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« on: November 19, 2017, 07:58:05 am »
Devil's workshop : For the moment I simply dislike that card, it's just so weird, and I don't think it leads to interesting decisions. Imps are too easy to play, and rarely going to be bad anyway. I agree that you want to get it mainly for the imp, but a nonterminal workshop is a pretty good consolation prize. A strong card.
Necromancer : It's weird how if one key card get trashed by accident, suddenly necromancer become very strong. It once happened for me in a minion game. I think most of the time you should skip necromancer early, but mid-game it can be an interesting investment, trash your key $5/$6 card with zombie apprentice, then with +buy it become more profitable to get a few necromancers than that card. Not too much because you can't play the same trashed card more than once, but the zombies add flexibility options. I think this scenario could happen reasonnably often in weak engine games, where the key card I'm talking about is draw maybe.
All zombies are obviously weak but surprinsingly I find myself using often (again, in the very few games I played) the mason. I remember it hit my estates quite often but this is pure luck I guess. An interesting card design.
Shepherd : That's a strong card, because of pasture. I think without pasture it would have been way weaker. But shepherd can draw a lot, really, and pasture makes the starting victory points more important than usual. I mean more often than not I would keep my starting estates because of shepherd/pasture. But I see people on shuffleit overbuying shepherd, and drawing shepherd with no victory cards is very sad so be careful. It's a kind of sifter but paradoxically in games where the number of cards in hands is more important than the quality of the cards themselve, shepherd is awesome.
Very flavorful card, it works with victory cards, it makes estates better : I'm always wishing for more card like this. One of my favorite from the set.
Skulk : I read somewhere that Donald X didn't like saboteur because it's purely destructive. When you play it, you gain no benefit yourself. I'm surprised to see skulk (and, to a lesser extent, werewolf) because they are quite similar. Of course getting the gold is very good. I guess later in the game skulk can become a dead card but I had game where I was completely destroyed by multiple hexes. I don't get hexes completely yet.
Cobbler : I love in hand gains. Nice.
Crypt : One of the most puzzling cards for me. I like it.
Cursed village : Hexing yourself is not scary especially during the buy phase, and getting to draw (usually) 2 cards the first time you play it makes cursed village a very solid village that only suffer the bazaar syndrome. Hexes are a purely random thing especially on this card, because the majority of these are not going to affect you during the buy phase (or slightly) but a few (locust, war, plague) really hurt. I like self-hurting things but why are hexes/boon so random ?
Den of sin : Lab variant, variants are good, and as I already said, the few in-hand night gains (ghost town, guardian, and this) are really interesting for the tactical dimension of the game. Probably slightly weaker than lab.
Idol : One of the best $5 treasures. Still not awesome. I think this rank close to relic, but idol is way funnier to play with. And here I don't mind so much the luck dimension of boons, because unlike fool/bard, Idol is nonterminal so you know you are going to play it anyway. It's not like hesitating between playing fool and monument and getting useless boons, then lose lost in the wood right the turn after. And all boons are usually useful in the buy phase, even the one that give +action also give coins, so the boon is nearly always going to be good. The fact cursing doesn't stack is good. A well designed card.
Pooka : When discovering this card I didn't realize how often that card miss the shuffle. Drawing 4 cards seems to make shuffle miss significantly more likely than drawing 3. Of course it's a good starting card, and as expected it gets weird when the number of treasures in your deck decrease.
And Cursed gold is diabolic. Very interesting to play it, though it makes the opening buys sometimes very disappointing. In any case, you have to be very careful in pooka / cursed gold games.
Tragic hero : Me and other people have talked about the potential of mega-turn. I agree, though, that this is rarely going to happen, so overall it's a weak card. If it's the only +buy in the kingdom, it's might be hard to play around it. I like Tragic hero for the same reasons I like Rogue : you know, from the begining of the game, that at some point it can turn into real crap, but sometimes it's still worth it.
Vampire : A very powerful opening card. Probably a bit weaker at turn $3 or $4, because that $5 you gain come a bit too late. But gaining a $5 + hexing is as strong as it sounds. Bat is very good at trashing estates / curses especially considering that if you play bat by turn $6/$7 you are likely to draw them with another terminal draw card, say a $5 you gained via vampire. You may want to skip vampire/bat if you have quicker trash or economy building options, or if trashing copper quickly is particularly important. Otherwise a deck with Vampire/Bat can be very potent, especially at turn 8-9 right after you exchange bat for vampire again.
Werewolf : A self-synergic draw, I think it's weaker than wild hunt but I'm not sure. Giving 1 hex doesn't seem that good to me, but as said about skulk I already got destroyed by hexes. I was expecting something more exciting for werewolf so I'm slightly disappointed.
Raider : The attack part never did anything in the games I played with raider, but I really want to see that someday.
I will talk about the rest when they will appear in my future games. I remember the last card I discovered in Adventures was peasant, and in Empires it was legionnary. I'm curious to see which one it'll be now.