Loan, the #29 card.
Aside from the formatting things that I expect others to mention...
Aside from the formatting things that I expect others to mention...
muenster, will you please number the cards by their actual ranking rather than 1-27? And put a blank line between each card's entry -- it's hard to read as all one paragraph.
Loan, the #29 card.some old meme
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/0/09/Masterpiece.jpg/200px-Masterpiece.jpg) | #55 Masterpiece (Guilds) This went up or down some number of places. Well man it's last, it didn't go up. It has a standard deviation of some sort, yes I don't have the numbers, and now we have had this fun. So uh. Masterpiece. Some games it's good to get a lot of Silvers. Feodum is what you first think of. Often there are better things to do. Something has to be at the bottom. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/5/55/Fortune_Teller.jpg/200px-Fortune_Teller.jpg) | #54 Fortune Teller (Cornucopia) If you play multiple cards from Cornucopia, sometimes one of the other ones is Fairgrounds, and then you get this for that. If they can't trash their Estates or are taking on Curses it annoys them, it's the Relic attack. Relic is the fixed version and well that makes this the unfixed version. If they can trash their Estates then you make them shuffle, which tires them out and makes them easier to outthink. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/e4/Banquet.jpg/320px-Banquet.jpg) | #53 Banquet (Empires) It's fun to gain Coppers when it's the move. Banquet tantalizes you with a turn one $5 you couldn't otherwise have, but of course it asks a lot in exchange. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/d/d2/Fool.jpg/200px-Fool.jpg) | #52 Fool (Nocturne) I'm glad this is down here, where everyone can think, yeah, it must not be very good, no need to buy that slow card. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/70/Sage.jpg/200px-Sage.jpg) | #51 Sage (Dark Ages) I don't buy this much. The basic idea of drawing your good cards more often sounds good, and maybe the game will end once you have any Provinces, so you're never sad. I dunno, mostly I think of Sage as something to Procession on my way to better things. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/c/c2/Tunnel.jpg/200px-Tunnel.jpg) | #50 Tunnel (Hinterlands) People go for this a lot, I mean if there's anything to do they do it. Obv. the smaller combos will break your heart, you wonder why you aren't drawing your Oasis with your Tunnel more often. If you are flipping over more cards, especially without drawing them e.g. Cartographer, it's nice. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/32/Harbinger.jpg/200px-Harbinger.jpg) | #49 Harbinger (Dominion 2E) You buy this when you don't want Silver, then see it endlessly miss. It can totally be good though, I mean you aren't always drawing your deck every turn, and always have cards you'd rather draw than other cards. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/fa/Caravan_Guard.jpg/200px-Caravan_Guard.jpg) | #48 Caravan Guard (Adventures) When you're being attacked a lot, it's a Peddler, except you get a turn delay if you draw it mid-turn. When you aren't, okay, it's a delayed Peddler and I mean you can buy it over Silver like Harbinger and feel like it's always doing something. I dunno other people are more down on this than I am, but obv. it's way better when they're attacking you. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/a/a7/Trade_Route.jpg/200px-Trade_Route.jpg) | #47 Trade Route (Prosperity) I guess this is testimony to the power of trashing even when it's bad? This is pretty bad, I mean uh. Normally you trash one card and get no +$. If it's the only trashing, sure, trashing is that good, but so often there is something else. Now some games people make it good for you, they can't help it, and man, okay, you get it then. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/8/8d/Secret_Cave.jpg/200px-Secret_Cave.jpg) | #46 Secret Cave (Nocturne) Well I don't know what exactly the ranking sums up, what it says about say how often you get a card, but I almost always get this. The thing is it's always in a game with Magic Lamp. Odds are I want to pop that Lamp, I mean there are exceptions but they are rare. And Secret Cave is a 6th card on two turns. So, I get it. And then later, it may just cycle a lot, but sometimes you'll do it. Sometimes there's a combo, like Cursed Village. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/0/0b/Vassal.jpg/200px-Vassal.jpg) | #45 Vassal (Dominion 2E) The Vassal deck is good times. The tricky part is that just any VP at all and it crumbles. You want to be aiming to just have that one big turn. And then you know, it's a super-cheap Grand Market without the +Buy and with less control and that a Contraband on Grand Markets doesn't stop you from getting and I could go on. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/b/b4/Storeroom.jpg/200px-Storeroom.jpg) | #44 Storeroom (Dark Ages) Mic seems to get this all the time. And then draws back all the cards he discarded. I almost never get this. Sure, it can be your Ruined Market. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/e9/Gladiator.jpg/200px-Gladiator.jpg) | #43 Gladiator (Empires) This low placement says something about how much people would like a straight +$3 terminal. Gladiator doesn't just do that, obv. turn 3 there's a good chance it's just +$2, and that turn matters a lot. But you know, it hits a fair amount. Someone has to get one to dig out the Fortunes, but everyone can get them once they're uncovered, and some games no-one wants to be the one. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/fc/Oasis.jpg/200px-Oasis.jpg) | #42 Oasis (Hinterlands) I had a playtester who thought Oasis was too good relative to Silver, that you just always buy it over Silver. Time has not been kind to that perspective. It's generally decent though, I tend to get some. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/37/Farmers%27_Market.jpg/200px-Farmers%27_Market.jpg) | #41 Farmers' Market (Empires) It's the only +Buy, and you're like, ugh, okay. And then have to get another because maybe the first one will vanish on you. It's good though, I mean it creates this mini-game you may not want to play, where you want to be the one getting the big payoffs and how do you manage that exactly, but those big payoffs are worth getting. If someone else gets it, well, at least put some fear into them with your own copy. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/23/Leprechaun.jpg/200px-Leprechaun.jpg) | #40 Leprechaun (Nocturne) If you want Golds it's solid. It starts making them right away and the penalty isn't so bad. When you've got enough Golds, stop playing it. If you want Wishes, that doesn't just happen, though the pros are making it happen more than we were. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/97/Oracle.jpg/200px-Oracle.jpg) | #39 Oracle (Hinterlands) I hate Oracle. Just, way to ruin a playtest. Are you trying to find out how good Sheep is, oh I make you discard it this shuffle, oh again on the next shuffle, you are learning nothing about Sheep this game. It's slow too. And some games it's your weak draw, and you buy them up, and then we endlessly sit through them resolving and flipping over Sheep. Man. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Develop.jpg/200px-Develop.jpg) | #38 Develop (Hinterlands) Develop is good times. In Hinterlands playtesting I endlessly opened Develop / Spice Merchant. If you draw them together, you Develop the Spice Merchant. If you draw Develop ahead of Spice Merchant, you turn Estate into Develop so you can Develop Spice Merchant next turn. And if you draw Spice Merchant first, that's fine, it's good, you do it. I'm not trying to get rid of the Spice Merchant, I just need something good to Develop. Anyway. Turning a $5 into a Border Village and a $4, that's another big one in Hinterlands games. It does a lot of tricks and is better than you think, but it's demanding too. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/5/50/Workshop.jpg/200px-Workshop.jpg) | #37 Workshop (Dominion) Workshop is great, you heard it here. It's +$4 +1 Buy that you can't combine. That's not exciting when you're trying to hit $8 or even $5, but it's fantastic when you want $4's. You want $4's so often. Villages are the big thing, then other strong cantrips. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/78/Merchant.jpg/200px-Merchant.jpg) | #36 Merchant (Dominion 2E) It's easy enough to connect that you tend to get some. It doesn't stand out but I mean it gets in on the action, and sometimes you have to worry, man do I have enough Silvers for this, I'm not drawing my deck, maybe I need another Silver. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/e1/Guide.jpg/200px-Guide.jpg) | #35 Guide (Adventures) It's easy to get too many of these. The first one is pretty attractive, and there you are with $3 again. Obv. it's nice vs. Militias, though sometimes your 3 cards are better than a random 5. Sometimes you can get tricky ordering effects: call Ratcatcher to trash, call Guide for a new hand. You know. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/0/05/Smugglers.jpg/200px-Smugglers.jpg) | #34 Smugglers (Seaside) My favorite Seaside card. It's like the fixed version of Possession. It tends to give you ridiculous value, ridiculous I say, but of course sometimes they didn't get what you wanted, and it's hard to smuggle Provinces (but I know a guy who can get a Duchy across the border for you). The classic situation was, someone buys Pirate Ship, and the next player stares and stares, and stares and stares, and finally plays Fishing Village and two Smugglers and buys a 3rd Pirate Ship dammit, is this what you wanted. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/75/Night_Watchman.jpg/200px-Night_Watchman.jpg) | #33 Night Watchman (Nocturne) It feels underrated, but I guess we'll see. One big trick is, you open Silver / Night Watchman, and turn 3 you have $5. There's no luck involved; if they don't have an attack or something, that's that, you are guaranteed $5. There's no, what if you shuffle that Feast to the bottom. It's not great in multiples, and of course there's that long list of cards that don't like Night cards. But uh it's pretty good to have one a lot of the time. Late in the game you'll get one to avoid a dud turn. It's a lot of Cartographering for the price and instant access. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/8/8e/Shanty_Town.jpg/200px-Shanty_Town.jpg) | #32 Shanty Town (Intrigue) When it's not a bad Village (which is still a Village so there's that), it can be a tricky Lab. Man people know about Shanty Town, right? |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f7/Wishing_Well.jpg/200px-Wishing_Well.jpg) | #31 Wishing Well (Intrigue) She's a well wisher and she wishes you well. The big trick is to wish for what you want, instead of always your most common card. I mean sometimes you should just wish for your most common card, but, not always. I get it a fair amount, but I guess we're nearing the middle, and the top will be crazy cards. A lot of the obvious combos don't actually work, so eventually I made Mystic, where they did work, and then finally Secret Passage, which actually works with it. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/e3/Expedition.jpg/320px-Expedition.jpg) | #30 Expedition (Adventures) It's a pretty sweet option on an extra buy. You can forget it's there and not be too sad, and Militias can hose it, but uh, it's pretty ubiquitously useful. |
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/1/11/Loan.jpg/200px-Loan.jpg) | #29 Loan (Prosperity) What can I say that wasn't said better in the police dossier. Loan is there for you, except when it isn't. Ideally you have no non-Copper Treasures. Then if you flip your good actions you are sad, but still getting to trash Coppers you didn't have to pass on playing. If you have the gall to open Silver / Loan it will endlessly seek out the Silver for you, and if you open Loan / Loan, it will seek out the Loan, that's just how it goes. As usual with Copper-trashers, it's better if something else is there to take out the Estates. Casual players don't like it or Lookout, so they weren't great to make, but I buy them plenty. |
Thank you, Donald. That's much easier to read.Doctor is one of the quickest thrashers early on.
Wow, a lot of underrated cards. Secret Cave, Gladiator, Night Watchmen, and Wishing Well should all be higher.
(I underrated Secret Cave. I learned how good it was after we did the ratings.)
Also, I can't believe we haven't seen Doctor yet. The only reason it can't cost $2 is it would make the overpay too strong.
Mastercard last? Boy.
Sorry, is this the real ranking? Where are all the arrows and place changes and percentages and stuff?
Workshop should not have gotten bumped up; it's a bad card. The money you spend on it and the space it takes up in your deck are usually not worth whatever cheap cards you gain with it.
This is it, my chance to make one of these posts, to be the change I want to see in the thread.
The $3's seem the most balanced bottom half of all price points to me. Masterpiece and Fortune Teller really aren't that bad. I buy them way more often than say Duchess, Begger, Pirate Ship, B-crat, Stash, Cache. Heck, I think Fortune Teller would still be stronger than Navigator if Navigator was $3.
Harbinger could have been a great card if it wasn't designed with the same flaw as Counting House. Replace "+1 card" with "You may gain a Silver" and it would be an interesting card and never whiff. Too bad Donald X wanted to keep Bureaucrat for some reason (hopefully he'll also cover the $4s).
Harbinger could have been a great card if it wasn't designed with the same flaw as Counting House. Replace "+1 card" with "You may gain a Silver" and it would be an interesting card and never whiff. Too bad Donald X wanted to keep Bureaucrat for some reason (hopefully he'll also cover the $4s).
I would almost never buy the card you’re describing, but I Buy Harbinger a reasonable amount of the time. It’s a $3 vanilla cantrip - it doesn’t have to be earth shattering.
Harbinger could have been a great card if it wasn't designed with the same flaw as Counting House. Replace "+1 card" with "You may gain a Silver" and it would be an interesting card and never whiff. Too bad Donald X wanted to keep Bureaucrat for some reason (hopefully he'll also cover the $4s).
I would almost never buy the card you’re describing, but I Buy Harbinger a reasonable amount of the time. It’s a $3 vanilla cantrip - it doesn’t have to be earth shattering.
The problem is situations where it works (it appears in the middle of a shuffle and the good cards are at the beginning) are unpredictable/luck based, and the cards that enable it contradict the need for it. At least the other $3 Cantrips, while not strong, either have a strategy to being useful (eg Merchant, Market Square, even Wishing Well) or are always useful despite being weak (Caravan Guard). Harmless and occasionally nice if you're lucky seems more like the domain of $2 cards, and even then they're a bit of a waste of space.
Perhaps I'm biased as every game I play with it, most of the time the card doesn't even work, sometimes due to its own +1 Card, and attempts to make strategic use of its effect (eg cycling an early power card) always failed. Conversely, Scavenger is one of my favourite cards and very fun with Lost Arts.
It’s a vanilla $3 cantrip, don’t expect a lot of it.
Harbinger could have been a great card if it wasn't designed with the same flaw as Counting House. Replace "+1 card" with "You may gain a Silver" and it would be an interesting card and never whiff. Too bad Donald X wanted to keep Bureaucrat for some reason (hopefully he'll also cover the $4s).
I would almost never buy the card you’re describing, but I Buy Harbinger a reasonable amount of the time. It’s a $3 vanilla cantrip - it doesn’t have to be earth shattering.
The problem is situations where it works (it appears in the middle of a shuffle and the good cards are at the beginning) are unpredictable/luck based, and the cards that enable it contradict the need for it. At least the other $3 Cantrips, while not strong, either have a strategy to being useful (eg Merchant, Market Square, even Wishing Well) or are always useful despite being weak (Caravan Guard). Harmless and occasionally nice if you're lucky seems more like the domain of $2 cards, and even then they're a bit of a waste of space.
Perhaps I'm biased as every game I play with it, most of the time the card doesn't even work, sometimes due to its own +1 Card, and attempts to make strategic use of its effect (eg cycling an early power card) always failed. Conversely, Scavenger is one of my favourite cards and very fun with Lost Arts.
Harbinger could have been a great card if it wasn't designed with the same flaw as Counting House. Replace "+1 card" with "You may gain a Silver" and it would be an interesting card and never whiff. Too bad Donald X wanted to keep Bureaucrat for some reason (hopefully he'll also cover the $4s).
I would almost never buy the card you’re describing, but I Buy Harbinger a reasonable amount of the time. It’s a $3 vanilla cantrip - it doesn’t have to be earth shattering.
The problem is situations where it works (it appears in the middle of a shuffle and the good cards are at the beginning) are unpredictable/luck based, and the cards that enable it contradict the need for it. At least the other $3 Cantrips, while not strong, either have a strategy to being useful (eg Merchant, Market Square, even Wishing Well) or are always useful despite being weak (Caravan Guard). Harmless and occasionally nice if you're lucky seems more like the domain of $2 cards, and even then they're a bit of a waste of space.
Perhaps I'm biased as every game I play with it, most of the time the card doesn't even work, sometimes due to its own +1 Card, and attempts to make strategic use of its effect (eg cycling an early power card) always failed. Conversely, Scavenger is one of my favourite cards and very fun with Lost Arts.
I'm confused... wouldn't the only time its own +1 card be a drawback be when you have exactly 0 cards in your draw pile when you play it? That doesn't sound like it would be a very common thing at all; it should happen roughly one out of every x times, where x is the number of cards in your deck minus your hand size.
I think it's only somewhat better than Pearl Diver, and that was ranked one of the worst $2 cards.
I think it's only somewhat better than Pearl Diver, and that was ranked one of the worst $2 cards.
I actually think Pearl Diver is better (even if you ignore cost, that is).
Harbinger is not amazing, but clearly better than Pearl Diver. I recently bought two of them in a Page game, and I wasn't disappointed.
Harbinger is not amazing, but clearly better than Pearl Diver. I recently bought two of them in a Page game, and I wasn't disappointed.
Harbinger is probably better if you play a lot of games with just the 2e Base set, because then it will show up a lot with Vassal, with which it has a genuine synergy.
Harbinger is probably better if you play a lot of games with just the 2e Base set, because then it will show up a lot with Vassal, with which it has a genuine synergy.
With Vassal, Harbinger works well because it does something useful even if it only topdecks another cantrip, for example another Harbinger. It is a bit of a shame how so few cards interact with the top of the deck, or at least interact with it nonterminally.
You can topdeck a Tunnel and discard it with Farming Village!Harbinger is probably better if you play a lot of games with just the 2e Base set, because then it will show up a lot with Vassal, with which it has a genuine synergy.
With Vassal, Harbinger works well because it does something useful even if it only topdecks another cantrip, for example another Harbinger. It is a bit of a shame how so few cards interact with the top of the deck, or at least interact with it nonterminally.
I think it's just Vassal and Mystic for good cards and Lookout, Doctor and Zombie Mason for trashing. There's a bunch of others that interact with the top card but only after drawing a card.
It would ruin the mini-game of topdecking, plus also playing another card to get it into your hand.
It would also ruin all the synergies that such things create with things like wisp and chariot race.
I don't think it would be broken, but it would be much less fun.
Fool synergizes with things like draw-to-x, slogs, Menagerie, Prince (when both players Prince it), and probably other things I can't think of.
If Heirlooms are included with rankings (I wouldn't think they should be), then yeah Fool is probably correctly-rated.
If Heirlooms are included with rankings (I wouldn't think they should be), then yeah Fool is probably correctly-rated.
Are you implying that Lucky Coin is weak or that the presence of Lucky Coin makes Fool weaker?
If Heirlooms are included with rankings (I wouldn't think they should be), then yeah Fool is probably correctly-rated.
Are you implying that Lucky Coin is weak or that the presence of Lucky Coin makes Fool weaker?
The first one. I just don't usually like Silver flooding.