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Author Topic: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins  (Read 10850 times)

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Qvist

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The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« on: March 04, 2014, 11:24:18 am »
+18

Let's get this party started. A new year, a new expansion, a lot of fun.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I won't make videos this time, as I would probably talk the same stuff about the cards, only the stats would be interesting.
Also, I don't want it to take a year again. So, I can publish the lists faster.

Let's again start with the cards costing $0: Ruins. I got 76 votes for this list.

The Ruins

#5 =0 Ruined Village (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 2.3% ▼2.6pp / Unweighted Average: 4.3% / Median: 0% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 16.4%

There is no doubt. This is the worst Ruin you can possibly get. Almost everyone voted it last, only 6 didn't.

This Ruin is the card which is closest to Confusion, a dead card with no effect which DXV wanted to publish originally. This card gives also mostly no benefit and there is mostly no need to play it beside some edge cases e.g. when you want to lower the cost of Peddler, activate a Conspirator, lower the hand size for Watchtower/Library or raise the value of Horn of Plenty. You could also play Throne Room or King's Court on it if you are in desperate need for a village to play other Action cards, but often you just better play Throne Room or King's Court on these Action cards.
#4 =0 Ruined Library (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 49.3% ▲5.5pp / Unweighted Average: 49.3% / Median: 50% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 26.9%

It was close, but Ruined Library is the second worse Ruin again. It was voted on #4 30 times and even 2 times last.

Ruined Libary itself also doesn't give you any benefit. You just only draw the card you would have drawn anyway. And if you have only 1 Action left you could also draw that Action dead. So this is only worth playing if you have a spare Action left. Then you have at least mitigated the bad effect of this Ruin. Of course you could also play Throne Room or King's Court on it to draw multiple cards if you're really desperate.
#3 =0 Survivors (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 53.4% ▼8.3pp / Unweighted Average: 53.6% / Median: 50% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 28.3%

Survivors is the biggest loser in this list. It has 13 first and 3 last places.

Survivors is the only not +1 X Ruin. In a hand with one of all 5 Ruins, this is probably the one you want to play as this turn is dead anyway, so you can at least prepare the next one. So, it can be quite handy. Imagine you normally - without this Ruin - would have drawn an Estate, but now you can discard that Estate and maybe even a second one which you normally would have drawn next turn. This means it isn't the worst Ruin to have, but still the benefit is often only marginal. Like with Scout you have to be lucky to draw 2 bad cards you want to discard or have the rare case you put the cards back and have Actions left and the order in which you put the cards back really matters like with Wishing Well. The problem here therefore is that it only helps in really junked decks, but then you're gonna probably lose anyway.
#2 =0 Ruined Market (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 65.4% ▼3.1pp / Unweighted Average: 64.5% / Median: 50% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 29.3%

Ruined Market is the Ruin with the most disagreement, but is still on the same rank.

Contrary to Survivors which helps most in bad decks, this helps probably most in still relatively good decks. This might even help a lot if you miss your Action card this turn which normally would give you the much needed buy for building up your engine. In the late game you could even use this for Double Estate or Duchy/Estate, especially on a board with otherwise no other +Buys. This might even be a card you want to buy/gain on purpose. I could even imageine open with Ruined Market on a board with Peddler and no other +Buys :). You see the benefit of this Ruin is really board dependant, but having a much needed +Buy from this Ruin could really save you the day.
#1 =0 Abandoned Mine (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 79.7% ▲8.6pp / Unweighted Average: 78.3% / Median: 75% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 22.0%

With no last place and 29 first places this is clearly the "least bad" Ruin you can get. Abandoned Mine is the winner of this list.

Abandoned Mine is in games with Ruins mostly better than Ruined Library as you have a junked deck and don't want to draw your Action cards dead and have a low money average either way. But what makes it better than Survivors or Ruined Market? Money is really important in Ruins games as your struggling your way up to $5 or $6. While Curses don't give you this opportunity you often get to $5 or $6 with Abandoned Mine.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2014, 11:43:05 am by Qvist »
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GwinnR

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2014, 11:34:50 am »
0

Yeah! Thanks very much!!!
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Robz888

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2014, 12:35:22 pm »
0

Yeah, pretty much accurate. You can probably argue whether Survivors is better than Ruined Market, but it's hard to tell. Like Qvist says, Survivors helps more when your deck is just garbage, but Ruined Market helps more (and might even help a lot) if your deck is perfectly good but lacks +buy. Doesn't happen that often though.
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allanfieldhouse

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2014, 02:17:14 pm »
+3

I don't know...I almost feel like you have to take goko's interface into account and vote survivors lower than it otherwise would be. :)
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2014, 02:38:25 pm »
0

Seems about right.
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Alexmf

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #5 on: March 04, 2014, 04:36:55 pm »
+4

First of all, I wanna thank you, Qvist, again, for making these lists. It is always a pleasure to see a new list posted.

On the ruins ranking itself, I'm not quite convinced on the ranks #2, #3 and #4. I have a feeling that people overestimate the probability of having that magical great engine that just lacks +buy, which you then obtain via your ruined market. +1 card seems a bit underrated here to me. While this is not an accurate comparison, consider a random card that would either get +1 card or +1 buy. Certainly, in almost all cases, you'd rather have +1 card than +1 buy. This is also reflected in real cards (compare e.g. Smithy - Hunting Grounds - Margrave). This kind of comparisons aside, I believe that just those many occurrences of "meh turn in a ruins-heavy game - 1 free action left and no action card except ruins in hand" in which you'd rather have Ruined Library (so that you can actually buy a single decent card, you don't even worry about buying two cards) swings the balance in favor of Ruined Library, but I stand to be corrected here.
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #6 on: March 04, 2014, 04:53:55 pm »
+1

My ranking was:

Mine (best)
Library
Survivors
Market
Village (worst)

If Ruins were available in their own piles every game, Ruined Market would certainly be the one which you buy most often.  But the number of cases in which you need +buy, in a Ruins game where your deck is filled with junk, and it's also not already easy to get from the kingdom cards, is not very high.  I'm not really sure on Survivors vs. Ruined Library, but to me it seems like Survivors is +2 cards whenever it reveals two dead cards, and then worse than that as the cards it reveals get better (to the point of being nearly useless when you reveal two good cards).  So I guess you're more likely to reveal bad cards in a Ruins game than otherwise, but I just feel like the number of times when you play Survivors and it does nothing isn't enough to compensate for the consistency of a straight +1 card.
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silverspawn

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #7 on: March 04, 2014, 05:01:35 pm »
0

mine was

library
mine
survivors
market
village

village is obvoius. market is overappreciated, because the cases where you do want it are more memorable. survivors is... well, compare smithy and oracle, then give library and survivors both +2 cards, and you have something strictly worrse than oracle and a smithy. shithy is... better? mine is good in slogs. but i really think library is the best one. maybe it's coincidence that in my ruin games there often happened to be lots of villages, but library just doesn't seem to hurt as much as any other ruin. just need 1 action and its like it's not there

SCSN

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #8 on: March 04, 2014, 05:43:10 pm »
+4

Ruined Market, you'll forever be my #1.
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SCSN

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #9 on: March 04, 2014, 06:26:52 pm »
+4

Ruined Market, you'll forever be my #1.

And because actions speak louder than words:

SheCantSayNo: turn 9
...
SheCantSayNo   plays Steward
SheCantSayNo   trashes Ruined Village, Abandoned Mine
...
SheCantSayNo   buys Ruined Market
SheCantSayNo   gains Ruined Market
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jaybeez

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #10 on: March 05, 2014, 02:20:46 am »
0

But the number of cases in which you need +buy, in a Ruins game where your deck is filled with junk, and it's also not already easy to get from the kingdom cards, is not very high.
Well first of all sometimes Ruins are available and the game still won't be a heavy-junking slog: Death Cart with no other Looters; Marauder without Cultist with decent trashing; or, elite trashing with Marauder and/or Cultist.  I mean, yeah, you don't get those games all the time but they're not super rare or anything.

And it's not just about the engines, sometimes +Buy can help you a little bit in a slog, probably to get a couple extra Coppers or maybe to double-Estate or something.
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achmed_sender

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2014, 03:59:16 am »
+1

But the number of cases in which you need +buy, in a Ruins game where your deck is filled with junk, and it's also not already easy to get from the kingdom cards, is not very high.
Well first of all sometimes Ruins are available and the game still won't be a heavy-junking slog: Death Cart with no other Looters; Marauder without Cultist with decent trashing; or, elite trashing with Marauder and/or Cultist.  I mean, yeah, you don't get those games all the time but they're not super rare or anything.

And it's not just about the engines, sometimes +Buy can help you a little bit in a slog, probably to get a couple extra Coppers or maybe to double-Estate or something.

Yeah, but if you had a Mine instead of that market, it could have been a Duchy.

I think generally (in sloggy decks), Market is weaker than Mine and Library, maybe Survivors. But it  can win games, thats why it should be higher than the "average value".
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GendoIkari

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2014, 10:03:14 am »
0

I would argue for Market over Library, based mostly on the fact that it's the only ruins that you might find yourself actually choosing to buy. As was said, not all ruins games are slogs. In the right setup, Ruined Market can be as powerful as Princess (a card available only to the first person who buys it; that's the only way to get +buy in the game.)
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brokoli

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #13 on: March 05, 2014, 02:26:25 pm »
+4

I still don't really understand why people seems to rank the card based on "which would I buy more often" rather than "which is the less bad". Based on this, I'm just convinced that R Library is better than all the others (though I understant the arguments for R Market)
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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #14 on: March 05, 2014, 03:54:17 pm »
0

I still don't really understand why people seems to rank the card based on "which would I buy more often" rather than "which is the less bad". Based on this, I'm just convinced that R Library is better than all the others (though I understant the arguments for R Market)

i also had ruined library on #1, although it was was close with the mine on # 2. when i remember which card i could play most often useful, that are these two for me. ruined market has its moments and then its often more powerful than the other two cards , but that happens by far not as often as the other give a benefit to me.
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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: Ruins
« Reply #15 on: March 05, 2014, 04:44:24 pm »
0

I can understand ranking Ruined Library over Survivors and Ruined Market (though I disagree), but over Abandoned Mine ? That's crazy.
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