The games are just so different from each other, it’s amazing. I seem to have (presumably temporarily) ascended to #1 on the isotropic leaderboard, which is pretty fun, so at least I kinda know what I’m doing. Check out my last 10 games of the winning streak that got me there and the diversity of strategies:
- 71-46. A Sea Hag game, a long slog through money and stuff, with Philosopher’s Stones appreciating in value and finally resulting in the colonies running. Along the way I used Tournaments/Provinces to grab a couple nice things and Spice Merchants as trashers, along with Secret Chambers to get through the Curses.
- 37-23. A Lookout-Lookout opening. I grabbed some Tunnels and an Oasis and used these to produce Gold. Stables were used in drawing.
- 62-resigned. My opponent jumped out to a Bishop-fueled lead while I was putting together my engine, so I switched strategies and killed his deck with King’s Court-King’s Court-Scheme-Masquerade in mine. Unfortunately, he was ahead. So I slowly built up a fun combo: KCx3, Schemex2, Masq, Bishop, Wharf. I could buy a few cards with the KC’d Wharf each turn and Bishop them away before Masquerading to keep the pin.
- 43-30. I scored all 40 points on the final turn of the game. I had built up a Bridge deck and played them via Golems and Border Villages, along with a single Rabble and Spice Merchant. My opponent misplayed this; I think my deck was too slow and he could have piled it out (there were only 2 border villages left) before I bridged to the victory if he had merely foregone a couple of his province buys.
- 33-18. I had a moneybot deck with 5 actions: 1 each of Jack of All Trades, Spice Merchant, Rabble, Crossroads, and Scheme. $27 in total money.
- 15-resigned. I had 5 Golems that I was using to chain through my deck, with just a couple of a few other things. Margrave was the key — with a lean deck, I was generally drawing all of it each turn, and had a couple gold and a silver (Spice Merchant as the trasher again) to get up to 8. My opponent saw the writing on the wall and resigned.
- 24-resigned. Jack of All Trades produced basically a silverbot into a trashed deck, with a couple Shanty Towns (mostly to draw) and some other inessential stuff. I had good deck balance, got lucky, got the first 4 provinces, and my opponent called it quits.
- 43-24. I chapeled, and built a really well-balanced deck with Border Villages, Rabble, and Schemes along with a minimum of money ($9 in the whole deck). My opponent was trying to build a similar deck, but I was ahead of him — he opened Scheme-Silver instead of my Chapel-Silver, and could not recover in time.
- 39-25. I put together a classic chain deck with Fishing Villages, Watchtowers, and Conspirators, along with a single Margrave and a single Grand Market for extra buys. (My opponent had the same deck but somehow neglected to buy Conspirators; my Talisman helped a lot here.) Huge turns leading to multiple-province purchases.
- 95-40. I had a lean 23-card deck with all eight colonies at the end of this, with Scrying Pools and Conspirators providing the baseline and Trade Route and Bishop used to trash things. My opponent was attempting to Duke/Duchy, but I beat him to the finish line.
These games were all really different. I had a few chain decks with different MVPs. I had money decks with different sources. I had the weird KC-Masquerade combo, and two very different Golem decks. I had a really slow Curse game where we both inched forward. What a great game, that all of these strategies are viable depending on the board.
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