| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/23/Stash.jpg/200px-Stash.jpg) | #127 ▼1 Stash (Promo) Weighted Average: 3.6% ▼2.1pp / Unweighted Average: 6.4% (127) / Median: 2.4% ▼2.2pp / Standard Deviation: 18.8% Chris is me: Stash is a bad card in almost all circumstances. But really it’s not at the bottom of the list because it’s actually worse than Cache or Harvest or whatever. It’s because you really don’t want to figure out the *optimal place for your Silvers* every time you shuffle. That’s so weird to do! How can you really know, really. Was the multiple $5 gains worth the analysis paralysis? No, it was not. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/1/1c/Harvest.jpg/200px-Harvest.jpg) | #126 ▲1 Harvest (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 4.1% ▲0.3pp / Unweighted Average: 6.6% (126) / Median: 0.8% ▼0.1pp / Standard Deviation: 17.0% Chris is me: Harvest is so boring. I just don’t really have a lot to say, it’s an uneventful card. It might get a little use in some draw your deck engines as payload, if it didn’t require you to have a deck to get coin, but there’s shockingly few niches for this card. tracer: Harvest is one of the few cards where having a board where it can be used is a big deal. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/66/Cache.jpg/200px-Cache.jpg) | #125 =0 Cache (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 5.0% ▼1.0pp / Unweighted Average: 7.3% (125) / Median: 2.4% ▼0.3pp / Standard Deviation: 16.9% tracer: It is rare for decks to want to buy a Gold and this one comes with 2 Coppers, but there are a few cases where those Coppers can be dealt with easily. Cache has a strong claim to the last spot on this list, and I think possibly a better one than the two cards below it, although the distinction is not really meaningful. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/5/5d/Counting_House.jpg/200px-Counting_House.jpg) | #124 ▼3 Counting House (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 5.3% ▼5.1pp / Unweighted Average: 7.6% (124) / Median: 4.0% ▼0.6pp / Standard Deviation: 16.8% xyrix: Counting House/Travelling Fair is gamebreaking and Counting House/Night Watchman is very strong. Otherwise, it’s very very hard to find boards where Counting House is worth gaining: you generally need a lot of Coppers, a way to manipulate the position of your Counting House within the shuffle, and something better than a Province to spend your big hand of Coppers on. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/68/Mandarin.jpg/200px-Mandarin.jpg) | #123 =0 Mandarin (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 5.8% ▼2.3pp / Unweighted Average: 9.4% (123) / Median: 4.0% ▼3.1pp / Standard Deviation: 17.8% xyrix: Mandarin/Capital is a thing. Mandarin/Horn of Plenty can also be a thing, although I’ve never seen it in the wild. Otherwise, there are situations where you might want a Mandarin but you don’t want to deal with having your Treasures topdecked so you don’t get one. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/8/89/Raid.jpg/320px-Raid.jpg) | #122 ▼4 Raid (Adventures) Weighted Average: 7.0% ▼4.4pp / Unweighted Average: 9.7% (122) / Median: 4.8% ▼4.3pp / Standard Deviation: 17.1% tracer: I would have liked to see Raid higher than this for being a more common buy than those cards surrounding it. Raid is often a decent buy in money strategies and is occasionally effective at expanding payload in engines with large amounts of draw, with a small attack too. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/5/58/Contraband.jpg/200px-Contraband.jpg) | #121 ▼1 Contraband (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 7.1% ▼3.5pp / Unweighted Average: 12.4% (121) / Median: 5.6% =0.0pp / Standard Deviation: 19.6% Chris is me: Hey, you can buy events and projects with this, so it’s better than it used to be. Right? I mean, only kind of. It has +Buy so people will find ways to force it into decks it doesn’t belong in (which is almost any deck, really). Man, Prosperity had a lot of duds for being such a lauded set. tracer: People’s seemingly constant desire to use Contraband is amusing. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/d/dd/Royal_Seal.jpg/200px-Royal_Seal.jpg) | #120 ▲2 Royal Seal (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 7.9% ▼1.4pp / Unweighted Average: 13.5% (120) / Median: 7.1% ▼1.1pp / Standard Deviation: 20.8% Chris is me: The one thing I’ll defend Royal Seal with is that topdecking is a huge control and momentum booster. But not as much of a boost that it offsets skipping a critical $5 early to get what amounts to another Silver. tracer: Royal Seal is likely only this high due to its inoffensiveness, but I actually buy some of the cards below it. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/8/8e/Mine.jpg/200px-Mine.jpg) | #119 ▲5 Mine (Base) Weighted Average: 10.1% ▲2.1pp / Unweighted Average: 14.3% (119) / Median: 7.9% ▼0.3pp / Standard Deviation: 19.1% tracer: Mine is occasionally buyable, which isn’t saying much. Sometimes when it is the only trasher Mine can be better than doing nothing on that front, and frequent plays are sometimes the best way to build economy, but both of these cases are rare. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/ef/Venture.jpg/200px-Venture.jpg) | #118 ▼2 Venture (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 11.8% ▼1.4pp / Unweighted Average: 18.2% (115) / Median: 9.5% ▼0.5pp / Standard Deviation: 21.9% xyrix: Venture is better than Silver if you’re not drawing your deck. That’s all it has going for it. Chris is me: Dude Venture is awful. Venture is best in treasure heavy decks without much deck-drawing potential, where you also have extra buys to use all that money. This basically never happens. Venture is usually just a waste of a kingdom slot. tracer: My co-writers are being a bit harsh here I think. Sure Venture is bad but it has more of a place in the thinned down money decks that are more common these days than say, Merchant Ship, which takes an action to use. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/92/Merchant_Ship.jpg/200px-Merchant_Ship.jpg) | #117 =0 Merchant Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 12.4% ▲0.5pp / Unweighted Average: 17.7% (116) / Median: 9.5% ▼0.5pp / Standard Deviation: 20.3% xyrix: I never even really consider Merchant Ship other than in decks with Tactician, City Quarter, or King’s Court where you just really want Action payload of some sort. Even then it’s not great with KC since your KC will just get stuck on the Merchant Ship. It could be ranked last and I wouldn’t think that was particularly out of place. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/74/Pillage.jpg/200px-Pillage.jpg) | #116 ▼1 Pillage (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 13.0% ▼2.3pp / Unweighted Average: 16.9% (118) / Median: 11.3% ▼1.4pp / Standard Deviation: 18.4% tracer: Pillage is awful and probably should be lower. While the attack is often devastating, only being one-shot makes it difficult to spend a gain on without falling behind and the secondary effect of 2 Spoils is weak and slow as you only see them 2 shuffles after the initial buy. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3a/Explorer.jpg/200px-Explorer.jpg) | #115 ▲4 Explorer (Seaside) Weighted Average: 16.1% ▲4.4pp / Unweighted Average: 17.4% (117) / Median: 11.1% ▲2.0pp / Standard Deviation: 18.3% Chris is me: Treasure gainers get a bit of a bad rap, and Explorer gaining to hand makes it so you can instantly use that Treasure as your TFB fuel or economy or whatever. The Province thing is kinda a distraction honestly, it’s just nice to put Silvers in your hand sometimes? But you can’t get it super early and it competes with a bunch of really good $5s for your attention. Still, it’s skipped more than it ought to be. (“Say the line, Chris!”) “They can’t all be the best $5 ever”. tracer: Explorer is one of the better treasure gainers for engines since it doesn’t require you to draw the gained card. This card is really underappreciated. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f2/Road_Network.jpg/320px-Road_Network.jpg) | #114 Road Network (Renaissance) Weighted Average: 18.5% / Unweighted Average: 22.7% (114) / Median: 15.1% / Standard Deviation: 22.3% Chris is me: I’m gonna be honest this card is so boring I just don’t have anything to say. xyrix: It has fun interactions with Ambassador and Swindler, at least. tracer: It has some potential if you aren’t desperate for points and your opponent is, which might mean you’ve already won. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/37/Mystic.jpg/200px-Mystic.jpg) | #113 ▼1 Mystic (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 19.8% ▼4.4pp / Unweighted Average: 23.1% (112) / Median: 15.1% ▼3.0pp / Standard Deviation: 18.3% tracer: Mystic is appealing for its potential as a cantrip +2 coins, but is expensive and extremely inconsistent for this effect compared to Conspirator. The low ranking is appropriate, and the only thing stopping it from going lower is the exceptional terribleness of those cards below it. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/74/Villain.jpg/200px-Villain.jpg) | #112 Villain (Renaissance) Weighted Average: 20.8% / Unweighted Average: 23.0% (113) / Median: 19.8% / Standard Deviation: 15.4% xyrix: One of the weakest attacks in the game, Villain whiffs early on Estates and late on Provinces. In the midgame discarding a payload card can hurt but it’s fairly rare for Villain to cause a dud. The +2 Coffers is nice but isn’t enough of an improvement on +$2 to justify the $5 price. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/1/10/Duke.jpg/200px-Duke.jpg) | #111 ▼1 Duke (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 21.6% ▼4.6pp / Unweighted Average: 24.9% (111) / Median: 15.9% ▼5.0pp / Standard Deviation: 23.7% xyrix: Duke is potentially one of the strongest alt-VP cards on boards where it is plausible to continually hit $5, since if the Duchy pile is uncontested 6–8 VP Dukes are very strong. The problem with Duke is that a competent opponent pursuing a non-Duke strategy will happily slow down to take 3–4 Duchies and then go on to win on Provinces. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f6/Rogue.jpg/200px-Rogue.jpg) | #110 ▲2 Rogue (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 22.4% ▲1.9pp / Unweighted Average: 25.7% (110) / Median: 16.7% ▲2.8pp / Standard Deviation: 23.6% tracer: While rising slightly, Rogue’s placement is very low for such a unique effect. On many boards, Rogue allows for slow stealing of opponent’s cards and can be a strong gainer in combination with trash-for-benefit. Comparing with the similar and also-lowly-ranked Graverobber, Rogue is easier to fit into a deck early due to the +2 coins. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/8/84/Crypt.jpg/200px-Crypt.jpg) | #109 ▼18 Crypt (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 22.9% ▼12.3pp / Unweighted Average: 26.0% (109) / Median: 19.1% ▼19.1pp / Standard Deviation: 17.0% Chris is me: If only Crypt gained to hand, it would be a lot more of a neat utility card. But for now, it’s a really slow card, that you pick up in the kinds of games where you would really much rather have trashing, and because of that you have trouble lining it up with 3+ treasures at once in the first place. xyrix: Crypt is a bit odd in that it’s a draw card that only works if you have other draw cards, in which case do you really need the Crypt? |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/fd/Treasury.jpg/200px-Treasury.jpg) | #108 ▼7 Treasury (Seaside) Weighted Average: 23.3% ▼8.2pp / Unweighted Average: 30.8% (101) / Median: 25.4% ▼1.9pp / Standard Deviation: 21.3% Chris is me: We’re at the really boring part of the list now. Treasury doesn’t actively harm you, but it doesn’t do a lot to really help. There’s a sorta narrow use case - where you hit $5, you need a consistent economy boost, you’re not drawing your deck, and the coin doesn’t go to waste. xyrix: I think Treasury is a little underrated. If the topdecking lets you see it twice in a shuffle where you’d otherwise only see it once, then you’ve effectively bought two Peddlers for $5, which isn’t a bad deal. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/1/13/Graverobber.jpg/200px-Graverobber.jpg) | #107 ▲2 Graverobber (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 24.5% ▼1.8pp / Unweighted Average: 26.7% (108) / Median: 20.6% ▼4.9pp / Standard Deviation: 16.5% tracer: Graverobber’s low placement on these lists has always been somewhat perplexing to me. While it shouldn’t be above the components and power cards, with available actions Graverobber provides a fairly effective payload option being able to trash those components into points. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/d/d6/Cartographer.jpg/200px-Cartographer.jpg) | #106 ▼2 Cartographer (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 25.0% ▼5.1pp / Unweighted Average: 28.0% (106) / Median: 23.8% ▼1.7pp / Standard Deviation: 15.7% xyrix: Cartographer isn’t bad in the way that some of the cards ranked above it are; most of the time you would be happy to receive free Cartographers. It just doesn’t quite do enough to justify a higher ranking. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/eb/Capital.jpg/200px-Capital.jpg) | #105 ▼16 Capital (Empires) Weighted Average: 26.0% ▼11.1pp / Unweighted Average: 27.1% (107) / Median: 25.4% ▼11.9pp / Standard Deviation: 15.6% xyrix: Some people really hate Capital, seeing it as a big shiny +$6 that conceals its true identity as a bad card. I am not one of those people! Taking debt off of Capital plays is often a smart way to gain tempo by increasing your payload. It also has a fairly high number of combos (Mandarin, Crown, Counterfeit, Crypt, Herbalist) and is of course very good on the last turn of the game. I’m not sure why Capital fell so much but I think it will rise again eventually. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/4/46/Bandit.jpg/200px-Bandit.jpg) | #104 ▲2 Bandit (Base) Weighted Average: 27.2% ▼1.1pp / Unweighted Average: 32.0% (99) / Median: 27.8% ▼0.8pp / Standard Deviation: 17.5% tracer: A terminal Gold gainer has its uses, but the attack on Bandit is mostly ignorable if against a competent opponent. Among treasure gainers, all of which correctly fall low on this list for their limited use, I would place Bandit last for being strictly terminal with a weak secondary effect and gaining to the discard pile. Chris is me: They can’t all be Explorer, is what you’re saying. tracer: Yes Explorer is better than Bandit. Fight me. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/5/51/Cobbler.jpg/200px-Cobbler.jpg) | #103 ▼23 Cobbler (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 27.3% ▼13.7pp / Unweighted Average: 30.2% (102) / Median: 23.8% ▼24.2pp / Standard Deviation: 17.5% Chris is me: Cobbler definitely has its problems and deserved to plummet from its surprisingly high rank before, but I think it’s not quite this bad. Even though it’s slow, it’s a nonterminal gainer that can get you the component you need right now in your hand, so it comes in handy a lot. Often ignorable, but when it’s not you’re glad you have it. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/98/Library.jpg/200px-Library.jpg) | #102 ▲1 Library (Base) Weighted Average: 27.3% ▼3.6pp / Unweighted Average: 28.3% (105) / Median: 27.0% ▼2.6pp / Standard Deviation: 15.1% Chris is me: I feel kind of bad for Library. It really tries to make terminal draw to X work by letting you avoid wasting draw slots on payload you’re not ready to play. Problem is, when the key component of an already fickle strategy costs $5, it’s just going to take so damn long to get it ready to go even if you do have all the support it needs. Villagers probably make it a bit better, but it’s really rare that this is going to give you better draw performance than any other Smithy plus. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/22/Treasure_Trove.jpg/200px-Treasure_Trove.jpg) | #101 ▼3 Treasure Trove (Adventures) Weighted Average: 28.5% ▼3.9pp / Unweighted Average: 30.2% (103) / Median: 29.4% ▲0.3pp / Standard Deviation: 16.4% tracer: Like Trade, Treasure Trove has a reputation of enabling strong money strategies, but even strong money strategies are not strong enough most of the time. The Copper gains and buy phase gaining make Treasure trove problematic as payload expansion in engines, so its low rank is justified. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/6/62/Vault.jpg/200px-Vault.jpg) | #100 ▼5 Vault (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 29.1% ▼4.4pp / Unweighted Average: 34.5% (96) / Median: 31.0% ▲0.1pp / Standard Deviation: 22.0% xyrix: Vault is a decent money enabler, and sometimes you are willing to buy a $5 Moat. You never really want a $5 Moat though, and I think Vault is a weaker money enabler than some of the cards below it, so it could stand to fall further. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f8/Windfall.jpg/320px-Windfall.jpg) | #99 ▲8 Windfall (Empires) Weighted Average: 29.9% ▲2.3pp / Unweighted Average: 29.6% (104) / Median: 23.0% ▲0.3pp / Standard Deviation: 21.6% xyrix: Windfall is in strong competition with Pooka as the most underrated thing on this list. Windfall adds a big infusion of payload to your deck at exactly the time you need it, letting you explode from what would otherwise be an overtrashed or overbuilt state. In my opinion if it’s plausible to Windfall on a board, it’s usually a mistake to not build towards it. tracer: Windfall is really good for good decks, which might explain the slightly lower unweighted ranking as many of these players don’t see very many good decks. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/4/4c/Giant.jpg/200px-Giant.jpg) | #98 ▲7 Giant (Adventures) Weighted Average: 30.0% ▲0.9pp / Unweighted Average: 31.7% (100) / Median: 26.2% ▼5.3pp / Standard Deviation: 18.1% tracer: Giant rises after falling for two straight years. While slow, the attack is brutal and the high number of coins is not to be ignored when considering payload. That said, it is strange to have Rogue below it considering how much faster that attack can be without a mostly dead first play. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/5/51/Band_of_Misfits.jpg/200px-Band_of_Misfits.jpg) | #97 ▲2 Band of Misfits (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 32.0% ▲0.1pp / Unweighted Average: 35.8% (92) / Median: 34.7% ▲2.0pp / Standard Deviation: 19.4% Chris is me: Occasionally there’s some cheap trasher you really don’t wanna keep around that long, and then there’s also some other card you can harmlessly play this as later, and I guess you draw $5 instead of $4 and it’s like “sure I’ll take one of those”. But really it’s just not that efficient most of the time. All of the good stuff is at the $5 price point, and if there are multiple cheap good options you’d rather focus your efforts on figuring out how to gain multiple cheap cards instead of one expensive clone. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3a/Sacred_Grove.jpg/200px-Sacred_Grove.jpg) | #96 =0 Sacred Grove (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 32.1% ▼1.1pp / Unweighted Average: 33.2% (98) / Median: 29.4% ▼3.3pp / Standard Deviation: 15.7% Chris is me: Kind of similar to Wine Merchant, except with those Boons that really end up helping your opponent a lot more than you, particularly because they can decline those Boons. You really only get this card because it’s got +Buy, but it’s a bit of an awkward and inconsistent source for that. tracer: Playing Sacred Groves before you have your deck drawn is an often effective way to get as much of the Boons as your opponent. Also pretty decent in money. Could be higher. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/1/1b/Jester.jpg/200px-Jester.jpg) | #95 ▼13 Jester (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 32.6% ▼7.4pp / Unweighted Average: 36.2% (91) / Median: 29.4% ▼16.6pp / Standard Deviation: 22.3% tracer: Jester is rarely a good buy. It tends to be weak as a junker and weak as a gainer without some sort of support, and being a terminal Silver is not enough to make you buy it for the secondary effect. The massive fall for the second straight year pleases me, and it could stand to drop even more next year. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/b/b2/Wine_Merchant.jpg/200px-Wine_Merchant.jpg) | #94 ▲6 Wine Merchant (Adventures) Weighted Average: 33.3% ▲1.6pp / Unweighted Average: 37.6% (87) / Median: 28.6% ▼0.5pp / Standard Deviation: 21.4% xyrix: Do you need buys? Wine Merchant has a +Buy! +Buy is pretty underrated in card rankings so it makes sense that this is rising. The higher unweighted ranking might reflect that +$4 is a very shiny thing, but asymptotically approaching it by buying more Wine Merchants is often not smart. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/0/07/Tormentor.jpg/200px-Tormentor.jpg) | #93 ▲15 Tormentor (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 34.0% ▲6.4pp / Unweighted Average: 34.2% (97) / Median: 31.0% ▲12.8pp / Standard Deviation: 19.7% xyrix: A big riser, Tormentor is one of the cards that’s helped the most by the presence of Villagers. The main issue with Tormentor is that Tormentors, Hexes, and Imps all see declining returns as you add more of them. However, the first Tormentor is usually a strong addition to the deck. tracer: I’ll suggest that the second Tormentor is also usually a pretty strong addition. Stacking Hexes really hurts. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/b/bc/Mint.jpg/200px-Mint.jpg) | #92 ▲10 Mint (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 34.3% ▲3.3pp / Unweighted Average: 37.2% (88) / Median: 32.8% ▲3.2pp / Standard Deviation: 22.0% tracer: Mint looks great as a quick trasher with one buy able to thin a number of Coppers at once and then after this can increase payload either through treasure gaining or trash-for-benefit. Its rise is warranted but it is difficult to see it going much higher since drawing a bunch of treasures to trash early without having economic problems is difficult. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/79/Idol.jpg/200px-Idol.jpg) | #91 ▼13 Idol (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 34.7% ▼8.3pp / Unweighted Average: 37.8% (86) / Median: 34.9% ▼13.1pp / Standard Deviation: 16.4% Chris is me: The novelty of nonterminal Cursing as long as you have some draw wore off really fast. This card is absolutely plummeting in the rankings, as the Boons are awkward to deal with if not outright harmful, and the Cursing just takes awhile to get going. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2f/Embassy.jpg/200px-Embassy.jpg) | #90 ▼6 Embassy (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 34.8% ▼5.2pp / Unweighted Average: 36.8% (89) / Median: 37.3% ▼6.7pp / Standard Deviation: 15.4% Chris is me Embassy’s rapid fall is mostly consistent with the fall of terminal draw big money, which is all it was really ever good for. It has a large search space but frustratingly doesn’t increase your handsize by much. tracer: Embassy does slightly increase handsize, and given enough terminal space can be valuable as a supplement to other draw. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/9d/Trade.jpg/320px-Trade.jpg) | #89 ▼10 Trade (Adventures) Weighted Average: 34.8% ▼7.2pp / Unweighted Average: 35.6% (93) / Median: 32.0% ▼11.0pp / Standard Deviation: 19.5% tracer: Trade sees a large fall after two years of rising. While useful in making some of the fastest money strategies, even those are usually not fast enough. Trade is difficult to incorporate into engines where you would much rather be rid of cards than have them become Silvers and $5 is usually better used for a component. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/36/Trading_Post.jpg/200px-Trading_Post.jpg) | #88 ▼7 Trading Post (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 35.9% ▼4.1pp / Unweighted Average: 35.4% (94) / Median: 33.3% ▼1.7pp / Standard Deviation: 19.5% xyrix: It’s good if you get it on your first two turns and very underwhelming otherwise. Even in the opening there are much better $5 trashers and I think this could fall further. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/1/1f/Inn.jpg/200px-Inn.jpg) | #87 ▲1 Inn (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 37.4% ▼0.6pp / Unweighted Average: 34.9% (95) / Median: 36.5% ▲2.5pp / Standard Deviation: 17.3% xyrix: This feels somewhat underrated; the on-gain can be very nice if you can get it at the right moment. Its placement at the moment reflects about where I’d rank it without the on-gain. Chris is me: Inn is not entirely defined by the on-gain but it can absolutely save a turn situationally, and sometimes it enables some really wacky golden decks (https://dominionstrategy.com/2019/01/03/kingdom-analysis-1/). It seems just a bit underrated. tracer: Having a village this low is weird. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/9/91/Ill-Gotten_Gains.jpg/200px-Ill-Gotten_Gains.jpg) | #86 ▲4 Ill-Gotten Gains (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 38.2% ▲1.8pp / Unweighted Average: 40.0% (83) / Median: 38.9% ▼5.7pp / Standard Deviation: 22.6% tracer: This slight rise is somewhat mysterious to me as I expected Ill-Gotten Gains to have a massive fall like the last 3 years, although space is running out to fall. Despite the classic strategy with IGG being a “rush,” the junking is often somewhat slow and easy to overcome even without strong curse trashing. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/b/b9/Baker.jpg/200px-Baker.jpg) | #85 ▼8 Baker (Guilds) Weighted Average: 38.5% ▼5.5pp / Unweighted Average: 41.4% (81) / Median: 37.3% ▼5.7pp / Standard Deviation: 15.5% Chris is me: I think now that coffers are less novel and rare, people are starting to get that Baker isn’t all that amazing. Coffers are great, yeah, but I mean, if you’re just using them the same turn you get them you’re not getting as much value out of them as you should be. Token hoarding strategies require time to work that most decks just don’t have anymore. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/d/df/Seaway.jpg/320px-Seaway.jpg) | #84 ▲1 Seaway (Adventures) Weighted Average: 38.8% ▼1.2pp / Unweighted Average: 39.2% (85) / Median: 42.1% ▲10.1pp / Standard Deviation: 20.6% Chris is me: This feels too low, but I’ve been saying that the past couple of cards, so maybe there are just too many good $5’s. Anyhow throwing a ton of +Buy into your deck without making space for it is just really good, and it barely has any real cost at all as long as there’s a $4 you already wanted. One of the better pile control cards. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/fe/Emporium.jpg/200px-Emporium.jpg) | #83 ▲10 Emporium (Empires) Weighted Average: 38.9% ▲3.9pp / Unweighted Average: 39.7% (84) / Median: 38.9% ▲9.8pp / Standard Deviation: 14.1% tracer: A big riser on this list, Emporium’s effect on play is fairly unimpressive as just a Peddler. However, the on-gain effect of +2 vp is significant later when looking to win the game and the cost plays nicely with Patrician, which must be out there for Emporium to be available. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/f/f4/Pooka.jpg/200px-Pooka.jpg) | #82 ▲15 Pooka (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 39.7% ▲6.8pp / Unweighted Average: 40.4% (82) / Median: 31.0% ▲3.7pp / Standard Deviation: 22.9% xyrix: Pooka has risen but remains appallingly underrated. +4 Cards is good, trashing a Copper is good, certainly the combination is very good. In my opinion Pooka suffers in the rankings from its pairing with Cursed Gold, which causes builds to be generally much slower and more complicated. Additionally, the synergy between Pooka and Silver is often neglected. An early Silver helps ensure that the big hands off of a Pooka play can buy something nice, and prevents needing to play the Cursed Gold later to rebuild economy after the Coppers are thinned. You shouldn’t be afraid of getting more Silvers than you usually would, as Pooka provides an excellent TFB option for them. Chris is me: The trick to Pooka is accepting that you don’t get to play other terminals for a couple of turns after you buy it early on, which makes its +4 cards less accelerating than it might seem. But as long as you’re aware of this and buy Silvers to take advantage of the big economy turns, it’s adequate, I guess. tracer: As you can see, it’s fun to pretend that Pooka is good. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7c/Courtier.jpg/200px-Courtier.jpg) | #81 ▲5 Courtier (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 39.7% ▲0.7pp / Unweighted Average: 44.2% (75) / Median: 42.9% ▲2.9pp / Standard Deviation: 18.5% xyrix: On some boards Courtier is a very strong payload card, on others you buy it mostly to play it as Ruined Market. Usually you’re pairing it with a 2-type card and it’s flexible but not amazing. I’m not feeling super inspired by its rise. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/d/de/Charm.jpg/200px-Charm.jpg) | #80 ▲7 Charm (Empires) Weighted Average: 40.1% ▲1.1pp / Unweighted Average: 41.4% (80) / Median: 40.4% ▲5.4pp / Standard Deviation: 13.8% tracer: In its worst case Charm is a non-terminal +buy, but when used for gaining can act as +4 or +5 coins rather than +2, which provides massive pile control when in high quantity. For this reason, its rise this year seems justified and I could see it rising even more in years to come. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/d/df/Ball.jpg/320px-Ball.jpg) | #79 ▲15 Ball (Adventures) Weighted Average: 40.4% ▲6.5pp / Unweighted Average: 36.7% (90) / Median: 41.3% ▲18.6pp / Standard Deviation: 17.4% Chris is me: Ball was criminally underrated last time, so I’m glad to see it getting a bit more traction here. It’s not always worth writing home about, but smart application of Ball can lead to accelerated engine building or sneaky pileouts, particularly if you can manage to buy it more than once in a turn. The -Coin token is awkward early on but mostly ignorable later. tracer: Ball should be higher than this. It is fairly common for 2 sub-5 costs to be more important to add to your deck than a 5 cost once you get going. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/7e/Market.jpg/200px-Market.jpg) | #78 ▲5 Market (Base) Weighted Average: 40.7% ▲0.7pp / Unweighted Average: 44.0% (76) / Median: 42.1% ▲3.1pp / Standard Deviation: 17.2% Chris is me: Market has +Buy. That’s still good, right? Sure it’s really boring, but economy and +Buy without taking up card or terminal space is neat, especially if you’ve got cheap stuff to amass. On a lot of boards it remains pretty low impact, which isn’t always what you want in a $5. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3e/Distant_Lands.jpg/200px-Distant_Lands.jpg) | #77 ▼4 Distant Lands (Adventures) Weighted Average: 40.7% ▼6.3pp / Unweighted Average: 43.9% (77) / Median: 40.5% ▼4.5pp / Standard Deviation: 18.7% tracer: A friend for an engine player against someone who scores prematurely, when both players play correctly the delayed scoring of Distant Lands is often too slow. The split can be essential on boards with limited gains or unstable decks. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2e/Scholar.jpg/200px-Scholar.jpg) | #76 Scholar (Renaissance) Weighted Average: 42.0% / Unweighted Average: 41.9% (79) / Median: 34.9% / Standard Deviation: 21.4% xyrix: Playing with Scholar makes one realize how valuable Library’s sifting function is. Uh it’s somewhat valuable, at least. I think that Scholar is a small but significant amount worse than Library and am confused as to how it ended up this far ahead of it. Neither is very strong in my opinion. Chris is me: Scholar stacks a little more nicely than Library does. With Library if you have some Treasure you’re stuck with whatever you drew the first time; with Scholar you can re-roll if you want. I don’t think it makes it That Much Better though? |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/e3/Piazza.jpg/320px-Piazza.jpg) | #75 Piazza (Renaissance) Weighted Average: 43.1% / Unweighted Average: 41.2% (78) / Median: 41.3% / Standard Deviation: 19.7% xyrix: In Action-dense decks, Piazza offers some additional draw, Actions, and reliability. In Action-sparse decks, you can still get pretty lucky. The comparison of Piazza to Herald is somewhat overly flattering to Piazza as Herald is a card with strong self-synergy. I think it’s pretty accurately ranked. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/ec/Festival.jpg/200px-Festival.jpg) | #74 ▼2 Festival (Base) Weighted Average: 45.0% ▼2.0pp / Unweighted Average: 48.2% (69) / Median: 46.8% ▲4.8pp / Standard Deviation: 18.8% tracer: Providing a village, coins, and a buy, Festival gives everything you want except for a card. While I think this is not enough to justify such a low position relative to similar cards, it is certainly reasonable to have it towards the bottom of the villages. Chris is me: The lack of draw would be easily forgiven if it wasn’t competing with all those other $5 cost cards. it’s hard to have an essential component be this expensive and not even cycle. xyrix: It’s a fancy Shanty Town. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/7/71/Guildhall.jpg/320px-Guildhall.jpg) | #73 Guildhall (Renaissance) Weighted Average: 45.5% / Unweighted Average: 45.5% (73) / Median: 36.3% / Standard Deviation: 24.5% Chris is me: Guildhall is actually really good when it’s good. It’s just a matter of timing it, and also buying it on a board where you get a fair number of Treasures, which isn’t an every game thing. But once you have it you’ll notice your economy just accelerating in a way you didn’t initially expect, much like Spices. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/a/af/Merchant_Guild.jpg/200px-Merchant_Guild.jpg) | #72 ▼4 Merchant Guild (Guilds) Weighted Average: 46.0% ▼3.0pp / Unweighted Average: 45.9% (72) / Median: 43.7% ▲0.7pp / Standard Deviation: 19.0% Chris is me: Megaturns that take two turns to actually work are still pretty awkward. Merchant Guild is held back by its speed more than anything; it takes time to build into and it doesn’t really give immediate returns on the way up. But I mean as long as the card says +Buy on it, it can’t be that bad, right? tracer: Merchant Guild is one of the terminals that you’ll try really hard to make an engine work for. It should be higher on this list for the amount it warps games. |
| (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/e/e0/Council_Room.jpg/200px-Council_Room.jpg) | #71 ▲2 Council Room (Base) Weighted Average: 46.6% ▲0.6pp / Unweighted Average: 47.8% (70) / Median: 46.8% ▼1.2pp / Standard Deviation: 17.9% tracer: Council Room tends to be one of the more consistently underrated cards on this list due to the fear of drawing the opponent cards. A large amount of draw with a +buy is fantastic, with the drawback something to be careful about in non-mirrors but not something that should make you shy away from the card. |