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[silverspawn]

In this thread, heavily inspired by jsh's art rankings, I will rate all official Kingdom cards by how much I like their design. This is most closely related to how fun I find them to play with, and may or may not include other aspects as well. The purpose of this thread is to spawn discussion, promote good cards, and generally as an excuse to talk about dominion. And, of course, this is all just my personal opinion, and it's even more subjective than power level.

I won't do ruins, individual knights, and prizes, because they're really impossible to rank. Is ruined library a better card than followers? Well yea, probably. But that's silly. Oh and, I will of course start with the worst cards, so there'll be a lot of negativity, but only in the beginning.

Onto the list.

[silverspawn]

Chapter I: The Bad Cards

	206. Possession Possession is one of two entries in a list of cards that I truly hate. It is also one of the most disliked cards by the community, and rightfully so. Possession sucks, and this is regardless of the fact that it's a very high skill card. There are countless assets to dislike about this card, and I will list a few. It's luck dependent how fast you get it, and your potion is useless if you don't draw it with enough coin. (This kind of applies to Province aswell, but at least if you don't hit 8$, you can use all treasures for something else). It makes your opponent use your deck's strength against you, which is just a terrible feeling, and that's really the worst crime a card can even be guilty of. It makes you have to degrade your own deck, sometimes to the point where it can't buy or gain good cards anymore. It counters itself, forcing you to buy even more Possessions once both Players started with it. It kills coin tokens. It makes TfB stupidly powerful. It causes the most retarded combination in the game, with masquerade, amb, or island. And, as we hear now, it also destroys combos with Prince. The concept behind Possession is of course that it's a sort of super workshop that just happens to work with another Player's deck, but is ultimately a gainer, which is why it's not labeled as an attack. Now, even if we ignore the synergy with Attacks, Bishop, Possession itself, and other cards that break this logic, the fact still remains that you can absolutely hurt your opponent by controlling his deck. If he has a nice engine with storeroom in it, it can even be a pin. Draw deck, play Storeroom, discard 0/6, play storeroom, discard 1/0, and voilá, the next hand consists of 5 useless cards. The fundamental problem here is really that, in order to execute the logic that Possession is trying to follow, you'd have to include a lot more edge cases on the card, which is impossible because there isn't enough space. I really, really hate this card. I can't really overstate how much I hate it. Every other dominion card - hell, even every fanmade card - is exponentially better than Possession in my book. This card does not need to exist.
	205. Masquerade Masquerade is entry #2 in the previously mentioned list. For a while, I thought this card was actually worse than Possession, but it's absolutely not. Really, it's not even close. The only reason I ever thought so was that I had forgotten how bad Possession really is. I probably was lucky not to play with it for a while. That said, I still hate it, and the reason for that is that pass mechanic is not designed to hurt your opponent, so when it does, it feels unjustified and unfair quite similar to possession. They are my cards. Not yours. *sigh* Why is this different from playing Rogue twice? Because Rogue is a card designed to trash my opponents cards, it's reasonably strong, priced at 5$ where it belongs, and it has the proper attack type. I'm okay with it hitting my cards, and I'm happy if it hits cards from my opponent (plus Rogue is mostly a gainer anyway). When my opponent passes me a good card with Masquerade though, I am not happy. In fact, it makes me sad. I feel the need to apologize in the chat. I didn't want this card. I don't deserve it. I also don't need it. It doesn't belong to me. It's just an unfair advantage. My fix for this card is, cut the passing. "+2 cards, you may trash a card from your hand" is a card I'd have no problem with. It'd still be super strong, and it'd be different enough from other trashers to be worth doing. Of course, I'm the only person on the planet who dislikes this card, so that's pretty redundant.
	204. Rebuild Everyone knows what's wrong with rebuild, do I even have to say anything? Just read this post, Donald says it all.
	203. Scrying Pool Scrying pool is, by all means, really not a bad concept. Provide +1 Card per Action card you flip, and a cantrip bonus to back it up. Draw a non-Action card, and you get a cantrip. One Action, a Lab, two Actions, two Labs, and so forth. Sounds strong, but cool. The problem really is that the card does too much. Why does it attack? Dunno, but the fact that it does causes two bad things. One, what I'm saying for the next card. Two, the card is too strong. Yes, being strong can be okay, but Scrying Pool is not chapel. Scrying Pool is supposed to be good in decks where you reach high action density, like Herald. But in reality, it's almost always a must-buy (SCSN was absolutely right here). I vaguely recall Donald X saying the attack on Scrying Pool was his biggest regret on any published card (dunno if that's still the case). Well, I can say that, if it didn't have the attack, it'd jump several hundred ranks upwards.
	202. Spy There are four different attacks that are meant to mess with your opponent's draw pile in Dominion: Rabble, Oracle, Fortune Teller, and Spy (and Sea Hag, but let's forget about that for the moment). Four problems come to mind for these kinds of attacks: they could be swingy, they could be weak, they could be tedious, and they could become pointless upon repeated play. Rabble, to give an example of a well-designed card, largely avoids all of these problems. Spy, on the other hand, has all four of them, and the only reason that he's not even lower on this list is that, by being so weak, he's usually just a non-factor. It's worth noting that Scrying Pool is not only the exact same attack as Spy, it's also almost the same card. Both cards are non-terminal, both card draw +1 card minimum, and both cards spy on all decks. The only differences are, Scrying Pool can draw additional cards, and Scrying Pool spies before drawing.
	201. Pirate Ship The first thing I want to say here is that I don't consider 3+ player games in these rankings. So, if I say that Pirate Ship is weak, I mean it's weak in 2 player. Unfortunately, unlike other weak cards, I don't like what Pirate Ship does, even on boards where it's strong. In addition to being super swingy, it can also lead to really weird situations, that you may or may not enjoy depending on your taste. Maybe if, after pumping the card for the entire game, the reward you get was not in the form of coins, I would like it more. But as is, I find games where it's good mostly boring and/or frustrating.

[Teproc]

Masquerade is just fine... What's so bad about having to pass cards ? It really only makes you feel bad when comined with discarding attacks, which is a thing but it's not like it happens every game Masquerade is on the board, not even close.

I mean it certainly shouldn't be high on this list, but second to last ?

Pirate Ship is horrible. Back when I was a casual playr I used to play 4-player a lot and it was incredibly oppressive. Combined with its weakness in 2-player, that makes it a pretty bad design overall, though I will admit that the first few times you manage to get your deck to work with two Pirate Ships buying Provinces, it feels pretty great.

Scrying Pool is more mixed. The thing is that it's a very fun card to play with, it's just an absolutely obnoxious card to play against. I remember the first time my best friend built a Scrying Pool deck and I still swear to this day that the game took 90 minutes (I doubt it's true, but that's how it felt).

I see what you're saying about Spy, but I think it's fine. Because it's a mediocre card it's never oppressive in the same way that Scrying Pool is, so I don't have any hate for it, in fact I quite like finding the times when buying it is correct. I would certainly rank something like Familiar below it.

[Teproc]

By the way you know what I want number 1 to be. I'll understand if it's not, but outside of the top ten and you're dead to me.

[Awaclus]

Masquerade is just fine... What's so bad about having to pass cards ? It really only makes you feel bad when comined with discarding attacks, which is a thing but it's not like it happens every game Masquerade is on the board, not even close.

I mean it certainly shouldn't be high on this list, but second to last ?

How do you know what cards should be high on silverspawn's list?

Masq would probably be in my top 10 if I did a design rankings list.

[silverspawn]

By the way you know what I want number 1 to be. I'll understand if it's not, but outside of the top ten and you're dead to me.

actually, i have no idea  e: I thought you meant worst cards. so, real top10. it it's tactician, that might happen.

What's so bad about having to pass cards ?

if it's a bad card, nothing. But if you have to pass engine components... urg. it's somewhat similar to minion, I look at my hand, make great plans, and then I have to pass a village or something

[markusin]

The spy attack on Scrying Pool is soooo annoying to resolve. It's made worse by how strong Scrying Pool is in multiples even without the attack portion.

By the way you know what I want number 1 to be. I'll understand if it's not, but outside of the top ten and you're dead to me.

is it Tactician?

For what it's worth, I'd prefer if Masquerade didn't have the pass mechanic, even though it makes it slightly weaker. You're usually just passing Coppers back and forth, except when you're not and you feel awful inside.

[DG]

It seems like you don't like the cards that significantly change the game! For some people those are the best cards and they just need a different mindset. There are however some design problems with those first few cards :

a) Possession and Pirate Ship can create stalemate situations where no players wants to progress their deck or progress the game as it will assist the opponent more.
b) Possession (and to some degree Masquerade) can create multi player situations where success hinges on the tactics of a specific player on your left or right.
c) Masquerade should always be neutral in terms of hand count. A player who starts with an empty hand should finish with an empty hand.
d) Possession and Outpost turn sequences are just too complicated.

[faust]

In this thread, heavily inspired by jsh's art rankings, I will rate all official Kingdom cards by their design. This is most closely related to how fun I find them to play with, and may or may not include other aspects as well. The purpose of this thread is to spawn discussion, promote good cards, and generally as an excuse to talk about dominion. And, of course, this is all just my personal opinion, and it's even more subjective than power level.

I won't do ruins, individual knights, and prizes, because they're really impossible to rank. Is ruined library a better card than followers? Well yea, probably. But that's silly. Oh and, I will of course start with the worst cards, so there'll be a lot of negativity, but only in the beginning.

Onto the list.

Spawn discussion, ha ha.

Carry on.

[soulnet]

if it's a bad card, nothing. But if you have to pass engine components... urg. it's somewhat similar to minion, I look at my hand, make great plans, and then I have to pass a village or something

Discard attacks also take cards out of your hand. You probably think about a plan that uses 3 cards when a discard attack is present, so you should plan with 4 cards when your opponent is playing Masq.

BTW, I love Masq, but I understand this rankings are highly subjective.

Pirate Ship worse than Thief? I don't think so.

[Teproc]

It is Tactician, yes.

@Awaclus : This is not "silverspawn's favorite cards" it's a design ranking, and I'm pretty sure I can give my opinion on that.

I actually agree with ranking Pirate Ship worse than Thief, because there is a situation where Pirate Ship is oppressive. That doesn't happen with Thief, it's really just a counter to thin decks with money.

[Awaclus]

@Awaclus : This is not "silverspawn's favorite cards" it's a design ranking, and I'm pretty sure I can give my opinion on that.

From the OP, I get the picture that this is more or less "silverspawn's favorite cards".

[2.71828.....]

I just want to say that possession can make for some very intriguing boards that are a lot of fun to play.  (the bad do outweigh the good, but not quite to the extreme that silverspawn would have us believe)

[silverspawn]

@Awaclus : This is not "silverspawn's favorite cards" it's a design ranking, and I'm pretty sure I can give my opinion on that.

From the OP, I get the picture that this is more or less "silverspawn's favorite cards".

isn't that a pretty pointless argument? I said in the OP that I encourage discussion, so obviously it's fine to post something like that. where is the difference between "my design rankings" and "my favorite cards"? the only difference that I see is that "favorite cards" doesn't imply that can explain your feelings, which I tried to do here.

[sudgy]

I actually wouldn't have Possession, Masquerade, or Scrying Pool in this section.  I think Possession makes for an interesting game, Masquerade is a nice strong trasher, and SP is SP.

[AndrewisFTTW]

I'd like to direct everyone's attention to my new thread, AndrewisFTTW's Most Decent and Playable Aethestically and Olfactorily-Pleasing In Addition To Worthy of Being Held in My Hands Rankings. Don't forget to pick up a novelty T-Shirt on your way out!

[Donald X.]

where is the difference between "my design rankings" and "my favorite cards"? the only difference that I see is that "favorite cards" doesn't imply that can explain your feelings, which I tried to do here.

Well there is a huge gulf between "well-designed" and "my favorites." The cards are well-designed or not, but different things appeal to different people. In fact to design well, you need to make things that aren't "for" you, that aren't your favorites but that other people will adore.

[Witherweaver]

Change the title to "Silverspawn's Most Favoritely Designed Card Rankings"

[soulnet]

where is the difference between "my design rankings" and "my favorite cards"? the only difference that I see is that "favorite cards" doesn't imply that can explain your feelings, which I tried to do here.

Well there is a huge gulf between "well-designed" and "my favorites." The cards are well-designed or not, but different things appeal to different people. In fact to design well, you need to make things that aren't "for" you, that aren't your favorites but that other people will adore.

I believe the truth is somewhat in between. Something that some people may perceive as a design problem (like Scrying Pool's slowness of resolution) may not bother other people. I agree that some issues seem more objective than others, but saying that there is some objective, or even close to objective, "well design" is taking it too far for me.

That being said, Dominion has ruined some other games for me, because I keep spotting several design flaws in them. Well done. But next time, include a label warning people. I used to love Citadels.

[theright555J]

Is ruined library a better card than followers? Well yea, probably. But that's silly.

I'm having a hard time even coming up with an edge case where one would choose Ruined Library over Followers.  Pretty certain Followers >>> Ruined Library 

Did you mean Survivors?  I like RL > Survivors.

[silverspawn]

No, I think Donald got it right. The point is basically that "favorites" is subjective, and "well-designed" is not, and I agree that strictly speaking, it should be titled "my favorite cards". If I tried to be objective, I'd have masquerade higher, because I know that very few people share my problems here, but I'd still have Spy really low, because I legitimately believe that there are flaws in its design that later cards fixed. I guess this is "my favorite designs". I don't really like just calling it my favorites, because for me that sounds like I don't really have reasons for it, I just like or don't like a card, and I don't think that's true.

[silverspawn]

Is ruined library a better card than followers? Well yea, probably. But that's silly.

I'm having a hard time even coming up with an edge case where one would choose Ruined Library over Followers.  Pretty certain Followers >>> Ruined Library 

Did you mean Survivors?  I like RL > Survivors.

The edge case is that I wasn't talking about powerlevel. I don't like followers as a price, I will go into more detail about that when I talk about Tournament, but I think Ruined Library is a completely logical choice for a ruins. But yeah, comparing them is weird.

[Beyond Awesome]

I actually agree with Silverpsawn on Possession being the worst designed card.

A lot of people hate it, especially people not on these forums. Have you read the reviews for Alchemy on Amazon? This card is universally hated. Also, while it can lead to some strategic games, it is swingy and annoying to play against until you reach a point where you accept how Possession games turnout.

I don't agree 100% on Masq. But, silverspawn is right, having it be +2 cards and trash would be almost as effective since that is usually the reason the card is bought in the first place. You give an estate, get an estate back and trash. Essentially, in the early game (where trashing matters the most), Masq essentially works the way silverspawn suggests.

Whoever said Outpost turns get confusing, I disagree. You only get 1 outpost turn and the card stays out, so I don't really see what is confusing about it.

Scout probably deserves to be towards the bottom. Maybe Swindler as well. Talk about a swingy card.

[pacovf]

People complaining about the "pass a card" mechanic in masquerade might be forgetting when that card came out. At the time, people only had Base Dominion, and a lot of them were complaining that chapel was too strong a card and made for no-brainer decisions when it was in the Kingdom. I'm pretty sure that masquerade was included in Intrigue at least in part to adress those perceived issues.

[silverspawn]

Scout probably deserves to be towards the bottom.

Chapter 2: The Weak Cards (And Outliers) - Part one

	200. Scout Scout is widely considered to be the weakest card in Dominion, and while this is kind of a boring conclusion, I think that's exactly what he is. I also think that being weak is his only problem - the idea of taking victory cards from your deck into your hand is something I really like - but fact is, a card that's ignored in approximately 98% of the times when it shows up is just a waste of space, good idea or not. We're out of cards that I dislike, so a 9-card Kingdom enabler is the next worst thing.
	199. Adventurer Adventurer is the same as Scout, really. It costs 6$, even though it could easily cost 3$, making it probably the second weakest card in the game. Digging for Treasure cards as a concept is okay, but again, that doesn't help if the card is too weak to ever get bought.
	198. Pearl Diver Pearldiver is, in many ways, even more useless than Scout or Adventurer. It's a little bit stronger, because it's a cantrip and you will usually buy it for 2$ if you don't want anything else, but that's really the only reason. The sad thing here is that even a cantrip without bonus would be bought more often than Scout. The actual pearl diving is extremely weak, and the only combo I know of that wouldn't also work with a plain cantrip is Pearl Diver/Mystic, which really is just a Conspirator variant. And yes, sometimes it will salvage a dead turn by getting you to the village one turn faster. But for the most part, this is another wasted slot.
	197. Duchess Here we have a somewhat different case. Duchess is still weak, but not the point where that's a problem in itself. The reason why it's so low is simply that it's boring. I cannot recall a single occasion when I have gained Duchess, but would not have gained a terminal silver without bonus instead. I really don't think it has ever happened. There is no interaction here, even the idea of enabling Mystics remains fantasy, because unlike Pearldiver, Duchess is terminal. Hell, it's more likely to work for your opponent. So, we're left with a terminal silver for 2$. You pretty much only buy this if, a) you need virtual coin (in which case every other terminal silver also does the job), or b) you have enough actions anyway, and can just treat it as a silver that costs one coin less. Neither of that is common, and both is fairly uninteresting. The only strategic depth I see here is that it sometimes makes you buy a Duchy that you would not have bought if it weren't for Duchess. Is that exciting, or does it happen a lot? Nope.
	196. Familiar Familiar is clearly an outlier in this list, since it's really strong and a huge factor in many games. My problem with it primarily lies in the fact that it costs P3$. Maybe this is just me, but I cannot see any reason why the Potion cards that cost P3$ don't cost P2$ instead. By far the biggest difference it makes is that, if you open Potion, there is a reasonable chance that you miss it in T3/4. Now, I don't inherently dislike luck based cards (some of them are pretty high on my list), but this is a luck factor that serves no purpose. I can't imagine anyone who isn't annoyed by not getting to buy familiar in turn 3 or 4. Other than the unfortunate pricing, this card is fine. The most fun I have is while skipping it, as it is the case for most junkers. But by being a cantrip, it is sufficiently different from other junkers to be a solid card. I just wished it'd cost 2$P.
	195. Talisman Talisman is the weakest version on a list of Workshop Variants, that is cards that can gain cards costing 4$ or less. Other than Talisman, this list consists of Workshop, Ironworks, Armory, and you could make a case for Hermit, but let's not. So, even ignoring the Victory card restriction, when is this card ever better than Ironworks? Well, if you a) draw it with 3$ and want two 4$'s, or b) draw it with 4$, want a 5$, and either don't want a silver, or don't have Actions left. I'm sure both cases have happened plenty of times, but still, there is no way I ever buy this card over Ironworks, because you can't plan ahead for either of those cases. The far more common and relevant case is that you draw it with 5$+ and want both a 5$ and a 4$, and here Ironworks is clearly better. And then there is the restriction. Why is it there? I honestly have no idea. This card is clearly worse than Ironworks without it. I guess if it was there, a hand of multiple talismans could get one victory card each, which none of the other variants can, so maybe that's the reason. Whatever the case, the fact that it does have it means that it's not usable for garden/silk road rushes, which just cuts about half of its utility. There are still situations where you buy it, and on its own this wouldn't be that low, but the problem is really that it's being overshadowed.
	194. Cultist Here we have outlier #2, and a card that is hated by many. Cultist is clearly not too weak, in fact it might be too strong, but the main problem is rather how it synergizes with other Action cards. If your only Action card is Cultist, all Cultists are junking Labs. If you have other Action cards, there is a high chance that you draw them dead. Every terminal draw can draw dead Actions, but with Cultists, you often draw 5+ non-cultist cards in a row, which means it's almost 50% for every other Action card to be drawn dead. Consequently, Cultist+BM is often the right choice on a Cultist board, and I'll even say that including other Action cards into a Cultist deck is a very common mistake, and that Cultist+BM might be the best strategy over half the time. Which, of course, is not that great. And this is all in addition to the fact that it's super swingy, and has a huge first Player advantage. So, why isn't it even lower? Because I really like the games where you do buy Cultist and do clean up your deck, even if they are a minority. Likewise, The on-trash effect is neat whenever it's relevant. So, while the good mostly outweights the bad here, there is still enough of the good left to put it on #194.