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[managore]

Strictly worse is strictly better when you're possessed.

You really have to ignore Possession (and Masq and card cost and the-card-is-worse-because-it-might-make-you-make-a-bad-decision) or you end up with precisely zero cards being strictly better than any other card.

So, in conclusion, there is no card that is universally better than any other card.

I'n glad it took us 15 pages to reach this development

It's taking us 15 pages to find a definition of "strictly better than" which leads to interesting results and not simply "nothing!"

[eHalcyon]

Strictly worse is strictly better when you're possessed.

You really have to ignore Possession (and Masq and card cost and the-card-is-worse-because-it-might-make-you-make-a-bad-decision) or you end up with precisely zero cards being strictly better than any other card.

So, in conclusion, there is no card that is universally better than any other card.

I'n glad it took us 15 pages to reach this development

We already discussed this on like the first page man.  And it was mentioned again repeatedly on the last page, where you commented.

I feel like everything I said is being strawmanned.  I never said (or even implied, I think) that Plaza is not strictly better than Village, or that you should ever buy Village over Plaza when universal edge cases are not considered.  I said exactly what I said, that there are cases in which you would have been better off with Village than Plaza, given that you play optimally with both.  Of course it is a universal edge case, I can construct a similar case in which Village is better than Worker's Village.

Maybe you never said that, but others have, and that's the whole point of this thread.  Jimmmmm's suggestion that Plaza isn't strictly superior is what started this whole line of discussion.

You should be wishing that you had made a different choice, not that you weren't given a choice to begin with.

There's no such thing as "wishing" in Dominion (unless you're playing Wishing Well).

It was a direct response to this:

leaving you wishing your Plaza was a plain old Village instead.

[Witherweaver]

Strictly worse is strictly better when you're possessed.

You really have to ignore Possession (and Masq and card cost and the-card-is-worse-because-it-might-make-you-make-a-bad-decision) or you end up with precisely zero cards being strictly better than any other card.

So, in conclusion, there is no card that is universally better than any other card.

I'n glad it took us 15 pages to reach this development

15 pages is strictly better than 1 page!

[Awaclus]

Strictly worse is strictly better when you're possessed.

You really have to ignore Possession (and Masq and card cost and the-card-is-worse-because-it-might-make-you-make-a-bad-decision) or you end up with precisely zero cards being strictly better than any other card.

So, in conclusion, there is no card that is universally better than any other card.

I'n glad it took us 15 pages to reach this development

15 pages is strictly better than 1 page!

8 pages is strictly better than 15 pages!

[Witherweaver]

Strictly worse is strictly better when you're possessed.

You really have to ignore Possession (and Masq and card cost and the-card-is-worse-because-it-might-make-you-make-a-bad-decision) or you end up with precisely zero cards being strictly better than any other card.

So, in conclusion, there is no card that is universally better than any other card.

I'n glad it took us 15 pages to reach this development

15 pages is strictly better than 1 page!

8 pages is strictly better than 15 pages!

Clearly, strictly better is not transitive. 

[Limetime]

1 champion is strictly better than 8 pages

[GendoIkari]

How come cost is a universal edge case, but type isn't?
There's cards that share the same cost and cards that share types.
No 2 different costs can be strictly better than the other, but I'm pretty sure the same goes for types.

We don't say that about the cost itself.  "Universal edge case" was the term we ended up using for specific cards that can always be used to make one card better than another one which would otherwise be strictly superior.  For example, Possession is a universal edge case because I would want a weaker card in hand when you play Possession.  Likewise, the other universal edge cases also provide ways of making a card with a strictly inferior effect better to have in hand.

We name cost-caring cards like Forge, Remake, Upgrade as "universal" edge cases because they can make you prefer having (for example) Village over Mining Village.  Yes, there are cards that share the same cost, but no such pair of cards in Dominion will have one be strictly superior than the other.  That's also the reason why we are just discussing strictly superior effects rather than strictly superior cards.

By contrast, not counting type as a universal edge case doesn't invalidate every potential case of one card being strictly superior.  It's not universal.

I found this difficult to explain.  Does that make sense?

Exactly. To try and sum this up in 2 sentences: We want to ignore as few things as possible; cost, name, and Possession HAVE to be ignored because otherwise the answer is trivially "no card is strictly better than any other card." We don't have to ignore type to have this discussion, so we don't.

[Dingan]

Are Stash and Royal Seal strictly better than Silver?

And is Quarry strictly better than Copper?

EDIT: whoops, Feodum

[eHalcyon]

Are Stash and Royal Seal strictly better than Silver?

And is Quarry strictly better than Copper?

EDIT: whoops, Feodum

Taxman is enough to prevent any Treasure from being strictly better than another.  Also, Stash having a different back can reveal info to opponents, and Quarry cost reduction can be a bad thing.

[Dingan]

Quarry cost reduction can be a bad thing.

But we're ignoring on-gain effects, right?  So like, say I want to overpay for Stonemason to get 2 Pawns.  Quarry would prevent that, but that's technically an on-gain thing, so doesn't count.  The only reason I can think of why Quarry isn't SBT Copper is because you can play it during a Black Market, and then Salvagering actions later is not as good.  Are there any other cases?

[singletee]

Quarry cost reduction can be a bad thing.

But we're ignoring on-gain effects, right?  So like, say I want to overpay for Stonemason to get 2 Pawns.  Quarry would prevent that, but that's technically an on-gain thing, so doesn't count.  The only reason I can think of why Quarry isn't SBT Copper is because you can play it during a Black Market, and then Salvagering actions later is not as good.  Are there any other cases?

You have Talisman in play and you want exactly 1 copy of a 5- or 6-cost action.
Coppersmith.
Ignoring on-gain effects only refers to the card(s) under consideration.

[singletee]

In a deck with only actions and treasures:
Worker's village is stricly better than farming village.
So is mining village.

Farming Village cares not about the -1 Card token.

[AdrianHealey]

In a deck with only actions and treasures:
Worker's village is stricly better than farming village.
So is mining village.

Farming Village cares not about the -1 Card token.

Stupid adventurers.

[King Leon]

Artificer, Market, Treasury > Peddler

I disagree with that. You can Expand a Peddler to a Colony and Peddler is protected against Knights. It can also be converted to a Gold with Saboteur.

[eHalcyon]

Artificer, Market, Treasury > Peddler

I disagree with that. You can Expand a Peddler to a Colony and Peddler is protected against Knights. It can also be converted to a Gold with Saboteur.

The thread is about the on-play effect only.  Card cost and several other factors (already discussed in this thread) have to be ignored or else there would be no cards at all that count as "strictly better".

[Marcory]

And none of these are strictly better or worse than Baker, because Baker's coin can't be spent by Black Market or Storyteller.

[Dingan]

And none of these are strictly better or worse than Baker, because Baker's coin can't be spent by Black Market or Storyteller.

And also because Baker lets me open $6 but nothing else does.

[Roadrunner7671]

And none of these are strictly better or worse than Baker, because Baker's coin can't be spent by Black Market or Storyteller.

And also because Baker lets me open $6 but nothing else does.

E d g e c a s e s

[Awaclus]

The thread is about the on-play effect only.  Card cost and several other factors (already discussed in this thread) have to be ignored or else there would be no cards at all that count as "strictly better".

That's like saying "the thread is about the correlation between hanging suicides and the US spending on science only. Other factors have to be ignored or else there would be no reason to believe that hanging suicides and the US spending on science are related in a meaningful way".

[Kirian]

That's like saying "the thread is about the correlation between hanging suicides and the US spending on science only. Other factors have to be ignored or else there would be no reason to believe that hanging suicides and the US spending on science are related in a meaningful way".

Trying to properly define "strictly better than" is strongly correlated with less fun discussion on f.DS.

[Donald X.]

The thread is about the on-play effect only.  Card cost and several other factors (already discussed in this thread) have to be ignored or else there would be no cards at all that count as "strictly better".

Magic players use the term "strictly better" way more than Dominion players do. And these communities overlap. So if you wish to communicate clearly with other people, I advise using "strictly better" to mean what Magic players use it to mean. As it happens they include cost, so if you want to ignore cost, you need a New Term.

[eHalcyon]

The thread is about the on-play effect only.  Card cost and several other factors (already discussed in this thread) have to be ignored or else there would be no cards at all that count as "strictly better".

Magic players use the term "strictly better" way more than Dominion players do. And these communities overlap. So if you wish to communicate clearly with other people, I advise using "strictly better" to mean what Magic players use it to mean. As it happens they include cost, so if you want to ignore cost, you need a New Term.

Well, that's why I always say "strictly better effect".  The OP isn't clear about it, but it has been discussed thoroughly in this thread multiple times because it keeps getting necro'd by people who don't read the exhaustive discussion that already happened before. 

The thread is about the on-play effect only.  Card cost and several other factors (already discussed in this thread) have to be ignored or else there would be no cards at all that count as "strictly better".

That's like saying "the thread is about the correlation between hanging suicides and the US spending on science only. Other factors have to be ignored or else there would be no reason to believe that hanging suicides and the US spending on science are related in a meaningful way".

I don't understand your comparison here at all.

[Awaclus]

I don't understand your comparison here at all.

Imagine that the thread is called "Causes for hanging suicides". If you take into account the factor that there is basically no causal connection between hanging suicides and the US spending on science, you have to conclude that the US spending on science doesn't really seem to be related to hanging suicides, but if you just look at the number of hanging suicides and the US spending on science and ignore absolutely everything else, it might seem like those two are related in some way because they show an extremely similar development over time. Therefore, if you want your conclusion to be that the US spending on science and the number of hanging suicides are related, you have to ignore all the other data that contradicts the conclusion that you want to reach.

Similarly, you can choose to redefine the term "strictly better" in such a way that it will mean what you need it to mean for your preferred conclusion to be correct.


The comparison was admittedly poor, but unfortunately, all the concrete real life examples that I could think of where people have actually redefined terms to mean something else so that they can reach the kind of conclusions they want to reach were pretty RSP-y.

[eHalcyon]

I don't understand your comparison here at all.

Imagine that the thread is called "Causes for hanging suicides". If you take into account the factor that there is basically no causal connection between hanging suicides and the US spending on science, you have to conclude that the US spending on science doesn't really seem to be related to hanging suicides, but if you just look at the number of hanging suicides and the US spending on science and ignore absolutely everything else, it might seem like those two are related in some way because they show an extremely similar development over time. Therefore, if you want your conclusion to be that the US spending on science and the number of hanging suicides are related, you have to ignore all the other data that contradicts the conclusion that you want to reach.

Similarly, you can choose to redefine the term "strictly better" in such a way that it will mean what you need it to mean for your preferred conclusion to be correct.


The comparison was admittedly poor, but unfortunately, all the concrete real life examples that I could think of where people have actually redefined terms to mean something else so that they can reach the kind of conclusions they want to reach were pretty RSP-y.

I still don't think your comparison makes sense.  The difference is that the answer to "what are the causes of hanging suicides?" is not simply "there are none".  But that's the answer to the question in the OP, "what are some pairs of cards where one is strictly better than another?"  And this was answered early on in the thread.  Then the majority of the thread was about strictly better effects, including finding all the so-called "universal edge cases" that make the answer "none".  In fact, some of these were even included in the OP:

Okay guys, the challenge is simple: name a pair of kingdom cards of which, all edge cases considered, one is always preferable to have in hand. Prices and Possession are ignored.

So no, I'm not redefining the term to support my conclusion.  My conclusion about what this thread is about is based on the actual discussion that happened in this thread.  Have you read it?

[Awaclus]

So no, I'm not redefining the term to support my conclusion.  My conclusion about what this thread is about is based on the actual discussion that happened in this thread.  Have you read it?

I'm not accusing you of it, I'm accusing the entire thread.