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Author Topic: What is the worst card in Dominion?  (Read 122127 times)

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ehunt

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What is the worst card in Dominion?
« on: February 08, 2012, 02:00:34 am »
0

Rules:

1. "Worst" means bad at causing you to win, not annoying or unenjoyable.

2. Consider the price of the card as part of its set of advantages/disadvantages.

3. You are not allowed to bring up any standard complaint about card rankings!

4. Polemics and angry defenses encouraged.

5. Kingdom cards only. Leaving a comment saying "curse" is permitted, but not clever.

edit: to be clear - the cards in the poll aren't all even in my bottom twenty, they're just cards I think people will be likely to vote for. If you vote 'other', post your vote, and I'll make it a poll option.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2012, 08:45:31 pm by ehunt »
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ratxt1

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2012, 02:19:13 am »
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I do not belive explorer is that bad a card, sure it isn't that great, and is quite mediocre, and bottom 5 in terms of the 5 cost cards, but i often see Explorer BM being the dominant strategy on poor boards (which happen quite frequently). I kind of equate explorer to beurecrat, doesn't really combo much with anything is pretty weak but on bad boards beurecrat/explorer BM will win, none of these other cards have this trait (though a few have the trait of once in a blue moon they are extremly dominat).

I voted transmute as the worst card since it has neither of these traits and is at best a compliment to some other strategy (like in one of the annotated games whost number i can not remember), and a once in a blue moon compliment to another strategy is just horrible for a card.

Also why isn't chancelor up there? I do not think it is the worst card, but it has quite a legacy of people saying it is horrible, people trying to defend it than realizing it is horrible etc. It is one one of those cards you look at and go. Why would i ever buy this? (since it is infereior to silver most of the time).

« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 02:27:10 am by ratxt1 »
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ehunt

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2012, 02:24:40 am »
+1

I happily added the chancellor - thanks! Sorry I forgot him.
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chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2012, 02:52:18 am »
+1

Thief's win rate on Isotropic is an amazing 0.71.  Case closed.  I buy that card in, like, at most one percent of my games (most of the time it ends up in my deck, you can thank Swindler), and after several thousand games I have yet to encounter one where I wish I had a Thief.  I've heard tales of it being useful in 4p games where you go for Gardens (but don't have the traditional enablers)... but, man, that's like a corner of a corner of a corner case.  The attack is highly likely to help your opponent early on, and later in the game even if it nabs a good Treasure good luck getting to play that Treasure much.  Worst of all, the same basic treasure-stealing idea was rehashed in Pirate Ship and Noble Brigand, both of which are a) obviously better than Thief, and b) also among the ten worst cards in the game.  (Okay, okay, the Pirates are a little better than that in multiplayer.  I still always lose on the rare occasions I try to make them work.)

A lot of votes for Transmute here, and I do think it's pretty horrible most of the time.  It's certainly the one Potion card that is just about never ever worth going for as your only potion card.  But I've had success using it once in awhile when there's other Potion cards about, and the wacky-Remodel can often be better than nothing as a consolation prize in decks that are swimming in either +Actions or Curses.  There are, like, a couple dozen cards I buy less often than Transmute, and quite a few of them have worse win rates, and/or just as weak effects.

I do think Scout, Adventurer, and possibly Counting House deserve a special honorable mention: these two or three cards are the only ones in the game that, far as I could tell, could straight up cost less than they do without causing any balance problems whatsoever.  An Adventurer at $5 or a Scout at $3 would be perfectly balanced, and Counting House at $4 might be too.  (Would also make it more viable as a counter to Amb/Mountebank, since you can buy it with junkier hands, which is near as I can tell its main use.)  These cards are not necessarily the next worst, but cards like Saboteur (who belongs in this discussion), Noble Brigand, and Thief would screw up games they were in if they cost any less.

Going by my buy% stats, you'd expect me to say Explorer is one of the worst.  But Explorer is a card I know I overlook, and it can be useful on bad BM boards.  So I grudgingly admit it's better than Sab and Counting House among $5s, and doesn't belong in the discussion here.  And neither do any of the $2 or $3 cards.  Even Duchess and Develop have their uses, and Chancellor is much better than its reputation.  (Duchess is a great opening with Lab, for instance, and is good as a free pickup in green-card-rush games; Develop is tricky and narrow but even bad trashing is sometimes better than no trashing, and it can be a great backdoor into Grand Market and stuff like that; Chancellor rocks the house whenever Familiar or Stash are around, and sometimes well there just aren't better terminals.)

If you had to press me for a good #2 choice after Thief, I'd probably go with Adventurer or Counting House.  Scout provides infintesimal value most of the time, but since it's a non-terminal it gets bought too often (say, near the end of Vineyards games); Adventurer and Counting House are expensive terminals that require incredibly specific (and normally awful) situations in which to shine.  Saboteur is probably worse than them more often, and its win rate is also worse given that it is mostly a desperation buy, but the 2 percent of games where it can go nuts with King's Court and/or Minion disqualify it.  Noble Brigand has my worst win rate and I buy it second-least, but it's close enough to a "strictly better Thief" that it's disqualified.  I guess Adventurer has to be my #2, because jeez it costs $6.  Counting House and Scout at least have other cards which cost the same and are just as bad, but Adventurer is simply without peer.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 03:50:13 am by chwhite »
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kn1tt3r

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2012, 03:05:00 am »
+3

2 player games: Thief
In general: Transmute
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MasterAir

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2012, 05:46:43 am »
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Isotropic biases this list towards 2 player games using all expansions.  In that environment thief is the worst card, closely followed by transmute.

I think transmute gets worse rep than it deserves.  Trashing an estate to gain a gold is an awesome power.  If there are no other potion cost cards, then it's bad, you don't want to buy a potion just to pick up a transmute, but otherwise it is ok.  It's not a super card, but it costs just 1 potion, so no one expected it to be.  I would have thought it a reasonable play in a vineyards game, though that might be a trap.

Thief is pretty poor, but gets stronger the more people you play with.  It's neat that it discourages thin decks with high value treasure. Even in the few cases where it's a good idea, it isn't often a great play.  Though I think it's stronger than people give it credit for in multiplayer games with gardens present.

Adventurer stands alone in being almost never a good move at $6 in my opinion.
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timchen

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #6 on: February 08, 2012, 06:13:54 am »
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Contraband. True, transmute, thief, and scout are quite horrible. Nevertheless, I have played at least a game for each card mentioned in the list except the contraband, where they have made the key difference. On the other hand, I cannot recall a single game where a contraband causes me to either win or lose.

If pearl diver is in the list, I will vote for it too.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #7 on: February 08, 2012, 06:43:27 am »
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Transmute--too often the opportunity cost is just absurd considering what it accomplishes.
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theory

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #8 on: February 08, 2012, 06:54:15 am »
0

I think transmute gets worse rep than it deserves.  Trashing an estate to gain a gold is an awesome power.  If there are no other potion cost cards, then it's bad, you don't want to buy a potion just to pick up a transmute, but otherwise it is ok.  It's not a super card, but it costs just 1 potion, so no one expected it to be.  I would have thought it a reasonable play in a vineyards game, though that might be a trap.
The problem is that it's too slow to be an early game trasher.  Buy Potion on Turn 1, buy Transmute on Turn 3, and the absolute earliest you can play it is Turn 5.  With a different choice of $4 you could have had that Gold on Turn 3.
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Davio

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2012, 08:17:49 am »
+1

I voted for Scout.

With Thief, you know what you get: Nothing. Thief doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not. The odds of hitting a Gold or Silver (or Plat) are slim and Thief's not worth it. With that $4 you could've bought an Ironworks to grab Silvers and this even gets you +$1. It can come in handy to attack Chapeled BM decks, but if you're playing Chapel, you're not supposed to play BM anyway.

Scout is somewhat different to me. The opportunity to grab some VP cards to save your next hand from disaster seems terrific. But if you play Scout, find 1 Estate, then that spot is now filled with an Estate instead of a Scout. Net result: zero. And then you might think: Scout + Harems/Nobles = omgwtf amazing, it's not. Once again you're just replacing a spot in your hand more often than not and if your crucial VP cards are dense then you don't need Scout anyway.

Besided, the picture on the real life card is horrendous, look at that guy's hand!
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brokoli

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2012, 08:32:35 am »
+1

I don't understand why counting house is here, because it's a viable strategy at least 10% of the time.

No doubt for me, transmute is the worst.
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MasterAir

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2012, 08:52:24 am »
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I think transmute gets worse rep than it deserves.  Trashing an estate to gain a gold is an awesome power.  If there are no other potion cost cards, then it's bad, you don't want to buy a potion just to pick up a transmute, but otherwise it is ok.  It's not a super card, but it costs just 1 potion, so no one expected it to be.  I would have thought it a reasonable play in a vineyards game, though that might be a trap.
The problem is that it's too slow to be an early game trasher.  Buy Potion on Turn 1, buy Transmute on Turn 3, and the absolute earliest you can play it is Turn 5.  With a different choice of $4 you could have had that Gold on Turn 3.

Transmute isn't an early game trasher.  But it's quite late in the game before I would choose not to trash an estate for a gold.  Especially if later I can trash an action card for a duchy to get that point back.  Like I said, if you are buying a potion to buy a transmute, you're doing it wrong.  If you have a potion in hand, especially if you have +buy, then transmute can be handy.  It isn't the worse card in the game.  I can't think of any strategies that rely on it, but it isn't terrible.  e.g. if familiars are about, it's a (significantly) better than nothing booby prize if you draw P+$2 on the first shuffle.
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Fabian

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #12 on: February 08, 2012, 09:05:10 am »
+1

"1. "Worst" means bad at causing you to win, not annoying or unenjoyable."

Supposedly this is a bad definition! I pick Thief because it doesn't combo well with other cards.

As for my non-trolling response, the answer is still Thief.
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Empathy

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #13 on: February 08, 2012, 09:13:11 am »
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http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120129-135556-534d8d1a.html

transmute rushes chains can work. (yes, yes, vineyard does all the work... Still, my deck ran without any sort of money source: the money per turn graph is hilarious)
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 09:31:19 am by Empathy »
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RisingJaguar

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #14 on: February 08, 2012, 09:32:36 am »
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I DEMAND that the "other" voter, and all future voters, to tell us your vote!

Please.
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DStu

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #15 on: February 08, 2012, 09:39:17 am »
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I DEMAND that the "other" voter, and all future voters, to tell us your vote!

I'm neither of them, but I voted Transmute, because of multiplayer bonus for Thief and singlePotionCardMalus for Transmute.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #16 on: February 08, 2012, 09:47:58 am »
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Scout lets you re-order the cards on your deck and keeps you from clogging due to greens.  It gives a minor boost to the next turn, but it can give a major boost to the current turn in the right deck.  It's not a great card, but it has some good uses, for instance with Scrying Pool.

You guys also forget that Thief is one of the best counters to an Ambassador / Ambassador opening.  No, just kidding, Thief is terrible.  Still, I've gotten some use out of it in edge cases.  I even pulled off a pin with it once with KC, Scheme, and a lack of non-treasure coins in the kingdom.

Transmute, though.  No.  I've seen uses for it, but they always seem to fail.  It seems like the ultimate trap card.  Duchy is what you hand someone when you swindle their Wharf.  Gold is what you buy when you didn't just spend 2 turns buying a Potion and a Transmute.  Transmute itself is terminal.

Speaking of cards with high opportunity cost compared to value, Philosopher's Stone deserves an honorable mention on this list.
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Fabian

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #17 on: February 08, 2012, 10:33:59 am »
+2

Also it blows my mind that Transmute, a card I see bought in AT LEAST 10-15% (probably more) of all matches where it's available, gets 19 votes, and Counting House, which I've seen bought in fewer than 5 games in 9 months, gets ZERO votes. Transmute, while a boring and bad card, is just not that bad when compared to the real crap that's out there.
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Arya Stark

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #18 on: February 08, 2012, 10:51:25 am »
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yeah I don't understand all the hating on transmute at least you're guaranteed something unlike theif where you're more likely helping the other players.. Anyways I threw my vote on the dutchess, love the name hate the card
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #19 on: February 08, 2012, 10:53:01 am »
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yeah I don't understand all the hating on transmute at least you're guaranteed something unlike theif where you're more likely helping the other players.. Anyways I threw my vote on the dutchess, love the name hate the card
Simple. It doesn't matter that if you bought thief, it would often be helping your opponent (actually, that's not even true all that often...), since you aren't buying it then....

WanderingWinder

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #20 on: February 08, 2012, 10:53:29 am »
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Also it blows my mind that Transmute, a card I see bought in AT LEAST 10-15% (probably more) of all matches where it's available, gets 19 votes, and Counting House, which I've seen bought in fewer than 5 games in 9 months, gets ZERO votes. Transmute, while a boring and bad card, is just not that bad when compared to the real crap that's out there.
You misevaluating cards doesn't affect us? Seriously, Counting House is not that bad.

werothegreat

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #21 on: February 08, 2012, 11:02:37 am »
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Worst of all, the same basic treasure-stealing idea was rehashed in Pirate Ship and Noble Brigand, both of which are a) obviously better than Thief, and b) also among the ten worst cards in the game.  (Okay, okay, the Pirates are a little better than that in multiplayer.  I still always lose on the rare occasions I try to make them work.)

A lot of votes for Transmute here, and I do think it's pretty horrible most of the time.  It's certainly the one Potion card that is just about never ever worth going for as your only potion card.  But I've had success using it once in awhile when there's other Potion cards about, and the wacky-Remodel can often be better than nothing as a consolation prize in decks that are swimming in either +Actions or Curses.  There are, like, a couple dozen cards I buy less often than Transmute, and quite a few of them have worse win rates, and/or just as weak effects.

Hate not on Pirate Ship!  I love that card.  Sure, it gets rid of your opponent's Coppers for him, but if you do it quickly enough, you can cripple their buying power for a little bit, and turn your Pirate Ships into perfectly hit Harvests (or better).  The key here is speed.

I voted Counting House.  I have a soft spot for Adventurer, and it can be useful (the existence of Venture does NOT make it bad), and Transmute, if there are no other trashers, can be moderately useful as well.  Now, I wouldn't say Thief or Chancellor are that good of cards (I really never buy them), but neither of them are as bad as Counting House.  Let me explain.

1) Counting House is completely dependent on there being Coppers in your discard pile.  So if this is in your first hand after a reshuffle, you're screwed.  True, Chancellor is just silly when there's nothing left in your deck, but it at least gives +$2.

2) Counting House requires an Action.  At the very best, it's a slightly less expensive Bank - but you don't need an Action to play Bank.  You can use that other Action to play a +Buy card.

3) Counting House costs $5.  As the recent poll on this forum confirmed, literally every other $5 card is better than Counting House.  When there are engine parts or other fun terminals on the board costing $5, why would I waste a turn (or even a Border Village/Haggler grab) picking up a Counting House?  Maybe I'll Remodel my Chancellor into a freaking Counting House, and ignore the Margraves sitting there.

4) Counting House is best when you get more Coppers.  If neither IGG, Cache or Goons are on the board, why would I ever gain Coppers?  And if IGG or Goons are on the board, why would I ever buy Counting House?

If there were ever a board with Cache AND Coppersmith AND Vault/Chancellor AND a +Buy AND excessive +Actions THEN I might buy a Counting House.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 11:04:51 am by werothegreat »
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greatexpectations

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #22 on: February 08, 2012, 11:19:29 am »
0

1) Counting House is completely dependent on there being Coppers in your discard pile.  So if this is in your first hand after a reshuffle, you're screwed.  True, Chancellor is just silly when there's nothing left in your deck, but it at least gives +$2.

the game has a number of discard for benefit cards which can mitigate that risk.  and it seems a silly argument. you wouldn't argue that witch is bad because it's plus 2 cards could cause you to miss the shuffle. where and when you draw it is a liability for every card.

Quote
3) Counting House costs $5.  As the recent poll on this forum confirmed, literally every other $5 card is better than Counting House.  When there are engine parts or other fun terminals on the board costing $5, why would I waste a turn (or even a Border Village/Haggler grab) picking up a Counting House?  Maybe I'll Remodel my Chancellor into a freaking Counting House, and ignore the Margraves sitting there.

i just played one yesterday where i thought counting house would be useful.  though it is admittedly a corner case.

Quote
4) Counting House is best when you get more Coppers.  If neither IGG, Cache or Goons are on the board, why would I ever gain Coppers?  And if IGG or Goons are on the board, why would I ever buy Counting House?

mountebank?  jester?  ambassador? garden decks? counting house strikes me as a very attractive option on a mountebank colony board. and it can grab help you grab the odd province in a garden deck.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 11:21:31 am by greatexpectations »
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Fabian

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #23 on: February 08, 2012, 11:39:51 am »
0

I think you misunderstand me WW. Clearly, there exist a decent number of players who think Transmute is good enough to be buying reasonably often (more than (nearly?) any other card on this list), while the opposite is true of Counting House (again, based on my own games). If you had asked me what I thought the results of this poll would be before it started, I'd have said it's a race between Thief and Counting House, and I'd have expected Transmute to receive basically no votes. The fact that Transmute cruises to victory with 19 votes while Counting House is sitting pretty at 0 (at the time), blew my mind.

The above being said, I do think Transmute is a better card than Counting House, so I guess I misevaluate stuff as well. That wasn't my point though.
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werothegreat

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #24 on: February 08, 2012, 11:40:41 am »
0

Forgot about Mountebank.  So there are a couple more Copper-gaining cards.  Still, doesn't make Counting House not a terrible card.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #25 on: February 08, 2012, 11:56:51 am »
0

Even then, I have never bought into the argument that counting house is great on Mountebank boards. With $5 I usually want another Mountebank, not a Counting house. Maybe I am just never playing this right? Mountebank on a colony board where you have more time after all the cursing? Maybe. Same thing applies to Jester. I mean the biggest problem with Counting House is not the ability of the card, but the opportunity cost in buying it over absolutley anything else.

That being said, I still think it is better than transmute. Which is terrible.

Also, I am surprised Philosopher's Stone isn't on the list. I gain that least out of all cards. It, also, just doesn't ever seem worth the opportunity cost of buying it.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #26 on: February 08, 2012, 11:59:03 am »
0

I think you misunderstand me WW. Clearly, there exist a decent number of players who think Transmute is good enough to be buying reasonably often (more than (nearly?) any other card on this list), while the opposite is true of Counting House (again, based on my own games). If you had asked me what I thought the results of this poll would be before it started, I'd have said it's a race between Thief and Counting House, and I'd have expected Transmute to receive basically no votes. The fact that Transmute cruises to victory with 19 votes while Counting House is sitting pretty at 0 (at the time), blew my mind.

The above being said, I do think Transmute is a better card than Counting House, so I guess I misevaluate stuff as well. That wasn't my point though.
Yes, I misunderstand you.
How you think transmute is better than counting house is inexplicable to me though. OTOH, it doesn't make much difference, since both are absolutely dreadful, so I'm not buying either one really.
But I do think counting house is both worth buying more often and generally stronger in the situations you do want it.

WanderingWinder

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #27 on: February 08, 2012, 12:01:11 pm »
0

Even then, I have never bought into the argument that counting house is great on Mountebank boards. With $5 I usually want another Mountebank, not a Counting house. Maybe I am just never playing this right? Mountebank on a colony board where you have more time after all the cursing? Maybe. Same thing applies to Jester. I mean the biggest problem with Counting House is not the ability of the card, but the opportunity cost in buying it over absolutley anything else.

That being said, I still think it is better than transmute. Which is terrible.

Also, I am surprised Philosopher's Stone isn't on the list. I gain that least out of all cards. It, also, just doesn't ever seem worth the opportunity cost of buying it.
You want probably 2 mountebanks before your counting house (maybe 1, very rarely 3, you have to judge a little on board position). And there it isn't that it's like super-stellar great. Just pretty good.

Philosopher's stone needs support to be good. But that support exists on the right boards. Pretty rare, but then, you could actually say the same thing about alchemist (okay, alchemist's a good bit better, but P-Stone is closer to alchemist than transmute).

petrie911

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #28 on: February 08, 2012, 12:01:20 pm »
0

Thief is good against any well-trashed deck that has any money in it.  I'll admit its usage is narrow, but said usage can be devastating.

That said, I've never felt the urge to buy Transmute.  Ever.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #29 on: February 08, 2012, 12:03:23 pm »
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And if IGG or Goons are on the board, why would I ever buy Counting House?

...Because Counting House costs less than Goons.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #30 on: February 08, 2012, 12:09:54 pm »
0

And if IGG or Goons are on the board, why would I ever buy Counting House?

...Because Counting House costs less than Goons.
Or because all the goons are gone? Or a couple other rare situations.
But also, you're comparing it to one of the two cards which might be THE most powerful in the game. That it's almost always worse is no surprise.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #31 on: February 08, 2012, 12:11:19 pm »
0

I've played games where Scout and CH have been useful. Thief is pretty sweet in multiplayer Gardens games since it gains you a bunch of cards at once and hurts everyone else's deck size. I'm now convinced Chancellor is good for something, though I'm still not sure what.

Transmute though, I don't know what to do with. I'm sure it has its uses, but it's just ... the fact that it's a potion card makes it even worse because you almost always have to be really intentional about buying it.

As for Philosopher's Stone, I buy it in games that I can see are going to be protracted, whether I like it or not. Heavy cursing, Mountebank, Ambassador, what have you. And then I make my big clunky deck work for me. You can also play it like a Gardens rush, but not as easy to pull off.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #32 on: February 08, 2012, 12:25:50 pm »
0

I've played games where Scout and CH have been useful. Thief is pretty sweet in multiplayer Gardens games since it gains you a bunch of cards at once and hurts everyone else's deck size. I'm now convinced Chancellor is good for something, though I'm still not sure what.

Transmute though, I don't know what to do with. I'm sure it has its uses, but it's just ... the fact that it's a potion card makes it even worse because you almost always have to be really intentional about buying it.

As for Philosopher's Stone, I buy it in games that I can see are going to be protracted, whether I like it or not. Heavy cursing, Mountebank, Ambassador, what have you. And then I make my big clunky deck work for me. You can also play it like a Gardens rush, but not as easy to pull off.
The problem with p-stone is that when you have a bloated deck, you don't get the p-stones in your hand that often. And it anti-synergizes with a lot of the other potion-cost cards, for which you tend to be drawing/playing lots of other cards in your deck. It works pretty well with, say, familiar though. And there's some other cards which make you go 'ooh, phil stone'. But pretty rare. If you're already potion though, the stones can be worth more than golds pretty easy, so it's not  so bad. And almost always better than silver. Once you don't want those other cards.

Scout is a strong contender for worst card for me. You need so much green for it to be worth it, or some reason you really need that top of your deck sifted. The former... you don't want that much green. The latter... there's few cards that care. Wishing well, maybe, but hey, those cards are weak enough individually that even the combo is not so great. Yes, scout can be helpful, maybe even pretty nice, but extremely extremely rarely.

greatexpectations

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #33 on: February 08, 2012, 12:42:47 pm »
0

Forgot about Mountebank.  So there are a couple more Copper-gaining cards.  Still, doesn't make Counting House not a terrible card.

i was not supporting the card so much as pointing out a few holes in your case against it. it is not a good card, but how bad it is depends on your opinion. you led off your post with a defense of pirate ship, a card that i think is a dreadful trap card in 95% of its games. everyone's opinions on a card are directly influenced by your early views on the card and how it fits into your particular play style.  i love huge messy decks, so i don't hate on counting house as much. 

Even then, I have never bought into the argument that counting house is great on Mountebank boards. With $5 I usually want another Mountebank, not a Counting house. Maybe I am just never playing this right? Mountebank on a colony board where you have more time after all the cursing? Maybe. Same thing applies to Jester. I mean the biggest problem with Counting House is not the ability of the card, but the opportunity cost in buying it over absolutley anything else.

not sure if you were referring to me, but i never said it was great.  it is something to think of though. it is an easy way to grab a province or colony in a game that might otherwise end on piles. i am not advocating opening with it early in the game, but 10-12 turns in it might be worth it over another mountebank.  at that point you will only get a few more plays out of your mountebank, and it is becoming less likely that it will even deliver a curse.  at that point a counting house drawing into a province/colony seems like a better option.

i am no fan of counting house, but some of the arguments in this thread are downright silly. personally i voted for scout. but really, it is quite difficult to gauge how awful a card really is.  it is basically a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts.  you think a card is bad, and therefore you buy it less.  and because you buy it less and less, you don't figure out how to make proper use of the card.
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RisingJaguar

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #34 on: February 08, 2012, 01:03:33 pm »
+1

Why is duchess doing so horribly? Are we only considering BUYING the card? Then yes I'll agree with 8 votes there, but it can't be that bad when its a free card late in the game.  Or am I completely missing the ball here? I've done it before with 60% gain rate of scout :)
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O

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #35 on: February 08, 2012, 01:36:29 pm »
0

I'm also kind of shocked that Transmute makes this list. I guess it's because of Isotropic's system: If you play 3-4-3 splits or whatever, transmute is a very acceptable consolation prize. Is it ever, ever worth it when it's the only potion card? No. But thats a narrow evaluation metric.

I voted Explorer, simply because i've never seen a strategy dependant on it, which it kind of more than I can say than for any other cards. It's not "terrible" in most games like other cards are, but it never, never shines.
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ecq

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #36 on: February 08, 2012, 01:57:22 pm »
+2

I'm also kind of shocked that Transmute makes this list. I guess it's because of Isotropic's system: If you play 3-4-3 splits or whatever, transmute is a very acceptable consolation prize. Is it ever, ever worth it when it's the only potion card? No. But thats a narrow evaluation metric.

I voted Explorer, simply because i've never seen a strategy dependant on it, which it kind of more than I can say than for any other cards. It's not "terrible" in most games like other cards are, but it never, never shines.

Explorer is a general utility card.  It doesn't do anything particularly exciting, but it does something that's pretty useful in most treasure-based decks.  You can lump it in with cards like Laboratory, Treasury, or Caravan.  Probably not your favorite card to play, but a good buy in a lot of cases.  BM-Explorer beats BM-Laboratory, BM-Treasury, and BM-Caravan, BTW.  I'm not saying it's a better card and it's definitely not as versatile, but it's a good $5 buy.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 01:59:24 pm by ecq »
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tlloyd

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #37 on: February 08, 2012, 02:09:25 pm »
0

For what it's worth, Counting House is an integral part of the optimal infinite VP-gaining engine.  :P
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ackack

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #38 on: February 08, 2012, 02:21:57 pm »
0

For what it's worth, Counting House is an integral part of the optimal infinite VP-gaining engine.  :P

a) How is optimal defined?

b) No matter how you define it I have a hard time believing that, since any true infinite VP-gaining engine can only be based on Monument, as Bishop and Goons will eventually exhaust piles.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #39 on: February 08, 2012, 02:24:31 pm »
0

I see the debate like this:

Obviously, it's one of scout, transmute, or thief; therefore, obviously, it's transmute.

For the record, the cards in the poll were just the cards I thought people were likely to choose; a couple of these cards (at least duchess and adventurer) aren't even in my bottom ten.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 02:30:31 pm by ehunt »
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mnavratil

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #40 on: February 08, 2012, 02:35:37 pm »
0

not sure if you were referring to me, but i never said it was great.  it is something to think of though. it is an easy way to grab a province or colony in a game that might otherwise end on piles. i am not advocating opening with it early in the game, but 10-12 turns in it might be worth it over another mountebank.  at that point you will only get a few more plays out of your mountebank, and it is becoming less likely that it will even deliver a curse.  at that point a counting house drawing into a province/colony seems like a better option.

Sort of referring to your earlier post, but it really only reminded me of hearing that counting house was a COUNTER to mountebank, which I (wrongly) thought some people here were arguing.

WanderingWinder above gave some advice on how to play Counting House as a complement to Mountebank. Turns out that getting 2 Mountebanks and then switching to counting house beats straight Mountebanks in the simulator, so I take back what I was saying before.
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chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #41 on: February 08, 2012, 02:36:42 pm »
+2

Contraband. True, transmute, thief, and scout are quite horrible. Nevertheless, I have played at least a game for each card mentioned in the list except the contraband, where they have made the key difference. On the other hand, I cannot recall a single game where a contraband causes me to either win or lose.

If pearl diver is in the list, I will vote for it too.

Contraband is easily the best card named in this poll.  It's great in games with Goons and/or Grand Market (oh, hey, you block Goons I'll just buy that Gold instead!) and games where you're building an engine with cheap parts.  Also great in Gardens games, where the +Buy is gravy.  And if there's trash-for-benefit, you can use it to build your deck, and then cash out with Apprentice/Salvager/etc. when greening.  (Or just don't play it, if you have the kind of engine Contraband is good at building that's not a big deal.)  It's a card you need to have a specific plan for, yes it's easy to play badly, you can't just expect to use it as a cheap Gold.  But there is simply no way in hell it even deserves a mention in this thread.  It's not even among the bottom 5 $5 cards; I'd rank it better than Counting House, Saboteur, Explorer, Stash, Cache, and Mandarin.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 02:41:00 pm by chwhite »
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tlloyd

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #42 on: February 08, 2012, 03:04:24 pm »
0

For what it's worth, Counting House is an integral part of the optimal infinite VP-gaining engine.  :P

a) How is optimal defined?

b) No matter how you define it I have a hard time believing that, since any true infinite VP-gaining engine can only be based on Monument, as Bishop and Goons will eventually exhaust piles.

Optimal is defined as "most VP gained per turn." And a Goons engine can gain VP infinitely as long as you return the cards you buy with Ambassador. The deck consists of all action cards and ~60 coppers. Counting house to draw the coppers, scrying pool to draw the rest. Return the coppers with KC'ed Ambassadors, play all the goons and buy them all again. There's more to it, but that's the basic idea.
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Tahtweasel

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #43 on: February 08, 2012, 03:06:41 pm »
0

Thief is excellent in certain high-trashing but still money-dependent games. Chapel + Platinum, for example. It's also frequently excellent when Gardens is available, since playing it usually results in a net cards change of +2 for you relative to your opponent. (Better than Ironworks, for example.) It can be excellent when Harem is in the game.

Lastly, as crazy as this sounds, a Kings Court+Engine+Thief strategy can completely lock down a strategy with no virtual money. Easily, even. The only reason you don't hear about it as often as KC-Goons-Masquerade is that the latter combo is based on three power cards everyone always look for.

Even a softer version of the lockdown can totally screw up a greening Big Money player. Sample Game with a victory over a top-ranked player.

I have a win rate of 1.67 with Thief, as high as Followers. It's by no means a good card, which is why I purchase it only in one game out of every 30. But at least it's reasonably acceptable.

I accept Transmute, Counting House, Adventurer, and Scout as the actual worst cards, but I understand that Thief is misplayed worse than any of those.
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toaster

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #44 on: February 08, 2012, 03:11:34 pm »
0

The one I'm surprised was in the poll at all was Contraband.  It's no all star, but it's often a good buy in Colony games, and any game that has some good middle-cost cards and a shortage of +buy.
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Robz888

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #45 on: February 08, 2012, 03:12:26 pm »
0

Voted Transmute.

All of these cards are pretty bad, although Contraband and Explorer aren't quite as bad. And as generally useless as Duchess, Secret Chamber, and Moat are, they are so cheap, that I just don't think they're really capable of doing enough damage to your deck. Not like, say, buying Adventurer over Gold.

Adventurer and Scout for me are close to being the worst, simply because they are so wrongly priced. I love what Adventurer does, but its cost makes it almost never worthwhile. I mean, if there is any other $6+ card available, you are probably not buying Adventurer. And Gold is always available! Scout, on the other hand, hasn't ever seemed worthwhile even in its best case scenario decks--Nobles, Harems, Crossroads, Great Halls. It's better then, but not nearly as important as those other cards.

But at the end of the day, Transmute is the most ill-priced card in the game, thanks to its Potion cost. The setup where Transmute is the dominant strategy, or even among the dominant strategies, has to be rarest among all these terrible cards.
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Robz888

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #46 on: February 08, 2012, 03:20:29 pm »
0

Thief is excellent in certain high-trashing but still money-dependent games. Chapel + Platinum, for example. It's also frequently excellent when Gardens is available, since playing it usually results in a net cards change of +2 for you relative to your opponent. (Better than Ironworks, for example.) It can be excellent when Harem is in the game.

Lastly, as crazy as this sounds, a Kings Court+Engine+Thief strategy can completely lock down a strategy with no virtual money. Easily, even. The only reason you don't hear about it as often as KC-Goons-Masquerade is that the latter combo is based on three power cards everyone always look for.

Even a softer version of the lockdown can totally screw up a greening Big Money player. Sample Game with a victory over a top-ranked player.

I have a win rate of 1.67 with Thief, as high as Followers. It's by no means a good card, which is why I purchase it only in one game out of every 30. But at least it's reasonably acceptable.

I accept Transmute, Counting House, Adventurer, and Scout as the actual worst cards, but I understand that Thief is misplayed worse than any of those.

Yeah, I pretty much agree. Thief gets a bad wrap. I mean, Thief is usually awful, but it is certainly more useful in more situations than Transmute, Scout, and Adventurer... and maybe Counting House.

I realize Develop is another one I didn't really consider. I think it may just be too new for me to have a good feeling about it. I'm NEVER tempted to buy it.
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chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #47 on: February 08, 2012, 03:20:36 pm »
0

Even a softer version of the lockdown can totally screw up a greening Big Money player. Sample Game with a victory over a top-ranked player.

That's not a demonstration of the power of Thief.  That's a demonstration of the power of Bazaar.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #48 on: February 08, 2012, 03:23:12 pm »
+3

Even a softer version of the lockdown can totally screw up a greening Big Money player. Sample Game with a victory over a top-ranked player.

That's not a demonstration of the power of Thief.  That's a demonstration of the power of Bazaar.
That's a demonstration of his opponent being completely idiotic. Top-ranked my foot! Dude's a total moron.


Edit: Thief is nevertheless underrated. And nevertheless quite bad.

chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #49 on: February 08, 2012, 03:44:27 pm »
0

Y'all who are voting Transmute over Thief are crazy.  Allow me to demonstrate.

Sample games where Transmute was a key card in my deck, or at the very least a good buy:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-201942-bd1c8c37.html  I've mentioned this game before; it's not common that you buy Potion specifically for the purpose of going Transmute, and take the Mute over Scrying Pool, but I did it here, and it was the right move.  Combined with other head-scratchers like the first-turn Mint, and Super Duchess.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110920-122244-2ec2e62a.html  Familiar, Swindler, Tournament, Fairgrounds... this was a super-messy game with lots of Potion cards and lots of attacking and only one trashing option, the Transmute.  I overcome some bad early luck (though granted my opponent's luck was not the best either), grab the Transmute on one of those inevitable $1P hands you get in Familiar games, and it more than earns its keep by clearing out all my Estates and Curses.  This is much closer to a typical "good board" for Transmute.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110915-224440-915874e2.html  Another example where Transmute is the only way to get rid of Curses, and is also a consolation prize for not hitting the better Potion card (in this case, Golem).  Having it in the deck was also a slight boost to Menagerie.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110301-165927-dd97e9d8.html  Turning Coppers in to Transmutes is obviously the weakest option, even worse than Curse-clearing.  Except, of course, when Vineyards are around!  With Alchemist and +Buy out, the opportunity cost for Transmute is pretty low here.

...

Sample games where Thief was a key card in my deck, or at the very least a good buy:

{crickets}
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Tahtweasel

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #50 on: February 08, 2012, 03:58:52 pm »
0

chwhite, play a simple base game with Gardens and Thief. I realize that's not a sexy or interesting board, and it's not as cutesy as using Transmute, but you can't possibly believe that Thief is worthless there.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #51 on: February 08, 2012, 04:01:12 pm »
0

Y'all who are voting Transmute over Thief are crazy.  Allow me to demonstrate.

Sample games where Transmute was a key card in my deck, or at the very least a good buy:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120131-201942-bd1c8c37.html  I've mentioned this game before; it's not common that you buy Potion specifically for the purpose of going Transmute, and take the Mute over Scrying Pool, but I did it here, and it was the right move.  Combined with other head-scratchers like the first-turn Mint, and Super Duchess.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110920-122244-2ec2e62a.html  Familiar, Swindler, Tournament, Fairgrounds... this was a super-messy game with lots of Potion cards and lots of attacking and only one trashing option, the Transmute.  I overcome some bad early luck (though granted my opponent's luck was not the best either), grab the Transmute on one of those inevitable $1P hands you get in Familiar games, and it more than earns its keep by clearing out all my Estates and Curses.  This is much closer to a typical "good board" for Transmute.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110915-224440-915874e2.html  Another example where Transmute is the only way to get rid of Curses, and is also a consolation prize for not hitting the better Potion card (in this case, Golem).  Having it in the deck was also a slight boost to Menagerie.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110301-165927-dd97e9d8.html  Turning Coppers in to Transmutes is obviously the weakest option, even worse than Curse-clearing.  Except, of course, when Vineyards are around!  With Alchemist and +Buy out, the opportunity cost for Transmute is pretty low here.

...

Sample games where Thief was a key card in my deck, or at the very least a good buy:

{crickets}
You're the insane one? Mind you, I don't actually think you are. Just that you calling us crazy here is pretty messed up.
Game 1: I'm not sure whether transmute is actually even the right move here, it's gotta be close, but come on - you got a 5/2 split with mint and a money-producing 2, and there wasn't something clearly better to do, and you've got the transmute - yes a 3-4 card combo exists that with a specific opening split, in the absence of another strong strategy, is good. Is there any card that's not true for?
Game 2: This I give you as the one reliable situation transmute is good. Even here, it's not great.
Game 3: Take it or leave it, I don't see a big difference here. I guess it helps a tiny bit. I guess.
Game 4: Again, decent, but it seems pretty insanely lucky to me.

Your lack of thief games demonstrates only your own blindness, not that it's actually a bad card... if I lost all the games where I bought colony, would that make it bad?

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #52 on: February 08, 2012, 04:02:25 pm »
+1

Games where thief is significant:

1. throne room + thief in chapel game locks out opponent
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110513-074003-ab43698b.html

2. thief in gardens game with no other gardens support (but thief is a very good attack in this game)
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110911-110336-f0be9a3c.html
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chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #53 on: February 08, 2012, 04:08:06 pm »
0

chwhite, play a simple base game with Gardens and Thief. I realize that's not a sexy or interesting board, and it's not as cutesy as using Transmute, but you can't possibly believe that Thief is worthless there.

I do recognize that Thief is possibly good in 4p Gardens games.  In 2p, I would much rather rush with Workshop/Ironworks, or if those cards aren't around, just go for the Provinces instead.  If you're saying I should restrict my thinking to games only using the base cards, in other words only using a set of cards which is particularly weak in the context of the entire Dominion universe, why would I do that?  I'm willing to take multiplayer into account, but if you're comparing cards from all expansions, I think you have to assume you're playing with all expansions.
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chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #54 on: February 08, 2012, 04:30:52 pm »
0

You're the insane one? Mind you, I don't actually think you are. Just that you calling us crazy here is pretty messed up.
Game 1: I'm not sure whether transmute is actually even the right move here, it's gotta be close, but come on - you got a 5/2 split with mint and a money-producing 2, and there wasn't something clearly better to do, and you've got the transmute - yes a 3-4 card combo exists that with a specific opening split, in the absence of another strong strategy, is good. Is there any card that's not true for?
Game 2: This I give you as the one reliable situation transmute is good. Even here, it's not great.
Game 3: Take it or leave it, I don't see a big difference here. I guess it helps a tiny bit. I guess.
Game 4: Again, decent, but it seems pretty insanely lucky to me.

Apologies, that was inappropriate hyperbole.  You're not actually crazy.  Just wrong.  :P 

You're right that Game 1 is a really specific, narrow use that's not really applicable 99.99 percent of the time; setups with Familiar and Vineyard are the only *consistent* reasons to go Transmute.  And yes of course Transmute is bottom-10 horrible for sure. But when you look at its gain stats and win stats for the community at large, not just for me, I don't see how it can be ranked below Thief, which is a) bought less often, b) leads to more losses and c) less wins.  Even if it's better than I think it is, there's just so much of a gap.

Personally I think both Adventurer and Counting House are both just as overpriced and even less commonly useful, so they're #2 and #3, and would probably also rank Scout and Noble Brigand below Transmute.  So, sixth-worst?  Though you could place it at second-worst and I wouldn't really raise any objections; they're all pretty close.

Your lack of thief games demonstrates only your own blindness, not that it's actually a bad card... if I lost all the games where I bought colony, would that make it bad?

I hope it's clear that I'm mostly aware of where my blind spots tend to be, and adjust accordingly.  I've bought Explorer less than any card save Thief and Brigand, but I recognize it's better than I give it credit for, and don't think it's the third-worst card at all; it's not even bottom-10.  There was another long stretch where I had never ever won a game with Noble Brigand, but I was aware that it could possibly be used well, since I had lost to it.  For a long time I lost a majority of games where I went Venture, I didn't think it that was reason to call it a particularly bad card, I just misplayed it.  My inability to ever use Thief well is but one data point among many, along with CR stats and a lack of opponents ever using Thief well against me.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 05:04:36 pm by chwhite »
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Fabian

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #55 on: February 08, 2012, 04:35:11 pm »
+1

Mr King's Court is better than Goons (that's chwhite to some people),

"But when you look at its gain stats and win stats for the community at large, not just for me, I don't see how it can be ranked below Thief, which is a) bought less often, b) leads to more losses and c) less wins"

The board of Some Arguments Work Only In Some Cases And Not In Others called and wanted to know where to send your membership card. I gave them your number, I expect they'll be in touch soon.

Helpfully,
Fabian
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chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #56 on: February 08, 2012, 04:50:57 pm »
0

Games where thief is significant:

1. throne room + thief in chapel game locks out opponent
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110513-074003-ab43698b.html

2. thief in gardens game with no other gardens support (but thief is a very good attack in this game)
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110911-110336-f0be9a3c.html

First game, your Thief did a good job of punishing your opponent's mistakes... but that's it.  Yes, Thief can wreck a Chapel-Big Money deck, but Chapel-Big Money is hardly better than straight Big Money to begin with, and this board had plenty of options to get cash without Gold.  Fishing Village, Militia, and Vault in particular.  Had your opponent even just bought a Vault instead of a Lab on turn 11, right after you got that Thief, the lockdown doesn't work.  I guess Thief might be relevant on this board, but only as a cautionary tale; the best strategy wouldn't buy it.

Second game... maybe; Moneylender and Venture are additional boosts to Thief, such as it is.  I have to believe that getting Forge and trying to drain Provinces quick that way would have worked as a counter, denying your Gardens the chance to get that large.  I guess if you take Gardens AND copper trashing AND strong Kingdom treasures (Venture) then you get a board where Thief can be worth it, but that strikes me as about as common as my admittedly contrived Mint/Duchess/Transmute example earlier.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 05:08:13 pm by chwhite »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #57 on: February 08, 2012, 04:52:22 pm »
0

Mr King's Court is better than Goons (that's chwhite to some people),

"But when you look at its gain stats and win stats for the community at large, not just for me, I don't see how it can be ranked below Thief, which is a) bought less often, b) leads to more losses and c) less wins"

The board of Some Arguments Work Only In Some Cases And Not In Others called and wanted to know where to send your membership card. I gave them your number, I expect they'll be in touch soon.

Helpfully,
Fabian

I admitted that you're probably right about Goons being better than King's Court, and your pointing out the CR stats are a big reason why.  So, uh, not as helpful as you think.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 04:55:44 pm by chwhite »
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Fabian

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #58 on: February 08, 2012, 04:56:34 pm »
+1

Mr King's Court is better than Goons (that's chwhite to some people),

"But when you look at its gain stats and win stats for the community at large, not just for me, I don't see how it can be ranked below Thief, which is a) bought less often, b) leads to more losses and c) less wins"

The board of Some Arguments Work Only In Some Cases And Not In Others called and wanted to know where to send your membership card. I gave them your number, I expect they'll be in touch soon.

Helpfully,
Fabian

Dude, I admitted that you're probably right about Goons being better than King's Court, and pointing out the CR stats are a big reason why.  So, uh, no.
Had to go back and reread your posts from that thread, and if you did say I'm probably right, I'm still not seeing it. In any case, it was only a joke, sorry if I offended.
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chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #59 on: February 08, 2012, 05:03:01 pm »
+1

Had to go back and reread your posts from that thread, and if you did say I'm probably right, I'm still not seeing it. In any case, it was only a joke, sorry if I offended.

Hm, it appears the closest I got was:

But Goons is really incredibly strong too, you make a good case for it deserving the #1 spot, and I'd be very disappointed if it wasn't at least #2.  They're both certainly miles better than Grand Market.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that you were right, I was wrong, and Goons>KC, though I do still think it's pretty close.  I tend to find CR stats pretty convincing in these sorts of discussions, though not necessarily the be-all and end-all.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #60 on: February 08, 2012, 05:18:58 pm »
+1

Counting house can be a power card in ways that few others can:
Admittedly this board had nearly all of the support you can hope for, but there are still very few as lightning-fast as this game.  Buying 3 provinces on turn 12 was an almost-guaranteed game-loser. 

You can't build a kingdom where scout features heavily in a turn 12 endgame.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120206-180249-25b9fb0d.html
Transmute?  Not a turn 12, but I lost for underestimating it.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120204-082332-830ab209.html
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Tahtweasel

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #61 on: February 08, 2012, 05:37:54 pm »
+1

 
Had to go back and reread your posts from that thread, and if you did say I'm probably right, I'm still not seeing it. In any case, it was only a joke, sorry if I offended.

Hm, it appears the closest I got was:

But Goons is really incredibly strong too, you make a good case for it deserving the #1 spot, and I'd be very disappointed if it wasn't at least #2.  They're both certainly miles better than Grand Market.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that you were right, I was wrong, and Goons>KC, though I do still think it's pretty close.  I tend to find CR stats pretty convincing in these sorts of discussions, though not necessarily the be-all and end-all.
The problem with CR stats is that there are biases against cards that are used poorly by beginners - such as Coppersmith.

Are we mistaken in leaving Coppersmith off this list?

Not at all.

Anyone who posts here knows exactly when to use Coppersmith. You use him, for example, when there are powerful draw engine cards like Wharf, Village, and King's Court, but no trashing. That's a perfectly reasonable situation for him to be used in, and he's extremely powerful.

He is bought in about 23% of games on isotropic, and his win rate with is miserable (0.80, fifth worst.)

But if you look at elite players, they purchase him a little bit less frequently (4 to 16% of games, maybe) and they do just fine with him, because they're using him correctly. Fabian actually has a 1.56 win rate with Coppersmith.

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ackack

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #62 on: February 08, 2012, 05:44:59 pm »
0

Optimal is defined as "most VP gained per turn." And a Goons engine can gain VP infinitely as long as you return the cards you buy with Ambassador. The deck consists of all action cards and ~60 coppers. Counting house to draw the coppers, scrying pool to draw the rest. Return the coppers with KC'ed Ambassadors, play all the goons and buy them all again. There's more to it, but that's the basic idea.

Aha, fair enough.
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Fabian

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #63 on: February 08, 2012, 06:21:39 pm »
0

Had to go look to confirm my beautiful 1.56 winrate with Coppersmith, and I find it funny that Coppersmith, Mandarin and Transmute are the (non-prize) cards where my winrate is highest, and Counting House and Thief are the cards where my winrate is lowest.

It should be noted that these numbers mean very little, as the sample size for cards you seldom buy is comparatively very small, and so the winrates of such cards will have a huge variance. I just thought it was amusing that the cards I've been bringing up as the worst ones are in my bottom two (my winrate with Counting House in the deck is 0.00, no wonder I think it's bad!) and the card I'm half-way defending, I apparently do really well with so far!
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #64 on: February 08, 2012, 07:51:16 pm »
0

Transmute's gotta be the worst, given the results of the poll..

Second-place (Thief) is underrated because isotropic is so two-player oriented and thief scales really well.  Not saying it's a good card, just not the worst-worst.

Duchess is unfair because you can get it for free.

Adventurer has come in useful once or twice, as a BM support when better BM supports weren't around.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #65 on: February 08, 2012, 09:39:42 pm »
0

I voted Develop. Mainly because I haven't really found out a good way to use it besides turning a Gold into a King's Court and a $5.

I think that most players that go hating on Thief needs to play more 3 or 4 player games. Thief can be soo good there. Not saying it always is, but it can be.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #66 on: February 08, 2012, 10:09:36 pm »
+1

Seriously, why the duchess hate? It's a terminal silver. On a board with no other terminals and no reason to fear a reshuffle (i.e., no hunting party), I'm ALWAYS going to buy one if I'm stuck with two money and I'm GLAD she's on the board if I split 5-2.

That's just a corner case, not even mentioning that sometimes she's free (see comments on winder's duke article - you rarely pass her up in a duke game - but actually I think it's usually a mistake to pass her up, period). There's just no way she's in the bottom ten cards.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #67 on: February 08, 2012, 10:28:07 pm »
0

It's true.  I couldn't bring myself to vote Transmute because it's cute.  I buy it all the time but even the times I think it might have been justified I'm not too sure.

It's one of several cards I've started vetoing to protect me from myself.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #68 on: February 08, 2012, 10:59:55 pm »
0

I voted Transmute, but I'm coming around to Develop (as the worst).

It always makes me think of a real life game (for some reason I tend to take those less seriously) where it was five player Pirate Ship madness and I had somehow ended up with really weak ships, no one had any money, and there was no other virtual money on the board.  So I just started desperately trying to use my develop to turn my 3s and 5s into Gardens and try to three-pile it (and incrementally inch up my deck size) before the Pirates finished grabbing the Provinces. Meanwhile, one dude with a Bishop was playing the least effective Golden Deck of all time, buying and trashing a copper every turn, because he couldn't do anything else. He actually went off to watch TV and asked us to just put a token on his mat every turn and trash a copper from the supply.

There wasn't really a point to that story, except that I turned to Develop in a moment of need and it was pretty supremely unhelpful to me, and I've been weary of it ever since.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2012, 11:02:08 pm by jotheonah »
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WanderingWinder

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #69 on: February 08, 2012, 11:07:12 pm »
0

I voted Transmute, but I'm coming around to Develop (as the worst).

It always makes me think of a real life game (for some reason I tend to take those less seriously) where it was five player Pirate Ship madness and I had somehow ended up with really weak ships, no one had any money, and there was no other virtual money on the board.  So I just started desperately trying to use my develop to turn my 3s and 5s into Gardens and try to three-pile it (and incrementally inch up my deck size) before the Pirates finished grabbing the Provinces. Meanwhile, one dude with a Bishop was playing the least effective Golden Deck of all time, buying and trashing a copper every turn, because he couldn't do anything else. He actually went off to watch TV and asked us to just put a token on his mat every turn and trash a copper from the supply.

There wasn't really a point to that story, except that I turned to Develop in a moment of need and it was pretty supremely unhelpful to me, and I've been weary of it ever since.
Funnily enough, you don't need to buy the coppers in that bishop+copper deck, though you can get an actual golden deck to buying provinces in 8 turns by waiting a little bit on your trashing. Or trashing a gold every turn for 4 VP just as fast.
Also, don't you need 4 piles with 5+ players?
And you said there's no virtual money, but bishop gives you +$1.
Okay, that last thing is sorta nitpicky, but... golden deck-ish thing should be strong against pirates here.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #70 on: February 08, 2012, 11:11:17 pm »
0

Well, the problem was he couldn't get more than a few coppers before the Pirate ships got them. As soon as anyone had any money in their deck it vanished.  And you're right I was trying to four-pile, which my made my strategy even more laughably ineffective...

And you're right, planning a Golden Deck from the get-go would have been the way to go. But I was newer to the game and had never heard of such a thing...
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #71 on: February 08, 2012, 11:21:02 pm »
0

Well, the problem was he couldn't get more than a few coppers before the Pirate ships got them. As soon as anyone had any money in their deck it vanished.  And you're right I was trying to four-pile, which my made my strategy even more laughably ineffective...

And you're right, planning a Golden Deck from the get-go would have been the way to go. But I was newer to the game and had never heard of such a thing...
Uh, am I missing something? The 5 cards in your hand are totally immune to being pirated, so you can absolutely set up a golden deck. Actually, you can even do it faster than I said (I apparently couldn't do math earlier).

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #72 on: February 08, 2012, 11:52:26 pm »
0

You know I wasn't playing his hand, so I don't remember exactly what was going on, but you're right. It wouldn't have taken too long to do.
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DrHades

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #73 on: February 09, 2012, 05:25:29 am »
0

If he had just Bishop-Copper, it can be done in 5(6) turns:

1. Buying Copper (BCC)
2. Buying Copper (BCCC)
3. Trashing Copper, buying Silver (BSCC)
4. Buying Silver (BSSCC)
5. Trashing Copper, buying Gold (BGSSC)

From now on you can trash Gold and buy Gold every turn.

6. Trashing Copper, buying Province.

From now on you can trash Province and buy Province every turn.

If he had BCXXX (maybe some greens he didn't want to trash?) it is even 1 turn faster...
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DrHades

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #74 on: February 09, 2012, 07:17:08 am »
0

There are 6 cards that has "several" votes. Only 2 of them are imo reasonable choices.

Duchess - Are you kiding? Duchess is for free! Also it could be great as a starter if you have 2/5 split and need some extra money to keep up. It is a bad card, but it is so cheap you cannot bitching about that!

Develop - Grand Market. Border Village. Ill-Gotten Gains. Anything that costs 7$. Gardens (trashing later your parts to Gardens-something). Silk Road (trashing later to Silk Road-Estate). I probably even forgot lots of things...it is a bad card, but it has some situations where it is VERY good and they are not so rare (you really need just one of these cards.

Adventurer - Without other strong terminals on board, Adventurer is good. When you have e.g. Gold, Gold, Silver, Silver and 7 Coppers - Adventurer is stronger than Gold. That is of course still bad, but not worse!

Scout - This is just wrong! Minion, Vault/Secret Chamber, Wishing Well, Scrying Pool, Tactician and many more!!! And of course - Crossroads+Scout. That is one of my favourite combos. Sure, it needs something other to cooperate, but then it is awesome:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120207-123440-03e8a7bc.html
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111224-161140-0ecc49e9.html

So here comes the 2 only reasonable cards: Thief and Transmute. I choose Transmute, for these reasons:

1. Thief defeats BMU.
2. Thief is at least ok on boring boards with 4+ players.
3. I cannot think of any non-obscure situation, where Transmute would make any difference.
4. Thief is at least good when you are starting with Dominion.

Stats are not very accurate here - when you are behind it is good idea to buy Thief and hope you will be lucky to steal some Golds, which lowers the winrate. And as for Transmute - many times there is something juicy with Potion in cost on board and you pick Transmute rather than buying nothing...and by this lowering your chance to win by 0.1%.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #75 on: February 09, 2012, 07:32:35 am »
0

I have gone moat.

Its a waste of a card and I think I have only ever bought it once.
Ithas to hit multiple times for it to have been of use, and even then it has less use than people think because its taking your hand down to 4 cards +moat.

The +2 cards is 'alright' but I wouldnt buy it just for that.

I think of it this way.
You buy a moat, if you never use it, you have wasted a buy

If you use it once then all you have done is nullify the attack part of the card. So you have used one buy and a card from hand to negate the attack part of his buy. If his card also does something else, such as draw or +couns then you are still down.

Multiple uses: unless moat is somehow part of your grand scheme, then everytime you draw it you might as well be playing with 4 card hands. Is that enough justification to buy one to counter the attacks? It would have to be a consistant attacking opponent for it to be worthwhile, and then you would only have it when you draw it so you would need to buy multiples for it to be effective.

I really do hate moat, almost as much as an irrational hatred of Woodcutter.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #76 on: February 09, 2012, 08:12:03 am »
+2

I have gone moat.

Its a waste of a card and I think I have only ever bought it once.
Ithas to hit multiple times for it to have been of use, and even then it has less use than people think because its taking your hand down to 4 cards +moat.

The +2 cards is 'alright' but I wouldnt buy it just for that.

I think of it this way.
You buy a moat, if you never use it, you have wasted a buy

If you use it once then all you have done is nullify the attack part of the card. So you have used one buy and a card from hand to negate the attack part of his buy. If his card also does something else, such as draw or +couns then you are still down.

Multiple uses: unless moat is somehow part of your grand scheme, then everytime you draw it you might as well be playing with 4 card hands. Is that enough justification to buy one to counter the attacks? It would have to be a consistant attacking opponent for it to be worthwhile, and then you would only have it when you draw it so you would need to buy multiples for it to be effective.

I really do hate moat, almost as much as an irrational hatred of Woodcutter.

Using Moat to block any non-curse giving attack? Silly. Using Moat to block a cursing attack? Well, let's analyze this:

Until I block the attack, it is a useless +2 cards. But after the first block, I have a +2 cards inestead of -1 VP! That is great! I wouldn't bought it with 3/4 split (I want a Silver to buy that Witch myself) but anytime I would have 2$ Moat is the right choice.

Moat can be also usefull when your opponent locks you with a powerful reapeating attack (Torturer, KC+Masquerade+Goons, ...) like it did for me in this game: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120124-191101-2fadf9dd.html

I used to be a Moat hater like you...then I took an arrow to the knee...I mean then I tried to use it wisely and found out it is good...
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #77 on: February 09, 2012, 08:18:57 am »
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Adventurer - Without other strong terminals on board, Adventurer is good. When you have e.g. Gold, Gold, Silver, Silver and 7 Coppers - Adventurer is stronger than Gold. That is of course still bad, but not worse!

There are a few issues with this analysis. Firstly, this situation makes Adventurer better than Gold by such a small margin that it's virtually ignorable - an average of $3.09 to $3. Better, but the difference is so small it'll hardly matter. Second, there being no other worthwhile terminal on the board (even assuming costing $5 or less) is unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. Third, by the time you have 2 Gold and 2 Silver, chances are you're going to want to green. So that $6 is probably a mistake spent on an Adventurer, or a Gold. Actually, 2 Silver 2 Gold is an unlikely situation. Something like 3 Silver 2 Gold or 4 Silver 1 Gold is more likely - in the first case, you're even more likely to be Greening. In the second, a Gold is just as good. Finally, as you're likely greening by the time Adventurer becomes worthwhile, the cycling is actually a detriment, holding it back even more.

In short, the situations it'll be good as a lone terminal are unlikely for various reasons, and when it is, it's barely better than Gold anyway.

I voted for Adventurer, by the way. It's not that I think it's a bad card, but it's the card who is least often worthwhile considering it's cost, and when it is, generally doesn't do much better than other cards at it's cost. Perhaps Platinum games with light trashing are the only case where it is can actually shine.

As for Transmute and Thief - Thief is pretty good in 4 player games, and okay in 3 play, reasonably often. Transmute is often totally worthless but occasionally is a very nice card.
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...spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons.
But not strictly better, because the spinoff can have a different cost than the expansion.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #78 on: February 09, 2012, 08:43:24 am »
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Using Moat to block any non-curse giving attack? Silly. Using Moat to block a cursing attack? Well, let's analyze this:

Until I block the attack, it is a useless +2 cards. But after the first block, I have a +2 cards inestead of -1 VP! That is great! I wouldn't bought it with 3/4 split (I want a Silver to buy that Witch myself) but anytime I would have 2$ Moat is the right choice.

Moat can be also usefull when your opponent locks you with a powerful reapeating attack (Torturer, KC+Masquerade+Goons, ...) like it did for me in this game: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120124-191101-2fadf9dd.html

I used to be a Moat hater like you...then I took an arrow to the knee...I mean then I tried to use it wisely and found out it is good...

How dare you counter my irrational hatred with your logic and reason!!

But you also seem to say that you only buy it when there is no other option at $2

I looked at that log and in my completely unexpert opinion, I think you would have won that game quicker if there was a better $2, or you opened 4/3.

But alas, you were forced into buying a terrible moat and got lucky with it. And the last 2 you bought I still cannot see the reason for, you were so far ahead I didnt think you would get much chance of playing them.

I think its just personally I prefer positive action and making my deck stronger rather than reacting to opponents deck.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #79 on: February 09, 2012, 09:53:10 am »
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Moat is also a card that scales much better with more players. Having a moat in hand in 4-player can mean not taking 3 of the curses. I believe there was some analysis done on this, and from 4th position I think people found it better to go for a moat defensive strategy than a cursing strategy with witch.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #80 on: February 09, 2012, 09:56:12 am »
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Moat is also a card that scales much better with more players. Having a moat in hand in 4-player can mean not taking 3 of the curses. I believe there was some analysis done on this, and from 4th position I think people found it better to go for a moat defensive strategy than a cursing strategy with witch.

There you people go again, with your sound reasoning! haha

(yeah, we play quite a bit 4 player at home and not having a moat definately stings sometimes!)

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #81 on: February 09, 2012, 10:08:14 am »
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Adventurer - Without other strong terminals on board, Adventurer is good. When you have e.g. Gold, Gold, Silver, Silver and 7 Coppers - Adventurer is stronger than Gold. That is of course still bad, but not worse!

There are a few issues with this analysis. Firstly, this situation makes Adventurer better than Gold by such a small margin that it's virtually ignorable - an average of $3.09 to $3. Better, but the difference is so small it'll hardly matter. Second, there being no other worthwhile terminal on the board (even assuming costing $5 or less) is unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. Third, by the time you have 2 Gold and 2 Silver, chances are you're going to want to green. So that $6 is probably a mistake spent on an Adventurer, or a Gold. Actually, 2 Silver 2 Gold is an unlikely situation. Something like 3 Silver 2 Gold or 4 Silver 1 Gold is more likely - in the first case, you're even more likely to be Greening. In the second, a Gold is just as good. Finally, as you're likely greening by the time Adventurer becomes worthwhile, the cycling is actually a detriment, holding it back even more.

In short, the situations it'll be good as a lone terminal are unlikely for various reasons, and when it is, it's barely better than Gold anyway.

I voted for Adventurer, by the way. It's not that I think it's a bad card, but it's the card who is least often worthwhile considering it's cost, and when it is, generally doesn't do much better than other cards at it's cost. Perhaps Platinum games with light trashing are the only case where it is can actually shine.

As for Transmute and Thief - Thief is pretty good in 4 player games, and okay in 3 play, reasonably often. Transmute is often totally worthless but occasionally is a very nice card.
Of course there are few issues, I wasn't trying to evaluate the Adventurer, I just put the main reason why I think it doesn't belong between the 2 worst cards in the game. Yes, the difference of 0.09 isn't big. But the difference that it can sometimes give you 5$ is something very good. 1 great hand is better than 2 mediacore. Also coppertrashing, heavycursing and Platinum can boost Adventurer. It is a bad card, of course it is! But Thief is good only as a hope and Transmute is good only very very rarely (another potion card+no other trahsing+spare actions).

But ok, I was maybe too strong. Adventurer can also be a reasonable choice. But I honestly think, that everyone who says a card is weaker than all of these three is strongly underestimate that card...
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #82 on: February 09, 2012, 10:26:38 am »
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Using Moat to block any non-curse giving attack? Silly. Using Moat to block a cursing attack? Well, let's analyze this:

Until I block the attack, it is a useless +2 cards. But after the first block, I have a +2 cards inestead of -1 VP! That is great! I wouldn't bought it with 3/4 split (I want a Silver to buy that Witch myself) but anytime I would have 2$ Moat is the right choice.

Moat can be also usefull when your opponent locks you with a powerful reapeating attack (Torturer, KC+Masquerade+Goons, ...) like it did for me in this game: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120124-191101-2fadf9dd.html

I used to be a Moat hater like you...then I took an arrow to the knee...I mean then I tried to use it wisely and found out it is good...

How dare you counter my irrational hatred with your logic and reason!!

But you also seem to say that you only buy it when there is no other option at $2

I looked at that log and in my completely unexpert opinion, I think you would have won that game quicker if there was a better $2, or you opened 4/3.

But alas, you were forced into buying a terrible moat and got lucky with it. And the last 2 you bought I still cannot see the reason for, you were so far ahead I didnt think you would get much chance of playing them.

I think its just personally I prefer positive action and making my deck stronger rather than reacting to opponents deck.
The game is more of an example of interesting use of Moat.

I didn't say ANYTHING about other 2$s, I was comparing it to Silver ;) But on boards with cursers I would choose it over:
Almost always - Pearl Diver, Secret Chamber, Duchess, Haven, Fool's Gold, Courtyard, Herbalist, Embargo, Pawn
Mostly - Hamlet, Cellar, Native village, Crossroads
Almost never - Chapel, Lighthouse
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #83 on: February 09, 2012, 10:34:22 am »
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Ohh, I hate it so much I'd rather buy an Estate! hehe
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #84 on: February 09, 2012, 10:42:04 am »
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But the difference that it can sometimes give you 5$ is something very good.

It could also sometimes give you $2, which is very bad.

As mentioned before, the presence of Venture at $5 just makes Adventurer so comparatively weak. It is a "gauranteed" Silver that doesn't take an action to play. Most times Adventurer is strong, Venture is stronger, AND (this is the big one) venture costs $1 less.

I just have never been in the situation that my deck has all of the right ingredients to make Adventurer a good card. Or thought ot myself, I wish I had an Adventurer here.
In practical play, Gold just seems to be the better buy, which is unfortunate because I like concept of Adventurer, just not the price.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #85 on: February 09, 2012, 01:11:43 pm »
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I voted Adventurer. Yeah, the other cards are bad, but to me, Adventurer does not even exist. It's like, sometimes I wonder, hey, why are there only 9 kingdom piles, I should go submit a bug report.
At least Transmute is some fun in the Puzzle section. And there's probably been a couple games where somebody destroyed the match with Scrying Pool, Transmute and Duke.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #86 on: February 09, 2012, 01:28:29 pm »
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But the difference that it can sometimes give you 5$ is something very good.

It could also sometimes give you $2, which is very bad.


Except it's really not. the random +5$ is much more likely to give you a province than the +2$ is to deny you one.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #87 on: February 09, 2012, 02:16:54 pm »
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Just saying I don't want to pay $6 for a what can amount to a terminal silver.

And I think jimjam has it about right, adventurer is just ignorable.

Can someone even think of an example kingdom where adventurer is a dominant, must buy card? I voted for transmute, but this discussion has me maybe reconsidering.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #88 on: February 09, 2012, 02:22:59 pm »
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Can someone even think of an example kingdom where adventurer is a dominant, must buy card? I voted for transmute, but this discussion has me maybe reconsidering.

I'm willing to claim that, like many of the cards this community rates poorly, Adventurer is a better card the more players there are in a game.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #89 on: February 09, 2012, 02:37:24 pm »
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I'm willing to claim that, like many of the cards this community rates poorly, Adventurer is a better card the more players there are in a game.

How do you figure? It only interacts with your own deck, unlike Thief or Moat which interact with what other people have in their decks.

EDIT: Perhaps you are saying the sifting it provides is a better boon the more people are sending you curses?
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #90 on: February 09, 2012, 02:50:40 pm »
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I'm willing to claim that, like many of the cards this community rates poorly, Adventurer is a better card the more players there are in a game.

How do you figure? It only interacts with your own deck, unlike Thief or Moat which interact with what other people have in their decks.

EDIT: Perhaps you are saying the sifting it provides is a better boon the more people are sending you curses?

I'm not sure I agree with the poster, but its also possible that they are suggesting that the additional variance (may draw anywhere from 2 to 6 coin) may be of use in a 4 player game

This would be similar to trying for unassisted treasure maps (@ ~30% probability of working during 3rd pass through deck) is a terrible idea in 2 player, where your starting win% is 50%, but not an outright horrendous idea in a 4player game where your expected win % is 25%. Note - this analysis only works if you only care about winning 1st place.  If you want to maximize your average placement, then straight play is still the way.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #91 on: February 09, 2012, 02:55:42 pm »
+1

Just saying I don't want to pay $6 for a what can amount to a terminal silver.

And I think jimjam has it about right, adventurer is just ignorable.

Can someone even think of an example kingdom where adventurer is a dominant, must buy card? I voted for transmute, but this discussion has me maybe reconsidering.
Village
Tunnel
Walled Village
Spice Merchant
Worker's Village
Farming Village
Throne Room
Border Village
Adventurer
King's Court
Platinum + Colony

It's not that hard....

GendoIkari

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #92 on: February 09, 2012, 02:59:14 pm »
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Just saying I don't want to pay $6 for a what can amount to a terminal silver.

And I think jimjam has it about right, adventurer is just ignorable.

Can someone even think of an example kingdom where adventurer is a dominant, must buy card? I voted for transmute, but this discussion has me maybe reconsidering.
Village
Tunnel
Walled Village
Spice Merchant
Worker's Village
Farming Village
Throne Room
Border Village
Adventurer
King's Court
Platinum + Colony

It's not that hard....

Is there a reason for Border Village? When would you buy it with $6 instead of Adventurer? Also, I might put Hoard in there, even though it is another $6.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #93 on: February 09, 2012, 03:06:26 pm »
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Just saying I don't want to pay $6 for a what can amount to a terminal silver.

And I think jimjam has it about right, adventurer is just ignorable.

Can someone even think of an example kingdom where adventurer is a dominant, must buy card? I voted for transmute, but this discussion has me maybe reconsidering.
Village
Tunnel
Walled Village
Spice Merchant
Worker's Village
Farming Village
Throne Room
Border Village
Adventurer
King's Court
Platinum + Colony

It's not that hard....

Is there a reason for Border Village? When would you buy it with $6 instead of Adventurer? Also, I might put Hoard in there, even though it is another $6.
No, I mean, there's lot of changes you can make and still have adventurer be dominant. This is just what flew off the top of my head.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #94 on: February 09, 2012, 04:37:13 pm »
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Quote
Using Moat to block any non-curse giving attack? Silly. Using Moat to block a cursing attack? Well, let's analyze this:

If I'm going BM and my opponent buys a Militia, I'm absolutely taking Moat over Smithy. Just sayin'
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mnavratil

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #95 on: February 09, 2012, 05:02:01 pm »
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If I'm going BM and my opponent buys a Militia, I'm absolutely taking Moat over Smithy. Just sayin'

Which will make you lose about 10% more games. This situation is easy to simulate. Smithy is much better.

No, I mean, there's lot of changes you can make and still have adventurer be dominant. This is just what flew off the top of my head.

Okay, fair enough, Adventurer is stronger in colony games, and with copper trashing present; especially with +buy and KC. But even when it shines, there is usually (and you did prove me wrong with your sample kingdom) another card present that takes priority. And this card is many times just plain boring Gold.

Adventurer just seems stuck in this weird place where what it does is actually good, but it is just so cost inneffective that it makes it not a good card. As opposed to actually being bad for your deck like some other cards on the list.

P.S. Reading some of these sample games/uses for bad cards has actually been very enlightening and made me re-think my views on some of them, so thanks.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #96 on: February 09, 2012, 05:10:58 pm »
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If I'm going BM and my opponent buys a Militia, I'm absolutely taking Moat over Smithy. Just sayin'

Which will make you lose about 10% more games. This situation is easy to simulate. Smithy is much better.

Far be it from me to doubt the simulators, but I don't get it. The Moat draws one fewer card, but allows me to keep two additional cards. So my hand after I get militia'd and a play a Smithy is 5 cards, whereas my hand after I don't get militia'd and play a Moat is 6 cards.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #97 on: February 09, 2012, 05:13:20 pm »
+1

If I'm going BM and my opponent buys a Militia, I'm absolutely taking Moat over Smithy. Just sayin'

Which will make you lose about 10% more games. This situation is easy to simulate. Smithy is much better.

Far be it from me to doubt the simulators, but I don't get it. The Moat draws one fewer card, but allows me to keep two additional cards. So my hand after I get militia'd and a play a Smithy is 5 cards, whereas my hand after I don't get militia'd and play a Moat is 6 cards.
If you can arrange to have the moats every time exactly when you get militia'd. But also, you get to pick the two cards you discard, so they tend to be worth a lot less.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #98 on: February 09, 2012, 05:56:47 pm »
+1

I'm not sure I agree with the poster, but its also possible that they are suggesting that the additional variance (may draw anywhere from 2 to 6 coin) may be of use in a 4 player game

While this is true, it's not something I had considered.

I'm willing to claim that, like many of the cards this community rates poorly, Adventurer is a better card the more players there are in a game.

How do you figure? It only interacts with your own deck, unlike Thief or Moat which interact with what other people have in their decks.

EDIT: Perhaps you are saying the sifting it provides is a better boon the more people are sending you curses?

This is one of the reasons, yes, but it goes beyond that. I'll explain in detail, but bear in mind that a lot of this is theory, since I haven't played that many 3 or 4 player games with Adventurer.

First of all, Adventuer works better in a big money deck than it does in an engine deck. After all, if you're playing an engine deck, you'd generally prefer to draw your engine components (so that you can draw your entire deck) rather than digging past them to get to your Treasures. Lots of engine decks don't need Treasures in general. The more players in a game, the less practical an engine deck becomes because there are more players contending for those engine cards. When big money is more practical, Adventuer becomes more desirable.

It's interesting that you mention Moat, since Adventurer is valuable in multiplayer for many of the same reasons. The two cards are comparable in many ways. They both draw two cards when played, for instance. But beyond that, Adventurer is a sort of defense against many of the game's attacks. Moat is worthwhile in multiplayer games because the more players there are, the higher the likelihood that one of those players is going to play an Attack card while you have a Moat in hand. A similar principle applies to Adventurer. Let's talk about each of the major types of attacks: discarding, mucking, junking, and trashing.

Adventurer is terrible against trashing attacks (Swindler, Saboteur, Thief, Pirate Ship, Noble Brigand), so let's get that out of the way first. Thief, Pirate Ship, and Noble Brigand trash the Treasures that Adventurer needs to function. I'm not confident talking about how Adventurer deals with Swindler and Saboteur, but I'm guessing it doesn't help as much as Gold.

On the flip side, Adventurer is a hard counter against deck-mucking attacks. It pretty much eliminates the damage from Bureaucrat, Rabble, and Fortune Teller. It can severely mitigate the damage from Ghost Ship, Sea Hag, Oracle, and, depending on your deck's Copper content, Spy and Scrying Pool. Even when Adventurer is only pulling $3 on average, it may be a worthy purchase over Gold when it can completely blow past crap that's been left on top of your deck.

If crap hasn't been left on your deck, Adventurer has to have a pretty good chance of pulling at least $4 in order to be a better deal than Gold. I argue that this is more likely to be the case in multiplayer games with heavy discarding and cursing.

Let's look at discard attacks. If Militia is being played against you nearly every turn (which is pretty common in multiplayer), you're going to have a lot of $3 and $4 hands. Often, that equates to a lot of Silver coming into your deck. The problem is, the more Silver that you pump into your deck while you try to get up to $6, the harder it's going to eventually be to put together 3-card hands that can buy a Province. Adventurer puts those Silvers to work for you. A hand of Silver/Silver/Adventurer is easier to pull off than a hand of Silver/Gold/Gold. Now I'll admit that those 7 Coppers you start with can put a severe kink into this plan, but if you can trash enough of them (with, for example, Moneylender), or gain Silver fast enough (with, for example, Bureaucrat), or both (with, for example, Mine), then I'll bet you can make this work.

Finally, let's look at junking attacks. If the attacks are giving you Copper, then Adventurer is a bad purchase. However, if they're giving you Curses, then Adventurer can be useful for many of the same reasons it's useful against discarding attacks. It's even better, though, because in the absence of good Curse-trashing cards, flooding your deck with Silver is often a good idea anyhow (after you've given out your share of Curses, that is).
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #99 on: February 09, 2012, 05:57:50 pm »
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So what's your guy's favorite card here? Mine would be Explorer. Apprentice/Explorer is pretty neat, for one. And it's like the Tournament before Tournament existed.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #100 on: February 09, 2012, 06:16:27 pm »
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So what's your guy's favorite card here? Mine would be Explorer. Apprentice/Explorer is pretty neat, for one. And it's like the Tournament before Tournament existed.

Well, I pick up Duchess and Chancellor in over 30 percent of the games I play; Chancellor is probably the card here where my opinion is highest compared to the community at large.  Chancellor/Stash is really strong, it's a good percentage play if you're angling for Mountebank or Familiar, and sometimes even just terminal silver with a weak benefit is worth $3, say if you're going for Scrying Pool madness and you've got the Villages to make it work.  I probably buy it a little too often, but most people don't buy it often enough.  Duchess is a strong opener for many 5/2 opening splits, and also as a free pickup in junkball decks full of green (Duke, Silk Road in particular).

I buy them less often, but Contraband and Secret Chamber deserve mention here as well; Contraband is I think certainly the most powerful card on this list, and I've defended it already upthread.  Secret Chamber is not much for a Reaction (though it's better than expected against Minions and Swindlers if nothing else), but even a poor man's Vault can be a great combo enabler at times (cough, cough, Tactician).  SC has my single highest Effect With in fact, so obviously I've grown to like it at least a little.

Okay, those are four cards rather than one.  Sorry, it's hard to choose. :P
« Last Edit: February 09, 2012, 07:53:42 pm by chwhite »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #101 on: February 09, 2012, 06:43:53 pm »
0

I ravaged someone with Fool's Gold/Adventurer once.  It's underrated.  I think there's spots where you should buy it near the end of trashing game when you're both heavily greened and it's a guaranteed 5 or 6 dollars.

I've also stuck Thief into a deep KC engine when I was overloaded with draw and way behind on econ/vp and needed the money so I could buy 4-5 greens at a time: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120208-194832-8da13b70.html

Scout shouldn't even be on the list.  Just because newbs open it, doesn't mean it's not amazing in crossroads/great hall/harem/nobles decks.

I voted Transmute, but looking at my 'win with' rates, I'd like to change my vote.  The cards I have the lowest winrate with are Smugglers, and Possession.  This is because when those cards are out, baddies get to take advantage of my superior buy strategey, instead of thinking for themselves/building their own inferior deck.  Plus they are just are just stupid cards , as in, bad game design.  I hate them.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #102 on: February 09, 2012, 06:49:46 pm »
0

Well, I think the fact that they account for your worst win rate points less to a problem with their design and more to the fact that you have yet to master their use.

I used to absolutely hate Possession for the reasons you mentioned.  Now (although I still hate multi-possession turns purely for downtime issues) I quite enjoy them, because they force me to evaluate the possibilities for counter-play against them (and there are many such options), which in turns informs whether I should be going for them myself.
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PerdHapley

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #103 on: February 09, 2012, 06:52:49 pm »
+1

I'll echo what others have said, that some of these cards absolutely don't deserve to be in this discussion. I have an Effect With of 1.58 for Adventurer, and it has my 11th highest win rate with of any card, directly behind Counting House at 10. Contraband is my #5, behind only Followers, Trusty Steed, Princess and Sea Hag. Contraband is definitely the most out of place card on this list, but that's been defended pretty well already, so I'll go ahead and stand up for Adventurer.

Adventurer may not be the absolute cornerstone of any one strategy, but that's true of many cards that wouldn't even be considered for this list. It's a card that can push a pretty solid deck over the edge, it's much, much better in Colony games, and it's often a useful addition to engines on boards with light trashing that want to draw their whole deck every turn but can't quite make it. It pairs excellently with Throne Room and King's Court, which, sure, most cards do, but not nearly all of them. It's worth picking over gold just once at some point on boards with good trashing that result in decks light on treasure, and useful on almost any board in which you're draining victory card piles. It's absolutely underrated in otherwise-mirror matches that end in duchy-dancing.

It's even a usually worthwhile buy in games with heavy cursing/no trashing - throw it in a kingdom with Sea Hag and Colony, for instance, and you should pretty quickly understand it's utility. Yes, in that situation it's going to be worth $2 instead of $3+ much of the time, but it'll also serve as a Loan-esque defense against Sea Hag and a perfectly reasonable cycler. For this reason it's also perfectly worthwhile against attacks like Rabble, Fortune Teller and Ghost Ship.

And then there's Bank. Adventurer has the problem of being compared unfavorably to Venture, but if Venture's not around Adventurer is still capable of pulling off many of the same tricks, and has the advantage of the aforementioned King's Court - a KC'd Adventurer can be an absolute godsend, especially with extra buys.

And how about Vineyards? Did you put together a crazy deck bloated with action cards only to start losing the vineyard race because you can't cycle to your potions fast enough? Well, have I got a card for you... Horn of Plenty is another good partner - did you build an engine designed to get to 8 unique cards and trash Horns for Provinces, only to not pull your horns at the right time? Alternately, would the horns of plenty you did draw get there if you could just find that one Silver you have tucked away? Really, any time there's a specific special treasure card in your deck that needs to be played often, there aren't many cards that will be better at digging for it.

Obviously some of these are fringe cases. I don't want to imply that it's a great card by any means. The cost is obviously the big issue, and it's true that it would probably work just fine at $5, where it would be a much stronger $5 than many people realize, but still not broken. I wouldn't even put it at the bottom of the $6+ card list.

I didn't get into the game until after Prosperity came out, so I can't really say for sure, but my guess is that the presence of Venture in the game has likely ruined people's ability to perceive and play this card correctly, and created an unfair reverse cellar/warehouse style comparison (where the more expensive card is considered directly inferior) that doesn't really apply to these two. They certainly do a great many things similarly, and Venture is quite a bit better at some of them, but that's not really the point - Venture is an excellent BM card, and Adventurer is an underrated engine cog that is directly useful in more situations than people care to realize. It simply does too many things at least reasonably well to be the very worst card in the game.
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PerdHapley

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #104 on: February 09, 2012, 07:01:20 pm »
+1

First of all, Adventuer works better in a big money deck than it does in an engine deck. After all, if you're playing an engine deck, you'd generally prefer to draw your engine components (so that you can draw your entire deck) rather than digging past them to get to your Treasures. Lots of engine decks don't need Treasures in general. The more players in a game, the less practical an engine deck becomes because there are more players contending for those engine cards. When big money is more practical, Adventuer becomes more desirable.

Oh man, someone beat me to it, but with the opposite point I was making. I'm not convinced that Adventurer is better at Big Money than in engines. It's a good point that a perfect engine draws the whole deck and doesn't need Adventurer and or treasure at all, but that's why it's a card that can be ignored much of the time. The times when it does work as an engine component, however, it can work extremely well. Off to hunt for a sample game...

EDIT:

Okay, here's one where Adventurer makes the difference on a board that includes Moneylender, Worker's Village, Throne Room and Tactician: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110906-000009-04bae020.html

Another where Adventurer twice (on turns 15 and 19) enables Province buys on a Fishing Village/Apothecary/Coppersmith board that both would have failed had it been a Gold instead: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120109-180548-6f0750a0.html

The final turn of this game, where one Adventurer is bought late and only used once on the last turn to purchase a Province where a Gold couldn't have (okay, this one's a stretch...): http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110902-002717-f9cd5e03.html

Here's a game where, while not being utilized really at all, it serves as a nice little safety net in a Scrying Pool Deck with heavy trashing that has enough Gold and hypothetically needs protection from becoming drowned in green: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110830-204619-a4ffb245.html

And here's one (an old one, so the overall play quality isn't perfect, but it's still a valid example) with King's Court, Sea Hag and Horn of Plenty where Adventurer is perhaps the single key card and destroys a deck that ignore it and buys 7 more Golds and an extra Platinum, despite a 4/6 curse split and no trashing. Despite its flaws, a good example of Adventurer's occasional ability to shine in a Colony engine. Check out turns 27, 28, 34 and 40 especially: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110929-025201-7262d1e7.html
« Last Edit: February 09, 2012, 08:11:23 pm by PerdHapley »
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Jorbles

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #105 on: February 09, 2012, 07:23:19 pm »
0

I'm not so sure an Adventurer is that strong in Big Money. Though it's better than straight Big Money; it can barely beat BigMoat (BigMoat: 49/BigAdventurer: 51) (a variation on BigSmithy with the Moat replacing the Smithy). It gets soundly thumped by BigSmithy (BigSmithy: 68/BigAdventurer: 32) and I didn't even bother testing it against strong BigMoney variants. Don't get me wrong in the context of this discussion I think Adventurer is far from the worst card in the game despite being priced at $6 when it would make a lot more sense as a $5, but I think it's only really useful in games where you can trash out the Coppers (or a least most of them) and only as a mid-to-late game purchase.
Code: [Select]
{
  name: 'BigAdventurer'
  requires: ['Adventurer']
  gainPriority: (state, my) ->
    if state.supply.Colony?
      [
        "Colony" if my.getTotalMoney() > 32
        "Province" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
        "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
        "Platinum"
        "Province" if state.countInSupply("Colony") <= 7
        'Adventurer' if my.countInDeck("Adventurer") < 1 and my.countInDeck("Gold") > 0
        "Gold"
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
        "Silver"
        "Copper" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
      ]
    else
      [
        "Province" if my.getTotalMoney() > 18
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 4
        "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 2
        'Adventurer' if my.countInDeck("Adventurer") < 1 and my.countInDeck("Gold") > 0
        "Gold"
        "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 6
        "Silver"
      ]
}
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #106 on: February 09, 2012, 07:26:51 pm »
0

While I'm not yet going to change my stance on Adventurer (Transmute might get the vote, though...), I will say I agree somewhat with one thing Perd is saying: It's good on boards with special effect treasures. However, you need to be able to have a good chance of digging for those treasures, so there's no point building a HoP board intending for Adventurer to grab them if your deck still has all it's coppers. So it requires some trashing still. And even then, it's probably not the best way of getting your components together.

Adventurer does, however, combo nicely with HoP. It's a good way of getting at least 1-2 extra unique cards in play -Adventurer and hopefully 1-2 new treasures you drew. 1 card to boost Horn by 3 isn't bad.

Perhaps the biggest complaint I have with Adventurer is... while it occasionally shines, just like any other card, far far too often it sits at $6 and is pretty much worthless, with Gold just being more useful. But the more I think about it the more I feel that applies even more to Transmute... bah.

Someone, stand up and defend Transmute! Show me why I should stick to my stubborn opinion :).
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But not strictly better, because the spinoff can have a different cost than the expansion.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #107 on: February 09, 2012, 07:43:36 pm »
0

So what's your guy's favorite card here? Mine would be Explorer. Apprentice/Explorer is pretty neat, for one. And it's like the Tournament before Tournament existed.

Thief!

Haha, no, only joking, i dont particularily like any of them, most seem to swingy to me! (thus letting me blame luck if i get beaten by an opponent who has one in his deck somewhere)
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Kahryl

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #108 on: February 09, 2012, 07:49:16 pm »
0

Explorer is my favorite here too. I just really like getting stuff for free!
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RisingJaguar

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #109 on: February 09, 2012, 08:18:15 pm »
+1

I particularly like... other
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ratxt1

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #110 on: February 09, 2012, 08:20:46 pm »
0

explorer is my favorite i have a few fun games with it like this one (especially turn 13).
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120206-231620-32a7a7f2.html

i think it and contraband are the best card on this list and should probably be taken off. here is an example where contraband is the dominant 5 cost card. my opponent resigns early so they're isn't much gameplay but it illustrates contraband's power effectivly enough.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120208-231954-d484cdee.html

« Last Edit: February 09, 2012, 08:53:23 pm by ratxt1 »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #111 on: February 09, 2012, 08:51:21 pm »
0

I ravaged someone with Fool's Gold/Adventurer once.  It's underrated.  I think there's spots where you should buy it near the end of trashing game when you're both heavily greened and it's a guaranteed 5 or 6 dollars.

I've also stuck Thief into a deep KC engine when I was overloaded with draw and way behind on econ/vp and needed the money so I could buy 4-5 greens at a time: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120208-194832-8da13b70.html

Scout shouldn't even be on the list.  Just because newbs open it, doesn't mean it's not amazing in crossroads/great hall/harem/nobles decks.

I voted Transmute, but looking at my 'win with' rates, I'd like to change my vote.  The cards I have the lowest winrate with are Smugglers, and Possession.  This is because when those cards are out, baddies get to take advantage of my superior buy strategey, instead of thinking for themselves/building their own inferior deck.  Plus they are just are just stupid cards , as in, bad game design.  I hate them.

I'm assuming this whole post, or at least most of it, is sarcastic?

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #112 on: February 09, 2012, 10:20:37 pm »
+4

ddubois gonna ddubois, more likely.
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Robz888

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #113 on: February 10, 2012, 01:46:19 am »
+3

Scout shouldn't even be on the list.  Just because newbs open it, doesn't mean it's not amazing in crossroads/great hall/harem/nobles decks.

I disagree. Scout should very much be on this list. In fact, I think it's close to being the worst card on this list, though not quite as bad as Transmute. Scout is certainly helpful in the above situation, but keep in mind the following:

-- Scout is the least important card in that deck. I mean, Crossroads with GH, Nobles, or Harem runs pretty spectacularly on its own.
-- All those cards (5 of them!) showing up in the same game is pretty rare. Start cutting some of them out, and Scout just falls apart. Scout/Harem is okay, Scout/Nobles is meh. Scout/Great Hall isn't even worth mentioning without great support, like Ironworks or something. Crossroads would be better than Scout in those situations, and it's much cheaper.
-- There is almost no other situation where Scout is very useful. It's not even a good sifter, really.

You could cost Scout at $2 and Crossroads would still be better most of the time. Heck, Cellar would be better most of the time.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #114 on: February 10, 2012, 02:37:12 am »
+1

Chancellor is probably the card here where my opinion is highest compared to the community at large... it's a good percentage play if you're angling for Mountebank or Familiar...
I'm pretty sure Chancellor goes pretty poorly with cursing. Intuitively, the problem is that your discard pile is not generally stronger than your deck for a good part of the game, so the ability is unlikely to help you. Simulator agrees, saying that adding a Chancellor opening to Mountebank is significantly worst than just Silver/Silver (like 37-58). Of course it misplays Chancellor, but even so, it's unlikely to help much, at least as an opening. There are usually better things to open with.
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DrHades

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #115 on: February 10, 2012, 06:44:39 am »
0

-- There is almost no other situation where Scout is very useful. It's not even a good sifter, really.

Minion, Tactician, Scrying Pool, Vault, Wishing Well, against Ghost Ship and that is just from the top of my head...

Yes, Scout is bad. But still - he is an ugly cousin of Cartographer and Cartographer is pretty good so...

I really like Scout, it is my most favourite card from this list ;D
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #116 on: February 10, 2012, 11:44:14 am »
0

Adventurer is terrible against trashing attacks (Swindler, Saboteur, Thief, Pirate Ship, Noble Brigand), so let's get that out of the way first. Thief, Pirate Ship, and Noble Brigand trash the Treasures that Adventurer needs to function.

I'm not sure that this is necessarily the case. In the same way Golem is good if you have a couple of key actions you want to play over and over, Adventurer can be good if you have just a couple of key treasures. If you're getting Thieved or Pirate Shipped, then instead of buying Gold, which can get attacked, you can keep just a few Golds around and use Adventurers to grab them when you need them. (Then after you do that, your treasures are likely to be in your discard pile, and thus probably out of range of attack for the next turn.) To get to Provinces this way it helps to have a Festival or so as well, of course.
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O

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #117 on: February 10, 2012, 12:58:14 pm »
0

Chancellor is probably the card here where my opinion is highest compared to the community at large... it's a good percentage play if you're angling for Mountebank or Familiar...
I'm pretty sure Chancellor goes pretty poorly with cursing. Intuitively, the problem is that your discard pile is not generally stronger than your deck for a good part of the game, so the ability is unlikely to help you. Simulator agrees, saying that adding a Chancellor opening to Mountebank is significantly worst than just Silver/Silver (like 37-58). Of course it misplays Chancellor, but even so, it's unlikely to help much, at least as an opening. There are usually better things to open with.

How badly does it misplay? Does it, for example, discard when mountebank is still in the deck? That would certainly make a pretty massive difference.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #118 on: February 10, 2012, 01:25:24 pm »
0

In defense of transmute:

1. We all know the potion gamble, there are some really powerful cards at 2P, 3P, and 4P ... but lady luck isn't always kind enough to give us a board where missing those magic cutoffs gives good choices. E.g. I'm planning on a Scrying Pool deck and I hit 1P. Now my choices are  nothing or transmute. Transmute, while crappy, is an action that my pool can draw and is something that can convert those SP draw stopping coppers into stuff I can draw. Transmute is not a bad buy on 1P if the dominant strategy is SP/whatever. Likewise we all hate familiar games where we hit our potion on T3 and can't get started cursing for another whole shuffle, transmute can at least crunch estates to gold and pitch the odd curse.
2. It is a way to break parity without card gainers or +buy. So let's say there is a dominant strategy out there that makes use of potion cards, if you have have a potion, you can do some fun endgame hijinx like buy a province/transmute an action to a duchy leaving the opponent down 9 points and giving yourself a pretty easy way to win.
3. In some circumstances you can abuse it for gold or duchy gain. The simplest thing is something like great hall or island where you can grab golds & duchies at the same time; this works even better if there is something like workshop out there to allow easy massing of the dual card types. Another shot is feeding transmute a steady diet of fresh estates; like say from followers and perhaps even doing something like crossroads, followers, transmute, and remodel.
4. It is a marginal swindler defense. Your opponent swindles your throne room into a potion. You buy a transmute, now it can't become a dead card when swindled and it can clear out garbage for some benefit (e.g. transmuting estates - particulary stuff that used to be good 2s like pawns, duchies, or crap actions into treasure or duchies).

The real problem with transmute is isotropic. It comes up way too often without cards that were designed to synergize with it (all the potion cards, apprentice). If other potion friendly cards aren't out then those first turns spent buying a potion are a bust and trasnmute sucks. But if the potion is already a sunk cost (as it is in many alchemy heavy games, which I understand are supposed to be how the set was designed), then it is pretty good for the cost and can help in a large number of ways.
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tlloyd

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #119 on: February 10, 2012, 01:43:43 pm »
0

-- There is almost no other situation where Scout is very useful. It's not even a good sifter, really.

Minion, Tactician, Scrying Pool, Vault, Wishing Well, against Ghost Ship and that is just from the top of my head...

Yes, Scout is bad. But still - he is an ugly cousin of Cartographer and Cartographer is pretty good so...

I really like Scout, it is my most favourite card from this list ;D

Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #120 on: February 10, 2012, 02:32:26 pm »
0

Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."
Then it would probably have to cost $5...
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #121 on: February 10, 2012, 02:36:14 pm »
0

-- There is almost no other situation where Scout is very useful. It's not even a good sifter, really.

Minion, Tactician, Scrying Pool, Vault, Wishing Well, against Ghost Ship and that is just from the top of my head...

Yes, Scout is bad. But still - he is an ugly cousin of Cartographer and Cartographer is pretty good so...

I really like Scout, it is my most favourite card from this list ;D

Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."

I am afraid that would be too strong even for 5$...I mean, look at Cartographer...

Maybe if you first draw the card, then get the green and rearange the rest...but still it's too powerfull imo...
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #122 on: February 10, 2012, 03:02:22 pm »
0

Sifting first seems a little strong for $4, but it still wouldn't really be better than Cartographer. Maybe with things like Great Halls/alternate VPs, but Cartographer also goes through your Coppers or other cards you don't want, making it more versatile. I'd certainly agree with it being +1 card, +1 action, draw victory cards in the first 4 cards, though.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #123 on: February 10, 2012, 03:08:27 pm »
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Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."
It's a counter, but I'm not sure I'd call it an effective one. Sure, Scout will bail you out of a Rabble attack the one time you have it in hand. But that's not really going to matter if you're being Rabble-pinned every turn. And buying extra Scouts is a huge problem, because Scout doesn't do anything in the situation except defend against the Attack, so you aren't really improving your deck. It's much more worthwhile for your deck to load up on Farming Villages and Lighthouses.
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tlloyd

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #124 on: February 10, 2012, 03:12:08 pm »
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Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."
It's a counter, but I'm not sure I'd call it an effective one. Sure, Scout will bail you out of a Rabble attack the one time you have it in hand. But that's not really going to matter if you're being Rabble-pinned every turn. And buying extra Scouts is a huge problem, because Scout doesn't do anything in the situation except defend against the Attack, so you aren't really improving your deck. It's much more worthwhile for your deck to load up on Farming Villages and Lighthouses.

Did you read beyond the first sentence of my post?
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tlloyd

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #125 on: February 10, 2012, 03:23:43 pm »
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-- There is almost no other situation where Scout is very useful. It's not even a good sifter, really.

Minion, Tactician, Scrying Pool, Vault, Wishing Well, against Ghost Ship and that is just from the top of my head...

Yes, Scout is bad. But still - he is an ugly cousin of Cartographer and Cartographer is pretty good so...

I really like Scout, it is my most favourite card from this list ;D

Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."

I am afraid that would be too strong even for 5$...I mean, look at Cartographer...

Maybe if you first draw the card, then get the green and rearange the rest...but still it's too powerfull imo...

Notice that Scout only reveals 4 cards, while Cartographer reveals 5--that is significant when it comes to sifting/cycling. If the victory cards are useful (either because they are dual-type or because you have Crossroads/vault/SC/warehouse/cellar), then having them in hand is better than discarding, but there are also situations where you'd prefer to discard (tunnel or menagerie/library/watchtower). Most significantly, Cartographer (which is not exactly a powerhouse at $5) can filter out coppers, curses, etc., which Scout is powerless against. I don't think the upgraded Scout would be remotely over-powered at $4.
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Robz888

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #126 on: February 10, 2012, 03:27:25 pm »
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-- There is almost no other situation where Scout is very useful. It's not even a good sifter, really.

Minion, Tactician, Scrying Pool, Vault, Wishing Well, against Ghost Ship and that is just from the top of my head...

Yes, Scout is bad. But still - he is an ugly cousin of Cartographer and Cartographer is pretty good so...

I really like Scout, it is my most favourite card from this list ;D

Let me take these one by one:

Minion: When do you pick up Scout in a Minion game? Not in the first two turns, when you desperately need a trasher, or $$ to get to $5. Losing the Minion race is tantamount to losing the game in most Minion setups, right? I guess it's not a terrible buy if you have a random turn with $4 in hand... but getting all the Minions, and doing a little trashing, is way more important.

Tactician: It would be okay, except I can't see myself saying, "Yes, let me spend this turn buying a Scout with my $4 in order to hopefully pair it with my Tactician, hopefully draw at least 1 green card into my current hand, and minutely improve my Tactician hand." You would need like, a couple Scouts for that to be any sort of strategy, and I don't think anyone wants to defend buying 2-3 Scouts (unless Crossroads, GH, Nobles, and Harem all come to the party, and even then the Crossroads and GHs are more important for less money).

Scrying Pool: Since Scrying Pool decks tend to overload on Actions, I can see buying Scout (even multiple Scouts!) in this case. But Coppers are a bigger problem than Estates for the early Scrying Pool deck, and Scout doesn't do anything about that, so it's only a $4 I would buy if there weren't any other good spammable $4s--no Caravans, Mining Villages, etc. Scout might be helpful nearer to end if you have the right amount of money for it.

Vault: I don't think Scout meaningfully improves a Vault deck. Vault decks hit their target amounts of money pretty easily.

Wishing Well: Yeah, I agree with you here. Of course, since Wishing Well draws a card to begin with, if you're Scout does a really good job--draws 3 green cards into hand--it won't work. So interestingly, Scout failing to do what it's supposed to do is one of its better uses, when paired with Wishing Well.

Ghost Ship: Yes, but similarly to Rabble, I don't know if it's a meaningfully good counter unless you have a bunch of Scouts, and you'd still rather have Farming Village or Lighthouse.

So, you're definitely right that I misspoke earlier. Scout can be useful in a few other situations. But I'm not sure it's more useful than buying a different $4, or just buying Silver, most of the time, even in those situations.
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Robz888

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #127 on: February 10, 2012, 03:30:38 pm »
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Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."
It's a counter, but I'm not sure I'd call it an effective one. Sure, Scout will bail you out of a Rabble attack the one time you have it in hand. But that's not really going to matter if you're being Rabble-pinned every turn. And buying extra Scouts is a huge problem, because Scout doesn't do anything in the situation except defend against the Attack, so you aren't really improving your deck. It's much more worthwhile for your deck to load up on Farming Villages and Lighthouses.

Did you read beyond the first sentence of my post?

Sorry, I read the whole thing. I didn't quote the rest because I didn't have an intelligent comment for your sentence about improving Scout. I wasn't trying to say you were wrong--it looks like we pretty much agree. I was sort of just adding on to your thoughts about Scout vs. Farming Village in that situation. Sorry if I came across as disagreeable.
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Kahryl

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #128 on: February 10, 2012, 03:57:07 pm »
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Quote
"draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."

This version of scout is too boring.  It's basically an unreliable Laboratory.  Either you're drawing two cards, or one.

The thing Scout does is really unique and interesting.  It should just be increased in power - look at 6 of your cards, not 4.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #129 on: February 10, 2012, 04:00:21 pm »
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Chancellor is probably the card here where my opinion is highest compared to the community at large... it's a good percentage play if you're angling for Mountebank or Familiar...
I'm pretty sure Chancellor goes pretty poorly with cursing. Intuitively, the problem is that your discard pile is not generally stronger than your deck for a good part of the game, so the ability is unlikely to help you. Simulator agrees, saying that adding a Chancellor opening to Mountebank is significantly worst than just Silver/Silver (like 37-58). Of course it misplays Chancellor, but even so, it's unlikely to help much, at least as an opening. There are usually better things to open with.

How badly does it misplay? Does it, for example, discard when mountebank is still in the deck? That would certainly make a pretty massive difference.
Yeah, it does. It definitely overuses the ability, so I'm not saying that I'm getting an accurate win probability. However, the point is that you will actually not want to use the ability often, as evidenced by how bad you do if you always use it. This means that in curse decks, chancellor is actually worse than it is in non-curse decks.

-- There is almost no other situation where Scout is very useful. It's not even a good sifter, really.

Minion, Tactician, Scrying Pool, Vault, Wishing Well, against Ghost Ship and that is just from the top of my head...

Yes, Scout is bad. But still - he is an ugly cousin of Cartographer and Cartographer is pretty good so...

I really like Scout, it is my most favourite card from this list ;D

Scout can also be an effective counter to Fortune Teller and (much more importantly) Rabble - especially late-game multi-Rabble pins. But Farming Village is an even stronger counter, costs the same, and is useful in a much broader set of circumstances. Scout should have been "draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."

I am afraid that would be too strong even for 5$...I mean, look at Cartographer...

Maybe if you first draw the card, then get the green and rearange the rest...but still it's too powerfull imo...

Notice that Scout only reveals 4 cards, while Cartographer reveals 5--that is significant when it comes to sifting/cycling. If the victory cards are useful (either because they are dual-type or because you have Crossroads/vault/SC/warehouse/cellar), then having them in hand is better than discarding, but there are also situations where you'd prefer to discard (tunnel or menagerie/library/watchtower). Most significantly, Cartographer (which is not exactly a powerhouse at $5) can filter out coppers, curses, etc., which Scout is powerless against. I don't think the upgraded Scout would be remotely over-powered at $4.
But you're ignoring the fact that you want the improved scout draw to occur after the sift instead of before, which seems like a pretty big deal to me.
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tlloyd

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #130 on: February 10, 2012, 04:35:38 pm »
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Quote
"draw any green from top four cards, then +1 card +1 action."

This version of scout is too boring.  It's basically an unreliable Laboratory.  Either you're drawing two cards, or one.

I'm not sure I follow you here. Are you assuming on average that 1 card out of your top 4 will be green? I get the comparison to Cartographer, but not to Lab.

Quote
The thing Scout does is really unique and interesting.  It should just be increased in power - look at 6 of your cards, not 4.

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I think it would be hard to price in a way that was balanced. In any games with dual-type Victory cards this would be insane.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2012, 04:43:19 pm by tlloyd »
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tlloyd

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #131 on: February 10, 2012, 04:41:37 pm »
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@HME:

Drawing after rearranging would be a big advantage, but it doesn't clearly make Scout overpriced at $5. However, I think +1 card before revealing would still be a nice fix for Scout, so I won't argue the point.
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O

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #132 on: February 10, 2012, 04:45:29 pm »
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I'm pretty sure Chancellor goes pretty poorly with cursing. Intuitively, the problem is that your discard pile is not generally stronger than your deck for a good part of the game, so the ability is unlikely to help you. Simulator agrees, saying that adding a Chancellor opening to Mountebank is significantly worst than just Silver/Silver (like 37-58). Of course it misplays Chancellor, but even so, it's unlikely to help much, at least as an opening. There are usually better things to open with.
Quote

How badly does it misplay? Does it, for example, discard when mountebank is still in the deck? That would certainly make a pretty massive difference.
Yeah, it does. It definitely overuses the ability, so I'm not saying that I'm getting an accurate win probability. However, the point is that you will actually not want to use the ability often, as evidenced by how bad you do if you always use it. This means that in curse decks, chancellor is actually worse than it is in non-curse decks.


Excuse my editing of the massive quote-chain if it messes up..

I agree that Chancellor is pretty useless when you want to optimise buying power. But as an opening buy, Chancellor gets your curser into play 1-2 turns quicker frequently, and has an ok (though by no means great) and cycling your curser significantly quicker after the first reshuffle. This is obviously most true with the Cantrip familiar, where I'd open chancellor/potion over silver/potion almost every game, but might also be good enough at winning the curse race to counteract the collision disadvantage with Witch/Mountebank. With IGG or Hag, though, I'd say pretty clearly chancellor is terrible in most cases (well, in IGG if you have any other terminal..)
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chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #133 on: February 10, 2012, 04:56:48 pm »
+1

I'm pretty sure Chancellor goes pretty poorly with cursing. Intuitively, the problem is that your discard pile is not generally stronger than your deck for a good part of the game, so the ability is unlikely to help you. Simulator agrees, saying that adding a Chancellor opening to Mountebank is significantly worst than just Silver/Silver (like 37-58). Of course it misplays Chancellor, but even so, it's unlikely to help much, at least as an opening. There are usually better things to open with.
Quote

How badly does it misplay? Does it, for example, discard when mountebank is still in the deck? That would certainly make a pretty massive difference.
Yeah, it does. It definitely overuses the ability, so I'm not saying that I'm getting an accurate win probability. However, the point is that you will actually not want to use the ability often, as evidenced by how bad you do if you always use it. This means that in curse decks, chancellor is actually worse than it is in non-curse decks.


Excuse my editing of the massive quote-chain if it messes up..

I agree that Chancellor is pretty useless when you want to optimise buying power. But as an opening buy, Chancellor gets your curser into play 1-2 turns quicker frequently, and has an ok (though by no means great) and cycling your curser significantly quicker after the first reshuffle. This is obviously most true with the Cantrip familiar, where I'd open chancellor/potion over silver/potion almost every game, but might also be good enough at winning the curse race to counteract the collision disadvantage with Witch/Mountebank. With IGG or Hag, though, I'd say pretty clearly chancellor is terrible in most cases (well, in IGG if you have any other terminal..)

If you don't have another terminal, might as well go Chancellor/Silver in an IGG game.  Obviously Chancellor is horrible in Hag and YW games, and I'd expect it to be worse than Silver for Witch, as well: the +2 Cards drastically increases terminal collision risk, to the point where potentially better cycling isn't worth it.

As for Scout... drawing a card *after* you filter the green and rearrange is an insane buff.  Tacking on +1 Card before you sift makes it more comparable to Apothecary: normally a tad weaker is my guess, but that's appropriate since $4 < $2P.  It would be a strong $4 that way, obviously worth it with VP Kingdom cards and Wishing Well, and at least a decent addition to most decks.  I tend to prefer a minimum-change approach, though: just make it cost $3, or look at the top 5 cards instead of the top 4; you could perhaps get away with doing both of those things.    It still wouldn't be a power card, but that's okay.


Other potential buffs for the worst cards here:

-Adventurer should probably just cost $5, since what kills it is the fact it always has to compete with Gold, and the boards where Adventurer > Gold are just so rare.  Alternatively, you could tack on a +Buy, so if you do build the sort of deck which can grab lots of cash with Adventurer, you're able to do better than just Province.  Adventurer with +Buy is probably still a weak-ish $6, but it's no longer in the running for most overpriced card in the game.

-Transmute is just killed by the Potion cost; it would be stronger at $5, since then it's at least a reasonable Turn 1 option a la Trading Post.  If you have to keep the potion, and you probably do since there are only ten Potion cards in the game, there are a number of approaches I can think of: perhaps it can give you Silver for each Curse it trashes, or maybe it should let you trash up to two cards at a time, and/or let you pass on the gain if you want to (so you can go Copper -> Nothing if you so choose).  Or it could give you the new card in hand, or on top of deck.  Transmuting an Estate into a Gold you get to use right now might actually be a worthwhile strategy sometimes.

- Counting House probably wants some insurance against drawing it at the top of your deck when it's useless. Maybe add an option "+1 Action, put this card on top of your deck"?  Stronger still, would be for the Counting House to gain you a copper each time you play it.  Though that might actually be too strong, since it might become a strategy-in-a-box on many boards.

- At the very least, Thief should do something for you the turn you play it.  I'm okay with keeping the risk of helping your opponent with copper trashing, what I'd do actually would be to have Thief cost $5 (yes!) but to also make it a terminal silver for you in addition to the attack.  That way, you're not killing your buy power on Thief turns, and the virtual cash also functions as somewhat of a fail-safe against potential lockdowns.

None of the other cards need any improvement.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2012, 05:18:22 pm by chwhite »
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WanderingWinder

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #134 on: February 10, 2012, 05:37:57 pm »
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-Adventurer should probably just cost $5, since what kills it is the fact it always has to compete with Gold, and the boards where Adventurer > Gold are just so rare.  Alternatively, you could tack on a +Buy, so if you do build the sort of deck which can grab lots of cash with Adventurer, you're able to do better than just Province.  Adventurer with +Buy is probably still a weak-ish $6, but it's no longer in the running for most overpriced card in the game.
Pretty much agree.

Quote
-Transmute is just killed by the Potion cost; it would be stronger at $5, since then it's at least a reasonable Turn 1 option a la Trading Post.  If you have to keep the potion, and you probably do since there are only ten Potion cards in the game, there are a number of approaches I can think of: perhaps it can give you Silver for each Curse it trashes, or maybe it should let you trash up to two cards at a time, and/or let you pass on the gain if you want to (so you can go Copper -> Nothing if you so choose).  Or it could give you the new card in hand, or on top of deck.  Transmuting an Estate into a Gold you get to use right now might actually be a worthwhile strategy sometimes.
The only of these that's really small is letting you choose to take nothing, which barely buffs it at all. Making it non-terminal is what I'd want to do. And it would still be dreadful
Quote
- Counting House probably wants some insurance against drawing it at the top of your deck when it's useless. Maybe add an option "+1 Action, put this card on top of your deck"?  Stronger still, would be for the Counting House to gain you a copper each time you play it.  Though that might actually be too strong, since it might become a strategy-in-a-box on many boards.
Just giving you a copper, without the +action, probably generally makes it stronger. But I can't see it being too too strong that way. The extra coppers aren't usually that great for you anyway. I like this fix, and still think it would be a pretty darn weak card that I'd not want too often (but amazing for alternate green card strategies).
Quote
- At the very least, Thief should do something for you the turn you play it.  I'm okay with keeping the risk of helping your opponent with copper trashing, what I'd do actually would be to have Thief cost $5 (yes!) but to also make it a terminal silver for you in addition to the attack.  That way, you're not killing your buy power on Thief turns, and the virtual cash also functions as somewhat of a fail-safe against potential lockdowns.
Here, I'd just let you top-deck the stolen money, have thief still be weak, just not SO bad, and be fine with it.

RisingJaguar

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #135 on: February 10, 2012, 05:59:14 pm »
+1

Scrying Pool: Since Scrying Pool decks tend to overload on Actions, I can see buying Scout (even multiple Scouts!) in this case. But Coppers are a bigger problem than Estates for the early Scrying Pool deck, and Scout doesn't do anything about that, so it's only a $4 I would buy if there weren't any other good spammable $4s--no Caravans, Mining Villages, etc. Scout might be helpful nearer to end if you have the right amount of money for it.
I think this is slightly being misplayed (or more correctly, misunderstood) in scrying pool situations.  The point isn't to have 3 estates come into your hand when you play it, its to re-arrange the cards as you draw them (in this context).  This is part of the card's ability, a poor... very poor addition. 

It has SOME use in a +card/+action deck that cards need to be in a particular order.  It doesn't help nearly enough for it to be worth it, ie. scout/village in hand, move cards to draw your torturer when playing village.  I personally like this effect when building certain +action/+cards, but I'm a scrub.  But with scrying pool, it makes a world of difference. 

This is about as extreme as possible, but if your cards were Gold, Action, copper, Action in that order.  You would have to choose between forgoing gold, or hoping and settling for action/copper.  Now if you rearranged it, you can discard copper, get 2 actions and gold.  That's a significant enough of a buff to make scout playable in scrying pool.  The point is to make scrying pool more efficient.  True this isn't need in all cases, scrying pools are pretty adept to getting the deck cleanly, but it helps near the start where you have only say 2-3 scrying pools.  Add the fact it has +1action and is an action itself.  It's decent here. 

There's also something to getting the victory cards IN HAND that's at least different than cartographer's discarding ability.  The discarding is much more consistent in its use, but cards like warehouse, crossroads, cellar (ew) or just general deck management (ie. triggering reshuffle after the fact, cartographer's ability makes you essentially stop at the end of the deck.)  I'm not saying scout > cartographer, just that there are times when scout's ability is playable. 
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Piemaster

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #136 on: February 15, 2012, 02:15:59 am »
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*grunch*

I voted Duchess.  I figure that any card which I regularly turn down when offered for free has got to be pretty bad.
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chwhite

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #137 on: February 15, 2012, 09:21:58 am »
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-Transmute is just killed by the Potion cost; it would be stronger at $5, since then it's at least a reasonable Turn 1 option a la Trading Post.  If you have to keep the potion, and you probably do since there are only ten Potion cards in the game, there are a number of approaches I can think of: perhaps it can give you Silver for each Curse it trashes, or maybe it should let you trash up to two cards at a time, and/or let you pass on the gain if you want to (so you can go Copper -> Nothing if you so choose).  Or it could give you the new card in hand, or on top of deck.  Transmuting an Estate into a Gold you get to use right now might actually be a worthwhile strategy sometimes.
The only of these that's really small is letting you choose to take nothing, which barely buffs it at all. Making it non-terminal is what I'd want to do. And it would still be dreadful
Quote
- Counting House probably wants some insurance against drawing it at the top of your deck when it's useless. Maybe add an option "+1 Action, put this card on top of your deck"?  Stronger still, would be for the Counting House to gain you a copper each time you play it.  Though that might actually be too strong, since it might become a strategy-in-a-box on many boards.
Just giving you a copper, without the +action, probably generally makes it stronger. But I can't see it being too too strong that way. The extra coppers aren't usually that great for you anyway. I like this fix, and still think it would be a pretty darn weak card that I'd not want too often (but amazing for alternate green card strategies).

My thinking with the "choose to take nothing" bit was that if you had both that *and* the option to trash two rather than one, the Transmute could work as more of a conventional trasher.  That's probably too far afield from the initial intent, though.  As for the CH fix, I have this nagging doubt that if it gave you a Copper each time you used it, you could just build a dumb CH deck that buys nothing but Counting Houses and Province/Colony, and it could end up at almost Chancellor/Stash levels of effectiveness and resilience-to-attack.  (More resilience in terms of hand reduction, even).  That would be too strong.

Scout is a marginal improvement to Scrying Pool decks... but it is an improvement.  Outside of the obvious Intrigue synergies, Scrying Pool and Vineyard are the two cards that come to my mind first as reasons to pick up a Scout.  With Pool, arranging your top four cards to get maximum draw can sometimes be worth it, and Scout is legitimately useful if your Vineyards deck is stuffed with cantrips but not better +Card, and you really do need to clear those Vineyards out of your next hand.  (Also, well, it's another action to pump up said Vineyards.) 

...

Oh, and: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/14/game-20120214-122158-16cfc299.html

Another example of Transmute being useful in Curse games.  My opponent was surprised to see it work.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2012, 09:23:59 am by chwhite »
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Kahryl

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #138 on: February 15, 2012, 02:38:54 pm »
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Now that I think about it, the most useless card IMO has to be Stash. And it's not even on this list.

I have never been able to see the point of it at all.  The only combo it really works with is Chancellor, as far as I can tell.  And the ONE time my opponent tried Chancellor/Stash, he lost to my rather pedestrian BM game.

I think it would be awesome if your stashes went in a separate deck, that counted as part of your main deck, but any time you had to draw a card you could choose to "draw it from your stash".  That way you could dynamically choose to draw a silver instead of (random card) instead of having to predict the friggin future.
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jotheonah

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #139 on: February 15, 2012, 02:54:42 pm »
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Now that I think about it, the most useless card IMO has to be Stash. And it's not even on this list.

I have never been able to see the point of it at all.  The only combo it really works with is Chancellor, as far as I can tell.  And the ONE time my opponent tried Chancellor/Stash, he lost to my rather pedestrian BM game.

I think it would be awesome if your stashes went in a separate deck, that counted as part of your main deck, but any time you had to draw a card you could choose to "draw it from your stash".  That way you could dynamically choose to draw a silver instead of (random card) instead of having to predict the friggin future.

Did you miss Wandering Winder's Stash-as-counter-to-Sab post? Made me think maybe there's more to it.

Your version would be amazing in multiplayer Pirate Ship games.
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mischiefmaker

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #140 on: February 15, 2012, 06:05:57 pm »
0

I have never been able to see the point of it at all.  The only combo it really works with is Chancellor, as far as I can tell.  And the ONE time my opponent tried Chancellor/Stash, he lost to my rather pedestrian BM game.
Simulator has Chancellor/Stash, played properly, as a monster favorite over Big Money (73-22). Even the built-in Chancellor/Stash, which is non-optimized, is a 60-30 favorite.

I guess it's possible your opponent played the combo so badly that he actually was an underdog, but that's really tough to do. (I tried, and even a very bad strategy that only buys Province-Stash-Chancellor, and goes for Duchies too late, is favored over optimized BMU + Stash -- even when it sometimes ends up with 6-7 Chancellors in a <30 card deck!) Seems more likely that he just got unlucky.

I'm not saying Stash is a powerhouse, but it's reasonably useful in a BMU deck for helping to smooth first-reshuffle draws, and Chancellor/Stash is as good as advertised.

Did you miss Wandering Winder's Stash-as-counter-to-Sab post? Made me think maybe there's more to it.
Do you have a link to this handy? I searched for "stash saboteur" but only turned up a couple of posts by chwhite.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2012, 06:14:25 pm by mischiefmaker »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #141 on: February 15, 2012, 06:20:05 pm »
0

Oracle/Stash is also great in my experience.  I doubt a simulator would play it well since playing it well involves stacking the Stashes properly.  Since with Oracle you get to peek at cards first, then draw, you have two reshuffle trigger periods possible per Oracle that you play.  With Stash, you can control what you're getting this turn or the next pretty often. 

But really, Stash is still better than most of the cards on this list since it's a $2 treasure card.  That puts it above Transmute and Scout in my book.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #142 on: February 15, 2012, 09:36:30 pm »
0

Stash is strictly better than silver but for cost (and possession shenanigans). Which means that while it isn't all that special, it's not that terrible. It can be quite good with lots of things (I do live NV/Stash), and it is often a good defense to attacks.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #143 on: February 15, 2012, 10:17:51 pm »
+2

Stash is the Mendoza Line of Dominion cards.
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O

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #144 on: February 15, 2012, 11:15:51 pm »
0

We should be allowed to change our votes in this poll.


http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120213-150351-a0e5b7d5.html

   --- O's turn 7 ---
   O plays 3 Coppers and a Cache.
   O buys a Cache.
   ... gaining 2 Coppers.
   (O reshuffles.)
   (O draws: a Counting House and 4 Coppers.)

--- O's turn 11 ---
   O plays a Native Village.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... drawing a card and placing it on the Native Village mat.
   O plays a Copper and 3 Caches.
   O buys a Province.
   (O reshuffles.)
   (O draws: 4 Coppers and a Counting House.)
-------

The two times I saw the card in the entire game; I bought turn 4. The odd walled village buy was to try and manipulate reshuffles.. didn't help.



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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #145 on: February 16, 2012, 01:07:59 pm »
0


Did you miss Wandering Winder's Stash-as-counter-to-Sab post? Made me think maybe there's more to it.
Do you have a link to this handy? I searched for "stash saboteur" but only turned up a couple of posts by chwhite.


http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1753.0

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #146 on: February 16, 2012, 01:30:38 pm »
0

Mmm, dissapointed I am in your lack of Moat Hate!
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #147 on: February 16, 2012, 01:39:56 pm »
0

We should be allowed to change our votes in this poll.


http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120213-150351-a0e5b7d5.html

   --- O's turn 7 ---
   O plays 3 Coppers and a Cache.
   O buys a Cache.
   ... gaining 2 Coppers.
   (O reshuffles.)
   (O draws: a Counting House and 4 Coppers.)

--- O's turn 11 ---
   O plays a Native Village.
   ... getting +2 actions.
   ... drawing a card and placing it on the Native Village mat.
   O plays a Copper and 3 Caches.
   O buys a Province.
   (O reshuffles.)
   (O draws: 4 Coppers and a Counting House.)
-------

The two times I saw the card in the entire game; I bought turn 4. The odd walled village buy was to try and manipulate reshuffles.. didn't help.

Ugh. I feel like that always happens to me, too. I mean, I practically never buy Counting House. The least the card could do is not show up immediately after the reshuffle on the off-chance I did buy it. Really, Counting House should have some clause that if you draw it when there are no Coppers in your discard, you can shuffle it back into your deck, or something.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #148 on: February 16, 2012, 01:45:32 pm »
0

Unfortunately, the first hand after a reshuffle is the hand in which Counting House (or indeed any card) is most likely to show up.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #149 on: February 16, 2012, 01:51:15 pm »
0

Mmm, dissapointed I am in your lack of Moat Hate!

Moat's not that good, but sometimes you're glad to have it (I'm blue):
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120215-010350-4e276cc9.html
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #150 on: February 16, 2012, 01:58:08 pm »
0

Apart the dirt slimy feeling inside when you bought it? Hehe

You had all those moats and still picked up 4 curses, 1 more than your opponent did! (and even with all the moats bought still 70% of the curses got drawn out)
So the defensive part was poor, and so you were basically paying $2 for +2 card terminal action....rubbish.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #151 on: February 16, 2012, 02:03:35 pm »
0

Unfortunately, the first hand after a reshuffle is the hand in which Counting House (or indeed any card) is most likely to show up.

Huh?
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #152 on: February 16, 2012, 02:19:31 pm »
+1

Unfortunately, the first hand after a reshuffle is the hand in which Counting House (or indeed any card) is most likely to show up.

Huh?

Well, think about it starting from the base case. If you have fewer than 10 cards in your deck (without sifters), you will never have any cards in your discard pile during your turn, so Counting House will always be worthless. If you have 10 through 14 cards in your deck, Counting House has to be in cards 6 through 10 for there to an anything in your discard pile. If it's in cards 1 through 5, it's obviously worth nothing. If it's in cards 11 through 14, you'll have to reshuffle your deck to draw a full hand and Counting House is worthless again. You can extrapolate from there that Counting House is most likely to be in the first hand after a reshuffle. The more cards in your deck, the less pronounced the effect is.

It's always bad when a $5 action misses a reshuffle, but with Counting House it's catastrophic.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #153 on: February 16, 2012, 06:05:18 pm »
0

You had all those moats and still picked up 4 curses, 1 more than your opponent did! (and even with all the moats bought still 70% of the curses got drawn out)
So the defensive part was poor, and so you were basically paying $2 for +2 card terminal action....rubbish.

I totally disagree with this analysis. There were multiple turns where jimjam got hit by a multiple-Torturer hand and managed to block it completely with Moat. You're bound to get hit a couple of times sooner or later, but if only 7 Curses get dealt in a game where there were all 10 Torturers split between the players, I'd say that Moat has done a fine job.

In fact I'd say that Torturer is one of the attacks that Moat defends relatively well against. You wouldn't want to get a Moat when the attacks on the board aren't very strong (too much opportunity cost), and a lot of attacks don't stack very well when played repeatedly, but Moat in a Torturer kingdom is one of those cards that can prevent you from being boned from not pulling off the Torturer chain first.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2012, 06:08:58 pm by dondon151 »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #154 on: February 18, 2012, 03:29:21 am »
0

Apart the dirt slimy feeling inside when you bought it? Hehe

You had all those moats and still picked up 4 curses, 1 more than your opponent did! (and even with all the moats bought still 70% of the curses got drawn out)
So the defensive part was poor, and so you were basically paying $2 for +2 card terminal action....rubbish.

Hmm, when did I ever pay $2 for Moat? And +2 cards, while weak, is fine with me if I have a huge pile of +actions, say, from fishing village. But I guess if you feel great just buying power cards without considering the board, good for you.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #155 on: February 18, 2012, 06:47:05 am »
+3

Darn you all, again with all your well thought out reason and logic against my irrational and unjustifiable hatred of a card!

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #156 on: February 20, 2012, 11:53:19 am »
0

Oh, I should mention. Adventurer decently good with governor.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #157 on: February 21, 2012, 04:54:08 pm »
0

Oh, I should mention. Adventurer decently good with governor.

Could you elaborate?  And is it better than Governor with Governor?
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #158 on: February 22, 2012, 06:15:38 pm »
+2

Could you elaborate?  And is it better than Governor with Governor?

I am not WW, but some obvious reasons why Adventurer is good with Governor:

1.  You get lots of Gold & Silver in your deck owing to your Governors and your opponent's governors.
2.  Adventurer can be Governored into a Province.
3.  You can also get scenarios where you might use Adventurer, get a Gold & a Silver into your hand, and then Governor the Gold and play the Silver.  Though this depends on having multiple Actions available to you.

As to whether Adventurer is better than another Governor, well, you can't Governor a Governor into a Province.  So there's at least some call to buy an actual $6 instead of a $5.  And my experience is that typically in Governor games the Governor pile is depleted at some point.

Do you get a single Adventurer over Gold?  Presumably you do if you expect that for most of the plays of Adventurer, your average money value in your deck is > $1.5 (so, say, once you have 2 Golds & 2 Silvers?  11 money, value = $17, average = 17 / 11 = $1.54).  It doesn't take long for your average money value to exceed $1.5 in a Governor game.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #159 on: February 20, 2014, 01:12:20 pm »
0

Of all the Dominion cards, I have to say the worst one is Harvest. Surprisingly, that card didn't make the list of overall worst cards. I think what makes it the worst is the fact that it's terminal and really doesn't fit in well with most decks. Let's think about it analytically:

In games with other 5-cost cards and swindler, it just becomes swindler fodder.

In games that lend themselves to spamming a certain card or combo, you don't get the benefit of the +coins per differently named cards. Plus it has the added disadvantage of discarding those potentially useful cards!

In games that do lend themselves to using a variety of different cards, you'd almost certainly rather pick up another 5-cost non-terminal card than harvest. Even just taking a duchy would probably be better in most circumstances.

Best case scenario, harvest reveals 4 differently named cards. You get +4 coins. A lot of things could have given you just as much money, with the added benefit of +actions, +cards, etc. (especially in games where TR/KC are present).

In games with tunnel, you could use it to reveal 4 tunnels to get 4 golds (if you were lucky or had the observation type cards to make it happen), but then you'd only get +1 coin from it that turn, so it's not useful for a short-term gain (which is why you'd be playing it in the first place). Plus if you wanted to get 4 golds right away, you'd probably have just as good or better luck with treasure map.

For all the hate here about transmute, I actually like it sometimes. It works well as a starter to turn estates into gold, and then from that point on, acts as a situational-type trasher. Not to mention, it synergies all so nicely with vineyard.

Harvest gets the worst card vote from me.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #160 on: February 20, 2014, 05:13:27 pm »
0

Scout. If not Scout, Adventurer.

Adventurer is a terminal Gold if you are lucky, for the cost of a nonterminal Gold. This is rubbish. In some games you might have use for it, but only if you have very many good treasures. It happens almost never.

Scout is still worse, because i almost never want it. True, i had a game where the kingdom included Fortune Teller and Nobles, and my opponent always topdecked one of my Nobles for me, so Scout was essentially +1Card, +1Action with the chance to draw another Nobles. It was nice, but even then it was just a better cantrip (something Scheme can do far better). With Adventurer you at least know what could cause it to be better, but i admit it's extremely close.

Thief is not as horrible as is often said here. But maybe i'm biased, too, as i never play games with less than 3 players. It's still fairly weak, but not as awful as the other two.

Same 3+ players argument goes for Moat.

Transmute is bad, but if you are lucky and there are other Potion cards, buying a Transmute with 1P is not necessarily a bad thing to do.

Chancellor i just like, and i also think its effect is useful. It's just bad when it collides with another terminal - if it doesn't, it's a better Silver. There are not many boards where the risk is low enough for the benefit, but there are some.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2014, 05:16:13 pm by Asper »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #161 on: February 20, 2014, 05:18:01 pm »
+5

Best case scenario, harvest reveals 4 differently named cards. You get +4 coins. A lot of things could have given you just as much money, with the added benefit of +actions, +cards, etc. (especially in games where TR/KC are present).

Please tell me about all these actions which give at least 4 coins with other benefits.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #162 on: February 20, 2014, 05:22:27 pm »
+1

...death cart? maybe?
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #163 on: February 20, 2014, 05:28:15 pm »
0

...death cart? maybe?
not as worst card of course, as a potential card that gives lots of money and other stuff.

I think adventurer has to be the worst. There's fewer and fewer BM boards nowadays, and even on those, you still don't want it because there is probably a better terminal for your deck like smithy or something (and it is because of this smithy-or-something that you don't want adventurer because it is terminal even if it does give slightly above $3 on average in your deck). In colony games engines are even more viable, and also most games aren't colony games.

Essentially, I think the scenarios where adventurer is useful are a) less common than other bad cards like transmute and scout and b) It has a smaller positive impact in the situations where is useful (because it really isn't ever a LOT better than gold)
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #164 on: February 20, 2014, 05:35:50 pm »
0

...death cart? maybe?
not as worst card of course, as a potential card that gives lots of money and other stuff.

I think adventurer has to be the worst. There's fewer and fewer BM boards nowadays, and even on those, you still don't want it because there is probably a better terminal for your deck like smithy or something (and it is because of this smithy-or-something that you don't want adventurer because it is terminal even if it does give slightly above $3 on average in your deck). In colony games engines are even more viable, and also most games aren't colony games.

Essentially, I think the scenarios where adventurer is useful are a) less common than other bad cards like transmute and scout and b) It has a smaller positive impact in the situations where is useful (because it really isn't ever a LOT better than gold)

Adventurer is good with platinum. There are some colony games with no +actions. I would say Adventurer is useful a little more often than transmute, which isn't a compliment, but it isn't the worst.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #165 on: February 20, 2014, 07:00:12 pm »
0

Best case scenario, harvest reveals 4 differently named cards. You get +4 coins. A lot of things could have given you just as much money, with the added benefit of +actions, +cards, etc. (especially in games where TR/KC are present).

Please tell me about all these actions which give at least 4 coins with other benefits.

I notice now you actually said 'cards', not actions. So I suppose Platinum qualifies as it gives $5, and is a treasure so "non-terminal". Similarly I guess Bank can sometimes qualify, and Lio rightfully points out Death Cart can also give $5, and it's trashing is sometimes a benefit, so I guess that kinda counts as well. Beyond that... I can't think of much. Adventurer can give at least $4. Pirate Ship can give arbitrary amounts, but it's slow to do that and gives no other benefits. Vault, Secret Chamber and Storeroom can give more money than that, with other benefits - but that $4 comes at a huge cost of a big chunk of hand size.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think Harvest is the best $5 ever, or even really an especially good one. But if there were a $5 card which just said "+$4", I think it'd be up there with the power $5's. That's a lot of economy from just one action. Of course that isn't what Harvest does. The way it works means earlygame, +$2 is quite likely, while later on +$3 is common and +$4 happens more than +$2, but if you draw your whole deck, then there's a good chance Harvest is just dead. That makes it... pretty tough to make work to a level which is worth the buy, but it can be done, it's not unreasonable. For that reason, I think it's a weaker $5 card, but not the worst $5, and certainly not the worst card.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #166 on: March 04, 2014, 04:18:56 am »
+1

As Scout is often being mentioned as the worst card, I thought, increasing it's strength wouldn't even change a lot. But I think, I'm wrong.

Let's just imagine Scout was a cantrip, that said: "reveal the top 3 cards and draw any green ones of those revealed cards". Without trashing, this could be nice to green early. Something weaker than Cartographer and Laboratory, which are both reasonably well $5 cards.

So maybe adding another little benefit instead of a "certein draw" would fit better. Something like +1 coin. Even then, I think, Scout would be worth it.
Adding a +buy always is a way for a card to shine, whenever there is no other +buy availible.
Adding +1 action would make it some Anti-Farming village, but still as great for engines, I guess. (You leave just those cards on top, you would like to draw to get your engine running. So you only need a drawing card on your hand together with Scout.)

Maybe this is, why Scout ended up, like it did. With all the new alternative VP cards, Scout would fit much better at $3, so that you could buy one, if you missed silk road or feodom. It also could help enable conspirators, but again, they cost $4, so there's kind of a conflict.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #167 on: March 04, 2014, 06:06:45 am »
0

Quote
For all the hate here about transmute, I actually like it sometimes. It works well as a starter to turn estates into gold, and then from that point on, acts as a situational-type trasher. Not to mention, it synergies all so nicely with vineyard.

Transmute has weird synergies with other cards.
I don't see vineyard really working - you can't clutter your deck with Transmutes.
Duke is one that comes to mind - Rebuild is another.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #168 on: March 04, 2014, 06:14:35 am »
0

I am missing Cache in this set - I almost never buy this.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #169 on: March 04, 2014, 07:47:11 am »
+2

I am missing Cache in this set - I almost never buy this.

cache isn't that bad, it's a gold for 5$ with watchtower, a great buy with trader, a great buy with gardens, a good buy in slogs

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #170 on: March 04, 2014, 08:35:55 am »
0

I am missing Cache in this set - I almost never buy this.

cache isn't that bad, it's a gold for 5$ with watchtower, a great buy with trader, a great buy with gardens, a good buy in slogs
Watchtower and Trader I'll give you, but the problem with Cache in a Gardens deck is the same as the problem with Hoard in a Gardens deck - yes, it does suit the deck, but you want to gain the Gardens more than you want to gain the more-expensive cards that bolster it.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #171 on: March 04, 2014, 08:46:29 am »
0

I am missing Cache in this set - I almost never buy this.

cache isn't that bad, it's a gold for 5$ with watchtower, a great buy with trader, a great buy with gardens, a good buy in slogs
Watchtower and Trader I'll give you, but the problem with Cache in a Gardens deck is the same as the problem with Hoard in a Gardens deck - yes, it does suit the deck, but you want to gain the Gardens more than you want to gain the more-expensive cards that bolster it.

yes, but in some cases you don't go gardens right away. when there's workshop, ironworks, storeroom, or another guaranteed ->4$, you'll get gardens so early that you'll never get to 5$. But if there's Sea Hag, no powercards, cache and gardens, you'll open silver/hag and get a couple of caches before you go for gardens

i dislike cache because of its similiarity to masterpiece. for 5$ it's almost the same, for <5$ you'll never buy either of them, so the only difference is that masterpiece also makes sense for >5$. the only thing cache has going for it is the watchtower/trader combination and sometimes the fact that you get coppers on gain instead of on buy
« Last Edit: March 04, 2014, 08:49:48 am by silverspawn »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #172 on: March 04, 2014, 09:30:06 am »
0

Cache increases the variance of your deck way more than a $5 Masterpiece, so it combos with all the sifting cards in Hinterlands. It's quite good with Stables particularly, but it's hard to know when to buy a Cache instead of another Stables.

It would perhaps be nice if Cache did something else in addition to giving +$3. In so many games, you'd just never buy it over Gold given the choice.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #173 on: March 04, 2014, 09:50:09 am »
+2

It would perhaps be nice if Cache did something else in addition to giving +$3. In so many games, you'd just never buy it over Gold given the choice.

I had a Junk Dealer game recently where (later on) i wanted it over Gold, actually.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #174 on: March 04, 2014, 01:10:43 pm »
0

Quote
Cache increases the variance of your deck way more than a $5 Masterpiece, so it combos with all the sifting cards in Hinterlands. It's quite good with Stables particularly, but it's hard to know when to buy a Cache instead of another Stables.

Does it ? I mean, you get extra coppers. If there is a hunting party or stables on the board, I'd rather go for that.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #175 on: March 04, 2014, 01:23:07 pm »
+1

Quote
Cache increases the variance of your deck way more than a $5 Masterpiece, so it combos with all the sifting cards in Hinterlands. It's quite good with Stables particularly, but it's hard to know when to buy a Cache instead of another Stables.

Does it ? I mean, you get extra coppers. If there is a hunting party or stables on the board, I'd rather go for that.
Beware the nightmare hand of 5 Stables. Also, Cache gives more Spice Merchant targets, making it lesa dead in the mid-late game.

This is just speculation. I don't understand Cache much myself.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #176 on: March 04, 2014, 02:05:52 pm »
0

Quote
Cache increases the variance of your deck way more than a $5 Masterpiece, so it combos with all the sifting cards in Hinterlands. It's quite good with Stables particularly, but it's hard to know when to buy a Cache instead of another Stables.

I don't get what you mean at all. Cache gives you 2 different cards, 1 new one and 1 you probably have already. masterpiece does the exact same thing. i see a small synergy with stables, since you get 2 coppers and 1 gold instead of 2 silvers and 1 copper, you can discard copper-copper and have gold, while with masterpiece you can just discard copper-silver and have a silver, so you get one coin more. same goes for warehouse and cellar. and it works with trashing, but man you don't want to trash 2 coppers just to be able to buy a 6$ card for $5.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2014, 02:08:44 pm by silverspawn »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #177 on: March 04, 2014, 02:10:13 pm »
+3

He means variance in terms of $ per hand. Having fewer but higher value treasures is better for occasionally buying high cost cards, like sneaking in a province or two in an alt vp game.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #178 on: March 04, 2014, 02:15:25 pm »
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He means variance in terms of $ per hand. Having fewer but higher value treasures is better for occasionally buying high cost cards, like sneaking in a province or two in an alt vp game.

This.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #179 on: March 04, 2014, 03:01:53 pm »
0

I am missing Cache in this set - I almost never buy this.

cache isn't that bad, it's a gold for 5$ with watchtower
And if you had played that Watchtower for cards, you could've bought a Gold for $6 instead.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #180 on: March 04, 2014, 03:10:48 pm »
+2

I am missing Cache in this set - I almost never buy this.

cache isn't that bad, it's a gold for 5$ with watchtower
And if you had played that Watchtower for cards, you could've bought a Gold for $6 instead.

But you wouldn't get it on top of your deck.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #181 on: March 04, 2014, 03:50:52 pm »
0

I am missing Cache in this set - I almost never buy this.

cache isn't that bad, it's a gold for 5$ with watchtower
And if you had played that Watchtower for cards, you could've bought a Gold for $6 instead.

Quote
But you wouldn't get it on top of your deck.

yea, exactly. you can trash both coppers and topdeck the cage. often you're satisfied with $6 anyway, because you just want ot have the gold, so you'll not want to play the watchtower

Quote
He means variance in terms of $ per hand. Having fewer but higher value treasures is better for occasionally buying high cost cards, like sneaking in a province or two in an alt vp game.
i see. alright it has more variance

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #182 on: March 04, 2014, 06:00:54 pm »
0

Quote
For all the hate here about transmute, I actually like it sometimes. It works well as a starter to turn estates into gold, and then from that point on, acts as a situational-type trasher. Not to mention, it synergies all so nicely with vineyard.

Transmute has weird synergies with other cards.
I don't see vineyard really working - you can't clutter your deck with Transmutes.
Duke is one that comes to mind - Rebuild is another.

Transmute is great with vineyards (coppers arent that important, especially if there are two piles you can empty without them). But there is no time for Transmute if rebuild is around, though.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #183 on: March 11, 2014, 02:18:00 am »
+26

The card I get for my deck the least is Secret Chamber. I almost never get a Scout or Thief; I get Secret Chamber even less often.

The card I'm least happy with having been published as-is is Scrying Pool. I'd drop the attack.

The cards that contribute the least to the game are Feast and Woodcutter. They're in the main set, where every slot matters more, and they just offer so little. Woodcutter would be fine as the simple +buy card, but there are three other +buy cards in the main set.

The worst card in terms of rules issues is probably Trader, then Possession. Procession is trouble but I did it anyway and no regrets there. The most common card-based rules question overall is probably Throne Room / Feast, which the main set rulebook answers.

I guess I shouldn't pick out worst art. The worst flavor is Harem; why does that make you money, what's going on in this Harem.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #184 on: March 12, 2014, 09:39:07 pm »
0

The cards that contribute the least to the game are Feast and Woodcutter. They're in the main set, where every slot matters more, and they just offer so little. Woodcutter would be fine as the simple +buy card, but there are three other +buy cards in the main set.

I see why you are unhappy with Feast, but i think it has a place. At least if you open 4/3, it guarantees you will get that 5$ you want eventually. If you want to build a strategy around 5$s without lower priced cards that stay in your deck, one Feast per reshuffle can help quite a bit in my experience - i'm thinking of Minion, Hunting Party, Rebuild (shudder) and - of course - Highway.
In general, it makes me feel that no matter how bad my shuffle luck, i will get that Lab i want.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2014, 09:40:25 pm by Asper »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #185 on: March 12, 2014, 11:01:21 pm »
+7

I see why you are unhappy with Feast, but i think it has a place. At least if you open 4/3, it guarantees you will get that 5$ you want eventually. If you want to build a strategy around 5$s without lower priced cards that stay in your deck, one Feast per reshuffle can help quite a bit in my experience - i'm thinking of Minion, Hunting Party, Rebuild (shudder) and - of course - Highway.
In general, it makes me feel that no matter how bad my shuffle luck, i will get that Lab i want.
I have failed to convince people of this before, but I will give you the first step anyway: the problem with Feast isn't that it has no value at all. The problem with Feast is that if I put another card in the main set instead, it would be trivial to have the replacement offer way way more than Feast does. The choice isn't "Feast or nothing," the choice is "Feast or something else," and something else would just be so much better.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #186 on: March 12, 2014, 11:03:55 pm »
+11

The card I get for my deck the least is Secret Chamber. I almost never get a Scout or Thief; I get Secret Chamber even less often.

The card I'm least happy with having been published as-is is Scrying Pool. I'd drop the attack.

The cards that contribute the least to the game are Feast and Woodcutter. They're in the main set, where every slot matters more, and they just offer so little. Woodcutter would be fine as the simple +buy card, but there are three other +buy cards in the main set.

The worst card in terms of rules issues is probably Trader, then Possession. Procession is trouble but I did it anyway and no regrets there. The most common card-based rules question overall is probably Throne Room / Feast, which the main set rulebook answers.

I guess I shouldn't pick out worst art. The worst flavor is Harem; why does that make you money, what's going on in this Harem.

The art. Why do people even complain about the art. They can't all have like the best art ever.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #187 on: March 13, 2014, 01:49:37 am »
0

The card I get for my deck the least is Secret Chamber. I almost never get a Scout or Thief; I get Secret Chamber even less often.

The card I'm least happy with having been published as-is is Scrying Pool. I'd drop the attack.

The cards that contribute the least to the game are Feast and Woodcutter. They're in the main set, where every slot matters more, and they just offer so little. Woodcutter would be fine as the simple +buy card, but there are three other +buy cards in the main set.

The worst card in terms of rules issues is probably Trader, then Possession. Procession is trouble but I did it anyway and no regrets there. The most common card-based rules question overall is probably Throne Room / Feast, which the main set rulebook answers.

I guess I shouldn't pick out worst art. The worst flavor is Harem; why does that make you money, what's going on in this Harem.

The art. Why do people even complain about the art. They can't all have like the best art ever.

I like your impressions Robz; keep doing them.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #188 on: March 13, 2014, 01:50:46 am »
0

Where's the best card in dominion thread?
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #189 on: March 13, 2014, 02:04:27 am »
+2

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #190 on: March 14, 2014, 05:39:30 pm »
0


I notice now you actually said 'cards', not actions. So I suppose Platinum qualifies as it gives $5, and is a treasure so "non-terminal". Similarly I guess Bank can sometimes qualify, and Lio rightfully points out Death Cart can also give $5, and it's trashing is sometimes a benefit, so I guess that kinda counts as well. Beyond that... I can't think of much. Adventurer can give at least $4. Pirate Ship can give arbitrary amounts, but it's slow to do that and gives no other benefits. Vault, Secret Chamber and Storeroom can give more money than that, with other benefits - but that $4 comes at a huge cost of a big chunk of hand size.

Precisely. When I consider a card's "usefulness" I consider it with respect to its individual cost, what its synergies are, and also its opportunity cost (buying that card, as opposed to another card of equal cost) among other things. I know transmute is a bad card generally, but all it costs is a measly potion to get it. Also, there are certain boards where I feel like it can shine, (ie: if it's the only trasher card or other alchemy-based synergies are present). I think on boards that are predominantly alchemy-based, it's a decent choice because you can use it to get an early gold on a 4/3 split by simply buying a potion.


Now don't get me wrong. I don't think Harvest is the best $5 ever, or even really an especially good one. But if there were a $5 card which just said "+$4", I think it'd be up there with the power $5's. That's a lot of economy from just one action. Of course that isn't what Harvest does. The way it works means earlygame, +$2 is quite likely, while later on +$3 is common and +$4 happens more than +$2, but if you draw your whole deck, then there's a good chance Harvest is just dead. That makes it... pretty tough to make work to a level which is worth the buy, but it can be done, it's not unreasonable. For that reason, I think it's a weaker $5 card, but not the worst $5, and certainly not the worst card.

If there was a $5 card which just said "$+4", not only would it be up there with the power 5's, it'd just be completely over-powered. But indeed there are cards that can give you +$4 much more easily. The example that comes to my mind is Poor House, which at a cost of $1, is the cheapest card in the entire game. And as you pointed out, the effect of Harvest is way different than merely giving you $4. In fact, the chances of getting that $4 using Harvest is very, very slim because in order to take advantage of it, you'd literally have to base your deck around Harvest (and being that it's a terminal action, that's not a very good idea). The only other time I could see it as potentially useful is if your deck was filled up with junk (like curses, coppers, estates, ruins, or other garbage) and there was simply no other options to discard for benefit and gain more cards. But if your deck is already that bloated with junk, you're probably going to lose the game anyway.

Maybe it's not the overall worst card in Dominion... especially with stinkers like Duchess, Scout and Thief, but in terms of value, I think it is the worst in the game. At least Duchess, Scout, and Thief are reasonably priced ($2/$4) and have situational-type benefits. Same thing applies to Transmute, Secret Chamber, Moat, and so on. I just don't see a situational benefit to Harvest because there's almost always a <=$5 card that would be more useful given any particular subset of cards. Just my two cents though.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #191 on: March 14, 2014, 06:24:38 pm »
+3

If there was a $5 (action) card that just said +$4, it would be... okay. I don't think it would actually be great.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #192 on: March 14, 2014, 06:31:27 pm »
+2

If there was a $5 (action) card that just said +$4, it would be... okay. I don't think it would actually be great.

I don't think I necessarily agree with this, but the more important issue is that the card would be dull. And I'm not just talking dull because it's a vanilla effect. I mean that it would be a pretty strong strategy to just buy that card and Treasure, making for less interesting games.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #193 on: March 14, 2014, 07:17:52 pm »
0

If there was a $5 (action) card that just said +$4, it would be... okay. I don't think it would actually be great.

I don't think I necessarily agree with this, but the more important issue is that the card would be dull. And I'm not just talking dull because it's a vanilla effect. I mean that it would be a pretty strong strategy to just buy that card and Treasure, making for less interesting games.

and it'd be almost strictly superior to harvest and very similar to merchant ship

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #194 on: March 30, 2014, 07:43:07 pm »
0

I appreciate the attack on the scrying pool. I notice in most games with scrying pool it goes very slow until it finally explodes. The attack makes this explosion come later, making the game longer and more enjoyable (for me).
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #195 on: March 31, 2014, 10:58:46 am »
0

I appreciate the attack on the scrying pool. I notice in most games with scrying pool it goes very slow until it finally explodes. The attack makes this explosion come later, making the game longer and more enjoyable (for me).
Less enjoyable for your opponent.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #196 on: April 02, 2014, 01:30:50 am »
0

I appreciate the attack on the scrying pool. I notice in most games with scrying pool it goes very slow until it finally explodes. The attack makes this explosion come later, making the game longer and more enjoyable (for me).

Can't understand this argument. If one player doesn't buy scrying pool then the attack speeds up the explosion. If both by scrying pool, then the attack only slows down the explosion if it hits a key card (potion, scrying pool) early. But this rarely happens to one player, so you have one person exploding on time and the other losing.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #197 on: April 02, 2014, 02:45:05 am »
+2

I used to think the attack on Scrying Pool was neat, because it disguised its engine capabilities behind an image of "Oh it's Spy but better"

Then my opponent bought a Scrying Pool a shuffle before me, and discarded all my Potions for 2 reshuffles. Now I don't like it.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #198 on: April 18, 2014, 04:49:19 pm »
+1

Had to go with Contraband. $3 with a Buy is pretty good, but goddamn does the contraband itself hurt. Thief, Transmute, and Chancellor were all other contenders.

I really have a liking for Secret Chamber. I love setting up the top of my deck for Swindlers, Jesters, Knights, NB, etc. Even with Ghost Ship, it gives you a little more choice.

Moat: dat defense, though. It's great to be sitting pretty on that.

I've been in situations where I've really appreciated the cheapness of Duchess as a terminal Silver, so I have trouble calling it the worst.

Develop has that favorite thing of mine in Dominion, the potential for really creative play (why Count is one of my all-time favorite cards). It really good in engines where you're practically gaining the cards in hand.

When it comes to top-deck play, sure there's Apothecary, Cartographer, and Wandering Minstrel, which are all better, but you know...sometimes I REALLY want to know what's on top of my deck. If there's a combo potential with Mystic or Wishing Well, I'll probably throw Scout into the mix.

Counting House can be the center of a full-game strategy. Even though it needs support, it's hard to call it the worst for that reason.

Explorer: yeah, I wouldn't really consider this one. I like Silver. I like it in my hand best. Nuff said.

Finally, especially with some good trashing like Loan, you could definitely do worse than Adventurer when it comes to Big Money.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #199 on: April 18, 2014, 07:32:53 pm »
0

When I first voted in this thread, all those aeons ago, I voted for Counting House, but I have to say I disagree now.  I'm going to repeat the sentiment of the person above me by saying Contraband.  I've grown to appreciate Chancellor, Thief is moderately useful in Gardens games or 4-player games, and Transmute is cute.  Secret Chamber is usually just a more expensive Poor House.  But none of them are as stab-you-in-the-foot-y as Contraband.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #200 on: April 18, 2014, 10:45:23 pm »
+1

I have to take back my original statement... scout is worse than transmute. the situations in which you draw your potion without $3 and can't get a familiar (or the curses are already out) and take a curse trasher with no benefit outweight the ones in which half of your deck is green.

and sometimes its not super terrible in slogs when you have the potion anyway

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #201 on: April 18, 2014, 10:51:28 pm »
0

Funny thing... this poll is old enough that I actually voted for Transmute.

Scout of course is #1, followed by Adventurer and Harvest. Then I would say Pirate Ship, Thief, and THEN Transmute, I guess.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #202 on: April 19, 2014, 12:45:23 am »
+1

Funny thing... this poll is old enough that I actually voted for Transmute.

Scout of course is #1, followed by Adventurer and Harvest. Then I would say Pirate Ship, Thief, and THEN Transmute, I guess.

Pirate Ship is definitely better than Thief.  Thief is usually ignorable, but Pirate Ship can be used to good effect sometimes.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #203 on: April 19, 2014, 01:28:26 am »
0

Funny thing... this poll is old enough that I actually voted for Transmute.

Scout of course is #1, followed by Adventurer and Harvest. Then I would say Pirate Ship, Thief, and THEN Transmute, I guess.

Pirate Ship is definitely better than Thief.  Thief is usually ignorable, but Pirate Ship can be used to good effect sometimes.
Pirate Ship is usually ignorable, too. But when you need Thief or Pirate Ship, Pirate Ship does what you want the card to do without adding extra stop cards to your deck.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #204 on: April 19, 2014, 08:15:14 pm »
0

the fact that develop is on this list is kinda ridiculous

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #205 on: April 19, 2014, 08:37:21 pm »
0

the fact that develop is on this list is kinda ridiculous

Yeah, people underrated Develop for a long time. I think we still underrate topdecking in general.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #206 on: April 19, 2014, 08:40:50 pm »
0

Plus this poll was created only a few months after Hinterlands was released, so it was still pretty new territory.

I voted for Develop way back then, but would definitely change my vote to Scout if the poll was still open. And no way is Contraband the worst, it can be pretty great if you have multiple $5+ engine pieces you want to buy, which I think is way more common than wanting Scout.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #207 on: April 20, 2014, 06:38:14 pm »
+1

i am the thread creator and it is olllld.... develop was viewed as a bad card for quite a while.  i don't remember if i put it by request or by default!

@robz pirate ship is not good but is better than transmute
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #208 on: April 20, 2014, 08:43:46 pm »
0

pirate ship is not good but is better than transmute

I've said this a bunch of other places, but I'll say it here, too. Transmute (and Philosopher's Stone) is a good card as long as you have other things to spend your Potion(s) on. Turning Estate into Gold is usually great. Turning Actions into Duchies in the late game can also be powerful. Turning Coppers into Transmutes is much less awesome (but at least occasionally desirable e.g. Scrying Pool and Vineyard), but two out of three ain't bad.

The problem is that in order to get a Transmute, you're giving up a key early buy in order to get a card that you'll only use once, and which will then take up space in your deck for the rest of the game (unless you Transmute it, etc.). If you want the Potion anyway, Transmute is a great pickup, especially if you're buying it with an extra buy (so that you don't waste your Coins that turn).

So yeah, Transmute over Pirate Ship for anybody who plays with more than one Alchemy card at a time.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #209 on: April 24, 2014, 12:26:54 am »
0

I would've voted for Harvest if it was on the list.  Intrigue was my first Dominion set, so, having played quite often with Harem, Nobles, and Great Hall, I'm a little partial to Scout (as in, I like to think it's slightly less useless than everyone else seems to think).

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #210 on: April 24, 2014, 11:47:37 am »
0

I would've voted for Harvest if it was on the list.  Intrigue was my first Dominion set, so, having played quite often with Harem, Nobles, and Great Hall, I'm a little partial to Scout (as in, I like to think it's slightly less useless than everyone else seems to think).

There should be more dual-typed VCs - and they should be worth more than 1VP. That's the only salvation to Scout, probably.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #211 on: April 24, 2014, 03:02:01 pm »
+1

I would've voted for Harvest if it was on the list.  Intrigue was my first Dominion set, so, having played quite often with Harem, Nobles, and Great Hall, I'm a little partial to Scout (as in, I like to think it's slightly less useless than everyone else seems to think).

There should be more dual-typed VCs - and they should be worth more than 1VP. That's the only salvation to Scout, probably.

Even then, it's pretty meaningless unless those cards make up a huge portion of your engine. Your deck needs to be at least 25% VP cards for scout to be a cantrip on average.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #212 on: April 25, 2014, 07:57:08 am »
+1

Correct.

That's why Scout should be "Cantrip + Look at 3 cards and take all the green ones".
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #213 on: April 25, 2014, 09:45:54 am »
0

I voted for transmute first time. Now I would change for scout.
For a long time, I thought scout at least didn't hurt your hand, because it could be cantrip and the reordering can be useful. Now, I think it just hurts a lot, and even in the situations where it may be a cantrip, there is no reason to take scout, because reordering is not good enough. I still think transmute is terrible, though, and at best you can use it as a curse trasher in a decently good engine (which is quite rare since it's not very likely to build a good engine in games with curses and no trashing), or as a desperate way to gain duchies late-game.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #214 on: April 25, 2014, 10:46:47 am »
0

I voted for transmute first time. Now I would change for scout.
For a long time, I thought scout at least didn't hurt your hand, because it could be cantrip and the reordering can be useful. Now, I think it just hurts a lot, and even in the situations where it may be a cantrip, there is no reason to take scout, because reordering is not good enough. I still think transmute is terrible, though, and at best you can use it as a curse trasher in a decently good engine (which is quite rare since it's not very likely to build a good engine in games with curses and no trashing), or as a desperate way to gain duchies late-game.

Transmute is bought when you miss getting another Potion card. When you do get it it's very good, but not good enough to go out of your way to get it.

Every Scout discussion I always mention the one game where Scout made my Market+Cantrip+Harem engine work, and that was the only time it ever helped and Warehouse probably would have been a better choice. Although it draw me 3 Harems more than once. Maybe I was playing against and idiot?
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #215 on: November 10, 2014, 01:57:55 pm »
+2

Pirate Ship is nice in games with 3 and more players, especially if there are Colonies. Add Haven or some other support and it's pretty neat.

Of course nobody here thinks that 3 or more players can play Dominion at the same time.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #216 on: November 10, 2014, 02:09:17 pm »
0

Pirate Ship is nice in games with 3 and more players, especially if there are Colonies. Add Haven or some other support and it's pretty neat.

Of course nobody here thinks that 3 or more players can play Dominion at the same time.

I think this would only be the case if at least two players go for PS. It is still a really slow terminal gold that takes turns to get going and usually you are just trashing your opponents coppers. I mean, maybe if people thin their decks a lot, you might be hurting their economy. I suppose in Colony games with three or more players, it might be viable, but still the card is pretty awful 99% of the time.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #217 on: November 10, 2014, 02:11:37 pm »
+14

Pirate Ship is nice in games with 3 and more players, especially if there are Colonies. Add Haven or some other support and it's pretty neat.

Of course nobody here thinks that 3 or more players can play Dominion at the same time.
Of course 3 or more players can play Dominion at the same time. Nothing's preventing you from playing a game of Dominion against someone while I'm playing another game against someone else!
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #218 on: November 10, 2014, 03:07:13 pm »
0

Pirate Ship is nice in games with 3 and more players, especially if there are Colonies. Add Haven or some other support and it's pretty neat.

Of course nobody here thinks that 3 or more players can play Dominion at the same time.

I think this would only be the case if at least two players go for PS. It is still a really slow terminal gold that takes turns to get going and usually you are just trashing your opponents coppers. I mean, maybe if people thin their decks a lot, you might be hurting their economy. I suppose in Colony games with three or more players, it might be viable, but still the card is pretty awful 99% of the time.

Before I knew any better, I had a three player game where me and another opponent went PS while the last went for an engine, and he won while both of us were struggling.
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   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #219 on: November 13, 2014, 09:55:16 am »
0

Scout is still the worst to me. I don't even play with Transmute. We revamped the Transmute card into Transmutation, made it cost 4 (no Potion needed), and it made it an immediately viable option on the first turn.

As for Chancellor, I have had some good wins with it, even though I believe it's weak in general. In a game where Golds are particularly valuable, such as in gaining a Grand Market, I've opened with Chancellor/Silver. Regularly, on turn three, I can buy a Gold and shuffle it back in, so that on turn four I'm buying another Gold and shuffling it in. By turn five, I'm ready to buy just about anything on the board. Of course, that third turn sometimes gives you only a Chancellor and two coppers, in which case you're often in a weaker position.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #220 on: November 13, 2014, 10:42:48 am »
0

Pirate Ship is nice in games with 3 and more players, especially if there are Colonies. Add Haven or some other support and it's pretty neat.

Of course nobody here thinks that 3 or more players can play Dominion at the same time.

I think this would only be the case if at least two players go for PS. It is still a really slow terminal gold that takes turns to get going and usually you are just trashing your opponents coppers. I mean, maybe if people thin their decks a lot, you might be hurting their economy. I suppose in Colony games with three or more players, it might be viable, but still the card is pretty awful 99% of the time.

Before I knew any better, I had a three player game where me and another opponent went PS while the last went for an engine, and he won while both of us were struggling.

I'm not saying Pirate Ship is automatically the best choice in a 3 player game. Any engine that can produce virtual money has an advantage over PS. Not every board offers that, though.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #221 on: November 13, 2014, 11:02:28 am »
0

I voted Chancellor because I've never bothered to buy it and anyone who I've played who bought it summarily lost. I think it could be fixed with a +1 Action.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #222 on: November 13, 2014, 11:25:51 am »
+3

I voted Chancellor because I've never bothered to buy it and anyone who I've played who bought it summarily lost. I think it could be fixed with a +1 Action.

absolutely not, because then it'd be almost always superior to silver. terminal silvers for 3$ or 4$ must stay terminal

plus, chancellor right now is nowhere near as weak as scout.

really, the only card that I see as a rival is adventurer.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #223 on: November 13, 2014, 11:30:29 am »
+5

I voted Chancellor because I've never bothered to buy it and anyone who I've played who bought it summarily lost. I think it could be fixed with a +1 Action.

Chancellor is fine. It's okay if there are no other terminals you want to buy. Potion cards often profit from it, for example.

Also what Ninjaspawn said.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #224 on: November 13, 2014, 11:32:34 am »
0

I voted Chancellor because I've never bothered to buy it and anyone who I've played who bought it summarily lost. I think it could be fixed with a +1 Action.
Chancellor-stash is an elite two card combo, usually the best strategy whenever they appear in the same kingdom.

Honestly, even just a terminal silver with no other ability would be better than scout. At least you can use it in double tactician decks, king it and throne it.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2014, 11:34:21 am by Eevee »
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #225 on: November 13, 2014, 12:27:26 pm »
+3

terminal silvers for 3$ or 4$ must stay terminal

Conspirator disagrees.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #226 on: November 13, 2014, 12:36:34 pm »
+4

Conspirator's only additional benefit, aside from being a terminal Silver, is that it sometimes isn't terminal.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #227 on: November 13, 2014, 01:04:48 pm »
+2

I voted Chancellor because I've never bothered to buy it and anyone who I've played who bought it summarily lost. I think it could be fixed with a +1 Action.
Chancellor-stash is an elite two card combo, usually the best strategy whenever they appear in the same kingdom.

Honestly, even just a terminal silver with no other ability would be better than scout. At least you can use it in double tactician decks, king it and throne it.
I think Duchess is usually better than Scout.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #228 on: November 15, 2014, 09:26:07 pm »
+2

too many cooks.... too many cooks

chancellor is really nice to have around... i often find that when i pick one up (which is rare but occurs when there's no other terminal i want) i use it more than i expected to. one time it's particularly useful is in a deck that you might call a semi-engine, e.g., a bunch of labs and cantrips but no heavy trashing. the point is that in these decks you sometimes reach the bottom of your deck during a good turn with a lab in hand. ordinarily you cant afford to play the lab and create a crap reshuffle that ruins the next two turns. when chancellor is your terminal, this is no problem.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #229 on: November 15, 2014, 09:42:42 pm »
0

too many cooks.... too many cooks

And now I've finally watched that, and I'm holding you responsible.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #230 on: November 16, 2014, 02:08:43 am »
0

Thief in 2P has even less use than Scout. Scout at least does anything nice for your deck instead of clearing out your opponents coppers. (Although both are, most of the time, inferior to Silver) Even Transmute, one of the slowest cards in the entire game, has it's uses, especially with more Alchemy cards on the board. Thief isn't even a good buy in base only games >99% of the time. Sometimes against Chapeled decks it's okay, but even that are rare cases.

In games with more players, Thief becomes better and Scout will replace Thief. I also think Counting House is... pretty bad at 5, but there are situations it can shine at least.

And I think Adventurer is okay. Not "I will but it many times over gold"-okay, but in a deck with much junk it's pretty nice. Providing you can get up to 6 with much junk anyway.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #231 on: November 16, 2014, 07:10:37 am »
0

Thief in 2P has even less use than Scout. Scout at least does anything nice for your deck instead of clearing out your opponents coppers. (Although both are, most of the time, inferior to Silver) Even Transmute, one of the slowest cards in the entire game, has it's uses, especially with more Alchemy cards on the board. Thief isn't even a good buy in base only games >99% of the time. Sometimes against Chapeled decks it's okay, but even that are rare cases.

Scout does something nice for your deck, but it practically never does anything nice enough to justify losing one card in your hand or buying the card for $4. Thief usually just helps your opponents, but at least there are situations where it's actually a card that you want to buy.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #232 on: November 16, 2014, 09:26:50 am »
0

Just yesterday i won a Colony game with Counting Houses and Princed Storeroom / Princed Plaza. Prince is an awesome combo-enabler.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #233 on: November 18, 2014, 12:36:00 pm »
0

Thief remains the worst in my opinion.  Scout does Ok in alt VP games and a few other situations. You probably need a way to gain out for free to make it worth getting, but at least is worth getting. Thief is very rarely worth getting even for free. Ttansmute's only problem, albeit a big one, is the strange cost that basically means you can only consider it when there is another potion cost card. Nothing else even deserves to be in the same conversation as those 3.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #234 on: November 18, 2014, 03:13:12 pm »
+1

you basically never gain cards for free in dominion, therefore it doesn't matter how good scout does if you get him for free. If that was what mattered, then Scout >> Thief for sure. But it's not.

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #235 on: November 18, 2014, 03:52:27 pm »
+1

Thief remains the worst in my opinion.  Scout does Ok in alt VP games and a few other situations. You probably need a way to gain out for free to make it worth getting, but at least is worth getting. Thief is very rarely worth getting even for free. Ttansmute's only problem, albeit a big one, is the strange cost that basically means you can only consider it when there is another potion cost card. Nothing else even deserves to be in the same conversation as those 3.

Mostly agreed, although I think an argument could be made for Adventurer.

you basically never gain cards for free in dominion, therefore it doesn't matter how good scout does if you get him for free. If that was what mattered, then Scout >> Thief for sure. But it's not.

I think it's reasonable to say that Scout becomes a better value proposition as $4 cards become more accessible e.g. when Ironworks is on the board. Even in those cases, it's rare for Scout to really help you much. It has to have so many factors in its favor to be worthwhile.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #236 on: November 18, 2014, 07:15:09 pm »
+1

I voted Chancellor because I've never bothered to buy it and anyone who I've played who bought it summarily lost. I think it could be fixed with a +1 Action.
Chancellor-stash is an elite two card combo, usually the best strategy whenever they appear in the same kingdom.
Is Chancellor-Stash that good? I thought it was mediocre, only viable on reasonably weak boards.
Scavenger-Stash on the other hand is pretty strong.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #237 on: June 12, 2016, 02:16:39 pm »
0

Needs to be updated to include Raid. But wait, Seprix! Raid isn't a card! You're right. But we still need to include Raid as a community.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #238 on: June 12, 2016, 02:57:09 pm »
+9

Needs to be updated to include Raid. But wait, Seprix! Raid isn't a card! You're right. But we still need to include Raid as a community.

Raid isn't a community either.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #239 on: June 12, 2016, 05:13:12 pm »
+4

Raid is fine, what are you talking about, they can't all be the best Event ever.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #240 on: June 12, 2016, 06:25:35 pm »
0

Raid is fine, what are you talking about, they can't all be the best Event ever.

But there can be one that is the worst. I'm not sure it's Raid. I haven't played with any of the Empires Events either.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #241 on: June 12, 2016, 11:05:54 pm »
+11

Needs to be updated to include Raid. But wait, Seprix! Raid isn't a card! You're right. But we still need to include Raid as a community.

have you literally ever bought raid yet

like at a certain point this gets worse than Roadrunner's scout fetish
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #242 on: June 13, 2016, 01:49:47 am »
0

Raid is actually okay, well, at least better than the worst Dominion cards. It works in, well, BM and Feodum games. Or, at least, those are the only types of games I've bought it in. I mean, yah, BMish cards usually aren't great, but they aren't the worst cards either.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #243 on: June 13, 2016, 01:59:04 am »
0

I think that Silver flooding is just not "cool"/fun, so people will tend to avoid trying it, even when it would be the right choice.

I still would like to have a Silver flood strategy article, by the way, but... how do Raid, Masterpiece and Delve compare to each other? Can you add Trader to that category? Does Storyteller make you want to go the Silver flood way (probably not)? Am I forgetting any other card?
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #244 on: June 13, 2016, 03:57:16 am »
0

I think that Silver flooding is just not "cool"/fun, so people will tend to avoid trying it, even when it would be the right choice.

I still would like to have a Silver flood strategy article, by the way, but... how do Raid, Masterpiece and Delve compare to each other? Can you add Trader to that category? Does Storyteller make you want to go the Silver flood way (probably not)? Am I forgetting any other card?

Conquest may be worth considering.  Maybe lesser Silver gainers like Bureaucrat, JoaT, Explorer.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #245 on: June 13, 2016, 06:20:28 am »
+1

Needs to be updated to include Raid. But wait, Seprix! Raid isn't a card! You're right. But we still need to include Raid as a community.

have you literally ever bought raid yet

like at a certain point this gets worse than Roadrunner's scout fetish
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #246 on: June 13, 2016, 11:34:22 am »
0

If the frequency of Scrying Pool keeps going down as new sets are released and no new Scout combos are added Scout is gonna start to win these.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #247 on: June 13, 2016, 07:34:42 pm »
0

Needs to be updated to include Raid. But wait, Seprix! Raid isn't a card! You're right. But we still need to include Raid as a community.

have you literally ever bought raid yet

like at a certain point this gets worse than Roadrunner's scout fetish

I will never buy Raid. Raid is the worst card ever.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #248 on: June 13, 2016, 08:47:58 pm »
+1

Needs to be updated to include Raid. But wait, Seprix! Raid isn't a card! You're right. But we still need to include Raid as a community.

have you literally ever bought raid yet

like at a certain point this gets worse than Roadrunner's scout fetish

I will never buy Raid. Raid is the worst card ever.

Your banner (showing a red-nosed, confused guy raising his hands in perplexity) renders me entirely incapable of taking your rant serious. I like it.
« Last Edit: June 13, 2016, 08:49:02 pm by Asper »
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Seprix

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #249 on: June 13, 2016, 08:48:37 pm »
0

Your banner renders me entirely incapable of taking your rambling serious. I like it.

My banner is that bad?
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Asper

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #250 on: June 13, 2016, 08:54:32 pm »
+2

Your banner renders me entirely incapable of taking your rambling serious. I like it.

My banner is that bad?

Well, i think the artist who did Overlord made him look dumb on intention, for a humorous effect. Overlord looks confused, and his nose caused the other reindeer to laugh and call him names. He raises his hand as if wanting to say "What do you even want from me?". I think it's hilarious. But you chose it as your banner, probably because it's an Overlord and an overlord should be something respectable. That makes it even more hilarious if you ask me.

Also, i wanted to write "rant", not "rambling", but mixed up the words. I wasn't trying to be extra rude.
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Seprix

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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #251 on: June 13, 2016, 08:55:53 pm »
0

I thought it he was offering some prayer to the Gods.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #252 on: June 13, 2016, 09:00:29 pm »
+2

I thought it he was offering some prayer to the Gods.

Well, i didn't hear the artist's opinion, so maybe he's supposed to do that. It's just that, at some point somebody else on the forum pointed out to me that he looked a bit irritated, and ever since i can hardly keep myself from laughing at the art. Maybe it's just my perception. I also think charm looks like a sea mine.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #253 on: June 13, 2016, 09:10:04 pm »
0

I thought it he was offering some prayer to the Gods.

Well, i didn't hear the artist's opinion, so maybe he's supposed to do that. It's just that, at some point somebody else on the forum pointed out to me that he looked a bit irritated, and ever since i can hardly keep myself from laughing at the art. Maybe it's just my perception. I also think charm looks like a sea mine.

Charm is a Sea Mine.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #254 on: June 13, 2016, 09:11:08 pm »
+3

No it's Sea Mint.
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Re: What is the worst card in Dominion?
« Reply #255 on: June 14, 2016, 09:05:03 am »
0

I think that Silver flooding is just not "cool"/fun, so people will tend to avoid trying it, even when it would be the right choice.

I still would like to have a Silver flood strategy article, by the way, but... how do Raid, Masterpiece and Delve compare to each other? Can you add Trader to that category? Does Storyteller make you want to go the Silver flood way (probably not)? Am I forgetting any other card?
Amulet is a powerful Silver gainer.  Storyteller does make Silver gainers much better.  Here's a recent League match where I used two Amulets for Silver gaining and Storytellers to draw through my whole deck: http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160614/log.0.1465865499952.txt.  I ended up with 16 Silvers.  To be fair, this kind of deck benefits greatly from ways to set up your next turn.  In this game, it was my opponent's Haunted Woods!

Also, here's a boring slog where buying Raid until the Silvers were gone seemed like the best approach: http://gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160614/log.0.1465870759314.txt

Oh, Treasure Hunter is also a powerful Silver flooder, but I haven't yet played a kingdom where Treasure Hunter's Silver gaining is more important than Champion or Warrior.
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