor/Stash deck the Village is effectively +1 Action +1 Card (since you need play only one action per turn), so the question is more or less equivalent to "when do you want to pad a deck with cantrips?"

But you deny your opponent the Border Villages, who might run a strategy that needs them. So the question is, "when do you NOT wnt to pad a deck with cantrips that your opponent might need?".

But I see the point of Tournament and YW now. Handsize-reduciton also...

[Fangz]

Anyway...

Warehouse: Too many do-nothing cantrips degrades the effectiveness of warehouse, by hiding from you the 'true' cards you draw. For example, if you have drawn Stash, Copper, and now have to choose between a silver, and a border village to discard. Do you hope the BV is concealing a chancellor, or just go for a stash/duchy? If you didn't have the BV you'd know right away.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Anyway...

Warehouse: Too many do-nothing cantrips degrades the effectiveness of warehouse, by hiding from you the 'true' cards you draw. For example, if you have drawn Stash, Copper, and now have to choose between a silver, and a border village to discard. Do you hope the BV is concealing a chancellor, or just go for a stash/duchy? If you didn't have the BV you'd know right away.

But you're not buying the Warehouse; your strategy is set. The question is more "what cards being available TO YOUR OPPONENT would make you consider/not consider Border Villages?".

[Davio]

I can think of a case that's way out on the edge: Tribute. You may want to limit the number of different cards you have if an opponent plays some Tributes. But then again, without BVs in your deck, your Treasures an VP-cards are closer together so he may get +$2 and +2 Cards more often instead of a possibly useless +2 Actions. However, if your opponent relies on those +Actions, he may not buy Tribute or will of course get BVs as well as them. So this is a really far fetched idea, so far fetched we may as well disregard it entirely.

The obvious thing why you don't want BVs is when you're behind and they're close to being the 3rd pile gone. But this is so trivial, it's only worth these 2 lines in my post and nothing more.

Another trivial case is when the BVs are Embargoed. Ok, let's move on.

You may want to defer from buying BVs if your opponent has Smugglers and he needs the BVs for his strategy more than you do. That's the last one I can think of.

Obviously there are way more situations in which you do want BVs if you use such a simple strategy, most of them including denying them your opponent.

[DG]

Good answers so far but I can think of more.

With the fixed chancellor strategy you might consider buying border villages to be an improvement because you should have two or more chancellors. If you can play them both instead of seeing them clash then that might be some extra vp, surely? We'll find out in this thread just how many complications can arise.

[Davio]

Good answers so far but I can think of more.

With the fixed chancellor strategy you might consider buying border villages to be an improvement because you should have two or more chancellors. If you can play them both instead of seeing them clash then that might be some extra vp, surely? We'll find out in this thread just how many complications can arise.

Well, the hard part is not finding situations in which BV(+Duchy/Stash/Chancellor) is a good buy, but situations in which it's a bad buy.

[Jack Rudd]

Jester? More Border Villages in your deck means more Border Villages your opponent can gain from his Jesters.

[Anon79]

Lots of answers here that involve $5 cards (Tribute, Jester)... think OP would do well to drop that strict condition, and insert an alternative one "the kingdom has to be such that Chancellor/Stash has a decent chance of winning".

[DG]

So far the following cards have been suggested as a reason not to buy a border village for the chancellor/stash deck:

Smugglers
Young Witch (when you have bane cards in your deck)
Tournament
Militia
Goons
Ghost Ship
Torturer
Jester + Tribute (weak but possible)
Embargo on the Border Village

I will myself add another major category of card

Bureaucrat
Sea hag
Fortune teller
Rabble
Spy
Scrying Pool

The chancellor normally defends against top of deck attacks by discarding your deck before you draw. The border village will however promote those attacks so that they attack your current turn. Repeated attack on the top of your deck will make the risks of a border village outweigh the marginal benefits.

Another card not yet mentioned is the city. Could an opponent try to run out both the city and border village piles for a boosted city deck? Perhaps but lets ignore that one. Are there any more cards we can add to the list?