Really surprised to see spy (my rank #43) winning out over situationally useful cards like bureaucrat (my rank #33), thief (#39) and feast (#27). Buying a spy is almost the same as skipping your buy. You haven't made your deck any weaker by adding a spy but you haven't made your deck any stronger either. In fact, if you have any kind of terminal draw, buying a spy hurts you more than it helps. The attack is at best a weaker bureaucrat that can't be chained and buying a catnip for the sake of buying a catnip is almost always a stupid idea. If it let you look at the top card before drawing it, it might have some use but I honestly can't think of a use for spies when vineyards, conspirators or peddlers aren't on the board.
This seems really harsh. It may not be a great card, but it gives you a shot at improving your next hand and a shot at hurting your opponents'. The very real possibility of failing to do any of those things is significant, but not so much that it renders it "almost" useless. And it can be chained: it can be chained right up until the first one fails.
Even in the absence of combos, a Spy or two can tip the balance: note how a Sea Hag discarding your opponent's key opening buy can win the game for you outright. Why is it strong and swingy when a Sea Hag discards a power card, but weak when a Spy does it?
It may be harsh but I think spy deserves it. The value of a spy to your deck is roughly equilivent to ( the # of dead cards in your deck) * (average card value) assuming that you never buy any terminal card draw which is a major assumption. That means that spy improves your starting deck by less than if you had bought a copper! (not 100% certain on my math but it seems right). You might say that this is stupid, we already know that spy is a bad opener but it becomes more valuable later when your ACV increases. But remember that the ratio of dead cards decreases as you buy better cards so the chance of spy hitting something bad in either yours or your opponent's deck also decreases. The fact that it's a cantrip (not
catnip ) that sometimes fails when chained doesn't help it either.
I did overlook spy as part of a kings court/terminal drawer combo which it is indeed worthwhile to buy a few spies. Kings Court is a major game changer though and can make alot of cards better than they could be alone.
C# FTW! Though my preference is for Objective-C.
