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Cards (Bottom half) | #45 =0 Duchess (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 5% ▲0.1pp / Unweighted Average: 6.03% / Median: 2.27% ▼0.33pp / Standard Deviation: 12.42% Another year and yet again Duchess is at the bottom of the list. What is there to say at this point? Occasionally you’ll pick one up on a 5/2 and in sloggy games they’re nice to get for free with Duchies, but even in these cases it’s marginal at best. |
 | #44 ▼2 Beggar (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 9.33% ▼9.17pp / Unweighted Average: 9.55% / Median: 6.82% ▼6.38pp / Standard Deviation: 8.87% Beggar is down a couple of places from last year and has the second lowest deviation. Gaining 3 Coppers to hand is a very situational ability, all that junking will severely harm the average deck. Beggar is useful sometimes though, Copper isn’t a bad card in your deck when you’re aiming to hit $4 or $5 consistently for alt-vp cards – Gardens is the best example of this because of how much Beggar bloats your deck but it’s also fine for Dukes and Silk Roads. Another notable alt-vp combo is Beggar/Triumph, a play of Beggar gives a 4 victory token Triumph. Beggar can also have use in an engine gaining Copper to use as fodder for certain trash for benefit cards such as Altar, or to trash to Mercenary or Bats. The final use for Beggar is to gain one very late in the game with the goal of playing it once as terminal +$3 and to end the game before those Coppers have chance to enter your draw pile, this is a very situation thing that is only viable when the stars align though. |
 | #43 ▼2 Embargo (Seaside) Weighted Average: 12.3% ▼6.9pp / Unweighted Average: 13.65% / Median: 9.09% ▼6.71pp / Standard Deviation: 11.87% Embargo lost 6.9 percentage points and is down 2 places. It would be 1 place higher in unweighted rankings. Embargo is very similar to Duchess as a terminal Silver with a marginal extra ability, Embargo is a one-shot though so it can be used as an early economy boost that doesn’t get in the way later. The best case for Embargo is probably opening it on a 5/2 and getting the token on the key $5 card before your opponent can buy one, but that only really happens if you’re 1st player and draw Embargo turn 3. Another thing that can be fairly effective is piling some Embargo tokens on Duchies when you have a points lead to make it more difficult for your opponent to catch up, although this can backfire if your opponent’s deck is stronger and can overtake you on Provinces so you have to be careful. It can also be interesting in games with Potion cards, but I’ve found that the strong Potion cards are good enough to still be worth going for. |
 | #42 ▲2 Pearl Diver (Seaside) Weighted Average: 13.04% ▼0.06pp / Unweighted Average: 12.95% / Median: 9.09% ▼0.31pp / Standard Deviation: 12.42% Pearl Diver has gained 2 places. Pearl Diver is the 2nd Seaside card in the bottom 5 and marks a change from weak or situational terminals to inoffensive but low impact cantrips. That is to say, Pearl Diver won’t make your deck worse, but it won’t make it much better either. Occasionally there will be a synergy with Pearl Diver that makes it useful such as Peddler or Adventures tokens, but sometimes there’ll be something that makes Pearl Divers worse, such as Militia type attacks or dead terminal draw. |
 | #41 ▲2 Herbalist (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 14.03% ▼2.27pp / Unweighted Average: 17.64% / Median: 13.64% ▼2.16pp / Standard Deviation: 14.92% Herbalist is 1 place higher in the unweighted ranking and is 2 places higher than last year. Herbalist is an awkward card, it has some effects which give it nifty utility but don’t gel together particularly well. Decks that are interested in topdecking treasure are usually playing just 1 terminal action per turn and Herbalist doesn’t really pull its weight there being a terminal Copper with +1 Buy. Engine decks will resort to Herbablist as a bottom of the barrel +1 Buy card, but then engine decks aren’t interested in topdecking treasures so there’s a bit of a clash there. The exceptions to this are topdecking Potion to keep an Alchemist stack going and topdecking Crowns in an engine. |
 | #40 Tax ▼1 (Empires) Weighted Average: 14.89% ▼10.71pp / Unweighted Average: 13.76% / Median: 6.82% ▼11.58pp / Standard Deviation: 14.11% Tax lost 10.71 percentage points and dropped 1 place. It is also the worst Event on this list. Tax just isn’t a great rate, you’re effectively spending $2 and 1 buy to give your opponent the option of taking 2 Debt. In games where you get some spare buys and have $2 left over you buy it, but then your opponent is likely to have a spare $2 so this rarely does much. The setup part is most impactful thing really. |
 | #39 ▲1 Quest (Adventures) Weighted Average: 16.24% ▼9.61pp / Unweighted Average: 18.13% / Median: 11.36% ▼12.34pp / Standard Deviation: 14.82% Quest basically just provides some alternate prices to buy Gold, this makes it fairly situational as Gold has to be something that you want to add to your deck and the conditions on Quest have to be achievable. This is more just a situational thing to do when the opportunity presents itself rather then something to base your strategy around. Opening with 2 terminal attacks can be made more enticing by the presence of Quest however, as you can discard one for a Gold if they collide. It is not advised to buy Curses just with the hopes of triggering Quests. Discarding 6 cards can be something to play towards to get an early Gold, but after the first couple of shuffles a 6 card hand should be able to afford to just buy a Gold. Tunnel is interesting with Quest as you can choose to discard, even with fewer than 6 cards in hand. This can be used to easily discard Tunnels so can be good occasionally. |
 | #38 ▼2 Poor House (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 24.06% ▲8.14pp / Unweighted Average: 28.36% / Median: 18.18% ▼8.12pp / Standard Deviation: 21.69% Poor House is the lowest rated $1 on the list. It has dropped 2 places since last year. Poorhouse is another situational terminal. It basically guarantees that you hit at least $4, which isn’t particularly useful given that Silver is always available and performs a similar function. The case where Poor House shines is in treasureless decks where it is terminal +$4 which can be nice payload, especially considering Poor House’s very cheap price point. Beware Remake and Upgrade on a Poor House board. |
 | #37 =0 Faithful Hound (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 27.74% / Unweighted Average: 28.5% / Median: 25% / Standard Deviation: 13.26% Faithful Hound is the first Nocturne card on the list. I’m sure the first comparison most people made when they first saw Faithful Hound was to Moat, given that they share the same cost, type and on-play effect. In fact the only differences are the name and the reaction effect. Faithful Hound is about as weak as terminal draw gets, giving a net +1 card. It is still viable draw for an engine sometimes, especially when it’s easy to pick up cheap components quickly and there is a surplus of + actions. Be careful trying to build an engine with Faithful Hound as the draw with villages like Festival or Squire that reduce handsize, Faithful Hound will only bring you back up to 5 cards in hand so there will be no net handsize increase. The most interesting part of Faithful Hound seems to be the reaction, which can be very nice in combination with certain discard for benefit cards. The strongest of these is perhaps Artificer, as Artificers can be used to easily gain Faithful Hounds and then the Hounds will start to effectively give you “free” cards in hand to discard to Artificers. Dungeon is another nice one as the Hounds will be in hand at the start of your turn, ready to discard to a duration Dungeon. |
 | #36 ▲1 Moat (Base) Weighted Average: 30.92% ▲4.92pp / Unweighted Average: 29.13% / Median: 22.73% ▼3.57pp / Standard Deviation: 17.87% Moat has gained one rank since last year. I already talked about Moat’s on-play effect for Faithful Hound, so I won’t repeat myself. In a 2 player game buying Moat solely in an attempt to block attacks is rarely worth doing, you won’t always draw a Moat in your starting hand and if you don’t want the terminal +2 cards then adding one to your deck is almost like attacking yourself. In cases where you’re choosing between Moat and another terminal +2 cards as your draw, such as Oracle, the reaction on Moat can certainly be enough to make Moat the better option if there are attacks that are worth blocking present. Save and Scheme are the two cards that let you pick up a single Moat and block attacks easily – this can be enough to make you skip attacks entirely. |
 | #35 ▲1 Vagrant (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 31.23% ▲0.03pp / Unweighted Average: 30.03% / Median: 25% ▼3.1pp / Standard Deviation: 17.63% Vagrant has gained one rank since last year and is the 3rd Dark Ages card on this list. Vagrant is very similar to Pearl Diver, but the effect of potentially drawing junk cards is much better than Pearl Diver’s deck reordering. Vagrant shouldn’t really be seen as a draw card, it just helps your deck stay consistent when under attack from Cursers or Looters and once you start buying victories. Vagrant becomes more interesting with Action-Victory and Treasure-Victory type cards, although you still have to have them be the 2nd card down on your deck to allow Vagrant to draw them so I wouldn’t rely on that. The most useful of these is probably Mill, if you draw your deck you can discard two victories to Mill and then draw them back with Vagrant. |
 | #34 =0 Druid (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 31.57% / Unweighted Average: 32.9% / Median: 29.55% / Standard Deviation: 14.75% Druid is the second Nocturne card on the list. Druid is a hard one to rank as its power and abilities vary wildly from game to game, depending on what Boons are set aside. Druid always gives +1 Buy, meaning it will have a similar level of utility as Herbalist at the very least. There are a few Boons which stand out as key Boons to look out for for Druid: Fields Gift, I’d say this is the most generically strong Boon Druid can get making it very close to Candlestick Maker. Flame’s Gift, trashing is one of the strongest effects in Dominion, although Druid with Flame’s Gift is very weak as far as trashing goes – on a similar level to Trade Route, which is often described as one of the weakest trashers in the game. Swamp’s Gift, amassing Will-O’-Wisps with Druid can add a reasonable amount of draw to a deck. Earth’s Gift, gaining is very strong if the right components are available. |
 | #33 ▼1 Cellar (Base) Weighted Average: 33.13% ▼4.27pp / Unweighted Average: 38.51% / Median: 36.36% ▲2.16pp / Standard Deviation: 21.41% Cellar lost one rank from last year. Cellar is a decent little sifter, it can be nice to pick one up early for the cycling when sifting past Estates can somewhat make up for the reduced handsize. The reduced handsize is the main problem of Cellar and means you don’t want to get too many of them, I usually would pick one up with a spare buy but after the first I might just take nothing instead until later in the game. Cellar appreciates draw much more than other similar cards like Warehouse because you have to discard before you draw with Cellar. |
 | #32 ▲1 Haven (Seaside) Weighted Average: 34.48% ▼2.42pp / Unweighted Average: 36.44% / Median: 34.09% ▼2.71pp / Standard Deviation: 17.53% Haven has gained 1 rank this year. Havens can smooth out your early draws and help you use your money efficiently and hit key price points, in a similar way to Coin tokens. Remember to watch out for shuffles in Haven games as setting aside an Estate that will miss the shuffle is quite nice. You can even use a pair of Havens in a deck drawing engine to keep a Province set aside, effectively trashing it from your deck without losing the points. Not really a card you build around but it is useful to pick some up and they rarely hurt your deck. |
 | #31 ▼3 Pawn (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 35.62% ▼8.18pp / Unweighted Average: 36.95% / Median: 34.09% ▼10.61pp / Standard Deviation: 17.62% Pawn is 3 ranks lower this year. Pawn is a useful little card, you can always choose +1 Card +1 Action, it never hurts to have too much. +1 Card + $1 can be okay early in the game when you have a low action density or if you have spare + Actions, although the most important thing about Pawn is that it provides a source of non-terminal +buy. It isn’t a power card, but it has plenty of flexibility and utility and never really gets in the way. |
 | #30 ▼2 Settlers (Empires) Weighted Average: 38.26% ▼1.74pp/ Unweighted Average: 38.68% / Median: 34.09% ▼2.71pp / Standard Deviation: 19.63% Settlers is down 2 places from last year. Another one of the cantrips that you pick up with spare buy, if you pick up a Copper with this then it’s similar to a Peddler, which is certainly great for a $2, it is however fairly unreliable as you need Coppers in your discard pile to make it work and it’s to keep in mind that unlike Peddlers, Settlers don’t actually add any +$ to your deck. Settlers can be good alongside cards like Cellar and Warehouse, you discard Coppers with those and then pick them back up with Settlers. It is important to note that there are only 5 Settlers and the bottom 5 cards of its pile are Bustling Village, some games this won’t matter but sometimes you might want to try and empty the Settlers quickly and use Bustling Village. This can be risky as if you’ve put resources into picking up the Settlers your opponent’s deck might be in a better position to buy and use the Bustling Villages, so be careful. |
 | #29 =0 Tracker (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 39.84% / Unweighted Average: 40.68% / Median: 38.64% / Standard Deviation: 21.46% The 3rd Nocturne card on the list. Tracker uses Boons in a more conventional way than Druid, taking a random Boon from the Boon deck. Because of this, unlike Druid you shouldn’t buy Tracker in the hopes of using any particular Boon, instead you should buy it if you think the topdecking ability will be useful and you can handle the terminal action in your deck. Tracker can be a nice deck accelerator, topdecking freshly gained cards so you don’t have to wait for them to be shuffled to see them. It’s shortcomings are that it is a terminal Copper, which is weak and that the Boons are unreliable. Also remember that Pouch comes with Tracker, so you can potentially open with 2 $2 costs on your $4 opening hand or even a $2 and a $3 on a 5/2 opening. |
 | #28 =0 Patrician (Empires) Weighted Average: 40.71%▲0.81pp / Unweighted Average: 40.89% / Median: 34.09% ▼5.41pp / Standard Deviation: 19.43% Patrician is on the same rank as last year. It is one place higher in the unweighted ranking. Patrician is like a Vagrant that draws good cards instead of bad cards. $5 costs are generally the most important cards in any given game of Dominion so it is not uncommon for your deck to be full of $5’s, in which case Patricians are great to pick up with spare buys and you’ll even go out of your way to win the Patrician split sometimes. Patrician even draws Duchies and Provinces late in the game and so helps out like Vagrant there too. Like Settlers Patrician is the top card of a split pile and having a few Patricians in your deck will make reaching 5 actions in play for Emporium much easier. |
 | #27 ▲2 Scouting Party (Adventures) Weighted Average: 44.95% ▲4.95pp / Unweighted Average: 40.85% / Median: 39.47% ▼0.03pp / Standard Deviation: 18.47% Scouting Party is 2 ranks higher than last year. Although it is 1 rank lower in the unweighted ranking. Scouting Party is a really nice deck accelerator and sifter. In the early game the cycling is substantial and it can skip past Estates and Coppers and late game it can sift past Provinces and help line up cards for consistency. It doesn’t even cost a buy and so is easier to pick up than cards like Pearl Diver. Not something to build a strategy around (with the exception of perhaps Tunnel) but a very nice thing to get when you have the chance. |
 | #26 =0 Native Village (Seaside) Weighted Average: 46.76% ▲1.06pp / Unweighted Average: 47.89% / Median: 47.73% ▼2.27pp / Standard Deviation: 19.94% Native Village is on the same rank as last time. It is 1 rank higher in the unweighted list. Native Village is a complicated card. As a village in a deck drawing engine it isn’t the best as it draws fewer cards than a standard village. Although setting aside cards and calling them in for a bigger turn can be useful to hit high price points when building the engine. One important thing to point out is that the more Native Villages you use to pick up cards from the mat, the less draw your Native Villages are providing. To highlight this, if you have 4 Native Villages and use 3 to set aside and 1 to pick up then you have effectives drawn 3 cards, but if you were to alternate setting aside and picking up you would only draw 2 cards. Native Village can be used as a pseudo-trasher with certain cards such as Apothecary which tends to leave victories on top of your deck or with discard for benefit like Vault once you’re drawing your deck. |
 | #25 =0 Guardian (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 46.99% / Unweighted Average: 46.49% / Median: 45.45% / Standard Deviation: 22.12% Another new card, it is 1 rank lower in the unweighted list; where Faithful Hound is the new Moat, Guardian is the new Lighthouse. Guardian is even more similar to Lighthouse really, it basically exchanges + $1 when you play it for being gained to hand and being unable to be drawn dead. A much more reliable way of blocking attacks than Moat, Guardian’s strength comes from being immediately playable when you gain it, this makes Guardian shine in less reliable decks where you can keep buying Guardians to keep up your defence, compared to Lighthouse which is better when you can reliably play 1 per turn. Another trick to Guardian is that buying it on the first turn gives you + $1 on turn 2, which can let you open with a $5 cost on a 3/4 opening. |
 | #24 =0 Pixie (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 47.15% / Unweighted Average: 48.85% / Median: 47.73% / Standard Deviation: 19.52% The 2nd highest ranked Nocturne card and still in the bottom half. Pixie is another card that you can pick up with a spare buy and it’ll do something good for you, although exactly what it’ll do you’ll have to see. From what I’ve seen of people playing Pixie I’d advise people to cash them in more often than they do, I have routinely seen people have 2-3 Pixies in there deck at the end of the game which have done basically nothing. One other thing to note is that so long as there are Pixies left in the pile there isn’t much reason to not take the Forest’s Gift as it gives +$2 +2 Buys so you can always just buy back the Pixie with that. Pixie comes with the Goat Heirloom, which doesn’t really have much of an effect on how to evaluate Pixie itself. |
 | #23 ▼3 Advance (Empires) Weighted Average: 48.32% ▼8.48pp / Unweighted Average: 49.72% / Median: 50% ▼2.6pp / Standard Deviation: 22.47% Advance is a big loser being 3 ranks lower than last year. The most common use for Advance is upgrading a trasher once your deck is trashed down and you no longer have use for it. In a game with a lot of +buy you can potentially buy a bunch of cheap actions and then use Advance to turn them all into more useful cards, although you might need a lot of draw as well to pull this off and just buying the useful cards directly might just be better. Fortress is probably the best thing to do with Advance, basically just turning all of your buys into Actions costing up to $6. Also watch out for Shelters games, Advancing that Necropolis on turn 1 or 2 is often amazing. |
