Board 8 > Para Ranks the Dominion Cards

(+) Yeah! (+)

went 0.5/3 tonight (just using base set)

5 player games are a bit too much though, especially when you're with newbies who buy way too many actions and just end the game too fast

also did you name the 4 cost card that trashes for a 5 cost card yet? cause that sucks.

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it's an underwater adventure ride

111. Spy
Set: Base


+1 Card
+1 Action

Each player (including you) reveals the top card of his deck and either discards it or puts it back, your choice.
Cost: 4

...It's Spy. I don't really have a lot to say about this one. It's never a truly awful play, but very rarely is it ever a good one. It sort of f***s with your opponent's deck cycling and sort of slightly improves yours, but not enough to the point that it's worth buying it. If you hit a bad card in their deck, or a good card in yours, then it isn't doing much and in the case of opponent's decks you can't continue to affect them with Spy that turn.

I'd probably only really bother with Spy if there are no other good 4 or less buys on the board, and I don't want Silver for some reason. Ironically, Spy is probably most effective in Scrying Pool decks of all things, which is completely nonsense because of how Scrying Pool completely outclasses Spy in every possible way except its cost. But Scrying Pool decks like actions, they love cantrips, and you can buy Spies when you don't draw the Potion in your hand.

The reason Scrying Pool is so much better, besides the obvious fact that it can draw your entire deck, is the fact that you check your own deck's card before you draw it. It's a subtle effect, but it matters, because it means you get to cycling your deck just a bit faster. Spy should do the same thing, despite the fact that it would make it even more like Scrying Pool, but alas, it does not. I still probably wouldn't buy it anyway.

For attacks that stop opponent's deck cycling, you can do better, like Ghost Ship. Same for cycling your own deck - I'd rather have Warehouse (despite it decreasing hand size), or even Farming Village. Spy tilts both decks slightly in your favor, but it's usually just not enough for me to care about buying it. Spy is mostly just a cantrip plus, and is best bought only in situations where you need cantrip plusses, like Scrying Pool, Conspirator, or even Minion decks.

Naye745 | Posted 9/17/2011 12:26:45 AM | message detail | quote
also did you name the 4 cost card that trashes for a 5 cost card yet? cause that sucks.

No I haven't and no it doesn't, and I guess I'll get to why when the writeup comes.

i think it could be useful in the first couple turns, and after that not so much, but you can enlighten me when it comes around

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I played a game with Haven/Wharf recently, where the average hand had 10 cards >_>

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110. Transmute
Set: Alchemy


Trash a card from your hand. If it is an...
Action card, gain a Duchy
Treasure card, gain a Transmute
Victory card, gain a Gold

Cost: P

Oh hey, an Alchemy card. That took a while.

This is a card that I just don't really "get." I know it has bad stats on isotropic but I believe that this is only because, when it's mishandled, it's obviously a huge disaster. People probably just unthinkingly Transmute all their Coppers into more Transmutes without any real plan behind it and clutter up their deck horrifyingly.

Can it be handled properly? I've seen at least one game that suggests it may be possible, but I still don't really get it. It takes someone with a really clear gameplan to pull this card off, I think. As with all cards that have a Potion cost, and this is something I'll have to get into more as more Potion-cost cards come up, having to buy the Potion first and then buy this card represents multiple opportunity costs that I'm uncomfortable with for a card like this. And then, once you have it, what is it good for?

I think that if you can successfully Transmute some Estates into Golds early on in the game, that is a pretty useful effect, but again, you need to have bought a Potion to do this, and then you need to use the turn you draw the Potion in to buy a Transmute (possibly forgoing a better buy if you don't have +buys), then you need to draw this and an Estate. It's actually a lot to ask.

I think the more useful effect for this, perhaps surprisingly, is action cards into Duchies. Interestingly enough, this is one of the few cards that can actually gain a Duchy in the first place, without Bridge support - Workshop and Ironworks only go up to 4, University can't gain victories. If you've got spare Actions lying around, which you might if you Transmuted some Coppers, you can potentially Transmute some Duchies and win the Duchy race. I could see this being a major lynchpin in a Duke strategy.

All that said, I haven't really tried this card out much. It's not to my style. It has the usual problem that terminal cards with no immediate effect have, which is that it's a major deck clogger that's as good for your current hand as a Curse, and because of its sort of strange interaction with cards I don't consider it a "true" trasher, it can only really call itself that when getting rid of Estates (Copper to Transmute is a highly questionable thing to do and it certainly doesn't improve deck flow). Also, while it can help win the Duchy race, I don't think it can really help win the Province race, which is to me usually the more important race. In fact, it probably sabotages efforts to win the Province race due to needing to buy two dead cards to get it, the Potion and the Transmute, unless you want the Potion for something else anyway. That's a huge opportunity cost for minimal gain.

I sure do have a lot to say about a card I have no real understanding of. Maybe a true Dominion master could handle this sleeping beast, but me, I just don't really get it.

yeah i just read your strategy discourse from a few posts ago

that's basically my method of playing right now. i'm still pretty new so i'm not nearly as good at making the best buys and building the greatest decks and everything, but your ideas are how i generally try to go about everything.

yay doing it right

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it's an underwater adventure ride

for someone who is acquiring the sets (of the actual cards), what's the best order to get them in? i figure base then intrigue is the smart way to go, but after that what's the most worthwhile in terms of value for how much you get and value for quality of play? (if you know about the actual sets)

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it's an underwater adventure ride

109. Herbalist
Set: Alchemy


+1 Buy
+1 $
When you discard this from play, you may put one of your Treasures from play on top of your deck.
Cost: 2

This is a card that I think is probably bad but I sort of like it anyway. I don't really have a lot to say about it - obviously, since it's a terminal action, it's best avoided a lot of the time, but if there aren't a ton of other good terminals on the board and you wind up with 2 money, give it a try. It's about as good a source of +buy as Woodcutter really, but Herbalist's special effect is better than it looks. When you've got Gold, or even Silver early on for that matter, it's nice. Being able to play your Gold more frequently than normal - or your Platinum - is actually a pretty good ability. In a mid or late game push it can help by allowing you to play your expensive treasures more often than you normally would per deck cycle. It's not worth getting too excited about, but don't sleep on this card entirely.

Naye745 | Posted 9/17/2011 12:54:30 AM | message detail | quote
for someone who is acquiring the sets (of the actual cards), what's the best order to get them in? i figure base then intrigue is the smart way to go, but after that what's the most worthwhile in terms of value for how much you get and value for quality of play? (if you know about the actual sets)

It's sort of hard to say. You have to start with base or intrigue since they're the only "base" games, and these are probably the most "essential" sets - although in my opinion, the base set is both the most boring and the worst competitively compared to other sets. Intrigue's a little bit better overall, its cards are mostly based on base set concepts but with more decision-making added in, but its strategies are a bit more specific whereas base's cards are very general, which is what makes it the best set to start out with probably. They're both good though. My only problem with base is that it's a better set when mixed with others than it is entirely on its own, compared to the other sets, but that's probably all the more reason you should start with it. Start with the game at its most basic and build up.

After that I guess it depends on whether you want the small or big expansions first, depending on what your budget is.

For small sets, Alchemy's probably the least "essential" set, given that all of its cards are kind of weird and it's playing with sort of a bizarre ruleset of its own, with the potion and all that. That said, it's a pretty fun set, it's just bizarre and better handled by experienced Dominion players. Cornucopia is the less weird of the two smaller sets, and most of its cards are quite good and integrate nicely with any set, which Alchemy does more questionably.

As for the bigger sets, both Seaside and Prosperity introduce quite a bit to the game. Seaside is a bit hit or miss in my opinion, it has some really good cards and some really bad cards (Explorer, Pearl Diver), and the duration cards are really neat and add a new dimension to the game, but in real life play they can be a bit confusing and bog down the game a little bit, so there is that to consider.

Prosperity adds Platinum and Colony to the mix as a new style of play, which is pretty cool, and in general increases the scale of the game, adding a lot of high-cost cards to the mix, as well as most of the game's "special" treasure cards. If expensive power cards are interesting to you Prosperity is a pretty cool set, but I think it's one that may be better bought later, because it offers almost no cheap action cards of its own, and therefore requires the most interaction with other sets.

So I guess there's my answer. Get base, then intrigue, then Seaside and/or Cornucopia, then Prosperity and/or Alchemy. That's not really a strong suggestion on my part though - you probably wouldn't do wrong to buy them in whatever order you like. If you know the cards, or take a look at them (http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/ is a nice site for getting a good overview, and it's what I'm using for artwork), you can make a more informed decision based on what seems interesting to you than I could.

ah, okay. i'll have to relay this info to my dominion-purchasing friend, haha. makes enough sense, though.

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it's an underwater adventure ride

I like Secret Chamber because I play with very attack-heavy players (one specific player literally will not stop buying them) and it lets me mess with my hand and deck. Moat comes in handy for when we have Militia/Torturer come up, but I wonder if there's stronger plays against those nowadays.

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It's F-Zero. F-ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERO!
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hahaha i was reading about the promo cards and i want to get the black market cards

sounds ****ing ridiculous and wonderful

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it's an underwater adventure ride

I just don't like Moat because it's unreliable hoping you'll have it at the time when someone attacks you (although this is for 2-player - in larger games it's probably more helpful because more attacks are getting thrown around), and it's just not a very good card in your hand. I feel more comfortable just attempting to weather the storm rather than clogging up my deck with Moat.

Black Market is a real joy. It's a card I've ranked higher on this list than it deserves to be, just because it's fun and completely ridiculous.

Black Market takes a pretty long time to set up a game for. This preparation time gets much worse for each new set you get. Eventually you'll probably decide to stop using it or use it based on house rules instead of just grabbing every card.

Then, of course, you get the hilarity that comes from making custom cards specifically for Black Market. I made Pub, a card that costs 7, based on the drinking game we made for the game.

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It's F-Zero. F-ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERO!
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I think the setup for Black Market is better if you just make a deck of 15 or so unused cards, not all of them. That's what isotropic does and it seems to work fine.

108. Cutpurse
Set: Seaside


+2 $
Each other player discards a Copper card (or reveals a hand with no Copper).
Cost: 4

A pretty okay opener but it doesn't stay pretty okay for long. If you're going to use this at all, you want it early. Like all terminal Silvers, the money generation is a lot nicer to have before clashing terminals starts to become a problem, and this attack in general is one that just gets worse as the game goes along.

Early in the game what it's good for is sabotaging the other player's efforts to get to 5 money. The difference between 4 and 5 is the biggest, and if discarding a Copper out of their hands prevents them from getting a 5-cost card, it's worth it. It's also a lot more likely to hit early on, when their deck is made up entirely of Copper.

Obviously, as the game goes on, this attack gets a lot worse. Their deck starts to dilute and not be as filled with Copper, so your attack hits less frequently. And if they hit 8 and you discard them down to 7, that's awesome, but 7 to 6 and 6 to 5 usually isn't nearly as good, and Cutpursing a hand that's above 8 is usually pretty much worthless (and in a really heavy buying game Cutpurse is out of its league period).

The other problem for Cutpurse is that trashing strategies always win the day in Dominion, and Cutpurse is utterly worthless against a solid trashing card. If they get rid of their Copper, this card is obviously useless. However, the bright side to this is that it means trashing is also available for you, and you can trash the Cutpurse once it becomes worthless. Cutpurse can still make for a decent opener before they've trashed all their Copper, it'll help your buying power, and then you can get rid of it. So it could still be useful. And like any card whose usefulness ramps off in the mid-late game, Cutpurse is especially good to have if you have a good trash-for-benefit card, like Salvager or Apprentice, to make some use out of its 4 cost. It's best if that's the only trasher available because it's hard to get rid of all your Copper with Salvagers and Apprentices alone.

Cutpurse could be really good against a Goons player who is really overenthusiastic about buying Copper, I guess. I once actually played a Cutpurse against a guy who was doing a Goons/Coppersmith strategy, not even kidding. It obviously hurt him badly, but I think he lost the game long before I started Cutpursing him.

From: Naye745 | #058
for someone who is acquiring the sets (of the actual cards), what's the best order to get them in? i figure base then intrigue is the smart way to go, but after that what's the most worthwhile in terms of value for how much you get and value for quality of play? (if you know about the actual sets)

I agree with Para in that the base is the most "boring" compared to Intrigue. It was the first made and so most of the cards are fairly simple: +cards/actions with smaller side-effects. If you're just learning to play, I think it's an easier start than Intrigue. Intrigue is interesting because it offers the player more choice. I personally bought base, Intrigue, Prosperity, Seaside, then Alchemy in that order. I definitely think Alchemy should be saved for later, though.

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It's iubaris, not Lubaris.

well we already have the base set so that's not really important

i was looking into it more and reading some reviews so i have a pretty good idea of what the positives and negatives are to every set

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it's an underwater adventure ride

guys guys hey guys let's have a tourney
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/60354926

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~Tommeri Uranius Bombaldi the Fourth, esq.
(aka not Krakenprophet)

Naye745 posted...
hahaha i was reading about the promo cards and i want to get the black market cards

sounds ****ing ridiculous and wonderful

Black Market ruins games. I absolutely hate losing to a player who gets a Chapel or a Witch or something and you get nothing useful with it. Like Swindler and Smugglers, it's just too swingy.

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The good news about Black Market is that almost nobody who gets lucky enough to draw stupid cards out of it knows what the hell they're doing and make really unwise purchases and wind up with a really cluttered and unfocused deck. Black Market seems like a card that should work in theory but very rarely ever does. It is part of two of my favorite combos in the game though!

107. Mine
Set: Base


Trash a Treasure card from your hand. Gain a Treasure card costing up to 3$ more; put it into your hand.
Cost: 5



I'm actually a little bit unsure putting a trasher this low. I don't really know if you can consider it a "true" trasher, it never decreases the size of your deck, only improves what's in it, but I guess a lot of cards do that. The problem with this one is that it's simply too slow and expensive for what you need it to do.

There are some nice things about it - I guess the nicest is that it trashes a Copper from your hand without taking away from your buying power for that turn. Sort of. Ultimately Mine works out to be a terminal Copper, which is both good and bad - it's bad for the obvious reason, but it's good because most trashers are actually far worse for your current hand. The thing is, with trashing, it's very nearly always better to sacrifice your current hand to get better hands in the future. Other trashers carry better benefits than this one. Some trash more cards, some are cheaper and thus make better opening buys, some cycle your deck faster or whatnot, like Upgrade, and some are far more versatile in what they can gain, such as Remodel or Expand.

Trashing a Copper to gain a Silver, or a Silver to gain a Gold, is actually not that great. It's good, but my usual mantra applies here: Dominion is a fast game. Mine trashes one card and gets a slightly better card, one at a time. Trashing a Copper to gain a Silver, in fact, is barely any better than simply trashing a Copper and gaining nothing at all, at least in the long run. It's better for your current hand, but you're not really going to reap the benefits in the long run as much as you think. Most Dominion games just play too short for you to play this card enough for it to matter. At a cost of 5, I'd rather have something like Trading Post, which can trash two at once, or Apprentice, which trashes one at a time but can be used for amazing benefits late in the game, which Mine simply cannot do.

One thing to note is that it does synergize kind of neat with Potions - in a pinch, you can use a Silver to gain a Potion, or use a Potion to gain a Gold, depending on what cost you need at the time. It's sort of a niche use and not a great one but it is something. I also like Mine better in games with special treasures, such as Loan, for extra versatility, and I also like it a bit better in Platinum games, where the game tends to run a bit longer, and sometimes getting up to that 9 plateau is hard without a little bit of help.

It's not really a truly bad card, I do play it from time to time, it's just not quite good enough is what it is. It's just a hair too slow for what you need it to do. Deck improvement is a strategy that demands speed in what it does and Mine, as a terminal that trashes only one card for a very minor benefit, is rather clunky to play.

we just got the Prosperity set

it is awesomely over the top

I bought 4 grand markets in one turn with quarry + quarry + talisman +... other money, I guess. Don't remember exactly, but it was rad.

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Prosperity is the best set.

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http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201109/18/game-20110918-165731-2ccef994.html

Oh my god I didn't think Village Idiots existed anymore - and today I run into a Great Hall idiot.

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201109/18/game-20110918-171813-2c3ef6de.html

Immediately followed by one of the greatest curbstompings of a Village Idiot ever.

I'd say Great Hall idiots are more common than Village idiots these days. I laugh whenever someone opens Great Hall.

Also that second game is hilarious. I've never seen a double Village opening.

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**** Possession.

Your turn begins (possessed)
You draw two golds from your wharf!
You buy a province!
Your opponent gets the province

You draw three estates and two copper...

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I learned the hard way to never buy Masquerade when Possession is available.

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"Coinflip is sacred."

Or Ambassador =)

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What are village idiots, great hall idiots, etc?

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From his looks Magus is Macho Man Randy Savage as an anime zombie. The black wind howls, and one of you will snap into a Slim Jim ooh yeeeah! -sonicblastpunch

VILLAGES. THEY LET ME PLAY MORE CARDS. MUST BUY ONLY VILLAGES.

Yeah.

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What are village idiots, great hall idiots, etc?

Village gives you +1 card, +2 actions, and thus is a very tempting card. However, +1 card +1 action really doesn't do anything that wouldn't also be accomplished by not having the card at all, and the second action is only good if you have other cards to play with it. A common newbie mistake is to only buy a bunch of villages or something similar and feel like you're accomplishing a lot when you're really not improving your deck in the slightest.

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~Tommeri Uranius Bombaldi the Fourth, esq.
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argh should have won today

friend remodeled 4 golds into provinces. really? screw you, lucky friend.

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it's an underwater adventure ride

and both my opponents bought thief

they should lose for that alone

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it's an underwater adventure ride

Was Thief a really poor choice in the setup you were playing? Because it just sounds like they took your gold and won the game with it.

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"Coinflip is sacred."

pulled off a four-province turn today in a tactician/grand market/smithy deck awww yeahhhhh

got a three-province shortly after that

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~Tommeri Uranius Bombaldi the Fourth, esq.
(aka not Krakenprophet)

Tom, did your ranking topic die?

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It's iubaris, not Lubaris.

yup

I could bring it back I suppose but Para's probably better at the game in addition to updating so meh

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Was Thief a really poor choice in the setup you were playing? Because it just sounds like they took your gold and won the game with it.

no, i lost a silver once, every other time it just helped out my deck

it was a really poor card in the setup, and my one friend bought two

not that i'm good at this game or anything, but i felt i should've won, haha

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it's an underwater adventure ride

Man, the other day I had a setup where this guy bought a f***ing Pirate Ship, I bought a Platinum, and then he immediately played it and I immediately lost my Platinum. I actually kind of raged at the guy, which I don't do in Dominion. It was absolutely stupid. I resigned the match even though I probably had a chance of winning it.

I'll get back to updating this list later today probably, was busy for a couple of days.

I feel bad Tom, I feel like I kind of strongarmed you out of your list by making my own, but I really liked your list and it was inspiration for me to make mine, and I just wasn't sure if you were really going to continue it or not.

Your list didn't really have much to do with whether or not I continued mine, dun worry about it.

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~Tommeri Uranius Bombaldi the Fourth, esq.
(aka not Krakenprophet)

Paratroopa1 posted...
Man, the other day I had a setup where this guy bought a f***ing Pirate Ship, I bought a Platinum, and then he immediately played it and I immediately lost my Platinum. I actually kind of raged at the guy, which I don't do in Dominion. It was absolutely stupid. I resigned the match even though I probably had a chance of winning it.

This is actually funny given how low you rank it.

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"Coinflip is sacred."

For every time something like that happens, there's twenty times where it helps me trash my copper and maybe hit the occasional silver or gold. It's still not worth it.

Advice for the day: Minion is not as effective in 4 player games as it is in two player games. It is also a lot worse in colony/plat games.

I'm just a little happy I beat the #1 player in my real life league tonight because he made this mistake.

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haha my friend had a hilarious deck today that worked decently well at cycling through his deck of mostly coppers

nice job, friend

i won 53-29 or something similar

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it's an underwater adventure ride

I had a great game recently where I bought a grand market on turn 5. Good times.

--
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http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/184947-b8bn

It's been three days, Para! Don't pull a Tom on us!

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It's iubaris, not Lubaris.

Sorry, school just started up for me yesterday and some things got a bit hectic, I just needed a couple of days to get myself sorted out before I continue.

Bump

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