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[Qvist]

122 votes on this list

The Best $5 Cards - Part 1/6

	#66 =0 Counting House (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 8.4% ▲5.2pp / Unweighted Average: 11.2% / Median: 4.6% ▲2.9pp / Standard Deviation: 16.3% Although it has a much better average value, Counting House is still on the last rank. It was voted last 14 times and 6 times above average. All $5s are really strong cards, but some shine more often than other ones. Counting House is one that shines very rarely. The best use may be countering Mountebank. With massive Copper in your deck, you have a high probability to get many Coppers in hand even if you're only half through the deck. Then you can easily buy a Province or a Colony with the use of this card only. It also has some really nice synergies with Coppersmith (make all Coppers worth a Silver) and Chancellor (discard all Coppers and put them in hand). But then you need a village to play Counting House and one of these cards in one turn and the probabilities to draw these 3 cards together are low in a deck full of Copper. It comboes also with Golem. Buy many Golems and only one Counting House. The Golem will always find the Counting House and discard all other cards. With a Golem in hand, you are now guaranteed to get all Coppers. But the best combo is probably with Beggar. Beggar gains you Coppers and let you get to $5 to buy Counting Houses. And with so many Coppers Counting Houses should get you to $8 or $11 easily. You can also buy many Warehouses, cycle through your deck discarding all cards right before the reshuffle and then play your Counting House. It has some other nice synergies, but they are very difficult to pull off. With no real supporters, this card is mostly not worth the effort.
	#65 ▼3 Harvest (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 9.8% ▼2.6pp / Unweighted Average: 13.8% / Median: 7.7% ▼2.9pp / Standard Deviation: 18.6% After losing 5 ranks, Harvest loses 3 more ranks. It has a way better unweighted average and would be one rank higher in the unweighted ranking. It has 19 last ranks (5 more than Counting House) and was voted 7 times above average. Harvest is very swingy. In games with very few different cards and a coherent strategy, this is mostly a Silver and rarely a Gold and really no good card. And it can discard all your good cards you wanted to play in the next turn and even trigger an unwanted reshuffle. In games with many attacks, especially Cursers, Harvest can really be a better card. You can then make your Curses to money without having them in hand and Harvest can easily be worth $4. In a thin deck with a lot of engine pieces where you don't care about actions Harvest can also be a nice source of virtual money. Harvest has also a nice synergy with Tunnel. But other than that you rarely want to spend $5 for Harvest.
	#64 ▼3 Cache (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 11.3% ▼2.5pp / Unweighted Average: 13.0% / Median: 7.7% ▼4.0pp / Standard Deviation: 15.1% The first of the treasure cards so close together. Cache also lost 3 ranks, but would be even one rank lower in the unweighted list. It has the fourth lowest deviation in this list. It was voted last 9 times and 5 times above average. Cache performs differently in different kind of decks. In engine decks with few money (Scrying Pool etc) it's just horrible. In Big Money decks, it's most of the time superior than just a Silver (but mostly only by a small margin). But it only shines in big decks (Gardens) with many green cards (Silk Road), simply said in decks where Copper isn't a so bad card after all. Also nice is Cache in combination with Trader for a Gold and 2 Silvers for only $5. And Cache is like Silver not very good in Colony games.
	#63 =0 Contraband (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 12.3% ▲0.4pp / Unweighted Average: 14.5% / Median: 9.2% ▲0.9pp / Standard Deviation: 16.9% Contraband is the second treasure card down below. It basically stayed where it was as it had nearly no change. It was voted last 12 times and 7 times above average. Contraband can be very trappy. Buying it as an opener on 5/2 can be a nice early Gold and the +Buy is very important for finding a substitution for the prohibited card. If there are many good cheap engine pieces on the board and you want Gold and a card with +Buy anyway this can be very good. But most of the times you embargo yourself. And in the late game this is a dead card because everybody knows you want that Province. If you buy it, buy only one, because two or more can really shut you down. And beware of Venture + Contraband!
	#62 ▲2 Stash (Promo) Weighted Average: 12.5% ▲3.4pp / Unweighted Average: 17.8% / Median: 9.2% ▲2.7pp / Standard Deviation: 25.2% Stash is the third treasure card in a row. It is 2 ranks higher than last year and even one more rank higher in the unweighted list. It has the second highest deviation in this list with 15 last ranks and 11 votes above average. You need 4 Stashes to get a Province after the reshuffle for sure and in Colony games it's almost useless. But a sure Province that you can get only after a reshuffle needs you to trigger the reshuffle as often as possible. This means you need supporter cards too. The most obvious ones are Golem (with max. one other action) or a few Chancellors. With Scavenger, there exists even a more powerful combo for a guaranteed Province each turn in a deck with 4 Stashes and 2 Scavengers. But still these are rare edge cases that makes Stash not worth $2 more than Silver. Especially at the crucial $5 price point you probably find stronger cards than Stash, although if you have $5 and want a Silver anyway, you can pick up a Stash unhesitatingly probably every time.
	#61 ▲4 Saboteur (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 13.7% ▲6.9pp / Unweighted Average: 15.6% / Median: 10.8% ▲4.1pp / Standard Deviation: 17.1% Saboteur is now better than all the treasure cards, 4 ranks better with a significantly better average value. But it was still voted 15 times on the last rank and 6 times above average. Saboteur is the worst $5 attack. Why? There are similar reasons like why Thief is bad. It trashes cards from your opponents deck without immediate benefit to you, so it's only destructive. And if you aren't able to play Saboteur in each turn at least one time, your opponent can catch up easily when he just continues and ignores it or re-buys the trashed card if it was essential. Another downside is that the opponent can pick up replacement cards that sometimes aren't that worse or you might even give your opponent the opportunity to pick up Victory cards in the end game. But, on the other side, it can lead to big outbursts if you play 1-2 Saboteurs each turn or if you can even play King's Court with it. In games with no mats and chips you are then able to trash the whole deck and all points from your opponent and can easily finish and win. But these cases are so rare, Saboteur is still a bad card for itself.
	#60 ▼5 Royal Seal (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 15.0% ▼5.0pp / Unweighted Average: 18.6% / Median: 13.9% ▼4.4pp / Standard Deviation: 17.9% And there's the fourth treasure card: Stash dropped 5 ranks and 5pp. It was voted last 4 times and 5 times above average. It would be one rank higher in the unweighted ranking. I don't know if there's much to say about Royal Seal. It's another Silver with bonus card. You probably want it early in the game, as it will accelerate your strategy. It's strictly superior to Silver. So if you want a Silver anyway and have $5, you can pick it up unhesitatingly. But still it's very expensive for a $5 card and there are better cards for the same cost around most of the times.
	#59 ▲1 Mine (Base) Weighted Average: 16.2% ▲2.1pp / Unweighted Average: 18.5% / Median: 13.9% ▲0.6pp / Standard Deviation: 15.1% Mine is slightly better than last year, being one rank higher, but one rank lower in the unweighted list. It has the third lowest deviation in this list with 2 last ranks and 7 votes above average. Mine is one of the first trash-for-benefit card you probably got to know. It has the disadvantage of being limited to treasures, so you cannot trash them later into victory cards. But it has the advantage to get the new card immediately in hand. But Mine is still slow. A Moneylender doesn't get you a card, but is at least worth a Silver in the turn you played it, whereas Mine is only worth a Copper. But in the long term Mine can be better. The more often you play the new treasure card, the more Mine was profitable. So, if you want Mine, you want it early. It gets so much better in Colony games. First, Colony games last longer and you will probably see your treasure card more often and Mine is a Silver if you trash Gold for Platinum. For a 5/2 opening Mine/Fool's Gold is a pretty decent opening. PS: Don't confuse Mine with Mint.
	#58 =0 Explorer (Seaside) Weighted Average: 16.3% ▲1.6pp / Unweighted Average: 19.2% / Median: 13.9% ▲1.1pp / Standard Deviation: 18.1% Explorer is only 0.09pp better than Mine. It's slightly better than last year, but still on the same rank. It was votes last 5 times and 6 times above average. The problem with Explorer is: When you already have 2-3 Provinces and you have $5, you want a Duchy most of the times. When you have one or none, it only nets you a Silver in hand most of the times and then there are still other cards that are better getting you Provinces than just a Silver-generating machine. I mean it's still a decent Big Money cards, but if you compare it to Jack of All Trades, it's better in the Silver-getting, but just worse on all the other parts. So, it's pretty solid with alternate Victory cards, especially Duke, and you want it in thin decks where you can draw it with a Province with high probability. And it's nearly useless in Colony games because of the Province dependency and you don't want that many Silvers.
	#57 ▼1 Mandarin (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 17.8% ▲1.8pp / Unweighted Average: 21.3% / Median: 15.4% ▲2.1pp / Standard Deviation: 19.0% Mandarin is 1 rank worse than last time despite having a slightly better average value. It was voted last 2 times and 11 times above average. Mandarin is another cheap Gold, but you need an action to play it. What makes it better than the last cheap Gold-alternatives? The drawback of this card is to put back a card on your deck. But this can be also very nice, because you can prepare your next turn just like Courtyard does it. So, if you have more money than you need or you have colliding terminals, just put back a card. But with colliding terminals, the other card might be even stronger and you want to play that this turn. The on-buy effect can also be very nice. With a 5/2 opening you can buy the wanted stronger card next turn too and get an additional Mandarin. Mandarin/Hunting Party or Mandarin/Mint are very nice openings. In the late game where you miss $8 or $11 you can just play one Platinum or two Golds, buy the Mandarin and have a higher chance to reach it in the next turn. That can be very effective. And there is also the hard to setup Golden Deck which you can build with Horn of Plenty. But, still it's a cheap Gold and there are many better alternatives on the board most of the times.
	#56 ▲3 Outpost (Seaside) Weighted Average: 19.4% ▲5.0pp / Unweighted Average: 21.5% / Median: 16.9% ▲3.6pp / Standard Deviation: 18.7% Outpost is 3 ranks and 5pp better, not bad! It was voted 3 times on the last rank and 8 times above average. Outpost seems so nice for getting extra turns. But you only get a 3-card hand. It's like you Militia'd yourself, even worse, you cannot choose the 3 cards you want to keep. If you really need a +Buy, Outpost can fulfill this need. But even in those cases it's not better than a Workshop. If you want to use it to attack multiple times per turn, it can work, but still it is another terminal in your deck that can collide. It really can shine, in cases when you can guarantee a good card in your next hand. Treasury, Alchemist and Scheme are probably the best combos. Another case where your 3-card hand isn't that bad, maybe with Menagerie or Minion, but this isn't very reliable either, because one of your 3 cards has to be one of your Minions. Another combo is Double Tactician/Outpost where you can get 8 cards. Generally it's pretty good with Duration cards, especially Wharf, Caravan and Haven. You can also get Outpost if you have high action density, but in most other cases you better ignore Outpost.

[Qvist]

The Best $5 Cards - Part 2/6

	#55 ▲2 Tribute (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 20.8% ▲5.3pp / Unweighted Average: 23.9% / Median: 16.9% ▲0.2pp / Standard Deviation: 21.1% Tribute is 5pp and 2 ranks better than last year. It was voted last twice and 13 times above average. Tribute is another swingy card and even depends on the opponents' deck. You can have really bad luck, revealing the same card. Then Tribute is really bad. In action-heavy decks you get +4 actions what you only want if there isn't another village around (but then you probably don't want many action cards). All other combinations can really be nice, e.g. in BM games, giving you $4 most of the times and later in the game +cards). It only really shines in games with dual-type cards. Hitting a Harem and a Nobles and getting +4 Cards, +2 Actions and $2 with only one card is excellent. But the unreliableness still is Tribute's biggest problem. Forming your strategy around it not only depends on you, your opponent has to cooperate.
	#54 ▼3 Rogue (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 22.9% ▼10.0pp / Unweighted Average: 25.1% / Median: 18.5% ▼11.5pp / Standard Deviation: 21.2% Rogue is significantly worse (10pp to be exact), therefore it dropped 3 ranks. It was voted last twice and 14 times above average. Rogue is a Graverobber and Knights hybrid. Like all trashing attacks, it can be really powerful if you can play them every turn, maybe even multiples, especially against a thin deck. It has the huge advantage over Saboteur that it gives you at least a benefit of +$2. You can even get the cards you trashed back which can be huge especially if you're using Highways to trash your opponents' Provinces. But the more cards you gain the more it slows you down as you probably won't see the Rogue as often what is a similar problem like the one that Thief has. Probably the biggest downside is that you can't choose between gaining and attacking. In a 2-player game it probably won't slow your opponent down because you need 2 Rogues per turn to attack once. If it's a 2-player mirror match, luck might be a big factor. One opponent may even never be able to attack and is just busy getting his trashed cards back. In a multiplayer game it's probably even worse as you won't be able to attack very often. Getting cards back from the trash may be very useful on the other side when there are trash-for-benefit cards like Apprentice or Rebuild on the board. So, all-in-all a weak attack with a heavily board-dependant gaining ability.
	#53 =0 Mint (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 25.9% ▼2.4pp / Unweighted Average: 28.0% / Median: 23.1% ▼0.2pp / Standard Deviation: 18.6% Mint is slightly worse than last year, but still on the same rank. It was voted last once, 18 times below 10% and 18 times above average. Mint can duplicate a treasure card in hand. The problem still is, you need that Gold or Platinum in hand, so you really need to draw most of your deck with a good engine or need a small deck to accomplish this regularly. In the first case you probably don't want Mint because you don't want too many treasure cards. But for the latter case, Mint itself helps. Most of the time you buy Mint just to trash most of your Coppers. It really depends if you want Mint with your opening buy as you are now left with only 2 coppers, having no buying power. The only opening which is really powerful is Mint/Fool's Gold, because you have a small deck and get 2 Fool's Gold per turn most of the times. But Mint/Squire or Mandarin/Mint or Mint/$3 on a Baker board can also be solid openers. Again: Beware, don't confuse Mint with Mine.
	#52 =0 Graverobber (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 31.0% ▲2.0pp / Unweighted Average: 32.6% / Median: 29.2% ▼0.8pp / Standard Deviation: 19.3% This time Graverobber is above Rogue. It is slightly better, but still on the same rank. It was voted last once, 10 times below 10% and 14 times above average. Graverobber can either get a card out of the trash or is an Expand for Action cards. Both options are heavily depending on the board. An Expand for $5 can be really strong, especially if have loaded up on many (non-terminal) $5s like Treasury, Stables, Laboratory or City to name a few. It works especially well with Upgrade as it gets Action cards in the trash which we can get back with Graverobber and Highway because we could potentially get Provinces out of the trash. If Graverobber is the only trash-for-benefit card on the board the "getting cards out of the trash" option is often really slow, but with others as the before mentioned Upgrade it can be really strong. Another nice combo is Border Village+Graverobber as we can trash Border Village for a Province and can later get even 2 cards with Graverobber where the second card doesn't even need to be in the trash. It can also be used in a draw engine where you use Pillage as strong attack to get the Pillage you just played right back. Graverobber is highly board dependant and therefore hard to rank.
	#51 ▼5 Pillage (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 33.5% ▼11.1pp / Unweighted Average: 34.2% / Median: 29.2% ▼12.5pp / Standard Deviation: 21.0% Pillage is the third Dark Ages card close together. It dropped over 11pp and 5 ranks which is quite a lot. It was voted below 10% 15 times and 27 times above average. Pillage is a very nasty very strong attack. Discarding key cards from opponents' hands is very strong and can be devastating if your opponent draws KC + only one Action card. But it being a one-shot makes it significantly weaker. You don't want to buy it too late as you need one shuffle to Attack and another shuffle to use the 2 Spoils which are one-shots themselves. Picking it up in Big Money games in mid-game when you don't necessarily need more Silver, it's often probably better picking up a Pillage to slow your opponent down as you will definitely profit from the 2 Spoils. But it's probably best in engines where you draw most of your deck where the 2 Spoils are enough money to rebuy the Pillage and therefore play Pillage each turn. Especially with University it's good as you can just re-gain it each turn. But in other decks Pillage often is just too slow to be worthwhile.
	#50 ▼8 Venture (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 34.6% ▼12.8pp / Unweighted Average: 37.2% / Median: 33.9% ▼14.4pp / Standard Deviation: 18.0% Venture keeps falling in this list. Once as honorable mention in theory's Top 5 Non-Attack $5 list, it dropped again 8 ranks and nearly 13pp. It was voted only twice below 10% and 23 times above average. It would be one rank higher in the unweighted list. Venture is very similar to the "+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1, +Bonus" cards like Market, Treasury or Highway. It draws a card, gives $1 and doesn't cost an action. What is the +Bonus of Venture? Being a Treasure Card, it can't be drawn dead. And it has a Filter effect finding another Treasure Card. So you're guaranteed $2 when playing a Venture (ignoring edge cases like Potion and Horn of Plenty), making it another "Almost Strictly Superior to Silver $5 Treasure Card". The filter effect allows you to go green earlier, because you can discard the green cards with Ventures. This effect reminds of Adventurer (and the name of course). While an Adventurer in a Copper-free deck gets you to at least $4 and Venture only to $3, Venture is still superior, because it's $1 cheaper and doesn't cost an action and is also chainable. Ventures are great if you have multiples and as few other Treasure Cards as possible. If you manage that, they are even superior to Gold. But otherwise it's often just another entry in the weak $5 treasure card group.
	#49 ▼5 Trading Post (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 35.5% ▼9.7pp / Unweighted Average: 35.8% / Median: 32.3% ▼11.0pp / Standard Deviation: 20.4% Trading Post dropped also by nearly 10pp and lost 5 ranks. It was voted last 3 times, 12 times below 10% and 34 times above 50%. In the unweighted list, it's one rank lower. Trading Post is another card in the category "Good opener, but bad afterwards" like Chapel. But Trading Post is really hard to evaluate. It costs $5 and is only an important opener in about ~ 30% of all 2-player games (ignoring Baker openings where it can really shine). But it had 8 openings in the Top 50 of all openings on Councilroom, that still shows its strength. If you compare its ability with Mine as a opener: It can trash 2 instead of one card and it can trash all card types and isn't limited to treasures. It's especially strong in Torturer games as you can trash the Curse right away. But Trading Post has fiercer competition in the $5 list, so its downside of getting weak soon was taken more into account by all of you.
	#48 ▲2 Treasury (Seaside) Weighted Average: 35.8% ▼0.5pp / Unweighted Average: 37.8% / Median: 33.9% ▼1.1pp / Standard Deviation: 20.6% Treasury re-gained the 2 ranks that it lost last year. It was voted last once, and 5 times below 10% and 8 times above 70%. Treasury is really no bad card. You often gladly pick up a cantrip card that gives you money. Especially the top-decking ability is really nice if you get it early in the game as you guarantees you one coin more per turn for quite a while. With 2-3 Treasuries you can keep buying good cards every turn. Treasury also comboes well with Outpost. But still, Treasuries alone are very slow, too slow on most boards. They're therefore better in Colony games and in all other games that tend to be slow. Beware of discarding attacks if you have more than 3 Treasuries. Treasury is especially good in greenless games like with Bishop/Goons or when you don't buy victory cards and and only gain them with let's say Expand or Graverobber. You can then keep top-decking them even until the late game and expand them too.
	#47 ▼7 Merchant Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 36.9% ▼11.7pp / Unweighted Average: 38.3% / Median: 35.4% ▼12.9pp / Standard Deviation: 20.1% After rising 10 ranks and dropping 4 ranks, Merchant Ship is back where it started. It lost nearly 12pp and 7 ranks, that's a lot. It was voted 6 times below 10% and 9 times above 70%. Merchant Ship is a very simple card. While Harvest is a not guaranteed $4, this now is a guaranteed $4, just split over two turns. It's good for Big Money games as it increases the probability to have $8 early as you only need $6 in hand in the following turn. And if you manage to play one each turn, this is basically $4 every turn. The probability of colliding Merchant Ships is also lower because of the Duration effect. In comparism to many other $5s, where you either don't get guaranteed $4 or guaranteed $3, this card can be really strong. But there are still many (especially terminal) $5s that are superior.
	#46 ▲8 Mystic (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 37.5% ▲9.6pp / Unweighted Average: 39.1% / Median: 35.4% ▲10.4pp / Standard Deviation: 20.2% Mystic is 8 ranks and nearly 10pp better than last time, not bad. It was voted below 10% only 4 times and above 70% 12 times. Mystic is a Conspirator and Wishing Well mixup. As it's non-terminal, it's really no bad card and hurts rarely in a deck, but unless you haven't any helper cards that let you guess the top card of your deck, it's like a Minion without Attack option. With 2 Mystics in hand you can at least draw one card. Mystic is good with Chapel or in other thin decks where your deck will contain not much other cards than Mystics. It's also good on any board that offers no terminal draw which you want for Big Money or for an engine. So it can be also a great addition in a Scrying Pool engine for example because all you want is the non-terminal money. And finally you can now profit from all the cards that you wished Wishing Well could combo with. You can now profit from opponents' Spies, Scrying Pools, Duchesses or sort of negate Fortune Teller, Ghost Ship, Bureaucrat, Rabble and other top-decking attacks. And of course it combos with Apothecary, Cartographer (and maybe also Wishing Well itself) and other cards which let you arrange the top of the deck. Especially with +Buy cheap cantrips like Vagrant or Pearl Diver combo well with it. But still with any strong attack or strong terminal draw, Mystic is way to slow and not the way to go.
	#45 ▲3 Library (Base) Weighted Average: 38.4% =0pp / Unweighted Average: 39.7% / Median: 40.0% ▲1.7pp / Standard Deviation: 20.9% Library has exactly the same average value, but is still 3 ranks better than last time. It was voted 5 times below 10% and 12 times above 70%. It's best use may be countering discarding attacks as it may even set other actions aside and therefore increase the probability to draw treasures. But it's also very useful for engines with villages that don't increase your handsize, like Fishing Village, Festival, Plaza or Hamlet. And even in Big Money it is a stronger (but more expensive alternative) than Smithy as you won't draw Libraries/Smithies dead.

[Qvist]

The Best $5 Cards - Part 3/6

	#44 ▼1 Band of Misfits (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 38.6% ▼7.3pp / Unweighted Average: 42.3% / Median: 36.9% ▼6.4pp / Standard Deviation: 22.2% Band of Misfits lost only 1 rank, but quite a bit in points. It would be 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. It was voted 12 times below 20% and 17 times above 70%. Band of Misfits heavily depends on the board, even more than cards like Throne Room. It's probably THE most board dependant card. On boards with a lot of $5 cards it's basically useless. But it can also be very strong. Especially with cards that are strong, but only a limited period of time or need specific other cards in hand, especially Ambassador or cards like Sea Hag, Throne Room, Moneylender and Conspirator, Band of Misfits is a great card. Its flexibility is great, especially when you can play it as a cantrip or a village in "worst" case, but on boards with power $5s - which are not rare - Band of Misfits is really a trap card. Keep also the downside in mind that you can't copy cards that aren't in the supply anymore what can be problematic with $4 cards like Caravan or Ironmonger which piles tend to deplete. Also keep in mind that it only copies the on-play part and can't copy reactions.
	#43 ▲6 Inn (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 39.3% ▲1.8pp / Unweighted Average: 41.5% / Median: 36.9% ▼1.4pp / Standard Deviation: 21.8% Inn is slightly better, but is ranked even 6 ranks higher. It was voted 19 times below 20% and 17 times above 70%. Inn's main effect is pretty simple. It's a Young Witch with no attack effect, but +2 Actions instead. So it's a village that doesn't increase handsize, but has a filter effect. This is nice but not really great. You more often want the money of a Bazaar than the filter effect of Inn, but on boards with no trashing but strong draw you still might prefer an Inn. More important is its on-gain effect. Shuffling action cards into the draw pile is great when you time it right, especially when there are (nearly) no cards in the draw pile. Decks with high action density love Inn, so you can prepare a Scrying Pool mega-draw or a King's Court-Bridge mega turn for example. If you manage to have enough money and at least an extra-buy with your actions, you can buy a Inn from the extra-buy and won't see your bought victory cards so fast, especially in combination with Chancellor. Even if you don't necessarily have a high action density and miss $8, buy a Inn for getting all your nice actions in the next turn.
	#42 ▲5 Council Room (Base) Weighted Average: 40.7% ▲0.5pp / Unweighted Average: 42.9% / Median: 38.5% ▲0.2pp / Standard Deviation: 23.0% Council Room has nearly the same average value, but is 5 ranks higher. In the unweighted list it would be even 1 rank higher. It was voted 19 times below 20% and 17 times above 70%. Council Room is really strong per se, but don't underestimate the extra card for your opponent! If he draws a Gold or the much needed village for his own Council Room, he may even profit more from your play than you do. It really only shines on boards with discard attacks like Militia or Goons. With such cards you take back the profit from your opponent and have a really big hand and even a +Buy. Its drawing power and +Buy makes it a good opener combined with Fool's Gold.
	#41 Merchant Guild (Guilds) Weighted Average: 41.0% / Unweighted Average: 41.4% / Median: 35.4% / Standard Deviation: 23.0% Merchant Guild is the worst of the new Guilds cards in this list. It would be 3 ranks lower in the unweighted list. It was voted 22 times below 20% and 14 times above 70%. Merchant Guild feels like a Duration card as you can't spend the coin tokens right away. The on-play effect is really weak, without a doubt. If you ignore the delayed effect "+1$, +1 Buy, Gain a Coin Token" would be a solid $4 card as it is strictly better than Woodcutter and mostly better than Nomad Camp. You shouldn't buy Coppers for coin tokens right away, but in the end game Merchant Guild reads "+1$, take 2 Coin Tokens, Gain a Copper", so pretty similar to one option of Count. All in all still a pretty weak card. But sometimes it can really shine. If you build an engine with cheap engine pieces like Hamlet, you need the +Buy anyway and you don't lose that much tempo as Merchant Guild usually does (as it doesn't give you much money) with the profit of getting free coin tokens which help you to smooth out your buys, and giving you endgame control. And if your deck manages to get 3-4 Merchant Guilds in play, you get a ton of coin tokens and a great endgame control. While you often prefer Bridge over Merchant Guild and Merchant Guild can be ignored in the presence of power $5s, it still can be a board dominating card sometimes. It also has the same nice interaction like Goons with Watchtower: buy extra Coppers for coin tokens and trash them right away.
	#40 ▲4 Market (Base) Weighted Average: 42.0% ▼3.1pp / Unweighted Average: 43.4% / Median: 41.5% ▼1.1pp / Standard Deviation: 18.6% Market is clearly worse than last year, but still 4 ranks better. It was voted 10 times below 20% and 10 times above 70%. Market is a nice addition to most of the decks, but it is no super strong card. You want it most of the times because of the cantrip +Buy as an addition to your main strategy, because +Buy cantrips are rare and essential for an engine because you may already have stronger terminal cards. And it is also often superior to Silver in all but Big Money games as you draw a card and get an additional $1. The non-terminal +Buys is very important in some combos too, like a Highway+Market chain.
	#39 ▼4 Cartographer (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 47.8% ▼2.4pp / Unweighted Average: 48.9% / Median: 47.7% ▼2.3pp / Standard Deviation: 21.6% We're making a big jump of over 5pp. Cartographer is over 2pp and 4 ranks worse than last year. It was voted 12 times below 20% and 11 times above 80%. Cartographer is useful in all decks (maybe except Big Money decks). It reminds of Navigator, but hasn't the problems of being terminal and you can choose for each card separately to discard or to put back. It also draws a card, although you often wish to top-deck first and draw afterwards. Basically it is a 4 times more powerful Spy (except the attack). You can also compare it to Warehouse. While Warehouse only makes this turn better, you can use Cartographer to either prepare your next turn (mitigating draw luck) or to prepare the cards you want to draw with either a second Cartographer or any other card that draws cards. So it combos very nice with many cards, especially cards that draw and are non-terminal, like Wishing Well or Herald and is also not bad against strong top-decking attacks like Ghost Ship or Rabble (although you draw one card first). It's also decent in slogs where you can cycle through your deck faster and can connect your good cards much more easily. With all the good points, Cartographer is rarely board dominating and has a high opportunity cost, it's just an good addition to your deck and makes your deck stronger and more stable.
	#38 ▼6 Festival (Base) Weighted Average: 49.0% ▼4.8pp / Unweighted Average: 50.6% / Median: 49.2% ▼9.1pp / Standard Deviation: 18.8% After dropping 4 ranks, Festival lost again 6 ranks. It would be still 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. It has only 4 votes below 20% and 8 votes above 80%. Festival is a simple card and is like a combined Village and (Grand) Market without the draw. The lack of draw is really the only but big downside of this card. Still it is good in any engine, giving the money and actions you need and if you have "draw up to ..." cards like Watchtower or Library, it's really great. In any Non-Big-Money game Festival is mostly superior to Silver.
	#37 ▲1 City (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 49.9% ▲1.2pp / Unweighted Average: 50.2% / Median: 50.8% ▲2.5pp / Standard Deviation: 21.4% City is slightly better and is also 1 rank higher. It was voted 8 times below 20% and 10 times above 80%. City is also highly dependant from the board. On many boards you just spend $5 for a mediocre $3 Village. But with Cursers where the Curses are likely going out, this can be very strong and especially in multiplayer Cities are very strong. When activated, a Level 2 City is already a combined Laboratory and Village, so basically a ~$6 card. A Level 3 City is a combined Laboratory, Market and Village and would normally cost ~9$. It's often a trap because if one player goes for Cities to run this pile out, he's just buying Villages and doesn't build up his economy. Then you do much better not buying any City and try to end the game as fast as you can. In longer lasting games (especially Colony games) Cities are much stronger, but you really have to consider, if you really want so many Villages. As already said, in 3+ player games any pile can deplete faster and Cities are therefore much stronger. And if you have won the City Split and have Level 3 Cities, you have to just be sure that you don't lose on a 3-pile ending. But as many of us only play 2 player games, this wasn't taken that much into account.
	#36 ▼9 Catacombs (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 50.4% ▼5.3pp / Unweighted Average: 49.7% / Median: 49.2% ▼9.1pp / Standard Deviation: 20.0% Catacombs is the first above average card and dropped quite a lot, 9 ranks! It would be even 2 ranks lower in the unweighted list. It was voted 10 times below 20% and 10 times below 80%. Catacombs is no complicated card. It combines the strengths of Smithy and Oracle into one card, making it a very good card drawer for Big Money as well as for engines and is therefore a very solid card overall. The on-trash effect is a very nice bonus. You probably won't trigger it by yourself as often as you can't get a Duchy out of it and there really needs to be good targets for this to be worth for any trash-for-benefit card. But it can be really nice with Procession as you will draw 6 cards and get another Procession for free. But most of the times it's just a really good defense against trashing attacks like Knights or Swindler especially if you can replace it with a Smithy instead.
	#35 Journeyman (Guilds) Weighted Average: 51.1% / Unweighted Average: 51.0% / Median: 52.3% / Standard Deviation: 19.5% Journeyman is the second Guilds card in this list with 3 more remaining. It was voted 6 times below 20% and 8 times above 80%. Journeyman is very solid card drawer for both big money and engines. It really shines if you can get rid of your starting Estates and especially Shelters because you can name Copper then and are guaranteed to only draw good cards what is good for Big Money and great for engines. And if you are good in deck tracking Journeyman is in general able to draw you the cards you need.
	#34 ▼2 Jester (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 51.3% ▼0.3pp / Unweighted Average: 53.9% / Median: 52.3% ▲4.0pp / Standard Deviation: 20.5% Jester dropped another 2 ranks, just like last year, although it basically has the same average value. It would be 4 ranks higher in the unweighted list! It was voted 4 times below 20% and 16 times above 80%. Jester is a very swingy attack. You can deal out Curses, you can spam Coppers. But mainly it's a card which gains you good cards, especially if your opponent and you are going for the same strategy. If not, you have a really hard decision if you want that action card in your deck or give your opponent another free card. If you have a good running engine with any spying attack (like Scrying Pool), Jester is very good. And in 3+ player games Jester is even stronger, because you can gain multiple good cards per turn. The main reason this attack is ranked that low, may be that you all take 2 player games into account where it's very swingy.

[Qvist]

The Best $5 Cards - Part 4/6

	#33 ▼3 Rabble (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 52.4% ▼1.9pp / Unweighted Average: 54.1% / Median: 52.4% ▼2.6pp / Standard Deviation: 20.2% After being 4 ranks better, Rabble dropped basically where it was. It was voted 6 times below 20% and 14 times above 80%. It would be 4 ranks better in the unweighted ranking. The attack of one Rabble may even be worse than a Fortune Teller, as it can't guarantee to hit. It's not a very good opener, especially with good trashers, but gets stronger and stronger in the late game. Rabble is stronger the more you play in one turn. If you build up a (Village-Smithy-like) engine and need good drawing power, Rabble is the way to go, because if your opponent goes green too early, he gets bad hands regularly pretty soon and you may crush him. Your Rabbles can hit him even stronger than any other discarding attack, because he has at best only 2 good cards in hand. But beware of Farming Village, which is a very effective counter. And if you don't need the drawing power, you can skip over Rabble, because one Rabble isn't that strong per se.
	#32 ▼5 Count (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 54.6% ▼0.8pp / Unweighted Average: 53.4% / Median: 52.3% ▼6.0pp / Standard Deviation: 23.4% Count has nearly the same average value, but is 5 ranks worse than last year. It was voted 9 times below 20% and 18 times above 80%. The 9 different options are not so powerful for a card costing $5, but its flexibility makes it good. The $3 coin option let you have either a Horse Traders effect without +Buy or a Mandarin or let you gain a Copper. If you use Count as virtual money in an engine, then the Mandarin effect is probably best as you can put a village or another card you don't need back and safe for next turn. If you use Count in alt VP games, gaining a Copper is not really a disadvantage. The discarding option is probably the weakest although you can choose it if you really don't need those 2 cards or have a Tunnel in hand. If you open 5/2 the trash your hand option can be really powerful and is similar strong as a 5/2 with Trading Post. Keep in mind that putting back a Copper is mostly worse than gaining a Copper if you want to trash starting cards with it. But mostly you want to safe a card for next turn if you want to choose that option. Discarding two cards is here mostly the weakest option too unless you really want to use Count to only trash 2 cards and discard 2 cards. Gaining Duchies is of course really powerful with Duke, Silk Road, Ill-Gotten-Gains or Rebuild and can pretty strong in the end game when Duchy dancing. Although a terminal Gold seems to be more powerful, think it through! If you end up buying a Duchy anyways you wasted 2$. So, all in all not a particular power card, but can be very good on a 5/2, in Alt-VP games - especially Duke and in most end game scenarios.
	#31 ▲2 Horn of Plenty (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 54.6% ▲4.1pp / Unweighted Average: 52.9% / Median: 53.9% ▲7.2pp / Standard Deviation: 22.7% Horn of Plenty is again slightly better than the year before. It was very close, but it is only 0.02pp better than Count. It would be 3 ranks lower in the unweighted list. It was voted 10 times below 20% and 14 times above 80%. Horn of Plenty is one of the cards that are very hard to master. On average boards it's similar to Ironworks and often too slow. But if you can build a decent engine with several different cards involved (and that is the hardest part), then HoP is very powerful. With one Horn of Plenty and a good engine the game can end in like 3-4 turns as you can gain more Horn of Plenties pretty fast and then gain a lot of Provinces in a mega turn. The problem is to build such an engine and prepare the mega turn before the opponent gets a too big Province lead. But even without a megaturn, Horn of Plenty is very useful, something that's often ignored. It has a high opportunity cost, but a non-terminal gainer, that can't even be drawn dead can make a difference in an engine game where engine pieces are not that expensive.
	#30 ▼7 Bandit Camp (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 54.6% ▼5.0pp / Unweighted Average: 54.5% / Median: 56.9% ▼8.1pp / Standard Deviation: 19.9% Bandit Camp is significantly worse than last year, 7 ranks and 5pp. It was only 0.01pp better than Horn of Plenty and therefore only 0.03pp better than Count, so these 3 cards are really close together. It would be 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. It was voted 6 times below 20% and 10 times above 80%. The obvious comparism to Bandit Camp is Bazaar. You get one-shot Golds instead of $1. Which one is better? Of course it depends... While Bazaar is an obvious Engine Card, Bandit Camp can be very good incorporated in a money-ish approach. The Spoils ramp your economy fast for early Golds or Provinces. But Bandit Camp is also especially good with +Buys as you won't waste money from the Spoils. And with trashing in draw engines where you draw your whole deck, you probably want to play your Spoils each time to keep your deck thin. So the Spoils make your draw engine more unreliable. But if you are still able to draw your deck, then Bandit Camp effectively gives you $3 instead of $1 and is way better than Bazaar. But if your engines falls apart, it's hard to get it back running.
	#29 ▼12 Vault (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 55.7% ▼12.4pp / Unweighted Average: 56.2% / Median: 56.9% ▼16.4pp / Standard Deviation: 22.8% Vault is one of the big losers this year. It lost 12 ranks and over 12pp, that's a lot. It would be still 3 ranks higher in the unweighted list. It was voted 9 times below 20% and 22 times above 80%. The +2 Cards that make the difference between Secret Chamber and Vault are very important to make Vault a much better card than Secret Chamber. With every play of Vault you are guaranteed a Gold or even better - a Grand Market. And if you have a Gold in hand or draw one you can buy a Province for sure. This makes Vault a great counter to cursing attacks and is still great after you've gone green. No surprise your opponent has the chance to make his hand better too, because this effect is very strong. This effect makes it also a good card for Duke. Like Secret Chamber it's also good if you can draw your whole deck for example with Scrying Pool, discard all actions for a lot of money, just to draw all actions again with another Scrying Pool. Similar to this, it's great in Double Tactician decks. Another combo is Vault/Tunnel and with Tunnel you could even profit from your opponents' Vaults. The big downside of this card is that it's very vulnerable to discarding attacks.
	#28 ▼3 Bazaar (Seaside) Weighted Average: 55.8% ▼0.6pp / Unweighted Average: 55.1% / Median: 55.4% ▼1.3pp / Standard Deviation: 16.5% Bazaar is now better than Bandit Camp. But it also lost a few ranks while having nearly the same average. It would be one rank better in the unweighted list. It has a very low deviation with only one vote below 20% and only 7 votes above 80%. Bazaar is a village with an additional coin. At first glance a village for $5 looks really expensive. But if you see it as Cantrip Money + Bonus card like Market the additional Action is really one of the best bonuses. Especially in engines virtual money is pretty handy and more Bazaars help you to get easily even more Bazaars. Not much more to say about this vanilla card.
	#27 ▲12 Knights (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 57.1% ▲9.5pp / Unweighted Average: 53.9% / Median: 55.4% ▲8.7pp / Standard Deviation: 22.3% Knights are a big winner of this list. They are 12 ranks and nearly 10pp better than last year. It would be 4 ranks lower in the unweighted list, so it's underrated by newer players. It was voted 9 times below 20% and also 9 times above 80%. Many already said about Rogue applies also to the Knights. This is the highest rated trashing attack, but is still only average. They only hit cards costing between $3 and $6 and your opponent can choose if you hit two possible targets, 2 big downsides, but unlike Rogue at least they can attack every time you play them. Another downside, especially in multiplayer games is that it gets trashed if another Knight is trashed, but this makes it also an interesting pickup purely for defense. The different bonuses are probably responsible for the high deviation and it's what makes this card either ignorable or very strong. We look deeper into the different Knights another time, but if you get Dame Anna early or can get Sir Michael who can double attack, this can make a big difference. But when Sir Martin is the one on top, you don't want to be the one who opens the way to stronger Knights for other players. Like very trashing attack this card is very strong if you can guarantee to play at least one Knight every turn and can be devastating in thin decks as you are basically guaranteed to hit good cards and is ignorable in other cases.
	#26 ▼2 Duke (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 57.4% ▲0.4pp / Unweighted Average: 53.1% / Median: 58.5% ▲0.2pp / Standard Deviation: 24.9% Duke is slightly better, but still lost 2 ranks in comparism to last year. It would be 7 ranks lower in the unweighted ranking, so it's criminally underrated by newer players. It has the third highest deviation in this list as it was voted 18 times below 20% and 17 times above 80%. With Duke on the board the objective often is that you need to get the Duchies and Dukes as fast as you can. Similar to Gardens or Silk Road rushes you need good supporter cards which help you getting to $5 even if you're already greening, like Vault, Hoard, Count, Duchess, Horse Traders and Silver-gainers like Explorer or Haggler to just name a few. Duke can be very strong as it can easily be worth 6-8 VP if your opponent doesn't deny your strategy and is better than Province in those cases. 3-piling isn't that hard afterwards as there are 2 piles already gone. The problem is to realize when a board is a good Duke board. With good attacks (Curser and Handsize-Reducer) and especially Swindler or Knights as Counter, you really have to be careful and want to ignore Dukes. What makes Duke strong is that you have to consider it in every game and can be a nice Plan B if you're behind in a mirror game and don't want to contest Provinces anymore. Why? 5 Provinces are worth the same as 5 Duchies and 3 Dukes, so that's only 3 cards more, but each of them costs way less. Your opponent has then the tough decision if you can outrace you with Provinces or if he has to contest you on Duchies (and Dukes).
	#25 ▲3 Highway (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 57.5% ▲2.1pp / Unweighted Average: 58.6% / Median: 60.0% ▲3.3pp / Standard Deviation: 19.8% Highway is only 0.16pp better than Duke. It's 3 ranks and 2pp better than last year. It was voted 11 times below 30% and would be one rank higher in the unweighted ranking. Highway is highly dependant for supporter cards to make it useful. One vanilla Highway is bad and even worse than Market or Treasury, it's just a Peddler, so basically only worth $4. It seems similar to Bridge, but in fact it isn't. You can use it as a cantrip Bridge, but most of the times this isn't worth it, because you need +Buy and either need a small deck to play multiples or big drawing power what also means you need villages. So that is really slow. The only real combo is Highway/Market (or Worker's Village or Market Square) in a small deck. But you can do things with Highway what would be very difficult with Bridge. It can combo nice with trash-for-benefit cards, so you can at best replace Coppers with Provinces. Its best use may to use it with cards with fixed cost in the card text like Saboteur, Smugglers, Feast, Ironworks, Horn of Plenty, Altar etc to gain (or trash) Provinces with these cards. So while it can be worse than Market or Treasury it can - unlike those cards - really shine in some situations.
	#24 ▼6 Embassy (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 58.5% ▼9.6pp / Unweighted Average: 57.6% / Median: 60.9% ▼11.4pp / Standard Deviation: 22.0% Embassy is significantly worse than last year, nearly 10pp and 6 ranks. It would be one rank lower in the unweighted list and was voted 15 times below 30%. Embassy is a great Big Money card. An early Embassy is so good that your opponent gets a Silver for free. The mix of a terminal drawer and a Warehouse-like filter makes it that powerful. Yes, basically it's only +2 cards, but every time you play it, you can choose the best 6 cards out of 9 cards. Similiar to Envoy: If you have 5/2 and have the luck to draw it on turn 3, you may draw it in turn 4 and 5 again and will probably have already a huge lead, due to quick cycling. But it is also decent in engines if you can guarantee to draw it with a village.
	#23 Baker (Guilds) Weighted Average: 60.3% / Unweighted Average: 62.4% / Median: 63.1% / Standard Deviation: 19.8% Baker is the third out of 5 Guilds cards. It would be 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. It was voted only 6 times below 30%. Coin tokens are powerful, therefore Baker is powerful as well, the highest rated Market variant in this list. As Baker is a cantrip it rarely hurts in a deck and coin tokens are useful no matter if you add it to a money-centered deck or an engine. It's also a good addition in Double Tactician decks if you have additional buys as you can delay your Province buys by a few turns. The additional setup coin token doesn't affect the power of the card, but at least you can always open with it if you want to.

[Qvist]

The Best $5 Cards - Part 5/6

	#22 ▼2 Stables (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 63.7% ▲2.8pp / Unweighted Average: 61.8% / Median: 66.2% ▲6.2pp / Standard Deviation: 20.1% Stables is nearly 3pp better, but still lost 2 ranks. It was voted 12 times below 30%. When you try to evaluate Stables, the comparism to Laboratory is very obvious. Both give you an action and a hand with one card more. In games with no trashing a few Stables can even be stronger, because you get an additional Warehouse-like cycling effect. Just discard your Coppers and you'll see your valuable cards more often. If you buy Stables and don't play Big Money, then your action density increases and the chances that you draw no treasure cards with Stables in hand increases too. Then Stables may be a dead card in hand. Especially in cursing games Stables is weaker. And even if your only treasure card is a Gold it highly depends on your deck if you really want to discard the Gold for 3 new cards. But a few Stables, Silvers and a +Buy card like Horse Traders or Baron can make a pretty good Hunting-Party-like deck. An early Stables is great and superior to Laboratory on a board with no trashing, but with more Action Cards, Victory Cards or Curses, Stables is getting weaker, so just don't buy too many. Just compare a hand of 5 Laboratories and 5 Stables.
	#21 Butcher (Guilds) Weighted Average: 64.3% / Unweighted Average: 60.0% / Median: 63.1% / Standard Deviation: 23.3% Butcher is the second last new Guilds card. It would be 2 ranks lower in the unweighted list, so newer players underrate it. It has a pretty high deviation and was voted 13 times below 30%. Butcher is the new strong remodel variant. While remodel can be a dead card in a hand with no remodel targets, a big advantage in Butcher is that trashing is optional so that you can use it for taking 2 coin tokens which is already quite strong as coin tokens smooth out your buys and help you to reliably hit Province in the end game. Similar to Remodel you generally don't want to replace Coppers, but trashing Estates for Silvers and saving 1 coin token is strong in money focussed strategies, but trashing them for strong cheap engine pieces like Hamlet and saving both coin tokens is even stronger when you are building an engine. Another big bonus is that you can use more than 2 coin tokens to trash and replace a card if you have coin tokens spare. That's great in the end game where you want to keep at least one coin token so that you can expand your $5s (e.g. another Butcher) into Provinces. Of course Butcher synergizes even better with cards like Peddler, Border Village and Fortress or other cards that like TfB cards, also Gold gainers like Market Square which Butcher itself can activate.
	#20 ▼3 Laboratory (Base) Weighted Average: 64.9% ▼0.5pp / Unweighted Average: 66.0% / Median: 66.2% ▼1.9pp / Standard Deviation: 15.5% Laboratory has nearly the same average value, but is 3 ranks worse than last year. It would be 3 ranks higher in the unweighted list, so it's a bit overrated by newer players. It has a low deviation with only 2 votes below 30% and 19 votes below average. Unlike Stables, like mentioned before, Laboratory is a good card in nearly every deck. It increases the hand size by one which is a often underrated benefit. And if you have multiple Laboratories in your deck you have a draw engine which is more consistent and reliable than a Village+Smithy draw engine as it isn't possible to draw dead. So, it's a engine on its own and you best begin early to build it.
	#19 ▼1 Haggler (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 65.9% ▲2.9pp / Unweighted Average: 64.3% / Median: 67.7% ▲4.4pp / Standard Deviation: 20.3% Haggler is nearly 3pp better, but still lost one rank. It was voted four times on #1 and has 7 votes below 30% on the other side. It would be one rank lower in the unweighted list. Haggler is very good for building up engines with multiple components. It adds the Border Village effect to any card you wish and also gives $2, so you can be pretty sure to get two good cards if you play Haggler. And in the middle to end game you can use it as a pseudo Hoard to get a Gold for a Province or even a Platinum on Colony boards. With Haggler you don't necessarily need +Buys early, you even have to beware that you don't use your additional buy for a low-cost card, so you have to get an additional Copper. It is a good starter for any good engine, for example Hunting Party, so you can get one more Hunting Party for every Province bought. But with discarding attacks and Cursers where you can get bad hands really often, Haggler isn't that good as you have to pick up a Copper or other cards you probably don't want. Similar is true with Potion cost cards as they have a lower coin value.
	#18 Soothsayer (Guilds) Weighted Average: 66.8% / Unweighted Average: 66.7% / Median: 70.8% / Standard Deviation: 21.9% Soothsayer is the highest ranked Guilds card. It was voted 3 times on #1 and 7 times below 30%. It would be 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. Soothsayer is a very tricky curser that gives an immediate advantage (drawing an extra card) and a delayed disadvantage (gaining a Curse) to your opponent while you have an immediate disadvantage (it gives you neither +cards nor money) and a delayed advantage (gaining a Gold). On engine boards with good trashing Soothsayer often isn't worth it as the extra card is big for your opponent and he can get rid of the Curses quite handily, and you don't want that many golds, at least not that early in the game. On Big Money boards with good trashing on the other hand, Soothsayer might still be a very good option as you rather gain those Golds than buying them. And if there's no good trashing available a Curser like Soothsayer is always a big deal. Soothsayer is different though as those games don't feel like normal slogs as the extra card and the Golds accelerate the game and you can buy Province quite early. Soothsayer loves sifters like Warehouse or Cellar as both the extra card and the high card variance (Golds and Curses) profit from good cycling. Also, as it is a Gold gainer, TfB cards like Apprentice or Remodel synergize well with Soothsayer.
	#17 ▼5 Apprentice (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 67.0% ▼7.8pp / Unweighted Average: 65.0% / Median: 69.2% ▼6.6pp/ Standard Deviation: 20.4% Apprentice lost 5 ranks and nearly 8pp. It would be 2 ranks lower in the unweighted list. It was voted 8 times below 30% and 22 times below average. Although you can use an early Apprentice to trash your Coppers, Apprentice epitomizes (just like Salvager) Trash-for-Benefit cards; because the benefit is huge. If you don't hesitate to trash e.g. a Gold to get 6! cards and draw at least a card with +Buy or a Gainer you can really fasten the game. That's especially true with Gold gainers like Hoard and Haggler. You can buy a Province nearly every turn. With Market Square it is just crazy - leading to Hermit/Market Square-like mega-turns. It combos also nice with Border Village and Peddler and cards with on-trash benefits like Rats and Fortress. And as being one of the strongest Trash-for-Benefit cards, I especially mention the danger in Possession games. Your opponent won't hesitate to trash a Province or even a Colony for drawing nearly your whole deck.
	#16 ▼5 Tactician (Seaside) Weighted Average: 67.9% ▼11.6pp / Unweighted Average: 68.4% / Median: 72.3% ▼9.4pp / Standard Deviation: 20.2% Tactician also lost 5 ranks, but fell even deeper, more than 11pp. It has one first rank, was voted 4 times below 30% and 20 times below average. It would be 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. Tactician makes use of the phrase "One big turn is better than 2 mediocre ones". So in a deck in that you can't guarantee a Province each turn, with Tactician it's still very likely to get 2 Provinces each 2 turns. This applies especially to cards that take profit of big hand sizes like Forge, Bank or Tournament+Province. It's also great to get key cards like King's Court early or as a defense against discarding attacks (0/8 is definitely better than 3/3). And in combination with Black Market or Action cards that let you gain virtual money like Vault/Secret Chamber/Storeroom, Baron or a bunch of Festivals/Conspirators/Grand Markets you can even setup a Double Tactician strategy. You can play your second Tactician in your Tactician turn and still have enough money to buy something and get another 10 card hand in the next hand.
	#15 ▲4 Upgrade (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 70.5% ▲9.6pp / Unweighted Average: 65.4% / Median: 70.8% ▲9.1pp / Standard Deviation: 22.4% After being nearly 10pp and 5 ranks better last year, Upgrade did nearly the same jump this year again: 4 ranks and nearly 10pp. It would be 3 ranks lower in the unweighted ranking, so it's underrated by newer players. It was voted first once and 11 times below 30% and 27 times below average. Non-terminal trashers or trash-for-benefit-cards are really strong. No surprise that Upgrade costs $5 so you can't open with it most of the times. With Upgrade you can trash your Coppers and Curses or turning your Estates into Silver without spending an action and keep playing all your other valuable action cards. It's great against cursers so that you might even want to ignore that curser - just be sure that there's no Poor House. Spamming Upgrades just to upgrade from $2s to $3s to $4s etc. seems nice, but is very slow as you rather play these action cards. But Upgrading an Upgrade into an early Grand Market can be very strong. It's also pretty similar to Junk Dealer which is better at the start, but you can use the trash-for benefit effect later to get Duchies what's really good with Rats or Fortress on the board.
	#14 ▼1 Margrave (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 72.3% ▼0.5pp / Unweighted Average: 73.1% / Median: 75.4% ▲0.9pp / Standard Deviation: 16.5% Margrave stayed nearly where it was, lost only 1 rank. It would be 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. It was voted first twice and 11 times below average. Terminal drawers with +Buy are very strong as they tend to let you have many money in hand, more than you often need for a Province. Council Room has the drawback of give your opponent another card, but Wharf is still to come in this list. Margrave gives you an additional discard attack. The discard attack itself is not as strong as Militia's or Goons' discard attack because your opponent may draw a card first. But the discard attack is still very strong. It's just like you play Council Room+Militia or Governor+Militia. Margrave is another good Big Money card. With $11 you can buy an additional Silver to your Province. And terminal draw and +Buy is all Fool's Gold needs. It's also a good addition to your engine, but you have to be careful to add not too many Margraves to your engine, because every time you play a Margrave your opponent has another chance to draw the village that he desperately needed.
	#13 ▲20 Counterfeit (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 73.9% ▲24.8pp / Unweighted Average: 67.9% / Median: 75.4% ▲23.7pp / Standard Deviation: 25.6% Counterfeit is the first of the three cards in this list that was criminally underrated last year. It is 20 ranks and nearly 25pp better now. It's still underrated by newer players as it would be 2 ranks lower in the unweighted list. It is also the card with the highest deviation in this list as it was voted 15 times below 30% and 25 times below average. Counterfeit is a Throne Room for Treasures combined with a Trash-for-Benefit card. It's a way better Moneylender as it gives also $3 for trashing Coppers, but gives also a +Buy, doesn't cost an Action and isn't limited to Coppers. It's therefore a very strong opener and strong in the end game when you can trash Golds that you don't need anymore which is still stronger than Salvager which costs an Action an can trash Golds only for $6 while Counterfeit gives $7. It comboes therefore well with Gold gainers like Hoard. The best combo may be Counterfeit+Spoils. This gives you $7 for a card that you had to trash anyway. So it is a trasher that is very useful on nearly every board, no matter if you go for engine or for Big Money.
	#12 ▼2 Ghost Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 74.8% ▼6.6pp / Unweighted Average: 73.7% / Median: 78.5% ▼6.5pp / Standard Deviation: 18.0% Ghost Ship dropped 2 ranks again and is over 6pp worse than last year. It would be still 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. It was voted 16 times below average. Ghost Ship is very strong because it's a discard attack in which you don't have to discard, you have to top deck. So this messes up this turn and the next turn. You have then to choose to get 2 mediocre turns or a bad turn and hopefully a better next turn if you aren't getting "ghostshipped" again. This results in really slow games in which it takes long until you reshuffle and see the newly bought cards the first time. The difference to all other strong attack cards is you don't want to play as many as you can in one turn, you just want to constantly play it each turn. That's the reason why Ghost Ship with Schemes can be devastating. If there are no good defense cards / counters like Menagerie, Wishing Well or Mystic, you are in a soft pin you aren't likely to get out soon. So in comparism to Torturer and Minion a single play is stronger.

[Qvist]

The Best $5 Cards - Part 6/6

	#11 ▲21 Junk Dealer (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 74.8% ▲25.3pp / Unweighted Average: 69.6% / Median: 73.9% ▲20.6pp / Standard Deviation: 22.0% Junk Dealer is the second out of 3 Dark Ages cards that were criminally underrated last year. It's 21 ranks and over 25pp better now. It's still a bit underrated by newer players as it would be 2 ranks lower in the unweighted ranking. It was voted 25 times below average. The obvious comparism to Junk Dealer is Upgrade. Both are cantrip trashers. While Upgrade gets you a potential extra card, Junk Dealer gives you $1. What's better really depends on the board. Unless you want those free Poor Houses, Junk Dealer is way better than Upgrade in trashing Coppers because the $1 extra helps you a lot in not losing the tempo. Trashing Shelters depends on if there are spammable $2 cards like Hamlet that you need and with Estates it's similar although Silvers are rarely a bad choice. But in engines you rarely want that many Silvers, so Junk Dealer is just better early on. But later in the game Junk Dealer is probably a dead card while Upgrade could still trash $4s into Duchies or themselves into Gold.
	#10 ▼5 Ill-Gotten Gains (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 76.0% ▼9.9pp / Unweighted Average: 73.3% / Median: 83.1% ▼8.4pp / Standard Deviation: 23.0% Ill-Gotten-Gains took quite a hit, it's 5 ranks and nearly 10pp worse than last year. It was voted 15 times below average and first once. It would be one rank lower in the unweighted list. I remember reading Ill-Gotten-Gains the first time and it seemed not that strong. You have only a one-shot curser to get a better Copper? But that's not like it is. A Ill-Gotten-Gains Rush is really strong. Just buy Ill-Gotten-Gains every time you get to $5. The optional extra Copper makes that possible. With a 5/2 opening it's even possible to deal out a Curse before the opponent's first reshuffle, especially for the first player. When the IGGs are gone, the Curses are usually gone too, so you just have to empty the Duchy pile to win the game and IGGs give enough money to accomplish exactly this. Often you are even able to pick up a Province in between. But you have to be sure to hit your opponent. While these Curses are nearly unstoppable, not even with Moat or Lighthouse (making IGG even stronger), with Trader or Ambassador on the board the Curse pile won't be empty if you empty the IGG pile and your opponent may have enough time to pick up enough Provinces before you empty 2 piles. The same applies with other Cursers on the board. But in all other cases when IGG is on the board, a IGG rush is probably the dominant strategy. On Councilroom it had the highest per gain win rate of all kingdom cards (1.21), even higher than Grand Market or any alternative victory card.
	#9 =0 Minion (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 78.1% ▼4.7pp / Unweighted Average: 77.0% / Median: 80.0% ▼6.7pp / Standard Deviation: 16.2% Minion is the 5th best $5 Attack card and stays on the same rank while being nearly 5pp worse. It was voted 11 times below average and first once. Minion's discard attack can hit even stronger than any other discard attack. You have one card more than with Militia, but against Minion you cannot choose which card to keep. The non-terminal $2 is great in every engine and the discard option helps you to cycle faster. Those two benefits make it a self-working engine. If you win the Minion split, you can play the first Minions in your hand to get $2 and the last one to get the next 4 cards, then just proceed. And every non-terminal card with virtual coins and/or a non-terminal trasher fit very well in a Minion deck. Yes, there has to be some requirements: You are playing a 2-player game and have a thin deck and don't play with Colony, ... to name the major issues. At least without these requirements it's a lot weaker, but otherwise a Minion deck is super strong.
	#8 =0 Torturer (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 79.3% ▼4.1pp / Unweighted Average: 77.9% / Median: 82.8% ▼2.2pp / Standard Deviation: 16.1% Torturer is the 4th best $5 Attack card and is also around 4pp weaker and stays on the same rank, just like Minion. It was also voted 11 times below average and first once, again just like Minion. A single Torturer is not that great. You can choose to take a Curse in hand or discard. Taking the Curse in hand is not that great as getting it onto your discard pile or even on top. If you have a Forge, Trading Post or a Jack of All Trades in hand, a Curse in hand doesn't hurt you that much. In all other cases it's just a Militia-like discarding attack. But multiple Torturers can really torture you, especially because you have a choice, but still are between the devil and the deep blue sea. So Torturer highly depends from Villages; especially with Border Villages, Fishing Villages or Crossroads a Torturer Chain is definitely the way to go. The first one that gets this set up is likely to win. When the Curses are gone, Torturers are no danger anymore. But the Curse split is likely highly in your favor and you already have a good running engine to maybe pick a few more treasures and then go green. Only with direct Cursers you may still skip them, because until you've set up this chain, there are few Curses left. Necropolis makes going for Torturers even a little bit more viable.
	#7 ▼1 Governor (Promo) Weighted Average: 82.5% ▼2.6pp / Unweighted Average: 79.3% / Median: 86.2% ▼1.6pp / Standard Deviation: 18.4% Governor is the fourth highest $5 non-Attack card and is one rank and over 2pp worse than last year. It was voted 9 times below average and 3 times first. The different options make it difficult to play. And depending on what you choose it can a really bad card or a great one. Like Council Room, the +1 card may pretty huge for your opponent if you choose +3 cards. And if you even choose that multiple times in a row, you give your opponent a great hand too. So either do that only if you a) play a discard attack afterwards, b) can end that game in a mega turn or c) possess your opponent afterwards. In all these 3 cases Governor is really powerful. The remodel effect is bad in the early game, you're helping your opponent even more for letting him trash his Coppers or get a Silver for an Estate, you can use it in the end game to remodel your treasure card in respective Victory card. The best option without above mentioned supporting cards may be the Gold gaining. The Silver can be really bad for your opponent in a Colony game or if he builds a deck with high action density. And you can pick up Governors over Golds because you can get Golds with Governor later. That leads to a state where Governor can combo with itself. Gain many Governors, choose the gain Gold option every time. With many Governors and Gold in your deck use a few Governors for +3 cards and the rest to remodel your Gold into Provinces in a mega turn. Governor/Chapel used to be one the prime openers on Councilroom.
	#6 ▼2 Hunting Party (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 83.0% ▼7.5pp / Unweighted Average: 80.2% / Median: 86.2% ▼5.5pp / Standard Deviation: 17.3% Hunting Party is the third highest $5 non-Attack card, slightly ahead of Governor. It dropped 2 ranks and over 7pp. It was voted 7 times below average and first once. After Stables and Laboratory, Hunting Party is the best non-terminal hand-size increasing $5 card. The advantage is the even better filter effect than Stables to get the cards in hand you really need. It's also an engine on its own, just have one Gold and at least a Silver and a good terminal action which gives you at least $2, like Goons, Monument, Horse Traders, Haggler or Baron. With at least 5-6 Hunting Parties you are almost guaranteed a Province each turn because you only have few different cards in your deck and get those all in hand. Going green doesn't hurt you much (only Duchies) and with Cursers you only need a Hunting Party more to filter Curses. It's not strictly better than Laboratory if there are no different cards left in your deck, but that mostly occurs only if you already have a very strong deck or you have a heavily trimmed deck what you don't need when you go for Hunting Parties. The only thing you have to watch out in such a deck is when to trigger the reshuffle so you get at least a Hunting Party in the next hand again. With Dark Ages it got a little bit worse. Shelters hurt a Hunting Party deck a lot and Ruins from Looters also hurt a lot more than Curses.
	#5 ▼3 Witch (Base) Weighted Average: 89.1% ▼7.9pp / Unweighted Average: 88.1% / Median: 93.9% ▼4.4pp / Standard Deviation: 14.0% Witch lost 3 ranks and is nearly 8pp worse, but is still in the Top 5. It is the third best $5 Attack card and has the third lowest deviation with 4 votes below average and 6 first votes. It is one rank higher in the unweighted list. Cursers are the strongest cards in the game, I think everyone agrees. There are only 6 guaranteed Cursers, one gives you no benefit and only costs $4, another one is a one-shot and ranked #10 on this list, the third one let your opponent draw one card, the fourth one has Potion in its cost and the fifth is a Prize Card. So Witch is a guaranteed Curser with no drawback and definitely one of the strongest cards in the game. Not only you can curse your opponent, you get 2 additional cards. King's Courting a Witch is basically "Game Over" for your opponent. The defense with Witch on the board is mostly to get it for yourself, faster than your opponent and play it more often.
	#4 ▲3 Cultist (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 89.3% ▲4.3pp / Unweighted Average: 85.5% / Median: 92.3% ▲4.0pp / Standard Deviation: 18.5% Cultist is 3 ranks and over 4pp better and is now in the Top 5 and is the second best $5 Attack card. It was close, but it's 0.13pp better than Witch. It was voted 6 times below average and 9 times first. It's one rank lower in the unweighted list. Cultist is the Looter pendant to Witch. As Ruins are not as bad as Curses it has the benefit of getting sort of +1 Action which can only be used to play more Cultists. So you are able to play multiple Cultists in a turn and therefore junk harder than Witch. In a chapeled down thin deck it can be devastating to get like 4 Ruins in a turn and can totally shut you down. And even if the Ruins are gone 4-5 Cultists give you really good draw and allow you to get a lot of money in hand. The second benefit is that it can be trashed for +3 cards what can be really strong with Procession for example or any trash for benefit card.
	#3 =0 Wharf (Seaside) Weighted Average: 91.6% ▼3.7pp / Unweighted Average: 89.3% / Median: 93.9% ▼1.8pp / Standard Deviation: 12.1% Wharf is the second best $5 non-Attack card. It stayed on the same rank, but is nearly 4pp worse. It has the lowest deviation in this list with only one outlier below average and 11 votes on #1. It would be even one rank better in the unweighted list. +2 Cards are mostly weak. The benefit you get in this turn is pretty weak too. But the duration effect of +2 Cards without playing an action is like 2 Caravans or if you played 2 Laboratories at the start of your next turn. And Laboratory is already a strong card of the same cost. If you have 2 Wharves and you play them alternating each turn, you start each turn with 7 cards and basically each Wharf is a Council Room without the drawback of giving your opponent an additional card. And as already mentioned the +Buy for a terminal draw is really nice too, you need it with so many cards in hand. You can use Wharf for Big Money with less probability of colliding (because of the duration effect) or you can build an engine. In combination with Fishing Village you are almost guaranteed big hands (like you're playing Double Tactician) and even have enough Actions left for Attacks. No matter if you're going Big Money or build a engine with it, Wharf is so strong that those games are over very quick. Wharf's draw and +Buy is also good for Fool's Gold, making it a supreme opener. Yes, you rarely want to skip Wharf when it's on the board.
	#2 ▲24 Rebuild (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 92.2% ▲37.4pp / Unweighted Average: 88.7% / Median: 95.4% ▲43.7pp / Standard Deviation: 16.9% Rebuild is the third criminally underrated card from last year. It's now 24 ranks and over 37pp better, being now the best non-Attack card in this list! It was voted 4 times below average and 32 times on the first rank. It is one rank lower in the unweighted list. This card seems not so strong at first glance, but it really is. The big advantage of this card is that you can get guaranteed Victory Points and don't care that much about attacks. Rebuild lets you expand victory that aren't even in your hand and give also an additional action. Especially in non-Shelter games you can easily get 3 Provinces out of your starting Estates. If your opponent keeps on building you can easily deplete the Provinces if you trash them into more Provinces. Alternatively you could first try to deplete Duchies and then trash them for Provinces. That prevents your opponent with an good engine to catch up by buying Duchies while he fears buying Provinces because of depleting the pile too fast. Junking Attacks are still good against it as you won't draw Rebuilds that often anymore, but the effect isn't so bad anymore as you can just buy Estates and expand them later. Discarding Attacks can prevent you from buying Duchies, but might even help you as you can discard Victory cards from your hand which you would otherwise not have been able to expand. Also Rebuild combos with a lot of cards. In a deck full of Tunnels you get one Gold per Tunnel in your deck and you only need your starting Estates to get some of those. In a similar way Feoda are great as you can trash those for Silver and just get a new Feodum. Rebuild profits a lot from sifters as you don't need a big hand size, so Cellar, Warehouse and Wandering Minstrel will work well. Also, Victory card gainers like Baron and Count work well and also Trade Route will go up in value very fast while you profit from a thinner deck. Also Scavenger is really powerful with it as you want to play Rebuild as often as possible and Scavenger pretty much guarantees it. But be careful, if a Rebuild strategy doesn't work out because another strategy is faster and you are behind in points you often have lost because you probably haven't enough money to buy Provinces to catch up.
	#1 =0 Mountebank (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 93.4% ▼4.9pp / Unweighted Average: 91.6% / Median: 96.9% ▼3.1pp / Standard Deviation: 13.1% And Mountebank is #1 again, but it lost around 5pp, so it's not so clear anymore. It has the second lowest deviation with only one vote below average and 25 votes on the first rank, less first ranks than Rebuild. Mountebank cannot deal out curses guaranteed, but dealing out 2 junk cards per play is really strong and if the opponent has a Curse in hand, he is mostly behind in the Curse split anyway. So, in comparism to Witch it's stronger in the beginning where junk hurts you more. Your deck can get clogged up so fast. Then it may not hit every time in the middle game, but when the Curse pile is empty, you can still deal out Coppers, that's another advantage. While $2 is mostly weaker than +2 cards (especially in Colony games), there's no big difference in Cursing games as your deck has more junk and it's more difficult to get a money average of $1 per card at the start anyway. So, it really depends on the board if Mountebank is stronger than Witch, but mostly it is Mountebank because it hurts more. Just beware with Trader on the board or you may be giving your opponent 2 Silvers. Also, Mountebank/Chapel used to be the overall best opening on Councilroom.

[ChocophileBenj]

First ! And as it's only cards before Dark Ages, I may comment, even though I didn't rank !

I think Explorer is lower than many treasures here, at least Royal Seal.
I think Harvest fits nicely in bottom 3, and I hope Tribute will be behind any Dark ages card (for instance).
I would have ranked Cache and Mine higher, although I know for all this time that treasures and BM-friendly cards suck at $5.

[MarkowKette]

I think Tribute should be down there in the bottom 10. It only shines when your opponent gets dual-type victory cards and with the addition of Guilds that chance didn't really increase.  I even think its best use might be in Big Money vs Big money.
Where it's ofter a terminal $4 and usually at least $2. When you want it for actions  there is usually no other village.
When there is no other Village Big Money is very likely a good strategy. If your opponent goes for BM you won't get the needed actions out of it.

I would rate Mandarin a little bit higher though. It's still often usefull for some late-game shenanigans especially when you're behind and have to preak PPR.

[jsh357]

This list isn't all that bad, though I think Counting House should be right below Mandarin here.  The instances where I want it exceed where I want those treasures, generally.

[pacovf]

Largely irrelevant, but I'd like to point out that the Stash + Scavenger combo works with 3 Stashes and 3 Scavengers too, which is cheaper than the 4+2 version.

[silverspawn]

yea tribute should be lower and outpost should be a lot higher

[MarkowKette]

yea tribute should be lower and outpost should be a lot higher

The thing with Outpost is it's very hard to rate.
Let's say your card rating comes from a function like:
p*(how often do i buy [at least one copy of] this card when it's on the board)+(1-p)*(how much impact has this card on the game when i buy it)   ;  0<p<1

If your p is close to 1 the card will very likely in the bottom 5! if your p is close to 0 this card might even be in the Top 10.

[silverspawn]

yea tribute should be lower and outpost should be a lot higher

The thing with Outpost is it's very hard to rate.
Let's say your card rating comes from a function like:
p*(how often do i buy [at least one copy of] this card when it's on the board)+(1-p)*(how much impact has this card on the game when i buy it)   ;  0<p<1

If your p is close to 1 the card will very likely in the bottom 5! if your p is close to 0 this card might even be in the Top 10.

tis is true. i think my p is lower than it is for most people. but even with a high p, I'd probably have outpost >> tribute

[MarkowKette]

yea tribute should be lower and outpost should be a lot higher

The thing with Outpost is it's very hard to rate.
Let's say your card rating comes from a function like:
p*(how often do i buy [at least one copy of] this card when it's on the board)+(1-p)*(how much impact has this card on the game when i buy it)   ;  0<p<1

If your p is close to 1 the card will very likely in the bottom 5! if your p is close to 0 this card might even be in the Top 10.

tis is true. i think my p is lower than it is for most people. but even with a high p, I'd probably have outpost >> tribute

yeah even with a variable p you can say that for a few cards in comparison to others. If for card 1 and card 2
x1>x2 and y1>y2  (fp(x,y)=px+(1-p)y) then card 1 is better than card 2 independant of the p-value

[c4master]

I think Tribute should be down there in the bottom 10. It only shines when your opponent gets dual-type victory cards and with the addition of Guilds that chance didn't really increase.  I even think its best use might be in Big Money vs Big money.
Where it's ofter a terminal $4 and usually at least $2. When you want it for actions  there is usually no other village.
When there is no other Village Big Money is very likely a good strategy. If your opponent goes for BM you won't get the needed actions out of it.

I would rate Mandarin a little bit higher though. It's still often usefull for some late-game shenanigans especially when you're behind and have to preak PPR.

One could state, that mirror matches are the important ones. The worst thing about Tribute is, that drawing cads for you means skipping green ones for your opponent, which is not that great after all. I agree, it's probably best in Big Money mirror. With those ruins it can be nice to gain actions, though.

[LastFootnote]

As someone who plays with 5 Prosperity cards at a time, I'd rank Counting House and Contraband significantly higher: above Royal Seal, probably. Contraband is a great opener when you have multiple cards in the $6-$7 range. Counting House is pretty niche, but it's just so good when it's good.

Either or Harvest or Cache should probably be last. I really want to like Cache, but it's just so seldom that I want to use a $5 buy on it. And unlike most $5 cards, I almost never want to buy it with $6 or more. Without Trader or Stables in the game, it's hard to justify buying it, and even then it's not an auto-buy. Harvest is nice when throned, but that's about it.

[BadAssMutha]

As someone who plays with 5 Prosperity cards at a time, I'd rank Counting House and Contraband significantly higher: above Royal Seal, probably. Contraband is a great opener when you have multiple cards in the $6-$7 range. Counting House is pretty niche, but it's just so good when it's good.

I think Royal Seal deserves to be above Contraband. Contraband's extra +$1 and +1 buy comes at a very steep cost, the ability to buy what you need. In a good proportion of games, I'd probably take plain Silver over Contraband. I find the bonus from Royal Seal to be pretty nice - if you draw it at the top of your deck, it can accelerate your game by 2-3 turns with just one play.

That said, Contraband is sort of tricky to rank, because its value is directly dependent on how good a player your opponent is. There's usually a few obvious choices for what to block, but I've seen elite players make some savvy moves against Contraband with game-clinching results. Against weaker opponents, however, Contraband is a somewhat better card.

[Robz888]

It seems the masses have not come around yet on Counting House.

[Polk5440]

For me, Rogue is dead last. The attack is bad and without a lot of help you are often grabbing junk from the trash. Too often it's an expensive terminal Silver. And games where it's good, like grabbing certain Knights out of the trash, are the games that are the least enjoyable to play. 

[silverspawn]

For me, Rogue is dead last. The attack is bad and without a lot of help you are often grabbing junk from the trash. Too often it's an expensive terminal Silver. And games where it's good, like grabbing certain Knights out of the trash, are the games that are the least enjoyable to play.

it's mostly good to get good cards out of the trash. it's good in knight games, really good in rebuild games and often good in pillage games. that alone makes it better than lots of other $5's.

[KingZog3]

For me, Rogue is dead last. The attack is bad and without a lot of help you are often grabbing junk from the trash. Too often it's an expensive terminal Silver. And games where it's good, like grabbing certain Knights out of the trash, are the games that are the least enjoyable to play.

I used to think this, but I've played a few games where Rogue is important. It's rare, but decks that use Apprentice or Salvager a lot need lots of fuel, and Rogue gives tons of fuel while taking it away from your opponent's Rogues. The card is only an attack to be able to put cards in the trash on its own. But buying it for the attack is a mistake, you buy it for the gaining.

[Robz888]

For me, Rogue is dead last. The attack is bad and without a lot of help you are often grabbing junk from the trash. Too often it's an expensive terminal Silver. And games where it's good, like grabbing certain Knights out of the trash, are the games that are the least enjoyable to play.

No, Rogue should not be dead last. Dead last is Harvest.

In fact, I used Rogue productively, just yesterday, in an HP + X deck.

[KingZog3]

For me, Rogue is dead last. The attack is bad and without a lot of help you are often grabbing junk from the trash. Too often it's an expensive terminal Silver. And games where it's good, like grabbing certain Knights out of the trash, are the games that are the least enjoyable to play.

No, Rogue should not be dead last. Dead last is Harvest.

In fact, I used Rogue productively, just yesterday, in an HP + X deck.

Yeah, harvest is last without question. People still see Counting House as last, but man it can be good sometimes (and fun).

[Beyond Awesome]

I agree Harvest should be last, but for what it is worth, I think I buy them pretty much equally, which is about 1 out of 500 games. At least, that is what it seems like to me.

[Awaclus]

Counting House is good at least sometimes. Harvest is just pretty much never worth getting, even though it's less bad in the situations where Counting House is bad.

[brokoli]

For me, Rogue is dead last. The attack is bad and without a lot of help you are often grabbing junk from the trash. Too often it's an expensive terminal Silver. And games where it's good, like grabbing certain Knights out of the trash, are the games that are the least enjoyable to play.

it's mostly good to get good cards out of the trash. it's good in knight games, really good in rebuild games and often good in pillage games. that alone makes it better than lots of other $5's.

You haven't mentionned the most important : Rogue against Duke.

[brokoli]

Oh, and I guess I won't complain about Harvest again. It's absurd to say it's worse than counting house : when you want money, you definitely prefer something that produce $3 or $4 on each play, rather than something that produce 7$ or $0 (and more often $0).

But overall, I feel like all $5 bottom-card are better than people think, and buying harvest, Cache or Tribute in 1 out of 500 games (or even 100 games) where they are present is clearly wrong. I mean, it's hard to see where they are useful but they are all useful more often than that.

[silverspawn]

the thing about harvest is that it's just a really stupid card. it doesn't give you anything if you draw your whole deck, that's just dumb and frustrating, and it's a big drawback for engines. i remember exactly one game in which harvest was really strong, it was a semi-engine board with tunnels and villages but without draw. triggering tunnels with it worked really well.

but i agree, its not last in terms of powerlevel

[Jean-Michel]

Can someone explain why Stash isn't worst? Counting House, Cache and Harvest at least have some utility in slogs and Contraband is often excellent in engines with trash-for-benefit, but Stash is very much just an expensive Silver. Yes, it has the Chancellor and Scavenger combos, but those are very rare and not a reason to put it higher than those 4 or any other $5 cards.

[jsh357]

Can someone explain why Stash isn't worst? Counting House, Cache and Harvest at least have some utility in slogs and Contraband is often excellent in engines with trash-for-benefit, but Stash is very much just an expensive Silver. Yes, it has the Chancellor and Scavenger combos, but those are very rare and not a reason to put it higher than those 4 or any other $5 cards.

 

Well, for one, Stash is sometimes useful in slogs when you want to consistently afford a Duchy or Province every now and then.  It's also pretty good with terminal draw when reshuffles are triggered (controlling the result a little).  I put it in the bottom 5, though.  I think it's worse than some of the ones below it here.

[HiveMindEmulator]

A few comments about the text:

"Harvest is very swingy". No it's not. It's pretty consistently bad. King's Court is swingy. At best you get triple a good card and at worst it does nothing. Harvest usually gives $2-$4, which is not a huge range of things compared to a lot of other expensive cards.

To me, the biggest problem with Sab is something you don't mention: The attack does not really lengthen the game. On the contrary, the gaining allows your opponent to deplete piles. If you have a purely destructive attack, you want to drag the game out so you can get to the point where you repeated play the attack, and then build up economy and then get VPs.

For Outpost, you don't mention the most important thing for Outpost, imo: trashing. If you have a well-trashed, deck, 3-card hands can be pretty good. Sure it's less reliable than a 5-card hand, but if you have very few "stop cards", there's a pretty good chance of getting something pretty good out of the extra turn.

Oh, and I guess I won't complain about Harvest again. It's absurd to say it's worse than counting house : when you want money, you definitely prefer something that produce $3 or $4 on each play, rather than something that produce 7$ or $0 (and more often $0).

I don't think this is "definitely" true. It's true most of the time, but most of the time you don't really want either, so it doesn't matter all that much. There are so many $5 cards that can get you something like $3 reliably, so Harvest doesn't get you anything you couldn't get elsewhere. But the $0 or $7 can have situations where you actually want it, because it's a uniquely powerful effect.

[DG]

Can someone explain why Stash isn't worst? Counting House, Cache and Harvest at least have some utility in slogs

Why would it be the worst? It's a balanced card that only suffers because 5 cost treasures are unpopular. Stash has perfectly good utility in slogs for lining up one good hand after each shuffle.

[brokoli]

the thing about harvest is that it's just a really stupid card. it doesn't give you anything if you draw your whole deck, that's just dumb and frustrating, and it's a big drawback for engines.

True, but how often do you draw your whole deck ? Actually, when you do draw it, you have often used some kind of sifters and still have 4 cards or more in the discard pile. And it's nice when you can control that.

[Jean-Michel]

Can someone explain why Stash isn't worst? Counting House, Cache and Harvest at least have some utility in slogs

Why would it be the worst? It's a balanced card that only suffers because 5 cost treasures are unpopular. Stash has perfectly good utility in slogs for lining up one good hand after each shuffle.

Usually you cycle very slowly in slogs so you don't shuffle often. And it produces only $2.

[Awaclus]

Can someone explain why Stash isn't worst? Counting House, Cache and Harvest at least have some utility in slogs

Why would it be the worst? It's a balanced card that only suffers because 5 cost treasures are unpopular. Stash has perfectly good utility in slogs for lining up one good hand after each shuffle.

Usually you cycle very slowly in slogs so you don't shuffle often. And it produces only $2.

Maybe you won't shuffle often, but the game also takes much longer. And producing $2 is pretty common for $5 Treasures.

[Jean-Michel]

Maybe you won't shuffle often, but the game also takes much longer. And producing $2 is pretty common for $5 Treasures.

That's why $5 Treasures are bad.

[SCSN]

Venture and Trading Post surely deserve to be on this list, while Outpost must desperately go.

[KingZog3]

Venture and Trading Post surely deserve to be on this list, while Outpost must desperately go.

I think Venture and Trading Post will be at the bottom of the next section. Its harder to rank these cards because their power levels are all fairly weak. Only 10 cards can be the bottom 10.

[shark_bait]

Venture and Trading Post surely deserve to be on this list, while Outpost must desperately go.

Trading post is good*

*when you open 5/2

Venture certainly deserves to be above the other $5-cost treasure at any rate.  Venture is at least $2 and allows for BMish decks to overcome greening better with just a little bit of light trashing.  That is absolutely better than the mediocre bonuses of the other $5-cost treasure.

I agree with Outpost but it's just one of those cards where it's hard to rank effectively.  When it's good, it's a game winner.  When it's not good, you just ignore it.  Do you rank based on how often it is game-changing or how what percentage of games its useful?  A lot of discrepancy can be boiled down to different styles of card ranking.  I would guess most people who did the ratings had the first priority on how often a card was used with a secondary priority on how useful it is. 

[SCSN]

The conflict between those two rating styles is elegantly resolved by the concept of a weighted contribution.

And I'd like to argue with its detractors that Outpost is far more often useful than they tempt us into believing.

[markusin]

The conflict between those two rating styles is elegantly resolved by the concept of a weighted contribution.

And I'd like to argue with its detractors that Outpost is far more often useful than they tempt us into believing.

I just don't see Outpost being in the bottom 10, even though it's kinda like a cycling Workshop at worst.

Edit: and apparently I put it there anyway. What was I thinking?

And I have Harvest dead last too.

[eHalcyon]

Maybe you won't shuffle often, but the game also takes much longer. And producing $2 is pretty common for $5 Treasures.

That's why $5 Treasures are bad.

Counterfeit is great.  Horn of Plenty can be really awesome.  IGG can be deadly.  Nothing wrong with $5 Treasures.

[AJD]

Maybe you won't shuffle often, but the game also takes much longer. And producing $2 is pretty common for $5 Treasures.

That's why $5 Treasures are bad.

Counterfeit is great.  Horn of Plenty can be really awesome.  IGG can be deadly.  Nothing wrong with $5 Treasures.

None of those ones produce $2 though.

[markusin]

Maybe you won't shuffle often, but the game also takes much longer. And producing $2 is pretty common for $5 Treasures.

That's why $5 Treasures are bad.

Counterfeit is great.  Horn of Plenty can be really awesome.  IGG can be deadly.  Nothing wrong with $5 Treasures.

None of those ones produce $2 though.

Counterfeit does when it trashes Copper, and IGG produces less than $2 on average.

[Holger]

#61 ▲4 Saboteur (Intrigue)

Saboteur is now better than all the treasure cards, [...]

#60 ▼5 Royal Seal (Prosperity) And there's the fourth treasure card: Stash dropped 5 ranks and 5pp. [...]

I can spot two mistakes here... 

[markusin]

#61 ▲4 Saboteur (Intrigue)

Saboteur is now better than all the treasure cards, [...]

#60 ▼5 Royal Seal (Prosperity) And there's the fourth treasure card: Stash dropped 5 ranks and 5pp. [...]

I can spot two mistakes here... 

Sab is better than the bottom 3 $5 cost treasures. I mean, what about Counterfeit and IGG?

[Beyond Awesome]

The conflict between those two rating styles is elegantly resolved by the concept of a weighted contribution.

And I'd like to argue with its detractors that Outpost is far more often useful than they tempt us into believing.

I agree. Outpost should not be in the bottom 10.

[Jdaki]

Exact ordering aside, I think most of that bottom eleven is right, I might see Rogue down there instead of Saboteur and very possibly Outpost out, perhaps for Mint or something. Rogue is pretty often useless, but Saboteur can be devastating, especially in more than 2-player, essentially similar to Knight-style MAD.

[KingZog3]

Exact ordering aside, I think most of that bottom eleven is right, I might see Rogue down there instead of Saboteur and very possibly Outpost out, perhaps for Mint or something. Rogue is pretty often useless, but Saboteur can be devastating, especially in more than 2-player, essentially similar to Knight-style MAD.

Rogue is better than Saboteur. Sab is only good when played at minimum 2 times a turn, and that's minimum. Mint is decent for the on buy effect, plus Minting Platinum of special treasures is pretty nice a lot of the time.

[Awaclus]

Rogue is better than Saboteur. Sab is only good when played at minimum 2 times a turn, and that's minimum.

It's the other way round, Saboteur is the one that's better than Rogue and Rogue is the one which is only good when played at minimum 2 times a turn.

[KingZog3]

Rogue is better than Saboteur. Sab is only good when played at minimum 2 times a turn, and that's minimum.

It's the other way round, Saboteur is the one that's better than Rogue and Rogue is the one which is only good when played at minimum 2 times a turn.

If you're using Rogue as an attack, yes. But with tfb that's not needed as much. They're both weak though. But I stand my Rogue being better. I don't think of it as an attack though. It's a gainer.

[eHalcyon]

Rogue is better than Saboteur. Sab is only good when played at minimum 2 times a turn, and that's minimum.

It's the other way round, Saboteur is the one that's better than Rogue and Rogue is the one which is only good when played at minimum 2 times a turn.

If you're using Rogue as an attack, yes. But with tfb that's not needed as much. They're both weak though. But I stand my Rogue being better. I don't think of it as an attack though. It's a gainer.

Is it better to think of it as a gainer?  I suppose it's alright if TfB is present, but otherwise you have no control over what you are able to gain.  The gain is extremely unreliable because you don't know what will get trashed, or if it will even still be there by the time you play your Rogue again.

[scott_pilgrim]

Rogue is better than Saboteur. Sab is only good when played at minimum 2 times a turn, and that's minimum.

It's the other way round, Saboteur is the one that's better than Rogue and Rogue is the one which is only good when played at minimum 2 times a turn.

If you're using Rogue as an attack, yes. But with tfb that's not needed as much. They're both weak though. But I stand my Rogue being better. I don't think of it as an attack though. It's a gainer.

Is it better to think of it as a gainer?  I suppose it's alright if TfB is present, but otherwise you have no control over what you are able to gain.  The gain is extremely unreliable because you don't know what will get trashed, or if it will even still be there by the time you play your Rogue again.

I think the point is you only get Rogue if you know there's good stuff in the trash to gain, the attack is kind of a backup plan most of the time.  It can be great with TfB (especially Apprentice and Rebuild), I think that's it's main use.  The terminal silver is it's advantage over other gainers, in exchange for the limitation on what can be gained, though you can control that in a sense by trashing stuff you want to dig out.


There can be games where Saboteur is devastating, but those are a lot more rare than the times where Rogue shines, and I think Rogue shines nearly as brightly when it's good.  It might be harder to notice/remember, because you're not getting your deck blown to pieces by Rogue.

[Awaclus]

There can be games where Saboteur is devastating, but those are a lot more rare than the times where Rogue shines, and I think Rogue shines nearly as brightly when it's good.  It might be harder to notice/remember, because you're not getting your deck blown to pieces by Rogue.

But games where Saboteur is somewhat useful and worth getting are not that rare.

[KingZog3]

There can be games where Saboteur is devastating, but those are a lot more rare than the times where Rogue shines, and I think Rogue shines nearly as brightly when it's good.  It might be harder to notice/remember, because you're not getting your deck blown to pieces by Rogue.

But games where Saboteur is somewhat useful and worth getting are not that rare.

Im not sure about that. I mean yes if there aren't many $5's you need lots of, then Saboteur can be a nice pickup. But if the opponent has a bunch of Silver, so theres a lot of good lower cost cards then Saboteur isn't really that good.

And Rogue doesn't feel as devastating because you don't really hurt your opponent with it. But it is useful, and it benefits you this turn with the $2.

[Awaclus]

Im not sure about that. I mean yes if there aren't many $5's you need lots of, then Saboteur can be a nice pickup.

Or if you just need an attack, and it's the strongest one available.

[c4master]

Im not sure about that. I mean yes if there aren't many $5's you need lots of, then Saboteur can be a nice pickup.

Or if you just need an attack, and it's the strongest one available.

It won't lengthen the game for most of the times. Yes, hitting a good card can slow your opponent down, but it also doesn't provide anything. In RL, I used to hate it, because i mostly play 4-Player-games, where triple Saboteur just kills your deck, more or less regardless of what you're doing. Most of the time, it comes down to destroy the other Saboteurs and the one or two players, whose Saboteurs survive longest, will win the game. This is just so painful and no fun at all, even if you win (because it depends so much on luck).
In 2-player-games, Saboteur is not nearly as strong. Especially early on, it's mostly crap. You'd rather pick one (or two) up as a payload to your engine/cycling deck.
In 98% of all openings, I'd rather open Militia than Saboteur.

Btw, opening Rogue doesn't appear to be useful, either. But as gainer, it's quite nice. I agree with KingZog3 on this.

[Awaclus]

It won't lengthen the game for most of the times.

It doesn't necessarily have to make the game longer, as long as it makes your opponent's deck slower.

[Qvist]

Part 2

[hvb]

I love the list so far. Everything seems to be on the right place here. For me Outpost and Library could be a bit higher, Pillage could get down a bit, but thats just a personal flavor.

For me, the card which is so hard to rate in this list correctly is mint. It could be at any place between 30 and 60 and i would not be able to say its totally wrong there, neither on Rank 30 nor on 60. The card effect for its own is just bad and the card deserves to be at one of the last places. Most of the time you really want that card only for its on-gain effect. But then its such an outstanding card. Buying it very early with at least 4 Treasures, at best just coppers, in Hand, while your opponent isnt able to line up such a draw, regularily makes you a 90%+ favourite in that game. This single buy is simply a game changer that can rarely be found in buying just a 5 $ card. In this cases its just a #1 card, its just as good as dealing out 3 curses with one buy. So i can see that card as well slightly above average in this list.
Would be interestet, if others have this issues in valuing that card as well.

[Robz888]

Venture beats Pillage??? Oh, if only that were remotely correct.

[shark_bait]

Pillage is better than most people give it credit for.  In BM, it typically causes -$3 when played.  In engine it can frequently cause dud hands. 

[MarkowKette]

I am shocked to see Library still that low in the List.
Good Draw-up-to  engines arn't even close to as rare as most people think.
And Library is just awsome in such as it gives you strong sifting which is extremely  important in this type of engines.
And it totally doesn't rely on the presence of handsize decreasing Villages. Just vanilla Village Library and a strong terminal
(Bridge / Goons / Knights /Bishop etc) and a decent trasher already make a really strong engine.
When watching streams i often see people skip library in such cases if there is any other good draw aviable.

This card "nearly" made it into my personal top 10. (#16)
It still can hardly compete with Margrave, Wharf and Torturer
but is for me better than Rabble and at least on par with Catacombs.

[DG]

Does this make Merchant Guild the most over rated card?

[hvb]

Does this make Merchant Guild the most over rated card?

No 

[SCSN]

No, I'd put it a fair bit higher than Count and Vault and a bit below Market.

Rogue is definitely the most underrated card in this list. Not that it's super amazing, but I feel it deserves a top spot in Part 3, slightly below average.

[Awaclus]

No, I'd put it a fair bit higher than Count and Vault and a bit below Market.

Are you sure that Count is worse than Market? It's pretty much always very good.

[cayvie]

Man, it's fascinating--i took a break from the game right when Dark Ages came out, and am just coming back now. It's a weird feeling seeing people disagree over which of two cards is better and really having *no opinion* on who is right.

[c4master]

I think Library and Trading Post are both a little underrated being down here. Trading Post just helps you out so much in the beginning that I hardly ever skip it, if I can reach $5 before turn 5. Trashing 2 Estates into a silver is already good, but gaining that silver into your hand let's you buy another $3 or $4 card which basically saves you at least one turn. Later on, you can trash silver + x into silver to get rid of x or silver + silver into one silver to reduce the number of stop cards or "bad money" in Colony games.
Well, and Library is really good if there are non-terminals (or villages), that don't draw cards. MarkowKette has already pointed out, why Library is a really good card.
I wonder, why Treasury is still so "high". I can hardly imagine any game where it seemed to be worth buying. I'd surely take it for free, but it really only shines midgame, and then only very gloomy ;-)

[Jack Rudd]

Treasury is "so high" because +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Coin is a generically useful and stackable ability: most decks will happily take any number of Treasuries, and each one will make the deck stronger.

It's particularly strong in decks where the greening stage comes very late (eg Megaturn Combo decks), or not at all (some forms of Goons deck).

[Beyond Awesome]

I think Library and Trading Post are both a little underrated being down here. Trading Post just helps you out so much in the beginning that I hardly ever skip it, if I can reach $5 before turn 5. Trashing 2 Estates into a silver is already good, but gaining that silver into your hand let's you buy another $3 or $4 card which basically saves you at least one turn. Later on, you can trash silver + x into silver to get rid of x or silver + silver into one silver to reduce the number of stop cards or "bad money" in Colony games.
Well, and Library is really good if there are non-terminals (or villages), that don't draw cards. MarkowKette has already pointed out, why Library is a really good card.
I wonder, why Treasury is still so "high". I can hardly imagine any game where it seemed to be worth buying. I'd surely take it for free, but it really only shines midgame, and then only very gloomy ;-)

I almost always skip Trading Post. I was surprised it wasn't lower. Nowadays, almost everything trashes better than TPost.

[Awaclus]

I think Library and Trading Post are both a little underrated being down here. Trading Post just helps you out so much in the beginning that I hardly ever skip it, if I can reach $5 before turn 5. Trashing 2 Estates into a silver is already good, but gaining that silver into your hand let's you buy another $3 or $4 card which basically saves you at least one turn. Later on, you can trash silver + x into silver to get rid of x or silver + silver into one silver to reduce the number of stop cards or "bad money" in Colony games.
Well, and Library is really good if there are non-terminals (or villages), that don't draw cards. MarkowKette has already pointed out, why Library is a really good card.
I wonder, why Treasury is still so "high". I can hardly imagine any game where it seemed to be worth buying. I'd surely take it for free, but it really only shines midgame, and then only very gloomy ;-)

I almost always skip Trading Post. I was surprised it wasn't lower. Nowadays, almost everything trashes better than TPost.

It trashes two cards, that's pretty good. Not for a $5 card, though, and if you don't want the Silver, it's pretty bad. But sometimes it's the only trashing, that alone makes it better than some other $5 cards, and sometimes you want the Silver.

[LastFootnote]

I almost always skip Trading Post. I was surprised it wasn't lower. Nowadays, almost everything trashes better than TPost.

It trashes two cards, that's pretty good. Not for a $5 card, though, and if you don't want the Silver, it's pretty bad. But sometimes it's the only trashing, that alone makes it better than some other $5 cards, and sometimes you want the Silver.

Trading Post is great as long as you can reliably increase your hand size and there isn't a better source of Coins than Treasure. The key is using the Silvers you get as your main/only source of income and spending all your buys on engine pieces. It's also a very specialized Torturer counter.

[Beyond Awesome]

I think Library and Trading Post are both a little underrated being down here. Trading Post just helps you out so much in the beginning that I hardly ever skip it, if I can reach $5 before turn 5. Trashing 2 Estates into a silver is already good, but gaining that silver into your hand let's you buy another $3 or $4 card which basically saves you at least one turn. Later on, you can trash silver + x into silver to get rid of x or silver + silver into one silver to reduce the number of stop cards or "bad money" in Colony games.
Well, and Library is really good if there are non-terminals (or villages), that don't draw cards. MarkowKette has already pointed out, why Library is a really good card.
I wonder, why Treasury is still so "high". I can hardly imagine any game where it seemed to be worth buying. I'd surely take it for free, but it really only shines midgame, and then only very gloomy ;-)

I almost always skip Trading Post. I was surprised it wasn't lower. Nowadays, almost everything trashes better than TPost.

It trashes two cards, that's pretty good. Not for a $5 card, though, and if you don't want the Silver, it's pretty bad. But sometimes it's the only trashing, that alone makes it better than some other $5 cards, and sometimes you want the Silver.

It trashes two, but gives you a card in return that sometimes you don't want. Plus, it's terminal.

[Awaclus]

It trashes two, but gives you a card in return that sometimes you don't want. Plus, it's terminal.

That's pretty much what I said. Sometimes you want the card.

[KingZog3]

It trashes two, but gives you a card in return that sometimes you don't want. Plus, it's terminal.

That's pretty much what I said. Sometimes you want the card.

A summary of Dominion. "Sometimes"

[silverspawn]

trash two cards from your hand, +2$, gain a silver is really good early on, good enough to buy it turn 3 or 4

[LastFootnote]

It trashes two, but gives you a card in return that sometimes you don't want. Plus, it's terminal.

Right, sure. But what I'm saying is that when you have access to a card that gives you Treasures, often you can still build an engine around that fact. "I don't want to buy Silver" is way more common than "I don't want Silver". And "I don't want Silver" is way less common than a lot of players think. Unless you care about your actual Action density (due to Herald, Scrying Pool, etc.), you can take advantage of the fact that Treasures are just being handed to you by using all your buys on engine components and eventually VP without having to worry about your economy.

[flies]

Trading Post is great as long as you can reliably increase your hand size and there isn't a better source of Coins than Treasure. The key is using the Silvers you get as your main/only source of income and spending all your buys on engine pieces. It's also a very specialized Torturer counter.

this seems right on to me.

TP has gone way down in my estimation along with silver.  When you have reliable draw and need the $$, TP is great.  It's not that hot in engines and it's rather poor in terminal-draw big money.  It's okay in slogs, but because you see it so rarely there it doesn't shine.

[serakfalcon]

Counting House is good at least sometimes. Harvest is just pretty much never worth getting, even though it's less bad in the situations where Counting House is bad.

Harvest as the only source of money with doubletac or scrying pool has to be more common than the times you'll need to have lots of copper...

[LastFootnote]

Counting House is good at least sometimes. Harvest is just pretty much never worth getting, even though it's less bad in the situations where Counting House is bad.

Harvest as the only source of money with doubletac or scrying pool has to be more common than the times you'll need to have lots of copper...

That's backwards, though. Counting House itself can be the reason you flood your deck with Copper, because the amount of Coins it can produce is effectively unbounded. Harvest can only ever give you $4.

I feel like too often we judge cards based on how good they are in the deck we already want to build instead of how good they can be if we build a deck to accommodate them.

[Awaclus]

I feel like too often we judge cards based on how good they are in the deck we already want to build instead of how good they can be if we build a deck to accommodate them.

I think it's a bad idea to judge cards based on how good they are in the deck that's built around them. Counting House might be an awesome card in a deck full of Copper, but the deck full of Copper still sucks even if it has Counting House.

[c4master]

I feel like too often we judge cards based on how good they are in the deck we already want to build instead of how good they can be if we build a deck to accommodate them.

I think it's a bad idea to judge cards based on how good they are in the deck that's built around them. Counting House might be an awesome card in a deck full of Copper, but the deck full of Copper still sucks even if it has Counting House.

Now you're doing it wrong.
What LastFootnote meant, is more like this:
We should judge a card on how strong a deck can be, which is based around that card rather than judging a card on how good it is in a deck, we ususally want to build. And a deck based around counting house could be very strong, even though it needs some good enablers (Warehouse/Village/Storeroom or Wandering Minstrel/+buy might do this).
If you're going for a fairgrounds deck, on the other hand, if there are villages and stuff, Harvest could also be nice.

[Awaclus]

If you're going for a fairgrounds deck, on the other hand, if there are villages and stuff, Harvest could also be nice.

The only reason why you want Harvest in a Fairgrounds deck is that it's an unique card that you don't have yet and the other cards are even less useful for you. You're planning to hit $6, you don't need that much money, so you'd rather want a card that does something in addition to giving you some money (or splits that money between two turns).

And I think we're already judging cards based on how powerful strategies they enable. Definitely Rebuild is strong even in a normal deck, but it wouldn't be as overpowered as it is if nobody ever built a deck specifically around it, and Poor House is a great example of a card which is useless at best and a nuisance at worst in a regular deck but makes a strategy based around it very good when it's possible - and it's higher than Vagrant, which you just pretty much want every time.

[serakfalcon]

Counting House is good at least sometimes. Harvest is just pretty much never worth getting, even though it's less bad in the situations where Counting House is bad.

Harvest as the only source of money with doubletac or scrying pool has to be more common than the times you'll need to have lots of copper...

That's backwards, though. Counting House itself can be the reason you flood your deck with Copper, because the amount of Coins it can produce is effectively unbounded. Harvest can only ever give you $4.

I feel like too often we judge cards based on how good they are in the deck we already want to build instead of how good they can be if we build a deck to accommodate them.

And the more coppers you have in your deck, the less often you see Counting House, not to mention lowering the chance that you'll get Counting House in hand with something that gives +buy and can play them both. I love Counting House decks. They are fun! They are also incredibly rare, and most often don't work, or are slower than some other crazy strategy.

Don't get me wrong, harvest is a crappy card, but it can be useful as a support card in action-heavy decks with some sort of mega-drawing going on so I guess it deserves some love.

[markusin]

Call me crazy, but I've noticed that Counting House works well with Scavenger. If you have both in hand with a village, then you can draw all your Coppers. If you have Scavenger, a village, and another can trip, then you can still draw all your Coppers. Sometimes, you might have loaded up on villages and cantrips in a game with weak trashing.

[LastFootnote]

Call me crazy, but I've noticed that Counting House works well with Scavenger.

You're crazy!

[Alexmf]

Call me crazy, but I've noticed that Counting House works well with Scavenger. If you have both in hand with a village, then you can draw all your Coppers. If you have Scavenger, a village, and another can trip, then you can still draw all your Coppers. Sometimes, you might have loaded up on villages and cantrips in a game with weak trashing.

I used this strategy once (with a Village and Market Square). It was'nt too great, but decent, and fun 

[KingZog3]

Warehouse, Beggar, Counting House. It's quite potent as a strategy. Harvest, anything is not potent ever.

[LastFootnote]

Warehouse, Beggar, Counting House. It's quite potent as a strategy. Harvest, anything is not potent ever.

Harvest can occasionally be potent when throned. But I agree that Counting House is the better card.

[markusin]

Call me crazy, but I've noticed that Counting House works well with Scavenger. If you have both in hand with a village, then you can draw all your Coppers. If you have Scavenger, a village, and another can trip, then you can still draw all your Coppers. Sometimes, you might have loaded up on villages and cantrips in a game with weak trashing.

I used this strategy once (with a Village and Market Square). It was'nt too great, but decent, and fun 

As a main strategy, I don't know. It was something I just noticed mid-game in a slog of sorts where I wanted to spike Provinces. It was a "Hey, this isn't a 9-card kingdom" moment.

[markusin]

It hurts to see a card you feel is way underrated (in this case Mint) only to discover you yourself ranked it at more or less that position.

[flies]

Counting House is good at least sometimes. Harvest is just pretty much never worth getting, even though it's less bad in the situations where Counting House is bad.

Harvest as the only source of money with doubletac or scrying pool has to be more common than the times you'll need to have lots of copper...

Harvest is unreliable for this purpose since decks like that tend to draw themselves.

[markusin]

Counting House is good at least sometimes. Harvest is just pretty much never worth getting, even though it's less bad in the situations where Counting House is bad.

Harvest as the only source of money with doubletac or scrying pool has to be more common than the times you'll need to have lots of copper...

Harvest is unreliable for this purpose since decks like that tend to draw themselves.

You also have to make sure you draw the second Tac in your hand before you can waste actions generating money with Harvest.

[Qvist]

Part 3

[Robz888]

Part 3

Well, that's just a bunch of middling cards. All fine, I say.

[shark_bait]

I didn't do the rankings for 5, but I certainly think Cartographer is under-rated.  Phenomenal in slogs by discarding junk.  Lubricating engines to be more reliable.  Enabling top-deck "wishing" cards.  Cartographer can find a place in almost all decks.

[Beyond Awesome]

I would rank Council Room higher, at least above Merchant Guild.

[KingZog3]

I would rank Council Room higher, at least above Merchant Guild.

I'm not sure. Merchant Guild isn't as bad as some people think. Council has that hefty penalty, and without a discard attack it's a heavy price to pay.

[markusin]

Cartographer is the only major disagreement I have with part 3. It's too low. If your opponent gets a bunch of them, you can forget all hope of your opponent stalling.

Cartographers get you what you set up for every turn, whether that's 1 Province for BM, seeing your entire deck for engines, or getting to that potion in a Vineyards slog.

[JacquesTheBard]

I thought Catacombs and Journeyman were both considered very good terminal draw. Has estimation of them changed of late?

[serakfalcon]

I thought Catacombs and Journeyman were both considered very good terminal draw. Has estimation of them changed of late?

They are pretty good terminal draw. It's just that, there are things more powerful than terminal draw alone...

[florrat]

Where's Embassy? Is it really better than Journeyman or Catacombs? I doubt it.

I'm also missing Count, which should be in the bottom half, IMO.

[Awaclus]

Where's Embassy? Is it really better than Journeyman or Catacombs? I doubt it.

Yes. It junks your opponent's deck when you buy it.

[MarkowKette]

I'd say Catacombs and Journeyman are a little better than Embassy in engines, but you always have to consider Embassy - BM on a board with Embassy. I think people still underestimate that. The difference between Catacombs/JM and Embassy for Big money is huge. I think this alone is enough reason to have Embassy higher than Catacombs and JM. I even think it's better than Vault which we also havn't seen yet as the benefit of a silver is way lower than the benefit of Vault as you get that on each Vault play.

[LastFootnote]

You shouldn't buy Coppers for coin tokens right away, but in the end game Merchant Guild reads "+1$, +1 Buy, Gain 2 Coin Tokens, Gain a Copper", so pretty similar to one option of Count.

Ahem. *pushes glasses up on nose* I believe you mean, "in the end game Merchant Guild reads "+1$, take 2 Coin Tokens, gain a Copper." After all, you're already using the +1 Buy on buying that Copper. You don't get both "+1 Buy" AND "gain a Copper".

[BadAssMutha]

I think Treasury is about at the right place, as a card that is a bit too slow on some boards, but can be really nice on others for consistently hitting $4 or $5 instead of $3 or $4, which can be a huge difference. I wonder, though, does Treasury really do better in Colony games? The paltry +$1 doesn't seem to be worth going after when you need to hit $11, sort of how a lot of terminal silver actions lose some power in Colony games. Sure, you could buy and stack a bunch of Treasuries, but decks tend to be a little bigger in Colony games, so once you've gone green, it could be a while to line those Treasuries up again.

Also, I see people say watch out for discard attacks with topdeckers like Treasury, Scheme, or Alchemist, but it's really only necessary in games with discard attacks AND some form deck inspection (reveal top card of your deck). Unless a reveal forces a shuffle, it doesn't matter if whatever you're trying to topdeck winds up in the discard before or during your opponent's turn.

[pacovf]

Also, I see people say watch out for discard attacks with topdeckers like Treasury, Scheme, or Alchemist, but it's really only necessary in games with discard attacks AND some form deck inspection (reveal top card of your deck). Unless a reveal forces a shuffle, it doesn't matter if whatever you're trying to topdeck winds up in the discard before or during your opponent's turn.

I'm not exactly sure if I understand your point about top deckers, since in most cases when you top deck something it will be in your hand by the time your opponent's turn comes around. However, there is more than one reason to be careful with topdeckers when discarding attacks are around. If you manage to get five or more treasuries/alchemists, then a discard attack is so much more powerful, because it's forcing you to discard strong cards instead of, say, coppers or VP cards.

The other problem is with cantrips in general, as most of these are. If you only have non-drawing cards in your hand, a militia leaves you with the best 3 cards out of five. If you have five cantrips in hand (say, peddlers), then you end up with whatever benefit three of those cantrips give and three RANDOM cards. To give a simple example, if you've got two vagrants, two silvers, and an estate before a militia hits, then those vagrants are hurting you, because your decision is not as well informed as if you didn't have those vagrants in your deck and had drawn whatever they are going to draw anyway.

[markusin]

Treasuries don't help you get Colonies directly, but they help you get more expensive engine pieces. Colony games typically give engines more time to set up, so Treasury has more time to do its thing.

[sudgy]

I'm also missing Count, which should be in the bottom half, IMO.

Count is actually a pretty good card.  It's very versatile.

[BadAssMutha]

Also, I see people say watch out for discard attacks with topdeckers like Treasury, Scheme, or Alchemist, but it's really only necessary in games with discard attacks AND some form deck inspection (reveal top card of your deck). Unless a reveal forces a shuffle, it doesn't matter if whatever you're trying to topdeck winds up in the discard before or during your opponent's turn.

I guess my point here about the topdeckers is that people might be hesitant to put stuff back on the deck for fear of discarding it. For example, in a Militia game, someone might only put 3 Treasuries back on top instead of 5 of them. That strategy usually isn't necessary, since the Treasuries would be in the discard when you shuffle either way. The better move is to topdeck all the Treasuries, and discard only 2 when and if the time comes. The only games that this isn't true is ones with deck inspection, which could trigger a reshuffle before discarding the Treasuries.

I find it's not so much the fact that you had to discard your good cards (that can happen by chance anyway), it's really that the cards are costed in such a way as to take into account the topdecking, and with the discard attacks, you sometimes wind up paying for an ability that you can't use.

I agree that cantrips can be less useful with discard attacks, since they reduce the available information. That said, I don't think there are any topdecking cantrips that wouldn't be worth the decrease in information. I would gladly put an Alchemist or Treasury back on my deck at the cost of not knowing what the next card is. I suppose Walled Village might be an exception if I've been keeping good track of my deck and know there aren't anymore actions coming, as well as weak Schemed cantrips like Vagrant.

[pacovf]

I think we agree completely. Of course you should always topdeck all the treasuries you can, but if there are discarding attacks, then it's probaby not worth to buy a fourth treasury, given that their cost, as you say it, already takes into account its topdecking.

My point about the cantrips was that, even though we usually say that a cantrip can't hurt your deck as long a you don't draw it dead, they also hurt you a bit in the case of discarding attacks. Most of the time their extra benefits make up for the lack of information, but that effect is still there, and when you bought that card you paid the cost of a card that doesn't interfere with the rest of your deck (for example, the odds of matching you different cards), so maybe you would have done better buying something else.

[flies]

Jester is way too high.  Its attack is super weak.  Most of the time, you're sending over a copper, which just isn't worth $5, and when it passes curses, it also cleans up the top of your opponent's deck.  As a gainer in multiplayer, well then it can be okay, but only on boards with some trashing and an engine and only until piles run out.  The cursing is most reliable in the endgame when it matters least.  Jester is a very weak card in 2p and I had it ten+ ranks lower.  Wth?

[HiveMindEmulator]

^Jester is less of an attack and more of a gainer. You really don't want to hit Copper, but in games with good trashing, it's very often gaining you an engine piece while giving $2, which is pretty good.

[Jdaki]

Also, conversely to the "clearing up" when Jester hands out a curse, when you gain, the opponent effectively has to discard. And copper junking is pretty bad- especially with the +2coin.

[JacquesTheBard]

Jester is at its best when given Spy-Attacks to work with, especially Scrying Pool. Easy gaining of any engine component is not to be taken lightly.

[AJD]

I'd love to see someone do a compare-and-contrast of Jester with Rogue; they seem to have a lot in common in terms of what they actually do.

[serakfalcon]

I'd love to see someone do a compare-and-contrast of Jester with Rogue; they seem to have a lot in common in terms of what they actually do.

Jester: great at gaining random cards from your opponent and/or mildly junking their deck. Only as good as your opponent.

Rogue: trash a card from your opponent's deck so they can steal it back the next turn.
Unless you can play rogue many times per turn, problematic. On the other hand, Rogue is also nice as an assist for trash-for-benefit where you can pull the cards you trashed back. (Duchies from rebuild, or border villages for an extra on-gain).

[Schneau]

I'd love to see someone do a compare-and-contrast of Jester with Rogue; they seem to have a lot in common in terms of what they actually do.

At one point I was planning on writing an article comparing cost $5 cards that have +$2 and gain a card. This includes Jester, Rogue, Haggler, and Explorer. I see these cards as variations on Workshop + $2, with different limitations on what card you can gain. I never got around to writing such an article, but I'd be interested in seeing one if someone else wants to.

[terminalCopper]

I'd love to see someone do a compare-and-contrast of Jester with Rogue; they seem to have a lot in common in terms of what they actually do.

At one point I was planning on writing an article comparing cost $5 cards that have +$2 and gain a card. This includes Jester, Rogue, Haggler, and Explorer. I see these cards as variations on Workshop + $2, with different limitations on what card you can gain. I never got around to writing such an article, but I'd be interested in seeing one if someone else wants to.

You might also compare them to Trading Post or Mine, if you interprete them as follows:

Trading Post: +2$, gain a silver, trash 2 cards
Mine: +2$, gain a silver, trash a copper (or similar ...)

[silverspawn]

I'd love to see someone do a compare-and-contrast of Jester with Rogue; they seem to have a lot in common in terms of what they actually do.

At one point I was planning on writing an article comparing cost $5 cards that have +$2 and gain a card. This includes Jester, Rogue, Haggler, and Explorer. I see these cards as variations on Workshop + $2, with different limitations on what card you can gain. I never got around to writing such an article, but I'd be interested in seeing one if someone else wants to.

You might also compare them to Trading Post or Mine, if you interprete them as follows:

Trading Post: +2$, gain a silver, trash 2 cards
Mine: +2$, gain a silver, trash a copper (or similar ...)

trading post: absolutely, mine: no, it's +1$

[liopoil]

Mine (the $5 action card with that name, that is) is: +1 coin, reveal a silver or copper from your hand, gain a peddler.

There are only 5 million edge cases to this, many of which aren't even that edgy.

[Marcory]

Mine doesn't gain any cards (unless you're Mining Spoils); it merely upgrades them. It also usually only gains $1.

Trading Post actually reduces your deck size (barring 1-card hands and Fortress), and frequently trashes Copper, so it's rare for it to get $2.

These cards are thus in a different category Jester/Rogue/Haggler/Explorer, all of which give $2 and frequently make you gain a card. There are edge cases: Jester vs. a 5 card deck or when it deals junk; Rogue when it attacks; Haggler when you don't buy anything; Explorer when the Silvers/Golds are out, when you have Watchtower in hand, etc, but these edge cases don't detract from the overall similarity of these cards.

Explorer is like Trading Post in that it is a silver gainer, but that's a different point of comparison. Similarly, there's lots of $5 cards (Dame Silvia, Venture, Stash, Festival, etc) that give +$2, but don't gain a card; they're also in a different class than the named four cards.

[terminalCopper]

mine: no, it's +1$

Mine doesn't gain any cards (unless you're Mining Spoils); it merely upgrades them. It also usually only gains $1.

Mine (the $5 action card with that name, that is) is: +1 coin, reveal a silver or copper from your hand, gain a peddler.

I am aware of the "standard interpretation" of mine saying "+1$ right now, upgrade your treasure".
But if you read it as "+2$, gain a silver, trash a copper", this is 100% true as well (if you choose the copper--->silver thing).
"+2$" and "trash a copper" net together "+1$", and yeah, mine definitely gains a card (after trashing one, so you are right, that in the result you have the same number of cards).

I don't want to argue which variant is correct, because both are
And it's true, that mine and Trading Post are bought for different reasons than the other four cards. I have chosen this weird interpretation to point out two things:

Comparing Mine to Trading Post, "Trashing Copper + having other options" is replaced by "Trash two cards"
Comparing Trading Post to Explorer, "Trash two cards" is replaced by the option to gain a gold if you have a province.

I know that these kind of comparisons don't provide a concrete result which card is better, but I like them anyway, just my two cents

[HiveMindEmulator]

I like to think of Mint as +$2, gain a copy of a treasure, -$2 and Merchant Ship as +$2, gain a card, return it to the supply, +$2 next turn.

[florrat]

Merchant Ship as +$2, gain a card, return it to the supply, +$2 next turn.

Unless you have Trader in hand, of course. You cannot return blue dogs to the supply if you haven't fed them before.

[terminalCopper]

I like to think of Mint as +$2, gain a copy of a treasure, -$2 and Merchant Ship as +$2, gain a card, return it to the supply, +$2 next turn.

For sure, my comparisons are sometimes a little weird, but not THAT much. It's clear that if you instantly understand the equivalent strength of
"+1$, upgrade your copper" and "+2$, gain a silver, trash a copper", you don't need the latter interpretation. But if

"+1$, upgrade your copper"

sounds weaker or stronger than

"+2$, gain a silver, trash a copper"

you have probably under- or overestimated one of the ingredients. Figuring this out can be a useful thing derived from strange comparisons.

[silverspawn]

"+2$, gain a silver, trash a copper"

that's stupid though, trashing your copper equals -1$. it's way more helpful to think of it as +1$, upgread a copper; it also makes sense to think of moneylender as "+2$, get rid of a copper" and not "+3$, trash a copper from your hand". if you do it like this, you know what you get in the turn you play it, and you can compare them a lot better

[LastFootnote]

Even if Mine somehow gave $2 whenever you played it, it would be a bit silly to categorize it with Rogue and Jester. Even Explorer is a stretch.

Also, if you're mostly using Mine to upgrade Copper, you're doing it wrong.

[Awaclus]

You are actually expanding the Copper, not upgrading it.

[LastFootnote]

You are actually expanding the Copper, not upgrading it.

Technically I'm mining Copper. Or am I mining Silver? I guess I'm mining Copper into Silver. Whatever. The point is that it's a waste of Mine if you have a better target available in your hand.

[markusin]

You are actually expanding the Copper, not upgrading it.

Technically I'm mining Copper. Or am I mining Silver? I guess I'm mining Copper into Silver. Whatever. The point is that it's a waste of Mine if you have a better target available in your hand.

I'm genuinely curious to know if there have ever been simulations of Mine BM vs. BMU (no Colonies) where the effectiveness of prioritizing the mining to Copper->Silver is compared to prioritizing Silver->Gold. In the absense of discard attacks, the increased variance in mining Silver->Gold over Copper->Silver is non-zero but small. At the same time, Silver->Gold increases the chance that you have nothing to mine when Mine is in your hand, since gold cannot be turned into a better treasure.

I would always mine Copper->Silver first when I used to play, and am still temped to do the same in games without discard attacks.

[DG]

I'm not sure how this list went into such a tangent about mines. Mines are about trashing and gaining. Sometimes this is purely for coin value and you want to gain higher value treasures without using buys (presumably so that you can buy drawing or engine cards) and without expanding the deck. Sometimes this is about gaining or trashing specific treasures for specific uses, such as silvers for foedum, manipulating potions, changinging hunting party draws, boosting horns of plenty, and so on. Sometimes you are gaining higher cost cards as fuel for other actions, such as mining copper to silver and upgrading silvers to caravans. If you only consider a mine to be a +1 cumulative coin then it will nearly always seem worse than silver as you typically need about four plays to be in credit. If you look at the trashing and gaining process and see it in a bigger picture of buys, card costs, and card relationships then the mine has much more to offer.

I'm genuinely curious to know if there have ever been simulations of Mine BM vs. BMU (no Colonies) where the effectiveness of prioritizing the mining to Copper->Silver is compared to prioritizing Silver->Gold.

The forums used to be interested in such things and the variance from the bigger treasures is more important. In other words, a deck of mostly silver gives you low variance 7 coin hands. I think the top players have realized since then that the stuff I mentioned above is more interesting.

[LastFootnote]

I'm genuinely curious to know if there have ever been simulations of Mine BM vs. BMU (no Colonies) where the effectiveness of prioritizing the mining to Copper->Silver is compared to prioritizing Silver->Gold. In the absense of discard attacks, the increased variance in mining Silver->Gold over Copper->Silver is non-zero but small. At the same time, Silver->Gold increases the chance that you have nothing to mine when Mine is in your hand, since gold cannot be turned into a better treasure.

I would always mine Copper->Silver first when I used to play, and am still temped to do the same in games without discard attacks.

Discard attacks are one good reason to want Mine, as is almost any sort of sifting at all. Also there are the various tricks you can do, as described by DG.

In the absence of any of those, you probably shouldn't be buying Mine at all. If you're buying Mine primarily to turn Coppers into Silvers, you're probably making a mistake.

[WanderingWinder]

I'm genuinely curious to know if there have ever been simulations of Mine BM vs. BMU (no Colonies) where the effectiveness of prioritizing the mining to Copper->Silver is compared to prioritizing Silver->Gold. In the absense of discard attacks, the increased variance in mining Silver->Gold over Copper->Silver is non-zero but small. At the same time, Silver->Gold increases the chance that you have nothing to mine when Mine is in your hand, since gold cannot be turned into a better treasure.

I would always mine Copper->Silver first when I used to play, and am still temped to do the same in games without discard attacks.

Discard attacks are one good reason to want Mine, as is almost any sort of sifting at all. Also there are the various tricks you can do, as described by DG.

In the absence of any of those, you probably shouldn't be buying Mine at all. If you're buying Mine primarily to turn Coppers into Silvers, you're probably making a mistake.

At least the first one (maybe two) are better than silver in straight BM, though of course to be fair, this is virtually irrelevant.



Variance is I think generally good, particularly against discard attacks, though not against them, you have to weigh this against the possibility of having mine in a hand with no non-gold treasures. Colony games definitely swing to mine up the expensive ones, but... well, the whole question is very close to irrelevant, anyway.

[markusin]

I'm genuinely curious to know if there have ever been simulations of Mine BM vs. BMU (no Colonies) where the effectiveness of prioritizing the mining to Copper->Silver is compared to prioritizing Silver->Gold. In the absense of discard attacks, the increased variance in mining Silver->Gold over Copper->Silver is non-zero but small. At the same time, Silver->Gold increases the chance that you have nothing to mine when Mine is in your hand, since gold cannot be turned into a better treasure.

I would always mine Copper->Silver first when I used to play, and am still temped to do the same in games without discard attacks.

Discard attacks are one good reason to want Mine, as is almost any sort of sifting at all. Also there are the various tricks you can do, as described by DG.

In the absence of any of those, you probably shouldn't be buying Mine at all. If you're buying Mine primarily to turn Coppers into Silvers, you're probably making a mistake.

At least the first one (maybe two) are better than silver in straight BM, though of course to be fair, this is virtually irrelevant.



Variance is I think generally good, particularly against discard attacks, though not against them, you have to weigh this against the possibility of having mine in a hand with no non-gold treasures. Colony games definitely swing to mine up the expensive ones, but... well, the whole question is very close to irrelevant, anyway.

It's all in the name of academic interest. I don't expect much from Mine-BM, except that it has a slight edge over BMU. But yeah, who cares about BMU these days anyway.

Thanks for the responses guys. I am satisfied.

[Qvist]

Part 4

[MarkowKette]

I think the most obvious comparison to bandit camp is a vanilla village + a gold in deck (from the first play on).
Yeah, that's not exactly the same as you can save up the spoils for a shuffle and because the average spoils per banditcamp is usually smaller than 1 because you can trigger reshuffles in the same turn you played a bandit camp and you can draw bandit camps dead.

I don't agree that Baker is that powerful. It's a pretty small build up for an engine at $5 it's still only a peddler variant. Coin tokens are a lot better then just a coin for the immediate benefit but unlike with Butcher it doesn't really change the way the card is used compared to its vanilla variant.
There are so many strong $5 cards that you usually want something else over it. The most game changing part of this is the setup coin token, which doesn't affect the power of the card itself.

For example in games with conspirator engine i'd often buy an ironmonger over a baker.

[Awaclus]

Count shouldn't be that low. I personally had it at #20 and even that is probably a bit too low.

I don't agree that Baker is that powerful. It's a pretty small build up for an engine at $5 it's still only a peddler variant. Coin tokens are a lot better then just a coin for the immediate benefit but unlike with Butcher it doesn't really change the way the card is used compared to its vanilla variant.
There are so many strong $5 cards that you usually want something else over it. The most game changing part of this is the setup coin token, which doesn't affect the power of the card itself.

I agree that Baker is overrated on this list (though it appears to be even higher in my ratings), but it is definitely used very differently than Peddler. If there's +buy, you can piledrive Bakers and get a virtual Province every turn until you're ready to end the game in a victory.

Also, the setup coin token does affect the power of the card itself. Imagine a Baker which gives 23847651898356 coin tokens instead of one as a setup effect, that effect would make Baker's top almost completely worthless (and a lot of other kingdom cards, too, but not all of them). The single coin token also affects things, on a much smaller scale.

[silverspawn]

pfft... journeyman and catacombs are both better than rablle...

rest doesn't look too bad, though maybe vault is a little bit too high. was it really 12 ranks better last time?

[Awaclus]

pfft... journeyman and catacombs are both better than rablle...

They are great counters to Rabble, but the engine which works with Journeyman but doesn't work with Rabble is pretty rare. I find it a lot easier to imagine a situation where the attack slows your opponent down just enough to give you time to finish building your engine before greening.

[Eevee]

I like rabble over catacombs and journeyman, but all of bazaar, bandit camp and especially highway are stronger than baker.

[DG]

rest doesn't look too bad, though maybe vault is a little bit too high. was it really 12 ranks better last time?

On isotropic there used to be stats collected on the win rates for each card. For each player, you could also see their success rate with each card and how well they did compared to the average. Most top players at that time had a very high success rate with vault compared to the average player. It was about the only thing you could pick out across all the top players.

[MarkowKette]

Count shouldn't be that low. I personally had it at #20 and even that is probably a bit too low.

I don't agree that Baker is that powerful. It's a pretty small build up for an engine at $5 it's still only a peddler variant. Coin tokens are a lot better then just a coin for the immediate benefit but unlike with Butcher it doesn't really change the way the card is used compared to its vanilla variant.
There are so many strong $5 cards that you usually want something else over it. The most game changing part of this is the setup coin token, which doesn't affect the power of the card itself.

I agree that Baker is overrated on this list (though it appears to be even higher in my ratings), but it is definitely used very differently than Peddler. If there's +buy, you can piledrive Bakers and get a virtual Province every turn until you're ready to end the game in a victory.


Also, the setup coin token does affect the power of the card itself. Imagine a Baker which gives 23847651898356 coin tokens instead of one as a setup effect, that effect would make Baker's top almost completely worthless (and a lot of other kingdom cards, too, but not all of them). The single coin token also affects things, on a much smaller scale.

you are completely right, and i am aware of both of those effects. But if the setup coin token affects the power of baker on the board compared to other cards than usually in a negative way, as Baker itself cant really get much out of that benefit.
The cases where you can actually piledrive bakers without getting far behind are very rare i think that only happens with 5 cost gainers like University maybe with ironworks + highway too (only if there is no + buy).

I think the stockpile coin token plan rarely is that strong with baker. I think it happens a lot more with Candlestickmaker or Merchant guild. Engines are good because their buying power per turn increases not only linearly. But from the point on you stockpile the cointokens(assuming you only build up more bakers from that point this advantage from engine ofer BM is lost so you should only do that once you finished building (ok, that's not completely true as you should already start with the token saving once you get close to finish building but still that doesn't deny my argument)
So what i want to say is those kind of engines aren't very fast and while building the Bakers advantage over Peddler isn't gamechanging. And you wouldn't get a Peddler on 5 that often.

rest doesn't look too bad, though maybe vault is a little bit too high. was it really 12 ranks better last time?

On isotropic there used to be stats collected on the win rates for each card. For each player, you could also see their success rate with each card and how well they did compared to the average. Most top players at that time had a very high success rate with vault compared to the average player. It was about the only thing you could pick out across all the top players.

i don't think that is an argument for the card being strong. I actually think if the same result shows up for the lower tier players that tells us more about the power of the card.

For example i'm pretty sure that top players like Stef, SCSN or Wandering Winder have a very high success rate with a card like Secret Chamber, and a much worse success rate with a card like Cultist.
The reason is that cards that are good only rarely request a higher skill to be played correctly.
And we all know: Cultist is very strong and Secret Chamber is pretty weak all in all

[Mic Qsenoch]

I agree that Baker is overrated on this list (though it appears to be even higher in my ratings), but it is definitely used very differently than Peddler. If there's +buy, you can piledrive Bakers and get a virtual Province every turn until you're ready to end the game in a victory all the real Provinces are gone and you lose.

Ninja'd by MarkowKette. Buying a bunch of Bakers just to stockpile coin tokens is a very weak strategy. Baker is too expensive for this to be effective often.

[Awaclus]

I agree that Baker is overrated on this list (though it appears to be even higher in my ratings), but it is definitely used very differently than Peddler. If there's +buy, you can piledrive Bakers and get a virtual Province every turn until you're ready to end the game in a victory all the real Provinces are gone and you lose.

Ninja'd by MarkowKette. Buying a bunch of Bakers just to stockpile coin tokens is a very weak strategy. Baker is too expensive for this to be effective often.

Well, I was exaggerating. Obviously it's very slow to buy enough Bakers to actually win the game with just the coin tokens, but buying a couple of Bakers and saving the tokens for the late game is often worth it, and you can't do that with Peddler.

[c4master]

Rabble and Baker seem to be overrated. I'd rather buy a strong attack and a journeyman/Catacombs than two Rabbles. Baker combos pretty nicely with Butcher, but that's about it. Surely, the coin tokens are useful, but it's speculative whether these tokens will give you an extra VP card in the end. To make use of Baker, you need to save the tokens until you can buy something better. That means, you don't need the token right now. Most of the times you want to have $5 or something alike, which is not that easy to get without support (if you're saving the coin). Don't get me wrong, I still buy Bakers quite frequently, but it's not really changing a lot.

Oh, and Vault is way too low now. Maybe, most of us are biased by Vault-BM even though Vault can do so much more.

[Qvist]

Part 5

On a side note:

I'm dissappointed Counterfeit being so low. I rated at #13.

[ChocophileBenj]

First once again (I was first for the part 4, too... I've so much nothing-to-do, or rather I'm too lazy to go on my work)

I really live on another planet since I quitted playing Dominion, because I thought Soothsayer would be even better than Witch !

[c4master]

Soothsayer is a bit overrated for the curse dealing, I guess. It's really not that strong.

On the other hand, Apprentice is just such a great card. It's a pity, it's not voted in the top 10.

[MarkowKette]

Now we are getting to the very good cards.

I wouldn't rate Soothsayer that much worse than Witch though.
I'm pretty sure they shouldn't be 10 ranks or more from each other.
I agree that Witch is better overall, but Soothsayer can sometimes really shine in engines with trash for benefit.
In games without trashing i would often take Soothsayer over Witch aswell although it has to be a close call.
If there is also good sifting and draw, like minstrel+ wharf then Witch is almoast definitely the way to go though.

I would also say that Butcher is better than Upgrade overall.
Butcher- BM is just already soo fast, and Butcher can also do crazy stuff in engines (especially with Kings Court)

[ChocophileBenj]

"Counterfeit is the first of the three cards in this list that was criminally underrated last year"

I guess Rebuild is the 3rd one, but the 2nd one is... Junk dealer ?

Anyway, it's amazing how Dark Ages cards were ranked differently from previous year. Now I can't wait to get next year to see what it'll be about Guilds cards.

[Tables]

"Counterfeit is the first of the three cards in this list that was criminally underrated last year"

I guess Rebuild is the 3rd one, but the 2nd one is... Junk dealer ?

Anyway, it's amazing how Dark Ages cards were ranked differently from previous year. Now I can't wait to get next year to see what it'll be about Guilds cards.

We haven't seen Junk Dealer yet, right? And we've seen all the Guilds cards so it's very likely a DA card. And Junk Dealer was 32nd last time, so yeah, it's gotta be that. A rise of 21 or more ranks is definitely in the running for being "criminally underrated"

I kinda feel smug that I thought Junk Dealer should have been higher way back then, but then again, I probably wouldn't have expected it to be a top 10 cards which it might be now (maybe 11th).

[Awaclus]

Soothsayer is a bit overrated for the curse dealing, I guess. It's really not that strong.

The Curse dealing part isn't that strong, but gaining free Golds is very strong.

[terminalCopper]

Let's start the guessing:

1.) Rebuild
2.) Cultist
3.) Mountebank
4.) Wharf
5.) Witch
6.) Hunting Party
7.) Governor
8.) IGGs
9.) Junk Dealer
10.) Torturer
11.) Minion

[assemble_me]

1.) Rebuild
2.) Cultist
3.) Mountebank
4.) Wharf
5.) Witch

Do you really think Rebuild is No. 1? I can't believe that Cultist can be before the cursers, either.
I'd guess:
1) Mountebank
2) Witch
3) Rebuild
4) Wharf
5) Cultist

[silverspawn]

1.) Rebuild
2.) Cultist
3.) Mountebank
4.) Wharf
5.) Witch

Do you really think Rebuild is No. 1? I can't believe that Cultist can be before the cursers, either.
I'd guess:
1) Mountebank
2) Witch
3) Rebuild
4) Wharf
5) Cultist

swap witch and rebuild and i guess the exact same thing. wouldn't agree with it though.

as for part 5, butcher is too low. man the card is good. i'm kinda surprised its just 2 ranks lower in the unweighted list, it seems like the most easy to underrate 5$ card for me. either way, it's great for lots of things and rarely skippable

[GeoLib]

Chiming in that I'm pretty sure Butcher and Apprentice are underrated

[BraveBear]

Apprentice is fine where it is.  It really needs some sort of gainer to be affective.  Yeah it can really speed up the end game if you already have a good engine but I feel that most of the time Apprenticing coppers and even estates is so weak.

[Beyond Awesome]

Butcher is underrated. Apprentice is fine where it is. I'm not sure where I ranked Butcher, but an argument could be made that it is top 10 material.

[soulnet]

I think Apprentice is fine, but Tactitian and Soothsayer are a bit overrated. Neither is better than Butcher, and I would move Soothsayer below Stables. I really think Soothsayer is only suited for BM decks and narrowly into TfB heavy engines, when Gold gaining can be nice. I think it is the most skippable of the Cursers.

Also, I think IGG is a bit overrated as well. I mean, it is kind of like Soothsayer, I would put them close. IGG rush used to be strong, but I don't see it as much now.

Regarding top 5, I would guess:

1. Rebuild
2. Mountebank
3. Witch
4. Cultist
5. Wharf

Although I would rank them

1. Mountebank
2. Cultist
3. Rebuild
4. Witch
5. Wharf

[hvb]

Let's start the guessing:

1.) Rebuild
2.) Cultist
3.) Mountebank
4.) Wharf
5.) Witch
6.) Hunting Party
7.) Governor
8.) IGGs
9.) Junk Dealer
10.) Torturer
11.) Minion

I predict that Cultist will be the winner and Witch the loser in this years Top 11:

1.) Cultist 
2.) Mountebank 
3.) Rebuild
4.) Wharf
5.) Witch
6.) Hunting Party
7.) Governor   
8.) IGG
9.) Minion
10.) Torturer
11.) Junk Dealer

My Ranking:
1.) Rebuild   [X]
2.) Wharf   [X]
3.) Cultist   [X]
4.) Mountebank   [X]
5.) Hunting Party   [X]
6.) Minion   [X]
7.) Governor   [X]
8.) Witch   [X]
9.) Ill-Gotten Gains   [X]
10.) Tactician   [X]
11.) Apprentice   [X]

[ChocophileBenj]

Let's start the contest !

#11
Junk dealer
Minion
Torturer
Governor
Hunting Party
IGGs
Cultist
Wharf
Rebuild
Witch
Mountebank
#1
So Rebuild+things that deal junk (ba dum tss) are the winners for me. It's only a prediction.

[silverspawn]

Do some more people want to throw in their guesses for the top 5? let's make a mini contest, for every card in your list you get a number of points equal to the difference of your prediction and the real position, least points win, winner gets nothing 

[jaybeez]

Two really egregious errors in part five here: Ghost Ship over Margrave and Lab over Stables are both wrong, wrong, wrong.  Especially the former, +3 Cards and +1 Buy is just so much better than +2 Cards, and Ghost Ship's attack isn't even necessarily stronger, though it sometimes is.  Lab/Stables is a closer call.

[silverspawn]

Two really egregious errors in part five here: Ghost Ship over Margrave and Lab over Stables are both wrong, wrong, wrong.  Especially the former, +3 Cards and +1 Buy is just so much better than +2 Cards, and Ghost Ship's attack isn't even necessarily stronger, though it sometimes is.  Lab/Stables is a closer call.

disagree, ghost ship's attack  often is way way better than margrave's attack. in slogs, if you draw one card and then discard three, your hand is often better because of it. top decking 2 cards on the other hand is huge, you often either have to give up your current or your next hand.

on powerful engine boards, margrave will increase your chance to draw your whole deck, while ghost ship will decrease it. these two take up a reasonable amount of all games. generally, i feel like the situations in which ghost ship is better outweight the ones in which they're simliar or margrave is better, and quite often ghost ship's attack is worlds better.

+1 card is a big difference though, i'm not sure which of both i rated higher, but they're probably really close

[sudgy]

Two really egregious errors in part five here: Ghost Ship over Margrave and Lab over Stables are both wrong, wrong, wrong.  Especially the former, +3 Cards and +1 Buy is just so much better than +2 Cards, and Ghost Ship's attack isn't even necessarily stronger, though it sometimes is.  Lab/Stables is a closer call.

disagree, ghost ship's attack  often is way way better than margrave's attack. in slogs, if you draw one card and then discard three, your hand is often better because of it. top decking 2 cards on the other hand is huge, you often either have to give up your current or your next hand.

on powerful engine boards, margrave will increase your chance to draw your whole deck, while ghost ship will decrease it. these two take up a reasonable amount of all games. generally, i feel like the situations in which ghost ship is better outweight the ones in which they're simliar or margrave is better, and quite often ghost ship's attack is worlds better.

+1 card is a big difference though, i'm not sure which of both i rated higher, but they're probably really close

+1 Buy is pretty big too for an engine.

[Awaclus]

My top 5:

1.) Rebuild   [X]
2.) Cultist   [X]
3.) Mountebank   [X]
4.) Witch   [X]
5.) Wharf   [X]

Would rank Junk Dealer at #4 now.

Predictions:

1.) Rebuild
2.) Mountebank
3.) Cultist
4.) Witch
5.) Junk Dealer

[BraveBear]

My Predictions:

1. Rebuild
2. Cultist
3. Mountebank
4. Wharf
5. Junk Dealer

I really want Witch to be #6 and Junk Dealer to be #5

There are so many games where Junk Dealer makes an engine kick off immediately.  Personally my favorite card in the game.

[Beyond Awesome]

Here is how I ranked them

1. Mountebank
2. Rebuild
3. Witch
4. Cultist
I think 5 was Wharf

[HiveMindEmulator]

Two really egregious errors in part five here: Ghost Ship over Margrave and Lab over Stables are both wrong, wrong, wrong.  Especially the former, +3 Cards and +1 Buy is just so much better than +2 Cards, and Ghost Ship's attack isn't even necessarily stronger, though it sometimes is.  Lab/Stables is a closer call.

disagree, ghost ship's attack  often is way way better than margrave's attack. in slogs, if you draw one card and then discard three, your hand is often better because of it. top decking 2 cards on the other hand is huge, you often either have to give up your current or your next hand.

on powerful engine boards, margrave will increase your chance to draw your whole deck, while ghost ship will decrease it. these two take up a reasonable amount of all games. generally, i feel like the situations in which ghost ship is better outweight the ones in which they're simliar or margrave is better, and quite often ghost ship's attack is worlds better.

+1 card is a big difference though, i'm not sure which of both i rated higher, but they're probably really close

+1 Buy is pretty big too for an engine.

I would rate Margrave better because the self-benefit is soooo much better. 2 cards isn't even close to 3 cards and a buy. 3 cards is roughly twice as good as 2 cards (since it's net +2 hand size vs +1 hand size), and buys are important. The Ghost Ship attack is a LOT better against money strategies (like it's not even close), but vs engines, it's not really much stronger. The presence of Ghost Ship is going to discourage big money strategies, which means you're more likely to be in an engine mirror, where it's not as powerful. It's the same issue as with ranking Noble Brigand. It's existence is important to shut down big money, but if everyone is playing with this awareness, the card ends up not doing so much.

[Awaclus]

3 cards is roughly twice as good as 2 cards (since it's net +2 hand size vs +1 hand size)

How good is 2 cards compared to 1 card then?

[HiveMindEmulator]

3 cards is roughly twice as good as 2 cards (since it's net +2 hand size vs +1 hand size)

How good is 2 cards compared to 1 card then?

Moat is infinitely better than Ruined Library.

[SCSN]

1. Rebuild
2. Cultist
3. Mountebank
4. Witch
5. Wharf

I keep changing my mind every other day whether Mountebank or Witch is the better card. Within this top 5 the gap between 2 and 3 is the largest.

[ehunt]

Im pretty sure Soothsayer is terrible. Rebut me!

[Awaclus]

Im pretty sure Soothsayer is terrible. Rebut me!

It gives you a free Gold every time you play it.

[Rush_Clasic]

The more successful Counting House decks I find, the more I think it's incredibly underrated. Not "move it into the top 10" underrated, but it's been better for me than many of the cards immediately ahead of it.

[SCSN]

Im pretty sure Soothsayer is terrible. Rebut me!

It gives you a free Gold every time you play it.

You mean that in addition to cursing your opponent, it also curses yourself? And that while costing you an action and giving him a card

[HiveMindEmulator]

Im pretty sure Soothsayer is terrible. Rebut me!

Depends on your definition of terrible. It has to at least be in the top half of $5 cards... I think.

If there's trashing, the attack aspect is pretty terrible. The Curse costs them a card in some future turn, but they get an extra card right now, which is way better. If the Curses don't accumulate, you actually just helped your opponent. So buying it just to Curse will indeed be terrible a lot of the time.

But there's a couple of saving graces:
1. Sometimes, the Curses can't be trashed. So then the effect eventually adds up to overtake the initial boost.
2. Sometimes gaining Gold is good enough that it's worth getting a card just to do that.

[Awaclus]

Im pretty sure Soothsayer is terrible. Rebut me!

It gives you a free Gold every time you play it.

You mean that in addition to cursing your opponent, it also curses yourself? And that while costing you an action and giving him a card

No, I mean that in addition to cursing your opponent, it also functions as your payload.

[LastFootnote]

Im pretty sure Soothsayer is terrible. Rebut me!

I definitely wouldn't call it terrible. If there's a good use for Gold (Remodel, Butcher, Governor) and/or no good way to trash Curses, it's hard to pass on it.

[AJD]

If there's a good use for Gold (Remodel, Butcher, Governor)

(buying Provinces)

[markusin]

My top 5:

1.) Rebuild   [X]
2.) Mountebank   [X]
3.) Wharf   [X]
4.) Junk Dealer   [X]
5.) Cultist   [X]

Witch ekes out at #6, and I still think Junk Dealer deserves consideration for top 5. It's still in a much better place than last year.

I had Soothsayer at #9. Admittedly, I don't feel like I've played enough games with it to know its proper place and it's probably an overrate, but to me the Gold gaining is HUGE. Sure, a light trasher can trash the curses in your opponents deck pretty easily, but having a light trasher in a deck with a straight up gold gainer really forces your opponent to build up a strong deck quickly. Similar to Masterpiece, Soothsayer enables BM strategies that didn't exist before. On the other hand, the +card your opponent gets can save their engine when it would otherwise stall, and is extremely helpful for combo decks.

I had Ghost ship above Margrave, but just barely. Honestly, I find them very hard to rate against each other because they excel in different scenarios. Ghost ship is absolutely brutal in more sloggy games, and Margrave is great in engines that want +buy (never forget, +buy means more endgame control for the engine) and a very strong terminal in BM decks with high quality treasure.

[LastFootnote]

If there's a good use for Gold (Remodel, Butcher, Governor)

(buying Provinces)

Buying Provinces with Gold is so 2012.

[silverspawn]

3 cards is roughly twice as good as 2 cards (since it's net +2 hand size vs +1 hand size)

How good is 2 cards compared to 1 card then?

saying +3 cards is twice as good as +2 cards works best on non terminals.  you can differenciate between effect and potential of a card, where as effect is what it says and potential is what you have gained when you draw and play it. (i.e. effect minus 1 card and 1 action). f.e. village has effect of "+1 card, +2 actions" and potential of "+1 action".

a lab has potential of +1 card. a "+3 cards, +action" card has potential of +2 cards, so it's usually indeed twice as good. a pure cantrip, +1 card, +1 action" has potential of zero, so it's infinitely worse than lab. safe for edge cases, even if you have a million of them in your deck, they dont do anything.

moat to ruined library is different because they both have -1 action; potential "+1 card, -1 action" isn't twice as good as "-1action", the latter is usually negative, and moat is just sometimes negative

[c4master]

I think Apprentice is fine, but Tactitian and Soothsayer are a bit overrated. Neither is better than Butcher, and I would move Soothsayer below Stables. I really think Soothsayer is only suited for BM decks and narrowly into TfB heavy engines, when Gold gaining can be nice. I think it is the most skippable of the Cursers.

Also, I think IGG is a bit overrated as well. I mean, it is kind of like Soothsayer, I would put them close. IGG rush used to be strong, but I don't see it as much now.

Regarding top 5, I would guess:

1. Rebuild
2. Mountebank
3. Witch
4. Cultist
5. Wharf

Although I would rank them

1. Mountebank
2. Cultist
3. Rebuild
4. Witch
5. Wharf

I think Soothsayer is a slow curser while IGG is a fast curser. Both cards "junk" your own deck (except that Golds actually help you sometimes ). I feel like the attack of Soothsayer is terrible and I wonder if a card that simply said: "gain a gold" would have been stronger. IGG on the other hand is a strategy on its own. It deals curses pretty quickly as you only need $5 and a buy. It doesn't depend on action cards being played. Thus said, accumulating all 10 IGGs will lead yourself to a deck that consists of at least 17 treasures half of which can produce more than one coin if needed. This should more or less guarantee a win since you only need to empty one more pile and you're probably leading in points.

I really hope, Rebuild is not the #1 $5 card. I hate it. I lose, when I'm playing it and I lose when I'm ignoring it. And AdamH has teached us about Rebuild being countered by Minion.

[Awaclus]

I think Apprentice is fine, but Tactitian and Soothsayer are a bit overrated. Neither is better than Butcher, and I would move Soothsayer below Stables. I really think Soothsayer is only suited for BM decks and narrowly into TfB heavy engines, when Gold gaining can be nice. I think it is the most skippable of the Cursers.

Also, I think IGG is a bit overrated as well. I mean, it is kind of like Soothsayer, I would put them close. IGG rush used to be strong, but I don't see it as much now.

Regarding top 5, I would guess:

1. Rebuild
2. Mountebank
3. Witch
4. Cultist
5. Wharf

Although I would rank them

1. Mountebank
2. Cultist
3. Rebuild
4. Witch
5. Wharf

I think Soothsayer is a slow curser while IGG is a fast curser. Both cards "junk" your own deck (except that Golds actually help you sometimes ). I feel like the attack of Soothsayer is terrible and I wonder if a card that simply said: "gain a gold" would have been stronger. IGG on the other hand is a strategy on its own. It deals curses pretty quickly as you only need $5 and a buy. It doesn't depend on action cards being played. Thus said, accumulating all 10 IGGs will lead yourself to a deck that consists of at least 17 treasures half of which can produce more than one coin if needed. This should more or less guarantee a win since you only need to empty one more pile and you're probably leading in points.

I really hope, Rebuild is not the #1 $5 card. I hate it. I lose, when I'm playing it and I lose when I'm ignoring it. And AdamH has teached us about Rebuild being countered by Minion.

Soothsayer's attack is weak, but it's good when your opponent can't easily trash the Curse and in the early game where the Curse slows him down anyway and in the late game where he would be drawing his deck even without the draw. It's probably a good idea to skip playing it in the engine building phase though, or wait until after that before you even get one.

It's obviously a lot better if you can combine it with other Attacks: hand attacks to undo the benefit, deck attacks to ensure he draws a bad card while Soothsayer makes sure that he will always have a bad card, and other cursing attacks to empty the Curse pile before the draw becomes too good.

[terminalCopper]

Soothsayer is the weakest curser in the presence of good trashing. But it's the strongest curser if you are forced to play some kind of slog-BM, as in this case, Gold is so much more important than an extra card for your opp.

[Moneymodel]

Whoa! Didn't expect to see Soothsayer so early. Is this the lowest ranked Curser we've had so far?

Though I definitely see the reasoning. In the short term (this turn and next) and, as Qvist said, in engine games, it's strictly worse than Sea Hag and costs 1$ more.

Since there's only 11 more, I think I'll put my vote in, more based on how the community sounds right now than on an actual strength ranking, which I've already submitted.

11 - Minion
10 - Torturer
9 - IGG
8 - Governor
7 - Junk Dealer
6 - Wharf
5 - Hunting Party
4 - Witch
3 - Cultist
2 - Mountebank
1 - Rebuild

[theJester]

From my experience, Soothsayer excels in games with no trashing or weak to no engine potential. Player playing BM or slog really only needs to buy 1-2 Soothsayers and VP cards, maybe with occasional Silver. His main economy - Golds, will come from playing SSers, so he doesn't even need to waste a turn for buying them. Of course, they become terrible in the endgame, where neither your Gold nor opponents' Curse will see the reshuffle and opponent's extra card may make the difference between $7 and $8; but by that time, your deck is already filled with Golds anyway.

I'd be very curios to see simulators' opinion about Witch+BM vs Soothsayer+BM to see if the latter wins.

[shark_bait]

Stables worse than lab... ooff, or should I hooff??    that's a rather large error.

[c4master]

Stables worse than lab... ooff, or should I hooff??    that's a rather large error.

I don't think so. Stables almost always force you into some kind of Engine/BM-Hybrid, which is most likely worse than a good engine. In the endgame, you're likely to have 1-2 Stables, but no treasure cards in you hand. Then Stables is just a dead card. Or you have to discard gold into a Stables, but what are you hoping to draw? Stables+Copper+Province? Surely not.

In the beginning, Lab generates more coins, but cycles more slowly. So Stables might be the better option. Later on, I can keep buying Labs as any Lab will probably make my deck better (aside from opportunity costs), but Stables have the potential at making your deck actually worse.

On the other hand, Stables are pretty good when you're being junked by Coppers (Mountebank or Jester could do this).

Both cards are good ones, but I like Labs a bit more.

From my experience, Soothsayer excels in games with no trashing or weak to no engine potential. Player playing BM or slog really only needs to buy 1-2 Soothsayers and VP cards, maybe with occasional Silver. His main economy - Golds, will come from playing SSers, so he doesn't even need to waste a turn for buying them. Of course, they become terrible in the endgame, where neither your Gold nor opponents' Curse will see the reshuffle and opponent's extra card may make the difference between $7 and $8; but by that time, your deck is already filled with Golds anyway.

I'd be very curios to see simulators' opinion about Witch+BM vs Soothsayer+BM to see if the latter wins.

Well, how often will you play those Soothsayers? Probably no more than 3 times, maybe less. I'm not sure whether 6 Gold would make a pesky slog deck so much better, especially if there's another good junker (any witch, but also all those "Ruins dealers").

And I'm pretty sure doubleWitch beats double Soothsayer like 70-30. The Witches will be played more often and they increase hand size.

edit: Would be nice if the simulator had implemented Soothsayer as a card. Doesn't seem to, though.

[Moneymodel]

From my experience, Soothsayer excels in games with no trashing or weak to no engine potential. Player playing BM or slog really only needs to buy 1-2 Soothsayers and VP cards, maybe with occasional Silver. His main economy - Golds, will come from playing SSers, so he doesn't even need to waste a turn for buying them. Of course, they become terrible in the endgame, where neither your Gold nor opponents' Curse will see the reshuffle and opponent's extra card may make the difference between $7 and $8; but by that time, your deck is already filled with Golds anyway.

I'd be very curios to see simulators' opinion about Witch+BM vs Soothsayer+BM to see if the latter wins.

I soloed it once. Witch won the Curse split, but Soothsayer won the province split. Basically what seemed to happen was that the Witch player, while more likely to collide, was also more likely to have Witch in hand because of Soothsayer's penalty...but those Golds, man, later in the game they really added up.

[shark_bait]

Stables worse than lab... ooff, or should I hooff??    that's a rather large error.

I don't think so. Stables almost always force you into some kind of Engine/BM-Hybrid, which is most likely worse than a good engine. In the endgame, you're likely to have 1-2 Stables, but no treasure cards in you hand. Then Stables is just a dead card. Or you have to discard gold into a Stables, but what are you hoping to draw? Stables+Copper+Province? Surely not.

In the beginning, Lab generates more coins, but cycles more slowly. So Stables might be the better option. Later on, I can keep buying Labs as any Lab will probably make my deck better (aside from opportunity costs), but Stables have the potential at making your deck actually worse.

On the other hand, Stables are pretty good when you're being junked by Coppers (Mountebank or Jester could do this).

Both cards are good ones, but I like Labs a bit more.

It's the fact that I will always pick Stables over Lab initially that I believe it's better.  Yes, it has liabilities if you trash Copper and over action yourself.  But I can't think of a situation where I would want to get Labs first and then switch to Stables.  It will always be Stables first and then Labs if they are both in the supply.  That extra cycling is just so good!

[c4master]

Stables worse than lab... ooff, or should I hooff??    that's a rather large error.

I don't think so. Stables almost always force you into some kind of Engine/BM-Hybrid, which is most likely worse than a good engine. In the endgame, you're likely to have 1-2 Stables, but no treasure cards in you hand. Then Stables is just a dead card. Or you have to discard gold into a Stables, but what are you hoping to draw? Stables+Copper+Province? Surely not.

In the beginning, Lab generates more coins, but cycles more slowly. So Stables might be the better option. Later on, I can keep buying Labs as any Lab will probably make my deck better (aside from opportunity costs), but Stables have the potential at making your deck actually worse.

On the other hand, Stables are pretty good when you're being junked by Coppers (Mountebank or Jester could do this).

Both cards are good ones, but I like Labs a bit more.

It's the fact that I will always pick Stables over Lab initially that I believe it's better.  Yes, it has liabilities if you trash Copper and over action yourself.  But I can't think of a situation where I would want to get Labs first and then switch to Stables.  It will always be Stables first and then Labs if they are both in the supply.  That extra cycling is just so good!

...which is no contradiction to what I've said.

You're the one who still has to prove that Stables are much stronger than Labs.

[Beyond Awesome]

I am much more likely to spam Stables rather than Labs. I am also in the camp Stables > Lab

[HiveMindEmulator]

3 cards is roughly twice as good as 2 cards (since it's net +2 hand size vs +1 hand size)

How good is 2 cards compared to 1 card then?

saying +3 cards is twice as good as +2 cards works best on non terminals.  you can differenciate between effect and potential of a card, where as effect is what it says and potential is what you have gained when you draw and play it. (i.e. effect minus 1 card and 1 action). f.e. village has effect of "+1 card, +2 actions" and potential of "+1 action".

a lab has potential of +1 card. a "+3 cards, +action" card has potential of +2 cards, so it's usually indeed twice as good. a pure cantrip, +1 card, +1 action" has potential of zero, so it's infinitely worse than lab. safe for edge cases, even if you have a million of them in your deck, they dont do anything.

moat to ruined library is different because they both have -1 action; potential "+1 card, -1 action" isn't twice as good as "-1action", the latter is usually negative, and moat is just sometimes negative

Yeah, usually the -1 action is big deal if your plan is to draw all or most of your deck, which makes +3 cards much more than twice as good as +2 cards. You simply can't get enough villages to draw your deck with +2 cards most of the time. It's rare that you can build an engine with Ghost Ship as your primary draw. Rather it's usually just the attack to slow your opponent. Since Margrave can function as the attack AND/OR the draw component, it ends up being stronger on the whole.

Stables worse than lab... ooff, or should I hooff??    that's a rather large error.

I don't think so. Stables almost always force you into some kind of Engine/BM-Hybrid, which is most likely worse than a good engine. In the endgame, you're likely to have 1-2 Stables, but no treasure cards in you hand. Then Stables is just a dead card. Or you have to discard gold into a Stables, but what are you hoping to draw? Stables+Copper+Province? Surely not.

In the beginning, Lab generates more coins, but cycles more slowly. So Stables might be the better option. Later on, I can keep buying Labs as any Lab will probably make my deck better (aside from opportunity costs), but Stables have the potential at making your deck actually worse.

On the other hand, Stables are pretty good when you're being junked by Coppers (Mountebank or Jester could do this).

Both cards are good ones, but I like Labs a bit more.

The situation with Stables vs Lab is similar to the Margrave vs Ghost Ship. The strength of Stables is that it fills multiple roles. It draws AND it sifts/cycles. If you're trying to make Lab your primary source of draw, you need good trashing or some other source of sifting. Stables can make an engine with light or no trashing, so there are not as many demands for other cards. And when there's other drawing or sifting, you can use Stables primarily in the other role. Even though Stables can become less good later on, it overall enables more engines than Lab does. Plus, Stables is also good in non-engines while Lab really isn't.

[LastFootnote]

You're the one who still has to prove that Stables are much stronger than Labs.

Labs get much better if you trash your starting Coppers. Stables gives you a similar benefit without having to trash your starting Coppers.

[shark_bait]

I know, I wasn't trying to contradict your analysis of the card.  I am merely disagreeing on your conclusion based on the evidence provided.  In my opinion, the fact that Stables is always better early clearly demonstrates it's superiority to Lab.  Cycling can not be underrated. 

e.g.  Why do you think Ghost Ship is so high?  First, it cycles for you and slows down cycling for your opponent.  It results in a net 4 card cycling disparity.  That is almost an entire hand.

e.g.  Why haven't we seen Hunting Party yet?  It cycles even better than Stables.  The ability to cycle through your deck is extremely powerful.

e.g.  Why is Wandering Minstrel the highest $4-cost Village?  It is a Village that cycles to find actions.  The ability for this card to cycle through the deck and find actions makes it exceptionally powerful at enabling engines.

Back to Stables vs. Lab.  The extra 1-card of cycling from Stables really is that important.  The ability to get through your deck faster and find the cards that you are actually interested in whether they be it Gold, Mountebank, Monument, etc... is so important that I will always get Stables over Lab.  I will rejoice when my opponent does the opposite.

[silverspawn]

Since Margrave can function as the attack AND/OR the draw component, it ends up being stronger on the whole.

oh, i guess my post kind of underlines that point. i was rating ghost ship almost 10 ranks higher than margrave though. i just feel like there are so many times when it dominates everything in sloggish games

[brokoli]

My opinion about the last 3 parts :

Underrated :
Festival - I would rank it closer to bazaar
Apprentice - Such a good card, can do a lot of different things
Stables - I also tend to think it's better than laboratory, though I'm not sure
Jester

Overrated :
Market
Bazaar
Count
Band of misfits - From my experience, it's very rare to see a bord where BoM really shines, with enough options in the $4 and $3 cards
Tactician - Still a very good card, I myself often overrate it because it's just a fun card to play, but #16 is way too high.
Soothsayer - Not sure about that card but gold gaining is not that good.
Junk Dealer - top 10 seriously ? I always thought it was better than upgrade but… not that much

[shark_bait]

Junk Dealer - top 10 seriously ? I always thought it was better than upgrade but… not that much

What makes Junk Dealer exceptional is that you are very likely to still hit $5 in the turn that you trash.  Junk Dealer can trash both Copper and Estate and also provides some cycling.

[BraveBear]

I've changed my mind and think lab is better then stables but only slightly.

Stables just gets worse and worse as the game progresses.  It also gets worse when there is trashing on the board which we all know is powerful in most games.

Lab is just more consistent always.

I feel like the more and more I play with stables I am discarding a silver just to get a hand that I needed that silver in.  Yes stables has better early cycling but its end game riskiness make laboratory just a better card on more boards.

[Awaclus]

Junk Dealer - top 10 seriously ? I always thought it was better than upgrade but… not that much

I think Upgrade is almost top 10 material too.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I've changed my mind and think lab is better then stables but only slightly.

Stables just gets worse and worse as the game progresses.  It also gets worse when there is trashing on the board which we all know is powerful in most games.

Lab is just more consistent always.

I feel like the more and more I play with stables I am discarding a silver just to get a hand that I needed that silver in.  Yes stables has better early cycling but its end game riskiness make laboratory just a better card on more boards.

Lab is consistent, sure. But it's consistently average (like I think it's barely in the top half of $5 cards). It really shines in a well-trashed deck, but there are so many ways to draw your deck if it's well-trashed. Village+Smithy, for one, does the exact same thing as Lab+Lab but at a much cheaper price point. And if your deck isn't trashed well enough to make Village+Smithy work, it's probably not trashed well enough to make Lab particularly useful either. Stables works well in situations where there are fewer good alternatives, which makes it more valuable.

[c4master]

Stables doesn't enable engines[*1] as it's no village and it doesn't have +buy or a gain-effect.

I would still buy a Stables first, when there is no strong trashing, but I probably wouldn't if there is. And I surely wouldn't buy more than two Stables if there is at least light trashing and I'm going to use that.
Stables + one silver or gold gainer is probably pretty good BM-Strategy. Lab really can't do that equally nicely. But with Steward on board, I'd always prefer Lab. Even as an opener.


-----

[*1] Defining engines as decks that either want buy more than one province or play more than one terminal each turn (in the endgame).

[BraveBear]

Lab is consistent, sure. But it's consistently average (like I think it's barely in the top half of $5 cards). It really shines in a well-trashed deck, but there are so many ways to draw your deck if it's well-trashed. Village+Smithy, for one, does the exact same thing as Lab+Lab but at a much cheaper price point. And if your deck isn't trashed well enough to make Village+Smithy work, it's probably not trashed well enough to make Lab particularly useful either. Stables works well in situations where there are fewer good alternatives, which makes it more valuable.

So are you saying that stables is just as far down as Lab?  Because even if one is better then the other it really is only slightly.

And trashing just dominates most boards.  Why would you want to rely on such a bad card as copper to keep your engine going?

[Awaclus]

So are you saying that stables is just as far down as Lab?  Because even if one is better then the other it really is only slightly.

And trashing just dominates most boards.  Why would you want to rely on such a bad card as copper to keep your engine going?

I think that Stables is significantly better than Lab, because Copper is significantly worse than a pure cantrip. It's not that you are relying on Coppers to keep your engine going, it's that you are keeping your engine going despite your Coppers. Trashing everything is very slow quite often, sometimes you want to do it anyway, but with Stables, you don't have to.

[BraveBear]

Drawing most of your deck is much better with labs.  With stables you are going to run into times where you cant cause a reshuffle because you have 100 coppers in your discard. 

I just think they are a lot closer just like the rankings suggest.  They might both be a little overrated but there is no way they should be more then 5 ranks different.

[KingZog3]

Drawing most of your deck is much better with labs.  With stables you are going to run into times where you cant cause a reshuffle because you have 100 coppers in your discard. 

I just think they are a lot closer just like the rankings suggest.  They might both be a little overrated but there is no way they should be more then 5 ranks different.

I disagree. I'm with Awaclus here. Stables can be used in BM, but also as a sort of Warehouse+Lab drawer. It's got the same sifting as Lab (3cards) but increases your hand size. And honestly, it's very often worth it to discard Silvers to play them.

[markusin]

Drawing most of your deck is much better with labs.  With stables you are going to run into times where you cant cause a reshuffle because you have 100 coppers in your discard. 

I just think they are a lot closer just like the rankings suggest.  They might both be a little overrated but there is no way they should be more then 5 ranks different.

I disagree. I'm with Awaclus here. Stables can be used in BM, but also as a sort of Warehouse+Lab drawer. It's got the same sifting as Lab (3cards) but increases your hand size. And honestly, it's very often worth it to discard Silvers to play them.

And with gold gainers like Hoard, I wouldn't be afraid to discard the Gold to, say, find my Goons.

Those that say Lab > Stables are arguing that the end game weakening of Stables is not worth it's strength in the early-mid game. I think that the early-mid game is crutial and is where you really get ahead of your opponent with better play. It's probably okay if your Stables are stalling when you're already 3 Provinces ahead. The cycling from Stables can give you such an edge depending on how strong the rest of the kingdom is.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Stables doesn't enable engines[*1] as it's no village and it doesn't have +buy or a gain-effect.

Chapel isn't a village and doesn't have +buy or gain. Would you say Chapel doesn't enable engines?


And about Lab being better late game:
Late game Lab is better than Witch too, but it would be foolish to say that makes Lab better than Witch. The early game is the most important part of the game.

[BraveBear]

And about Lab being better late game:
Late game Lab is better than Witch too, but it would be foolish to say that makes Lab better than Witch. The early game is the most important part of the game.

I'm saying that the added cycling of stables in the beginning of the game doesn't make up for that fact you are going to get some stall turns later on.  Where lab is consistent through the game.  With light trashing is going to accelerate you towards your engine faster then spinning your wheels with stables.

Yeah witch is bad late but the power of witch in the beginning of the game isn't even comparable to stables early "power"

[BraveBear]

Late game Lab is better than Witch too

I am comparing cards that are extremely similar. 

"early game Stables is better then Kings Court too but it would be foolish to say Stables is better then Kings Court"

[markusin]

Late game Lab is better than Witch too

I am comparing cards that are extremely similar. 

"early game Stables is better then Kings Court too but it would be foolish to say Stables is better then Kings Court"

You rarely even get KC early game though, and it rocks once you get even a semi-good action density.

The community ranked Cartographer pretty low too, so I guess the trend has shifted a bit.

[Awaclus]

I'm saying that the added cycling of stables in the beginning of the game doesn't make up for that fact you are going to get some stall turns later on

I frequently buy Stables when it's on the board, and I think I've had a total of one stall turn involving Stables this year. Said stall turn also did involve King's Court.

[eHalcyon]

This is another case of consistency vs. potential.  Lab is more consistently useful while Stables has higher highs and lower lows. 

I'm with those who favour Stables though.  I find lows to be pretty rare with Stables.  On engine-friendly boards with some trashing, there are usually better things to buy than either Lab or Stables.  If there is less engine support or no trashing, Stables is easily better than Lab.

[soulnet]

I think with good trashing (let's say, Steward), Stables may very well be better than Lab as your first $5 (assuming there is nothing even better than both). Even if you end up trashing that Stables, the extra cycling let you trash faster, and that's an extremely important plus. I think by the time Stables is an obstacle instead of an asset, you already got enough benefit from it.

[Awaclus]

I think with good trashing (let's say, Steward), Stables may very well be better than Lab as your first $5 (assuming there is nothing even better than both). Even if you end up trashing that Stables, the extra cycling let you trash faster, and that's an extremely important plus. I think by the time Stables is an obstacle instead of an asset, you already got enough benefit from it.

Plus, Stables helps you connect the trasher with your Estates, and trashing the Estates helps your Stables.

[silverspawn]

i get stalled with stables quite often, but i think that's just because im bad with them. it's one of my worst cards

it's strong though

[c4master]

Late game Lab is better than Witch too

I am comparing cards that are extremely similar. 

"early game Stables is better then Kings Court too but it would be foolish to say Stables is better then Kings Court"

You rarely even get KC early game though, and it rocks once you get even a semi-good action density.

The community ranked Cartographer pretty low too, so I guess the trend has shifted a bit.

Interesting, though.
Why wouldn't I want a Cartographer as my first $5 buy? Because it doesn't do anything for the turn I'm playing it. It's pretty good afterwards, but only a Cantrip (which doesn't help my actual turn) the turn I play it. Still, I wonder if there is something that Stables enable which Cartographer can't enable just as good. That said, I think, Cartographer could be even a stronger opener than Stables! It nets you a 4-Card-hand +0.7 Coins and you may discard up to 4 Cards from your draw pile. Stables ditching Copper nets you roughly a 4-Card-hand with +1.1 = 2.1 - 1.0 Coins and let's you draw 3 Cards from your draw pile. Maybe we're underrating Cartographer?

I also want to add, that, if the cycling from Stables ist so good, then why is Cellar so low?
I know. Stables increase hand size by one and Cellar decreases it by one, but Cellar could be better than Stables (high potential). Actually, I believe they work pretty well together.

Of course, it all depends on the board. If there is Jack, Stables will be amazing. If there is no Jack, but Moneylender, Stables are not gonna be as good. (I wonder if Stables + 1 Jack ist better than Double-Jack on a BM-board --> I've proved this on the simulator. Stables+Jack is slightly better. Here is what I've done:
# Buys one Jack of All Trades and some Stables otherwise plays a version of Big Money.
#
# This has no Colony rules, because it would be a terrible strategy in
# Colony games.
{
  name: 'StablesJack'
  author: 'c4'
  requires: ["Jack of All Trades", "Stables"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province" if my.getTotalMoney() > 15
    "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Jack of All Trades" if my.countInDeck("Jack of All Trades") < 1
    "Gold"
    "Stables" if my.countInDeck("Stables") < 1 or my.countInDeck("Gold") > 2
    "Silver"
  ]
}
I expected this to be far better than doubleJack, but it's only slightly better. I've also tried to deny duchies because Stables has more longevity, but this was as terrible as losing 95% of all the games
)

--------

Discussing these Cards, I learn a lot about them. So even if I'm wrong like 60% of all the time, I'm still fine discussing it and being corrected.

[Awaclus]

Late game Lab is better than Witch too

I am comparing cards that are extremely similar. 

"early game Stables is better then Kings Court too but it would be foolish to say Stables is better then Kings Court"

You rarely even get KC early game though, and it rocks once you get even a semi-good action density.

The community ranked Cartographer pretty low too, so I guess the trend has shifted a bit.

Interesting, though.
Why wouldn't I want a Cartographer as my first $5 buy? Because it doesn't do anything for the turn I'm playing it. It's pretty good afterwards, but only a Cantrip (which doesn't help my actual turn) the turn I play it. Still, I wonder if there is something that Stables enable which Cartographer can't enable just as good. That said, I think, Cartographer could be even a stronger opener than Stables! It nets you a 4-Card-hand +0.7 Coins and you may discard up to 4 Cards from your draw pile. Stables ditching Copper nets you roughly a 4-Card-hand with +1.1 = 2.1 - 1.0 Coins and let's you draw 3 Cards from your draw pile. Maybe we're underrating Cartographer?

We might be underrating Cartographer, but just a little. The main reasons why Stables is better are that it clears junk from your hand, so it always affects your current turn while Cartographer clears junk from your deck, so it affects your current turn only if you can draw more cards after the Cartographer, and most importantly that Stables increases your hand size while Cartographer doesn't: you still have to buy a Village and a Smithy in addition to two Cartographers to reach the same drawing power that two Stables have without any extra cards.

I also want to add, that, if the cycling from Stables ist so good, then why is Cellar so low?
I know. Stables increase hand size by one and Cellar decreases it by one, but Cellar could be better than Stables (high potential). Actually, I believe they work pretty well together.

Yeah, Cellar works pretty well with any card that increases your hand size. However, it's not as good with Stables as it is with some other cards (especially Advisor); since Stables is already taking care of some of the bad cards in your hand, there will be less bad cards for Cellar to discard.

[soulnet]

# Buys one Jack of All Trades and some Stables otherwise plays a version of Big Money.
#
# This has no Colony rules, because it would be a terrible strategy in
# Colony games.
{
  name: 'StablesJack'
  author: 'c4'
  requires: ["Jack of All Trades", "Stables"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province" if my.getTotalMoney() > 15
    "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
    "Jack of All Trades" if my.countInDeck("Jack of All Trades") < 1
    "Gold"
    "Stables" if my.countInDeck("Stables") < 1 or my.countInDeck("Gold") > 2
    "Silver"
  ]
}

Why would you buy Silver ahead of Stables in ANY scenario?

Also, if you want Stables to work, you really need some careful playing rules, to avoid unwanted reshuffles and maybe choose when to discard Silver to Stables depending on how much money you currently have and what is left in your deck. I would expect a human to play way better than this algorithm, but way worse than a much more convoluted algorithm.

[c4master]

It has just been try & error. Buying too many Stables seems to make you fall behind on money too much. Especially buying Stables over gold is a mistake, I've been doing. But probably, the simulator just doesn't play Stables properly and I don't know how I can change its behavior about Stables.
Anyways, by now, I wouldn't overestimate the meaning of all this BigMoney simulation any more. It shows a bit about acceleration and longevity but its mostly irrelevant on EGC even using PPR.

I'm pretty sure, one could come up with some nice Engine-BM-Hybrid-stuff using the simulators. Still, you need to define HOW it should be played. In my tries, I've seen the simulator discarding Monument when it was my only terminal in the deck. It doesn't seem to realize that playing Monuments could be the whole point of a deck - and not gaining cards...

Probably this discussion is a little off-topic now. I like Stables where it is and many others like it a bit higher, so that's basically it.

[Qvist]

Part 6

Regarding Rebuild:

I'm interested to hear your opinions on this card. I don't want to say to much personal opinions in this series, but I expect it to be much higher the next time because it's a card which seems not so strong at first glance, but honestly is.

But, I still had it way too low. Big shout-out for Wandering Winder and Beyond Awesome who had it highest at #5 last year.

[brokoli]

Torturer really surprises me, I don't see how it could be higher than IGG or Minion

[Moneymodel]

Mrr, didn't get any of the places right, go figure. I got the HP-Witch-Cultist sequence, but one place too low...darn Wharf, stayin' so strong and bein' in 3rd place.

I think Butcher will rise in the coming lists, as will Merchant Guild.

[Blueswan]

For a while there I actually thought that Rebuild might take #1.

[Blueswan]

In a weak kingdom with say cards like Pearldiver, Duchess, Workshop, Woodcutter, Fortune Teller, Scout, Talisman, Harvest, Rebuild and Mountebank, do you go for a Rebuild strategy or a Mountebank strategy?

Instinctively, I would probably just go Rebuild, but I'm far from an expert.

[terminalCopper]

In a weak kingdom with say cards like Pearldiver, Duchess, Workshop, Woodcutter, Fortune Teller, Scout, Talisman, Harvest, Rebuild and Mountebank, do you go for a Rebuild strategy or a Mountebank strategy?

Instinctively, I would probably just go Rebuild, but I'm far from an expert.

.

I'd get one Mountebank and then switch to Rebuilds.

[ChocophileBenj]

Rebuild your strategies ! Wharf is above witch ! (Oarf is above Nihal) And Cultist, too !

Of course, I was wondering where Rebuild would end. I think #2 is fine, even if it means Mountebank and Witch are now split... but I didn't think Witch, witch which was here since the beginning, would drop so easily !

And I hope there'll be a favourite card list... and I hope Rebuild won't be so high because... well, even if I didn't play with, I can understand people who find it boring !

[Awaclus]

Well, at least I predicted Mountebank being overrated and Cultist being underrated correctly.

[shark_bait]

Junk Dealer is too low.  I would move it up to 6 at a minimum.  It really is that good.  It allows you to both trash your deck and build up your engine at the same time.  No card can do that as well as Junk Dealer can.

Upgrade is restricted to price points
Counterfeit doesn't cycle and only does treasure
Steward trashes first and then can build up (assuming no other terminals)
Remake is restricted to price points
Trading Post doesn't cycle and fills you up with Silver
Salvager is slow and is really bad at Copper
Remodel is slow and requires something you want at $4 and/or $2

So the point is.... Junk Dealer has no limitations that other trashers have with the slight exception that it costs $5 so unless you start $5/$2 you need to wait until turns 3/4 to get it.  But even then as soon as you have a couple of them, some sort of sifting or draw, your engine will be up in no time with the bonus of becoming functional a midst the trashing.

I've learned the hard way that Junk Dealer is that good.  I can think of a couple games where I ignored it to my peril.  One of HP/X where my opponent used JD to trash Estates and then Coppers.  He crushed me.  The other was an engine where my opponent went JD for trashing while I went Counterfeit.  His engine got going much better than mine and I lost convincingly. 

[silverspawn]

let's count points!

terminalCopper:

1.) Rebuild
2.) Cultist
3.) Mountebank
4.) Wharf
5.) Witch

that's 1+2+2+1=6

assembleMe

1) Mountebank
2) Witch
3) Rebuild
4) Wharf
5) Cultist

that's 0+3+1+1+1=6

silver:

swap witch and rebuild and i guess the exact same thing.

so that's 0+0+2+1+1 = 4

soulnet:

1. Rebuild
2. Mountebank
3. Witch
4. Cultist
5. Wharf

that's 1+1+2+0+2 = 6

hvb:

1.) Cultist
2.) Mountebank
3.) Rebuild
4.) Wharf
5.) Witch

3+1+1+1+0 = 6

CB:

Mountebank
Witch
Rebuild
Wharf
Cultist

that's 0+3+1+1+2 = 7

Awaclus:

1.) Rebuild
2.) Mountebank
3.) Cultist
4.) Witch
5.) Junk Dealer

that's 1+1+1+1+6 = 11

BraveBear:

1. Rebuild
2. Cultist
3. Mountebank
4. Wharf
5. Junk Dealer

that's 1+2+2+1+6 = 12

and i think SCSN and beyond awesome weren't predictions but their own rankings

um...   

[terminalCopper]

Junk Dealer is too low.  I would move it up to 6 at a minimum.  It really is that good.  It allows you to both trash your deck and build up your engine at the same time.  No card can do that as well as Junk Dealer can.

Upgrade is restricted to price points
Counterfeit doesn't cycle and only does treasure
Steward trashes first and then can build up (assuming no other terminals)
Remake is restricted to price points
Trading Post doesn't cycle and fills you up with Silver
Salvager is slow and is really bad at Copper
Remodel is slow and requires something you want at $4 and/or $2

So the point is.... Junk Dealer has no limitations that other trashers have with the slight exception that it costs $5 so unless you start $5/$2 you need to wait until turns 3/4 to get it.  But even then as soon as you have a couple of them, some sort of sifting or draw, your engine will be up in no time with the bonus of becoming functional a midst the trashing.

I've learned the hard way that Junk Dealer is that good.  I can think of a couple games where I ignored it to my peril.  One of HP/X where my opponent used JD to trash Estates and then Coppers.  He crushed me.  The other was an engine where my opponent went JD for trashing while I went Counterfeit.  His engine got going much better than mine and I lost convincingly.

Yeah, Junk Dealer is an excellent trasher. And I agree that it's more impactful than all the other trashers you've mentioned. But, none of them is ahead of JD in this ranking; the Top10 cards are excellent gamechangers themselves, and it's always hard to  compare them.

[florrat]

Note that the top 5 cards are very close together. The difference between Mountebank and Witch is 4.1pp, which is hardly significant, so it will probably change a bit next year. However, the difference between #5 and #6 is a whopping 6.1pp, which is definitely significant.

[LastFootnote]

Maybe this has been noted before, but I find it amusing that the community's lowest-ranked $5 card is a counter to its highest-ranked $5 card.

Not saying it's a problem. It's just funny.

[jaybeez]

Cultist and Witch below Wharf??

[silverspawn]

Cultist and Witch below Wharf??

yes and they belong there. wharf is super extra amazing, maybe the least often skippable card in the game

[Awaclus]

Cultist and Witch below Wharf??

yes and they belong there. wharf is super extra amazing, maybe the least often skippable card in the game

This is a list of situations where you can ignore Cultist:
 -
 -
 -
 -
Oh, and I almost forgot this one:
 -

[silverspawn]

Cultist and Witch below Wharf??

yes and they belong there. wharf is super extra amazing, maybe the least often skippable card in the game

This is a list of situations where you can ignore Cultist:
 -
 -
 -
 -
Oh, and I almost forgot this one:
 -

i remember a bunch of games where i ignored cultist and won. vineyards and JoaT are possible reasons, but also stronger junkers (i.e. Mountebank). lighthouse may be enough of a reason too, when combined with a strong trasher. stonemaison + scrying pool + trasher is probably enough

[Holger]

In a weak kingdom with say cards like Pearldiver, Duchess, Workshop, Woodcutter, Fortune Teller, Scout, Talisman, Harvest, Rebuild and Mountebank, do you go for a Rebuild strategy or a Mountebank strategy?

Instinctively, I would probably just go Rebuild, but I'm far from an expert.

.

I'd get one Mountebank and then switch to Rebuilds.

This seems to be the optimal strategy on this board, according to Dominiate. Rebuild beats Mountebank among the one-card strategies, but combining them as you say beats either. Rebuild-Duchess bridges more than half the gap from pure Rebuild to Mount.-Rebuild, but it's not quite enough (45:55).
But e.g. Rebuild-Militia beats Mountebank-Rebuild.

This is a list of situations where you can ignore Cultist:
 - almost any Rebuild board
 -
 -
 -
Oh, and I almost forgot this one:
 -

FTFY  (Maybe not in Colony games...)

[silverspawn]

But e.g. Rebuild-Militia beats Mountebank-Rebuild.

that comparison doesn't make sense. it's never mountebank or militia. you have to choose between militia and silver, because both are t1/2 options, and between rebuild and mount likewise. if all three are present, you open militia/silver, get one early mount and then go into rebuild

to put it differently, not opening militia or cutpurse on a rebuild board is just silly (most of the time), and that goes regardless of whether or not you add mountebank later

[Holger]

But e.g. Rebuild-Militia beats Mountebank-Rebuild.

that comparison doesn't make sense. it's never mountebank or militia. you have to choose between militia and silver, because both are t1/2 options, and between rebuild and mount likewise. if all three are present, you open militia/silver, get one early mount and then go into rebuild

It's not that simple because Militia and Mountebank are both terminals which you don't want to collide (and of course there's 2/5 starts to consider). So you might not want to gain both even if either one helps Rebuild, or you may prefer a second Militia to sacrificing a $5 buy on a (potentially colliding) Mountebank.

[silverspawn]

But e.g. Rebuild-Militia beats Mountebank-Rebuild.

that comparison doesn't make sense. it's never mountebank or militia. you have to choose between militia and silver, because both are t1/2 options, and between rebuild and mount likewise. if all three are present, you open militia/silver, get one early mount and then go into rebuild

It's not that simple because Militia and Mountebank are both terminals which you don't want to collide (and of course there's 2/5 starts to consider). So you might not want to gain both even if either one helps Rebuild, or you may prefer a second Militia to sacrificing a $5 buy on a (potentially colliding) Mountebank.

yes, but the question is not "do i get militia or not", you're always going to get militia, it's just too important. the question is: "do i still get mountebank", and i'm pretty sure that you do. 2 terminals in a deck without draw or trashing isn't the end of the world, and if your opponent doesn't get a mount on his own, you can always change plans, ignore rebuild and play a BM strategy. my game sense tells me that BM-Mount > Rebuild >? Rebuild/Mount > BM-Mount, if all strategies use militia. mb i'm wrong here, but I'll have a very hard time believing that militia is enough of a reason not to get mount

second militia is a nombo, it's important early on. 5/2 is a different story, but I'm pretty sure you go mount there.

[ehunt]

Cultist and Witch below Wharf??

yes and they belong there. wharf is super extra amazing, maybe the least often skippable card in the game

This is a list of situations where you can ignore Cultist:
 -
 -
 -
 -
Oh, and I almost forgot this one:
 -

In this game I ignore it against a good player and eke out a win. I think it's a mite overrated although still a top ten card.
https://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20131116/log.50fa840ae4b0f82020d81dfd.1384623109713.txt

Torturer otoh is like criminally overrated, probably bc it sucks so much to be on the losing end. The problem is that there are so many boards where it's skippable.

[ehunt]

Cultist and Witch below Wharf??

yes and they belong there. wharf is super extra amazing, maybe the least often skippable card in the game

This is a list of situations where you can ignore Cultist:
 -
 -
 -
 -
Oh, and I almost forgot this one:
 -

In this game I ignore it against a good player and eke out a win. I think it's a mite overrated although still a top ten card.
https://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20131116/log.50fa840ae4b0f82020d81dfd.1384623109713.txt

Torturer otoh is like criminally overrated, probably bc it sucks so much to be on the losing end. The problem is that there are so many boards where it's skippable.

Aand... I bought a cultist that game after all. This argument used to seem more compelling.

[Beyond Awesome]

Part 6

Regarding Rebuild:

I'm interested to hear your opinions on this card. I don't want to say to much personal opinions in this series, but I expect it to be much higher the next time because it's a card which seems not so strong at first glance, but honestly is.

But, I still had it way too low. Big shout-out for Wandering Winder and Beyond Awesome who had it highest at #5 last year.

The funny thing is that when I ranked it #5 last year, I was playing on Goko but almost no one from iso had come over yet. I knew Rebuild was strong but neither SCSN's article (or was it AI's article) existed. It was a strong card, but I did not know how to properly use it at the time.
 
Anyway, the biggest surprise for me is seeing Wharf at #3. However, for the top 5, all of these cards are powerful. It is hard to say which of these are truly the strongest. I imagine opinions will continue to change for these cards as time goes on, although, they will continue to be the top 5 cards.

[awildnoobappeared]

Cultist and Witch below Wharf??

yes and they belong there. wharf is super extra amazing, maybe the least often skippable card in the game

This is a list of situations where you can ignore Cultist:
 -
 -
 -
 -
Oh, and I almost forgot this one:
 -

i remember a bunch of games where i ignored cultist and won. vineyards and JoaT are possible reasons, but also stronger junkers (i.e. Mountebank). lighthouse may be enough of a reason too, when combined with a strong trasher. stonemaison + scrying pool + trasher is probably enough

I remember a game where I beat Cultist with PStone+Storeroom (which is known to be a strong combo, made even stronger by all those Ruins) - it was close though, and I have no idea what its win rate is like against it.

[Awaclus]

I remember a game where I beat Cultist with PStone+Storeroom (which is known to be a strong combo, made even stronger by all those Ruins) - it was close though, and I have no idea what its win rate is like against it.

Even then, you had to pick a strategy that works well specifically against Cultist -> you didn't ignore Cultist.

[markusin]

I remember a game where I beat Cultist with PStone+Storeroom (which is known to be a strong combo, made even stronger by all those Ruins) - it was close though, and I have no idea what its win rate is like against it.

Even then, you had to pick a strategy that works well specifically against Cultist -> you didn't ignore Cultist.

Doesn't "ignoring" a card usually involve addressing it's power in some way. Ignoring Witch might mean you get an extra trasher.

And anyway, PS-Storeroom is good enough without Cultist, just like Workshop/Gardens can work without an oppoaing looter.

This argument holds for Counting House in Mountebank Games, where the CH strategy relies on your opponents Mountebank to even be decent.

[Awaclus]

I remember a game where I beat Cultist with PStone+Storeroom (which is known to be a strong combo, made even stronger by all those Ruins) - it was close though, and I have no idea what its win rate is like against it.

Even then, you had to pick a strategy that works well specifically against Cultist -> you didn't ignore Cultist.

Doesn't "ignoring" a card usually involve addressing it's power in some way. Ignoring Witch might mean you get an extra trasher.

And anyway, PS-Storeroom is good enough without Cultist, just like Workshop/Gardens can work without an oppoaing looter.

This argument holds for Counting House in Mountebank Games, where the CH strategy relies on your opponents Mountebank to even be decent.

I thought that ignoring a card involves treating the kingdom as if the card wasn't there. In Hermit/Market Square games you can probably ignore Cultist.

[zporiri]

reason why i love dominion #476: the weakest $5 card (counting house) is a great addition to a deck when the opponent has the strongest $5 card (mountebank)

[SCSN]

SCSN's article (or was it AI's article)

It was team-work, though he did the writing and ended up posting it.

[GendoIkari]

reason why i love dominion #476: the weakest $5 card (counting house) is a great addition to a deck when the opponent has the strongest $5 card (mountebank)

Stratego did it first.

[Holger]

But e.g. Rebuild-Militia beats Mountebank-Rebuild.

that comparison doesn't make sense. it's never mountebank or militia. you have to choose between militia and silver, because both are t1/2 options, and between rebuild and mount likewise. if all three are present, you open militia/silver, get one early mount and then go into rebuild

It's not that simple because Militia and Mountebank are both terminals which you don't want to collide (and of course there's 2/5 starts to consider). So you might not want to gain both even if either one helps Rebuild, or you may prefer a second Militia to sacrificing a $5 buy on a (potentially colliding) Mountebank.

yes, but the question is not "do i get militia or not", you're always going to get militia, it's just too important. the question is: "do i still get mountebank", and i'm pretty sure that you do. 2 terminals in a deck without draw or trashing isn't the end of the world, and if your opponent doesn't get a mount on his own, you can always change plans, ignore rebuild and play a BM strategy. my game sense tells me that BM-Mount > Rebuild >? Rebuild/Mount > BM-Mount, if all strategies use militia. mb i'm wrong here, but I'll have a very hard time believing that militia is enough of a reason not to get mount

second militia is a nombo, it's important early on. 5/2 is a different story, but I'm pretty sure you go mount there.

I've tried to simulate some of the combinations, and it seems that indeed you're right, Rebuild/1Mount/1Militia beats Rebuild/Militia. But (Rebuild+) 2 Militias is better than 1 in the absence of Mount., it's not  a nombo. (In BM games, Militia should hurt more in mid-game than in the early game, since the number of dead cards in hand decreases.)

my game sense tells me that BM-Mount > Rebuild >? Rebuild/Mount > BM-Mount, if all strategies use militia.

Huh? You previously said that "Rebuild < Rebuild/Mount", which seems to be true. And Rebuild-Militia beats Mount./Militia decisively, since Militia helps Rebuild more than Mount. due to being terminal. It now seems to me that the three-card combo beats all three two-card combos, which beat the respective 1-card strategies.

[silverspawn]

i mostly meant that, even if rebuild/militia beats rebuild/mount/militia in straight simulation, whenever you do go mount and your opponent didn't, you can still switch into a BM plan, because I do think mount/militia beats rebuild/militia (hence the "?")

i also don't really trust simulation... not because of the concept, but people seem to place way too much trust into simulations which do significant strategic mistakes

[SCSN]

i mostly meant that, even if rebuild/militia beats rebuild/mount/militia in straight simulation, whenever you do go mount and your opponent didn't, you can still switch into a BM plan, because I do think mount/militia beats rebuild/militia (hence the "?")

i also don't really trust simulation... not because of the concept, but people seem to place way too much trust into simulations which do significant strategic mistakes

I assume you mean tactical rather than strategic, as with scripts the strategies are given.

While I can say nothing about the Mountebanks, being the one who spent countless of hours optimizing the Rebuild scripts I can assure you they do not make any significant tactical mistakes. And if you believe to have found any, please let me know so I can eliminate them.

In fact, I believe the scripts play better than any human could, at least over the course of several consecutive games, during which lapses of attention inevitably result in suboptimal deck-tracking that would prevent you from making plays like this:

== RebuildMirror's turn 13 ==
RebuildMirror plays Rebuild.
...RebuildMirror names Estate.
...RebuildMirror reveals [Estate, Duchy].
...RebuildMirror discards [Estate].
...RebuildMirror trashes RebuildMirror's Duchy.
...RebuildMirror gains Province.
RebuildMirror plays Rebuild.
...RebuildMirror names Province.
(RebuildMirror shuffles.)
...RebuildMirror reveals [Copper, Copper, Copper, Province, Duchy].
...RebuildMirror discards [Copper, Copper, Copper, Province].
...RebuildMirror trashes RebuildMirror's Duchy.
...RebuildMirror gains Province.
Coins: 3, Potions: 0, Buys: 1
RebuildMirror buys Estate.
RebuildMirror draws 5 cards: [Copper, Copper, Silver, Silver, Silver]

[silverspawn]

i mostly meant that, even if rebuild/militia beats rebuild/mount/militia in straight simulation, whenever you do go mount and your opponent didn't, you can still switch into a BM plan, because I do think mount/militia beats rebuild/militia (hence the "?")

i also don't really trust simulation... not because of the concept, but people seem to place way too much trust into simulations which do significant strategic mistakes

I assume you mean tactical rather than strategic, as with scripts the strategies are given.

While I can say nothing about the Mountebanks, being the one who spent countless of hours optimizing the Rebuild scripts I can assure you they do not make any significant tactical mistakes. And if you believe to have found any, please let me know so I can eliminate them.

In fact, I believe the scripts play better than any human could, at least over the course of several consecutive games, during which lapses of attention inevitably result in suboptimal deck-tracking that would prevent you from making plays like this:

== RebuildMirror's turn 13 ==
RebuildMirror plays Rebuild.
...RebuildMirror names Estate.
...RebuildMirror reveals [Estate, Duchy].
...RebuildMirror discards [Estate].
...RebuildMirror trashes RebuildMirror's Duchy.
...RebuildMirror gains Province.
RebuildMirror plays Rebuild.
...RebuildMirror names Province.
(RebuildMirror shuffles.)
...RebuildMirror reveals [Copper, Copper, Copper, Province, Duchy].
...RebuildMirror discards [Copper, Copper, Copper, Province].
...RebuildMirror trashes RebuildMirror's Duchy.
...RebuildMirror gains Province.
Coins: 3, Potions: 0, Buys: 1
RebuildMirror buys Estate.
RebuildMirror draws 5 cards: [Copper, Copper, Silver, Silver, Silver]

I didn't want to make the claim that all simulations are bad. I said I don't trust simulations per se, because I've seen a lot of cases where they are just plain wrong. I remember someone saying that treasure map/masterpiece is worse than masterpiece because simulations show it, only to be proven wrong by someone else who made a few simple corrections in the code. I've also seen simulators having a <50% winrate with wharf/KC against simple BM, just to make two examples.

I want to take power away from the deux ex machina argument "simulations show that XX", because that on is own isn't worth much. But that doesn't mean that it's impossible to make good simulations, in fact I do think that it's theoretically possible to program a bot that plays better than any human ever could. It's really just a question of how good the ai is.

And yes, if you define strategy as what is played and tactic as how it's played, I mean tactical

[Mic Qsenoch]

i mostly meant that, even if rebuild/militia beats rebuild/mount/militia in straight simulation, whenever you do go mount and your opponent didn't, you can still switch into a BM plan, because I do think mount/militia beats rebuild/militia (hence the "?")

i also don't really trust simulation... not because of the concept, but people seem to place way too much trust into simulations which do significant strategic mistakes

I assume you mean tactical rather than strategic, as with scripts the strategies are given.

Can't the scripts have significant strategic mistakes? Why can't he be opposed to trusting simulation on the grounds that the programmed strategies aren't very good? Or maybe the simulator doesn't provide the flexibility in how strategies are defined to account for all the things a human might. I honestly don't know the answer to the last one, I've only played with Geronimoo's simulator a bit. Are there any obviously relevant pieces of game data that can't be accounted for easily while making strategies in the simulator? Ok maybe not obviously, are there any subtly relevant pieces of game data missing?

[SCSN]

I didn't want to make the claim that all simulations are bad. I said I don't trust simulations per se, because I've seen a lot of cases where they are just plain wrong. I remember someone saying that treasure map/masterpiece is worse than masterpiece because simulations show it, only to be proven wrong by someone else who made a few simple corrections in the code. I've also seen simulators having a <50% winrate with wharf/KC against simple BM, just to make two examples.

The results of a simulation are as good as the person who programmed it. When someone presents you simulation data and you respond by saying that you don't trust it, you accuse him of being either incompetent or sloppy, an accusation you are socially obliged to back up, e.g. by specifying what you think he did wrong. Saying that you have seen someone else mess up a simulation in the past is not enough.

[SCSN]

i mostly meant that, even if rebuild/militia beats rebuild/mount/militia in straight simulation, whenever you do go mount and your opponent didn't, you can still switch into a BM plan, because I do think mount/militia beats rebuild/militia (hence the "?")

i also don't really trust simulation... not because of the concept, but people seem to place way too much trust into simulations which do significant strategic mistakes

I assume you mean tactical rather than strategic, as with scripts the strategies are given.

Can't the scripts have significant strategic mistakes?

A script is a tactical implementation of a strategy chosen by its programmer. You can say that Advisor-BM is a terrible strategy, but you can't say that an Abvisor-BM script is making any strategic mistakes. You would be able to say that about an AI that analyzes a kingdom and ends up playing a terrible strategy.

Why can't he be opposed to trusting simulation on the grounds that the programmed strategies aren't very good?

He can, all I'm saying is that when someone provides specific data for specific strategies, any opposition should be equally specific.

Or maybe the simulator doesn't provide the flexibility in how strategies are defined to account for all the things a human might. I honestly don't know the answer to the last one, I've only played with Geronimoo's simulator a bit. Are there any obviously relevant pieces of game data that can't be accounted for easily while making strategies in the simulator? Ok maybe not obviously, are there any subtly relevant pieces of game data missing?

With Sparafucile's simulator, the one with which I've done most of my work, you can do everything you want. With it I'm confident that for over 90% of kingdoms I could produce a script within a day that plays better than I would on my first attempt.

Edit: 1111th post

[Mic Qsenoch]

i mostly meant that, even if rebuild/militia beats rebuild/mount/militia in straight simulation, whenever you do go mount and your opponent didn't, you can still switch into a BM plan, because I do think mount/militia beats rebuild/militia (hence the "?")

i also don't really trust simulation... not because of the concept, but people seem to place way too much trust into simulations which do significant strategic mistakes

I assume you mean tactical rather than strategic, as with scripts the strategies are given.

Can't the scripts have significant strategic mistakes?

A script is a tactical implementation of a strategy chosen by its programmer. You can say that Advisor-BM is a terrible strategy, but you can't say that an Abvisor-BM script is making any strategic mistakes. You would be able to say that about an AI that analyzes a kingdom and ends up playing a terrible strategy.

I tend to consider the so-called "tactical" decisions a subset of strategy. Dominion just doesn't have large enough range in the "scale/size" of decisions to meaningfully separate them for me. But I usually can understand what people mean when they say tactics, and I think I understand you.

[silverspawn]

I didn't want to make the claim that all simulations are bad. I said I don't trust simulations per se, because I've seen a lot of cases where they are just plain wrong. I remember someone saying that treasure map/masterpiece is worse than masterpiece because simulations show it, only to be proven wrong by someone else who made a few simple corrections in the code. I've also seen simulators having a <50% winrate with wharf/KC against simple BM, just to make two examples.

The results of a simulation are as good as the person who programmed it. When someone presents you simulation data and you respond by saying that you don't trust it, you accuse him of being either incompetent or sloppy, an accusation you are socially obliged to back up, e.g. by specifying what you think he did wrong. Saying that you have seen someone else mess up a simulation in the past is not enough.

I disagree that by saying "I don't trust this simulation" I accuse the guy who created it of being sloppy or incompetent, or really of anything. For one, the substant matter may so so complex that even a really good simulation makes lots of tactical mistakes, but more importantly, "I don't trust XX" is just a fact which, by itself, doesn't imply anything. I happen to be a rationalist, and I also happen to study programming, but someone else may distrust simulations in general, or he might not be able to read code, or doesn't want to. According to your logic, he is then obligated to blindly trust every simulation someone presents to him.

Really, I think what you trust or don't trust on is entierly your choice. My reasoning can be summerized as this:
-> I have seen lots of simulations that I know are bad
-> i have heard good players saying that lots of simulations are bad
-> I have heard good players saying that simulation in general has very little significance on actual tactic/strategy
-> I disagree with the general approach to simulation I've seen in this forum, at least to some degree

=> If someone uses simulation as an argument without telling me anything about its quality, I'm not going to blindy swallow it.

Disagreeing with my reasoning is fine, of course. but if you say I accuse someone you're interpreting things that aren't there.

Generally, I do believe that the guy who makes an argument should back it up, not the one who is on the receiving end.

[SCSN]

I disagree that by saying "I don't trust this simulation" I accuse the guy who created it of being sloppy or incompetent, or really of anything.

If the results of a simulation are not to be trusted that must be due to either sloppiness or incompetence. If the matter is too complex to properly simulate that clearly falls under incompetence. By saying you accuse the programmer of neither you effectively claim to be making meaningless statements, which is of course fine.

I didn't want to make the claim that all simulations are bad. I said I don't trust simulations per se, because I've seen a lot of cases where they are just plain wrong. I remember someone saying that treasure map/masterpiece is worse than masterpiece because simulations show it, only to be proven wrong by someone else who made a few simple corrections in the code. I've also seen simulators having a <50% winrate with wharf/KC against simple BM, just to make two examples.

The results of a simulation are as good as the person who programmed it. When someone presents you simulation data and you respond by saying that you don't trust it, you accuse him of being either incompetent or sloppy, an accusation you are socially obliged to back up, e.g. by specifying what you think he did wrong. Saying that you have seen someone else mess up a simulation in the past is not enough.

I disagree that by saying "I don't trust this simulation" I accuse the guy who created it of being sloppy or incompetent, or really of anything. For one, the substant matter may so so complex that even a really good simulation makes lots of tactical mistakes, but more importantly, "I don't trust XX" is just a fact which, by itself, doesn't imply anything. I happen to be a rationalist, and I also happen to study programming, but someone else may distrust simulations in general, or he might not be able to read code, or doesn't want to. According to your logic, he is then obligated to blindly trust every simulation someone presents to him.

No one has to blindly trust anything, but anyone too lazy to specify their objections should just refrain from critizing people presenting the results of a non-trivial amount of work. I believe the work I have done on these simulations to be of very high quality (and from what I've seen from Holger he's equally competetent), so while it's totally fine for you to personally mistrust it, the moment you make this public I demand you to back it up.

[KingZog3]

I think he just meant that many people quote simulator results and it quickly becomes out of context to the actual power of the card. Why is everyone so quick to assume that others are ill intentioned?

[terminalCopper]

Why is everyone so quick to assume that others are ill intentioned?

That's a quick assumption.

[silverspawn]

No one has to blindly trust anything, but anyone too lazy to specify their objections should just refrain from critizing people presenting the results of a non-trivial amount of work

The amount of work that has gone into a statement is not relevant if it's not reflected by how the statement is made. I had no reason to assume that whoever has done the simulations Holger was referring to has spent more than 5 minutes on them, because he hasn't told me anything about them. For me, just saying "because simulation", which is what he did, doesn't have any more weight than saying "because I believe it". If Holger had said the latter, you wouldn't accuse me of anything for not trusting it, so fact is that you do assign weight to the mere mention of simultation. that's precicely where we disagree.

[KingZog3]

Why is everyone so quick to assume that others are ill intentioned?

That's a quick assumption.

That's a quick assumption that I quickly assumed that... yeah it was. But it wasn't a quick assumption and people being ill intentioned. It was a quick assumption about people thinking other are ill intentioned. I don't think they are.

[SCSN]

I had no reason to assume that whoever has done the simulations Holger was referring to has spent more than 5 minutes on them, because he hasn't told me anything about them. For me, just saying "because simulation", which is what he did

He specifically told you he did the simulations himself. If you're at all familiar with the simulation work that's being done you know that Holger generally knows his stuff, so that his words deserve to be taken seriously and any objections be expressed with the appropriate level of detail. And if you're unfamiliar with the simulation work you should inform yourself before you criticise.

[silverspawn]

It's debatable whether he told me that he did the simulations himself. I'd argue that he didn't. What he said was this:

I've tried to simulate some of the combinations

Does that mean that he wrote the code? He could have just used someone else's simulator.

that's not essencial though. I am not familiar, and I didn't criticise anything, which is my whole point; all i said was that I don't trust the mere mention of simulation without further evidence

why don't we just let him decide whether or not he thought I was criticising him?

[SCSN]

why don't we just let him decide whether or not he thought I was criticising him?

Because what you're criticising is mostly my work, which Holger builds upon. And I certainly feel you're doing it injustice.

[c4master]

Well, showing the code so that anyone can investigate its correctness, would have helped here.

silverspawn doesn't like this "black box" magic where someone puts some (non-public) script data into a black box and then claims that either of the strategies represented by these scripts is superior to the other.

SheCan'tSayNo points out that the person who has done this simulation should be trusted to do this correctly. There might be evidence for this, for example previously done work by that person.

I really like to trust simulations, but only to a certain limit. I still believe, the AI does major tactical mistakes if the programmer doesn't take care of this. I've seen this by myself - an AI discarding a Monument to a Cellar, where Monuments are its only terminal. Obviously this strategy will not work correctly until some programmer tells the AI that playing such a card is an aim of strategy on its own. There might be other results like this in almost any other strategy, e.g. triggering an unwanted reshuffle etc. So unless the programmer tells me, what he has implemented (which features), I would distrust pure simulation if the results are closer together than, say, 60-40.

[pacovf]

Either SCSN or Holger could start a thread (if it hasn't already been done) discussing what is going into their simulator, the kind of choices they make, how it chooses a strategy, etc. SCSN being a remarkably good player, his claim that the simulator could potentially win in 90% of possible kingdoms after a day (which means a week of coding and another of debugging in devspeak) of serious scripting is very interesting.

I would very much like to read the thinking process that would get the simulator there. Would you use hard coded strategies? Evaluation algorithms (the way chess programs are mostly coded) to pick and choose which cards work best in a kingdom? And then there's more specific problems, like understanding first player advantage or multiplayer games, which I guess are not your prime concern, but I would still like to read about it should you eventually get down to work them into the simulator.

Personally, I distrust statements like "BM gets 4 provinces in 16 turns on average" more (who cares about variance anyway), because then people try a strategy that gets the fourth province on turn 18 and conclude that it was worse that straight BM.

[awildnoobappeared]

I remember a game where I beat Cultist with PStone+Storeroom (which is known to be a strong combo, made even stronger by all those Ruins) - it was close though, and I have no idea what its win rate is like against it.

Even then, you had to pick a strategy that works well specifically against Cultist -> you didn't ignore Cultist.

True, I guess that "Harvest" and "don't buy Cultist because I think something else is better on this board" are not the same thing.

[Awaclus]

I remember a game where I beat Cultist with PStone+Storeroom (which is known to be a strong combo, made even stronger by all those Ruins) - it was close though, and I have no idea what its win rate is like against it.

Even then, you had to pick a strategy that works well specifically against Cultist -> you didn't ignore Cultist.

True, I guess that "Harvest" and "don't buy Cultist because I think something else is better on this board" are not the same thing.

Those would be the same thing. "Harvest" and "don't buy Cultist because there's a strategy that counters Cultist on this board" are not the same thing, though.

[SCSN]

SCSN being a remarkably good player, his claim that the simulator could potentially win in 90% of possible kingdoms after a day (which means a week of coding and another of debugging in devspeak) of serious scripting is very interesting.

I would very much like to read the thinking process that would get the simulator there. Would you use hard coded strategies? Evaluation algorithms (the way chess programs are mostly coded) to pick and choose which cards work best in a kingdom? And then there's more specific problems, like understanding first player advantage or multiplayer games, which I guess are not your prime concern, but I would still like to read about it should you eventually get down to work them into the simulator.

I think you misunderstood me. I definitely don't claim that, without investing years, I can write a general Dominion AI that can play just any random kingdom it's fed even remotely well. What I said was far more modest: given one specific kingdom that belongs to the bottom ~90% of those that are easiest to play (not too sure about the % obviously, but the set should include the majority of engine boards and all non-engines), I can come up with a script that plays it better than I would at my first attempt.

The actual programming takes quite a bit of cleverness and finesse (the main challenge is formulating the right equivalence classes in which to group dissimilar gamestates that can be treated equally without much impacting the quality of play), but it's nothing ground-breaking, as the stuff that would be most difficult to get a computer to do right (kingdom evaluation and tactical adjustments) still happens in my head.

[SCSN]

Well, showing the code so that anyone can investigate its correctness, would have helped here.

silverspawn doesn't like this "black box" magic where someone puts some (non-public) script data into a black box and then claims that either of the strategies represented by these scripts is superior to the other.

My scripts have been publicly available for at least 6 months now. You can find them either in Dominiate or in the far more sophisticated Dominulator (on Sparafucile's GitHub), which requires Visual Studio to run. If you're genuinely interested I recommend the latter, as it's very flexible, e.g. a finding like this is practically impossible to obtain using Dominiate, as it's too slow to get a large enough sample. One of its interesting features is that you can manipulate the gamestate so that you start, say, with a lost Duchy split for one of the players, and investigate whether and how he should respond differently.

[7string]

Either SCSN or Holger could start a thread (if it hasn't already been done) discussing what is going into their simulator, the kind of choices they make, how it chooses a strategy, etc.

I agree.  A separate thread for the topic of simulators would be a good idea.  We are starting to lose the core of this thread and discussing the actual cards themselves - which to me was a huge part of the value of publishing the Dominion Cards Lists.

[BraveBear]

I'll help us get back on track.

I have Merchant Guild on my personal rankings at 25 and I see it in the low 40s on this list.

I know it isn't a power 5.  I know it doesn't attack or trash.  But it rivals Bridge and Grand Market on pay load.

Maybe its because I've won with it so convincing some times that it holds a special place in my heart.

I just think when building an tight engine and you are looking for a pay load MG shines even more then goons sometimes.  It isn't too tough to get 3 MG in play and buy another 5 engine components and then empty the province pile in one turn.

I just think coin tokens aren't valued enough and MG is the best in the biz.

-Bear

[Awaclus]

I know it isn't a power 5.  I know it doesn't attack or trash.  But it rivals Bridge and Grand Market on pay load.

Rivaling Bridge, a $4 card, isn't that hot for a $5 card.

[silverspawn]

Because what you're criticising is mostly my work, which Holger builds upon. And I certainly feel you're doing it injustice.

i stand by the claim that i didn't criticise it, but we're not going to come to an agreement here, so we should let it rest.

--

both merchant guild and bridge are variants of the effect "+1$, +1$ per card you buy this turn". bridge has the drawback that you don't get +$ if the card you're buying costs less than the amount of bridges you have played, mg has the drawback that its effect kicks in delayed, and has more flexibility to reallocate the $ you're getting.

I think mg is a little bit stronger once you got it, but bridge is stronger relative to its cost.

[KingZog3]

I know it isn't a power 5.  I know it doesn't attack or trash.  But it rivals Bridge and Grand Market on pay load.

Rivaling Bridge, a $4 card, isn't that hot for a $5 card.

It basically is the same strength as Bridge. I think if bridge costed $5 it would play about the same way.

[sudgy]

I think Merchant Guild is in the middle.  If you have a few extra actions, it can easily be added to your engine and help it a lot.  I one time got like 50 coin tokens from it once.

[KingZog3]

I think Merchant Guild is in the middle.  If you have a few extra actions, it can easily be added to your engine and help it a lot.  I one time got like 50 coin tokens from it once.

It has potential to give enough $$ to last you the game, which is it's advantage over Bridge which need to all be played on the same turn. But usually Bridge does the job just as well.

[Holger]

i mostly meant that, even if rebuild/militia beats rebuild/mount/militia in straight simulation, whenever you do go mount and your opponent didn't, you can still switch into a BM plan, because I do think mount/militia beats rebuild/militia (hence the "?")

i also don't really trust simulation... not because of the concept, but people seem to place way too much trust into simulations which do significant strategic mistakes

Sorry for the late reply. I'm certain that Mount/Militia does not beat Rebuild/Militia based on simulation data from Dominiate (using the standard Rebuild and DoubleMount strategies implemented there http://gokologs.drunkensailor.org/static/dominiate/play.html#Rebuild/DoubleMountebank, just buying 2 resp. 1 additional Militia for $4, which seem to be more or less the optimal numbers, gives a 59-41 win for Rebuild). Feel free to point out any strategic or other mistakes in the strategies. DoubleMountebank is certainly not as perfectly optimised as Rebuild was by SCSN, but there's not that many decisions to make there either.

(FWIW, Rebuild already beats Mount. among the one-card strategies; an additional terminal support card is not going to help Mountebank much...)