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[Robz888]

Just played 5 against Stef, losing 4. I think I slightly outplayed him in the one I won, got hugely outplayed in 2, and got unlucky in at least 2. But I would really appreciate opinion and advice.

Game 1 -- Robz wins http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130623/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1372009254016.txt
Chapel, Stonemason, Doctor, Market Square, Monument, Embassy, Harvest, Ill-Gotten Gains, Rabble, Rebuild

The dreaded Rebuild! Okay, okay, I got this. Gotta go Rebuild, right? So I open Silver/Monument, and plan to play a straightforward Rebuild thing. There's no +actions engine to construct, so this has to be the right play. Stef goes for Market Square/Doctor shenanigans, and gets a whole bunch of Gold. I don't hit $5 until turn 5, which is really terrible and sets back my Rebuilding. But luckily all his Golds are sort for not, as he follows me into Rebuild and can never hit $8. Stonemason, by the way, allows for some nice double Rebuild gains. At one point I overpay SM hoping to double up on IGGs, but hey, you can't do that. I Province into Province enough to deprive him the points he needs to comeback, and take a win. Look at me, I can beat Stef, says the man who is about to be utterly obliterated.

Game 2 -- Stef wins http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130623/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1372010688164.txt
Stonemason, Oracle, Smugglers, Armory, Nomad Camp, Silk Road, Talisman, Merchant Guild, Grand Market, Nobles, Colony, Platinum

Colony game. We both open Oracle/Silver, that has to be the right call. Now, what to do. Well, I am the first one of us to discover a really neat trick: with Stonemason and Grand Market on the board, every time you could buy a Province, you can get 2 GMs and an SM instead. I used this to nice effect, racking up 6 GMs. Stef is more Nobles focused, allowing him to take a 4 VP lead. He finishes off the GMS, and there are only 3 SMs left. Can I empty the pile, and take a VP lead? I think about it for a long time, and actually the mandatory time out thing becomes an issue, because Stef tauntingly figures out that I can (I tell him what I have in hand), and tells me so. I figure that the best I can do is tie him, and why should I settle for a tie, when I won the GM split? Sadly, Stef does what I should have done, and steals the game. Deservedly so--he figured it out, and I didn't.

It's actually a great puzzle. Stef is ahead 10-6. GMs and Nobles are out. There are 3 Stonemasons left; no other pile is close to empty. After playing 2 GMs, I have a total of $4 and 3 buys total. Left in hand I have 1 Nobles (but no plus +actions), 1 Stonemason, 2 Coppers, 1 Silver, and a $1 coin token, which could yield a total of $9 if I don't draw with Nobles.

Here's how I could have tied: I Stonemason the Nobles into 2 Duchies, losing 2 VP and gaining 6 VP, making it a 10-10 tie. I can then buy 3 Stonemasons and end the game. I do not have enough buys or cash to also get an Estate, and you can't overpay for Stonemason and get VP--only actions (remember, Nobles are out).

Here's how I could have won, and how Stef won: I could have done the Nobles thing, pulled even, and then overpaid for Stonemason by $2, gaining all 3 Stonemasons, and then bought an Estate. Boo!!!

Game 3 -- Stef wins http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130623/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1372011015324.txt
Lighthouse, Workshop, Coppersmith, Horse Traders, Mining Village, Remodel, Spice Merchant, Ill-Gotten Gains, Pillage, Rabble, Colony, Platinum

Stupid IGG game where Stef gets 5/2, hits $5 every time, and crushes me easily. I don't think I could have done anything here.

Game 4 -- Stef wins http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130623/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1372011862529.txt
Squire, Chancellor, Oracle, Cutpurse, Herald, Tournament, Ill-Gotten Gains, Torturer, Upgrade, Grand Market, Colony, Platinum

Okay, okay. Okay. He totally crushes me and outplays me, but I have to think he got a little lucky? He opened Chancellor/Tournament for goodness sake. He draws Chancellor immediately, buys Upgrade, reshuffles, plays all three of his Action cards, and reshuffles again. But, like, I hate saying "Stef got lucky," because it's Stef, obviously he's not the best Dominion player because he gets some weird amount of good luck. I try to setup a Torturer chain with Torturer/Squire, but by the time I am doing that reliably, Stef has trashed most of his Copper, all his Estates, has a few Upgrades, Squires, Oracles, Tournaments, and Torturers of his own. I surrender. I think I was outplayed, and unlucky? Or just outplayed?

Game 5 -- Stef wins http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130623/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1372012514235.txt
Embargo, Vagrant, Monument, Scout, Thief, Treasure Map, Horn of Plenty, Ill-Gotten Gains, Knights, Hoard

I'm really hungry for another win at this point. We both open Monument/Silver. Third time IGG shows up, but we also have Knights. Knights are... important, right? I mean you can't just ignore them, I don't think. Ignoring Knights is rarely a good idea, I think, and there just isn't a lot going on here, other than the IGGs. So I start on the Knights. His first good hand is $6, and he buys Hoard right off the bat. Is that a good idea here? It should put him behind in the Knights race! Wel, it doesn't, we basically just both lose all the Knights against each other, and start IGGing, and somehow he can buy 4 Provinces while I struggle to hit $5. I am actually, truly baffled about what I did wrong in this game. I don't understand why his win was so lopsided. His Hoard obviously did help him, but I'm so, so, so not sure it was right to get it over a Knight on Turn 3. Ugh!

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[WanderingWinder]

Help Me Understand Why I Lost 4/5 Games to Stef

It's all right here - you are playing against Stef. ANYONE could lose 4/5 to him. Okay, okay, slight joke. I will now read the rest of your post and try to give some comments/advice.

[Kirian]

You are thinking of this the wrong way.  You beat Stef!

[WanderingWinder]

Game 2: Hmm, it is tricky, whether you want to go more for GMs or Nobles. But with both those piles, along with Stonemason, likely to run out, there is going to be really high chances for 3 pile ending, and you probably need to get points earlier than normal to defend yourself - this whole thing is very tricky though, as you don't want to fall too far behind, either. Also, I solved this puzzle, but it's a little weird because I have been missing them left and right with these guilds cards.

Game 3: Actually, I think there is a lot of interesting stuff going on here! Colonies, a nice engine, remodel, and of course pillage (which should reasonably hurt an IGG player - hard to hit 5 whilst missing your best card), I have to think there's a good chance SOMETHING beats straight-up IGG here. But I'm not sure. I certainly wouldn't just write this off though.

Game 4: He gets somewhat lucky, yes, at least early, but you have to realize that he is also playing well. Like, you want to go upgrade here. Probably get at least a few of them. This will neutralize torturer a good bit. Also, it's pretty hard to get a torturer/squire engine set up. Doable for sure, but significantly trickier than with other villages, I think. At any rate, if you are going for it, you need a lot more squires a lot faster. They don't draw, so the only think you can do is mass them up, and connect them with torturers faster. But I still like an upgrade plan, I think.

Game 5: Mmm, there's lots of interactions here. IGG spews curses, I don't know for sure but this seems pretty important compared to what knights do. Sure they get trashed, but you didn't buy them to have them, you bought them for the on-gain effect. Hoard I quite like, it just gives you more stuff to build up against the knights, and it puts you in pretty good position for IGG games, too, where extra duchies and golds are pretty nice. Thief could steal IGGs, but yeah, probably not worth it (though with hoard also, you have to at least consider). And there's lots of potential for embargo play, but as always that's really hard to evaluate.

[DG]

Game 1 - Stef thinks a doctor is a chapel when it's not.
Game 2 - A three pile ending is on the cards from the start here. Stonemason important to get the pairs of nobles or grand markets and following on from that you need to be aware of the stonemason creating a nobles/silk road thing even if it is not planned. Knowing that you're going to have stonemasons in the deck you need to skip the merchant ships entirely (worse than silver).
Game 3 - Not much to do here. Coppersmith is rubbish though.
Game 4 - You have to trash down here or go for a proper rush using torturer/cutpurse with IGGs. Stef builds a small deck that is easy to defend and it can probably withstand a full rush. The tournament/chancellor opening is quite cute. It keeps the deck thin and is likely to get an upgrade into circulation quickly. Less spending than cutpurse but he's more interested in deck size/control.
Game 5 - I'd be tempted to push this through as a straight monument/IGG game. The knights will probably hit a couple of IGGs and a duchy but it won't make any material difference.

[SCSN]

Game 1: You played this pretty well, two plays I disagree with:

T3: Doctor should have been a Silver. You want to get to $5 alot in Rebuild games. Rebuild itself hinders this by providing no economy, so the last thing you need is another dead card that's going to trash your Coppers. You also don't want to have a super trim deck as this strongly increases the risk of drawing your Rebuilds together with the green cards you want to use them on.

T8: Estate here is bad. Without the Estate you'd have ended the Duchy race with 4 Duchies and 0 Estates, which is great because now each subsequent Rebuild play would have yielded a Province. In that case I'd start buying Estates only after I've rebuilt all my Duchies (and then name Estate to trash Province -> Province).

Game 2: I like your play, pity that you didn't see how to win One thing though:

I figure that the best I can do is tie him, and why should I settle for a tie, when I won the GM split?

I completely understand the frustration underlying this statement, but ultimately you have to make the best possible decision based on how things actually are, not based on how you think they should be. Just understanding this from a logical viewpoint isn't going to help you much, you have to make an active effort to accept the frustration when it comes up, agree with it ("yes, this really sucks, damn it!"), but then let it go and refocus your attention on your actual options. If the best option you see is a tie and there's a good chance you won't get another turn, take it

Game 4: You want to get Upgrades fast and play them alot, Chancellor/Tournament facilitates this more than Oracle/Silver. I think you just really underestimated the power of Upgrade, as is evident by your T4/T5 Torturers which should have been Upgrades. The problem with going for Torturers first is that you won't be able to play them as often as with a trimmed deck, and that if your opponent has decent trashing, the attack just isn't going to hurt that much because 1) due to early trashing, his average hand is stronger than usual, so that discarding two coppers has less of an overall impact 2) because of his two upgrades and fast cycling, accepting a curse or two isn't going to hurt that much.

Game 5: Embargo looks interesting here. I think you can ignore Knights and just go for straight IGG. If your opponent goes heavy on the Knights, I'd always take a Copper when possible (since you only want to get to $5, this is no big deal for you, whereas it dilutes your deck so that Knights become much less effective). If you go this route, I wouldn't actually be surprised if your opponent's Knights end up hurting him more than they'll hurt you. Hoard is great in IGG games btw, and it's pretty decent against Knights too, as your economy will likely suck so a Gold is quite welcome and the Duchy can be nice fodder.

[-Stef-]

game 1: I just don't understand this one. I think my plan is worse then yours, but then I get such amazing early luck that I'm going to win anyways. Those two embassies combined with lots of golds - surely I'm going to buy a province or two. And then I don't and lose.

game 2: yeah nice puzzle, using both sides of the stone mason. It was off course bad tactics by me telling you you had the win in hands, but hey, it wasn't a tournament or anything. And I could always hope you wouldn't believe me I bought more Nobles, mainly because I played with more oracles, not to get points. I don't like getting points early at all.

game 3: I'd say just luck. Sure you could have tried something else, but that would probably have ended worse. This is why I like playing online - at least the boring games are over quickly.

game 4: this I considered by far the most interesting set. Your plan doesn't work, because your village doesn't draw. You can't build a chain off village/moat or squire/smithy, unless you can trash cards. Sure the torturers are annoying for me (I don't agree with SCSN here - a single torturer is actually more annoying in a trashed deck then in a starting deck) but just not enough to compensate for the upgrades.

game 5: I get a bit lucky again. In hindsight, I don't like my early Hoard. But now that my hoard somehow managed to survive the knights showdown, it wins me the game.

Game 5 - I'd be tempted to push this through as a straight monument/IGG game. The knights will probably hit a couple of IGGs and a duchy but it won't make any material difference.

embargo on IGG would shut you down.

[Schneau]

Game 2 puzzle: You could have also played 1 GM, and then Stonemason the second GM for 2 Duchies. Now you're up 12 to 10, and can just buy a Stonemason, overpaying by $2 to empty the Stonemason pile.

The Stonemason pile can run out quickly, and is something to look for. I had a game where I drained 5 or 6 Stonemasons in one turn to end it by buying 2 and overpaying by $2 each time.

[Robz888]

Regarding Game 4, yeah, I am totally convinced that since the village is Squire the Torturer chain doesn't have enough of a chance. And I like Stef's plan better, definitely. Still... Chancellor/Tournament is the best way to get there, we think? Maybe it is, I just never would have guessed that.