Card Studies: Governor #1

One of the things I would like to do on the blog is take more in-depth looks at certain cards. This is probably based more about what I'm learning myself (and I feel like it's fairly often that I will 'level up' on a card) than on what I feel like I have some kind of mastery over. Anyway, I'd like to do this by looking at some game logs I think are instructive, one-at-a-time and then hopefully with some compilation pages for those different key cards. Over time, we can hopefully build up a pretty good repository.

Anyway, I'm going to start with Governor, which is a card I didn't feel like I had a very good feel for only a short time ago, but which I feel I've made a huge leap forward with in order to get to... mediocre with it.



Game Log

Setup:

Some notes on the opening here: Looking at it now, I kind of like double Silver. Priority number one is to get Governors ASAP. It's also somewhat important, though, to ease your burden in drawing through your deck. I actually don't think that's super important, but it's nice if you can get it done.

I actually opened Wishing Well/Silver, but I think that's not the greatest, since I want to be able to multi-Governor quickly. Buying multiple Governors in a shuffle is going to be facilitated by getting the second silver, and the Wishing well cycles you to playing those Governors faster, it's true, but not by THAT much. The other thing to note is that Governor trashing a 3 into a Governor can be a real way of upping your Governor count fast, but if that silver is such a huge part of your economic output, that becomes less of a possibility. I get a second Silver on turn 4, which I need to do at some point, but I think it's just better to do this sooner rather than later.

My opponent went for a Loan, which is the other thing to consider here, but I don't really like it. You have to get treasures at some point fairly soon, and you take a pretty significant hit to your chances to hit 5 - I don't think the bit of trashing is worth it. And specifically he pairs it with Wishing Well, which I like even less, as it will crimp is ability to Governor up reliably. Of course, in this case, it works out okay, as he gets a 3/5, which puts him 'in the game', but I don't think the reward for this justifies the 25-30% (not an exact number) of the time you are WAY behind.


As the game progresses, I get more Wishing Wells, and he gets quite a bit more in the way of actions.

He gets a huge turn 9, which lets him triple Governor and win the split 6-4. I gain a couple Golds and buy a Province (trashing Hovel) on my own 9th turn. I think the most critical turn of the game is turn 10: My opponent draws a lot of cards and then... does nothing but build a lot. He gets a Prince, two Embassies, a Storeroom, and a Throne Room. The problem with this is that it just doesn't work very well in the style of Governor. At the end of it all, he only has $8 in his deck (Storeroom notwithstanding), including just one Silver and one Gold. Of course, all this building would be great in a lot of situations, but with Governor around, he is simply not going to have the time with those cards in his deck for it to pay off.

On my turn 10, I only have to use one Governor for draw, and I'm still able to double Province and pick up an Expand (which has a little bit of extra value here by virtue of its $7 cost - can be defensively upgraded into Province).

My opponent's turn 11 he really goes off with his engine, but in the end, he picks up no points, and another Prince. And he's drawn me 4 cards in the process. This lets me choose my time and 'go for it', double Provincing while using Expand to mill another. This gets us to this point:

And while I don't technically have 50% of the VP here, it really is a hard lock - he needs the last Province and 7 Duchies, which will take him a couple turns at least - and in the meantime, I will get some more points, which means he'll need basically all the rest of the estates, which will simply take him too long.



Takeaway:
Governor games end quickly - don't spend too long building.
Winning the split is big, but having an eye on what to do afterwards is also important.
Be cognizant of when you need to start greening - it's usually pretty quickly.