A trashing strategy question for the experts, which culminates in a Temple question:
Assume there's no junking in the kingdom. Assume there are engine pieces, and of those engine pieces, at least one of them is a possible BM-enabler (as many terminal draw engine-pieces are, also.) The presence (or quality) of the trashing available is going to determine what type of deck is going to outrace the others, correct? Maybe BM will be the best. Maybe an engine which manages to reliably get a province a turn will be the best plan. Maybe you'll get reliable double-province buys. Maybe you'll be able to pull off a mega-turn. The quality of trashing has a lot to do with how much you build before greening because of the exponential growth possible after drawing your whole deck, which can usually only reasonably be accomplished with at least some trashing.
There are some trashers that are absolutely no-brainers when it comes to deciding whether there's enough trashing to get really thin. Chapel, Steward and Remake are the big three, right? They're all trash-twos or better that you can open with, and Steward and Remake even come with upside. Done deal. You see any of these cards, you go thin or go home.
Other trashers are trickier. Count is brilliant, but it's a $5. And Forge says "hi", but $7?! You better have a plan. (Not a Plan. Different thing. Also a trasher.) These may not be cards where you can plan to get thin early then build up. You'll have to do some building as you go and thin along the way because you'll have to at least be able to spike $5. Same with Junk Dealer, who has the added wrinkle of being good in multiples because it's non-terminal.
But the difference between a trash-2 and a trash-1 is significant. If you open Steward/Something, after your first reshuffle your deck will get smaller, because you'll probably trash two cards, then buy one card, trash two, buy one, etc. With a trash-1, your deck never gets smaller: trash one, buy one, trash one, buy one. The math is simple.
There are two basic consequences of this simple math, if I've been playing anything remotely like correctly: 1. You often only need a single copy of a trash-2 or better to get thin. 2. You need at least two copies of a trash-1 or you simply cannot get thin.
That starts begging the question: Of the trash-ones, which will actually WORK to thin your deck if you buy multiples and trash aggressively? Is it ever the right play to open Trade Route/Trade Route? Raze/Raze? Ratcatcher/Ratchatcher? Lookout/Lookout? Forager/Forager? Should you only buy multiple trash-ones that quickly if they're not terminal? Is it more important to open trash-one/$2-generator if there's a critical power-$5 and buy another trash-one later?
I'm asking this question to get opinions from experienced players, because there may be those who say that you just can't get thin fast enough with a terminal trash-one like Trade Route so don't even try it or you'll lose to BM every time.
This is the question that leads us to where Temple stands.
First of all, it's almost never a trash-three, so forget about living that dream. But early on is it more like a trash-one (Copper) or a trash-two (Copper/Estate)? My experience so far is that it plays MUCH more like Trade Route than Steward or Remake. You pretty much have to buy two to get thin, which is why it's nice that it comes with some spare VP for buying them. However, unlike many trashers it doesn't come with any other upside that helps you at the moment you play it, which is part of what makes it slow. No coin. No cards. No actions. No sifting. No +buy. Part of the brilliance of Steward and Remake is that they both add economy as well as trashing. Raze sifts and is non-terminal. Forager adds coin and is non-terminal. Temple is utterly unhelpful.
But there's still something funny about it. It costs $4. Why? A huge number of the other trash-ones cost $3 or less (Trade Route/Raze/Forager/etc.) Did the playtesting reveal that the card was overpowered at $3? If so, it may be that the Alt+VP aspect of this card might actually be MORE important than the trashing.
That's all I've got. Lots of questions about existing trashers that I hope will help answer where this card fits in the grand scheme of things.
(Grand Scheme: $4 +1 card, +1 action, Topdeck two action cards from play during clean-up __ You can't buy it with copper in play.)