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[michaeljb]

Would I be right to guess you realized Farming Village's non-magic part is not actually Village, but not-even-Native Village?

[Robz888]

41. Its magical power is not much different to Farming Village's, which barely made it into the top half of the $4 cards. However, I believe Farming Village's version is much better, as it allows you to directly counter top-of-deck attacks without limiting yourself to non-drawing actions. Then when we compare the non-magic parts of the card's, we're comparing Copper vs. Village. A free card vs. a $3-cost. To me, Farming Village is superior in almost every way, yet it costs $1 less than Venture (and we're talking the biggest $1 gap in the game, $4-$5) AND it still only made it half way up the $4 list. What does that say about Venture?

Edit: Just realised a couple of flaws with this comparison, but I'm late for work so I'll sort it out later. I still think Venture vs. FV is a pretty good comparison, although it's not as extreme as this post states. FV is still better.

I'm the other way around--I feel like I personally overrated Farming Village until recently. I used to consider it the best of the $4 villages, but I almost feel like both Workers and Mining have much more essential uses.

As for Venture, I think it would deserve a spot after Mountebank, Witch, Hunting Party, Ill-Gotten Gains, Minion, Wharf, Margrave, Torturer, Ghost Ship, Laboratory, Tactician. The next few, I suspect, would be Venture, Jester, Embassy, Cartographer, Stables, Rabble, in some order. I'm sure I'm missing a card or two, but that's roughly how I'd put them.

With even modest trashing, Venture is a powerhouse, and lightning fast, and super-immune to curses and greening.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

Venture is stupid good with hard drawing decks.  These are not corner cases.  BMU hearts Venture.

[WanderingWinder]

41. Its magical power is not much different to Farming Village's, which barely made it into the top half of the $4 cards. However, I believe Farming Village's version is much better, as it allows you to directly counter top-of-deck attacks without limiting yourself to non-drawing actions. Then when we compare the non-magic parts of the card's, we're comparing Copper vs. Village. A free card vs. a $3-cost. To me, Farming Village is superior in almost every way, yet it costs $1 less than Venture (and we're talking the biggest $1 gap in the game, $4-$5) AND it still only made it half way up the $4 list. What does that say about Venture?

Edit: Just realised a couple of flaws with this comparison, but I'm late for work so I'll sort it out later. I still think Venture vs. FV is a pretty good comparison, although it's not as extreme as this post states. FV is still better.

So, so wrong. That is NOT the point of venture. The point of venture is to give you the next treasure in your deck, plus a bonus. The cycling is virtually irrelevant (unless you have some way of re-ordering your deck) over the long haul. Whether venture or FV is better is a question of deck, (if I'm building an engine, FV is gonna be better, sure), but generally venture is the much better card, as you'd expect given its cost.
It's not uncommon for venture to be better than gold.

[Tahtweasel]

I am a bit WTFed at the Venture hate.

Suppose I open moneylender/silver, and manage to trash some coppers. Let's say that in my draw deck, there are three coppers, a silver, a gold, and four ventures.

A venture in hand at that point is worth 3.27, better than gold.



The first part of its value is the 1 coin I get from playing it.
The second part of its value is that it will draw me 4/9*(1+3/8*(1+2/7*(1+1/6))) = 2/3 of an additional venture, on average, before getting to a regular money card that ends the chain.
The final card will be worth (3+2+3)/5, or 1.6 on average.
In total, the value of my venture is (1+.67+1.6) = 3.27.

[DG]

Let's have a look at the "money density" talked about by WW in his article. If you add a venture to your deck you are adding one coin to the total value. You will (typically) be adding no more cards to the bottom line since the venture will draw a replacement for itself into play. So far this is no different to adding a bazaar or market. You will also however skip all the non-treasure cards before the next treasure card and this is where the additional value comes.

[tlloyd]

Let's have a look at the "money density" talked about by WW in his article. If you add a venture to your deck you are adding one coin to the total value. You will (typically) be adding no more cards to the bottom line since the venture will draw a replacement for itself into play. So far this is no different to adding a bazaar or market. You will also however skip all the non-treasure cards before the next treasure card and this is where the additional value comes.

If you are playing BM against heavy cursing, maybe. But Venture can also skip right over your key action cards, which FV doesn't do. The real value in Venture comes from chaining them, which generally requires decent trashing (of coppers at least), minimal silver purchases and multiple ventures.

[Tahtweasel]

Let's have a look at the "money density" talked about by WW in his article. If you add a venture to your deck you are adding one coin to the total value. You will (typically) be adding no more cards to the bottom line since the venture will draw a replacement for itself into play. So far this is no different to adding a bazaar or market. You will also however skip all the non-treasure cards before the next treasure card and this is where the additional value comes.

That's a great way of thinking about it, but let's be clear that the "additional value" is huge. Most importantly, it allows you to green earlier than you otherwise would in Big Money, because you know that the "dead card" losses will be much lower.

If you are playing BM against heavy cursing, maybe. But Venture can also skip right over your key action cards, which FV doesn't do. The real value in Venture comes from chaining them, which generally requires decent trashing (of coppers at least), minimal silver purchases and multiple ventures.

Venture cycles you around faster, with some randomness. It can also skip a bunch of dead cards and lead you to your key action faster.

[Tahtweasel]

41. Its magical power is not much different to Farming Village's, which barely made it into the top half of the $4 cards... Then when we compare the non-magic parts of the card's, we're comparing Copper vs. Village. A free card vs. a $3-cost.

Wrong. It's Peddler vs Village. You're double-counting the drawing power of farming village, while counting the draw power of venture only once.

[DG]

If you are playing BM against heavy cursing, maybe. But Venture can also skip right over your key action cards, which FV doesn't do. The real value in Venture comes from chaining them, which generally requires decent trashing (of coppers at least), minimal silver purchases and multiple ventures.

That's the intuitive thinking, however you can say exactly the same thing about markets and labs. The more rubbish you trash and the smaller the 'logical' size of your deck, the more benefit you get from a market or lab. A venture can only ever be better value than a market when the top card of your deck is not a treasure (excepting banks, whatever). A venture can draw another venture and play that, however a market could draw another market and play that too.

[WanderingWinder]

If you are playing BM against heavy cursing, maybe. But Venture can also skip right over your key action cards, which FV doesn't do. The real value in Venture comes from chaining them, which generally requires decent trashing (of coppers at least), minimal silver purchases and multiple ventures.

That's the intuitive thinking, however you can say exactly the same thing about markets and labs. The more rubbish you trash and the smaller the 'logical' size of your deck, the more benefit you get from a market or lab. A venture can only ever be better value than a market when the top card of your deck is not a treasure (excepting banks, whatever). A venture can draw another venture and play that, however a market could draw another market and play that too.

No, a venture is better than a market 1) with terminal card draw, and 2) when your next treasure is better than your next card, provided 3)the buy that market gives you isn't as significant as the first two points.
Edit: which, I guess, isn't so so different from what you said.

[Glooble]

I'm kind of curious to see how base set staples like Festival, Lab, and Market will rank, especially given Smithy's performance.

[chwhite]

I'm kind of curious to see how base set staples like Festival, Lab, and Market will rank, especially given Smithy's performance.

Prediction: Lab will be significantly higher than Festival, which will in turn be significantly higher than Market.  I didn't put any of them in the top 10, but if Lab ends up there I won't be too surprised.

[brokoli]

I guess the top 5 will be :

5- Tactician / Witch
4- Ill-gotten gains
3- Wharf
2- Hunting party
1- Mountebank

But I would be happy to see Inn, Horn of plenty or Highway. Even if Inn is too often bought on Isotropic (you should buy it at the right time), the card is incredibly good (and fun).

[toaster]

I strongly disagree on Inn.  It has a few combos where it works well, but I think that many players vastly overrate it.  The primarily reason to purchase it is for the "on gain" ability, and even that is quite situational as far as timing.  I simply see Inn as a somewhat weak cycling card.

[brokoli]

I strongly disagree on Inn.  It has a few combos where it works well, but I think that many players vastly overrate it.  The primarily reason to purchase it is for the "on gain" ability, and even that is quite situational as far as timing.  I simply see Inn as a somewhat weak cycling card.

Yeah, that's what I said. The card should be bought at the right time. Generally people on Isotropic buy it too often. But on the other hand, Inn makes really strong combos (with just about everything). After, it's like a simple village, and you could trash it with bishop/salvager/apprentice.

"quite situational as far as timing" : You should pay attention to the reshuffle. Simply.

[ackack]

"quite situational as far as timing" : You should pay attention to the reshuffle. Simply.

Paying as much attention to the shuffle as you want still doesn't put all of your cards in the discard all the time. Inn can do nice things for sure, but so can most 5s. I really don't think it belongs very far from the middle of the pack either way.

[Fabian]

Inn near the top 5 of this list might be more wrong than Venture belonging on the bottom third of this list, which is pretty impressive I guess. Not that Highway or Horn of Plenty should be anywhere remotely close to the top 5 either, but seems like Inn sparked more discussion.

[brokoli]

There is a difference between a card that is almost always good (like laboratory), and a tricky card that can make incredible things (like Inn).
Horn of plenty (need different cards) and highway (need good source of +buy) are more situational than a mountebank, but sometimes they are just awesome.

So I wouldn't be surprised to see Inn at #35 after Mint, because it's just too difficult to rank it.

[olneyce]

There is a difference between a card that is almost always good (like laboratory), and a tricky card that can make incredible things (like Inn).

The difference is that Laboratory is almost always good, while Inn is often not good at all.  That's why Laboratory is a (much) better card.

[ehunt]

I wish I had participated in this exercise as I find myself having infinity opinions,all of which I have to suppress for the sake of making this one come across the strongest:

witch > mountebank > IGG.

[toaster]

There is a difference between a card that is almost always good (like laboratory), and a tricky card that can make incredible things (like Inn).
Horn of plenty (need different cards) and highway (need good source of +buy) are more situational than a mountebank, but sometimes they are just awesome.

So I wouldn't be surprised to see Inn at #35 after Mint, because it's just too difficult to rank it.

See, the difference is that I don't think that Inn is particularly helpful in pulling off incredible things.  At its best, it's a somewhat weak cycler/action concentrater.  Decent and helpful in lubricating and action heavy deck without trashing?  Sure.  However, that fact that it's best case kind of deck, engine decks that aren't thin, isn't one of the stronger broad strategies weakens my assessment of the card as a whole.

[toaster]

Oh additionally I was looking over my list and already can predict one outlier of mine: I had Vault at #3.  Now, I tend to like Big Money-ish decks, and Vault is a great card for fast province games, but in retrospect that seems over the top...something I'd put in the top third, but definitely not the top 3.

[WanderingWinder]

Oh additionally I was looking over my list and already can predict one outlier of mine: I had Vault at #3.  Now, I tend to like Big Money-ish decks, and Vault is a great card for fast province games, but in retrospect that seems over the top...something I'd put in the top third, but definitely not the top 3.

Wow... which curse-giver did you think it was better than?

[toaster]

Actually, it's above both IGG and Witch.  My #2 card is not a curse giver, and that one I actually feel still deserves it's spot, though one could reasonably argue for a few places lower.  Again, though, I'm not going to defend the Vault rank...definitely a "why was a so overenthusiastic about it that night" moment.