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[jaybeez]

Just played a game with this kingdom:
Harbinger
Moneylender
Salvager
Minion
Rogue
Cartographer
King's Court

And three other cards of course, but I didn't save the log and now I forget what the remaining cards were.  They didn't factor in, neither of us bought them, but I do remember that they were weaker cards, and none of them gave +Buy, and none of them were trashers.

Obviously the backbone of a winning deck is going to be Minions and KCs.  My opponent opened 5/2 and went Minion/- which I think is right.

I opened 3/4.  I got one Silver, because I knew I would need to hit $5 early and often.  But then I wasn't sure about Moneylender or Salvager.  I knew I'd want a Salvager eventually, to trash my Estates and to give me +Buy.  On the other hand, I thought Silver/Moneylender would give me a better chance of hitting $5 before the second shuffle, and also a better chance of spiking an early KC.

My plan worked and I won the game pretty handily, but any thoughts on the opening?  I could see Silver/Salvager being better, to make sure you have that Salvager that you know you'll need eventually.  But is it worth the added risk of missing $5 before the second shuffle?

[Dingan]

Early on, both [Moneylender-Copper-Estate] and [Salvager-Copper-Estate] give you a net of +$3.  So correct me if I'm wrong but they give you effectively equal probability of hitting $5 early on (yeah I know, it's not exactly equal, but whatever).  I like the Silver.  Also note, a Moneylender (and a Silver) can be Salvager-ed away later when their time is up.  All in all, my gut tells me Moneylender for some reason.  And then of course the Salvager later on, perhaps even as early as the second shuffle.

Did you ever get a Rogue?  I feel it has a place here as a gainer for Salvager fuel.

EDIT: If Shelters, then it's pretty obvious Moneylender, right?

EDIT2: I actually wonder if a KC-Rogue thing could be set up here to effectively wipe away opponent's deck, provided you're not putting things back in the trash.

[Awaclus]

I like Moneylender over Salvager. Drawing Salvager without Estates is unlikely, but it sucks when it happens and it isn't an unreasonably unlikely scenario.

OTOH, drawing Moneylender without Coppers sucks even more and that sometimes happens too.

[jaybeez]

For the $5 probabilities you have to factor in the other draw too.  I mean, SEEE plus your trasher means you don't hit $5 that turn, but are guaranteed to hit $5 your other turn before the second shuffle.  There are a lot of permutations and you'd have to consider which of them allow you to hit $5 but not trash and how much that hurts vs. not hitting $5.  I don't know how to calculate all that and I'm too lazy to look it up.

Another thing I considered is that Salvager runs out of stuff to trash that'll give you economy faster.  Since $5 and $7 are the key price points, more early economy is better I think.  So yeah I feel more confident now that Moneylender was the right play.

And oh yes, I got a Salvager before the third shuffle and trashed my Moneylender and my Silver.  I did get a Rogue too, but wasn't really able to hit my opponent's deck too hard, even with KC.  I think you'd need 2-3 Rogues for that and your deck would fill up with crap fast, which you'd need a decisive Minion split and plenty of KCs to pull off and if you've got that you don't need to kill your opponent's deck.  I think Rogue was better as a gainer for Salvager fuel, as Dingan suggests, especially because I needed every play of Salvager I could get for the +Buy.

[Chris is me]

Moneylender to open, Salvager the first time you miss $5.

You'll use Salvager the entire game, as it is the only +Buy. And once you're mega thin and out of cards to trash you can use Rogue to get you cards to trash with Salvager to keep it going. Kind of contrived but it's at least possible sometimes.

You probably want to Salvage Moneylender any time you get the opportunity to do so when 3 or less Copper are in the deck.

Edit: looks like all of this was already said