| #10 =0 Bridge (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 76.4% ▲1.9pp / Unweighted Average: 73.8% / Median: 78.6% ▲1.7pp / Standard Deviation: 20.2%
Bridge stayed on the same rank and is slightly better than last year. It was voted 14 times below average and 5 times on the first rank. It would be one rank higher in the unweighted ranking.
Bridge is a very nice card. If you buy only one card, it's not more than a terminal Silver. If you use both buys, it's a terminal Gold for $4, pretty solid, but still not so exciting. But its power rises the more you can play in one turn. With 2 Bridges and you use all 3 buys, they are worth $8, so $4 per Bridge. Its value increases quadratically. With n Bridges you have n²+2n coins if you use every buy. So if you manage to play 7 Bridges and an additional copper, you can buy all 8 Provinces in one turn. The problem is still how to do that. You need enough actions and/or enough drawing power. You definitely need supporters. With a 5-card hand of 2 King's Courts and 3 Bridges, you can accomplish this easily. But also other cards like Tactician and Native Village are great supporters. If there aren't good supporters for 3-piling or mega-turning, Bridge can be a trap card. But if there are cheap engine components and you have enough Actions available Bridge can still be a very important card.
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| #9 ▼2 Militia (Base) Weighted Average: 76.6% ▲0.4pp / Unweighted Average: 73.1% / Median: 80.4% ▼0.4pp / Standard Deviation: 21.1%
Militia has nearly the same average value, but still dropped two ranks. It was voted 15 votes below average and on the first rank once. It would be 2 ranks lower in the unweighted list.
Militia is another card from the base set and it's the best in this list. Discarding attacks are really annoying and can really hurt some decks. It's great against decks with trashers as the opponent mostly has to choose between buying a good card and discarding the trasher or trash 1-2 cards and buy nothing. Militia is also a good opener as it is also a terminal silver and stops your opponent getting to $5 or $6 early. And if you can play it each turn, this is great. You can combo this with Council Room / Governor and your opponent doesn't get the benefit of the additional card, or play Militia and Masquerade afterwards what could really hurt. But there are situations when Militia isn't that strong, especially if there are cursers on the board, or if there are effective counters like Watchtower, Horse Traders, Library, Jack of All Trades or Menagerie on the board.
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| #8 ▼2 Monument (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 76.7% ▼5.6pp / Unweighted Average: 74.8% / Median: 78.6% ▼7.1pp / Standard Deviation: 19.6%
Monument is only 0.07pp better than Militia, very close. It lost 2 ranks as well, but lost significantly more percentage points. It was voted 14 times below average and has 3 first ranks. In the unweighted list it would be one rank higher.
You want to pick up Monument early in the game, because the more you play it, the more it's worth it. It's good in quick games without good additional buys, where it can help you to force your opponent to a 5/3 Province split to win the game. And it's good in decks where you can guarantee to play your Monument regularly. So, one Monument is a great addition to a Hunting Party deck. Monument is also the only infinite VP generating card in the game. With a 5 card hand of 2 King's Courts and 3 Monuments you are guaranteed 9 VP per turn. But as it is terminal and when there are very good attacks on the board, then you have to ignore it.
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| #7 ▲21 Wandering Minstrel (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 77.1% ▲24.8pp / Unweighted Average: 73.5% / Median: 80.4% ▲30.4pp / Standard Deviation: 20.4%
Wandering Minstrel is now the best $4 village and what a big change to last year! It's 21 ranks and nearly 25 percentage points better, that's a huge change. It was voted 16 times below average and 3 times first. It would be 3 ranks lower in the unweighted list.
Wandering Minstrel is the best village you can get if you want your engine to be reliable. It's great if there is only weak trashing available, so that can still find your key Actions regularly. You might even want to pick it up only for the cycling effect, even if you don't need the actions. True, in games with Cultist or Marauder, it's terrible, but that's one of the few cases where you prefer a different $4 village over it. Also, you might top-deck terminal actions for your next turn without having a village in the next hand, but then that's just a sign that you don't have enough Wandering Minstrels yet. It's great if your money comes from action cards (like a Conspirator chain, even with mediocre trashing) or if your money comes from Treasure cards, because you still want to play your Wharves or other draw cards first before you get the treasure cards in hand. Also Wishing Well or Herald combos very well with it.
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| #6 ▼1 Young Witch (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 78.1% ▼12.0pp / Unweighted Average: 76.0% / Median: 83.9% ▼8.4pp / Standard Deviation: 22.6%
Young Witch did only lose one rank, but it did lose quite a bit in points as it's 12pp worse than last time. The deviation is also pretty high for a such high ranked card as it was voted 22 times below average and has 4 first ranks at the same time.
Young Witch is a curser which generally is very strong and only costs $4, so this is huge! But you are guaranteed that there's a Moat-like bane card in the setup. If you would have bought this card either way, YW is mostly not worth it and skippable, especially if the bane is Lighthouse (it defends now in hand and in play) or Scheme (just return it again and again). But with a weak bane like Embargo YW is very strong as a curser and has still the draw-and-discard filter advantage. This leads to one of the most-fun synergies: Young Witch and Tunnel. Giving out curses and getting Gold at the same time is great.
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| #5 ▲8 Ironmonger (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 81.4% ▲15.2pp / Unweighted Average: 78.8% / Median: 83.9% ▲17.9pp / Standard Deviation: 18.9%
Ironmonger is now the best Dark Ages card in this list. It's 8 ranks higher and over 15pp better, not too shabby. It was voted 11 times below average and on the first rank twice.
Ironmonger is good when the top card is a Victory card because you can discard it and draw a new card, in this case a better Laboratory. If you reveal a Treasure card it's also good, then you have a Peddler that even discards Coppers. If you reveal an Action, it's mediocre because then it's a Village. But still this can be neat when there's no village available. You get no bonus with Hovel or Curses, but you can still discard them which is not ignore. So mostly Ironmongers are just great. But it's even better with dual-type cards like Great Hall, Nobles and Harem.
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| #4 ▼2 Jack of all Trades (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 87.4% ▼4.9pp / Unweighted Average: 85.5% / Median: 92.9% ▼1.3pp / Standard Deviation: 16.6%
Jack of All Trades, a former #1, is now only #4, losing 2 ranks and nearly 5pp. It was voted 8 times below average and 12 times on the first rank. In the unweighted ranking it's one rank higher.
Nobody saw that coming when Hinterlands came out. JoaT seems so weak, but it isn't. It seems he does nothing good, he's slowing in trashing, draws few cards and let you get a Silver and has a Spy effect. But it is so strong because it's a very good counter against nearly all attacks. Just buy 2 JoaT and you can skip the cursing attack while you're going for Big Money. Yes, it's boring, but effective. It's weaker in Colony games because of the Silver and there are still situations where a thin deck with an obvious engine or a rush is stronger, but if you feel unsure, JoaT is always a good buy, if you stick to it. It has also some nice synergies with cards that decrease hand size like Warehouse, Fishing Village, Oasis, Forager, Candlestick Maker, Squire to just name a few and also Copper trashing in Spice Merchant or Lookout are great with Jack. And you even can include it in your engine for your draw and money generation. It's therefore a versatile card that you can rarely ignore.
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| #3 =0 Remake (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 87.5% ▼3.5pp / Unweighted Average: 81.7% / Median: 92.9% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 23.0%
Remake is on the same rank, but lost a bit in points. It has a pretty high deviation for a card ranked so high. It was voted 13 times below average and also 13 times on the first rank.
If you compare Remake to Chapel, it can only trash 2 cards at a time but at the same time let you get 3 Silvers in your deck. And if there are good $2 cards on the board, you can buy a good card for the last two Copper in your hand too. You can get high quality decks really fast. Later it gets nearly as useless as Chapel, but even sometimes you could do cool tricks later (for example especially with Fortress) and also at that time this doesn't bother you too much. With Shelters and Poor House the interaction changes a little bit and makes it a little bit weaker, but it's still a must buy on many boards.
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| #2 ▲2 Tournament (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 88.5% ▼2.0pp / Unweighted Average: 86.2% / Median: 91.1% ▼1.2pp / Standard Deviation: 14.9%
Tournament is 2 ranks higher despite having lost a bit in points. It was voted only 4 times below average and 14 times on the first rank.
Many hate Treasure Map for being so luck-based. Tournament is also very luck-based as you have to pair a Province and a Tournament. If you manage to do that you get one of 5 prices that are so strong that Donald X. didn't want to realize these ideas as "normal" cards. So, Tournament is in fact a very good card. The prizes will be part of a different ranking, but how do you manage to get a Tournament and Province in hand? It's the same as with Treasure Map. Either trash down to few cards (e.g. Chapel), get a big hand size (e.g. Tactician), or cycle through your deck with sifters (e.g. Warehouse). Also there is the possibility to spam Tournaments which are at least nonterminal and good cards for themselves - at least until your opponent gets Provinces. It's not surprising that Tournament had 3 spots in the Top 10 with Ambassador, Chapel and Masquerade on the Councilroom best openings list.
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| #1 =0 Sea Hag (Seaside) Weighted Average: 88.5% ▼9.0pp / Unweighted Average: 87.1% / Median: 94.6% ▼3.5pp / Standard Deviation: 17.1%
Like in the $3 list: What a nail-biter. Sea Hag only won by 0.006pp, basically nothing. But Sea Hag is #1 again. It dropped a lot in points, but it was enough. It was voted 6 times below average and 26 times on the first rank.
Sea Hag is a curser that has a big first-player advantage as you may discard your opponents Sea Hag in turn 3 and because the curse goes on top of the deck, this hurts your opponent even more than all other cursers in the game. Upgrade, Junk Dealer and Lookout trash from the top of the deck and counter Sea Hag well, but if they aren't present the top-decked Curse hurts a lot and makes the game very slow, but you can rarely skip Sea Hag. The biggest problem of Sea Hag is: it hurts your oppenent more, but it doesn't give you any benefit (like most of the other attacks do). So every Sea Hag is later a dead Sea Hag if the Curse pile is empty (and is basically a Curse for itself too), so if your deck can handle the Curses you might be able to ignore it. And don't forget to build up your economy as Sea Hag doesn't help you now to accomplish this. That may be the reason that Sea Hag / Fool's Gold is one of the best Sea Hag openings because you get a lot of $2-$3 hands for more Fool's Gold and with at least 2 Fool's Gold it's even better as Silver.
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