Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Robz888]

On the other hand, I applaud you for recognizing Squire above Hamlet. I do believe I was the first person to make this claim, a long, long, long time ago! http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4500.msg103556#msg103556

[SCSN]

Squire is much worse than Hamlet because you can't buy alot of them without destroying your deck. As such Hamlet is often fine as the only village in an engine, whereas Squire rarely is.

Squire obv. has some other uses to compensate, but a hand like double Squire with no drawing terminal is just so dreadful, and it comes up alot. Not to mention that Hamlet has some awesome uses too (with Menagerie it's just bonkers).

[AJD]

I haven't played all that many Dark Ages games, but I don't think I've ever won with Marauder against a player who ignored it.

[Davio]

Squire is much worse than Hamlet because you can't buy alot of them without destroying your deck. As such Hamlet is often fine as the only village in an engine, whereas Squire rarely is.

Squire obv. has some other uses to compensate, but a hand like double Squire with no drawing terminal is just so dreadful, and it comes up alot. Not to mention that Hamlet has some awesome uses too (with Menagerie it's just bonkers).

Squire can lead to players "over-Squiring" and in my experience, this rarely is a good thing. Even with Watchtower/Library, it's still kind of meh.
You rarely have too many Hamlets though.

Of course Squire has other things going for it, like the on-trash, but I don't know if that makes it better than Hamlet. I'd rate Hamlet higher, because of its single card draw. Engines are about lining things up and I think I've seen much more non-connecting Squire hands than Hamlet hands. I still think it's too early to say for sure though, at least for me.

[kn1tt3r]

48.   Hamlet
Possibly you are surprised this is so low, but if anything I think this might be high. Its a cheaper village that can get plus buy, no? Well, you do often have a card to discard at little penalty, except it's often not NO penalty, and it's a lot worse than village for trying to set up an engine - you have one fewer card every time, and these stack poorly. Also, they can make poor cards come back for the shuffle quite annoyingly. Still, it's a good little card and one which can be very nice when used properly.

46.   Squire
I have this above hamlet. It's even a tiny bit worse at making a draw engine, I grant you, but silver-flooding makes it good in a whole host of other situations as well, and the buys can be very nice. This thing can really blast piles sometimes. And the trash bonus can occasionally be highly powerful, even if it usually does little to nothing.

While I'm still not sure which one of those is ultimately better, I don't see how the one card less (on average) for Hamlet can be an argument for it to be inferior compared to Squire. It's not like Squire has a tendency to increases your handsize...

Anyway, that's probably not how meant it, but basically every disadvantage you mention for Hamlet also applies for Squire.

[WanderingWinder]

48.   Hamlet
Possibly you are surprised this is so low, but if anything I think this might be high. Its a cheaper village that can get plus buy, no? Well, you do often have a card to discard at little penalty, except it's often not NO penalty, and it's a lot worse than village for trying to set up an engine - you have one fewer card every time, and these stack poorly. Also, they can make poor cards come back for the shuffle quite annoyingly. Still, it's a good little card and one which can be very nice when used properly.

46.   Squire
I have this above hamlet. It's even a tiny bit worse at making a draw engine, I grant you, but silver-flooding makes it good in a whole host of other situations as well, and the buys can be very nice. This thing can really blast piles sometimes. And the trash bonus can occasionally be highly powerful, even if it usually does little to nothing.

While I'm still not sure which one of those is ultimately better, I don't see how the one card less (on average) for Hamlet can be an argument for it to be inferior compared to Squire. It's not like Squire has a tendency to increases your handsize...

Anyway, that's probably not how meant it, but basically every disadvantage you mention for Hamlet also applies for Squire.

It's true, they do. But my hamlet post wasn't meant to compare with squire, but rather my impression of people's evaluation of hamlet. And my squire post was the comparison. Basically, they are very close in my estimation, but squire has a couple extra uses that toss it over (the silver gain, the trash-for-attack). It gives +buy more efficiently than hamlet but is even a little worse for making an engine. Basically you just don't want it as your primary village except maybe in draw-to-X, though this is almost as true for hamlet.

Squire is much worse than Hamlet because you can't buy alot of them without destroying your deck. As such Hamlet is often fine as the only village in an engine, whereas Squire rarely is.

Squire obv. has some other uses to compensate, but a hand like double Squire with no drawing terminal is just so dreadful, and it comes up alot. Not to mention that Hamlet has some awesome uses too (with Menagerie it's just bonkers).

I don't penalize cards for being bad if you play them poorly.

And of course hamlet has some awesome uses - so does squire. The point here isn't at all that squire is almost always better than hamlet, it's that I think it's a little better on average - and oftentimes, it'll be worse.

[HiveMindEmulator]

IMO Hamlet is actually a LOT better than Squire. I'm not sold on Silver flooding being useful all that often. Being able to discard stuff with Hamlet is probably useful just as often, and being able to draw a card is useful way more often.

The +card is actually a really big deal. Even though they net the same number of cards when used as a village, sifting 1 card can help a lot (much more than +$1). And you're happy to pick up Hamlets with all your spare buys since they can disappear when you don't need them, so going for Hamlet as your main village isn't all that risky. You don't want to have to discard 6 cards or something, but if you only use like 2-4 as villages and then more as adding reliability, you're good. And of course with draw-to-X or menagerie, it's really good, and Squire really isn't.

Basically, you're comparing the extra utility of being useful in mass-Silver strategies vs being better (often MUCH better) in like every kind of engine. I think Hamlet comes out on top on average, no question.

Journeyman I think is also much too high. Immeditaely below it are Haggler and Horn of Plenty, which are real game-changers. Journeyman is just a good Smithy variant. Is it that much better than Rabble and Catacombs, which are a couple dozen spots lower?

And in Sea Hag vs Marauder, I think Sea Hag is a clear winner. Yes you can skip it maybe 25% of the time. But every time you can skip it, you can skip Marauder too. Even though Marauder might be "less bad" in those cases, you don't get either one anyway, so that's not worth anything. You have to look into edge-case-land to find situations where you want Marauder and not Sea Hag, so I don't see any way it can be better than Sea Hag on average. It probably should live somewhere around Militia. It's completely opposite in terms of function (slow, but lasting attack with delayed money vs immediate, but fleeting attack with immediate money), but the average power level is probably close.

[Powerman]

Squire and Hamlet are both overrated in general, but here Squire is a tad moreso.  On average, Hamlet slightly better than Squire.  But really, Hamlet is not so hot, because yeah it doesn't hurt you, using it as a cantrip is just not that good, and if you use a bunch of them as cantrips, then suddenly you don't have the actions you need anyway.  Squire down ~20 spots, Hamlet down ~5 spots.

[LastFootnote]

IMO Hamlet is actually a LOT better than Squire. I'm not sold on Silver flooding being useful all that often. Being able to discard stuff with Hamlet is probably useful just as often

Are you seriously claiming that gaining a Silver—something generally considered to be advantageous—is comparable to discarding a card—something generally regarded as a penalty? Imagine if Oasis gained you a Silver instead of discarding a card.

[dondon151]

Are you seriously claiming that gaining a Silver—something generally considered to be advantageous—is comparable to discarding a card—something generally regarded as a penalty? Imagine if Oasis gained you a Silver instead of discarding a card.

And if Oasis never drew you a card in the first place while gaining that Silver. Actually, if that were true, I would buy Oasis far less often.

Hamlet can also make you discard 2 cards!

[Robz888]

Squire is much worse than Hamlet because you can't buy alot of them without destroying your deck. As such Hamlet is often fine as the only village in an engine, whereas Squire rarely is.

I just don't follow this logic at all. You would never say Spy is better than Sea Hag because you can buy a lot of Spies without destroying your deck.

Loading up on Hamlets is just, well, overrated I think. Obviously it's a good card, nice source of extra actions and extra buys that doesn't get in your way, bonkers with Library and Jack and Watchtower and Menagerie. But absent those, it's actually pretty hard to keep hitting discard over and over again for like, Smithy draw.

Of course Squire has that problem too, and it doesn't do AS well as Hamlet does with the draw to Xs. But given the availability of other villages, Squire is actually a better source of buy, and virtual coin is really nice, and Silver gaining is just like generally useful in money games and slogs and some rushes. The attack gaining thing is rarely practical, but can actually be extremely powerful in situations where it IS doable. You can like Upgrade/Remake/Remodel Squire into a good $3 card and any attack. It's not something you will do a lot, but it's actually quite useful when it does come up.

[blueblimp]

And if Oasis never drew you a card in the first place while gaining that Silver. Actually, if that were true, I would buy Oasis far less often.

This hypothetical variant of Oasis sounds pretty strong in BM:

Silverasis
Action -- $3
+1 action
+$1
Gain a Silver.

For BM without terminal draw, because it's non-terminal, you could spam as many of these as you liked with very little penalty. Unlike Squire, when two of them collide, you get 2 Silvers instead of just 1. So it's better at silver flooding than Squire.

[HiveMindEmulator]

IMO Hamlet is actually a LOT better than Squire. I'm not sold on Silver flooding being useful all that often. Being able to discard stuff with Hamlet is probably useful just as often

Are you seriously claiming that gaining a Silver—something generally considered to be advantageous—is comparable to discarding a card—something generally regarded as a penalty? Imagine if Oasis gained you a Silver instead of discarding a card.

Yes. But you have to take things in context. Clearly you wouldn't buy a card that just said "discard a card", but you wouldn't often buy one that just said "gain a Silver" either. If you did, then people would buy Workshops to gain Silver much more often.

My claim is that situations in which I want to buy Squire because of the Silver gain are not more common than situations where I the discard of Hamlet is actually a benefit rather than a penalty.

[dondon151]

Except an engine would beat BM like, 85% of the time at least. Normal Oasis is a solid-to-great $3 in engines; Silver Oasis is a card that you might not even want (and you don't want more than one generally).

I just don't follow this logic at all. You would never say Spy is better than Sea Hag because you can buy a lot of Spies without destroying your deck.

I'm sure that Sea Hag makes for a fine village.

[LastFootnote]

IMO Hamlet is actually a LOT better than Squire. I'm not sold on Silver flooding being useful all that often. Being able to discard stuff with Hamlet is probably useful just as often

Are you seriously claiming that gaining a Silver—something generally considered to be advantageous—is comparable to discarding a card—something generally regarded as a penalty? Imagine if Oasis gained you a Silver instead of discarding a card.

Yes. But you have to take things in context. Clearly you wouldn't buy a card that just said "discard a card", but you wouldn't often buy one that just said "gain a Silver" either. If you did, then people would buy Workshops to gain Silver much more often.

My claim is that situations in which I want to buy Squire because of the Silver gain are not more common than situations where I the discard of Hamlet is actually a benefit rather than a penalty.

I understand that. I still disagree with your claim. The discard is really only a bonus with draw-to-X or Menagerie. The Silver gaining is useful with most alt-VP and in other types of slogs. Those seem much more common to me.

[blueblimp]

Except an engine would beat BM like, 85% of the time at least. Normal Oasis is a solid-to-great $3 in engines; Silver Oasis is a card that you might not even want (and you don't want more than one generally).

That's fair. BM is a lot weaker on Goko than it was on isotropic.

[scott_pilgrim]

Squire is much worse than Hamlet because you can't buy alot of them without destroying your deck. As such Hamlet is often fine as the only village in an engine, whereas Squire rarely is.

I just don't follow this logic at all. You would never say Spy is better than Sea Hag because you can buy a lot of Spies without destroying your deck.

Squire and Hamlet both want to connect with something.  Both of them are such that you would like to have a lot of them, so you can make sure they connect with your terminals (if they're the only village on the board).  The problem that SCSN is pointing out is that with Squire, you can't do that without hurting your deck.

Spy and Sea Hag aren't trying to connect with anything, so you don't necessarily want lots of either of them anyway.

[eHalcyon]

In case people overlooked it, WW never said that Squire is better for engines than Hamlet.  He said it was a little worse, actually.  I think that's accurate.  Yeah the Hamlet draw can make a difference.  The Silver gain on Squire can be useful too, even in engines.  And don't forget that Squire also give +$1.  I think in most engines that do well with Hamlet, using Squire instead won't cripple it.  Most engines that work with Squire will improve with Hamlet, but not all that drastically.

[blueblimp]

Squire is much worse than Hamlet because you can't buy alot of them without destroying your deck. As such Hamlet is often fine as the only village in an engine, whereas Squire rarely is.

I just don't follow this logic at all. You would never say Spy is better than Sea Hag because you can buy a lot of Spies without destroying your deck.

Squire and Hamlet both want to connect with something.  Both of them are such that you would like to have a lot of them, so you can make sure they connect with your terminals (if they're the only village on the board).  The problem that SCSN is pointing out is that with Squire, you can't do that without hurting your deck.

Spy and Sea Hag aren't trying to connect with anything, so you don't necessarily want lots of either of them anyway.

Agreed. Nitpick though: in games where Spy is good, you do often want to connect them with some other card (Mystic, Jester, Swindler, etc.). In fact it seems pretty rare to me that Spy would be good yet you wouldn't want a ton of them.

[HiveMindEmulator]

IMO Hamlet is actually a LOT better than Squire. I'm not sold on Silver flooding being useful all that often. Being able to discard stuff with Hamlet is probably useful just as often

Are you seriously claiming that gaining a Silver—something generally considered to be advantageous—is comparable to discarding a card—something generally regarded as a penalty? Imagine if Oasis gained you a Silver instead of discarding a card.

Yes. But you have to take things in context. Clearly you wouldn't buy a card that just said "discard a card", but you wouldn't often buy one that just said "gain a Silver" either. If you did, then people would buy Workshops to gain Silver much more often.

My claim is that situations in which I want to buy Squire because of the Silver gain are not more common than situations where I the discard of Hamlet is actually a benefit rather than a penalty.

I understand that. I still disagree with your claim. The discard is really only a bonus with draw-to-X or Menagerie. The Silver gaining is useful with most alt-VP and in other types of slogs. Those seem much more common to me.

And they seem less common to me, particularly if you consider the fact that you need to gain the Squire in the first place. Engines with draw-to-X or menagerie or Tunnel can afford to add in Hamlets no problem, but decks that want Silver require you to sacrifice some tempo to get the Squire. It's probably worth it with Gardens, since the +2 buys is good too, or with Feodum since the Silvers are worth points too, but I don't see it being that useful in too many other situations.

In case people overlooked it, WW never said that Squire is better for engines than Hamlet.  He said it was a little worse, actually.  I think that's accurate.  Yeah the Hamlet draw can make a difference.  The Silver gain on Squire can be useful too, even in engines.  And don't forget that Squire also give +$1.  I think in most engines that do well with Hamlet, using Squire instead won't cripple it.  Most engines that work with Squire will improve with Hamlet, but not all that drastically.

I think many of us are arguing that it's more than just a little worse. Sifting 1 card can often be a lot better than +$1, and whole thing about being a cantrip makes it actually good to flood your deck with Hamlets. Hamlet can be a village in an untrashed or lightly trashed engine. Squire flat-out can't unless you have some other source of sifting. This is not a small difference.

[scott_pilgrim]

Squire is much worse than Hamlet because you can't buy alot of them without destroying your deck. As such Hamlet is often fine as the only village in an engine, whereas Squire rarely is.

I just don't follow this logic at all. You would never say Spy is better than Sea Hag because you can buy a lot of Spies without destroying your deck.

Squire and Hamlet both want to connect with something.  Both of them are such that you would like to have a lot of them, so you can make sure they connect with your terminals (if they're the only village on the board).  The problem that SCSN is pointing out is that with Squire, you can't do that without hurting your deck.

Spy and Sea Hag aren't trying to connect with anything, so you don't necessarily want lots of either of them anyway.

Agreed. Nitpick though: in games where Spy is good, you do often want to connect them with some other card (Mystic, Jester, Swindler, etc.). In fact it seems pretty rare to me that Spy would be good yet you wouldn't want a ton of them.

That's true; I guess the bigger point is just that Spy and Sea Hag aren't comparable at all.  Squire and Hamlet are clearly similar cards (both potentially providing +actions or +buy).  Obviously, SCSN was not saying that every spammable card is better than every non-spammable card; just that, in the context of a certain kind of card, being spammable is an advantage.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Others have pointed this out, but I'd like to repeat it anyway. Squire is a dead card in your hand for draw and that is a HUGE deal in building a consistent engine. Hamlet does not suffer from this problem quite as severely, and substituting Squires for Hamlets in an engine is likely to make the engine much worse. This doesn't mean Hamlet >> Squire, but it certainly makes Hamlet > Squire in my mind. And the spamability of Hamlet is pretty important as well, you generally want your cheap components to be pretty spammable. Squire kind of sucks when spammed.

This is probably redundant with the other posts that just went up.

[WanderingWinder]

For use as a main village: Hamlet is significantly better than squire, as the siftability is a pretty big thing. I mean, you get to see one extra card when looking for your draw card, that's fairly significant (up to 25% better here). On the other hand, there are a few things which squire has in its favor to close the gap back here: The extra buys can be quite nice, particularly when we're talking endgame control. Squire is an easier card to find a time to pick up, a significantly better opener than hamlet. It can be trashed for an attack - while this doesn't come up as a huge plus often, it's a little one often enough, and a big one occasionally. All this adds up to the difference between the two cards for engines being slight (in favor of hamlet) even though hamlet is much better as a primary village. In either case, you aren't going to use these as primary villages all that often.

But then squire has the extra plusses - you can get attacks with it sometimes (even when not in engines - indeed it's a little bigger deal when not in engines). And you can get silvers with it. This actually makes squire a reasonable BM card (Ironworks/BM beats BM, squire is just better for BM; also, you can use the actions with some extra terminals sometimes, which lets you profitably get a few extra terminals while still going BM, not that Squire for BM comes up often at all). And it's a pretty good slog card. Well, how often do these things come up? Not THAT often, but I think often enough to pump it *slightly* over hamlet.

[Awaclus]

Except an engine would beat BM like, 85% of the time at least. Normal Oasis is a solid-to-great $3 in engines; Silver Oasis is a card that you might not even want (and you don't want more than one generally).

That's fair. BM is a lot weaker on Goko than it was on isotropic.

Goko's interface makes Hamlet weaker than it was on Isotropic, too.

[dondon151]

In either case, you aren't going to use these as primary villages all that often.

This is almost certainly not true.