Gardens: An Introduction and Dominion Theory

Ah, Gardens. For a long time, you were my favorite card.

At some point, I determined to not lose to this card - which is probably how I got the itch for all the alternate VP that came later. It's true, though, that mastery over it is not a simple thing. I have learned an awful lot, and I think there's still a chunk out there that I have yet to bite off. But let's dive in.

Running in head-long
The most naive strategy in "going for Gardens" is to just buy as many as possible as soon as possible. People don't stay on that for very long, because it doesn't take much to figure out that your deck gets so bad, you actually have to build more to be able to afford all the Gardens. But it's not too uncommon to see players who do only a few turns of preparation before starting their charge into Gardens, buying every card possible as soon as possible (i.e. maximally jamming coppers into their decks), and trying to get lots of Gardens and lots of cards more or less ASAP. Let's take a look at a couple of examples to demonstrate this kind of approach.

Candlestick Maker
I have recently seen it floating around that Candlestick Maker is one of the better "Gardens enablers", with the implication that a headlong strategy here could make real strides. The idea was to end the game around turn 17, by which point it was supposed to be not uncommon to have 6 point Gardens. Memories can apparently be faulty: In order to get to 6 point Gardens, you need to add 50 cards to your starting deck. Turn 17 means 17 natural buys, which means you need 33 additional buys from CSMs. Work out the example yourself, and you'll see that even if you stack your deck, you can't get that many - indeed, you max out at 55 if my memory serves right. However, having a best-case-scenario mentality isn't very useful anyway, so what I'm going to do here is look more at an average case. Examples like the following can show the power of theory-crafting in planning out many kinds of strategies, broadly.

Turns 1-2 you are buying CSM. Turns 3-4 you are getting, most likely 3 more. How did I come up with 3? Well, the maximum possible is 4, but to get that, you need a CSM turn 3 with at least $4, another one turn 4 with at least $4. And you can float a token, potentially. However your deck is only capable of producing $9, and 2 cards miss the shuffle. If either of those is a CSM, you're done. If they're both coppers, you once again can't get there. If both CSMs fall in the same turn, you're once again hung out to dry. There are a lot of fail cases, and indeed it's not crazy unlucky to only get 2 more (though it is fairly unlucky). So 3 is a reasonable guess. Then turns 5,6,7 will be a single shuffle, in which you are pretty likely to get the remaining 5 CSMs. At this point, you are likely to have played CSM about 6 times. Assuming you're using all your spare buys for coppers, this means you're looking at somewhere around a 23 card deck. That means you're looking at a 4 turn shuffle next, and 1-2 CSMs, on average, missing that shuffle, with it being more likely for more to miss if you have been luckier earlier and have more cards now. 4 natural buys plus 9 CSM buys gets you 13 more cards, taking you after turn 11 to around a 36 card deck. This gives you a 7 turn shuffle, in which 0-1 CSMs will miss, most likely. Thus, after turn 18, you're looking at 53 cards.

Here is where we need to start looking at what exactly we're buying on these turns. Surely lots of the buys are heading to coppers. But we're also obviously going to want to buy actual things, too. And especially with the coin tokens to smooth us out, we don't want to waste any of the 'real' money we are producing. If we're playing this headlong rush, that means we will be buying Gardens. If we go back to the point at which we're anticipating the CSMs running out, at the end of a shuffle on turn 7, we see a 23 card deck with 3 Estates, 10 CSMs, and 10 Coppers. The money density of this deck is 20/23 or about 4.35 per hand. We can also anticipate having 1-2 tokens left when we enter this stage. Given that, it seems very likely that we'll be able to buy Gardens on each of these 4 turns, along with our 9 coppers. We're likely to pick up another couple tokens as well. This means that at the start of the shuffle on turn 12, our money density will be 29/36, which is a hair over 4 per turn. Thus, we can still Gardens-per-turn for the next 4. Following this, though, we're dropping off a bit, so by the time we go for Estates, we won't be able to double consistently. Overall, then, we're looking at 20-21 turns to be able to empty our 3 piles. If we look back, this is most likely going to leave us just shy of hitting 60 cards (which would take 1-2 additional turns, average case).

So what we end up with is: 20-21 turns to empty piles and end the game, 8 5-point Gardens, and 11 Estates, for a total of 51 points. This equals the number of points from a player who is able to empty all the Provinces without trashing their Estates or touching Duchies. Of course, the problem is that this simply isn't good enough. I'm not sure if this is even good enough to be straight-up Big Money. Probably yes, but only barely. Of course, they are almost always going to have some improvement on straight money, so you'd better have an improvement on straight CSM/Gardens if this is what you want to do.

Workshop
Workshop plays out in some ways very similarly to CSM. Gain a bunch of them, buy out of the Gardens, empty the Estates. It's the most classic rush strategy in the game. In this case, we are even Workshopping the Workshops (which is not great if you're contested, but as I often say, you want to consider non-mirrors when picking strategy, and only consider mirrors when implementing). Of course, Workshop is also terminal, which means you are going to be a little bit slower to empty them, but also means you want to stop 'shopping 'shops a bit before you actually empty them (buying the last 1 or 2 when you have exactly $3, or if it gets late enough, gaining them later on). The terminal-ness of the Workshop is a pretty big downside in comparison, but this is more than compensated for by the increased economic upside. When I gain Gardens, Workshop made $4. Even when I gain Workshop, it made $3, and $2 for Estate is still better than the $1 from a CSM. Of course, collisions happen, and without tokens, you probably aren't going to be able to use all of your $$ efficiently, providing some waste. This means you won't see the full benefit of the $4 economic potential.

Still, the games will start out playing more or less the same. Then, because you're worried about collision, you start gaining Gardens a turn or two faster. The key point is that throughout the period you are gaining Gardens, you're also buying other cards which actually help you end the game (mostly Estates), as opposed to just picking up coppers. 7 turns before you start greening, into about 9 turns of gaining Gardens+Estate, plus an extra turn to finish off stragglers means you are going to be finishing somewhere around turn 7. Of course, you're going to have gained way fewer cards in that time-span - we're looking at barely 4 point Gardens as opposed to almost 6 - but the increase in speed is a big deal. 43 points is enough to outlast 6 Provinces, which in all honesty is still not all that special, but it's quite a lot better.


Some Fundamental Concepts
There are two main approaches you can take with this kind of head-first charge for Gardens. One is to try to rush down and end the game. This is great if you can actually end things fast enough, but most often, that's just not going to be possible (the major exception, of course, is the card Ironworks). The other is to try to score incredibly large numbers of points. This also tends to not be great most of the time (Beggar is, once again, a very large exception).

Does that mean that the card isn't good? No, not at all. Does it mean it's doomed to be merely an alternative to Duchy as a means for getting a few extra points at the end of a game? Sometimes, but not always. It can still be the star of the show. How? Well, headlong rushes can still happen sometimes with multiple enablers. More to the point, if you build just long enough to be getting 1-2 Provinces and THEN dive for the Gardens, things can turn out well. But most often there are one of two strategies with which this card can get you there:

Aggro Pile
If you haven't checked it out, I might suggest my previous blog post to familiarize yourself with what this deck is all about. But how Gardens comes in is, if you add some kind of attack, particularly a junker, to the Headlong rush mix, then suddenly you are in business. You're emptying piles slower, but only slightly slower. More importantly, you are slowing your opponent down quite a lot, and while you certainly aren't shrugging the junk off yourself, it doesn't hurt you nearly as badly. This thus gives you enough time to finish up piling out without getting horribly outscored by an opponent going after the big cards.

Engine
I know, it might seem crazy. But in all honesty, engines tend to be the ways to maximize Gardens. Engines love Gardens. After I made that determination to not lose to Gardens, the way I most often did was when I went head-long, and my opponent opened Chapel... and then went for Gardens.

The thing to understand here is that engines are better suited to gain more cards over the long term than virtually any other deck. Once you get a running engine, it's very common to be gaining 3,4,5, even more cards every turn, as you add a little bit of payload and maintain your draw apparatus. Going straight for enablers doesn't permit that, and over a time-span of almost any length (look at the CSM as an example), you really aren't going to be doing better than 2 cards per turn that way. The fundamental problem is that as your deck gets bigger, your shuffles get longer, and you see your enabling cards less often. In contrast, as engines get bigger, they continue to see every enabling card nearly every turn - so even though they have fewer overall, they see them much more often.

Because of this, Engine decks routinely end up to be nearly the size of your more 'traditional' Gardens decks, and especially with the help of wasting a bunch of extra final-turn buys, they can often actually end up largely, sometimes by quite a substantial margin. Chapel-ing away ten cards is insignificant against an extra card or three per turn across the remainder of the game.




As an example of this, I would like to point to this game. Of course, this isn't a comparison to a head-long rush - my opponent didn't go for Gardens, and indeed this would have been a clobbering regardless. But the point is that, in 13 turns, I was able to gain 8 Gardens and have them all be worth 5 points, and you don't do that by rushing them, you do it by building an engine. The reason why this is so powerful in an engine is that it gives you a lot of flexibility, because it's a massive well of points which you can 'float'. If your opponent goes straight for Gardens, you clean up by just taking down all the Provinces. If, though, they go for Provinces, then you have a massive reserve of points waiting for you in the form of Gardens, which means you don't really need to worry about losing a Province split by any margin other than 8-0.


Of course, there's a lot more to the card than this, but I hope this introduction has been helpful.

Dominion: The Aggro Pile Deck

Aggro Pile:

One of my favourite strategies is to go for speed. To end the game on my terms. To take hold and bring it to an end before the opponent can really deploy their long-term strategy. Speed, not power.

This means three-piling. You need a few things for this to go right: the ability to get piles out, the ability to control when they empty, score enough points (and know how many that is), in the process. Usually, it also means doing something to slow your opponent down, as even mediocre Big Money decks are capable of scoring a reasonable number of points fairly quickly.

But WW, isn't this just a slog?

No. In a slog, at least how I'm thinking about it, you’re trying to get a matrix of VP points that is insurmountable. Your win condition is to get so many VP the opponent can never come back. In, contrast, aggro-pile decks aim to get the piles out and end the game before your opponent’s (typically superior) deck can get going enough to catch up with you. Your deck is not about scoring all the points possible, but rather about having all the pile control you can get, and having just enough pop to score a little more than the opponent.

Typically, you’re going to want your opponent to help you out in emptying at least one of the piles. Most often this comes from junking attacks (where, if they skip it, you’re going to crush them anyway - this is weakened significantly by the very strongest thinning). However, there are also some piles that just naturally you want to empty pretty fast - Fishing Village is a classic example.

Indeed, you generally need a combination of 2 enablers and/or naturally-emptying piles, and you will have time to knock the last one out by yourself. So Ruins AND curses works well, or a card like Fishing Village with either kind of junk, or some decent to nice gainer with a fast-emptying pile or junk.

Most often, you’ll be piling out with Duchies as that third pile. And you tend to start just hacking away at them near when there are a few gains left to 2 empty piles, and simply ride them hard until they’re gone.

It’s also possible to actually just blitz out piles, though this is quite a bit rarer. Ironworks is a key enabler for the rush, particularly with some Kingdom VP pile it can gain, since actually having 2 of your 3 piles be VP gives you obviously more points, which translates to a little more time. Stonemason is another big card here, as it can get rid of piles very fast. Same goes with Procession.

When playing against this kind of strategy, you typically want to not do something too fancy - that tends to be the number one way that Aggro Piles actually gets the time it needs. At the same time, you don’t want to touch Duchies at all, unless you’re either winning on the spot, completely locking them out (e.g. taking the penultimate Duchy with a substantial lead), or just contesting full bore in a mirror. 

Big Money tends to be a pretty bad matchup for this kind of deck, so you need to have a plan of defeating that as well. Indeed, Aggro Pile is a deck style which must always be very reactive to what your opponent is doing, and in most cases actually needs to have some kind of bailout plan as well - either you are an engine with an eye towards clamping down on the piles, or you have some kind of reasonable Big Money/Slog game-plan in case they go for points straightforwardly. It tends to be important to develop these fallback plans before comitting too hard to Aggro Pile.

Key Enablers in rough order from best to worst:

Junk: Ill-Gotten Gains (two piles by itself), Marauder, Young Witch, Cultist (which can sometimes be a second pile, but being this expensive is very risky), Mountebank, Sea Hag, Familiar, Soothsayer (though this is often more suited to Slogs)

Gainers: Stonemason, Procession, Ironworks, Border Village, Armory, Death Cart, Squire, Salvager, Workshop, etc. I want to point out City, as well, because if you can turn the corner on them at the right moment, it's often possible to slam down e.g. the Estate pile.

Empty-able Piles: Ruin, Curse, Stonemason, Fool's Gold, Squire, Hamlet, Duchess, Pawn, Pearl Diver (etc), often board-dependent, but things like Fishing Village, Ironmonger, etc that people just snap up at every chance because the cost is so low (and they’re so good)....






Example Games:
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151124/log.0.1448393618472.txt
Marauder, Cultist, Familiar - junk is flowing, you have multiple piles that are going to fall, so you can really start playing for the 3rd pile. I think Marauder over Cultist is very important here, since the spoils are good, drawing is less good (with a deck full of junk), and chaining is quite unlikely (and also has a chance to skip your Familiars. The important point is that treasures are good, which is very common in these kinds of games. My opponent shouldn't have bought the Duchy, but it's very unlikely they can get to 2 Colony and a Province in time, anyway.

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151127/log.0.1448643955753.txt
Here we have IGG. Trader provides some defense, but also a combo. Jester helps, and FV isn't too bad, either. Notably, Duchess provides a great 3rd pile as well.
  
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151127/log.0.1448655452593.txt
Young Witch can make both Curses and Banes empty, and with Familiar available, this is a good bit more likely. Hamlet is another third pile, and so some jockeying for positions should have happened. Pile awareness here allowed me to steal this one.

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151208/log.0.1449533322065.txt
Again, Curses and Ruins both running, Hunting Party is one of those stacks that tend to run, and we even have Stonemason for more shenanigans. 

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151230/log.0.1451490645872.txt
This one is all about piles that want to run (Highway, Market Square, Minion), plus the obscene power of Stonemason. In these kinds of games, you need to be very aware of what you need to do to run the game out, as well as what your opponents can do for the same.

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160107/log.0.1452205936848.txt 
Another example in the same vein as the previous.

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160107/log.0.1452191577234.txt
An example of the Procession style here. Very often you can process into process into mroe stuff into more stuff, emptying out LOTS of cards in a single turn. Note that you need to green pretty early to defend against your opponent doing do.

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151119/log.0.1447972595341.txt
You didn't expect me to leave you without an example of a classic Ironworks rush, did you? The raw speed and power is on display here, since even facing down Goons on a Colony board, and totally uncontested (which is correct unless you want to mirror and contest fully), I'm able to knock out all the piles (and even nab a duchy) for a blistering 54 points and end the game in a mere 16 turns.

Combo of the Day: Crossroads + Stables

Make no mistake about it: Crossroads for the draw is one of my favorite cards. And Stables is a card which has some restrictions, but within them is very powerful. They combine like Peanut Butter and Jelly. Or bananas. Or chocolate. Or whatever you want - the point is, they're good.

The concept here is simple: Stables cycles away treasures. That eventually gets you a higher concentration of green cards in your deck, which lets Crossroads draw more. The green never goes away, which means each crossroads draws more, and more, and more. Conversely, when you have lots of green cards, your Stables run the risk of getting stranded, and Crossroads can bail you out.

This is generally most at home when there isn't great trashing and/or other ways to draw cards. Add a little bit of sifting in, and it's a surprisingly powerful, resilient drawing engine, on top of which you can add whatever payload you want.

Games:
http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151211/log.0.1449803484002.txt
In which I crush a Minion deck

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151210/log.0.1449791379851.txt
In which I defeat a(n admittedly not totally committed) Rebuild player

Governor Theory

Governor is an incredibly complicated card, and not one that I hope to cover in a single article. On the other hand, I also have seen lots of players playing it as well as discussing it in what I believe to be very incorrect ways recently. And strong players at that. I'm here to try to posit what I think some key rough guidelines are, though I want to stress that I don't think I'm some master on the card, and while "every situation is different" is something you can say about Dominion in general, I think it applies a bit extra to a card with so many different options as Governor.



The Options

Draw 3 is almost always the most powerful of the benefits. The other two vary depending on exactly what kind of deck you're playing, and what point of the game you're in. But opponent drawing one is also significantly the worst of the drawbacks for you, and it is not to be underestimated.


Draw 3 on the non-terminal is like playing 2 Labs in terms of what it does to your hand, while an opponent drawing a card is like them playing a Lab. Net, you're getting a Lab effect, very roughly. Of course, there are questions of whether the returns from this are diminishing or compounding, as to which is more valuable. In general, Lab is a fine but not great card. This option is, of course, heightened when your opponent can't take advantage of their cards in a meaningful way.

Gaining a gold is sometimes fine, occasionally good, sometimes mediocre, rarely bad. However, what we're really looking at here is the difference between Gold and Silver. Maximizing that difference usually happens when cards (drawing) are at a premium. Also very relevant here is that the cost difference can be a boon with trash for benefit cards - including the third mode of Governor.

The Remodel option is often clearly the worst. Non-terminal remodel can be decent, of course, but you really need good targets, and often giving the opponent a free Upgrade is quite bad, especially early in the game. They can (usually) get rid of a copper off of this option, whereas you can't. So in the early to midgame, you want to pick your spots - 3s into 5s are often quite good, and Estate into 4 works as well IF there's a particularly good 4 for your deck.


Obvious Situations

Governor is clearly very good when there's a discard attack available (though watch out for Moat or Lighthouse), or Possession, etc. Just take the cards and be very happy at your hyper-efficient draw card. There is some depth to these situations, but I'm not going to cover them here.


"The Governor Deck"

The classic Governor strategy, and one which some players seem to think monolithic (and strong and thus boring) is to A) get as many governors as possible, B)draw a bunch of cards and gain some golds, then C) draw a zillion cards, Remodel Golds into Provinces, win the game. Another problem people have with this is that it can be quite coin-flippy as to who wins, based on whoever gets that one turn at the right moment.

However, I think this deck is both not so strong, at least without help, on the one hand (though not really weak by any stretch), but more importantly, consistently mis-played. In general, I find that people choose to draw far too often on this plan. I almost never choose to draw until I think it's going to be the last relevant turn of the game. When you do reach such a turn, it is of course safe to draw, as they can't take advantage of the extra cards if they don't have a turn to use them in.

Let's break down why I think drawing too much is a trap, even though in general Lab is probably a better card than "Gain a gold, each opponent gains a silver, +1 action". With this particular deck, when I am gaining gold, and buying something good, my deck is improving pretty significantly. Later in the game, I flip to straight remodelling, which makes my deck worse, and theirs a little better, to be fair, but with the explosiveness that is possible, the points are pretty significant. Furthermore, the silvers tend not to be so great for the opponent. Gold isn't super hot, either, but the big leg up it has is that it has good applications from merely costing 6.

Generally, drawing means you are playing for a big turn. This is going to often require multi-governors, and things to remodel. This means a lot of cards, so you need to draw a good amount. Usually, you end up spending a couple Governors to do so. If I play that way, then my opponent will have more cards in their hand to start, which means they need to spend less of their Governors for draw, which means they have more in reserve to spend on other things. That's a big game for them. Instead, if I sit there and just gain gold or remodel, now they need to use more Governors to draw, which means less to remodel with. The silvers also make it harder for them to line up Gold-Gold-Gov-Gov - it just takes so many cards. Whereas if they are going to try to draw to do this, I have pretty reasonable chances of just having Governor to remodel and be able to buy a second Province anyway.

Timing
A massive skill in these games comes in trying to judge when you need to "go for it" and try to get your big multi-province turn off, and when to punt it down the line. The things to keep your eye on are the count of Governors and of 6-costs (traditionally Gold, but something like Border Village is very very good) in both decks, whether they've yet been seen this shuffle, total cards in both decks, and the Province pile. In general, I don't like making a move until you're likely to be getting enough provinces to either end the game or that your opponent can't realistically come back in one turn - keeping in mind that these decks tend to be pretty bad at getting multiple of any green card other than Province (though your mileage may, of course, vary). Every time you draw rather than something else, you give half a Governor draw back to them. Given that they draw less, that means you're drawing half again less, too. This effect compounds (though obviously there is a limit). So over the long run, you're leaking less value to them. The other benefit of gaining Gold is that, after a while, all those silvers tend to clog them up much more than your Golds (which are especially good because you want to remodel them).

Earlier in the game, drawing can be a little better, but you have to be very careful, very tactical. You want to be getting a tangible advantage from it without giving them a commensurate advantage. Particularly, you're usually looking to maximize the 5s in your deck (specifically Governor, at the least). So if drawing is likely to get you more 5s without doing the same for your opponent, then go for it. Typical ways to do this are looking to remodel a silver into a 5 and buy another. You really need to be aware of what you're likely to draw, and have a decent understanding of your opponent's deck, too. If you're really on top of things, you can sometimes mess the opponent up by triggering bad shuffles for them - this is a level above what I see almost no one be able to do, at least on a consistent basis, though. This whole line of play tends to close out when the Governors run, though, since that's when silver starts to get worse and gold get better.


Improvements on the Governor Deck

A straight Governor deck can actually be reasonably clunky and end up playing a bit Money-like. It's significantly better if you can engine-ize it. So get your trashing going, get other sources of draw going. Then you are free to use your governor as payload, gaining Golds and then remodelling them, and also perhaps a little bit of supplemental draw/stability insurance. Yes, this is good even if it means getting fewer Governors. In all honesty, you don't need so many Governors if you go this route, and though you obviously would like as many as you can get, it's not as important as the other stuff. Cards like Upgrade, Junk Dealer, Stables, Wharf, etc. get priority, at least for a while. Lab is probably not good enough to be on that list (though you will want Labs once the Governors run out) - just to give a general impression.

Miscellany

• If your opponent can't use the extra cards because they somehow only have 1 gain, you're much free-er to draw, as the worst they can do is 1 Province.
• Governor is significantly weakened by Colony, just because you can't remodel into it - this makes the gaining Gold a lot weaker, which in turn makes the whole card a lot closer to Lab, which is fine but not stellar.
• You can beat Governor by going for Big Money, but it needs to be very good Big Money, as you're letting them off the look in terms of drawing quite a bit.
• Be cognizant of the opponent being able to upgrade into points. This means changing the order in which you do your Governor options sometimes. Sometimes that means Remodeling then drawing (though that can be risky because it cuts you off from draw+draw into extra Governors, but track your deck and know what you need). Sometimes it means Remodeling into something to SEE if they Upgrade, and then being ready to buy (or not). If you're talking about the last VP card in a pile, knock it out on your first Remodel, getting your other points later.
• Usually you don't want to buy different cards just to be able to Upgrade into them - it isn't worth it. Just be aware of the different VP cards out there at different costs.
• Drawing is also better against Draw-to-X. The other options (especially Remodel) can be used WITH draw-to-X. 

Game Log Examples

• http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151127/log.0.1448666748092.txt
  This game is a good example of how building up an engine, with trashing and non-Governor draw, can really get the job done, even in lieu of many Governors.
• http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151206/log.0.1449436309497.txt
  In this game, there isn't much other engine besides Governor (potentially Minion). However, I'm able to win despite losing the split 7-3 because of how the game plays out (and good luck on draws after the point the Governors run out). Big point here is that my opponent greens too soon, and is left with too little economy left to finish the game out.
• http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151213/log.0.1450016138249.txt
  Another game that shows how building a classic engine can be extremely effective. I get a Junk Dealer to thin down and supplement with Stables before moving in on the Governor to close things out.
• http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151215/log.0.1450143366761.txt
  In this game, an engine built with Governor supplement is fast enough to defeat even a Rebuilding player.
• http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151217/log.0.1450358488753.txt
  An excellent demonstration of principles. After some mutual ambassadoring, we both build. I am able to get a more consistent engine, and even though the raw power of Governor allows my opponent to still get 4 Provinces quickly, I'm always on top of things, maintaining high quality of deck to be able to put it away at leisure.

Dominion: Embargo

I have long held that Embargo is the card which is probably most often misplayed. The reason for this is simple: it gives you the most options when you play it, as there are going to be 17+ places to put your token. Lots of choices mean that it's really hard to evaluate them all and pick the absolute best one, and there are some pretty weird, non-intuitive routes to consider. Let's dive in!

Where to put the counter

This is perhaps the most natural question with embargo, and the one for which it has the multitude of possibilities. The general consensus on this issue has long been to put it where you have the most advantage over your opponents, i.e. if you have 2 more of a key card than your opponent, stick it there. However, figuring out where you have this advantage isn't always so simple, and in general, things can be more nuanced than that.

For instance, let's say the best thing on the board looks like it's a minion deck, and you have a 3-1 advantage on Minions when you play your embargo - your opponent has gotten some bad luck and has silvers instead. Traditional wisdom may have you slam that embargo down on your Minions, as that's where you have your lead. In general, this is going to be a mistake. 3 Minions doesn't make a Minion deck, and by locking each of you out from Minions, what you're basically doing there is making your minions much closer to her silvers, and that actually reduces your advantage.

Instead, you need to look at where you can cut their strategy off without cutting off your own. Or, failing that (as you often will), figure out if cutting both of you off is more beneficial to you or them. And failing both those things, finding somewhere to stick the token that it does nothing. Generally, there's going to be *somewhere* in which you have an advantage, and you will try to maximize that. In the case that you're just behind everywhere, you can try to minimize it by making the game some kind of bizarre luckfest - this probably won't work, but you were probably losing anyway.

Engines

Engines are often super reliant on a particular card - if it's the only village, if it's the only draw card, if it's the only +buy (though on the last point, once they've gotten a couple, that's often enough). Stopping this up can be pretty devastating for many opponents if you can do it soon enough. On the other hand, engines are often the kinds of decks which can most use the card - they're most likely to have the spare $2 and a buy laying around, and to be able to get back to the bought Embargo quickly

Big Money

At first glance, you might think that big money is not super dependent on any card, and thus pretty immune to Embargo, since there's usually some different options you can go with, and going down to the next one down usually wouldn't be just tons worse. However, there are some cards which Big Money is absolutely reliant on: the treasures! It's not super uncommon for a well-timed Embargo on Silver or Gold (or especially Fool's Gold) to be pretty devastating.

Other cursing

The most distinctive case where Embargo plays differently than all others is when there is some other curse-giver on board which is worth going for. The key thing to note here is that when you choose to embargo something, it's a far more temporary thing than normal: the curses will eventually run out, at which point it won't matter. So you want to pick something to delay both players getting to, rather than to really stop up. Of course, the big thing is if you can get a curser and then slam the door on your opponent. In this case, they should bite the bullet and get it anyway - otherwise, they'll lose 10-0.

Trashing

Trashing is somewhat similar to cursing. Players will want to get their deck size under control, get to basically drawing it, before they start adding cursed cards. The difference here is that they will be slowed down in having to continually take some time - and often a terminal action - to trash a curse.

Gainers

Getting a gainer, then slamming down embargo tokens on the gainer pile, followed by another key pile, can be absolutely massive. This is especially true when the gainer IS the key card - such as with Horn of Plenty or most gainers with e.g. Highway present.

What about when to get Embargo?

As it turns out, this is way more important to how the card plays than where to put it, although obviously the two things are related. In general, the big problem with Embargo is that it slows you down too much to buy it and play it. In other words, opportunity cost. The simplest explanation is, if you're wasting time buying a 2 cost, then drawing and playing that terminal action, your opponent is going to be getting good cards for their deck. You need to have your 1-shot $2 of economy be worth MORE than what they have done in the mean-time, and even if you shut down some strategy, chances are they can just audible into yours, and because you wasted time doing the Embargo thing, there's a very good chance they'll be ahead of you, even if their buys weren't optimal for what you were planning. I would be remiss if I didn't note that part of the problem is that usually when you buy the card, you can't count on having any particular advantage by the time you draw it, or if you wait until you're drawing your deck, the curses are less likely to be so impactful.

There are lots of exceptions, of course. The #1 case is, of course, on one of the first two turns of the game, when there aren't any other decent 2s - i.e. the opportunity cost is getting nothing. Beyond this, there are a number of times where you might have the terminal space (and card space) and a spare $2 and a buy, but it doesn't come up much - and pretty often, there are other, better 2s anyway. But when it does come up, it will most often be in an engine.

There are also a number of roads the opponent can go down which commit them to needing lot so fa particular card to have any success. Foremost here are potion-cost cards. You can make a move to bet your embargo as soon as they get their potion, and that means they're going, on average, to probably get just under one of their intended target before you can get the token down (obviously it depends a bit on the shuffles). Depending on which card this is, this can be very profitable. It seems like you could make a similar play on Treasure Map, but the problem there is, if Map is good, it's probably either for Trash for Benefit and/or they'll be able to trigger pretty reliably with exceptional sifting - which means that your embargo will probably be either too late or ineffectual. The same kind of thing is true for Fool's Gold - they will get 3-4 by the time you get your token down, and that is usually going to be enough that you won't be much up. It's actually pretty disastrous for you if you're missing a shuffle or they have extra gains - if they can get to something like 5 Fool's Golds, the game is probably reasonably close to being over...

Examples (certainly not comprehensive, as the most common thing is that you should just not buy the card)

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20151001/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1443719767909.txt
Probably my favorite trick with Embargo is to stick the token on curses and use that as a way to pile out fast. This is actually a tactical little trick to keep an eye out for, though obviously it requires a big lead. In this game, my opponent does half the work for me :)

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150604/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1433444062335.txt
In this game, my opponent gets a token down on Gardens. I shrug this off pretty easily, as my deck doesn't really want to hit tons of money anyway, playing a slog. The second token, though, is on Copper! And this is surprisingly more effectual, as quite a bit of my plan was to buy a zillion coppers per turn, and carrying a curse is too steep a price for that. I do have to look at some point, once again, for piling out curses, but the bigger saving grace for me is that A) coppers weren't tainted earlier, and B) gaining silver is also very good for the slog.

Dominion: The Good-Stuff Deck

I've written a lot about various different kinds of deck, generally lumping them into one of the following categories: Big Money, Engine, Combo, Rush, and Slog. These can in general be useful, though there are some serious limitations as well. As has been pointed out, Big Money and Slog often bleed together. Rush and slog can often do the same. Combo has never been terribly well-defined.

The subject I want to talk about today is very old, and one of my favorites. Generally I would classify it as Big Money, but it's not like the Terminal Draw-based decks which people usually think of with that term. Instead, these decks tend to pick up several terminals, and usually not much draw. They're even interested in Villages sometimes.

You might call this a "Good Stuff deck". In general, in this kind of deck, in your turn, you buy the card which most helps your deck. This is true in almost every deck, to some extent, but here, it's true in a much more straightforward, naive way. Essentially, you're looking to pick up the card which most helps your deck on your very next turn. There are few exceptions - most notably, of course, is that at some point you green, followed by considerations for shuffle timing.

Indeed, being able to anticipate what the rest of your shuffle will net you, in order to know whether to forgo a slightly better, cheaper card for a more expensive one, banking on picking the cheaper one up later, is probably the key subtle skill of playing this kind of deck.

The more straightforward strategy of this kind of deck consists of figuring out which terminals are best for your deck. Then you want to buy those, along with treasures, and you're good to go. Treasures are always good in this kind of deck (well, copper isn't, but I mean Silver+). Cantrips, including Peddler and Lab variants, are also nice in this kind of deck. Terminal draw is NOT good in these decks, as you will generally have a pretty high number of actions to draw dead, and you are going to get more mileage out of your other terminal effects. Indeed, I've toyed with calling this kind of deck a "drawless" deck, though that would probably be somewhat misleading, as you are still going to snap up Lab effects.

The question still remains, though: when do you want to go for this kind of deck? In general, this is based more on a lack of other options than it is on this deck being actively great itself. In particular, you want an engine to not be viable for some reason. Generally this means that it's not practical to build up enough draw for an engine to work - either because there aren't villages to pair with the smithies, there isn't enough trashing to get yourself thin, or sometimes just a combination of wonkiness - no +buy does a lot here, but it's not necessarily a dealbreaker.

On the other hand, this needs to be better than Big Money with Draw as well. And when the thing which holds the engine back is lack of draw, this is easy. But there are other cases where this beats that out as well - most often, when there are a good smattering of actions, especially cantrips, that you would like to play in your deck. These work well in this kind of strategy, but they don't play nicely with draw cards. In particular, non-drawing Villages, like Festival, and indeed most terminal Silvers feel most at home in this kind of deck, as they aren't very good to build an engine around, and they don't pair at all nicely with terminal draw. Junking attacks tend towards this kind of game as well (at least in the absence of strong trashing), but discard attacks do not (much preferring to be played in engines).



Example Games:

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150609/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1433889316070.txt
In this game, an engine is technically possible, with Villages and Hunting Grounds. However, there is no trashing whatsoever, which makes it pretty hard for the engine to get off the ground. Merchant Ship and Jester are both good for the Good-Stuff deck, but in particular Jester is very good against someone going for an engine without trashing.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150417/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1429282199310.txt
Butcher and Lab are both good here, as in many such decks. Coin Tokens really excel in these kinds of decks which are all about hitting your price points at such times. In terms of the particular game, Butcher actually counters Possession reasonably well - you think it would be the other way around, because Possession hits both tokens and Trash For Benefit well, but Butcher just makes the game end so fast...

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150420/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1429545178321.txt
This is a very nice example of signs which point you to playing Good Stuff over an Engine. The draw here is Jack and Journeyman, and the village (Squire) doesn't draw - it's going to be way too difficult to maintain everything, especially with Mountebank pouring junk in on you. So it's better to just ignore it, at which point all these actions go very nicely together for a pretty smooth good-stuff deck. You're not expecting to get big turns, just fairly consistently decent ones.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150423/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1429816066041.txt
Marauder is another card which excels in this kind of deck. The ruins clog them up, and the spoils stop you from being able to draw super well, though they do give you a pretty solid economic backbone, as well as now-or-later flexibility, which this deck is often looking for.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150425/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1430002665675.txt
Doctor helps thin you down, which is nice, but it doesn't do a great job of keeping you clean against junk. There isn't much draw here. Ironmonger is always good, but most excels in good-stuff decks (where it's less often just a village). These are also definitely Harem's primary home.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150527/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1432763576686.txt
Soothsayer is definitely most home in a good-stuff deck: gaining high-quality treasures is a definite boon, and the junk will really hamper them if they don't respond in kind here.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150605/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1433518674229.txt
Again, here the only draw is Oracle, and Border Village + Oracle is pretty miserable without strong trashing and quite good payloads. On the other hand, Cartographer gives you nice selection without increasing handsize - basically the epitome of Good Stuff.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150611/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1434056190377.txt
Another classic combination of simply good cards - in this case Butcher and Ironmonger - can lead to some VERY fast games...

Assert Your Dominance When Winning

One (of many) important skills in Dominion, as in a lot of games, is being able to win the won game with as high a probability as possible. Little feels worse than letting a game you were way ahead in slip through the cracks. Giving advice on this is generally very difficult for Dominion, as every board is different, and every situation is different. There are, however, some general pieces of advice to give, and then some examples to demonstrate good lines of thinking.


Be alert for ways to end the game
This can mean grabbing 50% of the VP, setting up an unbreakable pin, emptying Colonies, or emptying Provinces. These are things to be aware of, of course, but in general people are pretty good about looking for them (though you do still need to be vigilant, as they are missed sometimes). The bigger thing, though, is looking at 3 pile endings. You want to know what piles are low, how many, and what ways there are of emptying them as fast as possible. Keep an eye for gainers, especially multi-gainers, like Stonemason and Procession. Also keep an eye on Curses, Ruins (especially with Death Cart), and Estates.


Generally be aware of how close the end of the game is
You need to know whether you're planning for a long game or a short game. Missing wins is a common mistake that people make, but probably even more common is people panicking and going for points too soon. "Piles feel low" can make people scared. You need to be concrete. How low are they really? Are they actually going to be emptied? If it isn't going to be in one turn, can your opponent realistically make the play to go after them over multiple turns, or will that hurt their deck too much? Sometimes the answer is, yes, they can go for it. But lots of times, they can't really. How much you want to play around having a bad turn or two is a function of how reliable your deck is and how far ahead you are.


Know your role, and leverage your advantages
Are you ahead because you have a very large points lead that is going to be hard to overcome? Or is it because your deck is much better? When the former is true, you want to make sure that your opponent can't build up enough of an advantage in deck to overcome that. Generally this means you want to try to make the game short, though sometimes you keep your deck at a quality where you can still win the long game. Still other times you'll seek to 'cut their legs out' by attacking the piles they'd need for a comeback, which inhibits their ability to build (though I should warn that this is quite rare). When it's the latter, you want to make sure that this advantage will have the time and space to be developed and played out for your advantage. So play for the long game, and make sure you don't lose short. Of course, the most common way to lose short is by letting the game end short - and so  you want to make the game go long, by not blitzing down the piles.



Ask yourself: How am I losing this game?
This is really the banner under which all the other things lie. Even the Penultimate Province Rule is just a piece of this line of thinking. This is the most difficult piece of advice to give with specificity. It varies very much from board to board, and from game to game. But when you're ahead, you need to know why you are ahead. What is it based on? And why is that important? You need to make sure that you try to make your advantages are important, and try to make sure that any advantages your opponents have are not. And look to mitigate the ability for a bad shuffle, or a perfect shuffle from your opponent, to knock you down. Sometimes that means building consistency. Sometimes it means just ending the game as fast as possible.

One final word of advice before I switch to examples: make sure that in your attempts to secure your position, you aren't losing so much time trying to be safe that you let the core of your advantage slip.


Now, on to examples!




http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150424/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1429907945889.txt
In this game, if we look at the position after turn 25, I have a superior quality deck. The way I lose the game is... to let that deck deteriorate. It doesn't take very much to lose reliability. I need to start sending lots of junk over, and I need to up my economy so I can by colonies, but the biggest thing that can shoot me down is losing my consistency - and so my Soothsayer, despite accomplishing the first two goals, is actually quite a bad purchase. If I sanely buy a gold, work my way up in money, and just buy a curse at some moment, I would have had plenty of time to set myself up without my deck ever getting too big. The way I played, I still had reasonable chances, but I gave myself way more chances to lose than were necessary, and it bit me.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150425/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1429978545317.txt
This is a pretty classic Golden Deck game. I get myself set up on turn 11 or so. My opponent still has a little cleaning up to do, though at the precise moment he has a little tiny lead. Throughout the rest of this game, I just pound the Platinum into submission. The point here is that this way, my opponent simply has no counterplay, and the longer the game goes, the more non-perfect draws he will have, and I can continue my advantage. I could definitely have run the colonies out sooner, but there was just no need, as this way I extended my lead maximally.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150425/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1429985222956.txt
Here we just look at the last turn. I have a small lead, and I am aware that 2 piles are out (Duchy and Market Square). I am in a good position, but there are of course lots of ways to lose - opponent can spike a Province or hit a Duchy, for instance. So while piling the Estates is very likely to lead me to a win, knowing that I can end it when I draw the Gold off Altar-ing my Overgrown Estate pays off - Death Cart and the ruins pile is a typical thing to watch for.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150427/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1430164409576.txt
Another instance of pile awareness - here I lunge for the last curses

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150427/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1430167943928.txt
Here, an awareness of my deck lets me know I can simply go for it to end it on turn 9(!) by... running the Provinces! Key was knowing that the last card was a silver so that I could draw it up and Forge a Province for the win.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150428/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1430228157511.txt
Another example of knowing that I can get the Provinces out.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150601/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1433174993893.txt
Here, my trashing lets me build a pretty clean deck advantage over my opponent, with a reliable engine. I am able to catch up in points as well, getting me to the spot where I lead in all sectors. Then I apply the 'how am I losing this game' thought process. And the way I lose is to have my engine get unreliable - there is only one buy anyway, so extra money does nothing. Solution? Remake Silvers into engine components. This makes me super reliable, and I can take the points lead at leisure, only moving forward when safe and/or necessary.

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150618/log.514b5511e4b0b79c883b5e3b.1434639648661.txt
In this game, I get out to what I believed to be a big lead. However, my opponent was massing Governor pieces. Despite it being a Colony game, I asked myself how I was losing, and came up with my opponent emptying the Provinces. So I got 4 - my opponent doesn't have the capabilities to overcome me by catching up on Provinces himself, so after this play, I'm pretty comfortably in control.


Finally, a pair of Possession/Masquerade games. The key here is that, in both, the way to go is pretty clearly to get possessing your opponent set up, as the engines are good (this isn't always the case of course, but it is here). Given that, the way either player wins or loses is going to be... to stop your opponent from possessing you, at which point you can pretty much put the game away at leisure. Thus, when possessing them you make them pass... their possessions, first of all, then what lets them re-buy possession (usually potion), and only then their provinces. (Obviously, if the game is right about to end, you might have to make an exception).

In the first game, here, doing this efficiently nets me a quick resignation. But in the second, here, my opponent gives me many more cracks at the apple than necessary (which unfortunately for me, I miss on, but still, this is something to look at).