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Author Topic: Donald X on Rebuild  (Read 66559 times)

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Polk5440

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #75 on: December 12, 2013, 01:32:16 pm »
0

We've talked a lot about Rebuild often completely dominating whatever kingdom it shows up in. In what (if any) situations can Rebuild be safely ignored?

Lots of engines are sufficiently fast, alt VP is very helpful here. There are also strong BM decks which can snap up 4 Provinces and a Duchy in enough time. I'm not as sure about the BM claim, maybe there have been simulations that show otherwise.

The Rebuild dominance is a little bit exaggerated in these discussions. I think people are too willing to drop into the Rebuild mirrors, instead of looking for other options, but it is a very strong strategy so it's hard to blame them.

I like Rebuild games because they are very fast, but still have some interesting decisions, and my favorite part of Dominion is reading the kingdom. It's quite fun to try and beat a supposed "dominating" strategy with something different.

I do in fact think Rebuild is a bit underrated by good players, partly due to contrarianism and a general dislike of the card, and partly because of the bolded stuff. It's quite easy to win with a strategy that's 40-60 against Rebuild and convince yourself that it was superior.

There's also the element that pure Rebuild is pretty easy to play and not mess up that makes it attractive. Kind of like big money. There may be better complicated strategies out there, but the vast majority of players wouldn't be able to execute the intricacies of the more complicated strategies, anyway.
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Holger

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #76 on: December 12, 2013, 02:11:31 pm »
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(Assuming no Shelters [...], which do weaken Rebuild.)

Have you done extensive simulations? My experience tells me this specific claim--unfortunately a persistent myth--is utter nonsense, and the few limited simulations I've done show a few % difference at most, if I recall them correctly. So yeah, technically they weaken Rebuild, but almost never in a way that would have you switch strategies depending on whether there are Shelters or Estates (b.c. strategies that are close to 50% against Rebuild are so rare to begin with), which is the only criterion that should matter.

No, I haven't simulated Shelters at all, since they're not implemented on Dominiate AFAIK; it was just a caveat to the results I mentioned. I'd be interested to see your simulation results. (So is my claim "utter nonsense" or "technically" correct?  :P )

I'd hope that there are a few more BM strategies that beat Rebuild with Shelters, but I don't know any specific examples. Even a few percent difference can matter e.g. when playing Rebuild+weak support against Bank+Wharf.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #77 on: December 12, 2013, 02:16:07 pm »
+1

Well, the simulations only consider BM, of course. But since Rebuild-BM loses to pure BM, I'd expect Rebuild+X-BM to lose against X-BM in most cases as well, because very few cards (like Rogue, Graverobber) combo specifically with Rebuild. And unlike Expand, Rebuild gets weaker, not stronger, in card-drawing engines due to more "collisions" with Duchies.

Wait, what? I'm pretty certain that's false. Is your simulator foolishly buying Golds instead of Rebuilds and Duchies?
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #78 on: December 12, 2013, 02:18:22 pm »
+3

Well, the simulations only consider BM, of course. But since Rebuild-BM loses to pure BM, I'd expect Rebuild+X-BM to lose against X-BM in most cases as well, because very few cards (like Rogue, Graverobber) combo specifically with Rebuild. And unlike Expand, Rebuild gets weaker, not stronger, in card-drawing engines due to more "collisions" with Duchies.

Wait, what? I'm pretty certain that's false. Is your simulator foolishly buying Golds instead of Rebuilds and Duchies?

I think he's talking about $6 Rebuild.
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jsh357

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #79 on: December 12, 2013, 02:22:28 pm »
+4

Funny thing, I was thinking about the suggestion of removing the +Action on Rebuild, and I'm pretty sure that would actually make Rebuild more centralizing.  If Rebuild were terminal, the effect would still be just as good in a lot of kingdoms, only now you'd have to pick between it and other potential terminals so you'd probably just default to picking Rebuild unless there was truly a better option. 
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LastFootnote

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #80 on: December 12, 2013, 02:40:11 pm »
0

Well, the simulations only consider BM, of course. But since Rebuild-BM loses to pure BM, I'd expect Rebuild+X-BM to lose against X-BM in most cases as well, because very few cards (like Rogue, Graverobber) combo specifically with Rebuild. And unlike Expand, Rebuild gets weaker, not stronger, in card-drawing engines due to more "collisions" with Duchies.

Wait, what? I'm pretty certain that's false. Is your simulator foolishly buying Golds instead of Rebuilds and Duchies?

I think he's talking about $6 Rebuild.

Ah, gotcha. Sorry about that.
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Holger

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #81 on: December 12, 2013, 02:50:20 pm »
0

[...]
In engines, Rebuild is also usually weaker than Gold - instead of Rebuilding a Duchy, you can just use the Gold to buy Province instead of Duchy directly, and Rebuild is dead if you draw all your Duchies to hand (or if you don't have a Duchy in your deck). So at $6, Rebuild may well be too weak to matter on most boards. (But I'd like to be convinced otherwise...)

I don't agree here.

Playing Rebuild as soon as you draw it mitigates the problem. It would be horrible luck to always draw Rebuild after drawing all of your expandable green. Any one sifter completely eliminates the problem in engines that draw your deck.

Yes, but most boards don't have a sifter. And even drawing Rebuild dead only every second or third time would weaken it immensely.

Even one Rebuild can help engines tremendously in games where trashing, extra buys, or extra gains are light. Those starting Estates likely become Provinces by the end of the game, no problem. What's better than buying a Province? Rebuilding a starting Estate and buying a Province, of course! It sifts to get to new engine cards faster, if you are not drawing your deck. Rebuild also helps end the game on your own terms (like Apprentice, Remodel, Salvager, etc.) if you are ahead and just want to clear out those Provinces. In the endgame a lot of engines can clog and you are buying Duchies, anyway. Threatening draining the Provinces or getting 3 points or both can be huge. I think $6 Rebuild would still be plenty useful.

Right, these may be reasons to go for a $6 Rebuild in an engine, at least when sifting is available. (But most games have a cheaper (Estate) trasher that may be preferrable to a $6 Estate trasher.)

Edit: However, "games where trashing, extra buys, or extra gains are light" tend to be BM games, not engines.

Edit^2: $6 Rebuild (as well as terminal Rebuild) could be very good in slogs, where it may be the only way to get to Provinces. If you get to $6 in slogs...
« Last Edit: December 13, 2013, 08:09:13 am by Holger »
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Holger

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #82 on: December 12, 2013, 02:52:41 pm »
0

Well, the simulations only consider BM, of course. But since Rebuild-BM loses to pure BM, I'd expect Rebuild+X-BM to lose against X-BM in most cases as well, because very few cards (like Rogue, Graverobber) combo specifically with Rebuild. And unlike Expand, Rebuild gets weaker, not stronger, in card-drawing engines due to more "collisions" with Duchies.

Wait, what? I'm pretty certain that's false. Is your simulator foolishly buying Golds instead of Rebuilds and Duchies?

I think he's talking about $6 Rebuild.

Ah, gotcha. Sorry about that.

Right, sorry for the confusion. Only $6 Rebuild loses to BM, while $5 Rebuild clearly wins, of course (with or without the +1 Action).
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Holger

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #83 on: December 12, 2013, 03:16:42 pm »
0

Funny thing, I was thinking about the suggestion of removing the +Action on Rebuild, and I'm pretty sure that would actually make Rebuild more centralizing.  If Rebuild were terminal, the effect would still be just as good in a lot of kingdoms, only now you'd have to pick between it and other potential terminals so you'd probably just default to picking Rebuild unless there was truly a better option.

This "danger" exists, but the default terminal Rebuild strategy turned out to be no stronger than BM-Council Room in my simulations (and much weaker than DoubleJack). So it'd rarely be the dominant strategy, I think; usually engines will be better.
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Davio

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #84 on: December 13, 2013, 02:45:35 am »
+2

I have been thinking about this version:

Rebuild - $5

+1 Action
-------------------
Look through your discard pile. You may trash one Victory card from it.
If you do, gain a Victory card costing up to $3 more than the trashed card.


So basically this trashes from your discard instead of your deck and you can target any card without the awkward "name a card you don't want to trash". Being able to trash any card looks stronger on paper, but you're shuffling way less, so you'll get to play Rebuild less often, and of course have to deal with the "Counting House" problem where you won't always have the card you want in your discard. So overall I wonder if this stronger, weaker, or somewhat similar.

Thoughts?
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #85 on: December 13, 2013, 03:23:08 am »
+1

What would happen if you simply removed the clunky 'name a card' thing?  Would that make it completely unplayable?
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #86 on: December 13, 2013, 04:30:00 am »
+4

As far as counters to the card go, I just plays lots of Council Rooms and Governors for cards to ensure you've drawn your entire deck and there's nothing for your Rebuilds to hit.  Works like a charm!
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #87 on: December 13, 2013, 06:05:23 am »
0

What would happen if you simply removed the clunky 'name a card' thing?  Would that make it completely unplayable?
It would make it less overpowered, but still way too strong, and swingier and less tactically interesting.
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Holger

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #88 on: December 13, 2013, 08:02:16 am »
0

I have been thinking about this version:

Rebuild - $5

+1 Action
-------------------
Look through your discard pile. You may trash one Victory card from it.
If you do, gain a Victory card costing up to $3 more than the trashed card.


So basically this trashes from your discard instead of your deck and you can target any card without the awkward "name a card you don't want to trash". Being able to trash any card looks stronger on paper, but you're shuffling way less, so you'll get to play Rebuild less often, and of course have to deal with the "Counting House" problem where you won't always have the card you want in your discard. So overall I wonder if this stronger, weaker, or somewhat similar.

Thoughts?

I think this would make it weaker. You often have only two types of VP cards anyway, or don't mind so much whether you hit an Estate or a Duchy (in the non-mirror). Since you only look through the discard, you'd usually need two or three "rebuildable" cards instead of one, which is a significant nerf. You'd also lose the cycling. This might be interesting to try. (Alternatively, you could also nerf Rebuild by letting it only look through at most N cards, with N=10 maybe.)


What would happen if you simply removed the clunky 'name a card' thing?  Would that make it completely unplayable?
It would make it less overpowered, but still way too strong, and swingier and less tactically interesting.

I don't think this would be too strong - you'd unwillingly hit a Province maybe every second time, so Rebuild is useless much more often than with terminal Rebuild. (OTOH, it would speed up the game even more.) But I agree that it'd be swingier and even more boring, so no a good fix.
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Awaclus

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #89 on: December 13, 2013, 08:17:19 am »
+1

I don't think this would be too strong - you'd unwillingly hit a Province maybe every second time, so Rebuild is useless much more often than with terminal Rebuild.
If it's not a mirror, hitting Province isn't too bad for you because it still contributes to emptying the Province pile.
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Holger

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #90 on: December 13, 2013, 08:33:06 am »
0

I don't think this would be too strong - you'd unwillingly hit a Province maybe every second time, so Rebuild is useless much more often than with terminal Rebuild.
If it's not a mirror, hitting Province isn't too bad for you because it still contributes to emptying the Province pile.

But if you often hit Province, emptying the Province pile is actually bad because you're probably losing. Rebuild isn't that good if it only nets you 1 or 1.5 VP per play - I'd rather play Monument or Ironworks-Great Hall...
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #91 on: December 13, 2013, 10:40:44 am »
+1

Make it cost $4 and only let it hit cards in hand?

I'll just repost this since it was ignored (listen to me memememememe).

In this version, the card is very strong only if it has the right support, which I think makes it much more interesting.  I think in circumstances, this version might be even stronger, but you could probably figure out what those circumstances were and find ways to nerd them (eg putting the upgraded cards aside until clean up,so you can't rebuild the same card more than once).
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #92 on: December 13, 2013, 10:46:47 am »
+3

And it would make Rebuild combo with Scout!
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #93 on: December 13, 2013, 10:51:14 am »
+4

And it would make Rebuild combo with Scout!
yeah, I never buy scout when rebuild is on the board b/c of this anti-synergy.
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serakfalcon

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #94 on: December 13, 2013, 10:54:32 am »
+1

And it would make Rebuild combo with Scout!
yeah, I never buy scout when rebuild is on the board b/c of this anti-synergy.

Yeah, I mean, I usually try to go for scout before they run out, but man, Rebuild just really destroys any hope of making a viable scout-based deck...
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Awaclus

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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #95 on: December 13, 2013, 10:57:49 am »
+6

Actually Rebuild has pretty nice synergy with Scout. You can Rebuild your opening Estates into Duchies, and when the Duchies have run out, Rebuild your Duchies into Estates and run them out. After that, Scout becomes a Ruined Village (with some top ordering), which is the best village in the game because it gives you better reshuffle control and is always good, even if you draw it with just one Action card unlike the other villages which require 2 other Action cards before their full power can be utilized.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2013, 10:58:58 am by Awaclus »
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #96 on: December 13, 2013, 02:52:56 pm »
+5

Actually Rebuild has pretty nice synergy with Scout. You can Rebuild your opening Estates into Duchies, and when the Duchies have run out, Rebuild your Duchies into Estates and run them out. After that, Scout becomes a Ruined Village (with some top ordering), which is the best village in the game because it gives you better reshuffle control and is always good, even if you draw it with just one Action card unlike the other villages which require 2 other Action cards before their full power can be utilized.

Wow this is blatantly false.  Since Scout reorders the top, you lose the superlative shuffle control of Ruined Village!

The rest looks accurate though.
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #97 on: December 13, 2013, 04:17:55 pm »
+3

You can Rebuild your opening Estates into Duchies, and when the Duchies have run out, Rebuild your Duchies into Estates and run them out.
This is very dangerous, because Scout is likely to run out as well.
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #98 on: December 13, 2013, 04:43:56 pm »
+1

Wow this is blatantly false.  Since Scout reorders the top, you lose the superlative shuffle control of Ruined Village!
Yeah, if Scout was the only card in your deck, but you also have Rebuild! They're both like Ruined Village, but you can play Scout when you want a reshuffle mid-turn and a Rebuild when you want a reshuffle after the turn. Awesome shuffle control combo there.
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Re: Donald X on Rebuild
« Reply #99 on: December 14, 2013, 12:11:57 am »
0

I have been thinking about this version:

Rebuild - $5

+1 Action
-------------------
Look through your discard pile. You may trash one Victory card from it.
If you do, gain a Victory card costing up to $3 more than the trashed card.


So basically this trashes from your discard instead of your deck and you can target any card without the awkward "name a card you don't want to trash". Being able to trash any card looks stronger on paper, but you're shuffling way less, so you'll get to play Rebuild less often, and of course have to deal with the "Counting House" problem where you won't always have the card you want in your discard. So overall I wonder if this stronger, weaker, or somewhat similar.

Thoughts?
I like this one. It would make rebuild vary more in strength depending on the kingdom in the same way tunnel does - goes great with sifters and counters discard attacks. What about making it like hermit and letting you choose the trash or your hand?
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