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[Robz888]

http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130712/log.50b20dc3e4b0c9ce0cf27eb3.1373670199427.txt

Conspirator, Feodum, Militia, Quarry, Smithy, Spy, Cultist, Mountebank, Rabble, Saboteur, Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province, Curse, Ruins

I am second player in this interesting game against the great Stef. There is no conceivable engine here, so the big question is: Mountebank, or Cultist, or both in which order?

We both open Militia/Silver, which I don't think pairs very well with later Cultists (because you can draw it dead), but Stef is Stef so I meekly follow him there.

Stef gets to $5 first, and opts for Cultist. I hit $5 right after and I know if I pass up Cultist here, I will be losing the Ruins split at least 8-2, if I even bother to get a Cultist. The card just snowballs so much. But I feel like Player 2 is really in a lot of trouble in the Cultist mirror anyway, and Mountebank is so strong, and the attack hurts more than Cultist (although it's much slower to fully take effect) and the negative VP is probably going to matter. So I take Mountebank.

Stef accumulates 6 Cultists, and gives me all the Ruins by Turn 12. But by then I have 3 Mountebanks and have given him 4 Curses. He quickly gets into the Cursing game himself, though, and he does give me 3 Curses himself. Early on, he can never block Mountebank, but eventually it gets a bit better for him. I also pick up an additional Militia on a sub-$5 hand, and again, I do like Militias in my deck better than his, since he has terminal draw from Cultist.

I am able to spike a lucky early Province, and another later on, and I have enough Silvers that Feoda are 3VP for me. They are only 2VP for Stef, who bought fewer Silver because he was always buying Cultists.

In the end, I can buy the last Curse to end the game on Ruins, Curses, and Feoda. The score ended up kind of close, but really I was fairly safe once we both started greening (and I shouldn't have ever bought that Duchy--that should have been a Feoda. Also I should have known to safely buy the last Curse a turn earlier).

What do you guys think? In Stef's position, I think I would have gone for Cultist first, too. But, as Stef said during the game "Mountebank is Mountebank." Thoughts?

[HiveMindEmulator]

Well I think Stef's main problem was that he bought too many Cultists. Since there is no village, the Cultists can't be used to draw up other actions to play, since you won't have any actions to spend. And in such junky decks, +2 cards doesn't actually look a heck of a lot better than +$2 from Silver. So they're really all that useful beyond the phase where they're giving Ruins. If he gets a MB sooner and gets more Silvers (which power up the Feoda), maybe he's in a better spot.

[DG]

I suspect you should go militia, mountebank, cultist/mountebank. It might depend how many times you will play your cultist, once not being worth it. A second militia isn't going to be worthwhile. The second mountebank is weaker than the first and not better than gold.

[Obi Wan Bonogi]

I don't get Militia open.  Seems like any time my opponent plays militia instead of the other attacks is a dream.

[HiveMindEmulator]

^To me it seems the main function of Militia is to potentially kill your opponent's first $5 hand and hope to snowball from there. But beyond that first play, the Militia is unlikely to be better than Silver, since the attack will often make little difference, and you can't play it with another better attack in hand. This suggests that second player might want to avoid it since it has a much lesser chance of ever being useful. But on the other hand, maybe you have a better chance hoping to get lucky in this way?

[DG]

I haven't got cultists on the simulator but militia+mountebank seems to have a slight advantage over just mountebanks or mountebanks+rabble. I haven't found myself a good rule of thumb for cultists clashing with other terminals in a deck, but I'm guessing that if you want to pack your deck with cultists they should be your only terminal.

[SCSN]

In my experience transitioning into a Curser after setting up a Cultist chain doesn't work too well, so in Stef's spot I'd have skipped Mountebank altogether and kept buying Cultists for $5 and Gold for $6-7. The additional Cultists make you reasonably resilient to MB's junking and your own greening.