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« on: February 02, 2017, 03:28:41 pm »
Now that Empires has been out online for a month now, I thought I would get everyone's impressions of the cards and whether or not they think the cards met, exceeded or came in below expectations.
I don't have much time, so I will only post a handful of cards right now, and discuss more cards later. With that said, here are some thoughts.
Charm: When I first I saw this, I thought it seemed pretty strong, like HoP level. It ends up, the card is pretty situational. Although, today, I pulled off a nice engine where I gained lots of cards with Charm. The card is good, but not amazing.
Gladiator/Fortune: This looked okay, but then once you play, it, you realize how good doubling your money really is. At first, I was blown away by the card. Fortune is still very strong, but I have come to realize that it is not KC power level.
City Quarter: This looked amazing and is amazing. You do get the occasional dud hand, but this card is super powerful. Lost City is good, and this is Lost City on steriods.
Engineer: My initial impression was that the card was utter crap. It ends up this is arguably one of the best Workshop variants in the game, probably right behind IW.
Capital: This card looked bad, and I'm still not impressed by it. I guess on some boards it shines, but this feels very situational.
Royal Blacksmith: This looked like a great terminal draw card. It pretty much works as expected. The ability to buy with debt gives it an edge though since you can use a spare buy to pick it up a turn earlier.
Encampment/Plunder: The return to the supply pile had me worried and made me worried why I would spend a buy on it. It ends up Encampment is really, really good. A lot of times it ends up being a $2 Lost City. Plunder is only slightly better than expected. I think people are overrating it right now. In an engine, you usually want other engine components. I guess having one helps keep your Encampments, but you don't want to load your deck with Plunders, at least not usually.
Catapult/Rocks: I recall AdamH claiming Catapult was crap either in one of his videos or reddit or somewhere. I read Catapult and thought it looked like a decent trasher, and it ends up it is a decent trasher. It's not Steward, but the card can hurt your opponent. Rocks is well, Rocks and my low opinion of it has not really changed much since I first saw the card.
Castles: At first, these seemed really awesome. Then I played with them and thought they sucked. Now, I think there are boards going for Castles is worth it. If your opponent is just going for Provinces and you have the better engine but greened later, you can catch up. Also, some of the abilities on the Castles are pretty nice such as the one that lets you discard victory cards for coins. Still though, Castles are pretty situational as it seems many of the new cards are.
Sacrifice: This card seemed very strong at first. Now, my impression is going down. Moneylender gives more coin. Sure this is more flexible, but truth is, Sacrifice is roughly on the same level as Moneylender.
Temple: This felt like another amazing trasher. It's good, but later on, you're just trashing a copper with it. The Gathering mechanic is interesting, but overall, this card is slightly weaker than I initially thought. I guess the reason for that is that there are just so many trashers these days and many of them are very good.
Settlers/Bustling Village: This looked pretty amazing at first. It ends up Settlers sucks on the majority of boards. BV helps draw Settlers so, it's sort of a pseudo lab, but is it worth the effort to get? Sometimes, it is if no other village is present, but if a Village is on the board, Settlers often turns the entire pile into a dead pile which is a darn shame.
Patrician/Emporium: These both seemed good to me. I don't mean powerful good, but decent cards that you don't mind having in your deck. Patrician is often times a Lab in a thin deck, and overall more reliable than Vagrant. Emporium on the other hand is just decent. I mean sometimes the 2VP comes in handy, but it really is a Peddler. It's not bad. It's just often there are better things to do when and if Emporium comes out.
Sauna/Avanto: Once I realized you can chain these things like crazy, I thought this card seemed crazy powerful, and these split pile is crazy powerful. I'm not not sure yet what is the optimal way to play it, but you have a trasher, super draw power, plus village power all rolled into a single pile. Strong stuff.
That's it for me for right now. I will provide more of my thoughts and impressions later on. What are your thoughts on any of the new cards or card shaped things that have come out?
