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Author Topic: key cards in Dominion: a report card.  (Read 51873 times)

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BraveBear

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #50 on: September 03, 2015, 01:20:14 pm »
+1

Great List!

I completely agree with Adam H's changes too (besides HP and sea hag cough cough

The one I want to emphasize though is navigator.  I never buy this card ever.  Like never ever ever.  Even if you have the actions and draw to make this viable you'd probably just want another village or draw card or silver.  I have played enough games where I have done all sorts of tricks with top deck interaction.  Navigator I have never used to do any of this.  Its terrible in slogs too, why would I want to cycle!

It differs from other C+ cards like pirate ship because you at least have to think about if your opponent goes crazy on PS.  It makes you at least think a little.  Navigator, however has always and always will be a blank spot on the board for me.

Should be C-
« Last Edit: September 03, 2015, 01:30:04 pm by BraveBear »
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LastFootnote

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #51 on: September 03, 2015, 01:40:02 pm »
0

Great List!

I completely agree with Adam H's changes too (besides HP and sea hag cough cough

The one I want to emphasize though is navigator.  I never buy this card ever.  Like never ever ever.  Even if you have the actions and draw to make this viable you'd probably just want another village or draw card or silver.  I have played enough games where I have done all sorts of tricks with top deck interaction.  Navigator I have never used to do any of this.  Its terrible in slogs too, why would I want to cycle!

It differs from other C+ cards like pirate ship because you at least have to think about if your opponent goes crazy on PS.  It makes you at least think a little.  Navigator, however has always and always will be a blank spot on the board for me.

Should be C-

Navigator isn't strong. But in its defense, its power is mostly invisible. It's definitely not good for reordering the top cards of your deck (though if you can make that work, good on you). It's meant to skip bad hands. You absolutely might want it in a slog because skipping over a $1 hand is well worth the cost of getting to the shuffle one turn sooner. I mean there could be better options in a slog, but it can easily be better than Silver.
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assemble_me

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #52 on: September 04, 2015, 04:43:21 am »
0

I think Navigator is also much similar to Chancellor, and that's probably where we are power level wise, as well.
You can skip those bad hands, you also don't have to track the deck that well to benefit. Reordering doesn't matter most of the time but sometimes it does help slightly.

I guess both have some special synergies of their own (Chancellor with Stash as mentioned, Navigator with Tunnel).

Both aren't great, but they're still clearly better than Silver if you have a terminal slot. Overall, I guess Chancellor and Navigator should have the same rating, so I'd put them both at C.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2015, 04:46:24 am by assemble_me »
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SCSN

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #53 on: September 04, 2015, 05:03:08 am »
+2

A single Navigator is like a lone Fool's Gold, you need a lot of them to make them shine:

Game Over
SheCantSayNo   cards: 10 Herald, 7 Navigator, 4 Worker's Village, 2 Rogue, ...

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20140326/log.505d732a51c359e6597efeb8.1395875733087.txt

(Those Rogues should have been Navigators too).
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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #54 on: September 05, 2015, 10:34:09 pm »
+2

Tentative Adventures rankings:

$2
Coin of the Realm - B
Page - A-
Peasant - A-
Ratcatcher - B
Raze - B-

$3
Amulet - A
Caravan Guard - B-
Dungeon - B
Gear - B+?
Guide - B+

$4
Duplicate - B
Magpie - A
Messenger - B
Miser - B
Port - B
Ranger - B
Transmogrify - B-

$5
Artificer - B
Bridge Troll - B+
Distant Lands - B+
Giant - A
Haunted Woods - B
Lost City - B+
Relic - B
Royal Carriage - B
Storyteller - B-
Swamp Hag - B+
Treasure Trove - B
Wine Merchant - B-

$6
Hireling - B+

Events
Alms - A
Borrow - B+
Quest - C
Save - B
Scouting Party - C
Travelling Fair - B+
Bonfire - B
Expedition - B
Ferry - A
Plan - B-
Mission - B+
Pilgrimage - B-
Ball - B
Raid - C
Seaway - B
Trade - B-
Lost Arts - B
Training - B
Inheritance - B
Pathfinding - B
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drsteelhammer

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #55 on: September 05, 2015, 11:06:50 pm »
0

From the first glance, I really like your Adventures ranking. The only stuff I disagree with is Amulet and Giant who should be B (B+) and Swamp Hag deserves an A in my opinion

No idea about the event, I'm still unsure how they'll work out.
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #56 on: September 07, 2015, 02:39:26 am »
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I am by no means an expert on Adventures. I have only played a dozen or so games.

However, I don't think Alms is an A. Yah, it can gain you a $4, and chances are you will open with it, but beyond junking games, I don't think being able to gain a $4 once per turn at the cost of playing treasures is all that great. Decent but great. Probably more or less a B+

Pilgrimage, however, from what I have seen is really strong in most engine decks. Sure, it takes two turns to set up, but man gaining 3 different cards regardless of cost is really good. At the very least, I would think it is an A-, if not an A.

Lost Arts is really good, especially with a lack of villages or if you have a non-terminal that is in your deck a lot, such as Magpie, essentially turning them into villages. Heck, it turns Smithy into non-terminal. I would be very surprised if in most engine games, this event does not get bought almost all the time.

Also, Scouting Party may not seem amazing, but I played an irl game today with it, and I bought its effect many times. There were a couple of bad hands I was saved from drawing because of it. It's not amazing, but not terrible either. Probably a B or B- at worst.
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Asper

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #57 on: September 07, 2015, 11:04:43 am »
0

I do think Alms changes a board quite a lot. "You will basically never have less than $4" is what, basically a different game? I think it really deserves A. Amulet on the other hand might be strong (i don't actually know), but doesn't really change my perception of the board as a whole. I mean, will it change what i want to do or how i do it? Not really. Again, strength vs influence on how you see the board. I felt "key card" means the second.

A on Magpie, Page and Peasant seems justified to me. Probably Wero was a bit generous with the absence of C's among the kingdom cards, though.
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Aleimon Thimble

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #58 on: September 07, 2015, 04:21:07 pm »
0

Some things I don't agree with:

Caravan Guard - B- - I think Caravan Guard is pretty weak. Its reaction part doesn't really protect against anything and its +$1 is pretty slow normally. It often has trouble enduring the Silver test, which is rare for Adventures cards, and makes it ignorable a lot of the time. C or maybe C+.
Duplicate - B - Duplicate is awesome if you manage to play a lot of them, in which case it gets you lots of cheap Gold/Hirelings/a big pile of Duchies late-game. Ignore it at your own peril. A-.
Messenger - B - It's not really weak, but it's pretty situational. If there's a card you want but your opponent doesn't, then it's strong, but otherwise it's a weird Woodcutter/Chancellor mashup, nothing too exciting. Maybe there are some late-game shenanigans with piling out, but that's also kinda situational. C+ I would say.
Haunted Woods - B - One of the strongest cards in the game imo. +3 Cards on the next turn is HUGE, like a superpowered Wharf, and it has a (somewhat mediocre) attack to boot. Doesn't do anything on the current turn, but still, A or maybe even A+ imo. (Edit: I just noticed A+ doesn't exist. Oops. A it is.)
Storyteller - B- - Storyteller is a pretty cool sifter / card drawer that makes engines more resilient to not trashing Copper. B+ or maybe even A-.
Treasure Trove - B - Only strong on weakish Big Money boards or with stuff like Gardens. Can be used with Magpie or Storyteller but even then, it isn't exactly a power card. C+.

As for Events, I haven't played enough with each of them to really give a clear opinion on them, so I'll leave that to the others.

From the first glance, I really like your Adventures ranking. The only stuff I disagree with is Amulet and Giant who should be B (B+) and Swamp Hag deserves an A in my opinion

No idea about the event, I'm still unsure how they'll work out.

I do think Amulet is good enough for A and Swamp Hag is fine at B+. Giant I'm not completely sure of, sometimes it's insanely strong and other times it seems lackluster. Maybe A-?
« Last Edit: September 08, 2015, 06:26:03 am by Aleimon Thimble »
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drsteelhammer

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #59 on: September 07, 2015, 05:41:20 pm »
0

Some things I don't agree with:

Caravan Guard - B- - I think Caravan Guard is pretty weak. Its reaction part doesn't really protect against anything and its +$1 is pretty slow normally. It often has trouble enduring the Silver test, which is rare for Adventures cards, and makes it ignorable a lot of the time. C or maybe C+.
Duplicate - B - Duplicate is awesome if you manage to play a lot of them, in which case it gets you lots of cheap Gold/Hirelings/a big pile of Duchies late-game. Ignore it at your own peril. A-.
Messenger - B - It's not really weak, but it's pretty situational. If there's a card you want but your opponent doesn't, then it's strong, but otherwise it's a weird Woodcutter/Chancellor mashup, nothing too exciting. Maybe there are some late-game shenanigans with piling out, but that's also kinda situational. C+ I would say.
Haunted Woods - B - One of the strongest cards in the game imo. +3 Cards on the next turn is HUGE, like a superpowered Wharf, and it has a (somewhat mediocre) attack to boot. Doesn't do anything on the current turn, but still, A or maybe even A+ imo.
Storyteller - B- - Storyteller is a pretty cool sifter / card drawer that makes engines more resilient to not trashing Copper. B+ or maybe even A-.
Treasure Trove - B - Only strong on weakish Big Money boards or with stuff like Gardens. Can be used with Magpie or Storyteller but even then, it isn't exactly a power card. C+.

As for Events, I haven't played enough with each of them to really give a clear opinion on them, so I'll leave that to the others.

From the first glance, I really like your Adventures ranking. The only stuff I disagree with is Amulet and Giant who should be B (B+) and Swamp Hag deserves an A in my opinion

No idea about the event, I'm still unsure how they'll work out.

I do think Amulet is good enough for A and Swamp Hag is fine at B+. Giant I'm not completely sure of, sometimes it's insanely strong and other times it seems lackluster. Maybe A-?

Caravan Guard: I disagree with you on CG. It's a delayed Peddler for one dollar less than what the vanilla stats are worth which makes it better than nothing most of the time compared to silver, which can actually hurt your deck. I think B- is fair

Messenger: I think Messenger is indeed one of the few cards that deserve a C or C+. Donald X has definitely been getting good at making every card viable this expansion. Treasure Trove, Raze and Miser might be the others.

Haunted Woods: It's surely great. I reconsider my position that it is accurately placed at B. Should be at A- or A, especially since you have consider the attack when you start thinking about greening.

Amulet: Can you explain your reasoning? I'm of the firm opinion that it is close to strictly weaker than Steward considering trashing and definitely afterwards. Also, I don't see it being more than a nice addition to a deck, ever. In other words, there is no deck built around amulet, which is what the key card criteria was.

Swamp Hag This one I'm unsure of. I put it in A because if there are no gainers I think you have to be very careful building your engine that requires multiple buys per turn. Might reconsider this one.



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Aleimon Thimble

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #60 on: September 07, 2015, 06:23:25 pm »
+1

Caravan Guard: I disagree with you on CG. It's a delayed Peddler for one dollar less than what the vanilla stats are worth which makes it better than nothing most of the time compared to silver, which can actually hurt your deck. I think B- is fair

Messenger: I think Messenger is indeed one of the few cards that deserve a C or C+. Donald X has definitely been getting good at making every card viable this expansion. Treasure Trove, Raze and Miser might be the others.

Haunted Woods: It's surely great. I reconsider my position that it is accurately placed at B. Should be at A- or A, especially since you have consider the attack when you start thinking about greening.

Amulet: Can you explain your reasoning? I'm of the firm opinion that it is close to strictly weaker than Steward considering trashing and definitely afterwards. Also, I don't see it being more than a nice addition to a deck, ever. In other words, there is no deck built around amulet, which is what the key card criteria was.

Swamp Hag This one I'm unsure of. I put it in A because if there are no gainers I think you have to be very careful building your engine that requires multiple buys per turn. Might reconsider this one.

Caravan Guard: I think it really suffers from opportunity cost, it may not hurt your deck but its benefit is just too marginal to justify buying it a lot of the time. Even at its relatively low cost, there are often too many better options. Silver hurts some of the stronger Engines, that is true, but in cases where it does you are rarely stuck with $3 hands with no other options. Peddler is not the kind of card you can stand to have a delay in.

Amulet: I don't think it's inferior to Steward at all, as it is a lot more flexible. Steward (which is still a pretty good $3 card, mind you) has the unfortunate tendency to be a weaker Chapel early-game, as it leaves you with a two-card hand (usually two Copper) with which you can't do a whole lot. Amulet trashes one card in your current hand and one card in your next, meaning that you can often buy another decent $3 card (maybe another Amulet?) on both turns. And if you decide you don't want to trash a card in your second hand, because you want +$1, that works as well. I do agree that Steward retains some more late-game flexibility with its +2 Cards option, which is often better than Amulet's Silver-gaining. All in all, though, I would say Steward and Amulet are similar in strength/usability. Saying that, Steward got an A- ranking, so maybe Amulet should as well?

Swamp Hag: As opposed to other cursers, you have a lot of flexibility when you are attacked by Swamp Hag. You can decide to use gainers (like you said), or buy Events, or just don't buy too many cards. If it's really late in the game you might not care too much about an extra Curse or two. It's still an okay attack, and +$3 next turn is pretty nice, but it's nowhere near as dominant on most boards as normal cursers like Witch and Mountebank. B+ is fine imo.

Raze: Well, it's not exactly overcentralizing or anything, but it's still a nonterminal trasher. B- looks fine.

Miser: You might be right about this one, actually. It's not nearly as strong as it looks, and most of the time I tried it it's been kind of a dead weight in my deck. It can be useful, but you have to be really careful with it. Maybe C+ is high enough.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2015, 06:28:47 pm by Aleimon Thimble »
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drsteelhammer

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #61 on: September 07, 2015, 08:04:45 pm »
+2

Just to clarify, when I'm saying that Swamp Hag is an A does not refer to her strength as a card, but to its impact in the game. Like you said, there are quite a few ways to make her useless, but in my opinion you always have make a plan on how to play against her. That what the thread was originally about
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Aleimon Thimble

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #62 on: September 08, 2015, 06:13:00 am »
+1

Just to clarify, when I'm saying that Swamp Hag is an A does not refer to her strength as a card, but to its impact in the game. Like you said, there are quite a few ways to make her useless, but in my opinion you always have make a plan on how to play against her. That what the thread was originally about

I know what A means in this context, but in my opinion Swamp Hag does not have as big an impact in the game because it's relatively easy to play around it, compared to other Cursers. I just can't see Swamp Hag as a key card in the way Witch and Mountebank are.
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Chris is me

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #63 on: September 08, 2015, 06:07:31 pm »
0

To make this post, I grabbed wero's rankings and wrote my ranking and words next to them. I wrote just a few words next to the cards I only thought were off by a little bit, and more words for more drastic changes. Didn't do the Events to save time.

$2
Ratcatcher - B
Raze - B- - B - Raze is a nonterminal trasher for $2, even if it's not a particularly good one. I'd say B just because of how the presence of a viable trasher with low opportunity cost changes the board. Raze can also trash itself which means it can have an impact without sticking around.

$3
Amulet - A - B+ - Maybe it's just me, but I really don't "get" Amulet. Aside from Silver gaining I consider it basically a strictly worse Steward. Its trashing is pretty slow and the money effect is pretty weak. I don't like having to decide between trashing and +$1 at the beginning of a turn as well, so the duration effect is a bit weaker than I expected. I certainly wouldn't say it has as strong of an influence on a kingdom strategy as Chapel, Witch, Goons, or other A cards.
Gear - B+? - A- - Gear is a phenomenal card and has a large impact on the viability of certain BM and engine strategies. As a BM card it is at least as good as Courtyard, letting you set aside terminals for next turn, while increasing your future hand size at that. It's incredibly safe to play in many decks and has all kinds of neat tricks. Set aside Estates before a critical shuffle and you've improved all the hands of that shuffle for example. I think hard about Gear pretty much every game it's on the board.

$4
Duplicate - B - A- - Duplicate is to me like Bridge - maybe it's not better than other B+s but when it matters in a game it has a huge impact. It can really make engines or alt-VP strategies take off.
Miser - B - B- - Miser is just too slow to be viable. Same problem that Pirate Ship has basically. I dont' see it having a huge impact on boards, except in the edge case where you have everything you need for an engine except Copper trashing, at which point it's better than some of the weaker options.
Transmogrify - B- -B+ - Transmogrify in the presence of similar cost engine components completley changes the game. It makes engines far more viable when you can switch your engine pieces as needed before your turn.

$5
Royal Carriage - B - B+ - It's a bit more useful and thus more influencing than Throne Room, since you don't need it to collide and you only decide to use it after resolving the action it duplicates. Maybe the lack of a psuedo village effect (no self stacking) cancels out, I dunno.

$6
Hireling - B+ - A- - I've yet to see a game with anything resembling a viable engine where Hireling didn't play a massive role.
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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #64 on: September 09, 2015, 09:45:17 pm »
0

I'd like to continue this discussion here. Finally receiving the physical edition, I've played quite a few games today.

My previous judgements seem to prevail so far.

Amulet felt pretty lackluster. It felt almost like junk in my deck after playing it 2 times. In fairness, the games contained raze and ratcatcher respectively, but still. I don't even think it is that strong for a terminal trasher. Definitely a B for me.

Giant was pretty ignorable. The game that contained Giant I ignored it and even got hit quite badly but its lack of frequency makes up for it. Maybe if there is no other payload but otherwise I don't see it among the best attacks. Decent for sure, but that's about it.

Swamp Hag is the card I would still give an A. It's not the best card, but it is the card that made me adjust my playstyle the most.

And I agree with Chris on Transmogrify. It makes your engine a lot more reliable if you have 1 or 2 in your deck.

Also, Duplicate is a lot more fun to play with than I expected.
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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #65 on: September 09, 2015, 11:53:24 pm »
0

Amulet felt pretty lackluster. It felt almost like junk in my deck after playing it 2 times. In fairness, the games contained raze and ratcatcher respectively, but still. I don't even think it is that strong for a terminal trasher. Definitely a B for me.

Giant was pretty ignorable. The game that contained Giant I ignored it and even got hit quite badly but its lack of frequency makes up for it. Maybe if there is no other payload but otherwise I don't see it among the best attacks. Decent for sure, but that's about it.

With both of these cards, you really have to buy two.  Yes, Amulet may seem like a gimped Steward, but the strongest part of it is the trashing.  Trash something now, trash something next turn, hopefully play your other Amulet that turn as well.  And then once you've trashed down, your Amulets are able to rebuild your economy by throwing you Silvers.  With Giant, once you're playing two a turn, it starts to become a constant barrage, particularly in multiplayer.  Sure, the effect only happens every other play, but that effect is huge.  It gives a metric shit-ton of , with an Attack that never misses.
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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #66 on: September 10, 2015, 12:42:48 am »
0


With both of these cards, you really have to buy two.  Yes, Amulet may seem like a gimped Steward, but the strongest part of it is the trashing.  Trash something now, trash something next turn, hopefully play your other Amulet that turn as well.  And then once you've trashed down, your Amulets are able to rebuild your economy by throwing you Silvers.  With Giant, once you're playing two a turn, it starts to become a constant barrage, particularly in multiplayer.  Sure, the effect only happens every other play, but that effect is huge.  It gives a metric shit-ton of , with an Attack that never misses.

I'll have to gain more experience with this. Like I said, so far I had another trasher to supplement Amulet, it's surely stronger when it's the only trasher. It's just that I don't want Silvers all the time and if I don't it's a duration ruined mine. I'm not saying it's bad I just don't think it's up with the best cards.

Giant is the same for me. I rather play two Mountebanks or one Mountebank and a Knight than two Giants. It'll generate almost the same amount of stats.

I see Giant as an attack thats misses 50% of the time.

But like I said maybe my opinion changes over time, maybe it shines more when it's the only payload in an engine, I haven't experienced that so far.
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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #67 on: September 10, 2015, 11:59:50 am »
+2

I've played quite a bit with Adventures cards. Perhaps more than most people here? That said, I didn't feel like I had enough experience with them to rate them like this.

So to someone reading this and trying to take some stock in these Adventures ratings, keep that in mind. There are things many people have said that I wildly disagree with (cards rated A that I'd give a C+, for example) but even then, I don't think adding my opinion into things would be constructive, because of the lack of data I have.

Of course that doesn't mean we shouldn't wildly speculate, but I think we should be nice and clear about exactly what we're doing: wildly speculating.

OK OK I guess I can't really say that without posting my own wild speculation, can I? Fine. Here it is, with no justification whatsoever, my wild speculations:


Coin of the Realm - B
Page - A-
Peasant - B
Ratcatcher - B
Raze - B
Amulet - C+
Caravan Guard - C+
Dungeon - B
Gear - A
Guide - B
Duplicate - B-
Magpie - A-
Messenger - B-
Miser - C
Port - B
Ranger - B
Transmogrify - B
Artificer - C+
Bridge Troll - B+
Distant Lands - A-
Giant - C
Haunted Woods - A-
Lost City - B+
Relic - B
Royal Carriage - A-
Storyteller - B-
Swamp Hag - B
Treasure Trove - A-
Wine Merchant - C
Hireling - B

Alms - B
Borrow - A
Quest - C
Save - A
Scouting Party - C+
Travelling Fair - B
Bonfire - B+
Expedition - B
Ferry - A
Plan - B
Mission - B
Pilgrimage - C, maybe C-?
Ball - B
Raid - B-
Seaway - B
Trade - B
Lost Arts - A
Training - B+
Inheritance - A-
Pathfinding - B+


I could go through and see where my opinions differ from the general perception so far, then try and justify why I think my ratings are better, but hey I could be totally wrong so I won't take the effort to do that proactively.

Although if someone wants me to justify a particular rating I'm happy to explain why I gave a card/event a particular rating. Hit me.
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Aleimon Thimble

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #68 on: September 10, 2015, 12:49:44 pm »
0

Thanks for your input. There are indeed some things I would like to see clarified:

Peasant - B: Teacher may be a bit weaker and slower than Champion, but the Peasant line has some other strong options, like Disciple, which is an incredibly strong Throne Room variant. Why do you feel the Peasant line is so much weaker than Page?
Amulet - C+: I guess I could understand it if people found it not strong enough for A-, but C+ is really radical in the other direction. Is there anything we missed?
Treasure Trove - A-: Is Treasure Trove really that dominant? I found it to be pretty underwhelming so far.
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SCSN

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #69 on: September 10, 2015, 01:00:35 pm »
+1

Amulet is slightly weaker than Steward, but I'd pretty much always prefer opening Amulet/Steward to double Steward. Its biggest drawback is that it can't draw later on; it's biggest advantage is that it doesn't ruin the turn(s) on which you use it for trashing, which is really important if there are cheap villages.

In the end they are close enough for me to rank them both as A, but Amulet A- seems ok as well. Lower than that strikes me as lunacy.
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Chris is me

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #70 on: September 10, 2015, 01:33:12 pm »
0

Thanks for your input. There are indeed some things I would like to see clarified:

Peasant - B: Teacher may be a bit weaker and slower than Champion, but the Peasant line has some other strong options, like Disciple, which is an incredibly strong Throne Room variant. Why do you feel the Peasant line is so much weaker than Page?
Amulet - C+: I guess I could understand it if people found it not strong enough for A-, but C+ is really radical in the other direction. Is there anything we missed?
Treasure Trove - A-: Is Treasure Trove really that dominant? I found it to be pretty underwhelming so far.

I agree with all of these, particularly Treasure Trove. It is an extremely underrated card. Think about Cache - when you buy it, you gain a "gold" and 3 coppers. With some mechanism to discard those coppers, or in alt VP decks, this makes Cache a pretty good deal. Treasure Trove, for the same cost, adds a Gold and a Copper to your deck every play. It has no opportunity cost to do so, and it almost certainly improves a BM deck's money density even in the absence of Copper trashing. With moneylender, spice merchant, upgrade, remake, etc. available it becomes a dominant card that heavily skews the game toward BM, in a way I never expected until I lost several games to it. It's a seriously underestimated card.
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AdamH

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #71 on: September 10, 2015, 01:50:06 pm »
0

Peasant - B: Teacher may be a bit weaker and slower than Champion, but the Peasant line has some other strong options, like Disciple, which is an incredibly strong Throne Room variant. Why do you feel the Peasant line is so much weaker than Page?

Champion is a ridiculous card. It's like so unbelievably powerful that it's worth all of the trouble you go through to get it. I said that without adding any qualifications based on the kingdom, which I probably should have done, but I can't think of a deck where you wouldn't want a Champion in play given the choice, and the number of decks made viable by the presence of Champion is staggering. But you didn't ask about Champion.

Teacher is slower to get than Champion, so Champion's main weakness is exacerbated in the Peasant line. Yeah it's only slightly slower to actually get in your deck because the cards in the Peasant line cycle less, but I'm more talking about the fact that once you play Champion, you never have to draw it again, you never have to play it again, and you get her full effect right away. With the teacher, you have to draw him, play him, take him to the tavern and wait while he gets drunk (until the start of your next turn) for him to share just one of his lessons with you. That's SO SLOW, man. Then there's the fact that you have to wait at least TWO MORE TURNS to get the next token placed in the best case, and then you can't even get as much use out of that one because it has to go on a different card. The two best tokens are cards and actions, and if you are able to get back to your teacher in "only" two turns, then you are probably doing OK without those tokens, in which case why did you need Teacher?

The decks made viable by Teacher are far less than Champion, because they basically require a wa to slow the game down so you don't get beat by Big Money.

Yes, Disciple is a good card, but given the hoops you have to jump through to get it, it would be tough to rank that any higher than Throne Room.


Amulet is slightly weaker than Steward, but I'd pretty much always prefer opening Amulet/Steward to double Steward.

Who are you and what have you done with SCSN?

Lower than that strikes me as lunacy.

Oh, there you are :)

Amulet - C+: I guess I could understand it if people found it not strong enough for A-, but C+ is really radical in the other direction. Is there anything we missed?

Steward is a really good card. Like, I'd give it an A-. It's so good because it trashes cards lightning fast, and then once that happens, it draws cards instead of doing absolutely nothing. Trashing cards is really, really, really, like super-ultra good. Next to ending the game on a win, trashing cards is like the next best thing you can do in Dominion. It's so good. After that, the next thing is probably drawing cards (those two are very similar anyways). Steward is fast, and it does two awesome things, so it gets an A-.

Amulet doesn't draw cards, that's a big weakness compared to Steward. OK we already knew that. The main reason that it's multiple orders of magnitude worse than Steward is because of the trashing. Amulet is really, really bad at getting your deck thin. If you don't see your Amulet on turn 3, you are so, so, behind compared to like every other trasher you can open with, except for maybe Trade Route.

A double Steward opening is a totally reasonable thing because you get the chance of trashing four cards before you shuffle again. That's way more than three. I literally can't think of any draw where I'd be happy with an Amulet in my hand instead of a Steward if my goal is to get thin as fast as possible (which it almost always is these first few turns). There's this argument that Amulet doesn't ruin your trashing hands like Steward does, but I counter that argument by saying that the fact that it's Amulet by itself ruins those hands, where Steward always gives you the option of taking money and hitting $5 if you decide that's more important than trashing (which you never do, because it isn't, which is why Steward is way better). Amulet lets you get those all-important $3 cards. If $5 cards aren't important enough to slow your trashing for, which $3 cards are?

Maybe I'm being harsh, MAYBE Amulet deserves a B-, but definitely not anything higher. If I disagree with everyone on this, so be it; a year from now they'll call me a visionary, they'll make a Dominion card with my face on the artwork called Visionary. It will do something amazing. Wild speculation is fun!


Treasure Trove - A-: Is Treasure Trove really that dominant? I found it to be pretty underwhelming so far.

It's one of those cards that isn't really all that interactive, but you stick it in a Big Money deck and it's totally bonkers-sauce. It's like what people used to think of Jack -- "oh fiddle sticks! Big Money is too good here!" I dunno. I could be wrong on this one, maybe it's just a B+? Like, terminal draw plus this can get like 7 provinces in 12 turns or something. OK that's an exaggeration but it's pretty ridic.
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SCSN

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #72 on: September 10, 2015, 02:43:37 pm »
+3

Amulet is really, really bad at getting your deck thin. If you don't see your Amulet on turn 3, you are so, so, behind compared to like every other trasher you can open with, except for maybe Trade Route.

This is absolute and utter bollocks. How exactly are you behind with a T4 Amulet relative to a T4 Forager or Masq (two other excellent trashers)? You naturally prefer Amulet on T3 because it won't miss the shuffle, but a T4 Amulet is still great.

Quote
I literally can't think of any draw where I'd be happy with an Amulet in my hand instead of a Steward if my goal is to get thin as fast as possible (which it almost always is these first few turns)

T3: Amulet+3xCopper+C/E; trash C/E, buy (Fishing) Village.
T4: Steward, 4xC/E; trash C/E with Amulet, trash 2xC/E with Steward.

Now you've trashed as many cards as you would have done with a double Steward opening, but you have an extra Village to show for it. This puts you almost a whole turn ahead.

Quote
Steward always gives you the option of taking money and hitting $5 if you decide that's more important than trashing (which you never do, because it isn't, which is why Steward is way better).

The point is that you don't have to prioritize either when you can do both.

"Get thin as fast as possible" is educational rhetoric that should continue to be shouted from rooftops across the globe for the benefit of almost everyone. It should not, however, be mistaken for the nuanced truth.

In reality getting thin quickly is never your sole objective, otherwise Mint/Chapel would be a terrific rather than a terrible open. The real aim is always to get to the point of super-linear growth as quickly as possible, which usually requires sacrificing further trashing to expand your economy at some relatively early point. Amulet gives you more early economic flexibility without having to sacrifice much on trashing, whereas Steward is always either/or.
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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #73 on: September 10, 2015, 03:06:59 pm »
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The point is that you don't have to prioritize either when you can do both.

And plenty of times you'll draw Steward or Amulet with exactly one card you want to trash. In this case you don't get to trash at all with Steward.

AdamH

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Re: key cards in Dominion: a report card.
« Reply #74 on: September 10, 2015, 03:16:56 pm »
+2

This is absolute and utter bollocks.

(insert gratuitous insult here)

How exactly are you behind with a T4 Amulet relative to a T4 Forager or Masq (two other excellent trashers)? You naturally prefer Amulet on T3 because it won't miss the shuffle, but a T4 Amulet is still great.

I think you're vastly underestimating the effect of Amulet's missing the shuffle: T3 and the next shuffle are the most important times to play your trasher and you're just giving that up. With Forager you can actually justify putting multiple copies in your deck to accelerate thinning because it's non-terminal, and similarly with Masquerade, if there's a Village you can do the same, not to mention drawing two cards AND trashing is super-amazeballs. What are Amulet's other abilities? Things that aren't good in engines *instead* of trashing.

Quote
I literally can't think of any draw where I'd be happy with an Amulet in my hand instead of a Steward if my goal is to get thin as fast as possible (which it almost always is these first few turns)

T3: Amulet+3xCopper+C/E; trash C/E, buy (Fishing) Village.
T4: Steward, 4xC/E; trash C/E with Amulet, trash 2xC/E with Steward.

Now you've trashed as many cards as you would have done with a double Steward opening, but you have an extra Village to show for it. This puts you almost a whole turn ahead.

Hmm, OK you got me there. There's at least one. Of course, that assumes you'd rather have the Amulet in your deck instead of a second Steward, and it also assumes the presence of a $3 Village, of which there are two plus Shanty Town. I'll soften my statement to "I'd rather open Steward over Amulet in over 95% of cases on any given board" which means I'm never actually opening Amulet.


Quote
Steward always gives you the option of taking money and hitting $5 if you decide that's more important than trashing (which you never do, because it isn't, which is why Steward is way better).

The point is that you don't have to prioritize either when you can do both.

...

Steward is always either/or.

Wait, in what universe are you both hitting $5 and trashing in the same hand with Amulet? That's basically Masquerade/Jack territory. Amulet is so bad at hitting $5 without gaining Silver at some point. Your argument only holds for cards at exactly the $3 price point, so you're only happy on very specific draws in very specific kingdoms where that matters, and you're still thinning at a really slow pace compared to any decent trasher. So Amulet is not a decent trasher. All of these issues where people are saying it's better than Steward are so edge-casey that I'm never ever ever going to put an Amulet in my deck to account for them when I could just have a better card instead.

Amulet is a wonderful slog enabler, it's much better for Big Money than Steward is. But Amulet is not very good at trashing cards because it's super slow.
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