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[Nik]

When I say 'Scout' you already are thinking 'The Worst Card In Dominion? Yeah." And then you joke about for a while, mainly by saying that Scout is the best card in Dominion (sarcastically). Well, I'm here to tell you you're all wrong. Scout is, in fact, a very powerful card. Why?

1.Looking to your next turn.
You don't want Provinces in your hand, however many points they're worth. Now, sure, with the Scout, you do put those Victories in your hand, but they don't count against you on our next turn.
2. It interacts amazingly with +card cards.
Take this situation. You have this hand: Gold, Scout, Silver, Village, Duchy. In this instance, I'd first play the Scout. I look at the top 4 cards of my deck. Let's say they are: Duchy,Duchy,Remodel, Gold.
First, I get to discard two annoying Duchies that would otherwise cloud up my next hand. Now also, Scout has a clause on it: 'you may put the rest of the cards back in any order.' This is great! So I'll, of course, put the Gold on top. I'll then play the Village. Now I have two Golds and a Silver, which means I can buy a Province!

Interacts well with:
+card cards, heavy Victory decks, Big Money, Intrigue
Interacts badly with:
Non-Victory decks, non-+cards kingdoms, curses


In conclusion, I won't say it's the best $4 card, but it is a pretty powerful one. Join the fight to make Scout NOT The Worst Card Ever!

[Robz888]

Before you ask, no, this is not my alt-account.

[Nik]

Before you ask, no, this is not my alt-account.

Why would anyone think it would be?

[Robz888]

Because I'm known for making joke posts about Scout. This sounds like that.

[Nik]

Because I'm known for making joke posts about Scout. This sounds like that.

No, really, I'm serious. Scout is a pretty good card.

[pg]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

[Axxle]

In conclusion, I won't say it's the best $4 card, but it is a pretty powerful one. Join the fight to make Scout NOT The Worst Card Ever!

What *is* the worst card in your opinion? There has to be one. Scout rarely shines.  In your example I'd most likely rather have had a silver at any point before that turn.

[manthos88]

No, really, I'm serious. Scout is a pretty good card.

I agree with you man. A lot of people here underestimate the fact that Scout actually "scouts" your next few cards, which can be very helpful sometimes. It's not very strong $4, but it's decent.

Now, if this is supposed to be an article about Scout, you should probably mention some more interactions that Scout has with other cards. For example, Scout is pretty good with double-type Victory cards, especially Nobles in engines, it definitely pairs nicely with Mystic and Wishing Well, or even Journeyman and maybe other cards that "name" before they draw, and it works well with cards that want big hand-size, like Vault. It also makes great synergy with Crossroads. And there are definitely more examples you can give.

[Robz888]

Scout/Crossroads is a famous nombo. Scout is just as likely to pull green cars out of a future Crossroads hands than it is to pair green cards with Crossroads, and basically any point at which you could have bought Scout, you would actually just be better off buying another Crossroads.

[markusin]

Take this situation. You have this hand: Gold, Scout, Silver, Village, Duchy. In this instance, I'd first play the Scout. I look at the top 4 cards of my deck. Let's say they are: Duchy,Duchy,Remodel, Gold.
First, I get to discard two annoying Duchies that would otherwise cloud up my next hand. Now also, Scout has a clause on it: 'you may put the rest of the cards back in any order.' This is great! So I'll, of course, put the Gold on top. I'll then play the Village. Now I have two Golds and a Silver, which means I can buy a Province!

Err, that's VERY hypothetical. Imagine instead, you have an extra Village instead of Scout and the top of the deck was: Remodel, Gold, Duchy, Duchy. I play both Villages, draw both the Remodel and the Gold, Remodel the Gold into a Province, and buy a Duchy.

My example is a very poor argument as to why Scout is bad. In fact, it's a rather meaningless example, because of how engineered it was. Of course Scout is pretty amazing if it happens to draw 4 Nobles every time you play it.

What we really need in order to judge the strength of a card is to know how much it will give you on average compared to every other option available, including Silver. People have attempted to answer that with simulators. The results have been very dim for Scout. Like, Scout/Ironworks/Great Hall and Scrying Pool/Scout decks are notable, but pretty much everything else with Scout is worse than the strategies that replace Scout gains with other cards. Even alt-VP decks don't usually have time to pick up a Scout over the Alt-VP card itself.

The issue with Scout is it takes up a slot in your hand that could have been something other than a VP card for a very hit-or-miss (which relies on you having a deck full of VP cards no less). People generally don't like having no predictive power over their card effects. Tribute has the potential to give great benefit, yet it's not held in high regard on this forum. Neither is Loan and Lookout. In fact, Lookout is very somewhat similar to Scout, but does way more for you for most of the game (and only costs $3 on top of that).

Personally, I see Scout as "not being the worst card you have received via an opponent's Swindler".

[KingZog3]

Because I'm known for making joke posts about Scout. This sounds like that.

No, really, I'm serious. Scout is a pretty good card.

Pretty good? What if it finds nothing? Then it lowers your hand size by 1 and lets you see the net 4 cards. If you can't do anything with that knowledge then Scout was essentially useless.

It's not that Scout is bad, it's that other things are better. Silver will let you buy things, Scout won't. It's important to consider what your hand would be like with a different card, and usually Scout is less helpful than all other options.

[manthos88]

In conclusion, I won't say it's the best $4 card, but it is a pretty powerful one. Join the fight to make Scout NOT The Worst Card Ever!

What *is* the worst card in your opinion? There has to be one. Scout rarely shines.  In your example I'd most likely rather have had a silver at any point before that turn.

Why does there have to be a *worst card* Scout is useful in more instances than most of you guys think of. I 've seen a lot of players ignore Scout just because it's "bad". On an engine board with no other filterer than Scout, why would i not want to buy one?

[Robz888]

In conclusion, I won't say it's the best $4 card, but it is a pretty powerful one. Join the fight to make Scout NOT The Worst Card Ever!

What *is* the worst card in your opinion? There has to be one. Scout rarely shines.  In your example I'd most likely rather have had a silver at any point before that turn.

Why does there have to be a *worst card* Scout is useful in more instances than most of you guys think of. I 've seen a lot of players ignore Scout just because it's "bad". On an engine board with no other filterer than Scout, why would i not want to buy one?

Because there are two cards that you can always buy instead, and would usually prefer:

1) Silver
2) Nothing

[Nik]

In conclusion, I won't say it's the best $4 card, but it is a pretty powerful one. Join the fight to make Scout NOT The Worst Card Ever!

What *is* the worst card in your opinion? There has to be one. Scout rarely shines.  In your example I'd most likely rather have had a silver at any point before that turn.

For me, it's a tie between Workshop and Duchess. On one hand, you don't want Workshops because there's only a need at the start of the game to get 4s; but then again, you don't want a billion Duchesses clouding up your deck.

[manthos88]

Scout/Crossroads is a famous nombo. Scout is just as likely to pull green cars out of a future Crossroads hands than it is to pair green cards with Crossroads, and basically any point at which you could have bought Scout, you would actually just be better off buying another Crossroads.

That is not always true. I mean, you won't just buy Scouts and Crossroads. This is something that probably won't work. But on a trimmed deck, Scout can easily net 2-3 Victory cards for your more-than-1 Crossroads to feed on.

[markusin]

In conclusion, I won't say it's the best $4 card, but it is a pretty powerful one. Join the fight to make Scout NOT The Worst Card Ever!

What *is* the worst card in your opinion? There has to be one. Scout rarely shines.  In your example I'd most likely rather have had a silver at any point before that turn.

Why does there have to be a *worst card* Scout is useful in more instances than most of you guys think of. I 've seen a lot of players ignore Scout just because it's "bad". On an engine board with no other filterer than Scout, why would i not want to buy one?

I think that we, as a whole, HAVE though of the instances where Scout could is good. We've tried really hard to find situations where Scout is good, and justification for why it isn't the worst card. But then, we're disappointed because Scout is still terrible in the instances it was supposed to be good in.

I remember reading that Scout/Nobles beats Big-Money-Ultimate, but loses to pure Nobles. Is that right?

Well anyway, it seems like it's better to have an extra copy of the hybrid VP card you want Scout to pick up than to have the Scout. Even Silver helps you do that, but not before it helps you throughout the entire game in a way Scout can only dream of doing.

[manthos88]

In conclusion, I won't say it's the best $4 card, but it is a pretty powerful one. Join the fight to make Scout NOT The Worst Card Ever!

What *is* the worst card in your opinion? There has to be one. Scout rarely shines.  In your example I'd most likely rather have had a silver at any point before that turn.

Why does there have to be a *worst card* Scout is useful in more instances than most of you guys think of. I 've seen a lot of players ignore Scout just because it's "bad". On an engine board with no other filterer than Scout, why would i not want to buy one?

Because there are two cards that you can always buy instead, and would usually prefer:

1) Silver
2) Nothing

I would. Why would i want to buy a card that can't draw more cards if i don't need it? Silver clogs me up. Scout has good chances to help me.

[markusin]

In conclusion, I won't say it's the best $4 card, but it is a pretty powerful one. Join the fight to make Scout NOT The Worst Card Ever!

What *is* the worst card in your opinion? There has to be one. Scout rarely shines.  In your example I'd most likely rather have had a silver at any point before that turn.

Why does there have to be a *worst card* Scout is useful in more instances than most of you guys think of. I 've seen a lot of players ignore Scout just because it's "bad". On an engine board with no other filterer than Scout, why would i not want to buy one?

Because there are two cards that you can always buy instead, and would usually prefer:

1) Silver
2) Nothing

I would. Why would i want to buy a card that can't draw more cards if i don't need it. Silver clogs me up. Scout has good chances to help me.

...By drawing VP cards? If anything, that helps you next turn. There might not be a next turn. You know what else clogs your deck. VP CARDS, the same ones you want Scout to pick up.

I really didn't want to vote "no, it's terrible", but seeing as how I ranked it last for the Dominion card list I had no choice. Apparently, I really do think it's the worst card.

[markusin]

It's really helpful to realize that, in order for Scout to draw at least 1 card on average, you need to have 25% of your deck be VP cards. You start the game with only 30% VP of your deck as VP cards. Add just 3 non-VP cards to it and you're below 25%. In your typical game, once you reach 25% VP cards again, it'll be so late in the game that you'll probably want to gain Estate over Scout.

[GeoLib]

Guys, this has to be a joke. First time poster claiming Scout is the best. Goko account with no logged games ever.

[manthos88]

I remember reading that Scout/Nobles beats Big-Money-Ultimate, but loses to pure Nobles. Is that right?

Why would someone go for Scout/Nobles? This doesn't make sense. Simulators don't really help here. I'm talking about picking up Scout as a filterer in an engine.

Well anyway, it seems like it's better to have an extra copy of the hybrid VP card you want Scout to pick up than to have the Scout. Even Silver helps you do that, but not before it helps you throughout the entire game in a way Scout can only dream of doing.

This is not true on a trimmed Deck. I don't know what you guys say, but i definetely feel good when Scout picks up 2-3 Victory cards for me. And Silver is, of course, better than Scout early game. But late game it's different.

[markusin]

In conclusion, I won't say it's the best $4 card, but it is a pretty powerful one. Join the fight to make Scout NOT The Worst Card Ever!

What *is* the worst card in your opinion? There has to be one. Scout rarely shines.  In your example I'd most likely rather have had a silver at any point before that turn.

For me, it's a tie between Workshop and Duchess. On one hand, you don't want Workshops because there's only a need at the start of the game to get 4s; but then again, you don't want a billion Duchesses clouding up your deck.

Well, Duchess is pretty terrible most of the time. Unless you're going for some sort of Slog (or Rebuild), you'll most probably not want the Duchess with the Duchy.

Workshop? Meh, depends on the board. It's gotten better as more expansions have come out, which encourage action-heavy decks even more. But it seems you even want one in the "First game" setup. Then again, if nothing on the board gives +actions and there's no Gardens/Silk Road, it's probably terrible there.

[markusin]

Well anyway, it seems like it's better to have an extra copy of the hybrid VP card you want Scout to pick up than to have the Scout. Even Silver helps you do that, but not before it helps you throughout the entire game in a way Scout can only dream of doing.

This is not true on a trimmed Deck. I don't know what you guys say, but i definetely feel good when Scout picks up 2-3 Victory cards for me. And Silver is, of course, better than Scout early game. But late game it's different.

Why does a trimmed deck need Scout? It's trimmed and presumable engine-y enough pick up those 2-3 VP cards without Scout, right? Unless it's not trimmed after all and actually averages to like 20% of the deck in the hand a turn.

Again, Scout would be great if it was guaranteed to draw at least 2 VP cards in a deck that isn't already 90% VP cards already. But it's not guaranteed to do that. Not at all. Scout is the kind of card that, if you gain a couple, can very well make you lose a game you had a lead in and would have otherwise won.

I don't know why I'm being so harsh on Scout today. This is the first time I've actively bashed it. Really.

[heron]

Scout:

When you have no victory cards: Aw man, why are my hands all filled up with useless Scouts?

When you have a few victory cards: Aw man, why are my hands all filled up with useless Scouts and green?

When you have a lot of victory cards: Well, note that Scout is generally not better than a victory card in your hand unless it draws two green (I am excepting alt-vp and ordering importance right now). That means you need to have at least a third of you cards be victory cards. This doesn't really happen unless the game is about to end. In which case why are you buying Scout instead of green cards.

[LastFootnote]

On one hand, you don't want Workshops because there's only a need at the start of the game to get 4s;

This dubious claim made me realize you were this guy: http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/27685/ranking-the-dominion-cards-by-mechanics-part-i-the

Scout isn't worthless, but the problem is you have to buy or otherwise gain it and almost anything else would be better. Scout is underpowered. I maintain that if it gave +$1, it would probably be a decent $4 card. Not great, but not terrible like it currently is.

[GeoLib]

On one hand, you don't want Workshops because there's only a need at the start of the game to get 4s;

This dubious claim made me realize you were this guy: http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/27685/ranking-the-dominion-cards-by-mechanics-part-i-the

Scout isn't worthless, but the problem is you have to buy or otherwise gain it and almost anything else would be better. Scout is underpowered. I maintain that if it gave +$1, it would probably be a decent $4 card. Not great, but not terrible like it currently is.

Wait. Oh my god. Is this for real? I was so sure. I just looked at the log search with rating "any." It looks like this is a real Goko username, but the only games have been adventures. I'm still not convinced that this isn't just a long-con trolling though based on the bgg post.

[LastFootnote]

On one hand, you don't want Workshops because there's only a need at the start of the game to get 4s;

This dubious claim made me realize you were this guy: http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/27685/ranking-the-dominion-cards-by-mechanics-part-i-the

Scout isn't worthless, but the problem is you have to buy or otherwise gain it and almost anything else would be better. Scout is underpowered. I maintain that if it gave +$1, it would probably be a decent $4 card. Not great, but not terrible like it currently is.

Wait. Oh my god. Is this for real? I was so sure. I just looked at the log search with rating "any." It looks like this is a real Goko username, but the only games have been adventures. I'm still not convinced that this isn't just a long-con trolling though based on the bgg post.

C'mon, dude. Is it that hard to believe that some guy starts getting into Dominion, plays a bunch of it, then wants to share his insights with the internet at large?

[GeoLib]

On one hand, you don't want Workshops because there's only a need at the start of the game to get 4s;

This dubious claim made me realize you were this guy: http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/27685/ranking-the-dominion-cards-by-mechanics-part-i-the

Scout isn't worthless, but the problem is you have to buy or otherwise gain it and almost anything else would be better. Scout is underpowered. I maintain that if it gave +$1, it would probably be a decent $4 card. Not great, but not terrible like it currently is.

Wait. Oh my god. Is this for real? I was so sure. I just looked at the log search with rating "any." It looks like this is a real Goko username, but the only games have been adventures. I'm still not convinced that this isn't just a long-con trolling though based on the bgg post.

C'mon, dude. Is it that hard to believe that some guy starts getting into Dominion, plays a bunch of it, then wants to share his insights with the internet at large?

No, but it seems unlikely that someone would register here and on their first post write an article that uses the biggest f.ds in-joke. At least less likely than an existing member creating an alt for trolling. Robz obviously thought the latter would appear to be the most likely explanation

[JacquesTheBard]

This is backwards Poe's Law: someone is taking an opinion so unpopular that it is inevitably mistaken for parody. His claim here is not that Scout rocks, but merely that it's not bad, which is a very tricky thing to contest. We've all seen "nobody" cards like Chancellor be useful in one game out of 10 or so. And to be fair, Silverspawn's post about Lookout being the best 3-cost trasher was much sillier than this.

Our good arguer here is mistaken, naturally, but Scout's position as the weakest demonstrates, if anything, just how perfectly functional most of Dominion's cards are.

On an unrelated note, Workshop is beautiful. It's served me well as an engine payload in the past, it helps with lack of +buy... heck, the only thing I can say against it is that it's strictly worse than Ironworks, which isn't much of a criticism.

[A Drowned Kernel]

On one hand, you don't want Workshops because there's only a need at the start of the game to get 4s;

This dubious claim made me realize you were this guy: http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/27685/ranking-the-dominion-cards-by-mechanics-part-i-the

Scout isn't worthless, but the problem is you have to buy or otherwise gain it and almost anything else would be better. Scout is underpowered. I maintain that if it gave +$1, it would probably be a decent $4 card. Not great, but not terrible like it currently is.

At least he's caught on to the fact that Bureaucrat is one of the best cards in Dominion.

[KingZog3]

On one hand, you don't want Workshops because there's only a need at the start of the game to get 4s;

This dubious claim made me realize you were this guy: http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/27685/ranking-the-dominion-cards-by-mechanics-part-i-the

Scout isn't worthless, but the problem is you have to buy or otherwise gain it and almost anything else would be better. Scout is underpowered. I maintain that if it gave +$1, it would probably be a decent $4 card. Not great, but not terrible like it currently is.

At least he's caught on to the fact that Bureaucrat is one of the best cards in Dominion.

and that Adventurer is like Library.

[A Drowned Kernel]

And Moneylender is great for the late game.

[Robz888]

And Festival, when paired with Laboratory, is amazing.

[GeoLib]

This is backwards Poe's Law: someone is taking an opinion so unpopular that it is inevitably mistaken for parody. His claim here is not that Scout rocks, but merely that it's not bad, which is a very tricky thing to contest.

What about this claim:

It interacts amazingly with +card cards.

And the subsequent contrived example.

Or

Interacts well with: ... Big Money...

Or

it is a pretty powerful one

Nik, I'm sorry for bashing your opinions (If you are a real separate person), but the combined experience of f.ds has concluded that Scout is one of the worst, if not the worst card in the whole game. It's not an arbitrary opinion. Many of us really wanted it to work. It's a cool idea. Unfortunately, it's just so very very extremely rarely useful. I can construct situations in which it would help to have a scout in hand, I can probably construct some boards in which it isn't even a bad thing to buy over silver, but the first set is small and the second set is going to be cherry picking like crazy (great hall, harem, nobles, mystic, wishing well,...) and so rare in all of the ~10^16 different possible boards that it hardly even matters. See some of the arguments above to understand why it just isn't very good.

[rrenaud]

C'mon, no one links to data?  Players who gain Scout when Crossroads AND Nobles are available win less than you'd expect them to at random (though within margin of error).

Data confirms it, even when scout has super friendly combos, it still kind of sucks.

http://councilroom.com/supply_win?&targets=Scout&interaction=Action%26%26Victory%2CTreasure%26%26Victory%2CCrossroads&nested=true&unconditional=true

[Davio]

Scout is not bad, it's just expensive.

I think it's clearly a $2 card, but somehow it costs more than Silver.

Or it could cost $4 but should have +1 Card on it.

[RTT]

Scout is not the worst card in Dominion... the worst card is Curse. I´d rather like to get a scout ambassadored then a curse.

[DStu]

Scout is not the worst card in Dominion... the worst card is Curse. I´d rather like to get a scout ambassadored then a curse.

But Curse only costs $0, while Scout costs $4, and you can even gain it for free in tricking your opponents to play Witches...

I think most things have been said, but anyway:
Of course Scout is not completely useless, and of course you can lose a game by ignoring it because it is a 'bad' card.  In a game, you should never judge a card by if it's strong or weak on average, but if it fits your strategy.
Scout can clean up Apothecary and Scrying Pools, but as said, the main weakness (in contrast to Duchess) is that it usually takes a buy and $4 to be gained, and the situations where it's better than having nothing (let alone something else for $4) in the deck are very rare.  They exists, and situations where you have a spare $4gain also exists, but they are rare.
In contrast, Workshop gives you exactly this $4gain, which can be very very welcome in building engines, especially if you are on low economy thanks to strong trashing.
And Duchess does not have the problem of costing coins and a buy/gain, but they might come for free with Duchies.  Especially in slogs you have that Duchies are important and the filtering might be helpfull to you (maybe more than to your opponent if they don't mirror you), and an additional terminal Silver in the deck is welcome.  So I see a clear spot for Duchess in the game, in addition to all the niche usages one can think of (need terminal Silver for KC and nothing else on the deck, playing Scrying Pool with Fishing Villages and need terminal Silver, etc.pp.).
Scout in contrast only has these niche usages. Of course, if they appear, one should use it, but every scenario that seems generic for Scout (Alt-VP, XR) turns out to be usually better of without him.

[terminalCopper]

Scout is not the worst card in Dominion... the worst card is Curse.

That makes me think of a Card I would love to playtest - I think, at 3, it would be pretty decent:

Cynical Witch

+2 Cards

Each Opponent gains a Scout.

[timchen]

Scout/Crossroads is a famous nombo. Scout is just as likely to pull green cars out of a future Crossroads hands than it is to pair green cards with Crossroads, and basically any point at which you could have bought Scout, you would actually just be better off buying another Crossroads.

Actually this point is not quite right. When you have two or more Crossroads/Scouts in hand, you would probably want to have exactly one of them being scout, as the first scout can draw you the number of green cards in the next 4 cards instead of the 3 or less non-Scout/Crossroads cards in hand which in average contains fewer green cards.

On the other hand, hands with no crossroads and scouts only would be pretty disgusting so I am not sure mixing the scouts is good in average. For the strategy to work in the first place you would probably need some other draw support anyway; in this case Crossroads is plainly better.

[Davio]

In order to have a useful Scout in your deck, I think you should use all aspects of it: The drawing of VP cards ánd the reordering, not one or the other. Imagine a Grand Market chain which gets clogged with the Provinces and Duchies you are now buying, you would love to have a Scout to draw your VP cards and put other stop cards at the end of the chain.

So there certainly are decks that benefit from a free Scout, but like DStu says: When do you buy it? I guess in my example if you hit $12 you might buy Province-Scout? The problem with these end-game cards is that you rarely have time to buy them.

Other end-game cards are useful earlier, like Salvager, the Remodelers, Death Cart, etc..
Crossroads is another end-game card, but it costs only $2 and that's a big difference.

[amalloy]

Workshop is [...] strictly worse than Ironworks.

Edge case? You need to gain an Estate but are at the bottom of a shuffle you can't afford to trigger.

[Awaclus]

Workshop is [...] strictly worse than Ironworks.

Edge case? You need to gain an Estate but are at the bottom of a shuffle you can't afford to trigger.

Another edge case: you have $3 in your buy phase.

[RTT]

Workshop is [...] strictly worse than Ironworks.

Edge case? You need to gain an Estate but are at the bottom of a shuffle you can't afford to trigger.

another edge case : you only have 3$ to spend.(no highways,Bridges,Princess or Quarry played :p)
then workshop is strictly better because you can afford it.

[Zappie]

I love how the op says contrasting things in his post in boardgamegeek, this one really stands out to me:

Workshop--Cost: 3 Type: Action Subtype: Other
Terrible. You generally only need 4s at the start of the game, so it is useful only for maybe the first three turns. 1/5

Throne Room--Cost: 4 Type: Action Subtype: Other
There is maybe one card that the Throne Room doesn't work well with. Otherwise, the Throne Room is just perfect. 5/5.

Though in a lot of other comments i can recognise myself in a long long time ago.

[Grujah]

It's really helpful to realize that, in order for Scout to draw at least 1 card on average, you need to have 25% of your deck be VP cards. You start the game with only 30% VP of your deck as VP cards. Add just 3 non-VP cards to it and you're below 25%. In your typical game, once you reach 25% VP cards again, it'll be so late in the game that you'll probably want to gain Estate over Scout.

This is what seals it, really. Scout needs for your deck to be 50% Victory cards for it to be, on average, a Lab that draws only Victories. And that is NOT good, 98% of the time.

[Nik]

Guys, really, I'm really a person. I just haven't played Goko online, only done the adventures. I am, by the way, indeed DominionGuy.
It turns out, I've been wrong about a lot of things. I've come to like Adventurer. I've come to like Moneylender.
But my Scout opinion has not changed. Come on, let's make Scout the second worst card in Dominion!

[Zappie]

To make it the second worse card in the game i think you try and compare it adventurer, transmute or harvest

[WanderingWinder]

To make it the second worse card in the game i think you try and compare it adventurer, transmute or harvest

I think you would need to convince Donald X. to make the next promo really really really dreadful.


One of the testaments to how bad scout is is that it's very difficult to DESIGN a kingdom where it's a significantly better card than ruined village (i.e. it isn't just some random action that does nothing for you but might be nice for fairgrounds, vineyard, etc.) I'v seen a lot of people try, and then you play the game and... it turns out optimal strategy ignores scout still....

[Nik]

To make it the second worse card in the game i think you try and compare it adventurer, transmute or harvest

Adventurer is bad because it can hurt your next turn. (Discarding Actions.)
Transmute is only good if you turn up a Victory, otherwise it clouds up your deck.
And Harvest is okay, it just needs to be worth $3.

[Davio]

Adventurer's discarding is a wash, it can also discard Curses and VP cards.
Transmute's main problem is that it appears without other Potion-costing cards - the Alchemy rules advise you to use 3-5 Potion cards.
Harvest at $3 would be way too good, even at $4 it could be somewhat strong, it's just not that flashy.

[Awaclus]

In the defense of Scout: on CouncilRoom.com, Thief, Counting House, Transmute, Coppersmith, Bureaucrat, Pirate Ship, Saboteur, Chancellor, Contraband, Philosopher's Stone, Talisman, Workshop, Mandarin, Noble Brigand, Secret Chamber and Cache all have worse Win Rate Withs than Scout. On the other hand, Curse still has a higher Win Rate With than Scout, so...

[RTT]

In the defense of Scout: on CouncilRoom.com, Thief, Counting House, Transmute, Coppersmith, Bureaucrat, Pirate Ship, Saboteur, Chancellor, Contraband, Philosopher's Stone, Talisman, Workshop, Mandarin, Noble Brigand, Secret Chamber and Cache all have worse Win Rate Withs than Scout. On the other hand, Curse still has a higher Win Rate With than Scout, so...

curse doesnt really count.... you know there are those slogs with witch or seahag and simply no trasher around. both players have 4-6 curses in their decks. one of them still has to win so its 100% that on such boards the winner has a curs in his deck.

[Jimmmmm]

In the defense of Scout: on CouncilRoom.com, Thief, Counting House, Transmute, Coppersmith, Bureaucrat, Pirate Ship, Saboteur, Chancellor, Contraband, Philosopher's Stone, Talisman, Workshop, Mandarin, Noble Brigand, Secret Chamber and Cache all have worse Win Rate Withs than Scout. On the other hand, Curse still has a higher Win Rate With than Scout, so...

curse doesnt really count.... you know there are those slogs with witch or seahag and simply no trasher around. both players have 4-6 curses in their decks. one of them still has to win so its 100% that on such boards the winner has a curs in his deck.

Doesn't it only count when gained on your turn? The reason that Curse is higher than you might expect is because if you're buying a Curse to Ambassador to your opponent, empty piles etc, chances are you're in a good position already.

[markusin]

Guys, really, I'm really a person. I just haven't played Goko online, only done the adventures. I am, by the way, indeed DominionGuy.
It turns out, I've been wrong about a lot of things. I've come to like Adventurer. I've come to like Moneylender.
But my Scout opinion has not changed. Come on, let's make Scout the second worst card in Dominion!

Majority opinion is not absolute. Scout might not be the worst (kingdom?) card in Dominion.  It depends what you mean by worst. The issue with Scout is that it doesn't have much potential to be useful. However, there are other cards that have potential to be good, but are detrimental to your deck 95% of the time. Like, Scout is way better than Contraband if I have lots of Ventures.

To make it the second worse card in the game i think you try and compare it adventurer, transmute or harvest

Adventurer is bad because it can hurt your next turn. (Discarding Actions.)
Transmute is only good if you turn up a Victory, otherwise it clouds up your deck.
And Harvest is okay, it just needs to be worth $3.

Harvest can also discard action cards, but hopefully it discards Curses and other weak cards. It would be great if it cost $3, but it doesn't. It costs $5. So many awesome cards cost $5. Harvest really wants to be played with Throne Room and similar cards like that.

Edit: It's too bad, because I like Harvest and Scout as ideas. And Harvest is alright when it generates $4.

[LastFootnote]

I assume Nik meant that Harvest needs to generate $3 to be good, not to cost $3. Perhaps I misread.

Donald claims that Saboteur is the weakest card in Dominion relative to its cost. I guess this might be true, but it's still occasionally very useful. Scout costs significantly less, but is almost never useful.

Adventurer should topdeck a revealed Action card.
Harvest should topdeck one of the revealed cards.
Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

[Davio]

I think we can agree that designing cards is just very, very hard.

There are also many different tastes.

Some players might like bland helper cards which are useful on 90% on boards, while others might feel cheated that those cards provide nothing special.
And some players might like cards which are useless often, but shine on 10% of the boards.

I think I'm somewhere in between. It's fun to find uses for "useless" cards and it's fun to have some go-to cards.

[SirPeebles]

Scout is not the worst card in Dominion... the worst card is Curse. I´d rather like to get a scout ambassadored then a curse.

I can't tell if that's a typo or not.  Maybe it's a typo, and you meant to say that you'd rather be sent a Scout than a Curse.  Or maybe you're trying to say that a free Scout is good, so rather than just a Curse, you'd prefer to receive a Scout then a Curse.

[RTT]

Scout is not the worst card in Dominion... the worst card is Curse. I´d rather like to get a scout ambassadored then a curse.

I can't tell if that's a typo or not.  Maybe it's a typo, and you meant to say that you'd rather be sent a Scout than a Curse.  Or maybe you're trying to say that a free Scout is good, so rather than just a Curse, you'd prefer to receive a Scout then a Curse.

the first obviously and those mistakes are quite easy to make if your not a native english speaker(writer)

[DStu]

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

The problem here is that each other Alchemy card plays very well without this rule...

[LastFootnote]

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

The problem here is that each other Alchemy card plays very well without this rule...

Very well, or just acceptably? When was the last time you played a game against another human with 5 Alchemy cards? It's a whole different ball game.

Also, Philosopher's Stone.

[markusin]

I assume Nik meant that Harvest needs to generate $3 to be good, not to cost $3. Perhaps I misread.

Donald claims that Saboteur is the weakest card in Dominion relative to its cost. I guess this might be true, but it's still occasionally very useful. Scout costs significantly less, but is almost never useful.

Adventurer should topdeck a revealed Action card.
Harvest should topdeck one of the revealed cards.
Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

No, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who misread. He said "worth" 3.

Saboteur is strange. I recently played a 3 player Base-Intrigue game IRL that featured both Saboteur and Thief. No one's deck got anywhere in the end. When it became apparent that any Provinces bought would just get trashed by Sab, we just agreed to stop playing. I concluded that, in that game, Saboteur and Thief at best made the game a stalemate. they didn't actually increase anyone's odds of winning.

I agree with LastFootnote on Transmute being fine with other potion cards on the board. I usually play full random though.
If you play the Alchemy adventures, you'll eventually experience the joy of having 10 or so Alchemy cards on the board.

[LastFootnote]

I think we can agree that designing cards is just very, very hard.

Amen to that.

Some players might like bland helper cards which are useful on 90% on boards, while others might feel cheated that those cards provide nothing special.
And some players might like cards which are useless often, but shine on 10% of the boards.

I think I'm somewhere in between. It's fun to find uses for "useless" cards and it's fun to have some go-to cards.

Although niche cards tend to be my favorites, cards that are universally useful and spammable are definitely important. Even if a card is a no-brainer pickup at $3 or $4 and piles out extremely frequently (like Fishing Village, Caravan, Ironmonger, etc. often do), they still make the game much more interesting than picking up Silver with those buys. They inform your strategy. Caravan is on the board, so I prefer cards that benefit from a large handsize. Ironmonger is on the board, so I'll pick up Mystics and Great Halls. Fishing Village is on the board, so I can go crazy with terminal Actions.

I believe this is why Donald said he tries to have 6 or 7 cantrips in a 25-card set these days. Without them, you're buying Treasure or nothing with a lot of your buys, especially in the absence of villages.

Back to the topic at hand, the problem with Scout is that it's a niche card that's still not good even at its best. Some cards (like Counting House) are usually a bad investment, but are sometimes awesome. Scout is usually terrible and sometimes mediocre.

[LastFootnote]

Aaaaand, the BGG blog post has been taken down. Way to go, guys. You ridiculed him into submission.

Nik, I apologize for linking to your BGG post. I was not trying to say, "Look at this noob! Let's make fun of him." Although I'm hard pressed to remember why I did link it. I think I just had an "Aha!" moment when I realized you were the same guy and wanted to share. So again, apologies. I'm sorry you felt the need to retract your post. I personally always find the insights of new players interesting.

I would also like to thank you for starting this thread. Independent of your opinions about Scout, the fact is that without threads like these, there would be less talk about actual Dominion on this board these days. So without any sarcasm, thank you.

[GeoLib]

I would also like to apologize for accusing you of not being a real person. "Hey guys! Scout is awesome!!" is a pretty common joke on this forum, and when a log search didn't turn up any games I assumed your post was from someone's alt account.

We were all new once. Before I discovered f.ds, I was convinced that village was OP at $3 and that chapel was only useful as a late-game buy to trash curses from witch.

Please continue posting on this forum and playing on Goko. I also suggest checking out the articles section of the forum.

I suspect that with more experience you'll change your opinion on scout, but thank you for posting here.

[DStu]

I would also like to thank you for starting this thread. Independent of your opinions about Scout, the fact is that without threads like these, there would be less talk about actual Dominion on this board these days. So without any sarcasm, thank you.

qft

[Nik]

No, it's not you guys' fault. That post hasn't only haunted haunted me on here, and I've realized that I've been wrong about a few things. Don't worry, I'll do it again. 

[DStu]

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

The problem here is that each other Alchemy card plays very well without this rule...

Very well, or just acceptably? When was the last time you played a game against another human with 5 Alchemy cards? It's a whole different ball game.

Also, Philosopher's Stone.

Very well. Except maybe Golem, but they can't all be the best $4P card ever.
They all are used frequently, and it's a decision to go for the Potion and not a "I need the Potion anyway because I buy cards".

Philosopher's Stone doesn't fit well to the other Potion cards anyway, I think its best played sloggy, while every other Potion card screams engine.  I don't think having more Potion cards in the kingdom increases its strength on average.

[LastFootnote]

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

The problem here is that each other Alchemy card plays very well without this rule...

Very well, or just acceptably? When was the last time you played a game against another human with 5 Alchemy cards? It's a whole different ball game.

Also, Philosopher's Stone.

Very well. Except maybe Golem, but they can't all be the best $4P card ever.
They all are used frequently, and it's a decision to go for the Potion and not a "I need the Potion anyway because I buy cards".

What you're missing here is that the decision "Do I go for a Potion?" is replaced by "How many Potions do I want?" The answer can sometimes be zero, even in such games, but it's also sometimes 2 or more.

Philosopher's Stone doesn't fit well to the other Potion cards anyway, I think its best played sloggy, while every other Potion card screams engine.  I don't think having more Potion cards in the kingdom increases its strength on average.

Ah, but you didn't answer my question. Have you actually played such games, or are you just theorizing? In my experience, the fact that you already have a Potion to buy the Philosopher's Stone tends to outweigh the fact that many of the Potion cards are engine-y. If you're building a Scrying Pool or Alchemist deck, then yeah, you probably don't want Philosopher's Stone. Barring those two, it's often a good purchase.

[DStu]

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

The problem here is that each other Alchemy card plays very well without this rule...

Very well, or just acceptably? When was the last time you played a game against another human with 5 Alchemy cards? It's a whole different ball game.

Also, Philosopher's Stone.

Very well. Except maybe Golem, but they can't all be the best $4P card ever.
They all are used frequently, and it's a decision to go for the Potion and not a "I need the Potion anyway because I buy cards".

What you're missing here is that the decision "Do I go for a Potion?" is replaced by "How many Potions do I want?" The answer can sometimes be zero, even in such games, but it's also sometimes 2 or more.

Philosopher's Stone doesn't fit well to the other Potion cards anyway, I think its best played sloggy, while every other Potion card screams engine.  I don't think having more Potion cards in the kingdom increases its strength on average.

Ah, but you didn't answer my question. Have you actually played such games, or are you just theorizing? In my experience, the fact that you already have a Potion to buy the Philosopher's Stone tends to outweigh the fact that many of the Potion cards are engine-y. If you're building a Scrying Pool or Alchemist deck, then yeah, you probably don't want Philosopher's Stone. Barring those two, it's often a good purchase.

I have played lots of 3++ Potion card games back when iso enforced the rule.  But that's a long time ago. For me, Alchemy was often too dominiating at these board, exactly because most of the cards get enough attention already when they are alone.

I can see that these games can also be fun and interesting, I think it comes most down to the fact that the rule is unneccessary (as these cards are not dead without it), and excludes interesting kingdoms, so for simplicity reasons I like it better without it.

Edit: Or better said, I don't like it as a default, of course you can get interesting (and non-standard type of) games by enforcing rules on the kingdom composition.  And I might agree that this one is one to try out.

[Awaclus]

Very well. Except maybe Golem, but they can't all be the best $4P card ever.

I see what you did there!

[LastFootnote]

I have played lots of 3++ Potion card games back when iso enforced the rule.  But that's a long time ago. For me, Alchemy was often too dominiating at these board, exactly because most of the cards get enough attention already when they are alone.

I can see that these games can also be fun and interesting, I think it comes most down to the fact that the rule is unneccessary (as these cards are not dead without it), and excludes interesting kingdoms, so for simplicity reasons I like it better without it.

Edit: Or better said, I don't like it as a default, of course you can get interesting (and non-standard type of) games by enforcing rules on the kingdom composition.  And I might agree that this one is one to try out.

As far as simplicity goes, I play all my Unrated and Casual games (the bulk of my games in other words) with 5 cards each from two sets. So the Alchemy "suggestion" gets enforced automatically without the need for a special rule.

Philosopher's Stone combos quite well with a good number of Alchemy cards and doesn't nombo with most others. Herbalist/Philosopher's Stone is a well-documented combo. Philosopher's Stone is a crucial card on Familiar boards without good Curse trashing. University gains cards. Sometimes these cards have big card draw, but sometimes they don't. When they don't, Philosopher's Stone is a great pickup. Apothecary and Philosopher's Stone don't combo per se, but they both like having a deck full of Copper and when they collide it's not the end of the world. Fighting Possession sometimes makes you want a slog-type deck where Philosopher's Stone shines. Vineyards decks are sometimes just a mess of cheap Actions like Herbalists, which P.Stone likes fine. Golem and Transmute are pretty neutral. So, yeah. It's pretty much Alchemist, Apprentice, and Scrying Pool that don't like P.Stone. Which isn't ideal, but it's far from the catastrophe people make it out to be.

[sudgy]

Scout is not the worst card in Dominion... the worst card is Curse. I´d rather like to get a scout ambassadored then a curse.

I can't tell if that's a typo or not.  Maybe it's a typo, and you meant to say that you'd rather be sent a Scout than a Curse.  Or maybe you're trying to say that a free Scout is good, so rather than just a Curse, you'd prefer to receive a Scout then a Curse.

the first obviously and those mistakes are quite easy to make if your not a native english speaker(writer)

you're*

[LastFootnote]

Let me put this another way. Treasures are not among the most powerful cards, but it's not hard to build a deck where Philosopher's Stones are worth $6 or $7. That's a lot. The problem is that without other Potion-cost cards, it's a three-step process to get the benefit of them, and you don't want to start the process early because P.Stone is bad early on. Buy the Potion. Next shuffle, buy the P.Stone. Next shuffle, play it. In the kind of deck where P.Stone shines, each shuffle can take a long time. Too long.

It's sort of like Thief. It's not a good early buy because you'll mostly be hitting Copper and it doesn't help you reach $5. It hurts. But once you do buy it, it's three steps to see the Treasure you stole. Buy the Thief. Next shuffle, play the Thief and steal Treasure. Next shuffle, play the Treasure. Too slow. Noble Brigand is better. It attacks immediately upon purchase, cutting a whole shuffle out of the equation.

In a game with other Potion cards you want, P.Stone is only a two-step proposition, like most cards. You spend your early Potion buys on other stuff. It's mid-game. You buy the P.Stone. Next shuffle, you play it. Profit.

[shark_bait]

Fighting Possession sometimes makes you want a slog-type deck where Philosopher's Stone shines.

A good Possession deck plays Possession at a rate > 1 Possession/Turn.  Therefore, your PS is more likely to be played by your opponent.  Yes you normally want a slog deck, but you would rather get your good green before the Possessions kick in and then have a deck that is incapable of generating good hands.  With PS in deck you will have a good hand every once in a while making Possession be a very viable threat still.

[matste]

Workshop is [...] strictly worse than Ironworks.

Edge case? You need to gain an Estate but are at the bottom of a shuffle you can't afford to trigger.

another edge case : you only have 3$ to spend.(no highways,Bridges,Princess or Quarry played :p)
then workshop is strictly better because you can afford it.

Another edge case(related to the topic): your opponent is playing a lot of Swindlers and Scout is in the kingdom.

[eHalcyon]

On an engine board with no other filterer than Scout, why would i not want to buy one?

I don't think anyone answered this question.  You wouldn't want to buy Scout because you are much better served buying another actual engine piece, like a village or Smithy or or even a Woodcutter.

[timchen]

I think we can agree that designing cards is just very, very hard.

There are also many different tastes.

Some players might like bland helper cards which are useful on 90% on boards, while others might feel cheated that those cards provide nothing special.
And some players might like cards which are useless often, but shine on 10% of the boards.

I think I'm somewhere in between. It's fun to find uses for "useless" cards and it's fun to have some go-to cards.

Speaking of designing cards, actually there seems to be a good way to improve scout by enlarging its variance:

EDIT: +1 action added...

Super Scout
$4 Action

+1 Action
Reveal the top card on your deck. If it is a VP card, put it into your hand, then +3 cards.


Looks like a fine card to me!

[KingZog3]

I think we can agree that designing cards is just very, very hard.

There are also many different tastes.

Some players might like bland helper cards which are useful on 90% on boards, while others might feel cheated that those cards provide nothing special.
And some players might like cards which are useless often, but shine on 10% of the boards.

I think I'm somewhere in between. It's fun to find uses for "useless" cards and it's fun to have some go-to cards.

Speaking of designing cards, actually there seems to be a good way to improve scout by enlarging its variance:

Super Scout
$4 Action

Reveal the top card on your deck. If it is a VP card, put it into your hand, then +3 cards.


Looks like a fine card to me!

Totally better than Smithy.

[Robz888]

I think we can agree that designing cards is just very, very hard.

There are also many different tastes.

Some players might like bland helper cards which are useful on 90% on boards, while others might feel cheated that those cards provide nothing special.
And some players might like cards which are useless often, but shine on 10% of the boards.

I think I'm somewhere in between. It's fun to find uses for "useless" cards and it's fun to have some go-to cards.

Speaking of designing cards, actually there seems to be a good way to improve scout by enlarging its variance:

Super Scout
$4 Action

Reveal the top card on your deck. If it is a VP card, put it into your hand, then +3 cards.


Looks like a fine card to me!

Except it's strictly worse than Smithy.

Hint: You didn't give it a +1 Action

[eHalcyon]

I think we can agree that designing cards is just very, very hard.

There are also many different tastes.

Some players might like bland helper cards which are useful on 90% on boards, while others might feel cheated that those cards provide nothing special.
And some players might like cards which are useless often, but shine on 10% of the boards.

I think I'm somewhere in between. It's fun to find uses for "useless" cards and it's fun to have some go-to cards.

Speaking of designing cards, actually there seems to be a good way to improve scout by enlarging its variance:

Super Scout
$4 Action

Reveal the top card on your deck. If it is a VP card, put it into your hand, then +3 cards.


Looks like a fine card to me!

Except it's strictly worse than Smithy.

Hint: You didn't give it a +1 Action

It's not strictly worse.  You also get the VP card in hand, so the net result is +4 cards.  Moreover, Super Scout would draw 3 average cards while Smithy only draws 2, if you count that Victory card that was on top.  Super Scout is thus much better than Smithy if you reveal green.

However, it's usually worse than Smithy because it is so unreliable and will whiff more often than not.

[Holger]

I think we can agree that designing cards is just very, very hard.

There are also many different tastes.

Some players might like bland helper cards which are useful on 90% on boards, while others might feel cheated that those cards provide nothing special.
And some players might like cards which are useless often, but shine on 10% of the boards.

I think I'm somewhere in between. It's fun to find uses for "useless" cards and it's fun to have some go-to cards.

Speaking of designing cards, actually there seems to be a good way to improve scout by enlarging its variance:

Super Scout
$4 Action

Reveal the top card on your deck. If it is a VP card, put it into your hand, then +3 cards.


Looks like a fine card to me!

I'm not sure it's even better than the actual Scout. Unless you have 50% green cards in your deck (or played deck sifters before), this is worse than Moat on average; I don't think the larger variance helps it that much (you can never draw more than three non-green cards with it). And it has little in common with the printed Scout...

[Bridge builder]

I actually won a game with scout today.

Not kidding or trolling. i bought workshop and started making great halls. after i had all 10 of them i bought some scouts, and managed to build a engine that won big money. ( scout was the only draw card.)

probably still not the optimal strategy but worked suprisingly well. and i wasn't playing against a really good player so that might have been why.

[Holger]

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

Scout would also be more viable if you always required at least 3-5 Intrigue cards in a kingdom containing Scout. Or require at least one hybrid VP card ...

[SirPeebles]

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

Scout would also be more viable if you always required at least 3-5 Intrigue cards in a kingdom containing Scout. Or require at least one hybrid VP card ...

Perhaps.  But there's a difference between "more viable" and "fine".

[Holger]

Transmute is fine. People just need to play games with more than one Alchemy card at a time.

Scout would also be more viable if you always required at least 3-5 Intrigue cards in a kingdom containing Scout. Or require at least one hybrid VP card ...

Perhaps.  But there's a difference between "more viable" and "fine".

Of course. I don't actually consider Transmute "fine" even in Alchemy-heavy sets, though - I usually only buy it when I have a potion and can't afford another potion-cost card, which is not so common...

[timchen]

I think we can agree that designing cards is just very, very hard.

There are also many different tastes.

Some players might like bland helper cards which are useful on 90% on boards, while others might feel cheated that those cards provide nothing special.
And some players might like cards which are useless often, but shine on 10% of the boards.

I think I'm somewhere in between. It's fun to find uses for "useless" cards and it's fun to have some go-to cards.

Speaking of designing cards, actually there seems to be a good way to improve scout by enlarging its variance:

Super Scout
$4 Action

Reveal the top card on your deck. If it is a VP card, put it into your hand, then +3 cards.


Looks like a fine card to me!

Except it's strictly worse than Smithy.

Hint: You didn't give it a +1 Action

Fixed.

I did mean to have +1 action there in the first place as the original scout. I don't think the card is overpowered. It's just awesome when you have ways to make sure you have a VP card on the top your deck.

[DStu]

Im a bitt drunbk, but that now looks like a doubleLabWithABonusFor4 to me

[Awaclus]

Im a bitt drunbk, but that now looks like a doubleLabWithABonusFor4 to me

You don't get the +3 cards unless the top card is a Victory card.

[Kirian]

Im a bitt drunbk

So it would appear.

[jonts26]

Im a bitt drunbk

So it would appear.

But he did spell doubleLabWithABonusFor4 correctly.

[Awaclus]

Im a bitt drunbk

So it would appear.

But he did spell doubleLabWithABonusFor4 correctly.

He also did spell Im a bitt drunbk correctly.

[silverspawn]

can i just say that the poll is stupid? i voted no, because i think transfusion is worse than scout. but that's not what the TE said, i still think scout is the second worst card in the game.

[RTT]

can i just say that the poll is stupid? i voted no, because i think transfusion is worse than scout. but that's not what the TE said, i still think scout is the second worst card in the game.

yep the Poll is pretty senseless. I voted yes because Curse is worse than scout...

Btw. you mean Transmute? right? not Transfusion!

Also having a Negative Statement in the question and then a yes no answer is pretty confusing.

[SirPeebles]

Im a bitt drunbk

So it would appear.

But he did spell doubleLabWithABonusFor4 correctly.

Probably autocorrect.

[Nik]

Im a bitt drunbk

So it would appear.

But he did spell doubleLabWithABonusFor4 correctly.

Probably autocorrect.

If it was autocorrect, it would have corrected drunbk...

[markusin]

Im a bitt drunbk

So it would appear.

But he did spell doubleLabWithABonusFor4 correctly.

Probably autocorrect.

If it was autocorrect, it would have corrected drunbk...

He also did spell Im a bitt drunbk correctly.

[markusin]

can i just say that the poll is stupid? i voted no, because i think transfusion is worse than scout. but that's not what the TE said, i still think scout is the second worst card in the game.

yep the Poll is pretty senseless. I voted yes because Curse is worse than scout...

Btw. you mean Transmute? right? not Transfusion!

Also having a Negative Statement in the question and then a yes no answer is pretty confusing.

Thinking about it more, the "not" in the question isn't really a proper negation.

"Are you not tired, sir?"
"Indeed I am tired, child".

[sitnaltax]

I tried to come up with a promo that would specifically work well with Scout. It wants to cost $3 so you can open X/Scout and people don't just spend all game wishing they had access to Cartographer instead. Something like:

Prospector
Action - $3

You may discard any number of Victory cards from your hand. For each one you discard, +$1.
Reveal the top four cards of your deck. If none of them are Victory cards, gain two Silvers. Discard the cards revealed.

Trouble with this is that it's fantastic if you manage to collide your Scout and Prospector, and terrible if you don't, like opening TR/Swindler. Maybe something that lets you trash it for a card that costs $4 so you can gain Scouts with it when you need them without having to find the +Buy in some later turn?

[RTT]

I tried to come up with a promo that would specifically work well with Scout. It wants to cost $3 so you can open X/Scout and people don't just spend all game wishing they had access to Cartographer instead. Something like:

Prospector
Action - $3

You may discard any number of Victory cards from your hand. For each one you discard, +$1.
Reveal the top four cards of your deck. If none of them are Victory cards, gain two Silvers. Discard the cards revealed.

Trouble with this is that it's fantastic if you manage to collide your Scout and Prospector, and terrible if you don't, like opening TR/Swindler. Maybe something that lets you trash it for a card that costs $4 so you can gain Scouts with it when you need them without having to find the +Buy in some later turn?

make it a VP card beeing worth 1 and it comboes even better with scout

[silverspawn]

can i just say that the poll is stupid? i voted no, because i think transfusion is worse than scout. but that's not what the TE said, i still think scout is the second worst card in the game.

yep the Poll is pretty senseless. I voted yes because Curse is worse than scout...

Btw. you mean Transmute? right? not Transfusion!

oh yea right. transmute. wasnt autocorrect.

Also having a Negative Statement in the question and then a yes no answer is pretty confusing.

isnt that something you do?

[Marcory]

Would it help to make Scout a Victory card worth 0, so that it combos with itself? Would making it 1 VP be to strong?

[shark_bait]

Would it help to make Scout a Victory card worth 0, so that it combos with itself? Would making it 1 VP be to strong?

So the theme of removing useless cards from future hands continues as Scout now removes itself from future hands??? 

[ehunt]

Im late to the discussion but omg take the duchess. I mean not always, but more than you do. She's free and your deck is not as good as you think it is.

Sorry to bring up ancient topics.

[Awaclus]

your deck is not as good as you think it is

Though, sometimes this is also the reason why you shouldn't get the Duchess.

[Nik]

Im late to the discussion but omg take the duchess. I mean not always, but more than you do. She's free and your deck is not as good as you think it is.

Sorry to bring up ancient topics.

Just because it's free doesn't mean you should buy it. Take this hypothetical situation: you have $4 in your hand, and you play the Woodcutter. Of course, you'll then buy Gold, but you still have 1 buy and 0 coins. But will you buy a Curse or Copper? No, because it'll cloud up your deck, which is the reason they're free.

[liopoil]

He's saying that duchess is usually better than nothing, and that if you think it isn't than you are likely overestimating how good your deck is.

[Davio]

He also doesn't say you should BUY the Duchess, but I think he rather meant gaining it off a Duchy.
The simple rule of thumb here is: You're buying Duchies, you're greening, some extra cash doesn't hurt.