So this will be my post (without reading the rest of this thread):
Monday, August, 6th (Cards 1-3)1. Graverobber:Not good for a 2/5 start, needs collision with other actions if no other trash for benefit is available (because the trash will be empty at first)
Can make a fast Gold out of a $3-Action or a good $5-Action.
If you have many Graverobbers, you can make
Provinces consistently while refreshing your supply from the trash. Needs some form of money or $2-$3 Actions to gain / buy more Graverobbers.
Needs collision with other actions is a big point to consider, since your deck is mostly
Coppers and
Estates, which you can't trash with Graverobber. +Card engines (
Laboratory,
Caravan,
Smithy-
Village engines help increase hand size) Maybe double
Tactician while playing Graverobber on both turns (1st to make
Province out of Graverobber, 2nd to regain Graverobber from trash)
2. Poor House:As said in the comments: This will make
Upgrade better, if you aim for a non-Treasure deck. Problem is, you need something else than
Silvers to make your
Estates into, preferebly
Villages.
Upgrade works better than
Remake with it, because of the +action on
Upgrade.
In the absence of Villages or +buy, this card will be dead. Even more if you can't get rid of your
Coppers.
Village +
Vault/
Secret Chamber/midrange trashing + this (+ maybe carddraw and +buy) makes for a good engine.
Can't decide what kind or trashing fits this card best, I think t4b is bad.
Loan would be best,
Moneylender,
Steward,
Chapel maybe 2nd place.
3. Sage:I don't think, this works well with cardpile rushs like
Garden or
Silkroad, since these cards will be drawn mostly and Coppers which aren't that bad will be skipped. Maybe this can tutor for your
Treasure Maps: 2-3 Sages, 2
Treasure Maps and only if you are unlucky and draw all the Sages and with the last Sage only one
Treasure Map, it will be a clear hit. That is, if you start with 2 action cards in hand.
Treasure Map + Sage in hand (with no other >$3 cards in deck) is a sure hit. Thing is, you must do without
Silvers to buy both
Treasure Maps.
This is true for most uses of Sage: with too much
Silver in deck, you only exchange Sage for
Silver, which is mediocre. A good use of this may be with
Minions: You draw all the
Minions in your hand and play them for maximum cash. That is: every Sage in your deck is worth another
Minion (again when you have no
Silvers). Works like
Cellar without the -1 Card in this case.
Compares with
Farming Village (and
Adventurer):
Pro: doesn't find
CoppersContra: will eventually find
Provinces and
Duchies.
So long and see you tomorrow for more first impressions of Dark Ages cards (I will keep on with the numbers)
Tuesday, August, 7th (Cards 4-6)4. Feodum:The first victory card of the set. One that counts Treasure was often suggested, and this along with Traders, gives Silver its usefulness. I wonder how it works in an Ironworks deck: Gain Feodum, buy Silver, end turn? Maybe with Haggler: Buy Feodum, gain Silver. To get them to 3 VP apiece, where they are - like Gardens with 30 cards - worth a Province in costs per VP, you need 9 Silvers, not too difficult to do. Maybe as with Gardens and Philosopher's Stones you can't build a reliable combo around it, that also fills your deck. The chance of collision with your trasher will decrease significantly. But maybe it can be a good starter as Trader, especially
with Trader (7 Silver yeah!)
5. Cultist:A nice way to chain action cards. The mechanic reminds me of the MTG ability Ripple:
http://magiccards.info/query?q=o%3Aripple&v=card&s=cname, but in the end it is just a "hurtful Laboratory" as Donald says.
The drawback to Laboratory is that you don't have a spare action after your draw, so you can't play a +buy action to gain more from your big hand.
I wonder how Looters aquit themselves against Cursers. I think the non-attack effect will be better, but the attack will be less hurting since you hand out Ruins and not Curses. From my gut feeling, I would always go for the Curser, unless it is Young Witch with a really good bane (or Ambassador / Masquerade, but you knew that already).
Speaking of Ambassador, I wonder how the return to supply, gain one with the same name works, if the pile is random. We will see...
6. Ruined Market:Now
that would go into the worst card ideas thread ;-). I like the method of shuffling all 50 Ruins (10 of each kind) and pull 10 for each opponent. This makes for much variation and might help those Fairgrounds players out there to up to another point per Fairgrounds. Good thing, that these cards (all of them?) are actions, so Graverobber can make some use of them by turning them into $3 actions or Silvers, and occasionally you might want to Throneroom a Ruins, at least decreases the chance of drawing Thronerooms without any action cards. It also has a nice interaction with Vineyard: The attack is actually giving you points.