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Author Topic: Preview #5: Herald  (Read 91019 times)

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Robz888

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #75 on: June 07, 2013, 12:32:24 pm »
+29

And now we are back for the possibly final installment of But How Does it Combo With Scout?

In a word: Adequately. Scout combos with Herald by drawing Victory cards into your hand, so that Herald has a greater chance of drawing Actions. The fact that Scout doesn't draw Treasure or Curses, and allows for re-ordering, isn't such a crippling defect here, because as with Wishing Well, you are going to draw the top card anyway with the +1 Card off Herald, so you actually want the Action to be the second card in your deck. It's not going to be much of a game changer, but Herald is probably going to be the best possible reason to buy a Scout....

Chumps! That's probably what you were all saying, "Oh look at this card, it has a trivial combo factor with Scout, isn't that cute, blah blah blah."

Fools, you're barely scratching the surface of Scout/Herald comboability! The true combo is in the overpaying clause. Consider this: THERE IS NO LIMIT* TO THE NUMBER OF SCOUTS YOU CAN ADD TO YOUR DRAW DECK. If you bought them, and you discarded them, and you bought Herald, and you overpaid substantially for it, you can put as many Scouts back as your heart desires.

It's a leap of faith. Herald asks, "I know you love Scouts, but how much are you willing to overpay for this privilege of getting to play them before the reshuffle? A Copper? A Gold? Two Platinum?"

Make the leap, my friends.

I hope this has been illuminating. I feel that I have only peeled back the veil that surrounds expert Scout play, adding a single piece of the Scout puzzle that is life. This card is bigger than you, or me, or a whole handful of Wharves.

Let me leave you with this. KING'S COURT. And now you are among the enlightened.

Shanti, shanti, shanti (town)

*Limit 10.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #76 on: June 07, 2013, 12:38:55 pm »
0

Herald looks like it has super high potential, but I think it will be mediocre most of the time.  The main difficulty I see is that it is unreliable as a village and, even when successful, it does not give control over what is played.  It makes it more difficult to manage the reshuffle, and it's probably a really bad idea to use it with mandatory trashers like Remake. 

I think Steward would actually be one of the better cards to go with Herald, because it can trash down to grant high action density but it can also effectively be an activated Conspirator or a super Lab (Herald finding Steward for cards ends in a 7 card hand, 1 better than Lab).

It gets better with certain setup cards like Cartographer and (hahaha) Scout.  I think it goes decently with Doctor, which is a safe trasher to thin the deck while sometimes offering an opportunity to rearrange the next 3 cards for your next Herald play.

I think the type of deck it prefers will be very similar to a Scrying Pool deck, where you want lots of cantrips and villages.  It can be nice to throw in some terminal draw as well, but you have to be careful with it.  It's great when you reveal it with Herald, but it is much less awesome if you find it in your hand.  If you can't actually get +2 actions, the terminal draw card will effectively be a dead card; since your deck should be action dense, it will just draw a lot of dead actions.  In that case, you will have to rely on Herald finding another Herald.  It's better with more cantrips that can effectively grant +actions.

The overpay also has super high potential, but it won't always be great because it would get expensive to set up more than a couple of cards.  Inn is a flat $5 but it can shuffle in every action in your discard.  Herald's strength is that you can actually topdeck, and you can do it with more than just action cards.  It will be tricky to take advantage of though, especially considering the opportunity cost. 

Overall, it looks really interesting.
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Davio

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #77 on: June 07, 2013, 01:01:19 pm »
0

This is a typical card where at first you think "wait, this is great" and then you start thinking about it more and you're like "hmmm, yeah it's a cantrip, but very unreliable". So it starts getting the Menagerie treatment where you think "when am I ever going to trigger this without setting it up?" Finally it lands as a decent, but not great $4 and you might hit it often enough to make it at least fun.

If you play a single Herald 4 times over the course of the game and it hits 2 times, it gave you essentially +6 cards / +6 actions which drawwise is the same as activating Menagerie once out of 4 times, but still with 2 more actions.

So yeah, it's cute but not game-warping I think. Luckily for it, $4 isn't a really competitive price point all that often so when you're tired of Silver you can grab this, but then again it doesn't really work that well in a deck flooded with Silver.
Let's say you're faced with a board that has Caravan and this, which do you prefer? It's not always going to be automatically Herald, certainly not early.

The on-buy overpay effect is cute and all, but I don't know, how often are you going to overspend on a $4 without getting a $5 you need more?
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soulnet

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #78 on: June 07, 2013, 01:31:22 pm »
0

I think this card is incredibly fun. Yeah, more Menagerie/Wishing Well/Conspirator kind of fun. We can keep discussing the power level, but this is the best card in the previews because activating this card is one of the most fun engines to build. And the tension it adds is even better than the "I hope the first of my three Smittys draws another FV" or "I hope the bane is not in their hand this time".
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Slyfox

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #79 on: June 07, 2013, 01:55:42 pm »
0

So it starts getting the Menagerie treatment where you think "when am I ever going to trigger this without setting it up?" Finally it lands as a decent, but not great $4 and you might hit it often enough to make it at least fun.

Menagerie is an interesting point of comparison.  I think the big difference if favor of Herald is that it is difficult to trigger Menagerie multiple times per turn without extremely careful deck construction (few duplicates) or some sort of discarding (such as Warehouse, Cellar).  In contrast, just spamming Heralds gives them like a reasonable chance of being a Lab+Village on any given play.  Overall, I see this as being a key card on more boards that Menagerie.

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Slyfox

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #80 on: June 07, 2013, 01:59:56 pm »
0

...and it's probably a really bad idea to use it with mandatory trashers like Remake. 

I think this is a really important consideration (albeit perhaps obvious in retrospect).  With a mandatory trasher, this card could easily become a trap, forcing trashing of cards you don't want to trash.   But optional trashers (Chapel, Steward, Count, Loan, etc.) will work much better with Herald.  And look at that, we've already seen Doctor and Butcher in Guilds, both of which are optional trashers.
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jaybeez

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #81 on: June 07, 2013, 02:15:20 pm »
0

This card sounds like it was made for Marin.  Now he can create improbable village-less engines even without TR or KC.

Edit: or Golem.
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Taco Lobster

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #82 on: June 07, 2013, 02:37:44 pm »
0

It's like Golem Jr.!  Watch out for Trading Post, Trade Route, et al...
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Axxle

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #83 on: June 07, 2013, 02:42:52 pm »
+1

*Limit 10.
19 with Band of Misfits!
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Davio

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #84 on: June 07, 2013, 02:52:39 pm »
0

...and it's probably a really bad idea to use it with mandatory trashers like Remake. 

I think this is a really important consideration (albeit perhaps obvious in retrospect).  With a mandatory trasher, this card could easily become a trap, forcing trashing of cards you don't want to trash.   But optional trashers (Chapel, Steward, Count, Loan, etc.) will work much better with Herald.  And look at that, we've already seen Doctor and Butcher in Guilds, both of which are optional trashers.
Well, the problem here of course is: to get any sort of action density, you would like to trash.
And often there's just one trasher on the board. So if it's Remake, I might still get it and cross that bridge when I get there. More often than not, my remaining 4 cards aren't all Colonies so in that case I'll probably still be okay.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #85 on: June 07, 2013, 02:53:18 pm »
0

*Limit 10.
19 with Band of Misfits!

Then your opponent buys the last Herald, and it was the only Action card costing less than $5. Nooooooooooo!!!
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SirPeebles

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #86 on: June 07, 2013, 02:59:13 pm »
0

*Limit 10.
19 with Band of Misfits!

Then your opponent buys the last Herald, and it was the only Action card costing less than $5. Nooooooooooo!!!

Nah, there's Beggar :)
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LastFootnote

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #87 on: June 07, 2013, 03:18:13 pm »
+2

It just struck me that Goko's terrible on-buy/on-gain UI is going to be trouble for these overpay cards. If you buy a Herald, it goes directly to your discard pile before on-buy effects, ready to be put on top of your deck! Likewise, if you overpay for Doctor and it causes a reshuffle, you might hit the Doctor itself.

Goddamn Goko…
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Witherweaver

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #88 on: June 07, 2013, 03:33:55 pm »
0

*Limit 10.
19 with Band of Misfits!

Then your opponent buys the last Herald, and it was the only Action card costing less than $5. Nooooooooooo!!!

I wonder how many weird edge cases there are where emptying a pile can fundamentally mess up someone's Band of Misfits strategy.  (Obviously, buying the 10th scout to reduce your opponent's effective Scouts from 19 to 9 is just rude, and they may up and quit at that point.  The smart opponent will 10x Embargo the Scout pile after he has 9.)
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SirPeebles

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #89 on: June 07, 2013, 03:38:58 pm »
0

It just struck me that Goko's terrible on-buy/on-gain UI is going to be trouble for these overpay cards. If you buy a Herald, it goes directly to your discard pile before on-buy effects, ready to be put on top of your deck! Likewise, if you overpay for Doctor and it causes a reshuffle, you might hit the Doctor itself.

Goddamn Goko…

I was thinking about this yesterday.  Onigame considered some of these cards to have variable costs, apparently, yet from a coding perspective they absolutely do not.  That worries me.
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liopoil

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #90 on: June 07, 2013, 03:39:10 pm »
0

...better make sure that the only way to get a scout is to buy it... If, say, butcher is also in the kindgom he can turn something into the last scout, ducking the embargoes
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #91 on: June 07, 2013, 03:58:42 pm »
+2

The gut reaction to this card is that it's super strong, like a better throne room. Well, on some consideration, I *do* think it will probably be  slightly better card than throne room in general, but not earth-shattering. Maybe something like the 10th-best 4-cost.
Alright, you clearly want lots of actions when you're playing this. But you have to look a little more at *which* ones. And I think, generally, not your typical engine. I mean, this card is worthless if you've drawn your whole deck*. And as the key village to draw your whole dick, it's probably not so hot, either. I mean, you need to use it to hit to draw the deck, fine, maybe you can do that (though it's a little tough). But then what? You have no more actions coming in, and you probably don't have tons of spare actions lying around. So you get a terminal or two off and... what? Probably it will be hard to do enough to justify the time spent getting here, because you can't play enough of those actions. Of course, it works fine with other villages in this spot, but in that case, how much do you want this over those? Probably some, but not tons. Anyway, in these kinds of decks, it's going to be worse than throne room most times. Yes, you can go ahead without needing TR-TR or a village in your initial hand, which is nice, but at the end, TR is just going to have a better pay off. Of course, mixing them wouldn't be bad at all for this kind of deck.
(*actually, this isn't necessarily true, if you have some discard-for-benefit card which lets you pitch exactly two. Or a throned mandarin or something. Secret chamber, horse traders, cellar, etc. work, and I guess warehouse-like things do too, but usually in such cases, you'll want 3 actions to discard, and having those many left after drawing your deck... I mean, it can happen, but it's not going to be a common thing).

The mandatory trash problem. This is biggest with remake. Most other mandatory trashers probably won't get your deck down to having a full hand without a card left to trash. The thin you, but not often THAT thin. Even with remake, you can probably play around it mostly. I mean, upgrading middling cards isn't usually *that* bad, even if not ideal, or sometimes you can just play them all first, or in the rare case where none of those things works, you can choose to not play this. It will take some tactical finesse, and it is a drawback, but it's a pretty small thing. And most other kinds of actions will be things you want to play (especially if you have them in your deck).

Well, anyway, I don't think that's the real strength of the card. Most of the cards this week, I've been saying I think they work well in sort of big-money strats with some actions - you know, throw decent cantrips with decent terminal non-draw, add some silver and gold, buy green when you can. This fits into something along the same spectrum, but more on the engine-ish side of things. I mean, traditionally engines want to draw lots o f stuff and play it, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Here, I mean a deck where you might play 4-5 actions a turn, but never have a hand bigger than 6-7 cards, and maybe not even that many. So I am thinking just buying only actions, or almost only actions, until you go green, with a good helping of these. So open monument/fortune teller, and then grab as many of these as you can, sprinkling more of those cards in along the way. Or something along those lines. Another cantrip or two helps a lot. But just consider, if this hits woodcutter, that is equivalent, fully equivalent, to grand market. On a woodcutter! And generally, you want to hit better things than woodcutter. I must say, ironworks/workshop/armory well help LOADS here.

While we're talking about combos, there's navigator (seriously, you can set up a chain of these, and navigator is the exact kind of card that should do well in the deck I describe above). But most of all, I want to do something really sick with develop and this. I imagine that this synergy is just very nice, as if you do it right, you always seed yourself with a useful card. Of course, you need to have a spare action, which probably means a village, or maybe just one of these hitting a non-terminal. But I would like to set something up were I just chew through like 8 cards to empty 3 piles and end the game in a single turn.

Oh yeah, there's the overspend, too. This effect is quite interesting. Maybe you can get it to combo with the card itself if you ave a zillion cash, or with another buy and grabbing a mandarin. Okay, most of the time not. Anyway, combos with counting house, that is going for it. Good deck tracking could give you barons or tournaments when you need, too. But mostly probably just lets you play a key card or two a little more often. But usually, by the time it could be in the discard, you aren't all THAT far from  reshuffle, so you have to watch out for that - pulling it back only to have the reshuffle get missed sorta defeats a lot of the point. Yeah, well anyway, BM-type decks could grab it to help the greening phase. Slogs could gain it too, but when are you ever going to do this in a slog? Eh, probably just a nice effect to spend $1-3 on,, and occasionally be a mad genius and go like 8 over with.

eHalcyon

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #92 on: June 07, 2013, 03:59:52 pm »
0

It just struck me that Goko's terrible on-buy/on-gain UI is going to be trouble for these overpay cards. If you buy a Herald, it goes directly to your discard pile before on-buy effects, ready to be put on top of your deck! Likewise, if you overpay for Doctor and it causes a reshuffle, you might hit the Doctor itself.

Goddamn Goko…

I was thinking about this yesterday.  Onigame considered some of these cards to have variable costs, apparently, yet from a coding perspective they absolutely do not.  That worries me.

onigame's set generator had the goal of making "balanced" kingdoms, which by his definition typically meant a decent mix of price points.  Therefore, it made sense to include overpay cards in the various cost categories, since you COULD pay a lot for one of them in order to reap extra benefits.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #93 on: June 07, 2013, 04:00:08 pm »
+1

(Obviously, buying the 10th scout to reduce your opponent's effective Scouts from 19 to 9 is just rude, and they may up and quit at that point.  The smart opponent will 10x Embargo the Scout pile after he has 9.)

This is clearly why scout can't pick up curses - otherwise, you would just buy it anyway.

GendoIkari

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #94 on: June 07, 2013, 04:43:51 pm »
0

. And as the key village to draw your whole dick, it's probably not so hot, either.

Freudian slip?
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #95 on: June 07, 2013, 04:53:56 pm »
0

. And as the key village to draw your whole dick, it's probably not so hot, either.

Freudian slip?
How about I just hit the wrong key? I mean, I'm on a qwerty here.

DStu

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #96 on: June 07, 2013, 04:57:05 pm »
+1

. And as the key village to draw your whole dick, it's probably not so hot, either.

Freudian slip?
How about I just hit the wrong key? I mean, I'm on a qwerty here.
We saw that you hit the wrong key. The question is why? ;P
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shMerker

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #97 on: June 07, 2013, 05:07:09 pm »
+2

I want to Herald a Procession of Rats. I'm not sure if that can really be part of a workable strategy, I just like the thematic ridiculousness of it. Rats would also be fun to Butcher.
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liopoil

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #98 on: June 07, 2013, 05:12:27 pm »
0

I want to Herald a Procession of Rats. I'm not sure if that can really be part of a workable strategy, I just like the thematic ridiculousness of it. Rats would also be fun to Butcher.
there's no way to trash rats there. procession does, but each time you trash a rat with procession you gain 2 more. plus herald-into rats is going to happen way too often.
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werothegreat

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Re: Preview #5: Herald
« Reply #99 on: June 07, 2013, 05:12:54 pm »
0

It just struck me that Goko's terrible on-buy/on-gain UI is going to be trouble for these overpay cards. If you buy a Herald, it goes directly to your discard pile before on-buy effects, ready to be put on top of your deck! Likewise, if you overpay for Doctor and it causes a reshuffle, you might hit the Doctor itself.

Goddamn Goko…

My thought is that when you buy an overpay card, you'll be given a button to pay more (or done), before the card ever ends up in your discard pile.  That is, if you're not dragging it.  GET RID OF THE DRAGGING
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