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Author Topic: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.1: $5 cards  (Read 130258 times)

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jsh357

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #75 on: January 25, 2012, 03:55:22 pm »
0

Hunting Party, I assume?

My top 5 would be:
1. HP
2. Witch
3. Mountebank
4. Wharf
5. Vault

I didn't vote, though.

IGG is a strong sixth for me.
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theory

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #76 on: January 25, 2012, 03:58:25 pm »
+1

This discussion is interesting to me because I was wondering whether the $5's distinction I made on the blog between Attacks and Non-Attacks is meaningful any more.  (Yes, yes, I know, I haven't done the $4's yet.  That's coming up.)  Mountebank / Witch still dominate, and IGG can probably sneak in as a quasi-attack.  But Hunting Party and Wharf and etc. are so strong that I would probably rank them over Minion and Torturer and Rabble.  At the same time, you can't build a HP engine when Village/Torturer is on the table.  So is ranking them separately avoiding apples & oranges comparisons or just a copout?
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jsh357

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #77 on: January 25, 2012, 04:00:56 pm »
+1

Personally, I liked splitting it in to two lists, half because there are so many good $5 cards period
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mnavratil

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #78 on: January 25, 2012, 04:03:14 pm »
+2

Maybe a bit of a copout, but I don't mind. I like that splitting the lists gets us the best/worst 10 cards. With the $5's there is just so much more going on there, that a list of 5 cards doesn't seem sufficient.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #79 on: January 25, 2012, 04:05:52 pm »
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I think the real distinction is between 'curse-giver' and 'everything else' at almost every price point. There's very few things that can deal with curses effectively (other cursers, ambassador, masq, and... that's about it reliably. Actually, I should make a call for games where cursers are beat without these, because it's very few). And the other attacks may be good, but not more so than just strong cards really. Militia ~= monument, for every minion there's a hunting party, etc. So I mean, most of the other attacks are strong, but not like on another level.

GendoIkari

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #80 on: January 25, 2012, 04:12:38 pm »
0

I think the real distinction is between 'curse-giver' and 'everything else' at almost every price point. There's very few things that can deal with curses effectively (other cursers, ambassador, masq, and... that's about it reliably. Actually, I should make a call for games where cursers are beat without these, because it's very few). And the other attacks may be good, but not more so than just strong cards really. Militia ~= monument, for every minion there's a hunting party, etc. So I mean, most of the other attacks are strong, but not like on another level.

Here you go, 2 sample games: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=999.0. Not that I'm disagreeing with your assessment of Curses!
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timchen

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #81 on: January 25, 2012, 04:14:00 pm »
+1

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.

This is right, but saying it is like a bazaar or market is kind of misleading. The second part actually is very important. Say with the starting deck, the money produced by a single hand with one single venture becomes 6/11*3.5+5/11*(2.8+1+1)=4.09. i.e., the added total value from the venture is 1.18 instead of 1. And this is the worst case. This shows the power of the venture I think, as it is 20% better than a peddler in the worst case.

Ironically this extra part does behave just like a farming village, intuitively speaking. The problem I guess, is that this effect is much more desirable in a money deck. In an engine deck you don't really care about the draw of that single card...
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toaster

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #82 on: January 25, 2012, 04:27:58 pm »
0

I'm going to go with "cop-out" on ranking attacks and non-attacks separately.  Although the strongest attacks are very strong, there are very strong non-attacks as well, and some pretty awful attacks.  Even among curse-givers, although they'll be near the top of the list, they don't read off as the top cards period, and I think there's a lot to be learned from how people interleave them, just as much as say, how people relatively rank good engine vs. good big money-ish cards.
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ehunt

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #83 on: January 25, 2012, 05:04:46 pm »
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Are we certain hunting party with a nice terminal like salvager doesn't beat village torturer? Taking the curses seems just fine for the hunting party.
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brokoli

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #84 on: January 25, 2012, 05:53:35 pm »
0

This discussion is interesting to me because I was wondering whether the $5's distinction I made on the blog between Attacks and Non-Attacks is meaningful any more.  (Yes, yes, I know, I haven't done the $4's yet.  That's coming up.)  Mountebank / Witch still dominate, and IGG can probably sneak in as a quasi-attack.  But Hunting Party and Wharf and etc. are so strong that I would probably rank them over Minion and Torturer and Rabble.  At the same time, you can't build a HP engine when Village/Torturer is on the table.  So is ranking them separately avoiding apples & oranges comparisons or just a copout?

Personally I like the distinction between attacks and non-attacks. It's difficult to say which is better between Hunting party and Witch...

Also, I wonder where duke will appear. I always found it very powerful, and it's for me the easiest alternative VP strategy (though I tend to prefer silk road or gardens). But, this is based on my personnal experience... and, victory cards are often too low in this lists (Silk road and Island...).
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PerdHapley

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #85 on: January 25, 2012, 06:20:06 pm »
0

Are we certain hunting party with a nice terminal like salvager doesn't beat village torturer? Taking the curses seems just fine for the hunting party.

Yeah, in the presence of remake/salvager/chapel a HP deck should be just fine against village/torturer.

Had I made a list here HP would've topped it, probably by a pretty decent margin, with Witch/Mountebank/Minion/Wharf filling out the rest of the top five. I know Ill-Gotten Gains should be up there too, but it makes my brain hurt trying to compare it to the rest of the monster $5s.

I have a feeling Torturer will end up being the most overrated card on this list - I'm not sure it would crack my top ten.
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ratxt1

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #86 on: January 25, 2012, 07:49:13 pm »
0

the top 3 will be interesting as they're seems to be some debate over who is the best out of Hunting Party and the cursers (Mountebank and Witch).
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WanderingWinder

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #87 on: January 25, 2012, 09:21:16 pm »
+1

This discussion is interesting to me because I was wondering whether the $5's distinction I made on the blog between Attacks and Non-Attacks is meaningful any more.  (Yes, yes, I know, I haven't done the $4's yet.  That's coming up.)  Mountebank / Witch still dominate, and IGG can probably sneak in as a quasi-attack.  But Hunting Party and Wharf and etc. are so strong that I would probably rank them over Minion and Torturer and Rabble.  At the same time, you can't build a HP engine when Village/Torturer is on the table.  So is ranking them separately avoiding apples & oranges comparisons or just a copout?

Personally I like the distinction between attacks and non-attacks. It's difficult to say which is better between Hunting party and Witch...
No, it isn't. Witch is better.

HiveMindEmulator

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #88 on: January 25, 2012, 09:44:21 pm »
+1

Personally I like the distinction between attacks and non-attacks. It's difficulteasy to say whichWitch is better between Hunting party and Witch...
Fixed. Wrong spelling of "Witch" :P
But seriously, Hunting Party is really strong, and it seems cool. You get to flip over a ton of cards until you find the one you want. Or, online, you see a ton of stuff appear when you click. It is the key card in some really strong strategies.
...But Witch is in another ballpark. It makes the game completely different. Games with curses seem to have completely different rules than games without them. You will never really go mass Witch the way you would with HP, but when you look at a kingdom laid out on the table, Witch is most often the first card you see/think about.
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chwhite

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #89 on: January 25, 2012, 11:57:31 pm »
0

I think the real distinction is between 'curse-giver' and 'everything else' at almost every price point. There's very few things that can deal with curses effectively (other cursers, ambassador, masq, and... that's about it reliably. Actually, I should make a call for games where cursers are beat without these, because it's very few). And the other attacks may be good, but not more so than just strong cards really. Militia ~= monument, for every minion there's a hunting party, etc. So I mean, most of the other attacks are strong, but not like on another level.

Mountebank and Witch are the only curse-givers which are actually this effective.  Hag and YW have a number of counters above and beyond the usual suspects (e.g. Lookout, or if the Bane is any decent at all), and Familiar can sometimes be too slow to set up if there's a fast strategy that can deal with junk.

Here's a fun one where I ignore Familiars in favor of Remake and Tunnel madness:

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201201/25/game-20120125-205211-46aa48b8.html

Pretty sure I didn't do this optimally: more Harvests would have been better instead of Markets.
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heatthespurs

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #90 on: January 26, 2012, 03:00:45 am »
0

For the Venture vs Farming Village discussion, I think another difference is that the extra card Venture draw is always $$, while the extra card FV draw can be action card or $$. I am not saying whether $$ or action card is better. But the uncertainty does make FV less likely to fulfill the purpose you purchase it for.

When you buy Venture, you want more money. And you always get more money by playing it. It always perform what you expect it to do.

When you buy FV, you generally want to draw action card. (Hard to imagine people buy FV for Venture propose). But it can draw you money instead of action card, and thus leaving your +2 action useless. Money is still good, but it is not exactly what you want when you bought FV for $4
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DStu

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #91 on: January 26, 2012, 03:21:49 am »
+1

I think there is good reason for Venture to be considered better than Farming Village.

Venture actually is accepted to be bad when many Coppers are aroung. If you can rid of most of them, you can expect it to be usually be worth at least Gold, for $5. That is a clear scenario where you want to use it, and where it is really good. Action-light deck that could trash the Coppers.
For Farming Village on the other hand, it's not that clear. When you get rid of the Coppers, it is at least a Silver for $4. That's not good at all. So you additionally need the non-terminals in your deck you want to play to get use of the +Actions. So you basically get an action-chain which is a little bit more reliable when you go greening (or get cursed), but therefore you have to pay $4 for your Village. If you could get rid of you Coppers. And clearly FV is not the best Village when you want to build an engine.
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ackack

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #92 on: January 26, 2012, 09:10:30 am »
0

Mountebank and Witch are the only curse-givers which are actually this effective.  Hag and YW have a number of counters above and beyond the usual suspects (e.g. Lookout, or if the Bane is any decent at all), and Familiar can sometimes be too slow to set up if there's a fast strategy that can deal with junk.

Totally agree, and this is why I feel like cards like Hag and YW are overrated. Can they be very important? Sure. But I feel like a lot of the 4s (the ones you prefer, for example) are just more generically awesome. I think relative to most people I value cards that are flexible in the sense that they are almost always good.
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chwhite

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #93 on: January 26, 2012, 12:16:26 pm »
0

Guess I should comment on the bottom third before the next section comes out...

I thought it was close to spot-on, there's really a lot of consensus on the worst $5s.  The bottom 5 in particular match my bottom 5 exactly: I had Explorer last, but I know I probably underrate that card a little bit, and as much as I like to say Counting House has its uses, that's mainly me trying to be contrarian.  Stash is worth buying more than the others down there, but it's almost never worth the $2 surcharge over Silver; I remain unconvinced about the Cache opening, and would probably only go for it in Apothecary and hybrid Gardens strategies.  The general shape of the rest of list follows my list fairly closely as well.  The only card I had down here that wasn't listed already is Duke, which IIRC I placed at #39.  So likely that's going to be an outlier.  But even so, I really don't like Dukes; I'm not a big fan of most Kingdom Victory strategies anyway, and Dukes feel especially easy to block and hard to make work.  I buy them rarely and tend to lose when I do buy them; once in a while a dedicated Duke strategy can steamroll, but most of the time I find they tend to be a desperation play, much like Saboteur.

I do think Tribute is a tiny bit overrated (I tend to dislike cards with unreliable benefits that the opponent can block with smart play, Tribute shares this problem with Smugglers), and Outpost is actually a bit underrated (good players know it's usually a horrible buy, but it can be just so powerful in the right engines).  I also had Harvest a couple spots higher; I don't see much daylight between it and Merchant Ship.  They thrive in different sorts of decks, but they mostly fill the same function about as effectively.  (You should normally count on Harvest giving you $3, which is roughly equivalent to Merchant Ship given the Duration penalty).  Merchant Ship tends to be better in BM, whereas Harvest is better with Action chains, and best with Thrones, Kings... and as a Tunnel enabler, too.
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Robz888

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #94 on: January 26, 2012, 02:19:49 pm »
0

I do think Tribute is a tiny bit overrated (I tend to dislike cards with unreliable benefits that the opponent can block with smart play, Tribute shares this problem with Smugglers), and Outpost is actually a bit underrated (good players know it's usually a horrible buy, but it can be just so powerful in the right engines).  I also had Harvest a couple spots higher; I don't see much daylight between it and Merchant Ship.  They thrive in different sorts of decks, but they mostly fill the same function about as effectively.  (You should normally count on Harvest giving you $3, which is roughly equivalent to Merchant Ship given the Duration penalty).  Merchant Ship tends to be better in BM, whereas Harvest is better with Action chains, and best with Thrones, Kings... and as a Tunnel enabler, too.

I very much agree. I'm not sure I'd actually bought Harvest more than once or twice... until yesterday, where it came up in two different Kingdoms that made good use of it. In the second game, my opponent went Pirate Ship. Given Native Villages, I was free to load up on Harvests as a great source of non-Treasure coin. I think every Harvest I played save for one gave me +$4, and my deck wasn't, like, purposefully diverse or anything.

Of course, there's a lot of competition at the $5 level, and even Merchant Ship will probably appear pretty quickly on the next list. So I don't know that I would have moved Harvest very far. But it's certainly better than Tribute. +4 Actions, hurray!
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jonts26

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #95 on: January 26, 2012, 02:39:30 pm »
0

I also had Harvest a couple spots higher; I don't see much daylight between it and Merchant Ship.  They thrive in different sorts of decks, but they mostly fill the same function about as effectively.  (You should normally count on Harvest giving you $3, which is roughly equivalent to Merchant Ship given the Duration penalty).  Merchant Ship tends to be better in BM, whereas Harvest is better with Action chains, and best with Thrones, Kings... and as a Tunnel enabler, too.

I think the real benefit of merchant ship over harvest is that you can buy merchant ship a lot earlier. Opening MS is great, harvest ...not so much. And the extra early income from MS leads to earlier better buys like golds and whatnot.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #96 on: January 26, 2012, 02:48:10 pm »
0

I also had Harvest a couple spots higher; I don't see much daylight between it and Merchant Ship.  They thrive in different sorts of decks, but they mostly fill the same function about as effectively.  (You should normally count on Harvest giving you $3, which is roughly equivalent to Merchant Ship given the Duration penalty).  Merchant Ship tends to be better in BM, whereas Harvest is better with Action chains, and best with Thrones, Kings... and as a Tunnel enabler, too.

I think the real benefit of merchant ship over harvest is that you can buy merchant ship a lot earlier. Opening MS is great, harvest ...not so much. And the extra early income from MS leads to earlier better buys like golds and whatnot.
You can also buy more MS than Harvest, generally.

WanderingWinder

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #97 on: January 26, 2012, 02:50:42 pm »
0

I do think Tribute is a tiny bit overrated (I tend to dislike cards with unreliable benefits that the opponent can block with smart play, Tribute shares this problem with Smugglers), and Outpost is actually a bit underrated (good players know it's usually a horrible buy, but it can be just so powerful in the right engines).  I also had Harvest a couple spots higher; I don't see much daylight between it and Merchant Ship.  They thrive in different sorts of decks, but they mostly fill the same function about as effectively.  (You should normally count on Harvest giving you $3, which is roughly equivalent to Merchant Ship given the Duration penalty).  Merchant Ship tends to be better in BM, whereas Harvest is better with Action chains, and best with Thrones, Kings... and as a Tunnel enabler, too.

I very much agree. I'm not sure I'd actually bought Harvest more than once or twice... until yesterday, where it came up in two different Kingdoms that made good use of it. In the second game, my opponent went Pirate Ship. Given Native Villages, I was free to load up on Harvests as a great source of non-Treasure coin. I think every Harvest I played save for one gave me +$4, and my deck wasn't, like, purposefully diverse or anything.

Of course, there's a lot of competition at the $5 level, and even Merchant Ship will probably appear pretty quickly on the next list. So I don't know that I would have moved Harvest very far. But it's certainly better than Tribute. +4 Actions, hurray!
Generally tribute is at its best (hybrid cards aside) in mirror matches. It's brilliant in BM (where $2 and 2 cards, $4, or 4 cards are all GREAT, and $2 or 2 cards isn't the worst thing ever), and it's pretty consistently gonna give you some actions if your opponent is going for an engine. But it is somewhat weaker in engines, and for super action decks, 4 actions is plain terrible (because if you really needed all those actions, an action chain wouldn't be possible in the first place).

Qvist

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #98 on: January 26, 2012, 03:19:37 pm »
+1

As I won't be able to finish the second part before Saturday, I decided to split this list in 4 parts. I hope this is in your interest. So I have a little more time and the third part will be posted on Sunday.

The Best $5 Cards - Part 2/4
#35 Library (Base) Weighted Average: 30.19 / Median: 31 / Mode: 31 / Standard Deviation: 8.6
Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #14 (1x), #18 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #39 (2x), #41 (1x), #47 (1x)

So after this 4.1 point gap, Library is the first middle-ranked $5 card. Its weighted average is 5 points higher than its rank, showing the high density of the following cards. With a few outliers on both ends, it has a above-average deviation.

Library's best use may be countering discarding attacks as it may even set other actions aside and therefore increase the probability to draw treasures. But it's also very useful for engines with villages that don't increase your handsize, like Festival or Hamlet (that decrease it).
#34 Merchant Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 29.29 / Median: 32 / Mode: 37 / Standard Deviation: 8.7
Highest Rank(s): #10 (1x), #14 (1x), #15 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #38 (1x), #39 (1x), #42 (1x)

Merchant Ship only has one rank below #40 and 6 ranks above #20. It has the highest deviation so far. Its unweighted average is on #32, new players seem to overrate it.

Merchant Ship is a very simple card. Still it is ranked very differently. While Harvest is a not guaranteed $4, this now is a guaranteed $4, just split over two turns. It's good for Big Money games as it increases the probability to have $8 early as you only need $6 in hand in the following turn. And if you manage to play one each turn, this is basically $4 every turn. The probability of colliding Merchant Ships is also lower because of the Duration effect. For all other strategies than Big Money other $5 cards are mostly stronger.
#33 Inn (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 28.95 / Median: 30.5 / Mode: 27 / Standard Deviation: 7.2
Highest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #14 (1x), #19 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #40 (3x)

The consensus on Inn is higher; most of the following cards have higher deviation. It's the first card with no rank below #40.

Inn's main effect is pretty simple too. It's a Young Witch with no attack effect, but +2 Actions instead. So it's a village that doesn't increase handsize, but has a filter effect. This is nice but not great. More important is its on-buy effect. Shuffling action cards into the draw pile is great when you time it right, especially when there are (nearly) no cards in the draw pile. Decks with high action density love Inn, so you can prepare a Scrying Pool mega-draw for example. If you manage to have enough money and at least an extra-buy with your actions, you can buy a Inn from the extra-buy and won't see your bought victory cards so fast, especially in combination with Chancellor. Even if you don't necessarily have a high action density and miss $8, buy a Inn for getting all your nice actions in the next turn. You can even easily set up a King's Court/Bridge hand.
#32 Duke (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 28.89 / Median: 33 / Mode: 38 / Standard Deviation: 11.4
Highest Rank(s): #8 (2x), #9 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #42 (1x), #43 (1x), #45 (1x)

Duke is the best example for my statement "Victory cards are difficult to rank". It has the highest deviation of all $5 cards with 3 times above #10, 5 times above #20 and 6 times below #40. If we take the unweighted ranking into account it would be on #34, but experienced players saved 2 ranks. It was close though, only 0.06 points are between Duke and Inn.

Duke is similar to Silk Road and Gardens Rushes as you need to get the Duchies and Dukes as fast as you can. So you need similar good supporter cards which help getting $5 even if you're already greening, like Vault, Hoard, Duchess, Horse Traders to name a few. Duke can be very strong as it can easily be worth 6-8 VP if your opponent doesn't deny your strategy and is better than Province in those cases. 3-piling isn't that hard afterwards as there are 2 piles already gone. The problem is to realize when a board is a good Duke board. With good attacks (Curser and Handsize-Reducer) you probably want those attacks instead and ignore Duchies/Dukes and go directly for Provinces.
#31 Market (Base) Weighted Average: 28.49 / Median: 28 / Mode: 27 / Standard Deviation: 6.2
Highest Rank(s): #13 (1x), #15 (1x), #22 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #34 (2x), #38 (1x), #45 (1x)

After Duke with the highest deviation follows Market, the card with the lowest deviation of all middle-ranked cards. It was only 2 times above #20 and one time below #40.

You probably pick up Market at least once in most of the games, but it is no super strong card. You want it most of the times because of the cantrip +Buy as an addition to your main strategy, because +Buy cantrips are rare and you may already have stronger terminal cards. And it is also superior to Silver in all but Big Money games as you draw a card and get an additional $1. The non-terminal +Buys is very important in some combos too, like a Highway+Market chain. Market usually is no good opener, but Market/Chapel is very strong and is on #41 of the best openings.
#30 Horn of Plenty (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 27.85 / Median: 30 / Mode: 32 / Standard Deviation: 9.0
Highest Rank(s): #3 (1x), #10 (1x), #15 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #39 (2x), #40 (1x), #44 (1x)

Horn of Plenty is another card with high variance. It has a really big outlier on #3 and it was 4 times above #20.

Horn of Plenty is one of the cards that are very hard to master. On average boards it's similar to Ironworks and just too slow. But if you can build a decent engine with several different cards involved (and that is the hardest part), then HoP is very powerful. With one Horn of Plenty and a good engine the game can end in 3 turns. Turn 1: Gain another HoP, Turn 2: Gain another 2 HoPs, Turn 3: Gain 4 Provinces from the HoPs and buy the 5th Province with the rest of your money: Basically "Game Over". The problem is to build such an engine and prepare the Mega Turn before the opponent gets a too big Province lead.
#29 Council Room (Base) Weighted Average: 27.59 / Median: 28 / Mode: 25 / Standard Deviation: 7.4
Highest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #14 (1x), #17 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #39 (2x), #41 (1x)

Council Room is really mediocre, the consensus was pretty high and only 4 ranks were above #20.

Council Room is really strong per se, but don't underestimate the extra card for your opponent. If he draws a Gold or the much needed village for his own Council Room, he may even profit more from your play than you do. It really only shines on boards with discard attacks like Militia or Goons. With such cards you take back the profit from your opponent and have a really big hand and even a +Buy. Its drawing power and +Buy makes it a good Level 3 opener combined with Fool's Gold.
#28 Treasury (Seaside) Weighted Average: 26.88 / Median: 25 / Mode: 24 / Standard Deviation: 9.1
Highest Rank(s): #7 (1x), #12 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #39 (2x), #47 (1x)

Treasury has a deviation with big outliers on both sides: #7 and second last. It was 6 times above #20.

Similar to Market, it's a "Copper that doesn't hurt", this time without the +Buy but with top-decking ability. As you can only use this ability until you're going green, you want Treasuries very early. Of course Treasury/Chapel is even better than Market/Chapel on #18 of the best openings. With 2-3 Treasuries you can keep buying good cards every turn. This comboes well with Outpost. But Treasuries are very slow, too slow on most boards. They're therefore better in Colony games and in all other games that tend to be slow. But beware of discarding attacks if you have more than 3 Treasuries. Treasury is especially good in greenless games like with Bishop or Goons. You can then keep top-decking them even until the late game.
#27 Trading Post (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 25.95 / Median: 24.5 / Mode: 36 / Standard Deviation: 7.2
Highest Rank(s): #13 (1x), #14 (1x), #16 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #36 (3x)

It has the "best worst rank" so far with no-one ranking it worse than #36. And this is even its mode with being voted on #36 3 times.

Trading Post is another card in the category "Good opener, but afterwards". The deviation is surprisingly low for that. Maybe because it costs $5 and is only a important opener in about 1-(5/6)^2 ~ 30% of all 2-player games. But with 10 openings in the Top 100 of all openings (with Trading Post/Lighthouse on #9 and Trading Post/Haven on #11), that still shows its strength. If you compare its ability with Mine as a opener: It can trash 2 instead of one card and it can trash all card types and isn't limited to treasures. But Trading Post has fiercer competition in the $5 list, so its downside of getting weak soon was taken more into account by all of you. And of course its a little bit weaker in Colony games.

To the third part
« Last Edit: July 03, 2012, 08:19:47 am by Qvist »
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brokoli

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Re: THE Dominion Card List(s): $5 cards Part 1/3 posted
« Reply #99 on: January 26, 2012, 03:41:01 pm »
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The only card I had down here that wasn't listed already is Duke, which IIRC I placed at #39.  So likely that's going to be an outlier.  But even so, I really don't like Dukes; I'm not a big fan of most Kingdom Victory strategies anyway, and Dukes feel especially easy to block and hard to make work.  I buy them rarely and tend to lose when I do buy them; once in a while a dedicated Duke strategy can steamroll, but most of the time I find they tend to be a desperation play, much like Saboteur. I also had Harvest a couple spots higher; I don't see much daylight between it and Merchant Ship.  They thrive in different sorts of decks, but they mostly fill the same function about as effectively.  (You should normally count on Harvest giving you $3, which is roughly equivalent to Merchant Ship given the Duration penalty).  Merchant Ship tends to be better in BM, whereas Harvest is better with Action chains, and best with Thrones, Kings... and as a Tunnel enabler, too.

I agree, and I think Harvest and merchant ship are both pretty underrated… (It's not uncommon to have 4$ by Harvest).
About duke, like I said it's really one of the easiest strategies for me ! (but, unlike you, I love all alternatives VP strategies).

For the second part of the list :

- Library is waaaaay too low. I really love library engines (Fishing village + vault + Library is awesome). My favourite card from the base set. I think this card is often underrated. I remember so many games when my opponent totally ignored library… and lost.
- Inn, I already said all.
- No surprises for duke, all victory cards are difficult to rank.
- Council room seems too high. The free lab is really really good for your opponent.
- Treasury and market are two card I overrestimated when I started to play Dominion. Now, I agree with their rank.
- When I open 4/3, I (almost) never but trading post. Is this a mistake ?
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