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Post by kineahora on May 22, 2012 0:36:54 GMT -5
(poor because of the financial burden of battling Dankan in the market). That guy appears to be seriously manipulating the market; possibly he's paid for animus credits and proceeded to buy out a few best cards, then offered them back at massively inflated prices just to be a pain. Your "battling" him will achieve nothing. It will ultimately be necessary to return to the slow process of just buying boosters and hoping for what you want, or trading only with friends using prearranged buys. Such a shame. |
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Post by kwunyinli on May 22, 2012 3:15:32 GMT -5
Well I've lowered the price of PP by roughly 200 cr, but Im starting to see the futility.
Doomsday.. Hmm. You could copy it and send it back to him? I'm not too sure about this one. Discard decks generally are too slow to stall us on the board though. Maybe play more aggressively? But he plays scholar which is beginning to be a pain in the butt..
I've been toying around with that 4th Sacred Vision slot, first with lairs of Romulus, then with Grand Theatre. The Grand Theatre did help me out late game, but Lairs of Romulus could have done the same thing. The advantage of Grand Theatre is it's no slouch at 3 influence, but is rather slow taking 4 turns to win, but it arguably comes out a turn or two faster than Lairs of Romulus and doesn't restrict your resources like Lairs of Romulus does. I plan to test Ospedale Degli Innocenti as well. Multiple San Gimignano has screwed me over enough games now that I'm seriously considering shaving one.
Other candidates include Forli, Basilica di San Marco, Calling all stand-ins.
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Post by pier37 on May 22, 2012 3:20:47 GMT -5
I got absolutely destroyed a few games by this guy with a killer Scholar/Order Merchant's Guild deck. I mean absolutely no chance. I Sacred visioned him the first game and saw: court order, preeemptive strike, scientific espionage, KHAP and I think some other draw card. I didn't get a chance to deep 6 the scientific espionage though because he crushed me with I think two income boosters while I was in tutor as he had 2 merchants guilds out. The second game I played against him I considered withdrawing early but decided to play. I copied his in depth analysis to draw some, but he court ordered the copy. he cleaned out my memories with doomsday but I recovered. I had actual victory in sight with 5 in one region and 7 in the other and he had just placed monteriggioni with me sitting with 2 papal--I thought he signed hsi own death warrrant, but before my surprise papal influence could resolve, he had beat me to the punch with a history glitch! Then I was dead  . . Actually I also want to build a similar deck as below: 3 Plentiful Crop 5 Knowledge is Power 5 Forced Inheritance 4 Knowledge has a Price 5 Court Order 5 Preemptive Strike 5 In-depth Analysis 5 Scientific Espionage 5 Merchant's Guild 5 Family Heirloom 1 Monteriggioni 1 Animus Reboot 1 History Glitch what do you think? ;D what do you think? |
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Post by kwunyinli on May 22, 2012 3:27:00 GMT -5
I'm really interested in trying that divine intervention now. I think as you win more, you move up the ladder fighting stronger and stronger players and the players up here all just use counters.... So I probably need to use more discard.
LOL Dankun got pissed and bought me out, then raised the price back to 3000cr
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Post by thest4lker on May 22, 2012 11:43:57 GMT -5
Your ranking currently plays no part in match ups whatsoever...
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Post by kwunyinli on May 22, 2012 18:17:35 GMT -5
Thanks for clarifying. I read that somewhere also. What about your consecutive wins?
Update: tried Divine Intervention. I liked seeing it in my open hand, but as I predicted. It was not very good at drawing out counters. I suppose I'll try holding onto it until they have enough resources for counters. I like it because at half the resources, it is significantly faster. I have not missed the 4th Sacred Vision as it is quite redundant. I hesitate to put more in because of the bug. Also, after hitting them with Divine Intervention, they hit me with a lower cost, but more relevant card, which was annoying.
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Post by kineahora on May 22, 2012 20:44:14 GMT -5
I'm really interested in trying that divine intervention now. I think as you win more, you move up the ladder fighting stronger and stronger players and the players up here all just use counters.... So I probably need to use more discard. LOL Dankun got pissed and bought me out, then raised the price back to 3000cr I looked at the offers page on the sell side and I see what Dankun is doing: He is indeed cornering the market in the big cards--Preemptive, Sci Esp, and PP. Given how many he has of all these, I suspect he bought a significant amount of animus credits, bought out the existing offers a few times, then started offering them for sale at 2900 or 3000. He has standing offers to buy for 2600. So having created a huge inventory, he makes 10-13% on a cycle giving him more resources to keep buying out lower sellers so that he can maintain his market corner. Whatever, some people just have nothing better to do with their time. This is like what Bunker Hunt did with the silver market in the 1980s, but hey that was REAL LIFE money, so it was worth spending your time on. And by the way it failed--there was too much supply. Attention administrators:The devs could crush this sort of thing by making a MAXIMUM inventory for purchases--if you already have say 8 of a card, you may NOT purchase another copy at the auction house. What do you think of this suggestion? |
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Post by kineahora on May 22, 2012 21:20:06 GMT -5
I've been toying around with that 4th Sacred Vision slot, first with lairs of Romulus, then with Grand Theatre. The Grand Theatre did help me out late game, but Lairs of Romulus could have done the same thing. The advantage of Grand Theatre is it's no slouch at 3 influence, but is rather slow taking 4 turns to win, but it arguably comes out a turn or two faster than Lairs of Romulus and doesn't restrict your resources like Lairs of Romulus does. I plan to test Ospedale Degli Innocenti as well. Multiple San Gimignano has screwed me over enough games now that I'm seriously considering shaving one. Other candidates include Forli, Basilica di San Marco, Calling all stand-ins. We are thinking along the same lines. I was just about to look over the red and purple lands myself to look for candidates to add: As you said San Gim really only helps at the beginning, Romulus is a tad too resource costly, and it retards your resource development. Sure romulus can win a region in 1.5 days if timed right, but I think it can only come out 1st day if you drop 3 Dama Rossa, which is pretty rare. So that means it wins a region 1 day later. If you drop a 4 influence site at the end of the 1st day it will be the same. By the way, I prefer templar sites not only for price purposes, but because they are not susceptible to Radical Demotion. OK so I see there are no 4-influence sites available. Ospedale costs too much (7) so it is out [Romulus is better]. Same with Forli. Grand theatre is cheap but only 3 influence. Not sure about this. Il Colosseo can come out, but only 3 influence, but it does give you+2 resource... Thing is, I think resources are usually not a problem after one or 2 days. It's all about getting a big land out early, and 3 influence is not big enough. Ooh I didn't notice your San Marco idea at first--this intrigues me--not a big land, but it goes with the theme of scoring in alternate ways and the deck can so easily arrange to lose agents! I like this, I'm going to tinker. Hmm it is a bit pricey at 4 cost for 2 influence though... Quiet chapel only costs 2 so you could get *two* out on the first day... Other thoughts: the deck only went 9-7 for me today. Many of the losses were to big bad scholar decks of some sort. But I lost ones I think I should have won--I started with a string of agents (after Mulligan) and drew more and more agents. I have a feeling 1 fewer Young Farmer in favor of some big threat (like another land) is in order. I like your Calling All Stand-ins idea as it goes with the theme of not vulnerable to untimely end (or Radical demotion), and it gives a little more variety. It will crush you if it is Sci Espionaged, but that's true of most of the current big threats in the deck. |
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Post by kwunyinli on May 22, 2012 22:16:13 GMT -5
Attention administrators:The devs could crush this sort of thing by making a MAXIMUM inventory for purchases--if you already have say 8 of a card, you may NOT purchase another copy at the auction house. What do you think of this suggestion? That's a really good idea. I think you only need 5 as the max, given that you don't need more than 5 to make multiple decks. It's not like it's real cards. I think once we start buying boosters again. The price will go down, since boosters is unlimited, and the price doesn't change, therefore the supply is unlimited and unaffected by inflation. We are thinking along the same lines. I was just about to look over the red and purple lands myself to look for candidates to add: As you said San Gim really only helps at the beginning, Romulus is a tad too resource costly, and it retards your resource development. Sure romulus can win a region in 1.5 days if timed right, but I think it can only come out 1st day if you drop 3 Dama Rossa, which is pretty rare. So that means it wins a region 1 day later. If you drop a 4 influence site at the end of the 1st day it will be the same. By the way, I prefer templar sites not only for price purposes, but because they are not susceptible to Radical Demotion. Good call, we don't want to open ourselves up to more of blue's annoying counters OK so I see there are no 4-influence sites available. Ospedale costs too much (7) so it is out [Romulus is better]. Same with Forli. Grand theatre is cheap but only 3 influence. Not sure about this. Il Colosseo can come out, but only 3 influence, but it does give you+2 resource... Thing is, I think resources are usually not a problem after one or 2 days. It's all about getting a big land out early, and 3 influence is not big enough. Ooh I didn't notice your San Marco idea at first--this intrigues me--not a big land, but it goes with the theme of scoring in alternate ways and the deck can so easily arrange to lose agents! I like this, I'm going to tinker. Hmm it is a bit pricey at 4 cost for 2 influence though... Quiet chapel only costs 2 so you could get *two* out on the first day... I don't like lairs of Romulus as much now because sometimes you just needs to drop that Carnevale. Yeah San Marco was a tad slow, so I ditched it, but that was when i was playing more expensive agents. The problem is it's not as reliable as Art Gallery, do I eventually dumped it for a more reliable source like Lairs of Romulus. I also considered Quiet Chapel, but that is just too slow and any 1 influence site will slow this down by half, which seems terrible. I don't think you are seeing it from my perspective. Try not to think of the big sites as a way to rush them. Think of these big sites as the plan C. Think of them like they are Extra Papal Influence without needing to copy. You drop it out before mid day, so they inflict 5-6 damage, so running 2-3 is enough. Thoughts? Other thoughts: the deck only went 9-7 for me today. Many of the losses were to big bad scholar decks of some sort. But I lost ones I think I should have won--I started with a string of agents (after Mulligan) and drew more and more agents. I have a feeling 1 fewer Young Farmer in favor of some big threat (like another land) is in order. I like your Calling All Stand-ins idea as it goes with the theme of not vulnerable to untimely end (or Radical demotion), and it gives a little more variety. It will crush you if it is Sci Espionaged, but that's true of most of the current big threats in the deck. Yes, I've been running into this problem as well. With only 14 agents, I'm getting flooded with agents sometimes, but I think this is mainly due to poor manipulate with midwife and visions. There are also many games where the amont of agents has allowed me to use both Art Gallery and blocking a bit to get there. Although, the number of agents is somewhat counter intuitive with Carnevale. Still, I like the current number of agents now, but I don't think the Calling all Stand Ins will hurt the deck. Some Scholar decks are a big problem. I'm still not too sure of how to deal with their overall strategy. I recently used Answered Prayer on a player and saw Scientific Espionage, Court Order, Venzia, Venzia, Venzia, Untimely End. It was really annoying. Obviously, i took Scientific Espionage. Midwife found me another discard memory to draw out a Court Order. I saw the opening and played Carnevale, but I wasn't too mindful of the day and he drew a second Court Order. It was pretty ridiculous. I suspect if I baited with the lands, I could ave gotten through, but somehow I doubt he'd counter them. I'm considering playing more Divine Intervention to counteract the counter heavy decks. |
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Post by kineahora on May 23, 2012 0:32:27 GMT -5
I'm considering playing more Divine Intervention to counteract the counter heavy decks. Once again we are thinking along the same lines. I tinkered with quiet chapel, and it was just too little influence. Big lands are not the answer anyway to those Scholar/counter decks. I would be resigned to lose to them, but there are too many out there right now--everyone has Sci Espionages and Preemptive strikes (except me; I only have 1 of each). Sci Espionage is a total killer. I was so close to beating a deck like this once with multiple Answered prayers taking out his nasties. but a recently drawn sci espionage on my Carnevale finished me. The answer as I think you correctly noticed is--MORE DISCARD. I don't have any divine intervention and they're real expensive at the Auction, plus as you say they just remove highest cost memory, when you really want to get rid of those Sci Esp, Pre Strike and Court orders. Sacred vision is slow and indirect in this regard. You don't touch his current hand, you don't decrease his card count, and it takes a whole half day to resolve. I am thinking of Ritual sacrifice. I know it is costly at 4 casting cost which is a problem, but at least it lets you choose. At the moment I put in some Santa Maria del Fiore. If you can get one of these off, it should be able to prevent a scholar deck from ramping--it costs 4 and slows you down, but believe me, if you are up against a green monster with Sci Espionage etc, you had better discard them and prevent them from drawing or no manner of speed on your part will win. One other thing, I am having even worse problems with the carousel now. I was up against an opp who I thought I could beat, but coming out of the carousel, the program just froze up. I couldn't launch anything. |
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Post by coolkendude on May 23, 2012 9:52:44 GMT -5
Great game last night, kwunyinli... your deck outpaced my copy deck in our first game and I didn't have enough time to build my resources early on. Nicely played.
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Post by coolkendude on May 23, 2012 9:55:12 GMT -5
Attention administrators:The devs could crush this sort of thing by making a MAXIMUM inventory for purchases--if you already have say 8 of a card, you may NOT purchase another copy at the auction house. What do you think of this suggestion? Maybe just apply this restriction for rares... |
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Post by kineahora on May 24, 2012 2:18:53 GMT -5
Great game last night, kwunyinli... your deck outpaced my copy deck in our first game and I didn't have enough time to build my resources early on. Nicely played. I've noticed this deck does OK vs copy decks. I lost twice recently, but it was close. It's the blue-green monsters that does this deck in bigtime, with Sci espionage as the main culprit, and Amerigos are a real problem for the deck. Against Sci Espionage, the only thing that has a chance (I almost won one recently) is a heavy dose of answered prayer--my opp. Espionaged the answered prayer (a good move since I would have discarded it anyway), but the Answered Prayer that came back at me wasn't that devastating relative to other things that could be espionaged (Carnevale comes to mind). |
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Post by kwunyinli on May 24, 2012 16:52:55 GMT -5
I had a carnevale Sci ESP once. It wasn't fun, but the Papal Influence got me there.. So I've been playing with Divine Intervention (before the price got jacked up by Dankun) in the place of 2x Sacred Vision and 1x Magnet Personality and I must say, the matches vs counter heavy decks are a lot easier. My strategy is wait until they have roughly 3 resources before I play the Divine Intervention. In which case they either have the Court Order or they don't and I take their Preemptive strike. It also allows for faster recovery in terms of resources to drop a damaging site. I beat a few order/scholar decks today so I'm quite happy about it right now. Thanks to whoever suggested it, it turned out more useful than i thought. I'll update the primer. Ps: Ran into someone else playing the deck today. That was pretty awesome. Edit: Okay, I can't claim this deck to be cheap now due to the recent inflation.. That's disappointing. Great game last night, kwunyinli... your deck outpaced my copy deck in our first game and I didn't have enough time to build my resources early on. Nicely played. Yeah great game! My deck doesn't have anything good to copy. Lol, just a pile of useless cards. |
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Post by kineahora on May 24, 2012 19:32:26 GMT -5
@kwunyin:
So I don't have the credits to buy Divine Intervention post Dankunomics.
BUT. I took out 2 Sacred Viz and 1 Young Farmer and subbed in 1 extra Clothes make the man and 2 Basilica Di Santa Maria Del Fiore.
This other land mostly either didn't come up or was useless against various decks, but there was at least one case where a Green Deck that could have been mean, left the game a few turns after I played it and he hadn't gotten his big draw going yet.
Can't be sure whether the xtra Clothes helped, but I will say I'm about 20-5 since I made the changes--mostly I've run into fewer killer Green-blue decks...
Maybe I will save up for some Divine Intervention. That really jacks up the deck price.
--S
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