Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 10  All

Author Topic: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.1: $5 cards  (Read 130220 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

ackack

  • Explorer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 302
  • Respect: +19
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #25 on: January 23, 2012, 03:35:06 pm »
0

Rabble at 36 does seem super crazy to me. I didn't take place in this exercise and so don't have a great sense for all the 5s off the top of my head, but I'd guess somewhere between 15 and 20 would probably be about right.

In general the exercise of ranking cards (aside from the fun of it) seems most useful for people very early in the learning process. And there it's less about strict ordering, but more just an idea of "what cards are important? Are there any surprises in there? Why do a bunch of strong players think these cards are particularly valuable?" I feel like taking the rankings too literally other than that just can't be very helpful. Going through this list of 5s, I definitely find myself thinking "well, yeah, these are pretty bad for 5s . . . but come on, these cards can be pretty great!"
Logged

brokoli

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1119
  • Respect: +786
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #26 on: January 23, 2012, 03:35:31 pm »
+1

Pretty good list. The only card missing from my bottom third is Library.
:o
Warehouse + Library
Fishing village + Library
Hamlet + Library
Shanty town + Library
Minion + Library
Golem + Tactician + Library
Festival + library
Village + any action silver + library
...


The merchant ship is pretty underrated. Not so powerful, but like Harvest, a terminal gold/4$ is not really attractive but quite good.
Logged

Robz888

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2644
  • Shuffle iT Username: Robz888
  • Respect: +3388
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #27 on: January 23, 2012, 03:36:13 pm »
0

Agreed that this list is pretty much on the money. I might quibble with the ranking of Stash. Is it really that bad? Like, number 2 worst? I don't see how it's worse than Explorer and Saboteur.
Logged
I have been forced to accept that lackluster play is a town tell for you.

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #28 on: January 23, 2012, 03:36:35 pm »
0

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Counting House as a complement to Goons in Village-free games.

I was going to ask if that was a viable strategy...is it? Because it popped into my head as an obvious complement to a goons deck.
Someone correct if I'm wrong, but I really don't see it.

You need to spend $5 to get some junk for your deck that only becomes useful insofar as you are also adding a bunch of other junk to your deck.  And if you draw it at the end of a shuffle.  And if you don't draw it in a hand with a Goons.  And the best it's likely to get you is one Province, which is nice but isn't crazy good.  The only way I could see it being useful is if you think there's a decent chance you will have a cantrip +buy so that you might be able to actually get something really good if you happen to drag 18 coppers into your hand or something.

But the whole point of this situation is that you have a deck full of clutter - so getting a combo together into one 5-card hand is going to be tough.
Logged

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #29 on: January 23, 2012, 03:44:55 pm »
0

Yeah, like I said, I was just wrong on Rabble and Merchant Ship.  I would still strongly disagree with Rabble as a top-15 card, though.  The top of the $5 cards is really, really good.
Logged

Qvist

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
  • Shuffle iT Username: Qvist
  • Respect: +4085
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #30 on: January 23, 2012, 03:48:59 pm »
0

Wow, so much discussion going on. You just can't wait for the next rankings, am I right?  ;D
I hope to post the next part on Thursday and we'll see if and where Library, Merchant Ship and Rabble will be.

jonts26

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2746
  • Shuffle iT Username: jonts
  • Respect: +3668
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #31 on: January 23, 2012, 03:50:02 pm »
0

Very reasonable list.  I only had two cards lower than any of these (Rabble at 36 and Merchant Ship at 38), and I'm pretty sure I just got those wrong.

The $5 cards are really good for the most part.  This batch is so-so, but basically every card above this is almost always a strong positive in a deck and most have game-changing potential in the right circumstances.

I agree with Merchant Ship, but Rabble??? Rabble is strong! Very strong! Isn't? Guys, what do you think of Rabble? :)

You shouldn't agree with Merchant Ship. Sure, it's not a powerhouse but it's definitely well above average. Terminal silver this turn is pretty meh but a free $2 next turn? Yes please.

And yes, Rabble when used properly can be devastating.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #32 on: January 23, 2012, 03:54:35 pm »
0

Pretty good list. The only card missing from my bottom third is Library.
:o
Warehouse + Library
Fishing village + Library
Hamlet + Library
Shanty town + Library
Minion + Library
Golem + Tactician + Library
Festival + library
Village + any action silver + library
...


The merchant ship is pretty underrated. Not so powerful, but like Harvest, a terminal gold/4$ is not really attractive but quite good.
Basically what Library needs is cards that reduce hand size AND cards that produce money (so you get some benefit from discarding and drawing new cards) AND plenty of villages. Otherwise, it's not better than smithy. And unlike smithy-types, it can't ever really draw your whole deck, because the the second library will usually not be able to draw so many cards unless you can make the other cards disappear. Of course there are decks in which you can do this, but they need multiple support cards which makes them both uncommon and slow. So it kind of fits in with the rest of the cards in this bottom third.

Yeah, like I said, I was just wrong on Rabble and Merchant Ship.  I would still strongly disagree with Rabble as a top-15 card, though.  The top of the $5 cards is really, really good.
ackack said "between 15 and 20, not top 15" and I agree with him. There are definitely 15 really sick strong $5 cards that require less support than Rabble, but there's probably not 20.

Merchant Ship I think doesn't belong here, but it's not too much higher. It's decent for big money, particularly as an opener, but it's not crazy strong and doesn't really combo with anything.
Logged

Thisisnotasmile

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1493
  • Respect: +676
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #33 on: January 23, 2012, 04:33:44 pm »
0

Wow, so much discussion going on. You just can't wait for the next rankings, am I right?  ;D
I hope to post the next part on Thursday and we'll see if and where Library, Merchant Ship and Rabble will be.

And Venture, please.
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #34 on: January 23, 2012, 05:47:15 pm »
+1

Stash second worst five cost card? Wow. Seems like there is a massive under appreciation of draw management. A treasure that's always superior to silver, occasionally better than gold, can create its own unique strategies, well that should deserve better.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #35 on: January 23, 2012, 06:10:54 pm »
0

Now that I've read all the text, I have a couple of additional comments:

Cache should be mentioned as a card that's good with counting house. Counting house is in a way like harvest. It's a terminal that gives a "random" $ amount (though it's not throneable). On average it's close to the same as harvest, but it's much higher variance. It is, however, possible to modify the distribution. one way is by putting more cards in discard as with golem, warehouse, cellar. The other is by adding more copper to your deck, as with cache, opponent's ambassador/mountebank, or +buy.

You say, Royal Seal is "very expensive for a $5 card". I would argue that in the absence of quarry, it costs the same as all other $5 cards :P
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #36 on: January 23, 2012, 06:13:42 pm »
0

Stash second worst five cost card? Wow. Seems like there is a massive under appreciation of draw management. A treasure that's always superior to silver, occasionally better than gold, can create its own unique strategies, well that should deserve better.
Basically any card can create it's own unique strategies, and "always superior to silver" is not that important since it's mostly competing with other $5 cards. And usually at least one of the other available $5 cards is better than silver. Second-to-last may be a little low, but it's hard to see it making it out of the bottom 5...
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #37 on: January 23, 2012, 07:11:37 pm »
0

Quote
"always superior to silver" is not that important since it's mostly competing with other $5 cards.

It is important since once you've bought your merchant ship and bought your jester you'll then buy the stash. It does not compete directly with actions cards. The majority of decks have a mix of treasure and actions and the majority of them would be improved by buying a stash/royal seal rather than overloading on terminal actions.
Logged

Kirian

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7096
  • Shuffle iT Username: Kirian
  • An Unbalanced Equation
  • Respect: +9411
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #38 on: January 23, 2012, 07:40:29 pm »
+3

Outpost is also great in strategies where you need very few cards to draw most of your deck. Scrying Pool/Outpost can be deadly.

This is true. But I leave it now how it is. The Outpost article is already long enough.
[/quote]

That's all right.  Just add a second section for Outpost that's about 3/5 as long.
Logged
Kirian's Law of f.DS jokes:  Any sufficiently unexplained joke is indistinguishable from serious conversation.

Robz888

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2644
  • Shuffle iT Username: Robz888
  • Respect: +3388
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #39 on: January 23, 2012, 08:01:57 pm »
0

Wow, so much discussion going on. You just can't wait for the next rankings, am I right?  ;D
I hope to post the next part on Thursday and we'll see if and where Library, Merchant Ship and Rabble will be.

And Venture, please.

If there are 13 cards in each section, I might expect to see Venture just narrowly eek out of Part 2 make it to Part 3.
Logged
I have been forced to accept that lackluster play is a town tell for you.

petrie911

  • Young Witch
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 147
  • Respect: +109
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #40 on: January 23, 2012, 08:03:05 pm »
0

Saboteur seems higher than I would have expected.  I always thought of it as the worst $5 card.

I'm really curious what the top 5 will look like.  I can probably guess what will be in there, but it'll be interesting to see the final ordering.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #41 on: January 23, 2012, 08:25:19 pm »
0

Quote
"always superior to silver" is not that important since it's mostly competing with other $5 cards.

It is important since once you've bought your merchant ship and bought your jester you'll then buy the stash. It does not compete directly with actions cards. The majority of decks have a mix of treasure and actions and the majority of them would be improved by buying a stash/royal seal rather than overloading on terminal actions.
But in those situations, where you are buying stash late just because it's a treasure that's at least as good as silver, it's not a huge impact card. Buying stash over silver in those situations might increase you win probability by 1% or something, but probably within the margin for noise. I'd be surprised if you were able make a merchant ship + stash bot that beats merchant ship (without stash) by more than 1%.
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #42 on: January 23, 2012, 09:00:33 pm »
0

Simulator says smithy + stash > smithy + merchant ship > smithy. That's the right situation to use a stash and we all do it without appreciating the stash very much.
Logged

AJD

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3292
  • Shuffle iT Username: AJD
  • Respect: +4434
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #43 on: January 23, 2012, 10:22:55 pm »
0

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Counting House as a complement to Goons in Village-free games.

I was going to ask if that was a viable strategy...is it? Because it popped into my head as an obvious complement to a goons deck.
Someone correct if I'm wrong, but I really don't see it.

You need to spend $5 to get some junk for your deck that only becomes useful insofar as you are also adding a bunch of other junk to your deck.  And if you draw it at the end of a shuffle.  And if you don't draw it in a hand with a Goons.  And the best it's likely to get you is one Province, which is nice but isn't crazy good.  The only way I could see it being useful is if you think there's a decent chance you will have a cantrip +buy so that you might be able to actually get something really good if you happen to drag 18 coppers into your hand or something.

I've seen it work a few times, not usually played by me. Obviously I can't swear that I was playing optimally in those games either, of course. But I do think you're underselling it here a bit. The more you play Goons, the earlier in your next reshuffle the Counting House will become useful; and I think if you draw Counting House and Goons in the same hand then you probably want to use the Counting House if you're far enough through your deck to be able to get a province out of it. Certainly a Warehouse or something would help here.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #44 on: January 23, 2012, 10:54:05 pm »
0

Simulator says smithy + stash > smithy + merchant ship > smithy. That's the right situation to use a stash and we all do it without appreciating the stash very much.
So my point was that the fact that late stashes are non-harmful is not a good reason to value stash on this list, which is not really addressed by this sim.
Here, in fact, stash is a key card you buy early. Stash + terminal draw or stash + chancellor are the strategies in which stash is strong -- this occurs close to the amount of times where cache is strong. This suggests that stash belongs in the same neighborhood as cache, which is right around the bottom 5.
Logged

Fuu

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 114
  • Shuffle iT Username: Fuu
  • Respect: +87
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #45 on: January 24, 2012, 01:08:18 am »
0

Of course Stash benefits from frequent shuffling and as well as terminal draw or Chancellor, is also nice when you or your opponent cause you to discard from deck, cycling more quickly (e.g. Harvest, Navigator, Envoy, Warehouse, ...). I dunno, I like the card, and was surprised to see it rated second worst.
Logged

kn1tt3r

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 585
  • Respect: +278
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #46 on: January 24, 2012, 02:16:35 am »
0

Of course Stash benefits from frequent shuffling and as well as terminal draw or Chancellor, is also nice when you or your opponent cause you to discard from deck, cycling more quickly (e.g. Harvest, Navigator, Envoy, Warehouse, ...). I dunno, I like the card, and was surprised to see it rated second worst.
Certainly Stash is not a bad card. It seldom hurts, and on some boards it's definately the dominating strategy (not only with Chancellor, also with Warehouse or Cellar it should be considered). However, those board are usually weak boards, they appear not that often, and even then the strategy is very predictable and not flexible at all.
Logged

Thisisnotasmile

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1493
  • Respect: +676
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #47 on: January 24, 2012, 02:51:51 am »
0

Wow, so much discussion going on. You just can't wait for the next rankings, am I right?  ;D
I hope to post the next part on Thursday and we'll see if and where Library, Merchant Ship and Rabble will be.

And Venture, please.

If there are 13 cards in each section, I might expect to see Venture just narrowly eek out of Part 2 make it to Part 3.

Sadly I agree. Not because that's where I think the card should be, but because people over-rate the card so much that I fear it could actually end up at the completely wrong end of the list. I mean... It's a $1 treasure that costs $5. Yeah, it's got a magical power tacked on, but it really isn't that great.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #48 on: January 24, 2012, 03:17:07 am »
+1

Sadly I agree. Not because that's where I think the card should be, but because people over-rate the card so much that I fear it could actually end up at the completely wrong end of the list. I mean... It's a $1 treasure that costs $5. Yeah, it's got a magical power tacked on, but it really isn't that great.
Saying it's a $1 treasure is selling it quite a bit short, like calling mountebank a terminal silver that has a "magical power tacked on". That "magical power" is like the main part of the card. Provided you aren't already drawing all your treasures, it effectively nets you at least $2, often more with any sort of copper trashing, and sometimes waaaay more (when you can get a chain going or have platinums). Plus it keeps you pretty green-immune and doesn't use an action, so you can add in any actions you want to supplement it. It's only borderline top third, but I really can't see it being much outside that. Where do you rank it?
Logged

Thisisnotasmile

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1493
  • Respect: +676
    • View Profile
Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #49 on: January 24, 2012, 03:30:59 am »
0

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.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2012, 03:36:12 am by Thisisnotasmile »
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 10  All
 

Page created in 0.071 seconds with 21 queries.