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Author Topic: Updating the Top 5 lists  (Read 87932 times)

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GendoIkari

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #225 on: December 15, 2011, 04:18:20 pm »
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How is that different?  Let's say you had Chapel, and then you had BadChapel, which only trashed up to 3.  BadChapel is probably still a super-strong $2, but when Chapel is later released, BadChapel obviously loses some absolute value because it becomes a weaker card when Chapel is also in the game.

Much like Minion becomes weaker when HT is out, BadChapel is weaker when Chapel is out.  It still does the same thing, but you will lose if you buy it and your opponent buys Chapel.

In other words, there's no such thing as "absolute" value, because the point of Dominion is to build the fastest and best possible deck.  There's an aggregate "absolute" value, but that's an average of many individual "relative" values.  BadChapel has a worse aggregate "absolute" value because its average drops every time it and Chapel are both on the board.

I'm pretty sure that Donald said that at one point Chapel did only trash up to 3, and it was quite weak.
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GendoIkari

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #226 on: December 15, 2011, 04:22:43 pm »
+1

How is that different?  Let's say you had Chapel, and then you had BadChapel, which only trashed up to 3.  BadChapel is probably still a super-strong $2, but when Chapel is later released, BadChapel obviously loses some absolute value because it becomes a weaker card when Chapel is also in the game.

Much like Minion becomes weaker when HT is out, BadChapel is weaker when Chapel is out.  It still does the same thing, but you will lose if you buy it and your opponent buys Chapel.

In other words, there's no such thing as "absolute" value, because the point of Dominion is to build the fastest and best possible deck.  There's an aggregate "absolute" value, but that's an average of many individual "relative" values.  BadChapel has a worse aggregate "absolute" value because its average drops every time it and Chapel are both on the board.

This makes sense. Another way to phrase it that might help. As you said earlier, we are defining a card's goodness based on "what percentage of boards is this a smart thing to buy?" Let's say that when only the base set was around, Celler was a good buy 50% of the time that it showed up. But now, when Celler shows up, there is a 10% chance that Warehouse is also available (I don't know the real odds). So suddenly, there's a bunch of boards out there where Cellar would have been a good buy if Warehouse weren't available; but Warehouse is available. This will cause Cellar to drop from being a smart buy 50% of the time to 40% of the time, or something like that. Thus, Cellar is, as a whole, now a worse card.
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rrenaud

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #227 on: December 15, 2011, 04:33:28 pm »
+1

The high level point is that dominion cards don't exist in a vacuum.

Card A is better than B means that "the probability A will contribute to a win in a game between skilled players from a randomly drawn kingdom set is higher than for B".

Cards can synergize, counter, or substitute with other cards.  Introducing synergistic cards makes the syngerized cards better.  Introducing counters makes the countered cards worse.  Having (better) substitutes around does make the inferior substitute worse.
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tlloyd

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #228 on: December 15, 2011, 04:51:32 pm »
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How is that different?  Let's say you had Chapel, and then you had BadChapel, which only trashed up to 3.  BadChapel is probably still a super-strong $2, but when Chapel is later released, BadChapel obviously loses some absolute value because it becomes a weaker card when Chapel is also in the game.

Much like Minion becomes weaker when HT is out, BadChapel is weaker when Chapel is out.  It still does the same thing, but you will lose if you buy it and your opponent buys Chapel.

In other words, there's no such thing as "absolute" value, because the point of Dominion is to build the fastest and best possible deck.  There's an aggregate "absolute" value, but that's an average of many individual "relative" values.  BadChapel has a worse aggregate "absolute" value because its average drops every time it and Chapel are both on the board.

Interesting example. Didn't Donald say that the earliest version of Chapel only trashed three cards and that it was significantly weaker as a result?

I get your point, because ultimately the game is a competition not to get a certain number of points, but to get more points than your opponent by the time the game ends. But that doesn't mean that the distinction between absolute and relative value is meaningless. We can productively talk about what a card contributes in absolute terms and also compare the relative value of different cards.

If I have some strategy that uses Cellar and beats your BM strategy, we could surmise that Cellar had some positive value. Then we rematch and you beat my Cellar strategy with a Warehouse strategy. Did my strategy get worse? In absolute terms no--yours just got better.

Another way to think about this is with attack cards. Sea Hag is the perfect example: what absolute value does it provide for your deck? None! It doesn't get you any closer to buying VP. But it provides great relative value by slowing the other guy down. Other attacks provide both absolute value and relative value, like Militia's coin and discard. In a world with no reaction cards, Sea Hag might be stronger than Militia, but in a world where every card has a built-in Moat reaction, Militia is clearly superior. That is how one card can affect the ranking of two other cards relative to each other.

But there is nothing like that with Warehouse and Cellar. You are trying to argue that A<B, but given B<C, B<A. That makes no sense. If Cellar was better than Moat before Warehouse, then Cellar is better than Moat still, despite Warehouse being better than Cellar.
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tlloyd

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #229 on: December 15, 2011, 04:57:45 pm »
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The high level point is that dominion cards don't exist in a vacuum.

Assume better means "probability this card will contribute to a win in a game between skilled players from a randomly drawn kingdom set".

Cards can synergize, counter, or substitute with other cards.  Introducing synergistic cards makes the syngerized cards better.  Introducing counters makes the countered cards worse.  Having (better) substitutes around does make the inferior substitute worse.

Despite being admirably concise and clear, you are not quite addressing the key issue. Your last assertion is really just an unsupported assertion. Adding a superior substitute makes the older card worse relative to the new substitute, but not worse relative to every card in the game!
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theory

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #230 on: December 15, 2011, 05:07:07 pm »
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But there is nothing like that with Warehouse and Cellar. You are trying to argue that A<B, but given B<C, B<A. That makes no sense. If Cellar was better than Moat before Warehouse, then Cellar is better than Moat still, despite Warehouse being better than Cellar.
Let's say BadChapel is definitely better than Hamlet before Chapel comes out.  But now Chapel comes out.  Hamlet is still awesome on the same # of boards as before, but all of a sudden BadChapel is really bad on a large # of boards (i.e., every board that Chapel is on).  Shouldn't it now be worse than Hamlet, because Hamlet is "good" on all boards, and BadChapel used to be "great" on all boards but is now "great" on some boards and "awful" on other boards, and the newly lowered average brings it under Hamlet.

In fact, look at Wharf/Minion.  Minion is probably better than Wharf.  But maybe now with Horse Traders, Minion goes from great 100% of the time to 80% of the time (these are all made up percentages!), and Wharf went from great 80% of the time to great 90% of the time.  I don't actually believe these numbers, but it's definitely possible for a new card to change a card's relative ranking among other cards at its price point, because not every card is affected in the same way by the new card.
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tlloyd

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #231 on: December 15, 2011, 05:41:41 pm »
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But there is nothing like that with Warehouse and Cellar. You are trying to argue that A<B, but given B<C, B<A. That makes no sense. If Cellar was better than Moat before Warehouse, then Cellar is better than Moat still, despite Warehouse being better than Cellar.
Let's say BadChapel is definitely better than Hamlet before Chapel comes out.  But now Chapel comes out.  Hamlet is still awesome on the same # of boards as before, but all of a sudden BadChapel is really bad on a large # of boards (i.e., every board that Chapel is on).  Shouldn't it now be worse than Hamlet, because Hamlet is "good" on all boards, and BadChapel used to be "great" on all boards but is now "great" on some boards and "awful" on other boards, and the newly lowered average brings it under Hamlet.

In fact, look at Wharf/Minion.  Minion is probably better than Wharf.  But maybe now with Horse Traders, Minion goes from great 100% of the time to 80% of the time (these are all made up percentages!), and Wharf went from great 80% of the time to great 90% of the time.  I don't actually believe these numbers, but it's definitely possible for a new card to change a card's relative ranking among other cards at its price point, because not every card is affected in the same way by the new card.

But there is a difference between those examples. HT is such an effective counter to Minion that Minion becomes counter-productive. That is not the case with Cellar. Sure, in the few games where Warehouse, Cellar and Moat are available you may buy a moat but not a cellar. But that's not nearly the same as conceding Moat to now all of a sudden be the better card.  I stand by my (usefulness of function)x(effectiveness at function) metric.

All I'm saying, and I will now be done saying it, is that you ought to decide whether to rank by price or by function and be consistent. I find the rank by function more meaningful, but enjoy the rank by price as well.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #232 on: December 15, 2011, 06:35:13 pm »
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New cards existing DOES effect the value of other cards. For example, Crossroads getting printed makes scout a lot better (okay, maybe not A LOT better, but better). The existence of Great Hall, Nobles, Harem makes both of those cards much better than they'd otherwise be. Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger. Because those cards will come up sometimes with these, and they combo. Every card that gets printed affects the value of every other card. But the more cards there are, the less printing any one card makes a difference.
Of course these are all just average values, and the 'real values' that matter are determined by the actual kingdom you have. The cards have different values on different kingdoms. Hence the disclaimer. But it's still nice to know that mountebank is usually really strong, etc.
I think there are two relevant factors when weighing how good or bad a card is. 1) How often do I want to get this card? The more I want it, the better it is. 2)How much does it do for me when I get it? I may get island more than mountebank, but mountebank does much more for me when I do get it.

werothegreat

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #233 on: December 15, 2011, 07:02:36 pm »
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Here's something that might shed some light: is Woodcutter bad because Festival exists?  Is it made worse because Festival exists?  Or is it just inherently bad?  This is a really cut and dried case where, given a price difference, one card really is better than another.  They're exactly the same, except one of them has +2 Actions, and thus it costs more.  These two are also in the very first set.  Would Donald X. have put them both in the same set for all to see that one literally is better than another if that meant that people would assume that Woodcutter is automatically bad simply because Festival is there?
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Epoch

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #234 on: December 15, 2011, 07:19:47 pm »
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Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger.

True.  Though this points out that almost every other card makes Gardens -- and any other card which is all-but-valueless in the absence of specific combos -- weaker.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #235 on: December 15, 2011, 07:27:35 pm »
+1

Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger.

True.  Though this points out that almost every other card makes Gardens -- and any other card which is all-but-valueless in the absence of specific combos -- weaker.
You keep on thinking Gardens is that weak. I buy or gain it 86% of the time I can, with a 1.25 winrate.

WanderingWinder

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #236 on: December 15, 2011, 07:29:48 pm »
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Here's something that might shed some light: is Woodcutter bad because Festival exists?  Is it made worse because Festival exists?  Or is it just inherently bad?  This is a really cut and dried case where, given a price difference, one card really is better than another.  They're exactly the same, except one of them has +2 Actions, and thus it costs more.  These two are also in the very first set.  Would Donald X. have put them both in the same set for all to see that one literally is better than another if that meant that people would assume that Woodcutter is automatically bad simply because Festival is there?
No, Woodcutter is probably infinitesimally stronger because Festival exists (or any other village). It would be worsened for sure by a non-terminal version being printed at 2 or 3, and probably 4, though not by all that much.

greatexpectations

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #237 on: December 15, 2011, 07:52:45 pm »
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You keep on thinking Gardens is that weak. I buy or gain it 86% of the time I can, with a 1.25 winrate.

i will second all of that. gardens are fantastic.
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ehunt

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #238 on: December 15, 2011, 11:26:00 pm »
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Yeah, it's one of the oldest cards in the game, but we really need a good Gardens article! It's still one of the most interesting and versatile cards in the game.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #239 on: December 15, 2011, 11:37:13 pm »
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Yeah, it's one of the oldest cards in the game, but we really need a good Gardens article! It's still one of the most interesting and versatile cards in the game.
This isn't good enough?

greatexpectations

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #240 on: December 16, 2011, 12:19:56 am »
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This isn't good enough?

it is a good start, but there is certainly much more that we could add to it.  there have been a bunch of new garden helpers added in the recent expansions, there isn't much out there on hybrid strategies, and we can add some baseline information for garden rushes from the simulators.

and you can throw silk road into the mix for most of this too. something to add to my to-do list i guess.
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DStu

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #241 on: December 16, 2011, 03:39:35 am »
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New cards existing DOES effect the value of other cards. For example, Crossroads getting printed makes scout a lot better (okay, maybe not A LOT better, but better). The existence of Great Hall, Nobles, Harem makes both of those cards much better than they'd otherwise be. Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger.
I think the point here is that one card's effect is always very marginal. It's a card you have to/can look for when you consider the value of the card, but fully random card A occur somehow in every 15th game where card B appears. Therefore you can't say that A get significantly worse just because B exists, even if B is a complete counter/substitution for B. If there are more of them that gets important.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #242 on: December 16, 2011, 08:00:46 am »
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New cards existing DOES effect the value of other cards. For example, Crossroads getting printed makes scout a lot better (okay, maybe not A LOT better, but better). The existence of Great Hall, Nobles, Harem makes both of those cards much better than they'd otherwise be. Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger.
I think the point here is that one card's effect is always very marginal. It's a card you have to/can look for when you consider the value of the card, but fully random card A occur somehow in every 15th game where card B appears. Therefore you can't say that A get significantly worse just because B exists, even if B is a complete counter/substitution for B. If there are more of them that gets important.
Agreed. One new card isn't going to make up much difference, even if it's the best combo or best counter you can imagine, simply because it's not going to come up very much. A new set, on the other hand, can have a much more significant impact. For instance, I think hinterlands made both chapel and ambassador a good deal weaker, with lots of alternatives and (mostly soft) counters.

theorel

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #243 on: December 16, 2011, 09:05:04 am »
+1

But there is a difference between those examples. HT is such an effective counter to Minion that Minion becomes counter-productive. That is not the case with Cellar. Sure, in the few games where Warehouse, Cellar and Moat are available you may buy a moat but not a cellar. But that's not nearly the same as conceding Moat to now all of a sudden be the better card.  I stand by my (usefulness of function)x(effectiveness at function) metric.

All I'm saying, and I will now be done saying it, is that you ought to decide whether to rank by price or by function and be consistent. I find the rank by function more meaningful, but enjoy the rank by price as well.

I'm sorry you thought I misunderstood your post.  What I was trying to point out was that the two situations are actually very similar.  As you noted: Minion goes from effective to counter-productive in the presence of Horse Traders.  Does this effect the "absolute effectiveness" of Minion? No, it effects it's value only when Horse Traders is in the supply.  Additionally, as you noted Minion becomes a bad buy, so in other words Minion's strength is lessened because you are less likely to purchase it.  The important thing is that Minion's effect hasn't changed so if it has some "strength" property which is independent of likeliness to purchase, then it actually hasn't moved.  If Horse Traders doesn't improve the effectiveness of Laboratory when you purchase it, then it's strength hasn't changed either.  So, Minion and Laboratory must compare the same way...but you argued (In my opinion correctly) that Horse Traders actually makes Minion a weaker card.  It does this because there is a situation where you would otherwise buy Minion, that you would change your mind because of the presence of another card.  (It doesn't matter that the effectiveness of Minion changed on this board...that would only matter if you purchased Minion anyways).  This is exactly the situation of Cellar and Warehouse, you are less likely to purchase Cellar if Warehouse is available...why?  Because you would rather purchase Warehouse.  So, basically it all comes down to how you rank the cards.  The argument here is that there are 2 factors that contribute to the ranking:
1. Likelihood that you will want to gain the card.  (aggregated over all possible sets of cards)
2. Effectiveness of the card when you would gain it. (aggregated over all possible sets of cards)
The two factors are related, both are effected by other cards which are available.  No single card will have great impact because they are aggregated.  Arguably there are many factors which contribute to Cellar being weaker, and Warehouse may be more useful for pointing that out.  But it is a fact that some proportion of sets of cards will see both Warehouse and Cellar, and in those sets the likelihood that you gain Cellar goes down.  So Cellar's value has gone down, relative to Moat (which isn't weakened by the presence of Warehouse).

You mentioned another interesting thing, which I'm going to run with a bit:
suppose there is a set with Cellar, and Moat.  You have $2, and Cellar and Moat are both determined to be equally useful in this set, and you want both (and actually useful...though no such set may exist currently, such a set could conceptually exist).  Additionally, suppose that one of the cards is unimportant to this situation existing.  You'll get the one which is more useful now, and get the other one later.  Now suppose you have the same set, replacing the unimportant card with Warehouse.  You have $2, I would say you get Moat, almost no question.  Sometime later you'll probably have $3 to pick up Warehouse, so you totally ignore Cellar.  Warehouse has actually in fact made Moat better than Cellar in this situation.  The relative value of the 2 cards has changed due to the presence of Warehouse.

It's marginal, yes...maybe not worth mentioning.  But if Bridge makes Native Village better, then Warehouse makes Cellar worse.  There are lots of other factors that come to play, but this is a simple easy-to-understand factor.  Card combos are frequently discussed, even though those 2 cards may never show up together.  Card counters are discussed with the same caveat.  IF these discussions have any merit, then one card superseding another has the same merit, and serves a lot of the same purpose in these ranking discussions.

Man I'm wordy, sorry about that.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2011, 09:07:17 am by theorel »
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DStu

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #244 on: December 16, 2011, 09:14:24 am »
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I think everybody is aware of that. I guess what is the problem is a formulation like (exaggerated)
"Card A was actually quite usefull, but than card B was introduced, and now A is crap because B is better".
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theorel

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #245 on: December 16, 2011, 09:31:44 am »
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Yeah, I think the original description overstated the impact of Warehouse.  But then some of the criticisms, I think, completely tried to dismiss it.  I think it has an impact, perhaps a small one, but one that's easy to understand.  In much the same way combos are easy to understand, even if the actual exact combo of those two cards is less useful in general.  They're an easy-to-understand way to talk about strategy.
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tlloyd

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #246 on: December 16, 2011, 01:14:23 pm »
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Okay, I swore I would be done, but I lied.  :D

Horse Traders directly blunts the value of Minion even more than Moat/Lighthouse would. One way to see this is imagine that Minion, instead of attacking when you took the discard option for yourself, actually gave your opponent +1 card. Would you still pay $5 for it? No. Because part of what you value in Minion no longer happens.

Contrast the case of Warehouse/Cellar, where Cellar continues to do exactly what it has always done. True, the opportunity cost of Cellar has gone up, but that can be true of any of the other kingdom cards. So I think if we're going to try and say something more useful than "every card has good and bad boards, it all depends," then we should probably stick to comparisons of absolute rather than relative value.

That does not rule out, by the way, consideration of combo potential. Any given combo happens only occasionally, but the more cards there are that synergize with a particular card, the higher that particular card's value will be. Obviously Gardens became stronger once Ironworks arrived. But did Workshop or Woodcutter become weaker? They are weaker than Ironworks to be sure (they also cost less), but they still do what they always did. If you want to talk of Ironworks as a counter to Workshop in Gardens games, well now we're dealing with a three-card combo - which is much less likely - and we're stretching the concept of a counter.

Ultimately the distinction I'm making may be of degree and not kind, but it is at least a significant degree. I think what really lay behind Theory's argument (and I've got nothing but respect for Theory) was "I like Warehouse more than Cellar, so now when I see Cellar I can only feel disappointed that it's not Warehouse, which makes me start to like other cards better than Cellar too."
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chwhite

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #247 on: December 16, 2011, 08:56:37 pm »
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Man, people keep saying that Horse Traders is this incredible counter to Minion, its mere presence makes Minion less valuable, not worth going for on HT boards, and I just gotta say that's not true in the least.  Minions are still that strong, even with HT out.
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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #248 on: December 17, 2011, 05:43:53 am »
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From simulations:

Lighthouse/Minions (+Loan) crushes BMU 8 to 2, but if you let the big money player spam Horse Traders Minions get crushed 3 to 7.

I'd conclude Horse Traders is a very strong counter against Minions.

Here are the bots if you want to verify yourself:
Code: [Select]
<player name="Lighthouse/Minion (+Loan)" author="Geronimoo" description="Loan will thin the deck so Minions clump together more often. XXXXMinions is quite a hard card to play correctly, so the simulator makes quite a few mistakes with it.XXXXSee here how the simulator handles Minion: http://dominionsimulator.wordpress.com/play-rules/intrigue/minion/">
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="Combo"/>
 <type name="Attacking"/>
 <type name="Competitive"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="Engine"/>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Minion"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Gold"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Minion"/>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Loan">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Loan"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Lighthouse"/>
</player>

Code: [Select]
<player name="Horse Traders (spammed)" author="Geronimoo" description="The optimized Horse Traders strategy that buys no other actions.">
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="Optimized"/>
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Horse_Traders">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Horse_Traders"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="countAllCardsInDeck"/>
         <extra_operation type="divideBy" attribute="4.0" />
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>
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Jorbles

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #249 on: December 17, 2011, 03:57:33 pm »
0

When I see Minion and HT on the same board I usually just pick up both of them, the HTs tend to assist Minion decks as long as you only get 1 or 2 of them . They make it very easy to get to $5 and make it possible to even get to $10 and buy 2 Minions at once. If your opponent is going for Minions also they give you an edge as you also get 6 card hands, and Minions are stronger the more of them you have in your hand. How do Minion decks fare if they pick up an HT or two when they hit $4?
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