Okay, so here's my actual analysis. Despite how irritating it was to actually play, I find this board very interesting. The strategic challenge is that so many plausible strategies strongly counter each-other:
- The strong attacks largely rules out any "constructive" BM or engine strategy. You can't win quickly against Witches and Knights, and Tactician + tolerable engine support means that such strategies will get crippled in a long game.
- Remake weakens Witch and strengthen Knights. It halves your engine-setup time and soft-counters Curses. It also makes everyone more vulnerable to Knight trashing.
- Double-Tactician usually needs pseudo-money, but Possession and Knights are viable payload cards. Playing 2-3 Possessions or 3-4 Knights per turn is very realistic here. Double-Tac also makes it easy for Remake to clean out any Curses.
- Possession seriously messes with double-Tac, both by stealing your 10-card turns and also by simply not playing your Tactician for you.
- Multi-Possession engines almost compel a "scorched earth" response. Witch and Knights make such a response even more compelling, as you can continue to do damage in a nearly treasure-less deck.
Overall, I see strong counters to just about every productive strategy, which is why I went for a strategy of crippling my opponent with Knights. There's a lot I'd change about my play in the game, but I still think this is the best plan.
Unfortunately, my opponent's multi-Possession response forced me to make it Knights + scorched earth, lest he buy enough stuff to survive the Knights long enough to 3-pile me. This left me wanting to claw my eyes out. Hence my apparent confusion of strategic ideas towards the end, my T19 ennui-drive resignation, and the thread title.
Might depend on what knights came up. With Hamlet on the board Dame Natalie might actually shine.
Agree. Natalie and Michael are both huge for a Knight engine.
Would it be crazy to just Remake-Witch-BM+Knights while your opponent builds up to Possession/Tac? You can probably be greening by the time it is reliable, plus feeding curses will slow him down.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Remake-Witch-BM+Knights". I usually think of Witch-BM as two Witches + treasure, though a Remake would certainly help. I can see adding Dame Molly or Sir Bailey to that, but additional terminal Knights sound like trouble.
Double-Tac + Possession vs Witch-BM is an interesting question. Tac/Poss wins in the long run, but as you suggest, there may not be a long run. I think it's moot though, as the better counter to Witch-BM is double-Tac with Knights, which I suspect will win handily.
Start with a witch as the top knight is poor and your opponent didn't open with a remake. This sets up a three pile finish after curses and hamlets run. Possession is needed for any longer game to stop your opponent's engine building. The hamlet/oracle drawing chain was laborious so you needed to get out of that.
I'm not really sure how to respond to these four apparently unrelated sentences, but I'd be happy to hear an elaboration.
