Dominion - Superb Draft Strategy
Posted: 24 August 2012, 07:26
For those who enjoy broken draft strategies…
I have been developing a draft strategy based around the Library card which has been hugely successful for me and produced some awesome individual turns. With this tactic, I have produced turns such as “buy 6 Provinces” and buying 4 Provinces in a turn is commonplace.
The strategy demands 3 specific cards but is only truly effective with the 5 cards listed below, so is certainly at its best in a 2 player draft.
As with all draft strategies, it only works in your favour if the opponent doesn’t work it out quickly and use it as effectively as you. Fortunately, it is quite tricky to learn so, unless you are facing an excellent opponent (or one who has seen it in action against me), you should triumph.
It is also easily spoiled by buying the wrong cards, so an opponent who spots the combos too late will struggle to morph in to it. The strategy involves combining some unloved draft cards, so there is every chance of this happening.
The strategy centres around the Library card. At its best, the card reads : +7 cards (you get to select which ones), which is incredibly powerful. This requires that you only have Library in your hand, but still works pretty well if you have 4 or fewer cards. To achieve this, you use two other cards which work well in combination with Library :
Shanty Town :
The mini-Library. Your deck will easily be able to remove all other action cards from your hand to gain the +2 cards bonus. Shanty Town is also great for reducing your hand size by 1 while giving you the extra action you desperately want before playing Library.
Consider a hand of Copper, Copper, Estate, Shanty Town, Library. You play Shanty Town followed by Library to draw 4 cards with a spare action to enable to you keep the turn going. If one of those extra cards is another Shanty Town, you have the option to Set Aside any other action cards you draw and then play the second Shanty Town to get +2 cards and +2 Actions.
Cellar :
Get as many as you can. They allow you to surf through your deck to find +Action cards and a Library. The disadvantage of reducing your hand size by one with every Cellar is actually an advantage in this deck when Library will draw you back up to 7 cards once you have found it.
Cellar will often be played for 0 to reduce hand size before a Library is played – or to get rid of it before a Shanty Town if those were your only 2 action cards.
Pro-tip : if your hand contains 2 Cellar cards and 3 others, this strategy prefers you to play Cellar discarding the other 3 cards and keep the 2nd Cellar back to play it after the first. This may reduce your hand size by 2, rather than just 1, but it allows you to dig through 6 cards rather than 4. Similarly, a 4 card hand with 2 Cellar cards prefers Cellar for 2 followed by Cellar for 2.
These three cards form the main engine of the deck. Extensive research has shown that the best 2 cards to play alongside these are Festival and Bridge.
Festival :
Festival offers multiple benefits alongside Library and Shanty Town. It gives you 2 actions, reduces your hand size by 1 and also offers an extra Buy to exploit the massive amounts of cash you will generate. It also generates +2 cash itself.
Bridge :
Festival is already giving you extra Buys, so Bridge takes things further in this direction, giving even more buys, cash and allowing you to take advantage of all those Buys. At the end of the game you want around 4 Bridges in your deck and will be able to play them all in one turn, reducing Provinces to 4 cost and giving you enough cash and buys to purchase 4 or more in a turn.
This selection of cards offers cards costing 2, 3, 4 & 5, which is useful when you have multiple buys to play with.
Of course, you may get lucky and have your opponent draft one or more of these cards for you. Which cards should you choose if this is the case? I have tried several different cards here and found what I believe is the best. Cards I considered were :
Pawn : works well with so many extra actions. Can reduce hand size while doing so. Offers extra buys also, taking advantage of Bridge.
Secret Chamber : reduces hand size for value.
Nobles : offers extra actions while reducing hand size or allows you to take advantage of having many actions to draw 3 cards and keep your turn going.
Militia : this one is sneaky. You don’t want to buy this for your deck as it is terrible against both Library and Shanty Town. However, it is a popular card and many players will buy one in the first two turns without thinking. The same is true of Torturer, albeit to a lesser extent.
Trash Cards (Chapel etc.) : All non-Gardens decks like these. For this strategy, Steward is possibly better than Chapel. Remodel is also very good for you. However, your use of the Cellar card makes you less vulnerable to Estates or Copper, so let your opponent draft his Trash card of choice and use your picks elsewhere. You will be fine without a Trash effect in the game, if your opponent doesn't select one.
Despite these attractive options, the card I have settled upon is Duke. This card allows you to really take advantage of multiple buys and the cost-reduction of Bridge. I have had turns such as buying 8 Duchy cards and 2 Dukes, buying the rest of the Dukes the subsequent turn. Playing 6 Festivals and 3 Bridges gives 15 cash, 10 buys, so only 5 copper is required to make such a purchase.
If this post gets any interest, I can go in to more detail on exactly how I play the strategy. You would need to try it a couple of times before the fine details would be of interest, though.
One point I would make at this stage is that the deck should be played without buying Provinces early. Once it reaches critical mass it will play a single turn in which you will buy enough Provinces (or Duchy/Duke) to win the game outright, so all turns prior to that should be spent improving the deck, rather than buying the odd Province here and there.
An outcome for your turn such as 14 cash, 3 buys (1 Bridge) would be better spent on another Library and 2 more Festivals than it would on 2 Provinces, unless the game is about to end.
I would also advise against buying Silver or even Gold (unless you have 6 cash and 1 buy).
Give it a try and let me know how you get on!
I have been developing a draft strategy based around the Library card which has been hugely successful for me and produced some awesome individual turns. With this tactic, I have produced turns such as “buy 6 Provinces” and buying 4 Provinces in a turn is commonplace.
The strategy demands 3 specific cards but is only truly effective with the 5 cards listed below, so is certainly at its best in a 2 player draft.
As with all draft strategies, it only works in your favour if the opponent doesn’t work it out quickly and use it as effectively as you. Fortunately, it is quite tricky to learn so, unless you are facing an excellent opponent (or one who has seen it in action against me), you should triumph.
It is also easily spoiled by buying the wrong cards, so an opponent who spots the combos too late will struggle to morph in to it. The strategy involves combining some unloved draft cards, so there is every chance of this happening.
The strategy centres around the Library card. At its best, the card reads : +7 cards (you get to select which ones), which is incredibly powerful. This requires that you only have Library in your hand, but still works pretty well if you have 4 or fewer cards. To achieve this, you use two other cards which work well in combination with Library :
Shanty Town :
The mini-Library. Your deck will easily be able to remove all other action cards from your hand to gain the +2 cards bonus. Shanty Town is also great for reducing your hand size by 1 while giving you the extra action you desperately want before playing Library.
Consider a hand of Copper, Copper, Estate, Shanty Town, Library. You play Shanty Town followed by Library to draw 4 cards with a spare action to enable to you keep the turn going. If one of those extra cards is another Shanty Town, you have the option to Set Aside any other action cards you draw and then play the second Shanty Town to get +2 cards and +2 Actions.
Cellar :
Get as many as you can. They allow you to surf through your deck to find +Action cards and a Library. The disadvantage of reducing your hand size by one with every Cellar is actually an advantage in this deck when Library will draw you back up to 7 cards once you have found it.
Cellar will often be played for 0 to reduce hand size before a Library is played – or to get rid of it before a Shanty Town if those were your only 2 action cards.
Pro-tip : if your hand contains 2 Cellar cards and 3 others, this strategy prefers you to play Cellar discarding the other 3 cards and keep the 2nd Cellar back to play it after the first. This may reduce your hand size by 2, rather than just 1, but it allows you to dig through 6 cards rather than 4. Similarly, a 4 card hand with 2 Cellar cards prefers Cellar for 2 followed by Cellar for 2.
These three cards form the main engine of the deck. Extensive research has shown that the best 2 cards to play alongside these are Festival and Bridge.
Festival :
Festival offers multiple benefits alongside Library and Shanty Town. It gives you 2 actions, reduces your hand size by 1 and also offers an extra Buy to exploit the massive amounts of cash you will generate. It also generates +2 cash itself.
Bridge :
Festival is already giving you extra Buys, so Bridge takes things further in this direction, giving even more buys, cash and allowing you to take advantage of all those Buys. At the end of the game you want around 4 Bridges in your deck and will be able to play them all in one turn, reducing Provinces to 4 cost and giving you enough cash and buys to purchase 4 or more in a turn.
This selection of cards offers cards costing 2, 3, 4 & 5, which is useful when you have multiple buys to play with.
Of course, you may get lucky and have your opponent draft one or more of these cards for you. Which cards should you choose if this is the case? I have tried several different cards here and found what I believe is the best. Cards I considered were :
Pawn : works well with so many extra actions. Can reduce hand size while doing so. Offers extra buys also, taking advantage of Bridge.
Secret Chamber : reduces hand size for value.
Nobles : offers extra actions while reducing hand size or allows you to take advantage of having many actions to draw 3 cards and keep your turn going.
Militia : this one is sneaky. You don’t want to buy this for your deck as it is terrible against both Library and Shanty Town. However, it is a popular card and many players will buy one in the first two turns without thinking. The same is true of Torturer, albeit to a lesser extent.
Trash Cards (Chapel etc.) : All non-Gardens decks like these. For this strategy, Steward is possibly better than Chapel. Remodel is also very good for you. However, your use of the Cellar card makes you less vulnerable to Estates or Copper, so let your opponent draft his Trash card of choice and use your picks elsewhere. You will be fine without a Trash effect in the game, if your opponent doesn't select one.
Despite these attractive options, the card I have settled upon is Duke. This card allows you to really take advantage of multiple buys and the cost-reduction of Bridge. I have had turns such as buying 8 Duchy cards and 2 Dukes, buying the rest of the Dukes the subsequent turn. Playing 6 Festivals and 3 Bridges gives 15 cash, 10 buys, so only 5 copper is required to make such a purchase.
If this post gets any interest, I can go in to more detail on exactly how I play the strategy. You would need to try it a couple of times before the fine details would be of interest, though.
One point I would make at this stage is that the deck should be played without buying Provinces early. Once it reaches critical mass it will play a single turn in which you will buy enough Provinces (or Duchy/Duke) to win the game outright, so all turns prior to that should be spent improving the deck, rather than buying the odd Province here and there.
An outcome for your turn such as 14 cash, 3 buys (1 Bridge) would be better spent on another Library and 2 more Festivals than it would on 2 Provinces, unless the game is about to end.
I would also advise against buying Silver or even Gold (unless you have 6 cash and 1 buy).
Give it a try and let me know how you get on!