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.

Pile Lowering

In the game of Dominion, a question which often needs to be asked (admittedly, I don't see it getting asked all that much, part of why I want to write this article) is "When do I want to lower piles (or not)?" This is a bit of a tricky question to answer in the abstract sense, as every situation is different, but there are some general principles which can help you out - principles which I often see violated.

1. If you have a forced win by emptying piles, take it.

   This one's pretty straightforward, though sometimes a bit hard to see. Knowing which piles are low, and your capability of scoring points while simultaneously emptying piles, can help. This is something to think about at the start of your turn. Awareness helps a lot.

2. The player with the higher-quality deck wants the piles to be higher

   The reasoning here is fairly straightforward. The longer the game goes, the more the player with the better deck is able to enjoy the advantage offered to her by said better deck. A lot of people think that lowering piles helps the player who is ahead in points - this is generally true, but not hugely so. Usually better deck quality aligns with lower in points, but in the cases that isn't true, the player who is doubly behind usually likes lowering the piles, because there is a better chance of some fluke making the difference in a short game (one unlikely-but-possible dud hand, say).
   
   Perhaps more commonly, I see players start to lower some piles to "set up the win next turn" or two turns down the line, etc. This can be fine, and it's usually winning, but people are often in much more of a rush to do so than they should be, i.e. it increases their chance to lose.

Combo of the Day: Upgrade + Fortress

I'm posting this one because I've seen it a few times in the last month or two, and people seem to be unaware of it.

It's pretty simple, and very fast. You just want to trash down as thin as possible, as fast as possible, pick up some Upgrades, a couple Fortresses, and if you can, some draw. Then, having drawn your deck, Upgrade your Fortress into Upgrade repeatedly, until the pile is gone. From there, you can either cash in for 6s, or continue on to other 5s. The important thing is to be very aware of what your opponent can do, because usually you aren't going to be able to finish until a turn after the Upgrades run. Golds are about the worst payoff you might go for, and even here it's enough cash to be quite decent. More often, there will be some pile that empties, or another spammable 5. The plan, usually, is to pile out the Duchies in one fell swoop, scoring 18-24 points, emptying 3 piles, and winning the game.

It's kind of hard to play this perfectly (or maybe I'm just bad at it), and it's pretty hard to play around. Yes, you need to be aware of what your opponents are doing, but honestly, you just don't have tons of counterplay besides trying to be faster.

Examples:

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151110/log.0.1447115920847.txt

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151108/log.0.1447013717412.txt

http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151115/log.0.1447612360359.txt

Instructional Game #5: Maximizing Draws

Game Log

So there's a lot of Trash-for-benefit to note here, between Stonemason, Salvager, and Forge, with both Border Village and Cultist to enable that. The Tactician + Forge combo means that you should be able to clean your deck up - and this is important. You still need to go for Cultist here, for two reasons: First, getting too far behind in the Ruins split is going to be problematic, as though you can eventually clean up, it's going to take a lot more time. Second, the deck does need draw, and Cultist is by far the most efficient way to get it here (well, one could argue Tactician, but that's not repeatable).

With that layout, we enter the game. I open Salvager/Silver. You might be tempted by Spice Merchant here, but I want more money early, to get my Cultist, have a chance at double Cultist by spiking 7, and have decent chances at hitting 6 for Border Village into Cultist. Further, the Copper trashing may be less important here than normal, given that Forge will hopefully clean that up anyway.

I want to loop back to Border Village here for a second. Normally, the card is something you actually wouldn't want in your Cultist decks, as it can be drawn dead, you aren't very likely to draw them in the right order, and especially important for cultist, it hurts the chaining aspect. Here, though, I am planning on cleaning up, and especially, there's lots of Trash for Benefit.


The game progresses smoothly - my opponent is clearly on the same basic plan as me. I don't get to my Cultists at very nice points in the shuffle, and it might be easy to think I am falling behind for that reason. But on the other hand, I am hitting my money slots pretty well, gaining better cards. This is easy to underestimate, particularly by feel in-game, but in reality, my draws are really just exceptional. After my opponent's seventh turn, our decks look as follows:

We can see that I've just been drawing better than my opponent here. It's somewhat slow for me to get my Cultists online, but he's hardly been better, and to compensate, I have trashed an extra Estate, and more importantly, I have the next turn. With that turn, I get three Cultists fired off, making $7. I am significantly ahead, but it's really important to play precisely in these cases, to maximize your chances, as the luck can turn at any point. And there are lots of options. The main ones here are Forge, Border Village + 5-cost, or Stonemason into two 5-costs. I go for Stonemason-Cultist-Tactician. There are 6 ruins left at this point, so I don't want to abandon that split and pressure entirely. I also don't want to go double Cultist though, because 6 Ruins isn't so many, and I want to start setting up for clearing out. Finally, extra Border Village just doesn't do enough for me here.

The Ruins split ends up at 5-5, and my draws are good for the next couple turns. More importantly, my opponent, who is still playing quite well, misses his Forge on his Tactician turn. Thus, I have used my superior draws to set myself up that, even when I whiff on turns 13 and 14, by my next Tactician turn, on 15, I still have an advantage. And given my thin deck, and all the trash-for-benefit, I am on the prowl, and find the winning cascade of gains that Stonemason so often engenders. This is one last point of precision - just gaining some points would probably put me in very good position, but given the explosiveness of the board, there is some chance that my opponent could make some play making mid-turn gains and pull out some incredible comeback. Slamming the door when possible is something you always need to be on the lookout for, and take when you can get.

Know Your Basics #1: Ironworks Rush

Game Log

Setup:

...with Shelters.


Despite the Shelters and the Colonies, this game has to be an Ironworks/Silk Road rush. The problem is, there just isn't anything else to do. You can play for Stables, but this is just too slow. And you can play for a mix of that with Herald, but lowering the Herald pile actually speeds the Rush up even more than you in that case (as the Rush player is pretty happy with Heralds, but really really happy with the easily-empty-able pile). Adding Doctor to your Stables engine doesn't help too much on average (though I guess you can give it a whirl on 5/2 exactly - I don't *think* it's enough even there). It helps a Herald engine a good bit more, as those cards work synergystically, but again, the Herald engine just has NO time, and you have to look to Navigator as your payload or give in and get Platinum anyway.

In the actual game, my opponent goes for Doctor/Ironworks into... some kind of Herald thing where he prefers Golds to Stables for a while. I flounder around a bit trying to keep my options open and figure out what he's doing, oscillating a bit between playing to be able to go a bit long (probably close to just being wrong) with some Duchies and just ramming home the piles. In any case, I am able to close it out on turn 14, and it wasn't as close as the 32-10 final score would make it look.

In cases like this, it's important to note that the Rush player is going to have both the point lead and all the control over how the game is being steered, and that is not something you want to go up against - you need a LOT of raw power to overcome it.

Anyway, it's important to know a few of these basic concepts, like a rush, not so much because they will always be right (it took the rest of the board being fairly weak here, given the Shelters and Colonies), but because you need to have some plan that doesn't just roll over to them.